Face of Defense: Marine Becomes Jack of All Trades

Szczerba, 22, a rifleman from Shingle Springs, Calif., has found himself filling multiple billets at Combat Outpost Haditha. He is the assistant camp commandant, police sergeant and a sergeant of the guard. He also helps with the supply drops and maintenance on the combat outpost.

“This COP would not function without Corporal Szczerba,” said Marine the Company’s executive officer [snip]

Helping others with his knowledge in craftsmanship is nothing new to Szczerba. Before he joined the Marine Corps, he made mission trips with his church to other countries to build houses for the less fortunate. He has a quiet humility about him and said he knows the feeling of accomplishment in knowing he is helping his fellow Marines.

This is all Szczerba looks for from his work. He said he doesn’t look to garner praise for his labors. “The work I do helps raise morale,” Szczerba said. “I like doing what I can to help people; I always have.”

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Judges Return to Salman Pak

Iraqi judges surveyed the new government center in Salman Pak, Iraq, on March 10, during their first visit back since 2005 when they were forced to relocate by extremist groups made the area too dangerous to remain.

“I’ve seen a big difference on the streets today,” he said. “There are lots of people moving around on the streets. It looks better. ”[snip]

“We talk about heroes all the time, but it is very rare that we get to meet one,” Kuhn said. “You honor us by being here. Your bravery will inspire many in this area. ”

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"Hostile" Iran Sparks U.S. Attack Plan

... CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that the planning is being driven by what one officer called the "increasingly hostile role" Iran is playing in Iraq - smuggling weapons into Iraq for use against American troops.

"What the Iranians are doing is killing American servicemen and -women inside Iraq," said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

U.S. officials are also concerned by Iranian harassment of U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf as well as Iran's still growing nuclear program. New pictures of Iran's uranium enrichment plant show the country's defense minister in the background, as if deliberately mocking a recent finding by U.S. intelligence that Iran had ceased work on a nuclear weapon.

No attacks are imminent and the last thing the Pentagon wants is another war, but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen has warned Iran not to assume the U.S. military can't strike.

"I have reserve capability, in particular our Navy and our Air Force so it would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability," Mullen said.

[about time]

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China mounts cyber attacks on Indian sites

NEW DELHI: China’s cyber warfare army is marching on, and India is suffering silently. Over the past one and a half years, officials said, China has mounted almost daily attacks on Indian computer networks, both government and private, showing its intent and capability. ( Watch: ‘China's cyber intrusion a threat’ )

According to senior government officials, these attacks are not isolated incidents of something so generic or basic as "hacking" — they are far more sophisticated and complete — and there is a method behind the madness. The core of the assault is that the Chinese are constantly scanning and mapping India’s official networks. This gives them a very good idea of not only the content but also of how to disable the networks or distract them during a conflict.

This, officials say, is China’s way of gaining "an asymmetrical advantage" over a potential adversary.

The big attacks that were sourced to China over the last few months included an attack on NIC (National Infomatics Centre), which was aimed at the National Security Council, and on the MEA..

[we must never forget that China is a totalitarian nation preparing for war. doubt? > READ MORE]

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Gaza headmaster was Islamic Jihad ''rocket-maker''

RAFAH, Gaza Strip - By day, Awad al-Qiq was a respected science teacher and headmaster at a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip. By night, Palestinian militants say, he built rockets for Islamic Jihad.
The Israeli air strike that killed the 33-year-old last week also laid bare his apparent double life and embarrassed a U.N. agency which has long had to rebuff Israeli accusations that it has aided and abetted guerrillas fighting the Jewish state...

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Weather Channel Founder's Letter to Environmentalists Re: Global Warming

Since calling global warming "the greatest scam in history," the founder of The Weather Channel John Coleman has been an outspoken advocate for climate realism. This weekend, Coleman posted at his KUSI-San Diego blog an "Open Letter to Environmentalists",

Although readers are strongly encouraged to review the entire piece, here are some of the highlights:

• You have vigorously embraced the Global Warming predictions of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and are using the warning of uncontrollable warming and a resulting environmental calamity to campaign for elimination of fossil fuels. Your environmentally conscious friends in politics and in the media have united with you to create a barrage of news reports, documentaries, TV feature reports, movies, books, concerts and protest events to build support for your goals. The war against fossil fuels has become a massive scare campaign that is giving children nightmares

• The science behind your global warming scare is bad and no anthropogenic global warming is happening. Dissenting scientists have now produced convincing evidence that the cornerstone of your scientific argument, increased atmospheric carbon dioxide forcing a rapid, irreversible rise in temperature, is invalid. All of the various "signs of global warming" you have so widely publicized have been proven wrong. They are normal variations in climate that result mostly from the cycles of the Sun. As the Sun cycle has changed in the last three or four years, they have reversed themselves.

• Campaign for your environmental goals on the basis of their own merit. Let go of the global warming frenzy before it leaves you discredited and embarrassed. Stop screaming, "The sky is falling." It is not.

[Full letter > http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/12661711.html ]

Gore: Deadly Cyclone a 'Consequence of Global Warming

It was bound to happen eventually - someone from the global warming movement tying the recent Myanmar cyclone to the so-called climate change phenomenon. Former Vice President Al Gore in an interview on NPR's May 6 "Fresh Air" broadcast did just that. He was interviewed by "Fresh Air" host Terry Gross (Snip) Gore claimed global warming is forcing ocean temperatures to rise, which is causing storms, including cyclones and hurricanes, to intensify - despite the fact meteorologists have explained otherwise...

[but were the scientists on NPR? No.]

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Health provider predicts big loss

Cambridge Health Alliance, a key part of the Boston area's healthcare network, is facing a potentially ''catastrophic'' loss this year and is looking to eliminate up to 300 jobs, or about 9 percent of its workforce, in an effort to stabilize finances. The alliance, which includes Cambridge Hospital, Somerville Hospital, and Whidden Hospital in Everett, says it is being hit hard by the state's new healthcare reform law, which has left it responsible for providing free care for those without insurance...

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WHAT NAFTA TRADE DEFICIT?

Some presidential candidates seem to believe that a substantial part of the three million manufacturing jobs lost since 2000 resulted from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and that outsourcing to Mexico and Canada resulted in a huge trade deficit.

Too bad they don't know that the growth in the deficit isn't due to manufactured goods, but to oil and gas imports, says John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers.

There is no question that the imbalance of trade within NAFTA has grown since 2000, but almost all of the increase in our NAFTA deficit since 2000 has been in increased U.S. imports of energy from Canada and Mexico:

In fact, $58 billion of the $62 billion increase in our NAFTA deficit has been in energy imports.
That's 95 percent of the total increase.

Except for energy, our trade deficit within NAFTA has hardly grown at all -- only $3.5 billion from 2000-2007. Our agricultural and manufactured goods sales to NAFTA countries have just about kept pace with our imports. That's a lot more than one can say about the rest of our foreign trade.

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US service economy expands in April

Data showing an unexpected expansion in the service sector in April raised hopes that the U.S. economy will be spared a sharp downturn. Some analysts saw the report, coupled with Friday's better-than-expected job-loss numbers, as a sign the economy could muddle along, neither growing or declining dramatically.

[no bread lines?]

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Fence fiasco: Or Feliz ano nuevo

... recently, we learned that Congress — that hallmark of American integrity — had pulled a fast one on the voting public by undermining the border fence which it had so ostentatiously supported before the 2006 midterm elections.[snip]

“Nothing in this paragraph shall require the Secretary of Homeland Security to install fencing, physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors in a particular location along an international border of the United States, if the Secretary determines that the use or placement of such resources is not the most appropriate means to achieve and maintain operational control over the international border at such location.”[snip]

In other words, it leaves total discretion for whether to build the fence or not to the administration that opposed the fence in the first place. Way to go, Congress, and feliz ano nuevo.

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The world's most dangerous gang

These days, it is more likely that English will not even be the first language you hear on the streets. In Langley Park, Maryland, the kiosks sell Spanish-language newspapers; the supermarket shelves are stocked with tortillas and Mexican music plays in the background while the tannoy blares out announcements in Spanish. [snip]

But among the hard-working families lurks a darker shadow. Vicious street gangs, committed to violence, have spread throughout the Americas and are now a significant threat in the US...

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"Bad Dads" a Bad Idea

"Bad Dads," redundant in these male-bashing times, is the name of a new reality show Fox is considering... [snip]

More to the point, "Bad Dads" reinforces a stereotype that is neither accurate nor fair. [snip] The more accurate picture of a deadbeat dad is an unemployed or underemployed bloke who sees more jail cells than golf courses. A common sequence of events for the poorest deadbeat dads goes something like this: Fall behind in child support, get arrested and put in jail, lose your job, fall further behind in child support... [snip]

"Bad Dads" is just the latest insult to men and especially fathers who feel, appropriately, that they've been maligned and minimized through television programming and advertising. In sitcoms, men are typically buffoons. And fathers, if they exist, are inept and unreliable, while Mom is a paragon of virtue and competence. Television executives and advertisers may profit from such "entertainment," but who's having fun? Apparently, women are. Four out of five network sitcom viewers are female.

[and the beat goes on...]

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Newspapers likely to be free in the future: survey

LONDON - Newspapers seeking to compete with the Internet are likely to become free and place greater emphasis on comment and opinion in the future, a survey of the world's editors showed on Tuesday.

[still overpriced]

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We're (Still) No. 1


Newsweek thinks the U.S. is fading in a "post-American world." We beg to differ. As in earlier times, reports of our impending demise are greatly exaggerated. The Soviets were going to bury us, remember? We buried them.

OK, maybe we no longer have 'the world's largest shopping mall' or 'the world's largest Ferris wheel' {Newsweek's indicators}, but that's not what the millions who sail past Lady Liberty are looking for.

They are looking for freedom, the freedom to live out their lives and dreams as they, not their governments or feudal masters, see fit. They seek better lives for their children knowing that hard work and ambition in this new land will be rewarded.

Newsweek notes the world's largest refinery is being built in India. The nation that put men on the moon hasn't built one in more than three decades. Government and environmentalism run amok have made us afraid of our own shadow. That can change and must.

Newsweek says "the facts on the ground — unemployment numbers, foreclosure rates, deaths from terror attacks — are simply not dire enough to explain the present atmosphere of malaise" in which [it says] most Americans are stuck.

Perhaps it's the constant barrage of cover stories such as Newsweek's that explain it.

[Recommended]

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