Hulleye Comes By!

it’s gonna be one heck of a ride. a slim cable for a space elevator has been built stretching a mile into the sky, enabling robots to scrabble some way up and down the line. a private US company on a quest to build a space elevator by april 2018, stretched the strong carbon ribbon 1 mile (1.6 km) into the sky from the arizona desert. the theory behind this isn’t new, and seeing this in practical usage is astounding today.

A new study has found that supplements of vitamin C can largely stop the serious depletion of vitamin E that occurs in smokers, demonstrating for the first time in humans a remarkable interaction between these two antioxidants as they work together.

All I can say is good luck to the muslim world. So long, and thanks for all the fish. To the UK, too bad you got stuck along, but I guess it’s nothing new for you having a history of “Imperial” proportions.

Last week US defence chiefs unveiled their plan for battling global Islamist extremism. They envisage a conflict fought in dozens of countries and for decades to come.

Looking beyond the Iraq and Afghan battlefields, US commanders envisage a war unlimited in time and space against global Islamist extremism. “The struggle … may well be fought in dozens of other countries simultaneously and for many years to come,” the report says. The emphasis switches from large-scale, conventional military operations, such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq, towards a rapid deployment of highly mobile, often covert, counter-terrorist forces.

Among specific measures proposed are: an increase in special operations forces by 15%; an extra 3,700 personnel in psychological operations and civil affairs units - an increase of 33%; nearly double the number of unmanned aerial drones; the conversion of submarine-launched Trident nuclear missiles for use in conventional strikes; new close-to-shore, high-speed naval capabilities; special teams trained to detect and render safe nuclear weapons quickly anywhere in the world; and a new long-range bomber force.

The report, whose consequences are still being assessed in European capitals, states: “This war requires the US military to adopt unconventional and indirect approaches.” It adds: “We have been adjusting the US global force posture, making long overdue adjustments to US basing by moving away from a static defence in obsolete cold war garrisons, and placing emphasis on the ability to surge quickly to troublespots across the globe.”

As well as big expenditure projects, the report calls for: investments in signals and human intelligence gathering - spies on the ground; funding for the Nato intelligence fusion centre; increased space radar capability; the expansion of the global information grid (a protected information network); and an information-sharing strategy “to guide operations with federal, state, local and coalition partners”. A push will also be made to improve forces’ linguistic skills, with an emphasis on Arabic, Chinese and Farsi.

The cold war dominated the world from 1946 to 1991: the long war could determine the shape of the world for decades to come…

Read the whole thing, why don’t you.