OT somewhat. China, our aircraft, delays.

From: Ross Archer <dogbert_at_mindless.com>
Date: Mon Apr 9 04:31:03 2001

----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Ford <mikeford_at_socal.rr.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2001 10:17 PM
Subject: Re: OT somewhat. China, our aircraft, delays.


> >Not to start a flame war, but...
>
Flame-avoiders, skip to the end for a KIM-1 question.
The rest, prepare for controversy. :)
> Fighter jet and large heavy turboprop spy plane collide, and I think by
> definition the bulk of the blame has to go on the fighterjet.

Not necessarily. Standard procedure is to harass and
play chicken with enemy aircraft approaching your
airspace. That means often matching speed and
approaching very, very closely.
It could as easily have been the prop plane
that suddenly maneuvered into the jet.
 Besides, if it were deliberate, wouldn't the pilot have struck in such a
way that survival was likely, especially given the much more vulnerable
position
of the small jet vs. the huge spy plane in an impact?
>
> Want some wild speculation? How about the fighter pilot was INSTRUCTED to
> crash into the spy plane to force it to land on chinese soil.
>

I think it was an accident, but let's have some fun and
imagine an at least equally likely scenario that USA deliberately hit the
Chinese jet.

It's a fact that the current
Administration has been hell-bent on destroying relations
with China and North Korea from the very start --
provoking China by negotiating arms sales with Taiwan,
then sabotaging North-South Korea talks in the US by
falsely accusing North Korea of violating its treaty
obligations (even South Korea agreed it was just one
obligation, and the North lived up to it perfectly.)
Add to that telling Russia they're "just not that important",
and you get the impression the Administration is angling
to provoke as much anti-US sentiment in the East as possible.

One reasonale analysis might be that it's a deliberate attempt to rekindle a
cold war, with China and possibly
North Korea this time. (Another is that the US President
is a moron.)

Not sure how submarines killing Japanese high school
kids or then landing a nuclear submarine on Japanese
soil in explicit (and unprecedented) violation of US
treaties with Japan fits in with the theme exactly, but
there can be no question that a major focus of this
administration is to damage relations as much as
possible in the shortest possible time. There are so
many accidents, and diplomatic gaffes, that it reminds
me of the famous saying: "Never attribute to malice
what can adequately be explained by abject stupidity."
It's sad when you wish it's stupidity that explains all
this because the alternative is so much worse.

Never has a presidency failed so quickly in modern times.
The Republican's answer to Jimmy Carter, only far more so.

> IMHO Greed, worldwide, is currently blinding people to a proper course of
> action with China.
>

So this discussion isn't totally off-topic, does anyone have
any suggestions on how to fix my dead KIM-1 keyboard?

I don't think it can be repaired, and If I were to add
an external keypad, I'd want it to have the same matrix
and legends as the originals if possible. Is there any kind
of kit or system where you can make up your own semi-
professional looking keypad?

Thanks for any pointers.

-- Ross
Received on Mon Apr 09 2001 - 04:31:03 BST