* This is an archive of my own online blog and notes, with weekly entries collected by month.
* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Representative Bennie Thompson's House Committee investigating the 1-6-21 Capitol riot appears to be on a roll, moving towards finishing up their hearings, the witnesses providing damning testimony, with no one stepping forward to contradict it. The Trump Trolls are reduced to useless bad-mouthing.
The committee is strictly an information-gathering exercise, constructed to be as objective as possible -- not at all easy under the circumstances -- to make sure the record is straight, and not easily corrupted by the sniping that will follow. It is not a criminal proceeding, that being the domain of the Department of Justice. The DOJ is moving up the ranks, having raided the home of prominent Trump minion Jeffrey Clark, and taken the smartphone of John Eastman, the lawyer who came up with the bonkers scheme to annul the election, as he was leaving a restaurant.
How long it will take to get up the ranks to Trump is hard to say. After all, Donald Trump committed the biggest political crime in US history, with the biggest conspiracy, and with an investigation of comparable scale. There are no real precedents to go by. That being the case, exactly what could Trump be charged with? Where to start?
The leading charge, being pushed by the 1-6 Committee, is "conspiracy to defraud the United States", meaning any effort by multiple persons to interfere with governmental functions "by deceit, craft, or trickery." That seems appropriate to Trump, a fraud from way back. Trump is certain to argue that he sincerely believed he won the election, and that he was simply trying to redress a wrong.
Testimony given to the committee indicates that Trump had been repeatedly told he had lost the election by those around him, and simply refused to listen. The law does not have any use for the term "lie", since it's ambiguous, since dishonest people typically insist their falsehoods are true. The prefers the term "willful misrepresentations of fact" -- that is, contradictions of the facts they have been told, or fabrications not based on facts.
Of course, sending a mob to trash Congress feels like more than just fraud, so the option remains of charging him with "seditious conspiracy". His efforts to raise money to support his attempt to overturn the election could also lead to him being charged with wire fraud. The list of charges in the indictment is sure to be long.
There are those, as mentioned here in the past, who believe that Trump should be charged as soon as possible, without making the full case. That would be unwise. Trump is very good at frustrating the law, and hitting him with piecemeal cases would give him plenty of space to continue to do so. It's better to hit him with everything at once, so he has no hope of winning. It would be best if he copped a plea; we don't need a trial circus, and pleading guilty would cut the ground out from underneath the MAGA trolls. That might mean he gets off relatively easy, but he's not going to be around much longer anyway. It's best to tie up the package before he checks out.
* Very late-breaking news: After getting their hands on MLRS rocket launchers, the Ukrainian Army didn't get them into full action right away, but now reports are filtering in of furious attacks on Orc -- Russian -- command and supply centers. I got to figuring that the Ukrainians had more than 15 launchers, with each launcher able to conduct at least two strikes a day with rocket sixpacks. In two weeks, that would be 420 strikes, pulverizing the Orcs.
Given 1.5 sixpacks per target, that would be 630 sixpacks. The trick is to fly them in and get them to the launchers. There's some site with Ukrainian strike planners, listing and prioritizing targets on their computer displays, relaying attack orders to the strike elements -- then validating them and assessing strike damage. There's probably a lot of cheering going on. One Twitter poster commented:
QUOTE:
Witold Unottoinvad @CSwampthing: Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord Orc souls to reap And if they die before I wake I pray the Lord good vids they make.
END_QUOTE
Reports also suggest that the Orc rear areas are swarming with Ukrainian special operations teams, getting support from friendly locals. The Orcs simply don't have the manpower to control the territory they occupy. That's likely to lead to reprisals against civilians, but the Orcs seem to be killing them anyway. There is no sign, however, that the Orcs are breaking the Ukrainian will to resist -- quite the opposite. As long as NATO keeps them properly supplied, they won't lose.
Oh, and another thing: Finland and Sweden had been wanting to join NATO, but they were being held up by Turkish President Erdogan, who was making a fuss about Kurds being given sanctuary in those two nations. Apparently assurances were given that European authorities would investigate the matter, with Erdogan dropping his objections. It will take some months for their admission to be put to a vote, however.
* Non-nuclear submarines may seem out of date -- but, as reported in an article from JANES.com ("South Korean Navy Commissions First KSS-III-class, SLBM-Capable Submarine" by Gabriel Dominguez, Kim Dae Young, Matteo Scarano, 13 August 2021), they are a 21-century technology, South Korea having commissioned in August 2021 a locally developed attack submarine (SSK) capable of firing submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). It will go into service in August 2022.
As designed, the DOSAN AN CHANG-HO is South Korea's biggest submarine, with a length of 83.5 meters (274 feet), a beam of 9.6 meters (31.5 feet), and a displacement of 3,705 tonnes (4,075 tons) submerged. It has a maximum speed of 20 knots (37 KPH / 23 MPH), a maximum unrefueled range of 10,000 NMI (18,500 kilometers / 11,500 miles), and a crew of 50.
It is powered by lead-acid batteries and an air-independent propulsion (AIP) system featuring hydrogen fuel cells, plus diesels for surface running. It features an active and passive sonar suite from LIG Nex1, including bow cylindrical, flank, intercept, ranging, and towed arrays -- plus the Hanwha Systems Naval Shield Integrated Combat Management System (ICMS), the Safran attack periscope and optronic mast, and the Indra Pegaso radar electronic support measurement (RESM) system. It has six forward torpedo tubes and six vertical-launch tubes, capable of firing Hyunmoo-3C supersonic submarine launched cruise missiles or Hyunmoo 4-4 submarine-launched ballistic missiles. It has performed missile test launches.
BACK_TO_TOP* THE WEEK THAT WAS: This last week was tumultuous, the most notable event being the assassination of Abe Shinzo, previously a Japanese prime minister, who was gunned down at a political rally. Murders with guns are rare in Japan, and it's been a long time since a major Japanese political figure was assassinated, so the reaction in Japan has been stunned shock, reminiscent of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
However, the ripples from the death of Abe will fade out quickly. The same cannot be said about the other major event of the week, the resignation of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He'd been caught up in one scandal after another, though it seems the underlying cause of his troubles was his inability to make Brexit work. What happens now is impossible to predict. There's a scramble among Britain's Tories to install a replacement -- but a replacement is going to face the same problems and won't have a solution. The Labour Party is pushing for a new general election. It might happen.
* The batch of MLRS launchers sent to Ukraine is coming up to operational spec, with at least 30 rocket strikes performed so far -- each one generally wiping out its target. More launchers are coming. Not much is being said about the pipeline for rocket sixpacks, but the launchers only do their job to the extent they are fed ammunition.
Somebody put together a Ukraine War video, to the tune of THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER, America's national anthem, that brought the war home. It was an instrumental-only version, starting out with slow, quiet piano, pacing the lyrics that all Americans know:
"O say can you see, by the dawn's early light ... "
Video shows HIMARS launchers rolling down the highway in the predawn darkness.
"What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming ... "
Towed 155-millimeter howitzers rolling in the early morning light. 155-mm shell closeup. Howitzer ready to fire. Music increases in tension. Antitank rocket launch.
"Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight ..."
Smoldering Russian tank, then BOOM! Field pocked with artillery craters; incoming, BOOM!
"O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?"
Burning tank, then BOOM! Burning tank, BOOM! The music goes to full symphonic voice:
"And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air ..."
Howitzer goes BUMP! Another one, BUMP! Another, BUMP! Incoming, BOOM! Incoming, BOOM!
"Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there ..."
Incoming, BOOM! -- spray of secondary detonation. Incoming, BOOM! -- big fireball. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
"O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave ..."
MLRS volley launch at night. Impacts, big bangs. Another launch, rockets streak downrange into the night.
"O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"
Huge fireball, expanding into stellar secondary explosion. US Defense Secretary Austin embraces a Ukrainian officer. "Land of the free, home of the brave!" -- the Ukrainians get to wear that. I've never felt prouder to be an American. I find good morale hard to come by in these difficult days, but the news from the frontlines is charging me up. I get up in the mornings, looking forward to the latest news about what my taxpayer dollars are doing to hurt the Orcs.
* Another video asked Ukrainians why they stayed to fight:
SOLDIER in a tank, smoking a cigarette: "Because this is my work."
SOLDIER: "Because my brothers in arms are with me."
SOLDIER with Stinger: "Because someone has to close the sky."
SOLDIER: "Because my kids won't be born in a shelter."
SOLDIER: "Because we are not slaves."
SOLDIER: "HAHAHA, because invaders must die."
GIRL SOLDIER: "They just destroyed my neighborhood."
SOLDIER: "Because I'm on duty today." [VOICE: "What?!" "I'm on duty!"]
SOLDIER: "Because they are not welcome here."
SOLDIER: "Because I love the smell of napalm in the morning."
GIRL SOLDIER, being cheeky: "Because I am Rambo."
SOLDIER: "Because it sucks to be a refugee."
MIG-29 PILOT in flight: "This is the way."
SOLDIER: "Because there is no place like home."
SOLDIER: "Because Mariupol."
SOLDIER: "Because Russians hurt my Mom."
SOLDIER: "Because we feel the support of our people."
SOLDIER: "Because I'm against Fascism, just like my grandfather."
SOLDIER: "Because I want to my family back from Europe."
SOLDIER: "Because Ukraine is not the limit." Putin will take more if he can.
SOLDIER: "Because I want my country back."
SOLDIER, only one speaking Ukrainian: "Because we're on the winning side."
I was surprised to find that not all the people trolling against Ukraine on Twitter were paid trolls -- American Libertarians are solidly against the war as well. They demonstrate the Libertarian combination of high principles and cheap cynicism ... a loud opposition to war, riding on a claim that the US government is no better than the Russian government, with the ultimate mindset being: ~"What's in it for me? The Ukrainians can all drop dead."
I'm thinking that we will win this war -- and when we do, it will be a victory in the USA as well, over all trolls trying to tear the USA down.
* The sea-going, dolphin-like ichthyosaur is one of the better-known of the great reptiles of the Age of Dinosaurs -- technically, it wasn't a dinosaur itself -- but we're still finding out more about it. As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com ("Colossal Marine Skull Reveals Earth's Earliest Known Giant Animal" by Michael Irving, 30 January 2022), paleontologists have now discovered a fossil ichthyosaur, named Cymbospondylus youngorum, of great size, being one of the earliest known giant reptiles.
The discovery was made in the Augusta Mountains of Nevada, most significantly featuring a well-preserved skull measuring 2 meters (6.6 ft) long, along with part of the backbone, shoulder, and forelimb. They were believed to represent a previously unknown species of ichthyosaur, which lived about 246 million years ago.
Most ichthyosaurs were on the order of 2 to 4 meters (6.6 to 13.1 feet) long -- but some were giants, sometimes over 20 meters (66 feet) long. At an estimated length of 17 meters (56 feet), it wasn't the biggest of them -- one is known that was about 26 meters (85 feet) long -- but this is the earliest known example of a giant, ichthyosaurs only emerging in the fossil record 3 million years earlier.
The trend towards gigantism may have been pushed by a proliferation of prey animals, the Earth having recovered from the massive Permian-Triassic extinction about 6 million years previously. The skull of C. youngorum is now on display at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles.
[ED: The article said the emergence of gigantism over 3 million years was an "incredibly fast pace", but assuming a growth in size by a factor of 8, on a simple calculation, that's about a growth rate of an invisible quarter of a percent per 1,000 years over that time period. Once selective pressures toward gigantism emerged, it would emerge in a few million years.]
* As discussed in an article from NEWSCIENTIST.com ("Pterosaur Fossil From Scotland Is Largest Jurassic Flier Ever Found", by Christa Leste-Lasserre, 22 February 2022), the flying reptiles known as "pterosaurs" were common through the ages of the dinosaurs. Now paleontologists have found the fossil remains of a large pterosaur with a wingspan of 1.5 meters (8 feet), about the size of a modern albatross.
Although there were much bigger pterosaurs, this specimen -- named Dearc sgiathanach -- it dates back 170 million years, in the Jurassic Period, and no pterosaur that big has been found that was that old. It was a member of the pterosaur family known as "ramphorynchids", featuring an aerodynamic head and crisscrossed lower teeth, used to snap up slippery fish.
BACK_TO_TOP* THE WEEK THAT WAS: The US High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), one of the platforms in the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) is proving a star of the Battle for Ukraine, smashing Russian command centers, supply dumps, and ammo dumps deep behind the lines. It is welcome, but there are complaints that its delivery was tardy, that NATO weapons aren't flowing to Ukraine fast enough. They aren't, yesterday wouldn't be fast enough under the circumstances -- but are the deliveries really taking longer than they need to?
An anonymous essay from DAILYKOS.com ("Not Enough? Here's The Challenge Of Moving Even Four HIMARS", 1 June 2022) suggested not. It began with a note of impatience -- some editing being performed for clarity:
QUOTE:
Each announcement of aid, whether from the United States or any other ally, is inevitably accompanied by a chorus of wailing and complaining: it's not enough, it's too late, it's taking too long, why won't they do more, ETC, ETC, ETC. Amazon has pre-conditioned people into thinking Ukraine could just order up whatever, and hey, there it is three days later with free shipping!
You might think, who cares that someone is wrong on the internet?! It matters because such thinking is counter-productive, ignorant, and stupid, and betrays a lack of understanding of the actual situation.
END_QUOTE
The first issue is the scale of the operation:
QUOTE:
Russia's entire annual military budget is $60 billion USD, and that includes a large navy, tactical nukes, strategic air defenses, and other big-ticket budget items. The United States alone is on track to deliver 25% of that budget to Ukraine in a matter of months, with billions more donated by other partners. Ukraine might even be close to actual parity given the amount of grift in the Russian armed forces.
END_QUOTE
The second issue is that Ukraine has held out splendidly in the face of severe pressure from Russian forces. It's been a brutal slog, but the initial Russian offense was defeated, and since then the Russians have only been able to obtain incremental gains, being made to suffer for them. Ukraine can take it and dish it out -- and the delivery of weapons, even at the current rate, will continue to allow it to do so. Nobody realistically expects the war to be ended abruptly.
The third issue is that ...
QUOTE:
... logistical lines had to established, first by establishing a supply hub near the Ukrainian border -- at Rzeszow in Poland; getting those supplies across the border, and ensuring that the Russians couldn't interfere with their movement; and then distributing them to the front lines in wartime conditions.
Nothing about logistics is easy, even in the most peaceful conditions, so the way the NATO allies and Ukraine developed theirs on the fly and in a war zone will be a great book someday. It was challenging enough getting Javelins, rifles, helmets, and Stingers to the front lines -- forget trying to move equipment and weapons weighing in the tons. All of that had to be scaled up. The logistical effort has not been a failure; it has been a great success.
END_QUOTE
Now consider the challenge posed by HIMARS:
QUOTE:
The vehicle weighs 18 US tons. That's a lot -- but it's the ammo is the real beast. An MLRS/HIMARS pod carries six missiles, and weights 2.5 tons. That's one volley. The pods are carried to the front lines on a Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT), capable of carrying four pods, or eight with a trailer. HIMARS can, under optimum conditions, fire a pod every five minutes, so that amount of ammunition could be easily expended in less than an hour.
A C-5 cargo plane can carry 140 tons of cargo, or 56 rocket pods. That's no more than 12 hours of fire missions for a single launcher. Keeping those launchers firing is a serious logistical challenge, almost impossible to maintain without impacting the delivery of other needed equipment and supplies. So much heavy gear can't be reasonably airlifted, so it needs to be shipped via ocean freight from the United States -- backfilling German and UK stocks that can hopefully be delivered fastest. Once they arrive at Rzeszow, the pods have to be ground-transported 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) to the battle lines.
END_QUOTE
Of course, MLRS is only a part of the materiel flowing through the logistical pipeline:
QUOTE:
In addition to needing more weapons, an army's ammunition consumption is frighteningly high. Equipping hundreds of thousands of reservists with body armor, helmets, and rifles is a real challenge. Don't forget fuel. The supply shipments haven't been slow at all. We still have multiple cargo planes from the USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Italy, and elsewhere landing at Rzeszow on a daily basis. This operation is massive, it's ongoing, and it's been running full-speed from before the shooting began. Those shipments have always reflected Ukraine's biggest priorities, they've called the shots. There were other priorities earlier in the war; until they were being met, MLRS had to be put off.
END_QUOTE
Early on in the war, Ukrainian troops were screaming for mundane items like flak vests and helmets; they couldn't wait on those things. Equipping an army is massively complicated.
There were also complaints that not enough HIMARS launchers were being provided. Four were provided initially, but more are arriving, and:
QUOTE:
Note that the problem isn't the number of launchers. Four HIMARS in the middle of Ukrainian held territory in the Donbas can more than cover the entire front so long as it is properly supplied. Heck, one HIMARS launcher could do so much damage given a steady diet of rocket pods.
END_QUOTE
In conclusion:
QUOTE:
The United States has done plenty, delivering what Ukraine has needed at every stage of the war, this initial shipment is by itself an amazing contribution to the war effort, and the delivery timeline is a marvel of logistics.
END_QUOTE
* In following the war on Twitter, I've become increasingly aware that opposition to the war is not just among paid Kremlin stooges -- but that American Rightnuts are pushing back on it as well. I'm not sure why; it appears to be a mix of an instinct to denounce all Biden policies, isolationism, and even some admiration for Putin.
It is true that things are grim, and not just in Ukraine. Here in the USA, the Rightnuts seem determined to install a dictatorship, by any means possible. As one Mark Jacob said on Twitter:
QUOTE:
Mark Jacob (@MarkJacob16): The Fascist playbook:
1: Cause chaos.
2: Complain about chaos.
3: Block all attempts to fix chaos.
4: Promise to fix chaos.
5: Seize power amid chaos.
6: Arrest anyone who complains about chaos.
END_QUOTE
Again, things are grim, but I still have a fundamental belief of being on the winning side -- at least over the long run.
* As discussed in an article from SCIENCENEWS.org ("Two Stars' Close Encounter May Explain A Cosmic Flare" by Ken Croswell, 04 January 2022), astronomers have discovered an encounter between two young stars that created a flare lasting most of a century.
In 1936, a dim star in the constellation Orion lit up, to shine 100 times as brightly as it had before. It was so bright that it could be seen with binoculars, having been all but invisible before. The star lit up part of the dark interstellar cloud named "Barnard 35" from which the star presumably emerged. More surprisingly the star, now named "FU Orionis", continues to shine brightly, 85 years later.
When stars go "nova", they brighten temporarily and then fade. This was obviously not a nova, but what was it? Computer simulations have now yielded clues as to its nature. A team under Elisabeth Borchert -- an astrophysicist at the Monash University in Clayton, Australia -- performed the simulations.
FU Orionis is about 1,330 light-years from Earth. It is actually a double star, one of the duo being about the size of our Sun, the other being from about a third to two-thirds as big. Borchert says: "The low-mass star is the one that is in outburst."
As per the simulation, the outburst began as the low-mass star came to 10 to 20 times as far from its partner as the Earth is from the Sun -- about as much as the distance between the Sun and Saturn or Uranus. As the smaller star plowed through the other star's disk, gas and dust from that disk rained down onto the intruder. This material got hot and glowed brightly, making the star highly visible. The flare-up has endured so long because the gravitational pull of the smaller star captured material that began to orbit the star and is still falling onto it.
Simulations don't prove anything in themselves, instead being guides to further observations -- in this case, suggesting inspection of the relative movements of the two stars. Astronomers discovered the binary nature of FU Orionis only two decades ago, by which time the stars were much farther apart in their elliptical orbit around each other. Since the discovery of FU Orionis, several other newborn stars have flared up in a similar fashion. Borchert believes that "could be a good explanation for all of them."
BACK_TO_TOP* THE WEEK THAT WAS: One Nadin Brzezinski, writing in an essay titled "Logistics Collapse" (17 July 2022), took a look at the Ukraine War and suggesting -- mirror-imaging Russian propaganda -- that Vladimir Putin is a "puppet of the West", sent to "destroy Russia", that the war will end in unmitigated Russian defeat:
QUOTE:
Ukraine is likely going to end in a very Russian way. It's starting to look like the armies of Vladimir Putin will go home on foot, leaving a lot of equipment behind. Why? They are facing a logistics collapse like that seen by the armies of the Tzar in 1917, after the Summer offensive.
END_QUOTE
Originally, the occupation of Ukraine was to take about 72 hours, with no logistics in place to support any longer offensive. The Russians ran into a brick wall of resistance, to find their soldiers not up to much combat, their equipment in a poor state, and inadequate supply columns that proved fatally vulnerable to attack. The assault on Kyiv was brutally defeated; the Russians fell back, to conduct a plodding assault through the Donbas region, creeping forward under barrages of artillery that smash everything in front of them.
The Russians are making progress, but it's extremely slow: the Ukrainians confront them, inflict damage, then fall back to a new line of defense. The approach is entirely dependent on massed artillery and a vast supply of shells. It is now running into its limits. The introduction of the powerful US Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) into the battle has led to the destruction of Russian ammo dumps behind the lines, forcing the Russians to move the dumps farther to the rear. That means ammunition has to be delivered by road, with an inadequate fleet of supply trucks.
Worse for the Russians, the barrels of their guns are wearing out and have to be replaced. The barrels wear out quickly, since they are made of substandard steel -- the supply of proper steels was cut off with the sanctions following the 2014 Russian occupation of Crimea. Overall, Russian equipment is in poor shape, often delivered to the frontline fighters in marginally operational condition. There is no effective frontline repair system for that gear, either.
It is not a rumor that many troops are refusing to fight, and the number is growing. Neither the Russian military nor Russian industry is capable of reform in any short period of time. The Ukrainian Army, in the meantime, is getting stronger, with new formations of fresh troops, new weapons. Expect MLRS to obtain longer range and heavier hitting power.
What happens next? Major General Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine's intelligence chief, believes he knows how the war will end, saying in an interview:
QUOTE:
The breaking point will be in the second part of August. Most of the active combat actions will have finished by the end of this year. As a result, we will renew Ukrainian power in all our territories that we have lost, including Donbas and the Crimea.
END_QUOTE
We'll see what happens, but at present it is clear Russia is not in a position to win this war. Brzezinkski concludes:
QUOTE:
... expect more threats of nuclear weapons. Every time Russia sees more reversals, the bombing of civilian areas increases. So does the talk of a nuclear use. These are the threats of a government that can see the writing on the wall.
END_QUOTE
* One interesting question about a Russian defeat in Ukraine is of its potential effects in US politics, which are currently in a state of chaos. Trevor Noah of THE DAILY SHOW reflected on this reality, in light of the current Congressional push to codify into law the right to gay marriages:
QUOTE:
What's the argument against gay marriage? When it became legal in 2015, conservatives all said that America was going to fall apart.
And yeah, it did, but that's not because of gay marriage.
END_QUOTE
Conservatism took a wrong turn when Ronald Reagan was elected; Reagan himself was not so bad, but the Republicans went steadily downhill after him. Today, the GOP has lost its mind, Noah also saying:
QUOTE:
The Constitution is very clear about who has rights in this country: it goes corporations, guns, children, then guns again, then the national anthem, then women -- but only women who are holding a gun.
END_QUOTE
The GOP took a dead-end road; is it finally nearing its end? There are suggestions it is, one being the general disappearance of TRUMP hats, signs, and so on; another being polls that show majority disapproval of GOP efforts to stop gun control, and to ban abortion. What effect will a decisive Ukrainian, and by implication American, victory over Russia have? Nobody can say, but it could be substantial.
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