Harvard University banned military research, so the Pentagon found a university whose sensibilities weren't quite so delicate:

Engineers from Penn State University's Applied Research Laboratory and the U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Center prepare the anti-torpedo torpedo prototype for sea trials in 2000 at a test range off the coast of Keyport, Wash. The second generation prototype is undergoing land-based testing and will face another set of sea trials in 2006.

A landlocked university in Central Pennsylvania seems an unlikely birthplace for the first new torpedo in about two decades.

When the anti-torpedo torpedo begins defending U.S. warships in about six years, however, the weapon system will be a Pennsylvania native.

"For about 10 years, we've been working on the underwater equivalent of a Patriot missile," said Tom Goodall, a researcher working on the Penn State University project. "If a Navy ship should be fired on, this anti-torpedo torpedo will go out and destroy the incoming torpedo."

The Navy started looking in the 1980s for a torpedo that could pinpoint the whisper of an enemy torpedo in the water. The Navy picked Penn State's Applied Research Laboratory in 1992 to come up with the technology that would make such an anti-torpedo torpedo possible.

In this budget year alone, the lab is getting nearly $16 million for its work.

The lab has been a naval research center from its inception in 1945.

When Harvard University restored its prohibition against doing classified scientific research at the end of World War II, the Navy started searching for another university to house Harvard's successful Underwater Sound Laboratory.

In a handshake deal, Penn State agreed to accept the laboratory, and about 100 scientists responsible for developing the first acoustic homing torpedo moved to Pennsylvania.

Originally called the Ordnance Research Laboratory, the facility is now known as the Applied Research Laboratory and studies just about every aspect of naval technology.

A challenging prospect

Building a torpedo that can intercept an enemy torpedo offers a noisy challenge, says Leo Schneider, director of the Applied Research Laboratory's Torpedo Defense Program.

To do its job, the anti-torpedo torpedo must first hear the sound of a torpedo in the water -- and an ocean is far from quiet.

In addition to an ocean's normal clicks, whistles and other background noises, naval combat throws in propeller noises, sonar pings and bubbling countermeasures specifically meant to confuse torpedo homing systems.

Schneider compares the underwater chatter of naval combat to attending a rock concert where three bands are playing at the same time.

"Do it in a tunnel, so it's all bouncing around," added Goodall, the liaison between the lab and private companies working on the project.

Amid all of that noise, the anti-torpedo torpedo must pick out the faint sound of a torpedo's propeller.

"You have a friend (at the concert) in a seat 25 feet away from you, whispering and trying to have a conversation with you, and you're trying to pick that whisper out of that cacophony," Schneider said.

Schneider says the lack of direct ocean access isn't much of an obstacle. On the anti-torpedo torpedo project, the lab fed nearly six decades of underwater data into computer simulations that helped it test several ideas.

"The model allows you to do the preliminary sorting," he said.

Picking a few of the best ideas, the lab started turning them into hardware. Even then, most of the testing is land-based -- in the tanks that are the naval equivalent of wind tunnels.

The project is in a land-based testing phase that will run through next year. The next round of sea trials will start in 2006.

So far, the lab's design has passed all of its tests.

But for every advance in defense there's an advance in offense, and the offense generally has the advantage. Whether this is true or simply Russian disinformation I of course can't say, but this 2001 Newsmax article claims that the Russians have created a "supersonic" torpedo-- or, if not quite supersonic in water (where sound travels 4.5 times as fast as in the air), then at least incredibly fast:

Russia has developed new submarine-launched torpedos that travel at incredible speeds – perhaps as fast as the speed of sound underwater.
Scientific American reports in its May edition that these supersophisticated weapons have been linked to the sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk last August, and even to the arrest and imprisonment of Edmond Pope.

Pope, an American businessman, was charged by Russian authorities with spying, specifically that he had sought to buy plans for the "ultrahigh-speed torpedo."

The magazine reports that "evidence does suggest that both incidents revolved around an amazing and little-reported technology that allows naval weapons and vessels to travel submerged at hundreds of miles per hour – in some cases, faster than the speed of sound in water. The swiftest traditional undersea technologies, in contrast, are limited to a maximum of about 80 mph."

The new technology that allows for these incredible speeds is "is based on the physical phenomenon of supercavitation."

According to Scientific American, the new generation of torpedos, some believed capabale of carrying nuclear warheads, are surrounded by a "renewable envelope of gas so that the liquid wets very little of the body's surface, thereby drastically reducing the viscous drag" on the torpedo.

The new technology "could mean a quantum leap in naval warfare that is analogous in some ways to the move from prop planes to jets or even to rockets and missiles."

In 1997 Russia announced that it had developed a high-speed unguided underwater torpedo, which has no equivalent in the West.

Code-named the Shkval or "Squall," the Russian torpedo reportedly travels so fast that no U.S. defense can stop it.

In late 2000, after the sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk, new reports began circulating that the Chinese navy had bought the Shkval torpedo.

Obviously it will be more difficult to track a torpedo's sound signature if the torpedo is travelling faster, or nearly as fast, as the speed of sound.

And hitting such a fast-mover is bound to be a problem as well.

More: Dave from Garfield Ridge has an interesting analysis of the "supersonic torpedo" -- including its manifold liabilities -- in the first comment below.

Posted by: Ace at 10:48 AM | Comments (7)
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Meanwhile, here's something cool and eerie that's not bunkum at all, but totally real-- the so-called "numbers stations" operating on short-wave radio:

For decades, SWLs have been hearing stations that do nothing but read blocks of numbers, usually using a woman's voice, in a variety of languages and on innumerable different frequencies. All available evidence indicates that some of these transmissions may be somehow connected to espionage activities. These are the numbers stations, the most enduring mystery on the shortwave bands.

Even though they do not operate on any fixed schedule or frequencies known to the public, numbers stations are really very easy to hear. Just tune outside the established shortwave broadcasting or ham radio bands and you'll hear several with patient tuning. While numbers stations can be heard any time on any frequencies, most seem to be heard in North America during the evening and night hours on frequencies from 3 to 12 MHz.

Most numbers stations heard in North America transmit in Spanish. Other languages often heard include English, German, and scattered other languages such as Chinese and Russian. Almost all will use a woman's voice, although on rare occasions a man's voice might be used.

I first learned of these strange signals from reading a review for an album someone had put together, composed entirely of recordings of these seemingly-meaningless, eerie recitations of numbers.

The publisher of this strange CD set, Irdial, explains:

The radio spectrum has been used by the worlds intelligence agencies to transmit secret messages. These messages are transmitted by hundreds of “Numbers Stations”.

Shortwave Numbers Stations are a perfect method of anonymous, one way communication. Spies located anywhere in the world can be communicated to by their masters via small, locally available, and unmodified Shortwave receivers. The encryption system used by Numbers Stations, known as a “one time pad” is unbreakable. Combine this with the fact that it is almost impossible to track down the message recipients once they are inserted into the enemy country, it becomes clear just how powerful the Numbers Station system is.

These stations use very rigid schedules, and transmit in many different languages, employing male and female voices repeating strings of numbers or phonetic letters day and night, all year round.

The Internet, of course, is the place for strange obsessions of all sort, and this site, for example, is dedicated to the Numbers Stations-- and trying to crack the codes they're using. And this site has recordings of these strange signals, available for free listening.

I call this little ditty "5-6-8".

There has to be the makings of a plot in something so weird.

Update: Here's a recording of a "tones station," which may be using tones to communicate coded messages rather than numbers.

The description calls it "spooky." It is.

And this is kind of freaky too.

Update: This one starts off similar to the last one, and then it gets really creepy, with a heavily-modulated "child voice" reciting the numbers.

Weird, wild stuff.

Racist Codes on Message Boards? Personally, I'm guessing these nitwits aren't using any sort of code, but are just making up random-sounding messages in their efforts to play at being survivalist soldier boys. Cynical Nation tells of his own experiences listening in on Numbers Stations (in Paris-- how Ludlum-esque), and also links to racists passing around similarly enigmatic messages.

Posted by: Ace at 07:03 PM | Comments (33)
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A piece worth reading if you're interested in strange phenemona and especially the rational explanations for such strange phenomena.

Even before the [new Michael Keaton thriller "White Noise"] went on general release in Britain last week, authoritative-sounding trailers were being screened that purportedly contained genuine, unedited recordings of the voices of dead people.

In one, made in 2003, a woman called Ruth Baxter can be heard saying "I will see you no more" – which may well be the case, since the trailer states that she died in 1987.

...

Scientists at well-respected universities, radio amateurs and even BBC engineers have all heard the spooky voices. Their experiences are truly disturbing – not because they back the claims made in the film but because they show how easily the unwitting could end up believing that the dead can talk.

Oddly enough, the article doesn't mention what must be the most famous cinematic depiction of this phenomenon-- and the first time I'd seen it explored as a plot device-- in M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense. Bruce Willis turns up his tape-recordings of his sessions with his suicidal patient to hear ghostly whispering.

I don't believe in any of this crap, but I always love reading about it anyway. Stuff like this just strikes me as a cool conceit for a movie or book, even if it's total bunkum.

Just So You Don't Think I'm On the Blog Payola Update: It's not that I wouldn't go on the blog payola; it's just that no one's asked me to yet.

But just so no one thinks I'm pulling an Armstrong Williams and getting sweet blog-money to pimp White Noise, I'll note the film is getting a 10% fresh rating from Rottentomatoes.com, which means it's pretty bad.

Cool premise, I think, though. And I always liked Michael Keaton.

Still... sounds like a DVD rental.

But I guess you never know. The Mothman Prophecies sounded half-ludicrous and half-bore-your-ass-off, but that was a surprisingly good movie.

Another Update: Nathan tips to this page of alleged electronic voice phenomenon.

Ummm... okay, there are sounds there, and some sound vaguely like speech (one sounds like a song, actually). But what is being "said" isn't very clear at all.

"I buried Paul"/"Cranberry sauce" is a lot clearer than any of the examples of the "dead communicating via static" that I heard. So was the supposed "One little child for Satan, he gives us six-six-six" you hear when you play Stairway to Heaven backwards (at the "if there's a bustle in your hedgerow" part, in case you've never tried it).

Posted by: Ace at 06:54 PM | Comments (10)
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Apparently on the Today show this week Michael Moore proclaimed his full and undying love for America. As Ari wonders-- what precisely does he love about the country?

It's a good question, and our newstwits never seem to ask the obvious follow-up: Given your obvious discontent with nearly every institution and tradition in this country, what specifically do you love about America? Don't speak in generalities; anyone can say "I love you." Pour your heart out about the particular wonderful things you find so endearing in your self-proclaimed beloved.

"Progressives" always have trouble with this, because, of course, they focus primarily on America's flaws; they want to change America, after all. But that's a curious sort of "love" -- a "love" which manifests itself in nothing but constant criticism and denigration. Yes, apparently there's the possibility of actual love, should America change more to their liking. Which reminds me of Hillary Clinton's provisional and hypothetical pledge of allegiace to America:

While the 9th Circuit objected to the phrase "one nation under God," Sen. Clinton reportedly prefers a version of the Pledge that acknowledges America's flaws, one that begins with the words: "I pledge allegiance to the America that can be."

News of Hillary's Pledge preference surfaced last November, when MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews was explaining why he thought she would make a White House bid:

"Hillary is dying for it," Matthews said during an interview with NBC's Tim Russert. "But she's also miserable right now because of all this patriotic stuff going on. She can't stand it. I remember Hillary. ... She once said, 'I pledge allegiance to the America that can be.'

"What are we, on probation?" Matthews protested. "I mean, when is she - when is she going to lighten up about this country and say 'This is a great place' instead of her constant complaining?"

Matthews continued:

"This is too much Barbra Streisand complaining about the country. I'm sorry. I'll say it. [Hillary has] got to love this place. And you know who'll win the next presidency, if it's a Democrat, it'll be a Hubert Humphrey-style Democrat who loves this country, who's happy, who's optimistic about the country. If it's another begrudger, another fearmonger, then Democrats don't deserve to win."

This was back before Matthews went full in the bag for the liberals, remember, in an apparently calculated effort to counter-program against Fox, which of couse has a lock on non-liberals.

But what sort of "love" is this? What kind of "love" is predicated on the ostensible beloved changing dramatically in order to appeal more to the alleged lover?

"Progressives" will often say that they love America so darned much that they feel compelled to constantly point out its flaws in order to improve it.

But you try this with a spouse. Tell your spouse, "I love you so damn much I just can't ever announce what I love about you, but rather must constantly criticize and castigate you in order to make you more like the imaginary perfect person in my head, which is the one I really love, but which you could actually be. One day. If you play your cards right. And get some breast augmentation surgery. I mean serious surgery-- I want you out there competing favorably with Plenty Up Topp and Kayla Kleavage."

I don't think that that sort of a protestation of love could possibly work with a person. I think if you tried that, you'd be sleeping on the couch.

Which is pretty much where the Democrats are, actually, thanks to this "maybe I can love you if you change completely to appease me" love affair of theirs. They're all on the political couch right now, getting the ideological silent treatment from the electorate, while George W. Bush -- far less reluctant to say "I love you" with no caveats attached -- gets to sleep in the Big Bed and have his way with the American people at least four or five times a week, sometimes twice a day when they're feeling particularly amorous.

Metaphorically, of course.

Update: Tall Dave observes that of course he "loves" America; it's just all the Americans (whom he's called "the stupidest people on earth") he hates.

Which is a standard leftist problem. They claim to love "the masses," but they seem to despise actual people. They "love" things in ultra-idealized abstraction while despising the actual, tangible, real-world exemplars of these things.

What else can explain them claiming to want to help the poor people of the world, and yet cheerleading natural disasters?

Posted by: Ace at 11:18 AM | Comments (12)
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Well, he's all broken up about it.

Me? I'm ecstatic. He's finally back on the market!

Update: Did I say "he"? I meant "she." Of course I meant "she."

Sure, Brad Pitt can just turn me into jelly with his witheringly blue eyes and his pecs sculpted by Rodan,* but Jennifer Anniston has...

Well, you know, whatever it is women have that makes them so, um, "hot." You know-- she's good a very keen eye for kitschy-cute handbags.

* You may think I mean the celebrated French neoclassical artist, but in fact I mean the giant Japanese bat-monster. He's a real talent, and has been featured prominently in several of Yoko Ono's highly-publicized but under-attended "installations."

Posted by: Ace at 10:29 AM | Comments (11)
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The Village is officially released on DVD Tuesday, but your video store might be renting now (as mine is).

It's hard to review this movie for those who haven't seen it, as it relies, as M. Night Shayamalan's past efforts have, upon a big surprise ending.

So I can't say much without spoiling the big mystery. Except:

Don't bother. Wait for HBO. When you're very bored and have absolutely nothing at all better to do, read, or watch.

I've tried to avoid actual spoilers below, but it's hard to completely avoid implying certain things. That said, if you want to read why you should stay away from this movie in more detail, read on past the jump.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:51 PM | Comments (17)
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I'd like to put a big Drudge Siren on this entirely unexpected development, but a mere siren would understate my absolute shock at these people now blaming America and Jews for earthquakes:

The January 4, 2005 NBC Nightly News showed clips from alArabiya television, which is popular all over the Arab world, where many commentators seriously "proved" that the Big Satan (the US) and the Little Satan (Israel) set off underground nuclear explosions which resulted in the earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

There's also video clips of these Steven-Hawking-level geniuses pontificating on plate tectonics and subsurface hydrogen-bomb detonations. Apparently the Koran has much to say about the potential seismic effects of nuclear explosions.

The Koran. Is there anything it can't do?

Via Isn't It Rich, who has more about the Army's new weapon-firing robots, in case you missed it.

Top Ten Other Bad Things About the Jews -- Apart From Causing Tsunamis -- According to the Koran

10. Sura 9, Verses 5-7: And there shall rise in the west a trashy woman named Madonna; and she will falsely proclaim the teachings of the mystical Jewish Khaballah; and she will never shut up about it, always droning on and on in that ludicrous fake British accent. Such is blasphemy.

9. Sura 21, Verse 3: You know who really sticks in Allah's craw? Topol ("Tevye" from Fiddler on the Roof). And do not even get the Maker of Worlds started in on Ben Gazzarra.

8. Sura 16, Verses 10-11: By their patronage of Chinese restaurants shall ye know them. The streets will overflow with discarded beef-and-broccoli cartons, which food is unclean and an abomination in Allah's eyes.

7. Sura 18, Verse 11: By the testimony of God Himself, the Mary Tyler Moore show will never be the same when Rhoda leaves for her own spin-off.

6. Sura 12, Verses 11-13: And the Hebrews will rise up, and they will take control of the broadcast media; and this is abomination, for they will continue giving Pat O'Brien a career. Allah has no patience for Pat O'Brien. Neither is He too thrilled with Bob Costas.

5. Sura 4, Verses 15-16: And do not trust a people who puts so much emphasis on finding a quality delicatessen. A nice chicken salad is a lunch; it is not a philosophy of life.

4. Sura 8, Verse 5: Wherever the Jews go, they spread discord and lies; listen not to Mitch Albom, nor read his over-praised books, for he is a crashing bore.

3. Sura 2, Verses 5-10: If you work in an office, do not work in an office amongst Jews in the months of September or October; for they take off a sick number of days. Like, wicked-sick. It's like one gargantuan forty-day Shabbat. And well and truly, you will be stuck doing all the work, and coming in on weekends, which is hateful in Allah's eyes, for you will miss the first half of football season.

2. Sura 12: And the Prophet Mohammed asked his followers, "What is the deal with latkes anyway? The way those people go on about them, you'd think they were talking about grilled shrimp."

...and the Number One Other Bad Thing About Jews, as Detailed in the Koran...

1. Sura 7, Verses 7-9: No matter what they say, Hannukah is not a real holiday, and they will only admit this when you ask them point-blank. And then they will giggle at you, and you will feel embarassed for being deceived for so long.

Yes, Another Re-Post, What an F'n' Shock, Huh? Update: See, I was putting together a top ten in my head, when I realized that I was just doing this same list over again, basically. Same references-- Ben Gazzara, Topol.

So, I figured, what the hell. It's going to be the same basic jokes all over again anyway; might as well just repost the thing.

Posted by: Ace at 12:15 PM | Comments (31)
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A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real deficit reduction:

The U.S. government ran a $1 billion budget surplus in December, helped by a rise in corporate tax payments, the Congressional Budget Office said in its latest budget report released on Friday.
The surplus, which compared with an $18 billion deficit in the previous December, helped create a smaller fiscal deficit for the first three months of the 2005 fiscal year, than in the same quarter of the prior year.

"In December, most corporations make their fourth quarterly payment of income taxes," the CBO said, adding that corporate tax refunds were lower than in the previous December.

Congress' nonpartisan fiscal watchdog said the 2005 shortfall now stands at $114 billion, about $16 billion less than for the same period last year.

Ride the deficit's ass, Vinny. Ride it-- like a Viking.

Thanks to Betsy, who also has this great Scrappleface take-down on Barbara "Boo-Hoo" Boxer.

Posted by: Ace at 12:01 PM | Comments (2)
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I hit this way back when in a long post.

This is the part most worth reading, probably because I didn't write it:

A Nasty Business
(published in the Atlantic Monthly, January 2002)

Gathering "good intelligence" against terrorists is an inherently brutish enterprise, involving methods a civics class might not condone. Should we care?

...

I cannot use his real name, so I will call him Thomas. However, I had been told before our meeting, by the mutual friend—a former Sri Lankan intelligence officer who had also long fought the LTTE—who introduced us (and was present at our meeting), that Thomas had another name, one better known to his friends and enemies alike: Terminator. My friend explained how Thomas had acquired his sobriquet; it actually owed less to Arnold Schwarzenegger than to the merciless way in which he discharged his duties as an intelligence officer. This became clear to me during our conversation.

"By going through the process of laws," Thomas patiently explained, as a parent or a teacher might speak to a bright yet uncomprehending child, "you cannot fight terrorism."

Terrorism, he believed, could be fought only by thoroughly "terrorizing" the terrorists—that is, inflicting on them the same pain that they inflict on the innocent.

Thomas had little confidence that I understood what he was saying. I was an academic, he said, with no actual experience of the life-and-death choices and the immense responsibility borne by those charged with protecting society from attack.

Accordingly, he would give me an example of the split-second decisions he was called on to make. At the time, Colombo was on "code red" emergency status, because of intelligence that the LTTE was planning to embark on a campaign of bombing public gathering places and other civilian targets. Thomas's unit had apprehended three terrorists who, it suspected, had recently planted somewhere in the city a bomb that was then ticking away, the minutes counting down to catastrophe.

The three men were brought before Thomas. He asked them where the bomb was. The terrorists—highly dedicated and steeled to resist interrogation—remained silent. Thomas asked the question again, advising them that if they did not tell him what he wanted to know, he would kill them. They were unmoved.

So Thomas took his pistol from his gun belt, pointed it at the forehead of one of them, and shot him dead. The other two, he said, talked immediately; the bomb, which had been placed in a crowded railway station and set to explode during the evening rush hour, was found and defused, and countless lives were saved.

On other occasions, Thomas said, similarly recalcitrant terrorists were brought before him. It was not surprising, he said, that they initially refused to talk; they were schooled to withstand harsh questioning and coercive pressure. No matter: a few drops of gasoline flicked into a plastic bag that is then placed over a terrorist's head and cinched tight around his neck with a web belt very quickly prompts a full explanation of the details of any planned attack.

I don't see this as a difficult choice. I understand that we are doing bad. But I also understand we are doing bad in order to do good. That happens sometimes.

Thomas, you'll note, didn't just torture a terrorist; he actually "murdered" one in cold blood. (I don't know if we can really call this "murder," but I've no doubt as to what the statutes would say about it.)

Did he do wrong?

Should he have just allowed the bomb to detonate?

Would that have been the more moral choice? By what calculus?

Update: Those who say "torture never works" have to address this expert's eyewitness testimony to the contrary.

Or else they're just being disingenuous and intellectually dishonest.

Related: Michelle Malkin links another piece from Andrew ("St. Elmo's Fire") McCarthy:

A number of us have tried to grapple with the hard stuff about the war against terrorists — the intersection between abiding respect for human dignity and the imperative of pressing for intelligence that might save human life. ...

But the critics should do us all a favor: If you're going to talk the talk of righteous indignation, be ready to walk the walk. Be ready to tell Americans exactly what protections you want to give to the terrorists. Be ready to tell Americans that you would prohibit coercive interrogation even if it were the only way of saving a hundred thousand of them.

Posted by: Ace at 10:13 AM | Comments (14)
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Not really worth reading, even if you are a blogger and want a little ego-stroke.

This is maddening: The article tries to explain how bloggers have shaped the public debate.

Of the following, which do you think is mentioned, and which is not mentioned at all:

1) the largely left-wing attack on Trent Lott for his allegedly "racially insensitve" comments about Strom Thurmond

2) the largely right-wing attack on Dan Rather's use of forged documents to attempt to unseat a sitting President before an national election

I'll give you a hint: this is ABfuckin'C News we're talking about.

Posted by: Ace at 10:07 AM | Comments (4)
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