Some questions on the possible intervention in Sudan.

[Arrian]

I don't know.

Our sanctions discussion was interesting, and I'll grant you that sanctions may, on occasion, have had an effect. But as you noted, they must be multilateral (damned near universal) in order to have a chance.

-Arrian

[Az]

Just when I think you're hopeless when it comes to foreign affairs, you restore my faith in you.

Was that intended for me?

[Arrian]

Seems to have been. I can't imagine he means the US of A, just 'cause we recently paid lipservice to a humanitarian issue.

-Arrian

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Tripledoc


In other words you are going to starve them out.

So the US supports a rebel faction fighting against a legitimate and soveriegn government.

I'm not sure- are you saying the U.S. are at fault for being consistent or inconsistent?

1776- American rebels fight against the legitimate and sovereign government of the British Empire

1898- the United States' government assists Cuban and Filipino rebels against the legitimate and sovereign government of the Spanish Empire


The Viet Nam War- The United States props up the corrupt despotic regimes of South Viet Nam, fighting the rebel Viet Cong/Viet Minh.


Oh, well, clearly that last one is a bit of a mistake, when what the U.S. should have done is aid the Viet Cong/Viet Minh.

So tell me, Triple, old bean, exactly to whom should the United States have given aid and comfort- the Palestinians, the Kurds, the Irish, the Filipinos, the Cubans, the Sandinistas, FARC, the Mujahideen, the Moro Liberation Front, Vaclav Havel, Andrei Sakharov, the Maquis, or does it depend on whether you approve or disapprove of the state in question?

[Arrian]

I suppose "none of the above" might be the response. Not that we'd be patted on the back for that either. Then we'd be cold-hearted bastards who don't care about the dying children of ____istan.

-Arrian

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Arrian
I suppose "none of the above" might be the response. Not that we'd be patted on the back for that either. Then we'd be cold-hearted bastards who don't care about the dying children of ____istan.

-Arrian

As of yet, we are awaiting definitive proof that Vaclav Havel ate Roma babies and that Charter 77 deprived the Warsaw Pact of valuable manpower, causing widepsread shortages of borscht and kasha, but I feel sure Tripledoc will be able to locate a smoking gun.

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
[Q] There's a difference between spraying chemicals and pests on Cuba, and seeding rain clouds to cause flash floods. One is a known technology. The other is wing-nut fantasy stuff.

Actually 'cloudbusting' is an established technology. The Russians use it all the time over Moscow, especially on 1st of may. Gives nice sunny weather.

[chequita guevara]

Vaclav Havel is a right bastard.

[Tripledoc]

Cloudbusting Means It Never Rains ... Or It Pours
By Irina Titova
STAFF WRITER
Photo by Alexander Belenky / SPT

It's hardly surprising that most self-respecting St. Petersburg residents treasure their umbrellas so highly, as the city's climate has been a problem since its foundation almost 300 years ago. The main problem is precipitation: It rains in fall, drizzles in spring, snows in winter, and not even a sunny summer day is immune from a torrential downpour.

Sometimes, however, the clouds can hold off for weeks. During the fortnight of the Goodwill Games in summer 1994, for example, the sun miraculously shone all the time - a rather weird, dim light, as though through some fog or shroud. And the first drop of rain from a thunderstorm hit the ground just a minute after the closing ceremony.

"Yes, we worked hard at that time," said Sergei Okunev of the St. Petersburg Geophysics Observatory, one of Russia's top experts on the practicalities of cloud-seeding technology, or cloudbusting.

During the Goodwill Games, Okunev said, specially equipped airplanes were kept busy making sure it didn't rain by seeding the clouds with certain chemical reagents that either induce or inhibit precipitation - in other words, to make it rain sooner or later.

However, he said, cloudbusting is a far cry from the stereotypical image of North American native chiefs banging on wardrums and hollering at the sky. Today's cloudbusters use various chemical reagents, such as iodized silver, liquid nitrogen and solid carbonic acid, either individually or in combinations.

"It needs really experienced meteorological experts," Okunyev said. "They have to be able to diagnose the type of cloud, its distance from the desired or undesired location, and how much reagent is needed to get the necessary effect."

Attempting to control the weather is not a new phenomenon here - Soviet scientists began investigating ways to influence events in the 1930s, following an order by Joseph Stalin. The researchers tackled questions including regulating rainfall, warding off hail, dispersing fog and preventing avalanches.

"There were quite a number of areas in which those technologies were in high demand," said Viktor Petrov, deputy head of Atmosphere Technologies Agency ATTECH in Moscow, naming "agriculture, aviation, traffic, hydro-electric power, forestry and city life."

Even with dozens of scientists at meteorological laboratories all across what was then the Soviet Union, it took years to accumulate the necessary know-how to, for example, disperse hail-bearing clouds threatening the entire grape harvest in Moldova and Georgia, redirect rainclouds to drought-hit agricultural areas, or disperse fog from around airports or large road junctions.

"It was a massive task, which required collaboration between many services, such as forecasters, and those that developed the equipment and the chemicals," said Georgy Schukin, head of the Long-Range Atmospheric Probing Scientific Center, or DPASC, a branch of the Geophysics Observatory.

The DPASC, located in the village of Voyeikovo, 30 kilometers east of St. Petersburg, spent years working on developing ecologically pure, efficient and cheap reagents for the tasks at hand.

Petrov said the chemicals used today are ecologically clean and don't damage the health of anyone caught up in the precipitation caused.

"We use substances originating from the atmosphere itself," he said.

Another aim of the research was the ability to guarantee sunny weather for large cities during official celebrations, thereby generating the required festive spirit.

"The country particularly needed the service for big national celebrations like October Revolution Day, on Nov. 7, or Victory Day, on May 9, in Moscow," Petrov said. "Big sports events like the 1980 Olympic Games also needed it."

In 1986, experts were scrambled to prevent rainfall within a 30-kilometer radius of the nuclear-power plant at Chernobyl, after a reactor exploded on April 26, causing massive doses of radioactive pollution in the area.

"We were told not to let rainclouds reach the area to save the Pripyat River from radioactive rainfall," Petrov said.

According to Okunev, the research did not always go as planned.

"A long time ago, while we were still researching the technology, I had a curious experience when, instead of preventing a hailcloud from damaging a harvest, we caused even more hail to fall, due to miscalculating the amount of reagent," he said.

Today, Petrov said, the cloudbusters almost never fail, although the work may be seriously complicated by atmostpheric warm fronts, which cover huge areas with rainclouds, or by the prevailing winds.

"Sometimes, that's hard to explain to the client," he said.

ATTECH, founded in 1999, was the first commercial cloudbusting organization in Russia. Since then, it has been contracted to work in places as diverse as Uzbekistan, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Iran, Italy, Syria and Portugal.

"Uzbekistan calls us twice a year to provide a clean sky for their big celebrations in Tashkent on March 21 and in September," Petrov said.

However, the process is expensive: Leasing an airplane can cost from $200 to $800 per hour, depending on the craft's class; fuel adds some $320 per hour; while the experts' time and airport taxes also increase the price.

"Two days of meteorological defense of Moscow costs 10 million rubles [$322,000]," Petrov said.

However, with St. Petersburg's 300th anniversary looming like a stormcloud on the horizon in May, Petrov said that no orders regarding the weather have, as yet, been placed by the City Administration or anyone else.

"Of couse, we would get a team together to help the city," he said. "But nobody's asked us yet."

Or could it just be that the city wants to sell more umbrellas?

http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/times/856/top/t_9110.htm

I should note that the article was posted 1st of April. I don't know if they practice aprils fools day in Russia, but judge for yourself.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Azazel

Just when I think you're hopeless when it comes to foreign affairs, you restore my faith in you.

Was that intended for me?

It certainly wasn't aimed at Tripledoc.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Arrian
Seems to have been. I can't imagine he means the US of A, just 'cause we recently paid lipservice to a humanitarian issue.

-Arrian

I have no faith in the US' foreign policy being based on anything I view as positive. On the other hand, I'm pleasantly surprised on some rare occasions.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Vaclav Havel is a right bastard.

He may well be, I haven't met the gentleman.


We have yet to discover whether or not he dines on Roma babies.

[Dinner]

There won't be any intervention because Sudan is in Africa and the west generally doesn't care much about Africa. They will occationally do something if the job is easy and if they have spare troops laying around but since this isn't easy and there aren't loads of troops looking for something to do...

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
why am i arguing with this guy?

You hate yourself?

[Arrian]

ATTECH, founded in 1999, was the first commercial cloudbusting organization in Russia. Since then, it has been contracted to work in places as diverse as Uzbekistan, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Iran, Italy, Syria and Portugal.

"Uzbekistan calls us twice a year to provide a clean sky for their big celebrations in Tashkent on March 21 and in September," Petrov said.

Funny, you would think if this were true it would get more press. I googled "ATTECH" and "Atmosphere Technologies Agency" and the links were either totally irrelevent, or a link to your article, or a link to an article saying similar stuff about Putin ordering sunshine for some celebration: http://www.21stcenturyradio.com/arti...3/0529199.html .

If a company exists to sell this as a service, and had actually done so in several countries, surely one could find them on the web, or other articles about it. Controlling the weather? That would be a BIG deal.

Smells like bull**** to me.

-Arrian