Science and Technology
Alien visitors… next week
Meet Abraham “Avi”Loeb, the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University. He chaired the Department of Astronomy from 2011 to 2020, and founded the Black Hole Initiative in 2016. And seems to have chucked a few chunks of cortex down a black hole in recent years. Remember a while back in 2017 […]
India retires MiG-21s
India is retiring its fleet of MiG-21 fighters. Their primary combat threat for over 30 years, the plane leaves behind a decidedly mixed legacy, nicknamed a “flying coffin” for its many crashes. Reminds you of some of our Western “widowmakers” and such, doesn’t it? India started acquiring the then-blistering fast MiG in 1966, and since […]
History rhymes
The old saw says that “History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” Popularly attributed to Mark Twain, the primary source of most American wisdom, it didn’t appear until long after his death and is not in any of his writings. But it makes sense, sort of like Harry Truman’s “the only new thing […]
More on the Midnight Hammer raid
I mentioned reading an article on Iranian concrete technology in the comments on the BDA column – here is some more on that subject. On Saturday, June 21, 2025, following a spate of unprecedented aerial attacks that Israel carried out against Iran just days before, the United States joined the war and used bunker-busting bombs […]
Kennedy’s MAHA release a bit embarrassing
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, JR released his much-anticipated “Make America Healthy Again” report on May 22. The Secretary, who is on record against many immunizations, flouridated water, and quite a few other positions considered controversial, had promised a sort of roadmap to help the country’s children get healthier. Unfortunately, there were a few problems […]
Busy week for nomenclatureists?
Originally wanted to call this “Xes and Os” (no resemblance to the pudgy Schneider offspring*) but it turns out the Army doesn’t call all their prototypes by an X prefix. Ah well – I learned something. The Army has given its Future Long Range Assault Aircraft Bell V-280 (their equivalent to a CV-22 Osprey) the […]
Cheap missiles
We touched on this the other day – the Navy is doing yeoman’s work protecting the ships off Yemen from Houthi-launched Iranian (oh, that’s right, they deny any complicity) Houthi missiles. Damn fine work, but it is expensive. The missiles and drones they fire cost $50 grand, the missiles we fire back – well, […]
How do you kill a Drone? more
Well we talked about a few swat ’em systems yesterday – there are others, such as Emirates’ Halcon small missiles which claim to be able to take down drones, choppers, UAVs, etc. by integrating existing small rocket, and canister systems. There are even hunter-killer drones, such as the net-armed hunter-killers developed at Robins Air base […]
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