Why Am I Doubting That Assad Used Sarin?

There is a Turkish report circulating today that three victims were chemically poisoned by sarin gas. Link

The report falls short of chemical identification, instead hedging with evidence of symptoms which look like sarin poisoning. Yet sarin and sarin metabolites have distinct chemical fingerprints and isotopic signatures. The preferred method of detection is called GC/MS and it can detect very low quantities of the substance with absolute certainty. Of course, samples could be spiked with sarin, but even that would require sophistication.

I don't trust the Turks. Their President recently threatened friendly European governments with floods of refugees. Europeans fought the Ottoman Turks for centuries. We entered a war against Turkey's ally 100 years ago today. The Turks are no friend of democracy and are constantly harassing the Greeks.

Exactly who used or triggered chemical weapons last Tuesday is important. I am not impressed that our President has already made up his mind on both the types of weapons used and who used them. Trump has been proved right in the past. Perhaps he will be vindicated again. We shall see. There are many ways forward on how to gather more facts about this important matter. We should discuss them.

KLEM FM

One hundred years ago the legendary German fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen described his 27th aerial victory as 'just another lattice-tail enemy aircraft'

I have a Google alert set to "von Richthofen" which feeds me these links.

This is the centennial of the Red Baron era, and it seems that each of his "kills" is memorialized by a newspaper from the victim's hometown in Britain. The linked article includes a very famous photograph:

Where have we seen that photo before? (that's von Richthofen in the cockpit and his brother Lothar is seated with his legs crossed).

What did he mean by "just another lattice-tail enemy aircraft"?

The Brits were seriously outgunned 100 years ago.

linky

Hail Britannic! 2.0

Shipwrecked 'Titanic 2' Could Become Divers' Paradise Theme Park
A Greek diving club owner says it is his dream to set up the commercial venture

The story is about the wreck of RMS Titanic's younger sister ship, HMHS Britannic.

Five years ago, I wrote a post about Britannic on my old blog (see after the jump). That post now has over 17,000 page views and is my second most-cited post. I like to think it's because I pointed out some similarities between Jacques Cousteau's documentary about Britannic and James Cameron's movie script for Titanic for the first time. But really, I think it was just people clicking on the gorgeous graphic which I cannot now even attribute correctly.

In any case, you can now re-watch Cousteau's original documentary here.

From Enmity to Amity in a Century

Link to original

The families of Manfred von Richthofen (The Red Baron) and his first credited kill have agreed to meet on the centenary of that fateful dogfight 100 years ago.

The painting depicts a British aircraft flown by 2nd Lieutenant Lionel Morris and Captain Tom Rees. The aircraft was a two-seater F.E.2b aircraft designed by Geoffrey de Havilland* and was a "pusher" design having its engine located behind the pilot. This allowed the gunner free use of his machine gun. 

Von Richthofen is depicted flying an Albatros D.III aircraft which was superior in every way.  At that point in time, von Richthofen was not yet a squadron leader but would soon be named one after the death of his mentor, Oswald Boelcke, in October, 1916.
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*Geoffrey de Havilland was the cousin of actress Olivia de Havilland. The latter was in the news recently for celebrating her 100th birthday.

This post used 100% recycled tags. 

səuıɥɔɐɯ ƃuıʎlɟ ɹıəɥʇ uı uəɯ ƃunoʎ ƃuıɹɐp əsoɥʇ

link to original

Joel Haski plans to fly upside down from Perth to Sydney next year, which will mean hanging from the straps of his harness for 15 hours. He’ll have wheels fitted to the top of his wings, too, so he can even take off and land inverted. When you’ve been flying aerobatics for 26 years, you gotta keep it interesting.
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It’s not all fun and games, though. About one in 10 passengers is a puker, and if they miss their sick bag the consequences of that 200km/h slipstream can be spectacular. “A guy vomited out the side of the plane once and it just covered my windscreen,” Haski says, wincing at the memory. “I had to land looking through chunks of meat pie.”

How I admired those early WW I fighter pilots as a kid. There seemed to be a mini craze too in the mid 1960's; this was probably the 50th anniversary stuff. If so, where is the centennial?

Jonny Quest: The Shadow Of The Condor (1964). This Hanna-Barbera cartoon series was waaay ahead of its time. It remains a personal favorite.

The Blue Max (1965)  This hooked me. My dad took my brother and me to see it in the theater.

It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966). This may have started the craze, but I think not.

Get Smart: Snoopy Smart vs. The Red Baron (1968): My brother and I asked my dad to record this on super 8 film because we had to miss it and couldn't wait to see the rerun.

Enemy Ace comic book (1965): A good place to pick up German phrases.

There were lots and lots of scale models to build. The best were Renwal's Aeroskin series:

And finally there was the 1966 song:

linky

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[Added] I forgot about Milton-Bradley's "Dogfight" (1963). That was another causative contender:

Tommy vs. Gerry: 1916

link

link

Restart and play both videos at the same time to get the full effect.