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November 30, 2008 by yorksranter 4 comments

UAV cost scissors watch

I’ve long been sceptical of the UAV future. Basically, back in 2005, I reckoned that as the things get more complicated their advantages over manned aircraft disappear; the biggest advantage is that they are meant to be expendable, and things that are expendable get expended. Therefore the loss rate is much higher, both from enemy…

June 1, 2008 by yorksranter 0 comments

People say to me just be yourself, it makes no sense to follow fashion. How could I be anybody else?

Ackerman reckons we should be impressed that he suggested a Turkish-Kurdish rapprochement two years ago. The evidence for the rapprochement is pretty good – there are meetings going on between the KRG and the Turks, under the chairmanship of (Kurdish) Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, about issues connected with all the business Turkish companies are doing…

March 9, 2008 by yorksranter 1 comment

So Why Was Viktor Bout in Thailand?

So why was Viktor in Thailand? Well, there are some possible explanations beyond the CTB theory that it was something to do with the Burmese junta, or the Chinese, or someone. Specifically, there are reasons to think that South-East Asia might have been the next stop in the VB caravan, after Ostend, South Africa, and…

Hezbollah Said to Be Using Copy of Israeli Missile Against Israel - The New York Times
Hezbollah Spike-NLOS.
Au procès Squarcini, les ordres de LVMH pour infiltrer le journal « Fakir » | Mediapart
« Alex » n’est autre qu’Alexandre Djouhri, intermédiaire dans plusieurs dossiers politico-financiers, proche d’Hervé Séveno comme de Bernard Squarcini, explicite le président....L’équipe de Fakir décide de le filmer à son insu dans un café de Saint-Ouen, mais il détecte vite « une sacoche, avec un trou et une lumière rouge » posée sur une table. […]
Teachers at top academy in Hackney ‘screamed at’ and humiliated pupils, say angry parents | Academies | The Guardian
who thought it was anything else but backdoor selection? I guess that the selection was by screaming at them until some dropped out is a twist
FAA team recommends Boeing MAX design change and pilot notification | The Seattle Times
“Much like MCAS, the discovery that LRD is not known to pilots is very concerning,” the memo states // do the Pilot's Notes just say "you don't need to know this stuff and it'll only confuse you"?
Francis Martin on X: "When your job is to report on a document like this, your emotions just have to take a back seat. But you can’t insulate yourself entirely, and there’s always something which gets through. For me it was this letter, sent by Smyth
if by some chance you've not gazed into a sickening moral vacuum in the last twenty minutes or so...also a fine example of bad faith writing. no beat of pre-emptive self justification missed
Tom Lee on X: "That's in part because the specific incentives they face are largely social, but also because irrelevance is the failure condition for any of these organizations. You do not want to just become a faceless source of checks going to the same
the specific incentives they face are largely social, but also because irrelevance is the failure condition for any of these organizations. You do not want to just become a faceless source of checks going to the same hidebound recipients. That's death.
aaron from queens 🇵🇸 on X: "AOC asked her followers who split their ballots either for Trump/her or Trump/downballot Dem to explain why and posted the replies: https://t.co/LuTcD29szt" / Twitter
mom does this. says she votes Dem locally for services and Rep national for budget // looks like we found where the unfunded mandates are coming from...
Daniel Khalife denies asking Iran for help after prison escape - BBC News
Asked why he had taken a change of clothes and his notebook with him when he escaped from the prison, Mr Khalife said: "I wanted to exude a sense of professionalism... to show that I was capable of doing what I did."
Daniel Khalife misspelt 'secret' on publicly available document to please Iranian spy handler, court told | UK News | Sky News
Daniel Khalife, who has admitted escaping from Wandsworth prison, wrote "secert" instead of "secret" on the front page of a document which could be found online, Woolwich Crown Court has heard // top secert!
Ex-soldier Daniel Khalife changes plea to guilty of Wandsworth prison escape | UK news | The Guardian
“[The bike] was rotting away, I gave it new life,” he said.