Comments on: The Vela Incident https://www.damninteresting.com/the-vela-incident/ Fascinating true stories from science, history, and psychology since 2005 Wed, 29 Jun 2022 21:50:40 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.2 By: jarvisloop https://www.damninteresting.com/the-vela-incident/#comment-74464 Wed, 29 Jun 2022 21:50:40 +0000 https://www.damninteresting.com/?p=922#comment-74464 Note to self: Finished.

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By: Uncle Carl https://www.damninteresting.com/the-vela-incident/#comment-71688 Fri, 12 Aug 2016 20:32:34 +0000 https://www.damninteresting.com/?p=922#comment-71688 22 September 1979 was the 1st of Tishri of 5740, Rosh Hashanah. Are you sure the Israelis were not saying “hello” in a rather nuclear way? Just asking.

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By: CJ Jones https://www.damninteresting.com/the-vela-incident/#comment-53683 Sun, 24 Jan 2016 07:28:36 +0000 https://www.damninteresting.com/?p=922#comment-53683 Old post, but still an interesting read.

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By: DeadlyGrim https://www.damninteresting.com/the-vela-incident/#comment-26595 Fri, 29 Jul 2011 23:00:33 +0000 https://www.damninteresting.com/?p=922#comment-26595 What most strikes me about the excerpt from Luis Alvarez’s response to criticism, is that he led with the radioactive sheep first. I guess it’s only natural – radioactive sheep _are_ ridiculous, after all, and bringing them up first makes it that much easier to dismiss the rest of the evidence because you’ve already put your reader in the proper frame of mind.

This, in and of itself, doesn’t prove anything of course. Persuasive writing is used by the right and the wrong. However, I think it is a rather cheap tactic.

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By: Simon Gunson https://www.damninteresting.com/the-vela-incident/#comment-19907 Sun, 10 Feb 2008 12:17:12 +0000 https://www.damninteresting.com/?p=922#comment-19907 A friend of mine was a former South African naval inteligence man in the 1980s. He talked to me over dinner once about this test blast. He confirmed that the bomb was South African, but that USA was so outraged at the test blast that diplomats discreetly warned South Africa that CIA would stop supporting the Fretalin anti communists in Angola, unless South Africa withdrew from Angola and abandoned their nuclear bomb project. USA twisted South Africa’s arm because the Soviets were threatening to get involved. That was the inside story I got.

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By: HiEv https://www.damninteresting.com/the-vela-incident/#comment-18522 Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:49:54 +0000 https://www.damninteresting.com/?p=922#comment-18522 [quote]Jeffrey93 said: “Help me understand this. How is it that people of a certain belief are “on average” more intelligent than people with different beliefs.

The fact you said ‘ethnic jews’, which describes people with Jewish parents that do not actively practice Judaism also has me somewhat baffled.”[/quote]
Your confusion stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the term “ethnic Jews”. An “ethnic Jew” refers to a person who has Jewish ancestry. The term is meant to differentiate from “religious Jews”, which are people of the Jewish religion. Whether you’re an “ethnic Jew” depends on whether your biological parents are of Jewish ancestry and won’t change. Whether you’re a “religious Jew” depends on your current religious views and therefore can change. It is possible to be either one of those things, or both, or neither.

Donlaudanny was speaking about people of Jewish ancestry, not people who follow the Jewish religion.

P.S. Your ending insult to him is quite ironic considering the ignorance you displayed in that post.

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By: Jeffrey93 https://www.damninteresting.com/the-vela-incident/#comment-18504 Mon, 19 Nov 2007 05:26:40 +0000 https://www.damninteresting.com/?p=922#comment-18504 [quote]donlaudanny said: “I am not Jewish.

I can’t say anything about art or style since those are subjective, but Ethnic Jews are on average more intelligent. To deny this claim is like denying the claim that Kalenjin runners are on average faster. The disproportionate number of Nobel prizes is evidence for the former and the even greater disproportionate number of long distance running records for the later.

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002812.html

Not all humans are created equal. Some individual are larger, smarter, faster, etc. The same trends can be applied for races. Height and skin color are the most obvious. Intelligence has been heavily sexually selected for throughout human evolution, and is it such a leap to logic to state the selection pressure for intelligence might have been different depending on different geographical and cultural conditions?
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Help me understand this. How is it that people of a certain belief are “on average” more intelligent than people with different beliefs.
The fact you said ‘ethnic jews’, which describes people with Jewish parents that do not actively practice Judaism also has me somewhat baffled.
Since being Jewish is a religious belief choice….emphasis on choice, I’m not sure how you can say that “on average” Jews are more intelligent.
If I convert to Judaism tomorrow will I suddenly become smarter?

The shred of evidence you provided to support your ‘Jews are more intelligent’ theory is this…
[quote]donlaudanny said: “I am not Jewish.”[/quote]
That one statement seems to help prove that Jews are more intelligent, more intelligent than some anyway.

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By: arbitraryuser https://www.damninteresting.com/the-vela-incident/#comment-18426 Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:02:40 +0000 https://www.damninteresting.com/?p=922#comment-18426 If it was launched from South Africa it was probably launched from here:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=-34.60219,20.303051&spn=0.003117,0.007167&t=k&z=18&om=1

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By: iondot https://www.damninteresting.com/the-vela-incident/#comment-18381 Wed, 14 Nov 2007 19:07:26 +0000 https://www.damninteresting.com/?p=922#comment-18381 Interesting enough that I wrote a musical piece about the Vela Incident.
http://www.iondot.com

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By: Richard Solensky https://www.damninteresting.com/the-vela-incident/#comment-18257 Thu, 08 Nov 2007 20:22:25 +0000 https://www.damninteresting.com/?p=922#comment-18257 Anyway….

It’s worth noting that the Vela satellites discovered what turned out to be Gamma Ray Bursters – http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast19sep97_2.htm. The satellites had picked up several bursts of gamma rays coming from outer space. Stumped, the DoD and NASA decided to throw open the curtain of secrecy over the satellites and share the data with the astronomical community. It was quickly realized that this was an entirely new type of extragalactic object.

This wasn’t the only time the military shared its work with astronomers. When the astronomical community was trying to figure out how to account for atmospheric distortions in their latest telescopes, the DoD freely handed over their information on adaptive optics rather than see millions of dollars of taxpayer money be spent on something they had already perfected.

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