(CNN) Russia attempting to develop nuclear space weapon to destroy satellites with massive energy wave, sources familiar with intel say. Quoting,

Russia is trying to develop a nuclear space weapon that would destroy satellites by creating a massive energy wave when detonated, potentially crippling a vast swath of the commercial and government satellites…

See (Wikipedia) Starfish Prime, a 1962 high altitude nuclear test, detonated at an altitude of 250 miles. Quoting,

Starfish Prime caused an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that was far larger than expected, so much larger that it drove much of the instrumentation off scale…

The weaponeers became quite worried when three satellites in low Earth orbit were disabled. These included TRAAC and Transit 4B.[13

Starfish Prime created  artificial  Van Allen radiation belts :

…In the months that followed, these man-made radiation belts eventually caused six or more satellites to fail,[14] as radiation damaged their solar arrays or electronics, including the first commercial relay communication satellite, Telstar, as well as the United Kingdom’s first satellite, Ariel 1.[15] Detectors on Telstar, TRAAC, Injun, and Ariel 1 were used to measure distribution of the radiation produced by the tests.

In 1963, it was reported that Starfish Prime had created a belt of MeV electrons.[17] In 1968, it was reported that some Starfish electrons had remained in the atmosphere for 5 years.[18]

(CNN) House Intel Chairman announces ‘serious national security threat,’ sources say it is related to Russia. Quoting,

One of the sources who has seen the intelligence confirmed that “it is, in fact, a highly concerning and destabilizing” Russian capability “that we were recently made aware of.”

Sensitivity has two  possible roots:

• The need to protect sources and methods.
• Disclosure would affect society at large in a negative way.

“Destabilizing” hints the latter. One of my long-term concerns has been North Korea’s Plutonium, Iran’s Uranium / Suitcase Nukes,

where Russia may have obtained or retained custody of refurbished weapons, with possible deployment in the continental U.S.

 

 

 

 

(CNN) Boeing executives to convene all-hands safety meeting at its 737 Max factory after yet another crisis.

See Boeing & Safety Culture Redux.

Boeing is building planes the way Detroit used to build cars. A crash course on manufacturing ethics won’t fix the Boeing wagon.

Every structural bolt or nut in a plane or motor vehicle has a prescribed tightness. While it is permissible to initially tighten with an ordinary ratchet wrench, it is mandatory to use a torque wrench for final tightening. This tool has an integral measuring function to precisely reach the prescribed tightness.

Even the Detroit comparison  pales. When is the last time a door fell off a Chevy? Combined with other reports involving loose bolts, it reeks of the semi-intentional, of willful recklessness — or  drug use.

 

Henry Kissinger, so recently deprived of his own voice, speaks to us now through his voluminous writings on realpolitik.

The current issues of U.S. foreign policy are fraught with moral dilemmas  that resist solution or even separation. Realpolitik does not address these dilemmas. It does offer predictions. If the following are not addressed as commitments that must be met,

• Security guarantees for Saudi Arabia.
• Arms for Ukraine.
• Arms for Israel.

.where the list order is deliberately counterintuitive,

• The dollar will crash.
• The bond market will tumble.
• Alternatives to SWIFT will rapidly proliferate.
• The split off of the Global South will accelerate.
• Russia/Iran will emerge to rival China as a threat.
• The world will become more distinctly unpleasant than it is now.

Republicans, remember that Kissinger was a Republican. This is your watch. He speaks loud to you now, through the veil.

 

 

 

 

(Click to enlarge.)

Turkey Feathers. 18×24″, oil on panel.

This started as an action painting.

Just in time. Good with leftovers.

(CNN) Israel says it is ‘at war’ after Hamas surprise attack.

Israel’s hacking expertise is second only to NSA. Israel intensively monitors Gaza electromagnetic emissions. So how did Hamas evade detection? The definitive answer cannot be reached unless technological surprise can be excluded.  With exclusion, there are only a few possible categories:

• A new dark web infrastructure running on virgin hardware, concealed by something analogous to CDMA or spread spectrum.
• Steganography.
• The low-tech Kremlin solution: typewriters/carbons, paper and pencil.

If technological surprise reveals, it will come as a thunderclap.

How did Hamas gain confidence their plans were undetected? Do they have a mole?

 

 

 

 

(CNN) Prigozhin would be latest in line of Putin critics who met an early death.

Quoting from Putin Replaces Surovikin; the Search for a Suvorov Ends,

…As his public posture gets louder while Putin’s voice softens, why is Prigozhin still alive? The answer is the  premise of the syllogism: Putin’s overriding goal is to win his war.

Prigozhin is in conflict with the Conglomerate Imperative: Grow by absorption. The M.O.D. wants to own Wagner. This does not mean an immediate acquisition; absorption could result in the loss of Wagner’s edge.  But Putin’s clock is running; see Putin Disappears; Illness a Factor? Prigozhin risks a  prolonged, violent succession struggle…

The delicate balance of need/risk has since been overturned by the Wagner Group rebellion. The necessity of Prigozhin’s liquidation was augmented by his status as standard-bearer of the extreme right wing.

Like Prigozhin himself, the extreme right wing combines:

• Galvanic energy and ideology essential to co-opting national will in the service of naked aggression.
• A direct goad to the phlegmatic Russian military.
• Threat of a violent ethos to state power.

The need to manage is illuminated by  the incitements to violence of Aleksandr Dugin and Igor Girkin.  They have followers, who may not be   known or completely characterized by tendency towards violence. From this murky group come the assassins and revolutionaries of the Right.

The deeper the purge of this group, the safer Putin would be, while weakening the national will for extended war. The depth of a purge, shaping societal discourse, offers hints of how modest a “victory”  Putin would accept.

Power Transition in Russia? Revolution? Part 3 — Has Revolution begun?, advised “Watch Prigozhin.” Since Girkin has already been arrested, Prigozhin’s place is taken by Aleksandr Dugin, and more obscure acolytes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(CNN) The new twist in Hunter Biden’s case is a huge political headache for his father. Quoting,

But top GOP lawmakers immediately launched a flurry of attacks on Weiss, despite the fact that he was first appointed under Trump, claiming that far from insulating the case from political influence, his appointment as a special counsel was an attempt at a cover up. The GOP has turned against Weiss because he has not substantiated their evidence-free claims that Joe Biden conspired with his son to enrich their family while he was vice president and they also claim that the plea deal originally offered to Hunter Biden was a “sweetheart” agreement.

I’m not personally a believer. Perhaps Republican campaign strategists are, or claim to be. Quoting from Ezekiel 18:19-20-21-23 The Message (MSG),

“Do you need to ask, ‘So why does the child not share the guilt of the parent?’ “Isn’t it plain? It’s because the child did what is fair and right. Since the child was careful to do what is lawful and right, the child will live truly and well. The soul that sins is the soul that dies. The child does not share the guilt of the parent, nor the parent the guilt of the child. If you live upright and well, you get the credit; if you live a wicked life, you’re guilty as charged. “But a wicked person who turns his back on that life of sin and keeps all my statutes, living a just and righteous life, he’ll live, really live. He won’t die. I won’t keep a list of all the things he did wrong. He will live. Do you think I take any pleasure in the death of wicked men and women? Isn’t it my pleasure that they turn around, no longer living wrong but living right—really living?

My condolences to a president who, after the death of his first wife, commuted daily from his Delaware home to the Senate, to be a parent to his sons.

CNN Projection: Ohio voters reject effort that would make it harder to amend state constitution.

This was anticipated in Repeal of Roe Versus Wade; the Beginning of a Republican Decline.

Quoting,

The Democratic Party now possesses the active voice, against which there is no effective political counter-strategy.

We continue from Congressional UAP/UFO Hearings Part 1.

Reminder. This discussion requires that tic tacs are alien spacecraft, or from some parallel universe or hyperspace related to “here”, which may be false.

The tic tac descends from 80,000 feet  to near sea level in less than a second, or a few seconds, without breaking a sweat, which is attributed to advanced technology. What about the air? If it is a physical object, it pushes air.  A napkin calc follows, with these simplifications:

• Tic tac is cylindrical, 15 meters length by 5 meters diameter, with domed ends.
• Long axis is aligned with  the direction of travel.
• Weight of atmosphere above 80,000 feet is negligible.
• Atmosphere is 100% monatomic nitrogen, no oxygen.
• Collision of nitrogen  with the tic tac is perfectly elastic; the tic tac is not heated by the collision. The atom gains energy; the energy of the tic tac is unchanged.
• The nitrogen behaves according to simple kinetic theory, while actually it would become a plasma.  It has a temperature.
• The result is an estimate of the energy used, “work”, to push the atmosphere out of the path of the tic tac in the descent from 80,000 feet to near sea level.
• The calc is for 80,000 feet in 1 second, which is then scaled.

Spoiler. We should see something resembling an elongated nuclear explosion. If you’re not math inclined, skip to the end table.

Air pressure at sea level is 14.7 pounds per square inch. This is the weight of a square column of air 1 inch wide, mostly contained below 80,000 feet.

14.7 lbs/inch^2 = 22800 lbs/meter^2  = 207,000 kilograms over the area of the tic tac end cap, which is 19.53 meter^2. This is the total mass of the air displaced by the tic tac in its journey from 80,000 feet.

To approximate the reduction of momentum transfer of the domed ends compared to flat ends, 207,000 kg is reduced by 1/3.

The atoms of what was an air column acquire momentum of

p = 2.24 * 10^10 kilograms–meters/second

The kinetic energy of this mass is

E_total = p^2 / 2m = 1.9 * 10^15  Joules

The number of moles of what was the air column = 6.9 * 10^6 moles.

Multiplying by Avogadro’s number, the number of atoms is

N = 4.15 *  10^30

The average energy of an atom after collision with the tic tac is

E_one atom = 1.9 * 10^15 / N = 4.6 * 10^-16 Joules

Where K = Boltzmann’s constant, and T  is the Kelvin temperature, the average kinetic energy of a single atom is

E = 3/2 * KT

The temperature is

T = 4.6 *10^-16 / ( 1.38 * 10^-23 )  =  2.2 * 10^7 degrees Kelvin

= 30 million degrees Fahrenheit

TNT equivalent:

One ton of TNT is equivalent to  1.9 * 10^15 Joules of energy

The former air column has acquired energy equivalent to 460,000 tons of TNT.

Table

16 miles / second,  Mach 80,     30,000,000 F,   460,000 tons TNT

8 miles / second,  Mach 40,        7.5 million   F,     125,000 tons TNT

4 miles / second,  Mach 20,        2 million F,            31000 tons TNT

The calc is useful for a craft traveling at the velocity of thermal atoms. At slower speeds, this approximation becomes inapplicable.

We studied the air because we know more about air than tic tacs. What have we learned?

To be continued shortly.