Listen, there has been a simple pattern for my entire lifetime. When Nixon and Ford issued presidential directives, they we called National Security Decision Memoranda or NSDMs.
When Carter took office, he renamed those documents "Presidential Directives." This kicked off a process in which Republican and Democratic Presidents used different naming conventions for presidential directives. It was childish, sure. But so what?
Note that the “football” followed Trump on to Marine One. He’s still possesses the sole legally authority to start a nuclear war for almost four more hours.
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En route to Florida, Trump still retains the sole authority, as well as the ability, to order the use of nuclear weapons.
The short version: North Korea keeps a launch barge at Nampo for testing submarine-launched ballistic missiles. It hasn't moved for more than two years -- until now. It is currently on land, undergoing what appears to be a refit, presumably for a coming round of SLBM tests.
Here's a fun rabbit hole I fell into. Why are some solid-rocket motors tested horizontally, while others are tested vertically. I had wondered about this a long time.
The answer is that there was no clear consensus which was better. In the 1980s, Thiokol, maker of the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Motor (SRM), preferred horizontal tests. United Technologies, maker of the Titan SRM, tested vertically, nozzle-up.
After the Challenger accident, this difference in approach turned into a public spat -- as you can see from these ¶s from "Shuttle Booster Design Couldn't pass Titan Test" in the Orlando Sentinel on April 6, 1986.
Sure looks like the outgoing Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (@NNSANews ) retweeted, then deleted, a lot of questionable tweets about the election. A short thread.
What follows are many deleted retweets from @LGordonHagerty, which is apparently personal account of outgoing @LGHNNSA -- courtesy of the @internetarchive. These were things others said rhat she retweeted, then deleted.
You have to click through to see the original tweets -- which, again, she was retweeting. You tell me if you want this person overseeing the nation's nuclear stockpile.
North Korea's new ICBM is much larger than the Hwasong-15 ICBM (~2 m in diameter). Here are two stills from the parade that help illustrate the difference.
The truck ("transporter-erector-launcher" or TEL) is new. In December, @kyodo_english reported that Kim "ordered the mass production of vehicles used for transporting and launching missiles including [ICBMs]" using imported parts. Looks like it worked. english.kyodonews.net/news/2019/12/9…