Word: wp
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...year ago, when the U.S. military denied using chemical weapons in the Fallujah offensive, the Pentagon said white phosphorus (WP) was used only to illuminate the enemy's position. So when DAILY KOS this month unearthed an article from the Army's Field Artillery magazine in which Fallujah vets described WP "'shake and bake' missions"--to flush the enemy out of trenches and spider holes--the lefty megablog crowed, "Let's see them deny this s___ now." The Pentagon last week admitted that it used WP against insurgents but not against civilians, and said it therefore violated no chemical-weapons...
...made his name with in the late ’80s. Unfortunately, he hasn’t fully shaken the musical indulgences that set Cinerama’s music apart from the brash and jangly sound of the Wedding Present—though at some choice moments the WP formula shines through and we realize what we’ve been missing...
...radar screen in front of my seat, the red of the eyewall--the circle of turbulent storms that surrounds a hurricane's eye--grows thicker and more menacing. "The red fingers of death," pilot Mike Silah jokes grimly, and as if on cue, the plane--a Lockheed WP-3D Orion operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)--starts to pitch, roll and yaw, a small boat at the mercy of giant, invisible waves. I tighten the straps of my shoulder harness as the plane shakes violently. My seat drops out from under me, and for a moment...
...WP-3D makes its sixth pass through the tumult of the eyewall, Cione begins to look a little pale. "How many more are we going to make?" he groans. I too am savoring the calm as the plane traverses the eye. Ivan's is a big eye, some 40 miles across, and a mean-looking one too, occluded by glowering clouds. Jack Parrish, the senior NOAA scientist in charge, thinks some of these may be half-digested remnants of an earlier eyewall around which Ivan has regrouped. Big hurricanes sometimes form concentric eyewalls, he says, and that makes flying through...
...even Parrish is getting weary of the nine-hour flights that have been taking off daily for eight days running, ever since Ivan blew up into a hurricane, not far from St. Croix. Attacked by fierce winds and savage rains, NOAA's fleet of hurricane hunters (two WP-3Ds and a Gulfstream IV) is showing signs of stress as well. The protective coating on the stabilizer of the plane I'm riding in is beginning to erode, for example. And while it's not an immediate threat, it would be nice, everyone agrees, to have a little downtime to repair...