A Radical Looking Warship

On January 16th, The U.S.S. Independence LCS-2 entered the fleet.  Built for speed and fighting off of coasts, this new class of littoral warships may be just what we need to deal with the rising number of pirates plaguing the shipping lanes in Africa and Asia.

The stealthy tri-maran design can do over 40 knots and cruises at half that speed.  Besides being fast, she carries one helicopter and can carry UAV drones.  An assortment of guns rounds out the capabilities of America’s newest warship.  Her sister ship, the Coronado, had her keel laying ceremony in December.

More pictures can be found at the ship’s website and at the USN’s official page.

After watching this video, I think the Independence wouldn’t look out of place in a Star Wars flick:

Brown Wins Senate Race in Massachusetts

All the networks are calling it for Brown with 70% of the precincts reported in.  He won convincingly, 53% to 46% for Coakley and it will be interesting to see if the percentage holds up.  Given the voter fraud that gives Democrats around 5% extra in the race, this was a very solid win.

Good news for now and we’ll have to wait and see if this kills Obamacare.  I suspect it will as Democrats up for re-election this year will be very scared after this debacle.  The last minute campaigning by President Obama did nothing to stem the populist tide and may have hurt things.

November is looking good for the Republican Party.

Is Mexico Becoming a Failed State?

One of the things that struck me about visiting Mexico last year was the feeling of being in an unstable environment.  Military road blocks were common as were people carrying concealed pistols in their vehicles.  You could feel the tension once you got away from the tourist areas and into the poorer ones.

That was Southern Mexico and things are far worse in the North. This sobering article in The Atlantic captures the growing instability that narcotics traffickers have generated in our Southern neighbor.  Corruption is endemic in Mexican society and it quickly becomes hard to tell the white hats from the black hats or even if there are any white hats.  If things escalate this year and they appear to already, we are going to have a huge problem on our border.  What would happen if we suddenly had a big refugee influx crossing into the States?

That is a contingency we have to plan for but I doubt our government will.  The lack of interest in foreign affairs that the Obama administration suffers from will mean if this happens it will be a complete surprise to them.

Good News in the MN Governor’s Race

Norm Coleman isn’t going to run after all.  I, for one, am very relieved to read this as I think it would have been a disaster. There would have been a revolt amongst the activists and Tea Partiers which would have dragged down other races.

Odds are that Marty Seifert will get the endorsement but things could change by convention time.  It will be interesting to gauge the mood at the precinct caucuses on February 2 and that may give a clearer picture.  Depending on who the new delegates and alternates are there could be a big shakeup in what direction the state GOP will go.

I think anyone who isn’t a fiscal conservative will be dead meat.

Odds and Ends for the Weekend

Haven’t been feeling very well and it has killed my writing the last few weeks.  Adding insult to injury, I broke a tooth 5 minutes before the local dentist closed for the weekend and have to wait until Monday to get something done.

Anyway, I ran into quite a few interesting things on the Net during all this and will put them in this post while I plot out a rather large one on the very bad economic news this month.

First up is a low budget docudrama aimed at educating kids about the Battle of Bunker Hill.  Since we live in a very visual age, I think the idea for the whole series has a great deal of merit.

Next is a fascinating find of the earliest known Hebrew writing. It dates 400 years earlier than the previously oldest Hebrew discovered and suggests the Old Testament is well, older than thought.  The content is very much like the scriptures and contains commandments on how to treat orphans, the poor, and slaves.

Ever buy expensive running shoes?  That may be making a fundamental mistake about running if this article is correct.  All I can say is that is my natural way of walking when barefoot so I wouldn’t be surprised if the theory pans out. No matter what, the prices commanded by these shoes is ludicrous.

Finally, a cautionary story about how success can corrupt the creative process to the point of destroying a project.  Duke Nukem 3D was a hugely successful videogame released in 1996 and the sequel was promised almost immediately.  Last year it was cancelled after an insanely prolonged development that showed no sign of completion. At least it no longer is the king of vaporware!

Horrific Disaster in Haiti

The reports coming in from Haiti indicate that a true catastrophe has happened that may be as bad (or worse) than the tsunami that hit Indonesia.  Estimates of over 100,000 dead are on the low end and the human suffering is great.  The U.N. peace keeping HQ was completely leveled with no survivors.

Once again, please pray for the survivors and their rescuers.

Massive Earthquake in Haiti

Initial reports are that it was a magnitude 7.0 that collapsed a hospital in Port-au-Prince and damaged many buildings.  Communications are cut and I expect there will be a large death toll since the epicenter was inland. 

Pray for those affected, it is going to be bad.