21/03/2007 by peter.

I recently ordered some sample microcontrollers from Freescale. The four little DIP16 chips came all the way from Thief River Falls in the middle of nowhere in Minnesota and in less than 24 hours they were in my hands. Interestingly they were originally manufactured in China. Anyhoo after 5148 miles I now have the little buggers and have to wait for the programmer to arrive which should be coming form where ever Elektor ship from. Below is a pic from google earth of where the UPS tracking data said it went.

EDINBURGH,
GB 03/21/2007 12:28 P.M. DELIVERY

03/21/2007 7:41 A.M. IMPORT SCAN

03/21/2007 7:40 A.M. OUT FOR DELIVERY

EAST MIDLANDS AIRPOR,
GB 03/21/2007 12:50 A.M. IMPORT SCAN

EAST MIDLANDS AIRPOR,
GB 03/20/2007 7:01 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

PHILADELPHIA,
PA, US 03/20/2007 8:24 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

03/20/2007 6:13 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

LOUISVILLE,
KY, US 03/20/2007 4:33 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

03/20/2007 12:16 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

MINNEAPOLIS,
MN, US 03/19/2007 9:47 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

03/19/2007 7:44 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

BEMIDJI,
MN, US 03/19/2007 6:40 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

THIEF RIVER FALLS,
MN, US 03/19/2007 1:08 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN

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16/03/2007 by peter.

I stumbled across this on the CIA website. It is the official report on what was found in Iraq and makes for interesting reading. I have yet to finish it but it seams that Saddam was not producing NBC weapons yet but was in the process of developing the delivery system. The confusion seams come from his constant hinting that he had these capabilities to various bodies as he wanted Iran to think he did or they would most likely invade him. Also a lot of scientists claimed they were working on things that pointed to the productions of big weapons however much of this research had been cancelled or was not as advanced as claimed. So basically this ended up being a premtive attack. This then raises the question of whether this kind of action is justified or not.

Overall it seams that since the sanctions were imposed on Iraq by the UN they were adhered to less and less and had this continued any longer then perhaps a few years latter there may have been middle eastern nuclear turf war. Given the intelligence presented here, invading seams like a good idea even if they found no functional weapons and only bits, (bit like busting the guy who all the drug dealers says is the Big Cheese and then finding that he was only selling the bags they used to distribute it).

Of course there is the “Do you trust the CIA?” question….

North Korea (Democratic Peoples Rrepublic of Korea to its friends) could be next target since hating the US is the national past time, motto and party line. China may also become dangerous as the government is weakening and nuking the US navy and major manufacturing centres may be in their interest.

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11/03/2007 by peter.

The US has been the worlds super power for the best part of last century and has little to fear but China. Although it is unlikely that China will ever declare war on America and if they did, the days of good old fashioned camo and trenches has been replaced with the “Big Red Button”. However assuming that someone has decided it is not BRST yet and it’s time to do things the old fashioned way, there is still one problem, they are outnumbered.

US population: 298,444,215

Chinese army: 667,657,509

If each American was to fight hand to hand with 2 members of the Chinese army they would still be out numbered. Lets just hope the Americans are better trained/equipped to make up for this deficit in numbers.

Of course Inda is also big with an army of 556,075,946.

(all figures taken from CIA )

Just a little thought for you…

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