From: elwin@ai.mit.edu (Lee Campbell)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Re: Clinton blunder
Date: 14 Sep 92 12:08:38 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

In article <crb2.716220688@Ra.MsState.Edu>, crb2@Ra.MsState.Edu (Chad R. Berthelson) writes:
- elwin@ai.mit.edu (Lee Campbell) writes:
- 
- [Stuff deleted]
- 
- >The question I was addressing was your question of Clinton's factual
- >errors vs Quayl's factual errors. You are objecting to Clinton's
- >interpretation of those facts. When Quayl gets called to task by the
- >press, it is because he gets his facts wrong. I re-posted the quote
- >of Clinton to show that (1) Clinton got the facts right, and (2) he
- >didn't omit any key facts. Contrast this with a classic Quayl quote
- >like "there are canals on Mars." Clearly Quayl's level of ignorance
- >puts him in a league of his own.
- >					- Lee Campbell
- 
- HUH?  Are you joking?  I wouldn't know if there are canals on mars either,
- (who really does, or CARES, or how does that affect running USA?).

The guy responsible for ousting the NASA administrator, Perhaps? Remember,
Dan Q. axed Richard Truly.  You may not know about canals on Mars, but
one hopes you have the sense to keep your mouth shut. Not old Dano! Are
you *sure* you want to start defending Quayl's ability to do the top
job?

- I submit that Quayle could hold his own one on one with Willie on any given
- topic (without the press hollering, or interupting him every five minutes..

I submit that as soon as Quayl departs from the script on the teleprompter
in front of him, he makes a fool of himself.

- (see convention speech interuption)).  Bill Clinton blunders plenty,
- Lincoln was at very least NOT 'called to service' and a Patriot missile
- will NOT go 'down chimneys and through doorways'.  The Press has such a
- zeal for trying to discredit Quayle that THEY screw up the facts to do it.
- 
- After Quayle pointed out that Bill was confusing a Patriot with a Cruise
- missile I heard at least three commentators make statements like 'SEE..
- Quayle messed up too, those are 'smart bombs' NOT cruise missiles that
- do that!'...which is a bunch of crap...
- 
- 'Smart bombs' DO go down chimneys, through doors..but they are bombs..not
- missiles, the missile that is in the arsenal that does the same is indeed
- called a 'cruise missile', since Clinton was talking missiles, a confusion 
- with 'cruise' seems to be the obvious blunder.

"Seems" is the operative word here.

Listen, Chad ol' buddy, cruise missiles use something called "terrain
mapping guidance." This means they carry a sequence of digital maps of
the area they over-fly, and they measure their position by using on-board
radar to make small maps of the area below and then compare those with
the stored maps. This (plus gyros & accelerometers) gives them an accuracy
*at best* equal to that of the digital maps or of their mapping radar.
These digital maps do not include windows and chimneys! According to an
article in Scientific American by Kosta Tsipsis, the maps have an accuracy
of about 10 meters. Pretty good, but not windows and chimneys!

face it: Clinton got it wrong, and Dano got his correction wrong. They
were both referring to smart bombs.

> Chad
					- Lee Campbell
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton