Well, as a historian who has researched the Soviet Union, at least the last 20 years of the USSR, I can say that I trust them about as far as I can throw the Urals.
A society who wouldn't tell the truth about something as simple as the KAL 007 or their experiences in Afghanistan* can't be trusted with something like this.
And theres very little scholarly work done on these Soviet UFO Files.
Amazon, biggish book store, and I search "Soviet UFO archives" - 1 book from 1975
"soviet UFO files" - 5 books and a DVD
"russian UFO" - 33 books, but nothing that really smacks of scholarly work.
Now if we go "Soviet KGB" (this I'm more familiar with, having researched the KGB's funding of the Peace and Anti-Nuclear Movements) and there are over 750 works, some of them, like Vasili Mitrokhin's archives, from the original sources which he smuggled out. By the way, there is nothing in Vasili Mitrokhin's archives, which are extensive, about the UFOs. Now KGB is where the "real" UFO archives would be, so why is there nothing in the KGB's crown jewels about the UFOs?
On April 5 there was a conversation about the Solar Flare, which you said you didn't trust NOAA or SOHO to accurately forecast solar weather because they are the Federal Government. But you'll trust the Soviets to be accurate about UFOs?
The History channel also makes shows about Nostradamus being right and that the world will end in 2012, they are not the end all be all source of what is "history".
The Soviet "Blue Folder" is nothing different than USAF Project Blue Book in its scope, per the Pravda article you linked.
From the Google search, yea, I believe www.ufodigest.com or www.ufocasebook.com are going to be level headed and balanced sources. Even ufocasebook says - "The case of the 1969 retrieval and autopsy are difficult to assess. Until more information is uncovered, it will remain unsubstantiated."
I'd be really excited for proof of UFOs be them secret spyplanes, spaceplanes or even real goshdarned aliens, but the YouTube video, the History "documentary" and websites devoted to the cause aren't convincing.
The footage of the MiG-21s taking off all shows single seaters, but the footage inside is from a 2-seat trainer, which weren't used for interception and didn't generally carry a hand held film camera aboard, so color me skeptical of the "official soviet archive".
Looks a hell of alot like a towed target for air to air gunfire testing.
And if it is real footage (which I doubt as it's obviously a montage), how do we know its not a Soviet experimental device, after all the Soviet were really good at giant very fast cruise missiles. Really we can't tell anything from the YouTube video because its a montage of different footage with numbers of "speed" just made up.
The video from History sure looks like the delta wing of a B-70, an aircraft that has been mentioned for years as being the mothership for supersonic and hypersonic aircraft and being a giant plane that could out run anything the Soviets had.
The US did research it and did publish what they found. Of course they covered stuff up because the UFOs are classified aviation programs by USAF, CIA, USN and who knows what other TLA.
"(Also, it amuses me that the cowboy thinks ranching is republican)."
I'm no cowboy, I was a farmer, now I'm a educator.
Well, ranching is and isn't conservative, from my experience in farming and ranching people, they are a mix of Populism and social conservatism. But do they like their government subsidies. And look how the states and counties vote. They don't vote Democrat at the National level.
The GOP allies with Columbia, and did under Bush 41 and more closely at the end of W's term and into Obama's term to fight the cartels and FARC's narco-terror.
I've been union and am union right now, not a fan of unions.
"9/11 is CIA blow back", and you are an idiot. Have a great day!
As for Gitmo, its not a prison system. Its a quasi (at best) legal military prison for people who weren't sent to military prisons and aren't prisoners of war.
The Democrats ran on cutting and running from Iraq from 2004 on and they did a damned good job of cutting and running from Vietnam and cutting and running from our funding of the South in 1974 and 75.
Thats right, Obama talked also about escalating the war into Pakistan.
Unemployment is up, the deficit is increasing, taxes are increasing, where is the market getting better? Oh, the stockmarket is up so that fixes everything?
Really? What changes has he made that are different from McCain?
Did Obama end PATRIOT ACT? Nope. Did Obama shut down Gitmo? Nope. Did Obama end the occupation of Iraq? Nope because it was spinning down under Bush. Did Obama get Afghanistan figured out? Oh hell no. Did Obama fix the economy? Nope and he is making it worse. Did Obama figure a way to get Eastern European allies and Israel a real good reason to distrust the US? Yes he did.
McCain had much better foreign policy expertise than Obama.does.
Thats been my experiance with engineers and IT people from the Great Plains.
Either they are really good with machines and want to work on bigger ones, they are really good with math and want something else, or they sure as hell don't want to be covered in crap anymore.
For me, it was using a pressure washer to clean farm equipment one morning at dawn when it was spitting snow and I was hungover from being dead drunk the night before. I got some dirt mixed with hydraulic leakage in my mouth and nose and that was it.
1. Wars 2. Defense spending 3. Criticism of Unions 4. Alliances with India, Japan, Israel and Columbia 5. Israel getting bombs to bomb the PA, Lebanon and maybe Syria. 6. Lower taxes and more deficits. 7. Drilling, mining, ranching and timber
Palin is an import because she only showed up as an infant?
Only one Governor of Alaska was actually born in the state, so they are all imports? Without "imports" the state would be about as well off as the Yukon.
I'm one of those "imports" and I can tell you that without "imports" the state would be lacking in specialists and educators. No pipeline, no mining, no fishing, no special ed support, more than half your teachers gone.
"My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use."
"Public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government."
"Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperateamong themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector."
No, Bush wouldn't have been locked up for what he did at the end of his term in the Texas Air Guard, it would have been a black mark but in the time of military transition then it would have been ignored, like tens of thousands of other cases were.
I brought up Clinton because he had a similar skipping Vietnam history as W and was lauded for it by the same people who drug Bush over the coals for ten years and counting.
Why not bring up Ford? Because he was a combat officer in World War Two and commanded fire teams that helped save a carrier, and Ford like the others weren't involved in the chaos that was the draft and various ways of draft dodging and combat dodging in the Vietnam era, Bush, Clinton and Gore were.
In short, Clinton got away with as much warmongering and attacking sovereigns as Bush, but without all the publicity, mainly because Clinton's attacking was done with aviation assets and then occupying someone and less ground combat.
As for North Korea getting nukes, yea they did, both the Clinton and Bush administrations are responsible for that, but what were the choices? Invade the DPRK to remove their WMD capability? Yea thats not a viable option if you want Seoul to survive and don't want Japan collecting some missile and commando attacks.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, as a historian who has researched the Soviet Union, at least the last 20 years of the USSR, I can say that I trust them about as far as I can throw the Urals.
A society who wouldn't tell the truth about something as simple as the KAL 007 or their experiences in Afghanistan* can't be trusted with something like this.
* The Bear went over the Mountain - http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA316729 - shows how clueless and adverse to the truth the Soviet and Russian military were and are.
And theres very little scholarly work done on these Soviet UFO Files.
Amazon, biggish book store, and I search "Soviet UFO archives" - 1 book from 1975
"soviet UFO files" - 5 books and a DVD
"russian UFO" - 33 books, but nothing that really smacks of scholarly work.
Now if we go "Soviet KGB" (this I'm more familiar with, having researched the KGB's funding of the Peace and Anti-Nuclear Movements) and there are over 750 works, some of them, like Vasili Mitrokhin's archives, from the original sources which he smuggled out. By the way, there is nothing in Vasili Mitrokhin's archives, which are extensive, about the UFOs. Now KGB is where the "real" UFO archives would be, so why is there nothing in the KGB's crown jewels about the UFOs?
On April 5 there was a conversation about the Solar Flare, which you said you didn't trust NOAA or SOHO to accurately forecast solar weather because they are the Federal Government. But you'll trust the Soviets to be accurate about UFOs?
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1607926&cid=31743048
The History channel also makes shows about Nostradamus being right and that the world will end in 2012, they are not the end all be all source of what is "history".
The Soviet "Blue Folder" is nothing different than USAF Project Blue Book in its scope, per the Pravda article you linked.
From the Google search, yea, I believe www.ufodigest.com or www.ufocasebook.com are going to be level headed and balanced sources. Even ufocasebook says - "The case of the 1969 retrieval and autopsy are difficult to assess. Until more information is uncovered, it will remain unsubstantiated."
I'd be really excited for proof of UFOs be them secret spyplanes, spaceplanes or even real goshdarned aliens, but the YouTube video, the History "documentary" and websites devoted to the cause aren't convincing.
Now how do you know it's "out of official soviet archives"? Unless Gregory Mitrovich smuggled it out and took it to Oxford is there proof?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2eV6oi-c1A
The footage of the MiG-21s taking off all shows single seaters, but the footage inside is from a 2-seat trainer, which weren't used for interception and didn't generally carry a hand held film camera aboard, so color me skeptical of the "official soviet archive".
Looks a hell of alot like a towed target for air to air gunfire testing.
And if it is real footage (which I doubt as it's obviously a montage), how do we know its not a Soviet experimental device, after all the Soviet were really good at giant very fast cruise missiles. Really we can't tell anything from the YouTube video because its a montage of different footage with numbers of "speed" just made up.
The video from History sure looks like the delta wing of a B-70, an aircraft that has been mentioned for years as being the mothership for supersonic and hypersonic aircraft and being a giant plane that could out run anything the Soviets had.
I saw a documentary about pre-enlightenment fossil hunting and how say a Mastodon would be confused as a giant's skeleton.
The world has seen alot of bad video montages over the last 30 years. Ever since Star Wars and Silent Running came out this technology has existed.
I did the search on YouTube, edits of Soviet Interceptors along with super grainy video of "objects" that could be models or CGI.
Not the sun, stars, dragons or flying gypsies.
Project Blue Book
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blue_Book
The US did research it and did publish what they found. Of course they covered stuff up because the UFOs are classified aviation programs by USAF, CIA, USN and who knows what other TLA.
There are UFOs in the Bible so why not teach this?
Is this going to rightly attacked as bad science or anti-science as much as Creationism is?
"(Also, it amuses me that the cowboy thinks ranching is republican)."
I'm no cowboy, I was a farmer, now I'm a educator.
Well, ranching is and isn't conservative, from my experience in farming and ranching people, they are a mix of Populism and social conservatism. But do they like their government subsidies. And look how the states and counties vote. They don't vote Democrat at the National level.
The GOP allies with Columbia, and did under Bush 41 and more closely at the end of W's term and into Obama's term to fight the cartels and FARC's narco-terror.
I've been union and am union right now, not a fan of unions.
"9/11 is CIA blow back", and you are an idiot. Have a great day!
More than that in 2009 alone.
Sirius FM5
ProtoStar 2
Intelsat 14
Intelsat 15
DirecTV 12
DubaiSat-1
Deimos-1
UK-DMC 2
Asiasat 5
Nimiq 5
Palapa D1
Eutelsat W7
Amazonas 2
COMSATBw-1
Eutelsat W2A
Telstar 11N
Express AM44
MD1
NSS-9
NSS-12
Thor-6
JCSat 12
Hotbird-10
Optus D3
TerreStar-1
Quick and dirty count, checking if they were commercial, I get at least 25 satellites, some were launched in multiples.
Executive Orders...
As for Gitmo, its not a prison system. Its a quasi (at best) legal military prison for people who weren't sent to military prisons and aren't prisoners of war.
The Democrats ran on cutting and running from Iraq from 2004 on and they did a damned good job of cutting and running from Vietnam and cutting and running from our funding of the South in 1974 and 75.
Thats right, Obama talked also about escalating the war into Pakistan.
Unemployment is up, the deficit is increasing, taxes are increasing, where is the market getting better? Oh, the stockmarket is up so that fixes everything?
Looking at the numbers, I don't see the total number of launches decreasing.
http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2009.html
78
http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2008.html
68
http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2007.html
68
http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2006.html
66
Really? What changes has he made that are different from McCain?
Did Obama end PATRIOT ACT? Nope.
Did Obama shut down Gitmo? Nope.
Did Obama end the occupation of Iraq? Nope because it was spinning down under Bush.
Did Obama get Afghanistan figured out? Oh hell no.
Did Obama fix the economy? Nope and he is making it worse.
Did Obama figure a way to get Eastern European allies and Israel a real good reason to distrust the US? Yes he did.
McCain had much better foreign policy expertise than Obama.does.
Thats been my experiance with engineers and IT people from the Great Plains.
Either they are really good with machines and want to work on bigger ones, they are really good with math and want something else, or they sure as hell don't want to be covered in crap anymore.
For me, it was using a pressure washer to clean farm equipment one morning at dawn when it was spitting snow and I was hungover from being dead drunk the night before. I got some dirt mixed with hydraulic leakage in my mouth and nose and that was it.
Look stuff up and get a background.
Like speakers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudspeaker
Ton of information and background on how it all works.
Get a home electronics kit and play around
http://www.electronickits.com/kit/complete/science/mx908.htm
I don't know, I like 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 and I really think F-22s and C-17s flying over all the time are cool, so I guess I have to take 1 as well.
We need more drilling and mining, so they need to get that ball rolling.
DirectTV seems to make money in space.
Oh no, as a Republican there are things I expect.
1. Wars
2. Defense spending
3. Criticism of Unions
4. Alliances with India, Japan, Israel and Columbia
5. Israel getting bombs to bomb the PA, Lebanon and maybe Syria.
6. Lower taxes and more deficits.
7. Drilling, mining, ranching and timber
See, I expect alot of things
There was an opening that matched what I'd been doing for fun, applied, got the job and ta da, here I am.
Palin is an import because she only showed up as an infant?
Only one Governor of Alaska was actually born in the state, so they are all imports? Without "imports" the state would be about as well off as the Yukon.
I'm one of those "imports" and I can tell you that without "imports" the state would be lacking in specialists and educators. No pipeline, no mining, no fishing, no special ed support, more than half your teachers gone.
At least with Republicans they tell you up front you are going to be screwed.
"This is going to hurt and suck, you know it because you know who we are..."
Thats why I'm a Republican, I don't have to be disappointed.
How are all those Obama promises of change working out for you folks that supported him and voted for him?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment/
"My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use."
"Public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government."
"Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperateamong themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector."
No, Bush wouldn't have been locked up for what he did at the end of his term in the Texas Air Guard, it would have been a black mark but in the time of military transition then it would have been ignored, like tens of thousands of other cases were.
I brought up Clinton because he had a similar skipping Vietnam history as W and was lauded for it by the same people who drug Bush over the coals for ten years and counting.
Why not bring up Ford? Because he was a combat officer in World War Two and commanded fire teams that helped save a carrier, and Ford like the others weren't involved in the chaos that was the draft and various ways of draft dodging and combat dodging in the Vietnam era, Bush, Clinton and Gore were.
In short, Clinton got away with as much warmongering and attacking sovereigns as Bush, but without all the publicity, mainly because Clinton's attacking was done with aviation assets and then occupying someone and less ground combat.
As for North Korea getting nukes, yea they did, both the Clinton and Bush administrations are responsible for that, but what were the choices? Invade the DPRK to remove their WMD capability? Yea thats not a viable option if you want Seoul to survive and don't want Japan collecting some missile and commando attacks.