In the mid 1960’s, the McDonnell Aircraft Company devoted some internal funds and effort to the F-4(FVS). This would have removed the wing from the F-4 Phantom II and replaced it with an all-new shoulder-mounted swing wing. The target of this enterprise was primarily the US Navy; MAC assured them that the F-4(FVS) would be a superior carrier plane to the standard F-4 due to better low-speed handling characteristics. However, while the design seems to have been pretty sound, by this point the Navy wanted a capability the Phantom couldn’t provide: Phoenix missiles. In the end, the Navy largely ignored the F-4(FVS) and went with the F-14. But even then, McDonnell-Douglas proposed a design for the F-14 contest, the Model 225A, that was in part derived from the F-4(FVS) studies.

A whole lot more about the F-4(FVS) and the Model 225 are in Aerospace Projects Review issue V3N4.

From several months back:

Similar to title block 3, this is from a three-view diagram of the N-167A long range interceptor from 1956.

From England, home of the National Health Services (NHS), a “universal health care” system often touted as what the US should strive for:

Patients waiting 2 WEEKS to see GP as doctors see up to 60 people a day

“GPs are seeing record numbers of patients, 40 million more annually than five years ago, the greatest rise in any NHS sector,”

Yowza. The problem with free health care is the same problem with free anything: people like free stuff, and will take it whether they really need it or not. The guy with a busted leg, the woman with the suspicious lump and the feller with the non-stop headache have to compete for the doctors time against the kid with the boo-boo and the dork with the sniffles. If there was a price tag on an office visit – say, a nominal £40 office visit co-pay payable at the time services are rendered – you will see a whole lot of people decide that maybe they should just take an aspirin. And realistically, that’s about all a lot of people really need.

Additionally: the flood of patients is:

1) Driving some doctors out due to overwork

2) Disincentivizing young folk from becoming docs in the first place

3) Jacking up the suicide rate among doctors.

So it seems we have yet another exciting new problem on the southern border: an invasion of illegal alien *children.* And in incredibly large numbers:

U.S. authorities estimate that between 60,000 and 80,000 children without parents will cross the border this year alone.

Since they are illegals, the plan is to deport them. But I have a better idea: the US Janissary Corps.

For those over the age of, say, 13, we send trained professionals through this mass of invading children and search for useful talent then deport the rest. But those 12 and under become wards of the State. They will be taken to special bases in the south and southwest, there to be raised, indoctrinated and trained as a large military force. The indoctrination, which will be pervasive and will last for years, will turn them into rabid devotees of The American Way, and rabid opponents of the cheap warlords and dictators so common in central and south America. Then, after a large enough force of them is adequately trained and of age, we send them back south.

Many of these kids come from Guatemala. The White House and others are claiming that the reason for the flood is because of the violent conditions there. Fine. Well, if 60,000 minors invade the US annually, and we catch maybe 20,000 of them, and are able to utilize half of them… then that’s a force of 10,000 per year. After a half dozen years or so, a force of 60,000 Janissary infantry invading Guatemala would probably be enough to do a hell of a job of conquering the place, followed by an extra 10,000 every year.

Long term, the Janissaries role would be to invade, conquer and overthrow central and south American banana republics. The Janissaries would, in recognition of their service, be given land grants in the conquered lands based on performance and years of service.

The program could of course be expanded. Not all illegal alien children are unaccompanied; some rather large number come here, and are apprehended, with their families. Those under six or so can be separated from the families and raised for the next dozen years in the Janissary Corps, while their families are deported. These particular Janissaries would be tasked specifically with the invasion of their original homelands. Thus they, after the conquest, pacification, re-education and reformation of their homelands, would be able to reunite with their families.

The knowledge that their own children are being raised into a sizable invading and conquering force might itself be enough to convince some of these nations that they need to get their act together. If they figure their problems out and fix them enough so that the flood of refugees dries up.. well, they’ll not be under much of a threat of conquest, will they?

The Janissary Corps would not be regular US military, and would of course be filled with non-US citizens (though they would all be brought up to have a strong appreciation of US culture and ideals). The conquered lands would not be annexed by the US and would pay no tribute to the US; they would simply be given new management. Management devoted to ending the cycle of corruption that has let Latin America squander its promise.

So… objections? Additions? Modifications?

Saw this on eBay a while back. No further data. I assume it’s from the early/mid 1960’s, early MOL era. I don’t imagine that it was a particularly serious study; I’ve never seen it’s like elsewhere, and it seems like it would be quite heavy and prone to leaks. A reasonable guess would put the diameter at 10 feet, standard for the time (same diameter as the Titan II/TIIIc core vehicle).

I tinkered a bit to fix the warping and clean up the image:

Heh.

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Do you have the right as a dumbass of a parent to refuse to vaccinate your children? I suppose you do. Does the local public school have the right to bar your little disease-machine from the school during outbreaks? Damn skippy it does. More, it has the *responsibility* to do so. I’d suggest that unvaccinated children should probably be perma-barred from public schools.

Judge Upholds Policy Barring Unvaccinated Students During Illnesses

Here’s the level of “thinking” involved with these vaccine-refusal twits:

“Disease is pestilence,” Ms. Check said, “and pestilence is from the devil. The devil is germs and disease, which is cancer and any of those things that can take you down. But if you trust in the Lord, these things cannot come near you.”

Yeah. You keep thinking that way, sugarpants. Soon enough, Darwin will have his way with your lineage.

As may have become faintly apparent over the last six years of this blog, I’m a little bit of what you might call “skeptical” (others might say “cynical” or “asshole,” but let’s ignore those idiots for now). So whenever I see a TV doctor flacking *anything,* my first thought is “meh,” and my second thought is something like “hey, I get to poop tomorrow.”

However, I know some pay attention to the pronouncements of the likes of “Dr. Oz.” So, for your education and entertainment, I present John Oliver completely destroying Dr. Oz (and the dietary supplement industry) by using his own claims and testimony:

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If you happen to be a fan of Dr. oz, I recommend giving this a watch. There are a few examples of NSFW language, so make sure to crank it up so the drone three cubicles down can enjoy it as well.

Tonight TNT premiered their new feel-good series of the summer, “The Last Ship.” The idea of the show: “Babylon 5: Crusade” set on the open seas rather than deep space. A genetically tinkered plague has swept the planet, infecting at least 80% of humanity with a 100% fatal disease, and one US Navy ship seems to have missed it all by being way up in the arctic when it all went down. During the course of the first episode, the ship is on its way to a refueling station on the coast of France when a Mysterious Foe launches a nuclear missile in their general direction. The missile misses the ship, passing – from the looks of a computer map – some fifty to a hundred miles to the side of the ship and detonating well beyond it (I think it also took out the refueling station). That was rather odd. But what rustled my jimmies was as soon as the nuke went off, the electromagnetic pulse wiped out all the electrical systems on the ship. There are at least three things wrong with that.

1) A naval vessel is almost by definition a floating metal box. This means that it pretty much is a large Faraday cage. An electromagnetic pulse should have little impact on a naval vessel.

2) The military has been spooked by EMP for *decades.* I’m pretty sure that military ships would thus use hardened systems, so that even if the ship doesn’t make a good Faraday cage, the systems should be able to shrug off an EMP.

3) The nuke went off in the lower atmosphere. Thus… NO Meaningful EMP. A truly damaging electromagnetic pulse is created not just by a nuke going off, but a nuke going off IN SPACE. The short form: the high energy gamma rays from the bomb strike the rarified air in the upper atmosphere and rip the electrons off in what’s known as the Compton Effect. The electrons then blast downwards and create powerful electrical currents. The downward trajectory is shaped by Earths magnetic field, so it’s not a simple circular area under the bomb.

For bombs set off in the lower atmosphere, there is again an EMP as the gamma rays interact with the air. But here the effect is right next to the bomb, since the air is right next to the bomb, and within the nuclear fireball. The fireball itself effectively absorbs much of the EMP. If the bomb goes off near long conductors such as train tracks or power lines, the effect can be to set up a kilo-amp electrical pulse which will race down the conductor for many, many miles wreaking havoc as it goes… but other than that, unless you are close enough to the bomb to actually be damaged by the bomb, EMP is not a meaningful concern.

In short: what “The Last Ship” should have shown was a bright flash off on the horizon and the crew going about their duties largely unaffected by electrical weirdness. I imagine the radar and communications guys would have seen some strange things, but other than that, the ship should have shrugged it off.

And to add “buh?” to “WTF,” after the French refueling place was taken off the menu, the US Navy ship sidled up next to an Italian cruise ship and siphoned off their fuel. It was ok, because everyone on the ship was dead of the plague… but since we just saw a US Navy warship get electrically trashed by an EMP, why did the cruise ship still have all its lights on?

And as an aside: if the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans, PETA, French or whoever set off a nuke over the US and create a damaging EMP, chances are good that if your electronic hardware isn’t plugged into the wall, it’ll be fine. The electrical current that goes zipping by sets up powerful induction along long conductors (again, train tracks, power lines, phone lines and the like) which can trash things connected to them. Expect to lose transformers and anything plugged in that doesn’t have a military-grade surge protector. But independent non-plugged-in electronics, from cameras to phones to laptops and automobiles and such are too small for the field to create much of a charge. Jetliners – which are designed to and regularly do survive lightning strikes – should be just fine, though the airports themselves might short out. Satellites should largely be fine, unless they are close to the bomb when it goes off or share it’s orbital altitude or lower. Anything beyond the Van Allen belts will probably be quite unaffected.