Secret or no secret?

If this were such a big deal, would the Chinese be talking about it?

According to a Chinese state-sanctioned study, signals from SpaceX Starlink broadband internet satellites could be used to track US stealth fighters, such as the F-22.

...

The research details how the academics were able to recognize the rough location of a commercial drone by observing disturbances in electromagnetic signals from Starlink satellites caused by aircraft passing through them. The system could "provide significant advantages in detecting small and stealth targets," the team claimed.

The academics, led by professor Yi Jianxin from Wuhan University's School of Electronic Information, launched [paywall] a commercial DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone and sent it over the coast near the Chinese city of Guangdong. The researchers chose the drone as they estimated it has the same radar signature as a modern F-22 fighter.

They reported being able to detect up the drone – not by hammering it with easily identifiable radar pulses (which would invite a counterattack in a war situation) but by identifying where the drone reflected the signals from a Starlink satellite orbiting overhead. The test was overseen by the Chinese government's State Radio Monitoring Centre.

This looks to be pretty similar to a system of passive radar that the Germans used in World War II.

You would think that if this were effective (or if the Chinese thought it could be made to be effective), they wouldn't say anything about it.

So what I'd like to know is ...

How did the would-be assassin know where and when to find Donald Trump?  Was he just lucky like Gavrilo Princip?  Or was he "lucky" like Thomas Matthew Crooks?

Antonín Dvořák - Introduzione from the oratorio Saint Ludmila

Tomorrow is the feast day of Saint Ludmila of Bohemia, grandmother of Good King Wenceslaus of Christmas Carol fame.  As queen, she was instrumental in converting the kingdom to christianity but was murdered by her daughter-in-law (mother of Wenceslaus).

By the 19th century St. Ludmila took on aspects of national hero, and the preeminent composer of 19th century national music wrote this oratorio in her honor.

America's Dunkirk

I was going to post this yesterday, but ASM826 posted about the victims of that day.  But this story is exceptionally well-told and deserves to be remembered.

No training.  This was just what people did that day.

- One of the captains that evacuated Manhattan on 9/11 

It's not quite fair to call this "America's Dunkirk", since the English Channel is a lot wider than the Hudson River.  And the Luftwaffe had something to say in 1940, that they didn't have in 2001.

But this is a great story, well told by Tom Hanks.  About the time that the Coast Guard sent out a radio message to all boats that can help evacuate Manhattan.  This is the story of the boats who responded, and evacuated a Million people in a day.

 I've posted about this before.  But this seems somehow apropos.  And click through to that post to see the comment from Friend Of The Blog Paul, Dammit! who knows a bunch of the people interviewed in this.  It's worth your time. 

Christine Lee Hanson

 Christine Lee Hanson would be 25 now, graduated from college, and starting her adult life.

 Christine was two years old. Her parents were taking her to Disneyland. They lived in Groton, Massachusetts and were on Flight 175 on a beautiful September morning twenty-three years ago today. She became the youngest person to die in the terror attack of September 11th, 2001.

At the end, her father was on the phone with his father. When the phone went silent, Christine's grandfather hung up. They had the TV on and watched the plane strike the tower at the same time. His wife says he was never the same.

Martin Luther King once said in a speech, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

I hope that this is true.

Remember.

One More, Just Because

Rest In Peace, James Earl Jones

Doubtless Dwight will cover this in full presently.  But he was an actor that I enjoyed pretty much throughout his entire career (who can forget him in The Sandlot?) - but one role stands out in my mind: his guest appearance (as himself) on The Big Bang Theory.

And this scene was hilarious (from that same episode) but I had never heard the full story:

May flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest.

Crossbow season

For deer, anyway.  Tacitus has been practicing.

He's also pondering ancient Roman ballistae, but I think that would be for something larger like an elk or maybe a moose ...