At first I was all:
Kansas lawmakers pass anti-Islamic law measure
But then I was like:
The measure doesn’t specifically mention Shariah law, which broadly refers to codes within the Islamic legal system. Instead, it says that courts, administrative agencies or state tribunals can’t base rulings on any foreign law or legal system that would not grant the parties the same rights guaranteed by state and U.S. constitutions.
One of these statements is not like the other.
Huh.
A course for the US military, which called for Muslim cities to be obliterated “like Hiroshima”, has been suspended by the Pentagon.
The course discussed such topics as nuking Mecca and starving out Saudi Arabia and reducing Islam to a cult.
Before some of you go *too* nuts, keep in mind War Plan Red, a US war plan from 1930 to take down the British Empire. It’s good and proper for government to plan for every contingency. And here, Islam is a political ideology that is antithetical to American ideals, so a war plan against Islam makes as much sense as a war plan against fascism did in the 1930’s or a war plan against communism did from the 1930’s through the 1980’s.
The article, unsurprisingly, doesn’t exactly match the headline. The story isnlt that a new planet has been discovered, but that odd behavior of Kuiper Belt objects indicates that they are being gravitationally disturbed by a full-up planet. It could be a Mars-sized world on a highly elongated orbit, on up to a Neptune-sized world orbiting at 1,500 AU.
A bit of artwork from Lockheed Horizons magazine depicting the “Homing Overlay Experiment”. This was the first hit-to-kill ballistic missile interceptor… rather than relying on putting a warhead near the incoming missile and blasting it to flinders with shrapnel or radiation, the HOE was designed to actually smack directly into the target. To aid in the obviously difficult chore of hitting a bullet with a bullet, the HOE unfurled a series of “blades” to increase the frontal area and the chances of impact. This feature has not been carried forward to present systems.
The HOE demonstrated a successful hit-to-kill in 1984.
This could prove entertaining:
… the company had sustained some $2 billion in trading losses in its synthetic credit portfolio in the past six weeks.
Eeep.
Secret Air Force X-37B Space Plane Mission a ‘Spectacular Success’
OTV-2 has been on orbit about 430 days so far, apparently successfully. Of course the real test will be whether it will re-enter and last land successfully.
Keith Judd, Texas inmate, makes strong showing against President Obama in West Virginia primary
A guy in a Texas prison got 41% to Obamas 59% in the W. Va. primary. The best quote:
Mountain State voters told The Associated Press that even though they had no idea who Judd was, they wanted to cast their ballots for anyone but Obama.
Took this camera-phone photo today at a diner, showing a page from their “sign in” book. I would not have recognized, or been able to read, the great big scribblature at the top had it not been pointed out to me. The signer apparently stopped in a year or two ago.
Who can read this? And what lessons can you glean from it?
Short form: a Sukhoi Superjet 100 on a demonstration (i.e. sales) flight with 8 Russian crew members and 42 invited passengers disappeared from radar over the Indonesian mountains.
No word of smoke monsters.