Retired Hurt

The Australian leader of the Opposition, Mark Latham, has just resigned, both as ALP (Australian Labor Party) leader, and from the Federal Parliament, due to "health reasons". And for once, it's true, the poor bastard's got recurrent pancreatitis, exacerbated by stress.

From a post on November 27 :

My bet's on Rudd BTW, but in 2 months, not next week

Close enough regarding the timing, let's see if I've picked the winner. "Bomber" Beasley sounds awfully confident, while Rudd is stuck in Indonesia, actually doing something constructive for the country. No-one in the press is mentioning what's-her-name, the deputy leader of the ALP, as she's so obviously a Latham stooge.

I would have preferred that he been clean bowled rather than retired hurt though, and wish him the best for a speedy recovery. He's still a bastard, but doesn't deserve what he's got.

Harass: Annoy continually or chronically;

That's what you find when you look up "Harry" in Google.

From the BBC :

"Clarence House has apologised after The Sun newspaper published a photo showing Prince Harry wearing a swastika armband at a friend's fancy dress party.

The party theme was "colonial and native" and the prince is also seen holding a drink and cigarette.

Off with his head! I mean, holding a drink *and* a cigarette at a private party...

From CNN :

"I don't think this young man is suitable for Sandhurst," said Doug Henderson, a lawmaker in the governing Labour Party. "If it was anyone else the application wouldn't be considered. It should be withdrawn immediately."

Naturally, when it came to voting to actually do something about a National Socialist Dictatorship, this worthy voted "Nay", not once, but thrice.

As you can see from the tasteful and understated newspaper article and picture, it's not as if he turned up in full SS regalia. And if the Nazis weren't the the archetypical group that typified the worst form of Colonialism, who were?

Still, it could have been worse. Had he gone in blackface - as I suspect some of the partygoers did - or in a White Hunter's getup, he'd be lambasted similarly - as Racist or Neo-Imperialist.

Meanwhile, also in the UK but in the Real World...

Fropm The Times :

An Extremist London cleric is using live broadcasts on the internet to urge young British Muslims to join al-Qaeda and has condoned suicide terrorist attacks. Omar Bakri Mohammed, who has lived in the UK for 18 years on social security benefits, pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and told his followers that they were in a state of war with Britain.

But of course that's not nearly as important.

Gone Fishing

Back soon. In the meantime, why not have a look at the archives? See if you can find the Banana-Bending Machine, the Horses that Sing, Cyborg Lobsters, and Shakespeare in the original Klingon.

Torture at Oxford

Sort of a Brain post this one.

From the Times via The Australian :

People are to be tortured in laboratories at Oxford University in a US-funded experiment to determine if belief in God is effective in relieving pain.

Top neurologists, pharmacologists, anatomists, ethicists and theologians are to examine the scientific basis of religious belief and whether it is anything more than a placebo.

Oxford's new Centre for the Science of the Mind is to use imaging systems to find out how religious, spiritual and other belief systems, such as an illogical belief in the innate superiority of men, influence consciousness.

Researchers believe the study will provide insights into the war on terrorism.

And if not, it will surely make any of the Far-Left in Academe feel a lot better, seeing Neo-Con God-Botherers and Anti-Feminists getting their "just deserts".

Or am I being too cynical?

The aim is to develop new and practical approaches "for promoting wellbeing and ultimately maximising individual human potential".

Nah.

The pain experiments will be conducted under the direction of researcher Toby Collins, who has a background in marine biology and the nerve systems of invertebrates. He said many people in pain turned to faith for relief.

Dr Collins said the experiments would involve non-invasive simulation of burns and would be conducted according to strict ethical rules. As they suffer, the human guinea pigs will be asked to access a belief system, whether religious or otherwise.

Like, oh, maybe Republicanism? No, I'm definitely being too cynical. I hope.

A neuroscientist from Oxford's physiology department, John Stein, said: "Pain has been central to a lot of problems that religious and other thinkers have concentrated on."

Professor Stein said people differed widely in the extent to which they felt pain. "What we want to do is correlate that with their underlying beliefs."

The study is considered of vital importance in the present world climate, given the role of religious fundamentalism in international terrorism.

A better understanding of the physiology of belief, the conditions that entrench it in the mind and its usefulness in mitigating pain, could be crucial to developing counter-terrorist strategies for the future.

"And this was the only way we could possibly get this experiment funded, just invoke the magic phrase 'anti-terrorism' and Voila!"

"I do not like thee, Dr Fell.
The reason why, I cannot tell.
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not like thee, Dr Fell."

-Tom Swift, after Marcus Valerius Martial

I have a bad feeling about this, my intuition is screaming that this setup smells. Yes, they're volunteers. And yes, I'm about as anti-Terrorist as they come, with little ethical objections to some extremely coercive interrogation techniques against proven terrorists - whatever is effective. I'm also a secular humanist rather than a religious believer. But they say they're measuring how Religious Faith influences the perception of Pain, in order to do.... what? Better, more scientific ways to inflict pain? Ick. Coercive Interrogation doesn't involve infliction of pain, that's in the realm of the sadist and psychopath. Why not? Because it's not effective, and it corrodes the soul of the Torturer, so it's a good thing it's not effective, to avoid the temptation.

And how to differentiate the effect of "Faith" from a "Placebo" effect, which is an effect due to... faith.

I'd need an awful lot of convincing if I was on the ethics panel before I'd sanction this. I'd also look very hard at the ethical qualifications of the organisation that's funding it. Something doesn't smell right. I hope the Times' reporter is distorting the situation.

Weird Wide Web

Both of these came via A Small Victory, Michele Catalano's site.

First, Atari Adventure, a Flash Arcade game.

Second, the Face Morpher. See what you'll look like 20 years from now.

Articles of War

Two articles recently read on the Net, which deserve not to be forgotten.

The first is about Training, adopting Lessons Learned, and "Process Improvement" in an environment where lives are at stake. Battle Lessons :

The chronic shortage of troops and shifting phases of fighting and reconstruction forced soldiers into jobs for which they weren’t prepared; Wong found field artillerymen, tankers, and engineers serving as infantrymen, while infantrymen were building sewer systems and running town councils. All were working with what Wong calls “a surprising lack of detailed guidance from higher headquarters.” In short, the Iraq that Wong found is precisely the kind of unpredictable environment in which a cohort of hidebound and inflexible officers would prove disastrous.

Yet he found the opposite. Platoon and company commanders were exercising their initiative to the point of occasional genius. Whatever else the Iraq war is doing to American power and prestige, it is producing the creative and flexible junior officers that the Army’s training could not.

A minor disclaimer : I've been a member of Company Commander for a while, and have been since I needed to do research on required logistics for moving military units for Disaster relief.

The second is of a less contemporary, and more historical character. The Specters Haunting Dresden :

Walking with the widow of a banker through the one small square in Frankfurt that has been restored to its medieval splendor, I remarked how beautiful a city Frankfurt must once have been, and how terrible it was that such beauty should have been lost forever.

“We started it,” she said. “We got what we deserved.”

But who was this “we” of whom she spoke? She was not of an age to have helped or even to have supported the Nazis, and therefore (if justice requires that each should get his desert) it was unjust that she should bear the guilty burden of the past. And Germans far younger than she still bear it. I went to dinner with a young businessman, born 20 years after the end of the war, who told me that the forestry company for which he worked, and which had interests in Britain, had decided that it needed a mission statement. A meeting ensued, and someone suggested Holz mit Stolz (“wood with pride”), whereupon a two-hour discussion erupted among the employees of the company as to whether pride in anything was permitted to the Germans, or whether it was the beginning of the slippery slope that led to . . . well, everyone knew where. The businessman found this all perfectly normal, part of being a contemporary German.
[...]
Foreigners, such as the Swedish writer Stig Dagerman, could write about the sufferings of the Germans immediately after the war, but not the Germans themselves. Victor Gollancz, a British publisher of Polish-Jewish origin who could not be suspected in the slightest of Nazi sympathies and who had spent the entire 1930s publishing books warning the world of the Nazi peril, wrote and published a book in the immediate aftermath of the war called In Darkest Germany, in which he drew attention to the plight of the Germans living (and starving) among the ruins, which he observed on a visit there. To the charge that the Germans had brought it all on themselves and deserved no less, he replied with a three-word question: “And the children?”

...Und Die Kinder? Indeed. Although this latter article has some large factual omissions - the fact that Dresden was the only functioning tranportation nexus for sending ammunition and troops to the Eastern Front, as well as being the German Army Headquarters for the East, it nonetheless sees the forest, even if a few trees are hidden.

Both articles are long, too long for a casual visit - so either bookmark them, or bookmark this post for future reference. Both articles should make you uncomfortable, regardless of your political viewpoint. Truth is rarely pure, and never simple.

Earthquakes and Navigation

From NASA :

NASA scientists studying the Indonesian earthquake of Dec. 26, 2004, have calculated that it slightly changed our planet's shape, shaved almost 3 microseconds from the length of the day, and shifted the North Pole by centimeters.
[...]
Chao and Gross routinely calculate earthquakes' effects on Earth's shape and rotation. They also study changes in polar motion--that is, the shifting of the North Pole.

According to their latest calculations, the Dec. 26th earthquake shifted Earth's "mean North Pole" by about 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) in the direction of 145 degrees east longitude, more or less toward Guam in the Pacific Ocean. This shift is continuing a long-term seismic trend identified in previous studies.

The quake also affected Earth's shape. Chao and Gross calculated that Earth's oblateness (flattening on the top and bulging at the equator) decreased by a small amount--about one part in 10 billion. This continues the trend of earthquakes making Earth less oblate. Less oblate means more round.

They also found the earthquake decreased the length of the day by 2.68 microseconds. (A microsecond is one millionth of a second.) In other words, Earth spins a little faster than it did before. This change in spin is related to the change in oblateness. It's like a spinning skater drawing arms closer to the body resulting in a faster spin.

None of these changes have yet been measured--only calculated. But Chao and Gross hope to detect the changes when Earth rotation data from ground based and space-borne sensors are reviewed.

BTW this appears to be not quite enough to affect the WGS-84 standard spheroid, as navigation calculations using it routinely involve 9 significant figures. 1 part in 10 billion is too small to be significant. But only just. If the "1 part in 10 billion" refers to the flattening coefficient of the WGS-84 spheroid, then it will change the last 2 digits of the current value ( 1/298.257223563). How important is that? Well, until 1984 we used the WGS-72 Spheroid, and that had a "flattening" value of 1/298.26.

OK, that's probably lost you. The best explanation for the layman of all this Navigational stuff is provided by UNESCO.

Far more important in practical navigation are the different spheroids and datums used on different maps. The US military, who are interested in really accurate navigation in order to avoid unpleasant incidents involving misdirected weaponry, have a handy chart giving the various corrections needed for artillery systems.

More important still is the fact that the whole of the Andaman area must be re-surveyed, and new charts produced. We know that the Sentinel Islands have moved upwards 3-5 metres, meaning the local seabed has done likewise.

Had they sunk instead of risen, then a unique branch of humanity may have been lost forever. But that will have to remain for now as the subject for a future article.

Big Fleas

As the doggerel goes:

Big Fleas have Little Fleas
Upon their backs, to bite 'em.
Little Fleas have Lesser Fleas,
And so Ad Infinitum.

And the great fleas themselves,
in turn, have greater fleas to go on,
While these again have greater still,
and greater still, and so on.
- De Morgan, after Jonathan Swift

Here's some data about UNICEF, from 1997 :

"By the 1990s, say observers, UNICEF had become a bloated UN bureaucracy:

• Administrative costs for "regional offices" and headquarters is $346 million -- more than a third of the approximately $1 billion budget.
• This doesn't include spending on UNICEF's 210 field offices or the organization's "national committees," which raise 35 percent of the agency's budget and keep 25 percent to 40 percent of what they raise to cover their own administrative expenses.
• An independent audit in 1994 by Booz, Allen, & Hamilton found bloated overhead costs, lack of financial control and a proclivity for luxury travel accommodations and overstaffing.
• There has also been corruption, with UNICEF's Nairobi, Kenya staff accused of stealing $1 million in relief funds and wasting $8 million to $9 million more.

But that's only at the top level. A quick visit to the UNICEF site will show (amongst all the press statements condemning Israel) that there are thousands of UNICEF people on the ground in many nations, making a positive difference. It may be said that with some justice that UNICEF as an organisation is a parasite - but most people working for it are hard-working and dedicated. They are as much victims of the upper echelons as the children whose needs aren't being met.

The type of parasite they have to deal with aren't just their Lords and Masters, nor the tapeworms and maggots that infest their charges. From The Australian :

The staff of UNICEF's Sri Lanka operation are in their Colombo offices dealing as best they can with a flood of desperate people, people at the end of their tether, people in overwhelming need of immediate help.

CNN's Christiane Amanpour, for instance. Amanpour, or at least her producer, wants two orphans, preferably brothers who have lost at least six other members of their families, please, on the coast road between Bentota and Galle, tomorrow after two o'clock local time for a Sri Lanka – Land In Turmoil prime-time special. It is now 7.30pm. When approached by his assistant with this ambitious demand, Martin Dawes, UNICEF's spokesman, himself a former television journalist, sighs slightly. "Just try and give it to them," he says, turning away. UNICEF is trying to be helpful to the press.

Of course the author is Andrew Gilligan, most famous for having been overly-creative in his reporting when he worked at the BBC. Still, he appears to have cleaned up his act.

You have to feel sorry for the 24-hour news people. There is an awful lot of space to fill. And since they haven't got time to go out much, they have taken to feeding off each other, producing worthy successors to those legendary media myths of previous big news events – the "furious Afghan winter", the "uprisings of the Arab street", the "siege of Baghdad".

This time, for starters, we have had the "race against time to feed the hungry" story. Watching some of the TV coverage, as we are able to, gives the very strong impression that people in Sri Lanka are starving. All the aid agencies agree that they are not.

This is not Africa, or even Indonesia. Not all Third World countries are the same; and while Sri Lanka may be less developed than Britain, it is not primitive.

The Sri Lankans are about 75th in the league of the world's 190-odd states, with a reasonably effective, if bureaucratic, government, plenty of food in the unaffected parts – the great majority – and a sophisticated commercial sector.

They need tiding-over relief, but Save the Children's emergency co-ordinator, Gareth Owen, told me there would have to be incompetence on the most monumental scale for anyone to die of starvation here.

I can remember a time when UNICEF wasn't the kleptocrat-ridden organisation it is today. When they actually did more good, and with none of the Israel-bashing rhetoric they have on their website - criticisng Israel's anti-terrorist barrier because it interferes with Palestinians' rights to mobility, while maintaining a discrete silence over the targetting of school busses by self-detonating fanatics.

Maybe UNICEF can do a Gilligan, and "go and sin no more". One can but hope, because there are many people in it who are still Believers. Like me.

A Museum of Hoaxes

No, not the UN building, the genuine article.

Besides which, after that last post, I need a nice cup of tea and a sit down.

In the Left Corner...

There's a 4-cornered contest shaping up in Aceh at the moment. Hopefully the contest won't involve significant violence.

Here (IMHO) are the 4 contestants.

Australia - Primary aim is to save lives, long-term aim is to neutralise the Indonesian threat. This can be accomplished by either or both simultaneously of two methods: First, to remove the "will to fight" by making friends. Second, to remove the capability for them to do us harm by "encouraging" the instability that is inherent in Indonesia.

Aceh Separatists - Primary aim is to restore the Sultanate of Aceh. This part of Indonesia has historically been quasi-independant and self-governing, even under the Dutch. "Limited Autonomy" is the correct phrase. Also historically, it's been very Islamic indeed compared to the rest of the region, and the Aceh separatists have played up this aspect in order to weaken the TNI ( Indonesian Armed Forces ) and create chaos.

Islamists - Primary aim is to contain western influence, and kill westerners.

Indonesia/TNI - Primary aim is to contain the situation so it doesn't spread, and if possible retain Aceh within Indonesia.

Right now, some of the Aceh separatists are sort-of allied with some Islamists, some of the Islamists are very much allied with parts of the TNI (who have encouraged them in order to keep the Christian, Chinese and Hindu minorities from getting ideas above their station). And if certain of the Aceh separatists haven't been getting covert support from Australia, somebody hasn't been doing their job here.

You must remember that Australia and Indonesia have a peculiar relationship. We've fought several low-intensity conflicts ( aka "wars" ) against each other over the last 50 years. The last Confrontation was in East Timor, where one part of the TNI ignored its own government's instructions, and Australia went in "armed for bear". Fortunately, reason prevailed, the feudal overlords decamped, and no-one (apart from an unfortunate Indonesian border policeman) was killed.

On the other hand, there's a friendship between Australians and Indonesians that transcends politics. They're a good mob. I think it's this that has stopped our political differences ( e.g. Australia is against Genocide ) from leading to massive bloodletting between us.

Anyway, that's background to this story, from The Australian :

A Hardline Indonesian Islamic group has attacked the presence of Australian aid workers in tsunami-devastated Aceh, as Labor raised concerns yesterday about their safety in the troubled province.

Habib Rizieq Shihab, head of the Islamic Defender's Front (FPI), said Australian assistance in Aceh could herald the start of an East Timor-style intervention designed to secure independence for the troubled northern province.

I'd be very surprised if contingency plans for that didn't exist. But not now, we're trying to save lives.

Authorities in Aceh yesterday warned aid workers that rebels may have taken shelter in refugee camps in the province while the military claimed there had been attempts to interfere with the distribution of aid.

And they have the bulletholes and casualties to prove it.

The Australian Government insisted yesterday it had no interest in any military involvement in Aceh and downplayed a threat of confrontation with the growing number of Islamist relief workers also flooding into the area. John Howard, in an interview on global news network CNN, ruled out any involvement by Australian troops in peacekeeping or arming troops on the ground.

We're kinda busy right now feeding people. We don't have the resources for armed action, and frankly, we don't want to get involved. Not now, anyway.

The Prime Minister said Australia was not interested in picking sides on Aceh, but was there "as a friend trying to give practical help".

"We're not there in a military role, it's just that our military are there in a humanitarian role," he said.

Still, it's good practice for the distant future. Just in case.

But Mr Shihab told The Australian he feared the presence of hundreds of Australian troops in Aceh would corrupt the province's strict Islamic culture.

What, hundreds of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists etc saving people's lives? Hmm, maybe he has a point. Fundamentalist Islam would be taking a bit of a beating. Good. A useful byproduct.

Mr Shihab accused Canberra of using the excuse of humanitarian assistance to support a long-term strategy of undermining Indonesian sovereignty.

No, he's got it wrong. This is the "make them friends" bit, not the "remove their capability" bit.

Australia's strategy in Indonesia was best seen by its role in helping East Timor gain independence, he said.

"We need to be vigilant. We do not want a second East Timor."

Understandable. Neither do we. For now. besides which, West Papua's next, anyway.

He said thousands of his supporters were already in Aceh monitoring the behaviour of foreign troops, including Australians.

"Please Australia, move your feet from Indonesia as soon as your humanitarian work is done," he said.

Suits us. And he said "please", which gives me a little hope that this situation may not turn out as bad as I fear.

"They should not corrupt Islamic sharia law in force in Aceh, because we know that these foreign soldiers like to bring prostitutes with them.

He's confusing us with the UN.

Also, these soldiers drink alcohol and in Aceh it is strictly forbidden."

Guilty as charged, on this one.

The Australian army was enforcing a strict no-alcohol policy in Aceh to avoid offending devout Muslim communities, a senior military officer said last night.

I suspect "trying to enforce" would be closer to the truth. But again, everybody's too flat-out saving lives to even scrounge a beer.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told the ABC that Australia's military was happy not to be armed and for security to be provided by the Indonesians.

"A Diplomat is someone who Lies for his country." This must be some strange new meaning of the word "happy" I'm not familiar with. "Sadly realising it's neccessary", yes, that would be accurate. "Happy" isn't.

"I think when it's seen what the humanitarian assistance we're providing is actually doing for the communities, it's a little unlikely that Islamic extremists would see advantage in attacking people who are providing that sort of help," Mr Downer said.

Says he, crossing fingers and murmuring a prayer. 9/11 wasn't exactly a great example of people acting rationally.

But acting Opposition Leader Chris Evans emerged from a briefing with senior government officials on the Australian aid effort to raise concerns about the security of Australians in Aceh.

He said Australia had gone to great pains to ensure the security of its troops in Iraq and the Solomon Islands.

"Previously, on occasions like this, the Australian military have generally insisted on providing their own security.

"I was a little surprised to learn that we weren't providing our own security on this occasion and we did raise those concerns with the Government."

In view of East Timor, there was absolutely no way that the TNI would allow armed Australians anywhere near Aceh. None. Fergedaboudid. Ain't gonna happen.

Commander of the Indonesian Armed Forces, Endriartono Sutarto, downplayed security concerns in the region.

"In my opinion, it's not that bad," he said. The army was not conducting offensive operations against Acehnese rebels, and the estimated 30,000 troops on Sumatra island were only engaged in the relief effort.

Before the disaster, most were fighting rebels from the Free Aceh Movement, known as GAM.

It's not the GAM - the Aceh Separatists - that's the worry, for the most part. Sure, some have a habit of decapitating Christians and Chinese while screaming "Allahu Ackbar", but others are, shall we say, on very friendly terms with Australia. No, it's the Islamists, the Al-Quaeda-by-any-other-name, the ones who were ferried in by Indonesian Military Aircraft, that we're concerned about. I guess certain parts of the TNI think that one bad turn deserves another, and Australia's not the only nation that can make use of catspaws with their own agenda.

UN staff in Aceh have been placed on high alert following a shooting incident at the weekend and armed guards patrol their compounds, amid fears of rebel attacks.

Mr Howard said the Government would keep a careful eye on the security of Australian aid workers. "Thus far we believe the security situation can be handled effectively and it's not in any way impeding the delivery of aid."

THUS FAR. How comforting. I have a Bad Feeling about this. Still, we don't exactly have much of a choice. If the Islamists start attacking, we'll put pressure on the Indonesian government to crack down on the parts of the TNI that are giving them aid. We may have to give a quid-pro-quo and let parts of the GAM hang out to dry - this is all part of the "Great Game", and other parts of the GAM are Islamists anyway.

But as the events in Pakistan proved, the Islamists have their own agenda. If the attacks don't stop - and I suspect they won't - well, John Howard has already said that if he can't get co-operation in stopping a threat to Australia from overseas, he'll take "pre-emptive action". That probably means covert SASR special forces, who may just be already covertly operating in the area. Hit squads.

Of course all this is pure conjecture: if I knew anything (as opposed to merely guessing), I wouldn't be posting this. It seems to me to be obvious, but one thing I have learnt about International relations is that the obvious isn't always true.

Time will tell.

It's Not Rocket Science, Just Logistics

Cross-posted from The Command Post :

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Authorities in Indonesia now believe as many as 130,000 people were killed in the Boxing Day tsunamis.

More than 2,500 bodies are now being recovered daily from the wreckage of what remains of the worst devastated area of Banda Aceh.

More than 30,000 bodies have been pulled out so far.

Indonesia's Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare, Alwi Shihab, has announced that between 80,000 and 130,000 people are thought to have died in the country's Aceh province.

A true figure may never be known.

Mr Shihab says as many as 450,000 other people have also become refugees in their own country.

They are officially known as internally displaced persons.

Meanwhile, a convoy of trucks has set out from the Indonesian capital Jakarta for a 2,500-kilometre overland trip to the northern tip of Sumatra.

The area was one of the worst hit by the tsunami and tens of thousands of survivors are still in desperate need of help.

Bill Hyde from the International Organisation for Migration, which is organising the aid convoy, says the airport facilities in Banda Aceh cannot cope with the load.

"The volume of international relief aid that's come into Jakarta has simply overwhelmed the air coordinator," he said.

"The number of flights that are flying up to Banda Aceh and the region are more than the airports can handle at any time.

"So as the aids [are] backing up and the need there's great, we had to include overland convoys as well."

See Op-Ed page for technical analyses of why the death toll may never be known, the bottlenecks in reticulating aid, and an in-depth analysis of Banda Aceh airport capability.

It doesn't take a Rocket Scientist to figure out this stuff. Readers of this Blog will already have seen some of the contents of the analysis articles on TCP. All of this has been entirely predictable, and you've read about it before the newspapers report it.

There was even a module in the TAIL model design only half-jokingly referred to as the "Water Buffalo On Runway" module. It caused random and unpredictable flight delays, and modelled anything from the aforementioned Water Buffalo through to fuel spills, ATC (Air Traffic Control) Radar breakdown, and a whole host of other things, all of which caused flights to delay takeoff and landing. It didn't temporarily close the runway though (and the next version should have that, if it ever gets financed). We'll also need a "visiting dignitary" module that will close the whole airfield down for a few hours a couple of days after scenario start, to simulate visits by Prime Ministers, UN Bureaucrats etc. Something we should have thought of, but didn't. All of these should be "tweakable" by changing values for chance and delay coefficients in tables.

The Water Buffalo was predicted: but not the aircraft actually hitting it. Still, the stochastic "attrition" (breakdown/crash) module would have done much the same thing. Flog helicopters and personnel hard enough, long enough, and some will break, even with the best maintenance and pilots. Some scenarios include the possibility of being fired at too, which complicates things a bit.

Meanwhile, I applaud Bill Hyde's efforts. The roads are fairly awful, and no heavy vehicle (eg 10-tonne trucks) can use them. Assuming he manages to gather together a whopping convoy of 100(!) 2.5 tonne 6-wheel-drive trucks (or the equivalent), which end-to-end on the road would be at least 2 kilometres long (!), and assuming the roads are good enough so they can take maximum loads, then he could deliver... 250 tonnes. About the same as 10 C-130 flights, maybe half of what's arriving every day. That's after a few days of travel, assuming no breakdowns, and assuming the roads don't give way under the long procession of relatively heavy vehicles (not 4WDs or SUVs) using them. He'll also need extra vehicles carrying provisions, breakdown gear, some traffic co-ordinators to ensure bridges are safe, changes of drivers etc.

I'd be surprised if he gets more than 50 tonnes through. But it all helps, and doesn't consume resources in short supply.

Explosive Drama

The data we're getting is 2.6 Billion years old, but given their past record, no doubt some will blame George W Bush and/or the Jews for it.

From The Australian :

US scientists have detected the largest explosion ever in the universe, which saw a mass equivalent to about 300 million suns sucked into a black hole.

"The eruption, which has lasted for more than 100 million years, has generated energy equivalent to hundreds of millions of gamma-ray bursts," NASA, the US space agency, said yesterday.

The discovery was made by NASA's orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory which is controlled from a base in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The huge eruption was seen in a Chandra image of the hot, X-ray-emitting gas of a galaxy cluster called MS 0735.6+7421, the agency said. The galaxy is about 2.6 billion light years away.

Scientists believe that this black hole is a relatively recent phenomenon.

This event was caused by gravitational energy release, as enormous amounts of matter fell towards a black hole. Most of the matter was swallowed, but some of it was violently ejected before being captured by the black hole.

"I was stunned to find that a mass of about 300 million suns was swallowed," said Brian McNamara of Ohio University, lead author of a study on the discovery published in the latest issue of Nature.

The energy released shows the black hole in MS 0735 has grown dramatically during this eruption. Previous studies suggest other large black holes have grown very little in the recent past, and that only smaller black holes are still growing quickly.

"This new result is as surprising as it is exciting," said co-author Paul Nulsen, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in Cambridge. "This black hole is feasting, when it should be fasting."

Gas is being pushed away from the black hole at supersonic speeds over a distance of about 1 million light years, said the scientists. The mass of the displaced gas equals about a trillion suns, more than the mass of all the stars in the Milky Way.

A Black Hole that swallows entire Galaxies. OK, that restores my sense of proportion. The Ultimate Pac Man.

Banda Aceh Logistics Basics

This post is a bit technical, I'm afraid. Hopefully not too much. I'm attempting to explain the kinds of difficulty faced by relief efforts in Indonesia, and without using too many technical terms.

First, here's the situation.

From The Australian :

While Australian army helicopters are delivering food and clothing to refugees in Aceh province, problems on the ground have been delaying aircraft carrying aid into the ruined provincial capital Banda Aceh.

There are reports that the city's airport is barely coping with more than 150 aircraft movements a day.

A Defence Force spokesman said Australian personnel were helping set up an air traffic control centre at the airport in an effort to reduce flight delays in the giant aid operation.

"Four ADF personnel are working with the United States, Singapore and the Indonesian military on that," the spokesman said.

The bottleneck at the city's airport forced Defence Minister Robert Hill to cancel his trip to Banda Aceh.

Senator Hill flew to Sumatra yesterday to visit the 500 Australian defence personnel based in Medan and Banda Aceh who are involved in the relief effort, but called off his visit to Aceh.

"The minister will not be travelling to Banda Aceh because of difficulties on the ground relating to logjams with the relief effort in Banda Aceh," a spokesman for Senator Hill said.

150 movements a day, that means one take-off or landing every 10 minutes, 24/7, all day, every day. Probably more like 1 every 6 minutes in daylight hours, one every 15 minutes at night.

From the SULTAN ISKANDARMUDA Aerodrome Data, there are 2 parallel runways, each about 2500 metres or 8200 ft long. PCN (the pressure the runway can take) is 63. (FCXT is explained here - it means Flexible, Low Subgrade, to 217psi or 1.5 MPa, measured by analysis not experiment).

Anyway...

A Boeing 737 has an ACN - which corresponds to the runway's PCN - of anywhere between 18 and 55, depending on whether it's empty or loaded, and the exact model of 737. For an FCXT surface, a 737-700 has an ACN of 19 empty and 42 loaded, while the larger 737-900 has an ACN of 23 empty and 50 loaded.

The important thing is that whether the ACN is 19, 42, 23 or 50, they're all under the runway's PCN of 63.

A quick look at the 737's takeoff distance shows that while a 737-400 only just fits, all other models have plenty of runway.

That means you can operate any model of 737 whatsoever on that runway till the cows come home (or are struck by the undercarriage).

A 737 freighter can carry about 16 tonnes, and has about 120 cubic metres of volume. Note that a normal passenger 737 can carry between 2.25 and 3.6 tonnes, depending on the model, so if you're taking in people, you won't get much freight in.

If you're bring in water - where 1 cu metre weighs a tonne - then the 737 can bring in perhaps 14,000 litres, after packaging and palletising. Food weighs a lot less, you may be limited by volume rather than weight (consider how large a Cornflakes packet is compared to a soft drink can that weighs the same).

Well, if a 737 is good, what about a 747-400 freighter? That can carry a whopping 115 tonnes. That can land in 2500m, just. Except that its takeoff distance even when empty is probably over 3000m. And its ACN is 22 when empty, but 80 when loaded.

It's just possible that a very lightly loaded 747-400 could use the airfield, assuming there's a strong enough headwind. But 115 tonnes of freight would probably bust the runway on landing, and on takeoff, the 747 might not have enough distance.

Now a C-130 Hercules transport, as used by the USAF and RAAF, has an ACN of no more than 40, even when loaded to maximum takeoff weight, including 25.5 tonnes of cargo. Moreover, it can carry at least 5 (more in some models) military-standard pallettes (for ease of cargo handling), and has a drop-down rear door (no need for special elevator vehicles) , so can be unloaded extra fast with minimal infrastructure.

That's why the 15 USAF, 7 RAAF and 1 RNZAF C-130's in Indonesia are operating as hard as they can. Each one is worth maybe 3 737's in practice.

OK, that's good for seeing how much stuff can get in. What about stuff getting out? If we assume each aircraft coming in carries about 16 tonnes of goods, and that half of that can be distributed by trucks to the local area, that means that each flight in will need 8 tonnes of goods going out. As each helicopter can carry on the order of a tonne, that means there's 8 outgoing helo flights per aircraft coming in.

The "150 aircraft movements" figure, assuming no backlog, would be about 16 planeloads per day incoming (and flying back), and a whopping 128 helicopter sorties, taking-off and landing. In practice, there'd be at least 20 planes incoming, and fewer helo flights. Hence a backlog is inevitable. One more thing - there's loads of assumptions in this calculation, some of which are quite crucial. Up the "local distribution" fraction to 3/4, and you need 2/3 as many helo flights, so more cargo aircraft can get in (assuming they can be unloaded in a reasonable time). On the other hand, the SH-60 helicopters in use by the US can only carry half a tonne. I've assumed other helos with greater capacity (like the Singaporean 10-tonne capacity Chinooks) are doing a reasonable share.

Did I mention that for every hour in the air, a helicopter might need a dozen or more hours maintenance? This is a truly Stakhanovite effort, by all the maintainers, the pilots, the fuellers and unloaders, and by Air Traffic Control.

Air Traffic Control? You see, 1 aircraft movement every 5 minutes is a recipe for pandemonium on a small airfield. The level of planning and co-ordination required is fantastic. From An American Abroad :

Banda Aceh airport remains off limits to private aircraft. The airport is being fully utilized by the United States, Australia, Singapore and Indonesian governments to distribute food aid and conduct all related relief operations. Airspace surrounding all the affected areas is also off limits without any prior authorization. A few NGOs have been given authorization to operate helicopters and assist in relief operations. Authorization can be obtained only by written request at least 72 hours prior to intended move. United Nations Joint Logistics Centre - cargo movement request can be obtained here.

Note that last part : United Nations Joint Logistics Centre. But good luck accessing the website, it's overloaded. Guess how many personnel in that "UN" co-ordination centre are in the US orAustralian Military? At a rough guess, I'd say... All of them. It's joint, all right. US *and* Australian, with able assists from Singapore (whose efforts are unsung and amazingly valuable) and the host country, Indonesia. Still, they're all members of the UN, and if a UN badge keeps the political squabblers, bureaucrats and ignorant media off their backs, it's no big deal.

From the UK Telegraph there's this though :

The Indonesian military agreed to lend three helicopters for the UN to use yesterday. But the mission to assess needs was cancelled due to a lack of paperwork.

When UN officials arrived at the airport they were told they had failed to hand in flight permission forms by 8pm the previous night.

"They were at the airport and I was expecting them to go out," said Mr Elmquist. "We were not informed in advance that it was necessary to fill in these forms."

The UN bureaucracy can't even co-ordinate with the "UN" logistics centre, let alone anyone else. In fact, they wouldn't be able to locate their posteriors even with both hands, a map, a compass, written instructions, a satellite navigation system and a native guide. All of which have been provided to them.

But surely there are some people in the Great Co-Ordinating Sheltered Workshop in New York who know their ACNs, PCNs, and their arses from their elbows? From the UN News Centre :

"There are still many areas that we have not been able to get people to, many areas are still, particularly on the western coast of Sumatra, unreachable by land," Kevin M. Kennedy, the Director of the Coordination and Response Division of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told a news briefing in New York of the Indonesian provinces that officials have dubbed the disaster's "ground zero."

He said that in the coming days the relief operations would be calling on international military assistance to help repair key infrastructure, such as bridges, culverts and roads, to allow delivery of food and assistance in Sumatra and Aceh province.

Mr. Kennedy noted that while helicopters now being used are "absolutely critical" to the operation, they are an expensive way to bring in aid. A Black Hawk helicopter carries about a half ton of food. "Now that's extremely important because it may prevent people from losing their lives : but what we will need are roads that we can drive 20-ton and 10-ton trucks down at a much lower cost and deliver much more assistance," he said.

How true, how true. But how are we to get the 10- and 20-tonne trucks in there? A C-130 can carry a 2.5 tonne truck, that's about all it has room for. More importantly, how are we to get the bulldozers, the diggers, the massive 40-tonne graders, and all the other really heavy roadbuilding paraphenalia there ASAP? There are 2 ways : use a USAF or RAF C-17A transport aircraft (the C-5B and AN-124s can't feasibly operate from the airfield with heavy loads), or by ship. And even the C-17s would have difficulty carrying in the heaviest gear, and likely couldn't carry a grader in on a runway that light. Moving in this infrastructure-building equipment in by air would disrupt, or rather, completely stop, the delivery of such "non-essential luxuries" as food and water that are the only things keeping tens of thousands of people alive.

Guess who's providing the ships? They're on their way, HMAS Kanimbla sailed just the other day for example. The US is providing a helluva lot more. The UN is providing, oh, approximately none. But they're sending out news releases saying that they'll be "calling for" this stuff, probably a few hours before it arrives, so they get the credit.

Please UN, get the Farnarckle out of the way and let people who have the faintest clue what they're doing do their jobs. You're not just unhelpful, you're counter-productive. To use the Australian vernacular, you're not just as useless as tits-on-a-bull, you're a millstone around our neck. Go eat a Canape, and figure out how to get your mitts on a greater proportion of the money. Whatever gets you out of the way. To put it bluntly, Just Go and Co-Ordinate Off.

BTW - to the UN people who are actually doing good work, distributing food from the UN warehouses in Sri Lanka and elsewhere, you guys are excepted. You're one of us.

The BBC's "Malign Hand at work"

Here's a malodorous, mendacious and entirely fictional little piece:

Is the BBC responsible for the Missing Children?

Europe has been scandalised by the public exposure of paedophile rings operating in the highest levels of Government. Following the tsunami, conspiracy rumours have been circulating on the internet of how children have been disappearing from refugee camps, taken away by "child traffickers", and who is responsible.

The BBC has so far escaped any directly proven linkage with the paedophile rings known to be operating, despite having "reporters" in all of those areas. The BBC site from all appearances is a mainstream media outlet, conveying a range of entertainment and current affairs programming.

Is the BBC implicated in organised Paedophilia or merely a broadcaster? Was there a malign hand at work, or is the BBC just engaging in responsible reporting?

Let us know what you think. Is this just anti-BBC sentiment on the web or something more worrying?

You can read and send us your views from this page.

It has become a way of life for people to look at things with a suspicious eye, especially if the BBC is involved. I think it more now than before. The Kelly Affair and distorted reports have damaged the publics' confidence and trust. It's sad because the BBC with it's global network could handle world crisis in a much better way.
M.Oron, London

While I am sure the BBC are just reporting what they see I am also sure that they know who is responsible. They may have used that information in broadcasts but why weren't the camps warned? There wasn't much they could have done but forewarned is forearmed.
C.Retin, Trinidad & Tobago

I have actually worked for the BBC, my firm belief is that the peadophiles occupy the highest echelons, but due to the threat of criminal prosecution, this rumour of "no BBC paedophilia" is just disinformation put out by a lying and paranoid BBC in the interest of keeping itself going. Come on, the "reporters" are right there where children have vanished. How could anyone believe they weren't involved.
I.Diot, Philippines

Of course, such a smear job would never appear on any reputable website.

Now go look at what the BBC is currently showing. Here it is... equally malodorous, mendacious, but it's up there on the Web for all to see, truth is stranger than fiction. Note the carefully selected "representative readers opinions" they show, I've quoted the first three that currently appear.

Why did US base escape tsunami?

Following the tsunami, conspiracy rumours have been circulating on the internet of how the US base at Diego Garcia managed to avoid casualties while other islands suffered huge losses.

The US Navy's official Diego Garcia website said the island wasn't hit by the devastating tsunami because it is surrounded by deep waters and the grade of its shores does not allow for tsunamis to build before hitting land.

The site said the earthquake generated a tidal surge on the island estimated at six feet.

Is America a power for good or ill in the world? Was there a malign hand at work, or has America's role in the crisis in fact been a model of humanitarian leadership.

Let us know what you think. Is this just anti-US sentiment on the web or something more worrying?

You can read and send us your views from this page.

It has become a way of life for people to look at things with a suspicious eye, especially if US is involved. I think it more now than before. The Iraq war and WMD reports have damaged the publics' confidence and trust. It's sad because America with it's military might could handle world crisis in a much better way.
G.Amirthalingam, London

While I am sure the US did their research when picking the site for their base I am also sure that the tsunami was expected. They could have used that information to protect themselves and their property but why weren't the places around warned? There wasn't much they could have done but forewarned is forearmed.
Mehrun Rahaman, Trinidad & Tobago

I have actually worked and lived on Diego Garcia, my firm belief is that the island and propositioned ships stationed there were damaged severely, but due to the importance of the base in the supply line for operations in Iraq, this rumour of "no damage" is just disinformation put out by a lying and paranoid US government in the interest of security. Come on, every other little island in that part of the world was wiped out. How could anyone believe Diego Garcia was spared.
Mark C, Philippines

For the hard-of-thinking, I am in no way implying that any employee of the BBC is or ever has been a paedophile.

I am saying that the degree of anti-US bias in the BBC is approaching the bizarre, and by just exchanging a few tokens within the semantics - "words" within the "sentences" - you can see just how insulting and derogatory their product can be sometimes.

As Natalie Solent of Biased BBC writes :

Many of those readers, both from the West and the East, are uneducated scientifically. Many of them are living in countries and cultures where paranoid conspiracy theories about the Americans and/or the Jews are common currency (even more than they are in certain left-wing circles here in the UK.) Many of them move in circles where the wish to kill an American or many Americans in revenge for this colossal crime which, they are told by their neighbours and their own newspapers, the US has perpetrated on their people need not remain a fantasy.
"Why did mother die, father?"
"Because of the Americans, my son. Some say they let off an atom bomb under the sea. Others only that they knew a great wave was coming but left us to die while warning their own people."
"My teacher says that's propaganda. For all that they are foreigners, for many years we have known that the BBC is more trustworthy than the papers here. We should see what the people at the BBC say."
"Even the BBC dare not deny it."
Rumours like this have started race riots, pogroms and even wars. Once started they go on for decades. There is no more fertile soil for terrorism than a sense of historical grievance. Fifteen years from now I expect young men now children to be blowing up aeroplanes because they grew up believing that hundreds of thousands of their co-religionists were killed by the Great Satan. The BBC will have played a part in that.

Hat Tip : A Western Heart

A Truce with Al Qaeda

Or rather, one of their tentacles.

Cross-posted from The Command Post :

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

Radical Islamic groups best known for smashing bars and violent support of the jailed cleric Abu Bakar Bashir have sent large contingents of their members to Aceh with funding provided by the Indonesian Government.

At Banda Aceh's airport, trucks with supplies to be ferried to disaster-struck areas by US Navy helicopters have been unloaded by members of Bashir's group, the MMI, including one man proudly wearing an Osama bin Laden T-shirt.

Members of the FPI (Islamic Defenders Front), famous for its attacks on nightspots in Jakarta, are now living in Banda Aceh in tents provided by the army and the Ministry of Social Affairs.

The head of the FPI contingent, Hilmy Bakar Almascaty, said about 250 members had come to Aceh with tickets provided by the Government; 800 more on board an Indonesian warship would help clean up the devastated province.

"FPI is not only an organisation that destroys bars and discos, it has a humanitarian side as well that the media is not happy to expose," Dr Almascaty said.

Early yesterday 50 of his troops wearing FPI shirts went through a series of military drills before heading off to the city to help collect corpses still not recovered from the millions of tonnes of rubble.

Dr Almascaty said his group had held discussions with the head of the army, General Ryamizard Ryacudu, the Defence Minister, Juwono Sudarsono and the Vice-President, Jusuf Kalla, and had come to Aceh with the full backing of the Government.

He said his members were in Aceh to help, although the army in the past has often been accused of using Islamic groups to fight its battles, especially in divided communities like Aceh.

Dr Almascaty agreed that, as well as helping gather corpses and clean up mosques, the FPI had come to play another role.

He said he was determined to ensure the arrival of foreign soldiers and aid workers did not lead to a breakdown in the system of syariah, or Islamic law, which has been in nominal operation in Aceh for several years.

"Nominal" is the keyword here, rather than "actual". It's never actually been practiced by the majority.

"If anyone who comes here does not respect the syariah law, traditions and constitution, we must give them a warning and then we must attack," he said.

Dr Almascaty said his group was co-ordinating with MMI and with another hardline group banned in many countries, Hizbut Tharir, in a plan to curtail Western influence.
[...]
The head of the MMI contingent, Salman al Furizi, said his group of 50 young men from central Java had flown to Banda Aceh on a military aircraft. He was prepared to put aside his vehement opposition to the US because of the help it was providing.

"We have to understand this is a disaster, so we are not talking about other problems," he said.

Dr Almascaty also welcomed the Americans and other traditional enemies of his group. "At the moment they have come as an angel," he said. "We don't know about tomorrow."

I can assure Dr Almascaty that in view of his words, in Australia the feeling is entirely mutual.

From The Australian :

Indonesia has promised Australia it will boost security in the war-torn province of Aceh amid fears aid workers at the centre of the world's tsunami humanitarian mission may be caught in the crossfire of the separatist struggle.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said yesterday there would be growing concerns for safety in the coming months as Australians helped rebuild the devastated western Sumatran coast.

Fuelling the volatility of the region, fundamental Islamic activists are also flooding into the region in a bid to guard against what they regard as dangerous Western influences.
[...]
Indonesian sources say the chief concerns for the safety of aid workers and unarmed defence personnel are Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatists looking for publicity, criminal gangs attached to GAM, and Islamic fundamentalists concerned about the influx of Westerners. One hardline Islamic group took aim yesterday at an Australian Catholic charity, Father Chris Riley's Youth off the Streets, planning to set up an orphanage in tsunami-ravaged Aceh, warning it not to try to convert Muslim children.

Chief of the radical Islamic Defenders Front, Hilmy Bakar Almascaty, warned the group to stick purely to humanitarian work in Aceh -- the only Indonesian province to have fully implemented Muslim sharia law.

Mr Downer said while it was "political suicide" for Islamist militants to attack now, there would be concerns for Australians as the program dragged on. "The assessments of our agencies is that it is very unlikely that Islamists groups would commit acts of violence against people providing humanitarian aid simply because it would be an act which would be enormously unpopular in Indonesia, would set their cause back a very long way, even if it was some sort of an attack on foreigners," he said.

Almost as unpopular as the attack on Bali. And more so than 9/11, the Jakarta Hyatt and Embassy bombings. Oh wait, they did those anyway...

Michel Brugiere, director of Medecins du Monde, or Doctors of the World, said that "given the context of the area where we are operating, we have very strict security measures in place". He said: "Our teams are told that they should not fly in American army helicopters, since we're concerned that they could be a particular target."

Actions speak louder than words. We'll see if Al Qaeda, er, Jamayah Islamiyah, er, the FPI and MMI's deeds match their words.

It should be no surprise that Indonesian military resources have been put at these groups' disposal. The Indonesian Government, and the Indonesian Military, are not monolithic organisations, each is composed of power blocks : more a loose confederacy of power bases controlled by different ruling families. Some back the West. Some don't. Aceh has been in practice a fiefdom of one of those that don't. So was East Timor until comparatively recently. The central government has little say in where various units of the Indonesian Military go, and what they do when they get there.

*Sigh* once more.

They've Figured it Out

In a previous article, I wrote :

I was heartened by the complete lack of reporting by Al Jazeera et al of the "Jews Caused the Indian Ocean Tsunami" meme. Perhaps they're still trying to figure out how they did it. But perhaps even they have limits.

Nope.

From the Jerusalem Post :

The earthquake that struck the Indian Ocean on December 26, triggering a series of huge waves called tsunami, "was possibly" caused by an Indian nuclear experiment in which "Israeli and American nuclear experts participated," an Egyptian weekly magazine reported Thursday.

According to Al-Osboa', India, in its heated nuclear race with Pakistan, has lately received sophisticated nuclear know-how from the United States and Israel, both of which "showed readiness to cooperate with India in experiments to exterminate humankind."

Well of course. I mean, exterminating mankind has to be high on their Zionist list of "things to do today".

Since 1992, the magazine argued, leading geological centers in Britain, Turkey and other countries, warned of the need "not to hold nuclear experiments in the region of the Indian Ocean known as 'the Fire Belt,' in which the epicenter of the earthquake lies.

Geologists labeled that region 'The Fire Belt' for being "a dangerous terrain that can move at anytime, without human intervention," Al-Osboa' wrote.

Despite warnings not to carry out nuclear experiments in and around the 'Fire Belt', "Israel and India continue to conduct nuclear tests in the Indian Ocean, and the United States has recently decided to carry out similar tests in the Australian deserts, which is included in the 'Fire Belt', the Egyptian weekly magazine wrote.

Funny, you think we in Canberra might have heard about that. Not the nuclear tests (though I think we would have heard about those too, the ANU monitoring station down the road is pretty good at this type of thing), the drastic displacement north a few thousand kilometres that put central Australia in the "Ring of Fire". Oh well, on with the motley.

"Last year only, Arab and Islamic states have asked the United States to stop its nuclear activities in that region, and to urge Israel and India to follow suite," Al-Osboa' reported.

Although Al-Osboa' does not rule out the possibility that the tsunami could have been caused by a natural earthquake

How... objective of them.

... it speculates however that, "while it has not been proved yet, there has been a joint Israeli-Indian secret nuclear experiment [conducted on December 26] that caused the earthquake."

The Egyptian weekly magazine concludes in its report that "the exchange of nuclear experts between Israel and India, and US pressure on Pakistan which is exerted by supplying India with state-of-the-art nuclear technology and preventing Islamabad from cooperating with Asian and Islamic states in the nuclear field, pose a big question mark on the causes behind the violent Asian earthquake."

The first of many such articles, I suspect. This, like the equally mythical "Jenin Massacre" will probably be The Canonical And Revealed Truth for Hamas within the year, and the radical Left within a few years after that. And quoted as fact in SMH op-eds soon thereafter. *Sigh*

The current poll results show the pedestrian and rational "Plate Tectonics" still holding a handy lead over the nearest rival, "Karl Rove", with "Bush not signing Kyoto" and "HAARP tests" a distant equal third. Must be my readership, I suppose.

UPDATE: A more exact translation of the Al-Usbu' article is over at MEMRI, the Middle Eastern Media Research Institute.

Today's Brain Link

From the BBC :

A medical device which allows a woman to sleep by switching off an implant in her brain has been stolen.

Rita Carlisle, 53, from Knaphill, Surrey, suffers from a condition called essential tremor.

The stolen remote control gadget sends out pulses to calm the condition and can be switched off so she can rest.

Ms Carlisle, who now struggles to sleep, was carrying the device and £600 cash in a handbag which was stolen in Farnborough, Hants, on 23 December.

She said: "I'm extremely tired, I'm getting three to four hours' sleep a night, I can't turn the machine off.

"I had my second operation on 13 December and it was my first outing after leaving hospital.

"I just wish the people who stole the machine would give it back.

"They have totally ruined Christmas and the New Year. There was �600 in my bag as well so they have had a good Christmas out of me."

Ms Carlisle says she is hopeful, but not certain, that the hospital caring for her - the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in central London - will be able to replace the device.

I'm sure they'll be able to. Just look up the records, find the frequencies the controller operates on, get a new controller and change the firmware or hardware frequency setting accordingly.

Very, very good records are kept of frequencies and codes used to program and control therapeutic devices. Accidental reprogramming of heart pacemakers etc is obviously undesirable.

Engineering Heroes

The great difficulty in explaining the kind of work that I do is doing it in terms that people outside the profession can understand. In this article, meant for both Engineers and the Lay Public, I'm trying to give a clue as to why I do the things I do, and why I find it so exciting and rewarding. I also try to "push aside the curtain" so the reader gets an idea of what really goes on behind the scenes of any great Engineering work.

One of my personal heroes is Isembard Kingdom Brunel, one of the more famous Giants of 19th Century Engineering. Even some non-engineers have heard of him.

With John Scott Russell, he was responsible for the design of the Great Britain, the first steamship ever to cross the Atlantic. Ten years later, in 1853, he started work on the design of the Great Western, which remained the largest vessel in existence until 1899

As one reader has pointed out, that's not quite right. I really should stop using the BBC as a source without very carefully checking every word. From Wikipedia

He used his prestige to convince his railway company employers to build the Great Western, at the time by far the largest steamship in the world. It first sailed in 1837. The Great Britain followed in 1843, and was the first iron-hulled, propeller-driven ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

Building on these successes, Brunel turned to a third ship in 1852, even larger than both of its predecessors. The Great Eastern was cutting edge technology for its time — it was the largest ship ever built until the RMS Lusitania launched in 1906 — and it soon ran over budget and over schedule in the face of a series of difficult technical problems. The ship is widely perceived as a white elephant. Though a failure at its original purpose of passenger travel, it eventually found a role as an oceanic telegraph cable-layer.

His failures were at least as spectacular and imaginative as his successes, he constantly "pushed the limits" of the possible, while remaining a quirky and very human personality.

In 1843, while performing a conjuring trick for the amusement of his children, he accidentally swallowed a half-sovereign coin which became lodged in his windpipe. A special pair of forceps failed to remove it, as did a machine to shake it loose devised by Brunel himself. Eventually, at the suggestion of Sir Marc, Isambard was strapped to a board, turned upside-down, and the coin was jerked free.

See what I mean? My kind of bloke. I managed to stop Andrew from putting coins etc in his mouth by performing simple sleight-of-hand magic, producing 20c pieces from ears and armpits, and he's now pretty good at doing simple stage magic himself - but not putting coins in his mouth. Not bad for a 3-year-old.

Anyway, the spirit of Brunel lives on. With a few exceptions, large engineering projects these days are too complex to be attributed to any one individual. Teams of hundreds or thousands are required. Usually. Even Brunel had to work with the great shipbuilder John Scott Russel when it came to building the Great Eastern, and manufacturing it required thousands of fitters, turners, rivetters, ironmongers, all doing their jobs with precision and accuracy.

That brings me to one of the great achievements of the bygone century, the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan.




I say "the bygone century", as it was launched 7 years ago (it takes awhile to get to the outer planets), and was constructed over a long period before then. It's only in June last year that it got near its destination. But all that work, the fruits of the labours of thousands of dedicated individuals, could have been negated had it not been for the presistance and intuition of one man. Boris Smeds.

Last June, Scientists were thrilled when NASA's Cassini probe successfully began orbiting Saturn after a 3.5-billion-kilometer, seven-year journey across the solar system. The 6-ton spacecraft immediately started returning spectacular pictures of the planet, its rings, and its 30-plus moons. It was just the beginning of Cassini's four-year tour of Saturn's neighborhood, and while scientists expect amazing discoveries in the years to come, the most dramatic chapter in the mission's history will happen this January, when scientists attempt to peek beneath the atmospheric veil that surrounds Saturn's largest moon, Titan—a chapter that might have ended in disaster, save for one persistent engineer.

In a collaboration with the European Space Agency, Cassini, in addition to its own suite of scientific instruments designed to scan Saturn and its moons, carries a hitchhiker—a lander probe called Huygens. A stubby cone 3 meters across, Huygens was built for a single purpose: to pierce the cloaking methane atmosphere of Titan and report its findings back to Cassini for relay to Earth.

So it was quite a shock when Boris Smeds, a graying, Swedish, 26-year ESA veteran , who normally specializes in solving problems related to the agency's network of ground stations, discovered in early 2000 that Cassini's receiver was in danger of scrambling Huygens's data beyond recognition.

Making that discovery would lead Smeds from his desk in Darmstadt, Germany, to an antenna farm deep in California's Mojave Desert, after he and his allies battled bureaucracy and disbelief to push through a test program tough enough to reveal the existence of Cassini-Huygens's communications problem. In doing so, Smeds continued a glorious engineering tradition of rescuing deep-space missions from doom with sheer persistence, insight, and lots of improvisation.

Read the Whole Thing to see what happened. It's in an article in the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) SPECTRUM Online magazine, and I first heard the story on Boxing day, at a barbecue. The article captures in essence the difficulties, challenges, triumphs and tragedies that are all a part of "Rocket Science", engineering of space missions.

Of course, the Huygens probe is due to enter Titan's atmosphere in 7 days (7 days, 8 hours, 32 mins and 44 secs as I write this, but who's counting?) so it might all turn to custard anyway. We'll see. That's another part of Space Engineering, the nail-biting wait to see if it all worked - even if you personally had nothing to do with it. When it's your own work, it's not so much nail-biting as sheer terror. Been there, done that.

I'll mention one more engineering hero : Ron Avitzur.

"It's midnight. I've been working sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. I'm not being paid. In fact, my project was canceled six months ago, so I'm evading security, sneaking into Apple Computer's main offices in the heart of Silicon Valley, doing clandestine volunteer work for an eight-billion-dollar corporation."

The complete story makes fascinating reading for any programmer (Been there, done that once more), but also gives an insight into the sometimes stranger-than-fiction world of Software Engineering.

Universal Warning Label

Global Swarming

From another article at Space Daily :

A team led by University of Maine scientists has reported finding a potential link between changes in solar activity and the Earth's climate.

In a paper due to be published in an upcoming volume of the Annals of Glaciology, Paul Mayewski, director of UMaine's Climate Change Institute, and 11 colleagues from China, Australia and UMaine describe evidence from ice cores pointing to an association between the waxing and waning of zonal wind strength around Antarctica and a chemical signal of changes in the sun's output.

At the heart of the paper, Solar Forcing of the Polar Atmosphere, are calcium, nitrate and sodium data from ice cores collected in four Antarctic locations and comparisons of those data to South Pole ice core isotope data for beryllium-10, an indicator of solar activity.

The authors also point to data from Greenland and the Canadian Yukon that suggest similar relationships between solar activity and the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere. They focus on years since 1400 when the Earth entered a roughly 500-year period known as the Little Ice Age.

The researchers' goal is to understand what drives the Earth's climate system without taking increases in greenhouse gases into account, says Mayewski.

"There are good reasons to be concerned about greenhouse gases, but we should be looking at the climate system with our eyes open," he adds. Understanding how the system operates in the absence of human impacts is important for responding to climate changes that might occur in the future.

It also keeps Politics from getting in the way. Here's a graphic - I can't vouch for its accuracy, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was correct - from Shaking Spears :


Rather puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

Finally, a quote from an article by another A.E.Brain, my uncle Ted, who died early last year.

In 1832, when a fierce Atlantic storm breached the harbour wall at Lynmouth, the whole village was swept away with great loss of life. The subsequent public enquiry found that the disaster resulted from an act of God and the failure of the Harbour Commissioners to maintain the harbour wall in an adequate state of repair.

Previous generations, being more narrowly religious, would have absolved themselves of all responsibility and regarded such calamities as natural; they were simply to be accepted with stoicism as "the will of God".

There are many parallels with the current differences of opinion on who is to blame for global warming, although in this modern world no public official is ever likely to be found guilty of incompetence or dereliction of duty; in passing recent legislation even our New Labour Cabinet has thought it necessary to preserve Crown immunity against charges of malfeasance.

Let us consider some of the similarities in responsibilities:
The Harbour Commissioners inherited a situation which for the moment was stable, but deteriorating. Almost certainly they had nothing to do with the previous investment or the circumstances underlying its provision. Does one build a harbour to last 50 years and with what safety margin? How certain is it that a once-in-a-100-years storm will not arise while I am in office? The spending of public money, i.e. taxes on the community, is an onerous responsibility.

The design of a safe harbour wall is a technical problem involving hydrostatic pressure (physics), strength of materials (civil engineering) and historic data concerning harbour-wall failures in the past (records preserved in files in the care of the Admiralty). However, the financing which determines what can be built is decided by politicians who are virtually illiterate in all technical matters and have one over-riding short-term goal - to get re-elected; this can best be achieved by keeping down taxes. Designing regardless of cost is not an option.

Since global warming is a technical problem potentially affecting the survival of every vulnerable individual in much the same way as the harbour wall at Lynmouth, we would hope to make any long-lasting decisions on a rational basis. The issue will not go away and if we try to forget about it, a decision by default is still a decision.

As was the decision not to install a Tsunami-warning system for the Indian Ocean, to warn against a 1-in-a-thousand-year event. Anyway, anyone interested in the subject should Read The Whole Thing. Because there's a veritable Global Swarming of articles on the subject, some (on both sides) quite rigorous, but all too many not letting facts or evidence get in the way of a pre-judged agenda.

But even that long list doesn't mention everything; such as The Case of the Peruvian Plants.