Lots of defense folks have been talking about how useless aircraft carriers might be in a shooting war with China.

The theory is, China is working on a ballistic missile that can target ships and therefore no carrier is going to get near enough to the battle space to matter. We should simply build smaller carriers for everyday use, cut our capability and call it a day.

Not so fast. It turns out that attack and defense is a cycle (who knew?) and we can build weapons that would work against China's new missile.

Ronald O’Rourke, a CRS specialist in naval affairs, argues that China’s new DF-21D ASBM, dubbed the “carrier killer,” can be defeated by “employing a combination of active and passive measures” along the ASBM’s “kill chain.”

Despite dire warnings by a variety of defense analysts that the U.S. risks losing an aircraft carrier to a Chinese ASBM, O’Rourke said the U.S. Air Force has already “taken [China’s] kill chains apart to the ‘nth’ degree.”

...

First, the U.S. Navy could do more to control electromagnetic emissions or using deception emitters.

Second, it could also acquire systems for disabling or jamming ChinaÂ’s long-range maritime surveillance and targeting systems, destroy ASBMs in various stages of flight, and decoy and confuse ASBMs as they approach their intended targets.

Options for destroying ASBMs in flight include developing versions of the SM-3 Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) interceptor missile, including the planned SM-3 Block IIA.

The U.S. Navy also should accelerate the procurement of the Sea-Based Terminal interceptor, which is the planned successor of the SM-2 Block IV terminal-phase BMD interceptor.

Wait, the Chinese aren't 150 feet tall and invincible? There new weapon isn't the end of warfare as we know it? Next you'll tell me weapons development is a constant cycle of innovation and adaptation, offense and defense by both sides.

The report says we could also build missile killing lasers, which...yes, yes we should. Because lasers.

Two related posts here and here talk about the need to build a new class of surface ships the Navy is going to need to house the radars needed to deal with the new threats.

There will always be people who say, "oh we can't compete with (fill in the blank). Don't buy it. It's simply a matter of will. Do we as Americans have that will any more?

And since not everyone is a naval strategy/defense geek...open thread.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:58 AM | Comments (326)
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Nice graphic in the article assault rifles and homicide: some statistics.

All rifles (that includes the AR-15) were involved in fewer homicides in 2011 than blunt objects, fists and knives.
1.5X more homicides were committed with blunt objects.
2.2X more homicides were committed with fists.
5.2X more homicides were committed with knives.

Image h/t Michael Ramirez more...

Posted by: CDR M at 05:57 PM | Comments (778)
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Dear lawyers....3 years of "law school" does not make you a priestly class fit to rule over a free people.

A federal judge has ordered the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to lift age and other restrictions on the sale of the morning-after pill, making the drug available to women of all ages over the counter.

The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Edward Korman reverses a 2011 decision by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius not to allow the sale of emergency contraception without a prescription for women 16 and under.

Let me just stop here. You know what "women 16 and under" are? Girls. Young, inexperienced, non-consenting children. They can't go on school field trips without permission slips or in many places take an aspirin at school without parental approval. They do not have the same rights or responsibilities as adults.

Back to the judge...

Korman blasted Sebelius's order as "obviously political" and designed to avoid a fight with religious groups ahead of the 2012 presidential election.

"Even with eyes shut to the motivation for the Secretary's decision, the reasons she provided are so unpersuasive as to call into question her good faith," Korman wrote.

"She has failed to offer a coherent justification for denying the over-the-counter sale of levonorgestrel-based emergency contraceptives to the overwhelming majority of women of all ages who may have need for those drugs."

Politics entering a decision? Oh heaven's no, we mustn't have that. Why letting free people hash out issues and arrive at public policy through the consent of the governed? No, no. Why the rubes might arrive at the wrong decision. Our judicial parents simply can't allow us wayward children to make those kinds of choices. Well, actual children can make life and death decisions but not adult citizens. Or something.

At some point we need to either get control of the federal judiciary or just admit the actions of the political branches are nothing more than the first drafts of policy that judges can rewrite as much as they want.

Added: I focused on the judicial overreach here but alexthechick (a lawyer but hate the sin, not the sinner type thing) gets to the real danger here.

I know everyone is sick of my rant on this but ignoring all the parental rights problems and the morality problems and the whole underage girls extraordinarily likely to have been at least statutorily raped problems, there's the health problems.

Yes, this is overly simplified but Plan B and its ilk work by dumping a massive amount of hormones into a woman's system. Except. Except these aren't women. These are girls. These are human beings with immature hormonal systems and it is not the best idea in the world to shock their systems like this. Not to mention that there are matters about proper dosage amounts and how to take it and what to do when it results in a miscarriage as opposed to a failure to implant. As someone with an utterly boned endocrine system, you don't want to mess up someone's development in the early teen years. You really and truly don't.

Then there's this. Jesus fuck make up your minds judiciary. Either human beings are not fully mature adults until after age 25 as has been held in some death penalty cases or human beings are fully capable of making decisions about significant medical issues all on their own when they are 12. Pick. One. You. Fucking. Fucktards.

I'm sure her briefs don't use that language but her point stands...some kids, er "women" are going to get very sick or worse from the effects of this decision. But hey...they shall be the honored dead. Eggs, omelets, etc in the cause of liberalism.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:50 AM | Comments (469)
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Thursday, April 11th
6:30pm-8:30pm
e-mail for details. nynjmeet at optimum dot net

ItÂ’s a nice looking place, in the middle of the West Village, and best of all, their Happy Hour lasts until 8:00pm!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:29 AM | Comments (105)
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FRIDAAAAAAAY!

I got nuthin'. Have a great weekend.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:46 AM | Comments (696)
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Princeton Grad: Ladies You Better Find Your Husbands in College

From a letter by Susan A. Patton, Princeton grad of '77,  in the Daily Princetonian:

For most of you, the cornerstone of your future and happiness will be inextricably linked to the man you marry, and you will never again have this concentration of men who are worthy of you.

Here's what nobody is telling you: Find a husband on campus before you graduate. Yes, I went there.

...My younger son is a junior and the universe of women he can marry is limitless. Men regularly marry women who are younger, less intelligent, less educated. It's amazing how forgiving men can be about a woman's lack of erudition, if she is exceptionally pretty. Smart women can't (shouldn't) marry men who aren't at least their intellectual equal. As Princeton women, we have almost priced ourselves out of the market. Simply put, there is a very limited population of men who are as smart or smarter than we are. And I say again--you will never again be surrounded by this concentration of men who are worthy of you.

Of course, once you graduate, you will meet men who are your intellectual equal - just not that many of them. And, you could choose to marry a man who has other things to recommend him besides a soaring intellect. But ultimately, it will frustrate you to be with a man who just isn't as smart as you.

Here is another truth that you know, but nobody is talking about. As freshman women, you have four classes of men to choose from. Every year, you lose the men in the senior class, and you become older than the class of incoming freshman men. So, by the time you are a senior, you basically have only the men in your own class to choose from, and frankly, they now have four classes of women to choose from. Maybe you should have been a little nicer to these guys when you were freshmen?

<Sam Kinnison voice> Is she right?

Well there are seasons to our lives - particularly so for women. And as of yet no amount of technology or academic theorizing or outraged blog posting can alter this basic fact.

Is this fair for women? Nope - not at all. But then sometimes Mother Nature is just a flat-out sexist bitch.

So given the reality of men and women and biology Patton's advice is about 100x more likely to result in overall happier lives for Princeton female graduates than anything they'd ever learn in a Women's Studies class. It's certainly not the only path to satisfaction (after all Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey did eventually find a Mr. Passey) nor is it a guarantee - but on the other hand why play Life on difficulty setting Challenging if you don't have to. The prizes are going to be the same either way.

James Taranto has thoughts here. Plus more from Bookworm, Instapundit, and WRM.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:25 PM | Comments (654)
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According to this report, he may have decided he'll get credit enough for trying to work with the Open Borders committee.

In other words, itÂ’s a lot easier to walk away, basically unscathed, and portray himself as the reasonable guy who genuinely wanted reform but couldnÂ’t negotiate with the unreasonable Democrats, than it is to stick around and actually get the bill done.

If he does walk away, it would be great boon to the Rational side of the immigration debate. We could put him forward as The Guy Who Tried to Broker a Deal with the Open Borders Committee, But Who Was Thwarted At Every Turn.

Posted by: Ace at 03:41 PM | Comments (467)
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Oh.

In related news, David Letterman desperately wants you to continue not watching him.

Posted by: Ace at 03:11 PM | Comments (142)
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Does this sound funny to you?

I wouldn't be laughing.

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said on Monday that what had originally appeared to be a brazen daylight kidnapping of a young couple from a street in Washington Heights on Friday was in fact the beginning of a surprise birthday celebration in the Pocono Mountains for a man who had just turned 30.

“The person who was supposed to be surprised by the party found out about it,” Mr. Kelly said at a news conference at Police Headquarters. “So then, you know, Plan B was to kidnap him and take him to the party. This was an additional surprise.”

They abducted the couple to take them to the Poconos.

But they didn't maintain the fiction the whole ride. At some point -- soon into the fake kidnapping, I hope -- they pulled off their masks and revealed the joke.

Eh... I'm not sure the relief of finding out you're not being kidnapped outweighs the terror of thinking you are.

Hoo Boy: zsasz linked this -- April Fools Day Murder Prank Goes Awry.

Here was the joke -- which I admit, is kind of funny. A woman called her sister and said, "You have to come over and help clean up; I've killed my husband. We have to dispose of the body."

I imagine she had some fake blood and a fake body waiting. (Maybe the husband? But I don't think you can fake death.)

Well, the sister called the cops. What a pill.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:01 PM | Comments (177)
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And it's a very ugly story.

The Days of Rage scared off much of the mainstream support for the SDS, leaving only the most radical. In December of 1969, the SDS War Council was held in Flint, Michigan. Largely led by members of the Weather Underground, what came to be known as the Flint War Council meeting was the rhetorical stage for much of the bloodshed that was to come.

Over three hundred people attended, including Kathy Boudin and future Obama neighbors Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, who were both extremely active Weather Underground leaders. Decisions were made to ‘go underground’ and to launch an offensive against the United States. At one point, they discussed whether white babies were valid targets and Boudin gave a speech referring to mothers of white babies as ‘pig mothers.’

For the War Council event, the group hung posters of their heroes, including Lenin and Mao. They also put bullets on posters of people they hated and reviled, including Ronald Reagan and Sharon Tate. Tate was the pregnant actress who had been murdered by the Manson family. Bernadine Dorhn praised Charles Manson and his group’s horrific Tate-LaBianca murders to the attendees of the War Council: “First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into the pig Tate's stomach! Wild!”

Stranhan's article includes a reference to "The Aristocracy of the Left." Those are well-chosen words-- these people are largely wealthy, which accounts for their ability to get early parole without renouncing their hateful, violent beliefs, and garner university positions without anyone bothering to note the names of the middle- and lower-class plebians they may have murdered in their quest for self-actualization.

Boudin's parents are Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, who were members of the violent 1960s radical group the Weather Underground. They are in prison for their part in the murder of two police officers and a guard as the result of a robbery of a Brinks armored car in New York at the late, unradical date of 1981. The Times, while having space to describe the origin of Chesa's unusual name—Swahili for "dancing feet"—apparently didn't have room for the names of the men murdered. They were Sgt. Edward O'Grady, police officer Waverly Brown, and Brinks guard Peter Paige. You can read more about them at www.ogradybrown.com. Nor does the Times mention the obvious point that the nine children left fatherless that day—the youngest was 6 months old—have also missed the pleasure of having their fathers see their accomplishments over the years.

Last week, AllahPundit wrote:

Incidentally, there’s another reason why the Weathermen honor roll may have gotten a little more leeway from liberal intellectuals than, say, Ward Churchill has: To varying degrees, they’re all children of privilege. Ayers’s father went on to become the head of one of Illinois’s biggest utilities; his friendship with the head of a major Chicago law firm later helped Dohrn land a job during her post-Weathermen phase. Boudin grew up in Manhattan, went to Bryn Mawr, and then wrangled a lighter sentence for herself then her accomplices in the Brinks job got thanks to help from one of her father’s law partners. These connections were their conduit back into polite liberal society (polite enough for Ayers to make the acquaintance of a future president) and made them “respectable” enough to employ at places like Columbia. Class warriors that they are, I wonder how much they enjoy the irony.

There's actually a good talking point for these murderers and bombers there. If they wish to prove the US is ruled by the wealthy aristocracy, and pampers the children of the wealthy and well-connected while ignoring the lower-class victims of their murders, they could cite the most compelling evidence of all: Their own murders, their own forgotten victims, and their own re-entrance into polite society without even the pretense of remorse.

But oddly enough, they don't mention that.

Posted by: Ace at 01:09 PM | Comments (313)
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