one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything

An F-16 on a bomb run travels several hundreds of miles per hour and releases its bomb from more than a mile away. One wouldn't hear the plane (they're relatively unnoticeable when coming at you head-on - their sound is behind them), even when at low level. We've heard reports they dropped the bomb from 10,000 feet or so, which would put the plane another two miles or more away (bombs have forward momentum and therefore move forward in addition to falling....). If one wants to try to find out how difficult to hear a jet plane at altitude is, next time you hear one fly overhead, look up and try to find it. Sometimes, you might see an airliner at 10000 feet or more, but the noise is relatively faint.

Scribe - First, unless the aircraft is flying faster than the speed of sound, you will hear it on all sides.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 8-Muhammad Ismael, a 40-year-old Iraqi taxi driver, was standing outside his home in the tiny village of Hibhib on Wednesday evening when something unusual caught his eye. Three GMC trucks, each with blackened windows, rumbled past his home and toward the little house in a nearby grove of date palms that for more than three years had stood abandoned. Commandos from Task Force 145, the antiterrorist unit, moved into Hibhib and surrounded the grove. In Hibhib, Mr. Ismael, the taxi driver, said American soldiers began swarming the town, seemingly coming from nowhere, with some soldiers sliding down ropes dropped from Black Hawk helicopters. His account largely tracked with the one offered by the American military. "The entire village was seized," Mr. Ismael said. As the American commandos took up positions, Mr. Ismael said, someone from inside the house in the date grove began shooting. The Americans returned fire, Mr. Ismael said, but the firefight did not last long. One of the F-16's, now in position over Hibhib, released a laser-guided 500-pound bomb.

When Iraqi police officers entered the ruins ahead of the American soldiers, they found Mr. Zarqawi badly wounded but still alive. The Iraqis strapped him to a gurney, General Caldwell said. American soldiers arrived almost immediately thereafter and quickly identified Mr. Zarqawi, the most hunted man in Iraq, by his scars and tattoos, General Caldwell said.... ....Some of the emerging details raised new questions, such as how and why the Iraqi police arrived at the scene of the airstrike before the American commandos who had surrounded the house, and what they did once they arrived. American troops have sometimes stepped aside for Iraqi soldiers or police officers to enter a mosque or other building, but never at places as sensitive as the presumed hiding place of Mr. Zarqawi. .

At that point, the general said, there were no coalition ground troops positioned near the house. Similarly, he said, the United States Air Force F-16 fighter jet that dropped both bombs was one of two aircraft that were on a "routine mission" in the area, with no planning for the bombing, when they were ordered to carry out the attack immediately.... The combat camera images of the attack released on Thursday showed a large white dot circling the target area at relatively low altitude before, during and after the bombing, the characteristic signature of a reconnaissance drone.

His handling of Iraq and the fight against terrorism hit new lows: 33 percent approved of his actions on Iraq; 39 percent on his fight against terrorism.
People had an even lower opinion of the Republican-controlled Congress. Only 24 percent approved of the way it's doing its job, essentially unchanged from last month but still a new low.

So what's ahead for the rest of us? A midterm election, it seems, in which each party will operate in a parallel universe: That is, the Democrats will try to nationalize the election as a referendum on the president; the Republicans will instead try to localize each race. "If it's a referendum on the president, we lose," one top House Republican tells me. "We have to make sure we run good local races, and then we'll survive. Which is all we can ask for."

So I'll just go back to my theory that he was out walking and was thrown away from the blast far enough to not have been destroyed by the second.

Commandos from Task Force 145, the antiterrorist unit, moved into Hibhib and surrounded the grove. As the American commandos took up positions, Mr. Ismael said, someone from inside the house in the date grove began shooting. The Americans returned fire, Mr. Ismael said, but the firefight did not last long.

By Christopher Hitchens Posted Thursday, June 8, 2006, at 2:00 PM ET (And, if that claim is black propaganda, then it is clever black propaganda, which is also excellent news.)

Why did the military pathologists have to be flown in? What particular qualifications do they bring to the task?

Mr. Zarqawi was dead by the time American commandos got to the house, General Caldwell said.... Mr. Zarqawi's body was taken to an undisclosed location where an examination found scars and tattoos that matched those he was known to have. A fingerprint test came back at 3:30 a.m. positively identifying him, and DNA tests should also be returned soon, General Caldwell said.

This is not your site. Nor Jim's. Your comments may stay only if you obey the rules.

Everytime I've been on one, I've been much higher, altitude wise not chemically induced wise.