Random Thought

Really?  
"Actually I'm from Iowa,I only work in space."Kirk to Gillian in
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

Looks like the King of Thailand is going to have to endorse the coup
leaders and thus make it legit.

The real diehards in East Ukraine look to not be giving up yet.
Though if Putin gives up on them then I wonder what's left for them.

And as far as the Western Conference Finals in the NBA it looks like
it is going according to script with both teams winning on their home
court.

Thailand ... as usual.

Vietnam, notice the silence in the media since the first days? Nobody wants to put china off. You would think our media would jump on any "action happening" but when getting political critical...censorship. But it's fine when it's about this Weiwei puppet faker. Anyway, everyone involved in the riot got arrested and are being sentenced now. Well, nothing surprising. I said it all along whether you are a national celebrity or some random guy, you end up 6 feet under if you are openly anti-sino in those asian nations. And no criminal investigation whatsoever.

Ukraine: for a couple days the media say (supposedly) Chechenians coming to support the separatists. I dunno it sounds strange. For one they are suppressed by russia. On the other side having the pro-russians coming would weaken them in Chechnya. In any case, the separatist still get supplied even thought they are pretty much at the end of the road. It's sounds strange. And then some russian passport were found among the dead separatists.

Flight MH370: As expected all the chinese ping findings turned out duds. They just wanted press to make them look capable no matter what.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27615173

Now we are coupling planet hunting with alien listening. It's a bit problematic since the star and planet line-up. *shrugs*

Well a lot of Sonics fans are talking of how Ballmer bailed and decided to buy the Clippers.OTOH it looks like Hansen is in for the long haul.Interesting today's paper noted that among the investors still remaining are members of the Nordstrom shoe store family.I take this as a rather positive sign,since
the Nordstroms have a long affiliation with Seattle pro-sports.
Ballmer on the other hand and despite his big pockets may have just been there long enough to show he was interested in getting a team and not necessarily one in Seattle.
My prediction is it will be at least a couple more years before Seattle gets another NBA team,it could be
up to a decade or more.After all it did take Minnesota about 30 years between the lost of the Lakers to
L.A. to the time they finally got the Timberwolves,so why should Sonics fans think the process should
be shorter for us?
Also I doubt that Seattle can get a team as long as Clay Bennett has any say with the NBA.  

Ballmer had to leave MS because he's more of a bureaucrat and less of a leader or visionary. So I'm baffled by the obvious PR praisings for him leading the clippers to new heights. I have doubts about this. The price tag is fine but being that high the gains won't be great. You are probably right. *shrugs*

Certain people still advertise to buy/sell gold. *heh* The reason spike we got in recent years I bet I will never see it ever again until I die.

And what's with the (short) notice to submit a plan to deal with "conflict minerals" to US regulators by Monday. It's not like this is a new issue nor didn't the government already research the problem. It's more like trying to coordinate negotiation with certain source countries. That's one reason why there's a new acting up towards a certain country. Just another political show to glance over.

Well the whole Ballmer thing was about him having all the money to back Hansen's group.Now it looks like Sterling isn't going away without a bit of a hassle.Though it's doubtful he could win a court case.
I read Sonics Rising on SBNation and they tend to be pretty good at keeping up with
what's going on.Though AFAIG they had to remind people that Ballmer buying the Clippers does not mean they are coming to Seattle,rather the team will of course remain in L.A.(Hard to move a team even one that historical been rather poor performer until recently from a major market like that.)

Happy Days for Sonics fans in that that team in OKC was eliminated by the Spurs! well we have to get it anywhere we can these days...  
Though seriously I think a lot of the Thunder problems is the inability to win the Big Game or go to the next level.I think personally they have a tendency to press when they're under pressure.

As far as the Gold and Silver goes,yeah I noticed that does ads are still around.Fox News Channel
is the one place where they seem to run the most.That and Reverse Mortgages which seem to be
also everywhere these days.

Hi guys...

I'll be brief for now, got a lot to do tomorow.
Almael, check this vid and tell me what you think. Then check it again in slowest mode youtube allows
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95zDFD9hB7g#t=09
This is top news here atm, here's result of link above:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssqvx6UOvd4

AlexT wrote:Hi guys...

I'll be brief for now, got a lot to do tomorow.
Almael, check this vid and tell me what you think. Then check it again in slowest mode availible in youtube...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95zDFD9hB7g#t=09
This is top news here atm, here's result of link above (scarry stuff ahead, be warned!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssqvx6UOvd4

Edit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05m9gLftj5M

The official version is that separatists tried to shoot down aircraft with portable PZRK missile. The first video, according to many people, confirm it's a single missile, but in slow mode you can see it's series of explosions and the first is just the first.
I know what it looks like to me, but let me know what you think

Difficult to say, youtube's pause with 3 frames isn't exactly slow-mo.

From first glance it looks like the missile hit a car window, went through to the other side and explodes a bit late. Inertia & explosion carried smoke to both ends giving three plumes.

However, the plumes and the lots of smoke along the path don't add up.
The rocket propulsion smoke isn't meant to be visible, hence, it should not make that much smoke.
The plumes at the sides cannot be the same size as the main explosion even if it's a normal tandem shaped charge or even a triple shaped charge.
Here's an example for the Javelin (tandem charge)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv7sBh5aMv0
an example of a triple tank round


I have to conclude there are at least three equal sized explosions giving three distinct and seemingly not smoke-connected plumes. The other smokes along the path are smaller either due to the trees or blasts waves. I can't be sure about those.

If this happened by those untrained people I'm not really surprised.
With no sense or training for safe handling of weapons and explosives they are a danger to themselves and anybody in range. It's damn unfortunate for those innocent people around them to get injured.
I hope this all ends soon for the sake of the innocent.

-------------------
On another interesting news. The vietnamese people have started demonstrations in several european countries (Germany, France, Sweden, Great Britain etc.) and abroad (US...). Nothing in the media so far. There's a bit of a stir at the UN, though. The interesting thing is:
China says it's a dispute among brothers
the Vietnamese government says the same (obviously they already "belong" to China)

Quite an interesting political play to watch, although, it's hard to follow with all the censorship.

-------------------
Astronomers are ''surprised" by the discovery of a mega-earth planet!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27669572
Seriously, you gotta be either stupid or short-sighted not to realize there's no physical law forbidding this. It's rare, sure, but not impossible. The fact that we found it so soon and close by (560Ly) only means it's quite common.

It's not about untrained people, it's series of explosions from unguided missiles we call "nurs" here.
These guys http://4put.ru/pictures/max/616/1893865.jpg
It's been a while since i seen bombings in the middle of civilian zones...

Ah, Zuni rockrets. I thought so. Makes a lot more sense than some RPG/stinger type. It's strange, thought, how low and horizontal the first one flew. I wonder if it's some kind of new laser guidance added like the precision guided Hydra 70...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbEBKY9arYQ
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/apkws-ii-hellfire-jr-hydra-rockets-enter-sdd-phase-02193/
But considering that those people are lucky to be alive. If it were canister warheads there would be only mince meat left.

I forgot to explain - the building which suffered is city's administration building which is held by separatists, although it's mostly formally so - there's civilians all over the place and aside from a few people with guns, sandbags and tires - it's the usuall day. But still it's priority target for UA anti-terrorist operation forces (ATO).

The missiles i mentioned are ex-ussr stuff, completely unguided rockets, anti-infantry, shrapnel-action.
Only a few people left alive, most died including woman with damaged legs who was still moving on video.
Here's video of plane shooting at that time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYvRpDXEir0

Well, it really caused some panic/anger, a perplexity of sorts. The official goverment version is that it's PZRK (anti-aircraft g-t-a missile) which is obviously bullshit. So it was either SU-25 or some ground weapon and it was done aither by UA millitary or by separatists to blame UA millitary...
But in any case - it really cased a lot of talks and people demand answers

"Damn, this gets worse than Africa" (C) a friend  

I see, so she didn't make it.
Looking at the explosion and how the smoke moved I guess the first one was probably from a vehicle (trying to mark the target?) and the rest was from the aircraft.

Well done getting all the videos. *kudos to your people*

It's "war" I doubt you will get answers any time soon. It's not like the first time I see this (exact same kind of case) either...(and that won't ever be solved)

I'm seeing the separatists getting more and more stronger & organized and attacking bases. If this goes on they might get to dominate the ground (at least for a while).
Then there's probably going to be some heavy bombardment. You guys should prepare for the worse in case it get's like that.

The newly elected government is under pressure to get it done quick so I doubt it will get better only more intense. In any case, watch out and get a healthy dose of flight and hide.

A handful of (Roma) Romanian day laborers / migrant workers have demonstrated for their payment rights in Germany. This is one case of modern slavery. The story is in Europe, eastern european countries and russia they are contracted for work but rarely get paid if at all. Mostly their contracts are judicially non-effective or outside EU law's reach or as in the case with Russia worthless. In addition in russia these people live in fear from the national extremists/neo-nazis. In Romania it's common for the neo-nazis to terrorize & harrassed the Roma population on a daily basis e.g. they go armed to them and try to start things.

As to the vietnamese it's pretty much a dead end already. Only the hong kong press did an article and there's only one video left (the rest has been removed) on the net about the sweden demonstration in Malmo. The rest of the social network doesn't count anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJg6Qg-JjJs
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/05/25/uk-vietnam-china-hongkong-idUKKBN0E50D220140525

Anyway, one of the largest roost ever of bird of preys was found to have 28600 birds! These falcons roost appear in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Their numbers are declining. Considering global climate changes it's probably going to be worse for the species.

Seattle raising the minimum wage to $15 has me wondering if the Unions aren't some how behind it all.
I also have to wonder if the city council wasn't trying to appease them as a means of getting them to
compromise on the new NBA/NHL arena that Hansen has been trying to build.It would be interesting if there were some connection since the Unions have been the biggest hurdle in getting the new arena
built.

AFAIG with the Bergdahl debacle,it does look like there are still a lot of unanswered questions such as
what was he really doing those 5 years he was supposedly a captive/hostage of the Taliban.Apparently
his ex- platoon mates are all in agreement:none of them seem to even like the guy and question why
they had to spend the lives of 6 or 8 other soldiers to go after him.
Wasn't Hailey, Idaho where Hemingway had his summer home in late life?

Well, Switzerland recently voted not to accept a minimum wage of 18 Euro, about double as much as being debated in Germany (I think). They also voted against buying the Gripen for 2 billion or so, about the same as if the US were to buy new rifles for the army or about 2% of the yearly military budget. Btw. the US military wastes 600-800 million small arms rounds per year. Imho, it's a myth not to be able to buy new rifles/ammo due to costs.

Despite a standing gag order it's obvious Bergdahl is anything but an american spy.
He will have to go trough a bunch of closed door sessions. Anyhow, his hometown is canceling the welcome in light of the debacle.

Correct, that's where he lived. Hemingway & his granddaughter...such a waste.

GM and the ignition switch:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/06/05/319064286/gm-ceo-says-review-found-history-of-failures-in-ignition-switch-debacle
Now, this is concerning.

Btw. it seem adaptive headlights cannot be sold in the states due to outdated laws.
http://arstechnica.com/cars/2014/06/laserbeam-headlights-not-in-the-us/
No wonder I haven't seen any despite the tech being researched & developed for a decade ago or earlier.

Boko Harem annihilated some villages killing up to 500 while wearing military uniforms. And as a certain analyst said on cnn they were "right" in doing so because they were supposedly told on off by the villagers.... What the h...!! 

The shooting and manhunt in Canada reminds me of the one in Florida a while back where a couple cops where also shot. It's all like in a movie...
Where are the mounties when you need one?

Today is the 70th anniversary of D-Day.

Yesterday someone entered Seattle Pacific University and started
a fortunately short shooting spree which was stopped when a student
monitor sprayed him with a can of mace.
What is so shocking about this is that SPU is one of the last places you
would expect something like that to happen if you lived in the Puget Sound area.

Well, I expected the 70 year celebration to be somewhat bigger but I guess it's fine like this since it's not like the olympics (that can cash in). On a side note the last indian code talker died just a day or two earlier.

Yeah, these days the string of shooting incident doesn't seem to stop anytime soon. And some Steve Urkel nerd saves the day again   (without a gun!!) (remember the Bruce Lee episode?)

Well, these days we side with plaintiffs' right to exact justice so the latest Congo incident is blamed on the dead church attenders who stole something from them.

Poroshenko seems to push for EU integration of the Ukraine. That's unrealistic and it would set a precedent for others. I doubt the EU will do this. It's more realistic to become a NATO member. The other pressing problem is the Ukraine's dependence on russian gas. There's only two months left before it gets difficult again. I doubt the EU can help for example via electricity. Germany, Switzerland, Austria are trying to get rid of atomic power and trying to expand on green energy. So the only country able to deliver extra power on larger scale is France.

And now to an official joke for a change:
The Terracotta Army isn't mentioned in any original historic documents. And the art isn't purely of chinese origin nor does it fit into contemporary chinese art.

So, I guess you know most of it from the news, so i'll just add a few smaller interesting things.

There's been some success in otherwise failing ATO (anti-terrorist operation). Not least because someone in government suggested a great idea to hire experienced pmcs to train those excuse of a soldiers and it appeared such organizations existed right here in Ukraine. However, since government is a mess - and accident happened already. Someone stole the business offer one of the companies made and began to scream that government is hiring British mercenaries!    Thankfully situation quickly calmed down because it appeared that organization only has office in UK, but most of it's assets and personnel are "home grown". Although they did fear to hire company assets directly so only training and consulting is requested at this stage.
Here's link to document that was made public. (If you checked links I posted previosly - you should recognize logo Almael )
Link

As for the rest - it's either a mess or a lie. Maybe a new president is a slight hope, let's see...

I erred.It wasn't mace that he used on the shooter it was pepper spray.

Yeah,Alex best to take a wait and see attitude on how the new administration will work out in Ukraine.
Though for a candy manufacturer he has been sounding really tough.

Did the militias have any sort of military training at all or were they simply thrown in there to deal with the Separatists the best they could?

Also from what I see in the paper Crimea is going to be a bit of a sticking point.

mitsuki lover wrote:Did the militias have any sort of military training at all or were they simply thrown in there to deal with the Separatists the best they could?

There's a few types of "militia": first is a regular army, or rather excuse for one. Most of these had very little training except for basic one. Next there's "national guard", it's formed from "Right Sector" and other nationalists - these are somewhat trained since they were preparing for year for this revolution. Then there's ex-Berkut (the swat which opposed "peacefull people" on Maidan) which are mosly forced to fight. Next there's "private" battalions, like "Donbass", "Azov" etc. founded by local oligarchs like Kolomoysky. Finally - a couple of small PMCs and independent foreign advisors which provide training and consulting.

What lacking the most is experienced troops . Urban fights are very difficult by itself and when there's a civilians just walking by it's nearly impossible and terrorists use it fully. There are rumors of a "black suits" which "terrorize the terrorists", but they are few and not significant enough. So army mostly use planes and artillery...yes, on the cities with civilians...which only anger the population and works for terrorists.

Honestly - I pity all of these men. This is useless, "artificial" war with very real deaths. You can tell by frustrated expression on faces of the corpses. One thing I'm sure of - it won't last long, the resources are depleting fast for both sides

Sounds more and more like from some thriller/scifi universe (or past Africa) but this is reality...I wouldn't wonder if it becomes part of literature. Ukraine has become part of some manga/anime show for a while already.

The number of all those groups is kind of worrisome. I mean the chaos and possible fights among them. Well, I guess we don't want those companies to cause political backlash if they get hired for combat and cause trouble like with Black Water. As it is civilians casualties are already a problem politically..

Everyone wants combat experienced troops... but that's mostly not possible. For one to get beyond being "greenhorns", troops will have to survive a certain number of fights. It's not a low number. Only then are they "experienced". Seasoned and hardened veterans comes a lot later. What I meant to say is - unless it's a full scale war and paid with lots of blood you don't get those kind of troops. Training helps a lot, though, but real combat is still something to be experienced. So I doubt this will give you much.

Yeah, it senseless at this point but man and their pride. Then there are people who get involved and can't get away, too. Being young and inexperienced....

Btw. hottest news in the computer world Eugene passed the Turing test.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/computer-becomes-first-to-pass-turing-test-in-artificial-intelligence-milestone-but-academics-warn-of-dangerous-future-9508370.html
One of the creators is from Ukraine.

ISIL (popularized as ISIS by media to avoid making western connection) have taken Tikrit. There's not much between there and Bagdad. Now this is something to watch out for.

Latest report says NASA's Moon/Mars mission will fail without cooperation with china.
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/us-approach-to-human-space-exploration/1079/
or
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=18801&page=1
Looks like we need establish friendship. Of course china is already working on it.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2014-06/05/content_17563848.htm

---------
Looks like Stargate is getting a reboot soon. Imho it's been explored way too much to create some refreshing show unless they go the way off an alternative timeline (this seem quite popular these days).

I'm not too surprised that the Insurgents have been having so much success in Iraq lately.The government there relied too much on American backing to fight their war for them and once the
U.S. pulled out it was like South Vietnam all over again.
I expect the same thing to happen in Afghanistan as well.It's not that the people want the Taliban to return to power,it's more that the police and military are either too sympathetic to the Radicals
or else aren't really willing to fight.

Yeah, I said the same way back, too. But even if it looks the same from the outside there are major differences between vietname and iraq/afghanistan.

The south vietnamese used wwii weapons until the last 2-3 years. Also congress stopping support for the last 3 years. For example on paper they supposedly received F-4 phantoms in the last few months but they actually never arrived. They got some A-7 less than a year before the end. They had no ammo and fuel. Even if they got new stuff these were useless. Everybody knew that and that's why they fled. Besides that the south vietnamese government was weakened and made dependent by american backed and executed assassinations. (see "Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War 1954–1965" etc.) The vietnamese were naive to believe nixon and got into a longer war, too. And then they had nothing to offer at the time. The rest of the world got interest in south vietnam losing, too.

Iraq has unlimited oil resources/money and had received latest western weaponry/armor several generations better than the modern weapons of the vietnam era. And that not counting the weapons from Saddam's army. Imho they got plenty of weapons, ammo and fuel. ISIL/ISIS still uses Kalashnikovs and such. The Iraqis were smart and couldn't be manipulated by us. Also the government had ties with the enemy. But the bad guys cannot be controlled. The new government is weak and has less ties, hence, ISIL went ahead with their plans. And typical for the region it's a "live or die" situation. If you are on the wrong side you get killed. That's the reason people are fleeing. Sure, there are people sympathizing, no doubt. And then the whole world has interest in iraq. And frankly Iran has interest to get rid of ISIL, too.

Right now, I think it can go both ways. But if you look at moral ISIL is stronger and  fanatic. If the Iraqi army looses the nerve or some such, e.g. sabotage by other sunnis, it's over.

Edit: And more interestingly, since the Kurds (northern iraq) are the most death threatened they have taken up arms and pushing ISIL back. Perhaps we will support them more than iraq. Turkey isn't going to be happy about that, though. And yeah, it's a joke to be worrying about the turkish embassy personnel, since turkey was on ISIL's side to begin with. I wouldn't wonder if some of them are actually turkish.