Ads are everywhere extolling the virtues of bullion, and they keep pointing to ‘record high gold prices’ as a reason for snapping up some piece of shiny yourself. The wisdom of jumping in on an asset that has already had a run-up in its price aside, gold is not at any kind of record high.
Once you adjust for inflation, gold is 40% below its peak value 30 years ago. Back then it was at $2,318 an ounce, in today’s dollars. This week it closed at only $1400. Don’t believe the hype.
Mystery Missile Launched Near LA: “J. L. Tympanum writes ‘CBS News is reporting the launch of an unidentified missile of the coast of California. No one wants to take credit for it.’ The article has visuals taken from a CBS affiliate’s helicopter, and a Navy spokesman said it wasn’t theirs.
Sometimes, reality beats science fiction. This is one of them: The heart of the Soviet missile defense system looks like a building designed by Industrial Light & Magic. It’s believed to be the most precise orbital tracking system in the world. More »
The NYT has an investigative piece on the $140 million a year organization called ‘Dairy Management.’ It recently teamed up with Domino’s to develop a new line of pizzas with 40 percent more cheese, and proceeded to devise and pay for a $12 million marketing campaign, says the Times. Who is this organization? Well, it’s a ‘marketing creation’ of the US Department of Agriculture.
From the NYT (emphasis ours):
Consider the Taco Bell steak quesadilla, with cheddar, pepper jack, mozzarella and a creamy sauce. ‘The item used an average of eight times more cheese than other items on their menu,’ the Agriculture Department said in a report, extolling Dairy Management’s work — without mentioning that the quesadilla has more than three-quarters of the daily recommended level of saturated fat and sodium.
The article says that most of the money comes from a fee on dairy industry, and the program’s success is measured by the amount of cheese being consumed.
The article is fascinating, particularly the part about what happens to all the leftover milk fat and whole milk. Most Americans (I am not one of them, I love whole milk.) prefer skim or 2% milk.
‘A vast amount of leftover whole milk and extracted milk fat results,’ says the Times. The government apparently used to actually store the excess in caves in Missouri. Weird.
Emanuel Likely to Announce Chicago Mayoral Run Friday: “White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel will announce as soon as Friday whether he is going to run for Chicago mayor, a source close to Emanuel said Monday night.”
Any country that’s lasted a hundred years or more has no doubt seen a few scandals, and the US of A is no exception. The Book of Bastards ($10) chronicles…
As Republicans fly lawyers to Alaska for a fight with the Tea Party movement, the apparent upset of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski in a Republican primary could create an opening for Democrats to compete in a state where their prospects had been written off.
It was easy to overlook amid the discussion of the Bushehr reactor starting up, but Iran’s military, always busy, tested a new ballistic missile last week. According to Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi, the new Qiam-1 liquid-fueled ballistic missile marks an advance in countermeasures against ballistic missile defenses.
Vahidi:
He explained that the missile is equipped with a smart navigation system, which decreases the possibility of it being targeted by other projectiles.
Vahidi added that the liquid-fuel missile’s launch time is low due to its smart targeting system.
‘It enjoys enhanced agility due to the scrapping of its fins,’ Vahidi stressed, adding that the missile can hit targets with high precision.
And indeed, the missile’s lack of tail fins is readily apparent in the pictures.
Vahidi didn’t explain why a lack of fins would be advantageous either for accuracy or against defenses, but it’s not hard to guess. Fins are mostly useful for stabilizing a missile as it re-enters the atmosphere, but that’s beside the point if the missile has a separating warhead. And a separating warhead — not the lack of fins per se - would represent a noteworthy technical milestone, potentially contributing to greater accuracy and certainly presenting defenses with a smaller target.
(That’s not to say that going finless doesn’t have its own potential advantages, as related by Gen. Seyed Mehdi Farahi of Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization.)
But that’s not all. The implication of Vahidi’s statement, if we are to take it at face value, appears to be that the Qiam-1 has a separating, maneuvering warhead. That strikes me as too many advances at a stroke, but I’ll defer to the missile experts. Geoff Forden’s absence is keenly felt already.
It’s a non-lethal laser as you probably guessed, but nonetheless, the Assault Intervention Device (measuring 2.2m in height) causes some serious heat when shot at an escapee or fighty prisoner. More »
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