Iran is smuggling advanced weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, into Iraq to be used by extremists against American troops, the US military charged on Sunday.
US military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox told reporters in Baghdad that Iran was shifting sophisticated arms such as “RPG-29s, explosively-formed penetrators (EFPs), 240 mm rockets and Misagh-1 surface-to-air missiles” across its borders into Iraq.
An EFP is a feared roadside bomb which when it explodes emits a white-hot slug of molten copper that can cut through the armoured skins of US military vehicles.
I hadn’t noticed, or noted it last week, due to my travel schedule and poor internet connectivity, but last Monday was the sesquicentennial anniversary of the birth of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. He was the first, even before Goddard, to lay out the mathematical and physical foundations of spaceflight.
But unlike Goddard, he was a theoretician only, and never built any hardware. So I don’t think he ever said “Hold my vodka, and watch this…”
I had a first on Friday night–a Lileks-like moment. I’m often recognized by my name badge at space conferences, but when I checked in at the American counter at LAX on Friday night, the agent recognized my name on my driver’s license, and asked if I was the space blogger. He told me that space was supposed to be about exploration, not a jobs program. I told him that it actually was a jobs program, but that it should be about space settlement.
Anyway, thanks for the service–usually I have to schlep my bag over to the X-ray myself, but he told me that for Fort Lauderdale, he could put it on the conveyor behind him.
Until yesterday, Michigan hadn’t won a game since Bo Schembechler died, last November. Let’s hope that the rest of the season will go much better. Mallett actually looks like a better natural quarterback than Henne ever has. It’s not obvious who should start next week, even if Henne is healthy.