Read the below and ask where, in the next dozen years, such an operating environment is likely to emerge. This thing looks to me to be either an anti-China or anti-Reemergent-Russia system.

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>Unlike any of today’s bombers, the 2018 aircraft should be able to operate for extended periods in hostile airspace, day or night. This aircraft will help the Air Force meet QDR goals that call for “increasing [USAF] long-range strike capabilities by 50 percent and the penetrating component ... by a factor of five by 2025.”

> Why the new urgency? There was a “congruence of a few different elements” that led to the 2018 date, reports Maj. Gen. David M. Edgington, director of global power programs in the Air Force acquisition office. He said that the QDR validated 2018 as the target date partly based on “the intelligence estimates coming on board” concerning likely future threats.

Posted by: Allen Thomson at October 7, 2006 06:08 PM

So the mullahs won't let IAEA inspectors into Natanz, but tourists and reporters are fine? I think they are underestimating how inquisitive and nosy tourists and reporters are.

Hmmm... My girlfriend has been bothering me about taking a vacation this winter, maybe I will suggest a trip to see Iran's centrifuge casades.

Posted by: Robot.Economist at October 5, 2006 10:38 AM

Right after the anthrax attacks, someone made what seemed to be a sensible suggestion: use existing point of sale inventory systems to
track over-the-counter sales of analgesics, antitussants, decongestants in more or less real time. The logic was that several candidate
bioterror agents first manifest with flu-like symptoms, which people will initially try to self-medicate. Conceivably the sales monitoring could be extended to prescription drug sales.

There would, of course, be questions of false alarm rates (flu manifests with flu-like symptoms too) and just how to follow up on a sales spike, but the notion seemed at least worth some exploration.

Did anything come of this idea?

Posted by: Allen Thomson at October 5, 2006 10:33 AM

I think Noah has a secret motivation for including all those baseball links: the volume of complaints from foreign readers proves how many people in other countries are reading this site :)

Posted by: Haninah at October 5, 2006 09:20 AM

Slightly off-point, but why all the sudden baseball links in the rapid fire sections? some of us international readers have ... well, bugger all interest in it really ;-) ... now, if you were to start putting football results ('soccer' to your good selves) and follow the progress of manchester city, then i'd for one be much happier!
otherwise keep up the good work

Posted by: elizzar at October 5, 2006 07:53 AM