Word: beacons
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...Friday's test, the big, bright balloon will be the major decoy. (The launch container will play a similar but subordinate role.) But even Pentagon officials acknowledge that the balloon will act more like a beacon that alerts the interceptor to the nearby presence of the real target. The Pentagon concedes the October test might not have succeeded if the decoy hadn't appeared so vivid to the interceptor's sensors. "The large balloon aided in acquisition of the target," Coyle says. "It is uncertain whether the interceptor could have achieved an intercept in the absence of the balloon...
...system, since critics had pointed out that the tests was primed to succeed by eliminating the most basic of decoys from the equation. Scientific critics have argued that the system has an inherent inability, in battlefield conditions, to distinguish an enemy warhead from a cone-shaped traffic beacon. Advocates counter that the tests are simply trying to establish whether the system can walk before trying to make it run. It doesn't help their case, though, that the interceptor system isn't even managing to stay on its feet...
...surprisingly, guests tend to stay a while. Not long after it opened this year, Boston's XV Beacon happily set aside more than a floor of suites for visiting members of a royal family from the Middle East--for six weeks. Red Adams, chairman of Oil & Gas Rental Services in Morgan City, La., stays at the Colombe d'Or on average 18 times a year. The staff is accustomed to providing Adams with ties, socks and whatever else he has neglected to pack himself. "I feel like it's my own home," says Adams...
...able to afford them.) Rates are not beyond the reach of most top-executive expense accounts, but don't look for bargains. Biztique hotels in boomtowns like New York and Boston won't even look at you for much less than $400 a night. And XV Beacon's most expensive suite is $1,500. Yet suites at the Hotel Oceana start at a mere $325 a night, and rooms at the Soniat House can be had for as low as $195. But book early, particularly if you have in mind some Midwestern elegance and a lunchtime massage at the Claridge...
...Beacon is a 61-room hotel built by Boston developer Paul Roiff. It aims at the young digerati who jet between high-tech start-ups on both coasts. Rooms have three phone lines, high-speed Internet access, 330-thread-count Italian sheets and lots of mahogany. "There isn't a square of vinyl in the entire hotel," boasts general manager William Sander. Recent guests include film director Wes Craven, Viacom potentate Sumner Redstone and sundry chairmen of American and European banks. Rates start at $395 a night...