NASA Hits Mars Bullseye

In a jaw dropping feat of engineering and technical wizardry, NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander touched down on the surface of the Red Planet at 7:53 EDT last night after a journey of 9 months and more than 440 million miles:

The accuracy of landing exactly where they expected and wanted to is unreal. It was explained as firing an arrow from the pitchers mound at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles and hitting home plate at Wrigley Field in Chicago. But the course was so accurate that the scientists didn't need to make a last course correction that was scheduled for yesterday morning.

I wrote a background piece on the mission here.

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'Terror On Wane,' 'Al-Qaida On Run' And Other Headlines You Won't See

From the deserts of Iraq to the villages of Spain to the jungles of Colombia, these victories against terrorist groups are all linked. They are the result of using proven tactics, holding together resolutely, cooperating with other nations to share and deliver intelligence, and forming united fronts. When this happens, terrorists cannot flourish. Recent successes show that these wars are winnable.

They are winning against all odds, overcoming not just terrorists, but other obstacles such as a lumbering Pentagon bureaucracy and weak-kneed Western intelligentsia whose media toadies trump every military error and harp on every isolated bad deed.

Now proven wrong, these same critics retaliate by ignoring what is a very big story...

[Recommended > ]

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How Defense Research Is Making Troops More Effective in Wartime

When Army patrol leaders in Iraq prepare to go out on missions in Baghdad, their last stop at headquarters is a computerized map on which they outline the area where they will operate. Then they watch as icons emerge, showing, in grim detail, the lurking dangers. By clicking on those, they can bring up not only sites of past hostile action but also photos and background on local leaders -- some to see and others to avoid -- videos of hostile and safe places, and reports from previous patrols..

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The Rebellion Within: An Al Qaeda mastermind questions terrorism

Enormous consequences in store as the idea of renunciation of terrorism takes hold.

... Fadl’s fax confirmed rumors that imprisoned leaders of Al Jihad were part of a trend in which former terrorists renounced violence. His defection posed a terrible threat to the radical Islamists, because he directly challenged their authority. “There is a form of obedience that is greater than the obedience accorded to any leader, namely, obedience to God and His Messenger,” Fadl wrote, claiming that hundreds of Egyptian jihadists from various factions had endorsed his position. [snip]

Although the debate between Fadl and Zawahiri was esoteric and bitterly personal, its ramifications for the West were potentially enormous. Other Islamist organizations had gone through violent phases before deciding that such actions led to a dead end. Was this happening to Al Jihad? Could it happen even to Al Qaeda?

[again: contrary to media know-nothings, time is not on the side of extremists - provided they don't acquire WMD...]

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One Step Closer . . .

Since Iran’s nuclear program was exposed in August 2002, Tehran has protested its innocence and claimed its nuclear program has only civilian purposes. The IAEA has just produced its latest report and it is not expressing confidence in Iran’s version of the facts. The IAEA pressing Iran on a number of findings about clandestine military activities–a diagram for an underground testing arrangement, the testing of explosive bridgewire detonators normally used for nuclear weapons, and documents about modifying the Iranian Shahab-3 missile...

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Europe Shall Bleed, Once Again

Civilized peoples’ idea of the “other” is the exact opposite of that of Muslims. All over Europe, for one, people have been singing the praises of multiculturalism; the idea that everybody should bend over backwards to accommodate the different in society. However, the different in this case are the hordes of invasive Muslims, with their rigid medieval ideas about every aspect of private and public life.

Me and my brother against my cousin; me, my brother, and my cousin against the other. This is an old Muslim saying and Muslims live by this motto. To be sure the people of the "religion of peace" find the world full of “other,” to oppress and kill, both within as well as without the Islamic Ummah.

To [fundamentalist] Muslims, anyone who doesn’t toe the line of Islam, as each sect defines it, is the “other” and fair game as kafir (blasphemous; unbeliever in Allah). The “other” covers a broad spectrum: the six billion or so people of the world who are not Muslims, including the Jews and Christians who are considered Dhimmis. Every one of the numerous sects and sub-sects of Islam consider every other sect and sub-sect as “other” to be punished and even eliminated... [snip]

Here are some of the statistics:
Marseilles – 25% (200,000 of 800,000)
Malmö - ~25% (67,000 of 270,000
Amsterdam – 24% (180,000 of 750,000)
Stockholm – 20% (>155,000 of 771,038)
Brussels - ~20% (some say 33%)
Moscow - 16-20% (2 million of 10-12 million)
London – 17% (1.3 million of 7.5 million)
Luton - 14.6% (26,963)
Birmingham 14.3% (139,771)
The Hague - 14.2% (67,896 of 475,580)
Utrecht - 13.2% (38,300 of 289,000)
Rotterdam – 13% (80,000 of 600,000)
Copenhagen - 12.6% (63,000 of 500,000)
Leicester – 11% (>30,000 of 280,000)
Aarhus - ~10%
Zaan district (Netherlands) - 8.8 percent
Paris - 7.38% (155,000 of 2.1 million)
Antwerp- 6.7% (>30,000 of >450,000)
Hamburg - 6.4% (>110,000 of 1.73 million)
Berlin - 5.9% (~200,000 of 3.40 million)

In the West, an unholy coalition of mentally-deranged suicidal-liberals; together with self-selling Islamic apologists; are doing their level best to assist the Islamists in the destruction of the existing order of freedom and liberty. [snip] Many affluent Europeans who see the handwriting on the wall are packing and moving to North America, Australia, and other seemingly safe lands...

[this is the perennial blindness of the West - Recommended > ]

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Tutu asks Hamas to halt rocket fire

Gaza City - Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu urged a senior Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip overnight to put an end to rocket attacks by militant groups against Israel. Archbishop Tutu, who leads a UN fact-finding mission to Hamas-run Gaza, also said he was moved to tears by the ''unacceptable'' situation in the Palestinian territory that is under a tight Israeli blockade[?]. (Snip) The former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town was in Gaza on a UN fact-finding mission into the killing of 19 Palestinian civilians in a 2006 Israeli artillery attack.

[ 'asks' Hamas to stop the daily firing of rockets at civilians? -- Correction: Israel isn't blockading Gaza, but defending it's own borders from suicide TRUCKS loaded with TONS of explosives; Gaza is free to import all the assistance it chooses from Egypt -- if their fellow Arabs chose to help them, but they decline: there wouldn't be a "unacceptable situation" for the UN to complain about if the vast, rich, Arab nations pooled resources to help their 'brothers'. Q: when is there going to be a UN 'fact finding mission' into Palestinians' daily assault on Israel? UNsalvagable - worse than useless - this is how the situation has festered for over 70 years...]

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UN’s IPCC preying on people’s ignorance

In previous parts of this series (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), I identified the deliberate process by which climate science was hijacked to establish a political agenda of undermining developed industrialized nations.

Maurice Strong and then others used UN agencies to control the science and the politics by proving the byproduct of those nation’s industries, specifically CO2, was causing catastrophic global warming and climate change. The urgent need throughout was not to understand climate but to find a clear human signal in the scientific data.

While the political and propaganda campaigns were successful, the science continued to prove defiant. But that wasn’t a concern for the cabal functioning through the IPCC because they knew the public didn’t understand the science. Now the exploitation of lack of knowledge could proceed...

[ DAVE T.: you wanted a 'concise-comprehensive' (cute) primer on global warming, this serves nicely in total (i.e., other 7 parts linked at bottom of article cover the full gambit of the issue. Recommended > ]

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Putin Cuts Taxes To Boost Oil Industry

Russia’s government took its first steps on Monday towards $4bn of tax cuts to boost investment in the oil industry. Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, told a cabinet session the proposed cuts to the mineral extraction tax would be fast-tracked for parliamentary review this week in order to increase oil production and boost refining. [snip]

Industry executives have blamed Russia’s tax regime for putting the brakes on investment just as fields in western Siberia start to peter out and additional funds are needed to tap more remote regions.

Mr Weafer said a second phase of tax cuts toadjust for inflation and the rouble’s appreciation was in the pipeline and could free up as much as $20bn for the industry, while a further $5bn to $10bn could come from changes to export tariffs.

Analysts said the further cuts were being discussed by the government and the oil lobby and could be forwarded to parliament in late June, in time to amend next year’s budget.

With oil prices at record levels of up to $130, Russia’s government could afford to give money back to the oil industry, Mr Weafer said. An average oil price of $110 per barrel this year would, he estimated, give the government $60bn to $70bn more than the revenues it was currently projecting.

[everyone the world over - but us]

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DANGEROUS TRADE GAMES

By killing "fast track" procedures that guarantee a yes-or-no vote on trade agreements within 90 days, Democratic lawmakers in Washington have destroyed the credibility of the United States as a reliable trading partner, says C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. [snip]

• The United States has been effectively removed from any significant international trade negotiations for the foreseeable future.
• Current and former chief trade officials of three of the world's largest trading entities have indicated that, since the House action, the U.S. has lost all credibility.

Peterson Institute studies show that the U.S. economy is $1 trillion per year richer as a result of trade liberalization, and that America would gain another $500 billion per year if the world could move to totally free trade.

The European Union, and the large and dynamic economies of Asia, will now strike trade compacts among themselves that discriminate against America rather than attempt deals with her. The United States will lose billions of dollars worth of exports and the associated high-paying jobs -- just at a time when improvements in our trade balance, fortified by continuing growth abroad and a highly competitive dollar, are cushioning our slowdown.

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'Sharing' Social Security Numbers w/ 'Undocumented Workers'

Identity theft, defrauding the federal government, and illegal immigration are serious criminal matters.

But if you're the Web editor for MSNBC.com, stolen Social Security numbers are merely "shared" with "undocumented workers" stuck in a web of "federal employment laws."

From the subheadline for the front page tease to the May 27 edition of "Red Tape Chronicles" (see screencap above at right):

Millions of Americans find themselves sharing Social Security identies with others, mostly undocumented workers looking to get around federal employment laws.

Of course, you're lucky if just one person is "sharing" your Social Security Number (SSN). MSNBC.com blogger Bob Sullivan noted one Chicago woman who had 37 other people fraudulently claiming her number. Yet at no point in his 33-paragraph post did Sullivan describe the claiming of other people's SSNs as "fraud." What's more [you knew it was coming], Sullivan turned to an "immigration rights advocate" who painted the illegal immigrant fraudsters themselves as victims: [...]

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All Wet: P.C. in the heartland.

It’s springtime, and political correctness is blooming in Iowa. It takes the form of new Core Curriculum “standards” proposed by the Iowa Department of Education which misinform and manipulate kids. Standard course requirements for schools are not intrinsically bad... (Snip) A more egregious example is Application B on the same page, which instructs students to use what they’ve been taught “and other research, [to] write a letter to your legislator arguing against the sale of DDT to Third World countries when it is banned in the U.S.”

[not arguing the student's position pro or con, but the school's predetermined stance. how does 'indoctrination' not apply?]

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Little Annie to rescue, in a big way

LAKE OSWEGO -- Pam Fischer usually wags a finger and says "hush" when her little dachshund, Annie, starts barking. But now, she's glad her 91/2-pound friend has such a big mouth.

Around 1 a.m. Tuesday, police responded to a complaint about a barking dog waking residents in the Lake Grove neighborhood. Sgt. John Brent expected to find a giant, frothing canine. Instead, he was confronted by a very small, very agitated dachshund that was so aggressive it blocked Brent's patrol car.

At first Brent, who heads Lake Oswego's police canine unit, tried to catch Annie -- formally named Annabelle -- but that only made things worse. Not only did the dog keep barking with unwavering ferocity, she wouldn't let Brent pass and stopped him when he tried to leave in the other direction.

That's when the officer heard a faint cry for help...

[good doggie]

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