If, as stated @ 0:58 in the video, they have that "serene cityscape" of Honolulu "on the Big Island" - yep, it's broken... :)

I was put under a bench warrant (IIRC, that is what it is called) directly from the judge, who then turned to the 2 lawyers standing on either side of us and told them that I would not be participating as a juror in this case nor any other for the time I was in the jurors pool. She further enjoined me from telling or discussing the order she put me under with any of the other potential jurors in the pool, possible 6 month jail term and $250 fine if I did.

My crime? I told her that I believed that as an intelligent and informed Citizen of my country, as a juror it was my Right and Duty to sit not only in judgement of the facts, but also in judgement of the law, if I felt that it was an unjust law or was being applied unfairly.

Up until that moment, I pretty much thought FIJA was a neat concept, but also a bit too "tin hatty". No more.

People need to know.

There are likely not many more than 9,000 of those types of boats in the world, much less in the Middle East. And Iran is not a rich nation. Figures mentioned put Iran as having only 1,000 small attack boats. Say 900 of that number (doubtful, to me) are the high-speed, hi-tech attack craft used by our US Navy for training...

By my own admission the numbers quoted for the boats I wrote about above were very low. Per your post we are now playing with hyperbole, so lets go ahead and put the cost per boat at a much more likely $250,000 for bare hull + engines + mechanical systems for running it. Add in a minimum of 2 trained, specialist crewmembers, ancillary objects like radios and GPS nav systems, the weapons (what's a .50 cal machine gun + ammo cost? A shoulder-fired rocket and spares?) and you are getting closer to $1,000,000 per boat, if not over that amount. Still a lot cheaper than the carrier, but at that rate, with the losses they are likely to sustain, it is going to put a strain on their naval warfare coffers very quickly. Boat and weapons on the bottom of the Straits ain't helping Iran at all, and are a cost that cannot be recouped...

Additionally, I'll say that the Iranian "swarms" would probably number far less than 100 boats per (as that would give them a potential of only 10 'swarm shots'), so 50 is more likely (and probably still on the high side). A carrier + carrier group (destroyers, escorts, fixed- and rotating-wing aircraft) would have no trouble making it so that only a very small number of that 50 attackers would be able to get through to a point where they could actually threaten a carrier to the point of sinking, even with a missile at stand-off range. Barring some extremely good circumstances happening on their part, I don't see this Iranian small-boat navy having much of a chance at sinking one of our carriers.

Keep in mind that Iran is not using these boats because they are the optimal solution for attacking a modern day carrier group; they are doing so because *it is the only way that they can*. Full stop.

It takes a certain minimum size of boat to be able to carry a machine gun in the bow, a crew of 2+, and a larger payload of explosives or missile launcher at any good rate of speed through any sizable seas. Iran is not going to be able to effectively use a 16' SeaRay or Bayliner ski boat that is only $20k, unless as a decoy. The costs of a truly capable fast attack "speedboat" would come in two major chunks: the hull cost, and the engine costs. The 'speedboats' hulls our Navy is training with cost (& I'm somewhat-knowledgeably lowball estimating here) $40k+ on the low end, and each hull has 2-3 outboard motors hanging off the rear end, at a cost of well over $15k each. Those 'speedboats' are ex$pen$ive, $100k+ each, and losing several every raid (along with weapons and personnel) would rack up a huge cost even for a nation state. Most if not all of these boats are produced by companies who would not be very friendly to Iran, and so I doubt they would ramp up production in order to provide Iran with more 'weapons' once the original stock has been decimated.

Please, please take the time to (re)educate yourself regarding the function and purpose of individual jurors. Although many people believe as you do that:

...this is most emphatically NOT the truth.

If you'll visit the FIJA website (Fully Informed Jury Association), it is explained in plain and easily understandable language why a jury has the right and duty to sit in judgment of the law as well as the/any disputed facts.

That said, do not tell the judge or lawyers that you have this knowledge. Otherwise you risk getting sidelined from the process, put under a bench warrant which makes you unable to sit on a jury or inform any other jurors of their rights and duties. I know this because it happened to me.

I think our US Navy has been practicing for just this kind of warfare for several years because I've seen the boats they use as "enemies" - they sometimes stay at the marina where I live. The "enemy" boats are likely a step above what Iran would be able to field in large numbers; they are 25-35' LOA rigid inflatable craft powered by twin or triple 200+hp outboards, or glass-hulled fast sportfishers like Fountain or Donzi. The kind of boat where the crew is strapped in with 5-point harnesses because they *need* to be when a boat that size runs in excess of 50kts on open water. I would hope that crews trained against these extremely fast 'aggressors' would find it fairly easy to take out targets using slower, older, less capable craft. HITRON may well have a role in such a conflict scenario as well.

Are you accusing these fine, upstanding, all-taxes-and-royalty-paying media corporations of being greedy and/or acting solely in their own interests? Heh. Next thing you'll come up with is that they've intentionally uploaded corrupted files, stuffed the Obama administration and political process with their lobbyist sock puppets, or something else ridiculous like that...

For shame, you, you... pirate!

Remember this story from back in October?

Exclusive: Computer Virus Hits U.S. Drone Fleet

Ever since I read Iran claimed they didn't shoot it down, I've been wondering if or how much that virus and this "cyber warfare" attack might be connected...

"Blob" is very apt terminology, yet "(Unecessarily) Giant Blob" might be even more accurate. Not sure if these are exact numbers, but they are probably close. From Wikipedia, re: Sumatra PDF:

Adobe PDF Reader - now with 10-40x the size of what's *really* needed! ***Bonus*** - Includes Critical 0 Day vulnerability, @ no extra charge!!!

What more could you ask for?

Thanks for the idea. {evil-grin}

;)