Soldiers Learn Electronic Warfare Skills in Eastern Baghdad

FORWARD OPERATING BASE RUSTAMIYAH, Iraq, Nov. 5, 2008 – Selected soldiers assigned to the 10th Mountain Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team and Multinational Division Baghdad received electronic warfare training here.

Electronic warfare applies the radio frequency spectrum to defeat an enemy and save lives on the battlefield. Improvised explosive devices are the biggest threat to coalition and Iraqi forces, and defeating that threat is the biggest concern for leaders, explained Navy Lt. Christopher Winters, the 4th Infantry Division’s electronic warfare training officer from Waterville, Maine.

The Army will add electronic warfare specialist to its collection of military occupational specialties in 2010, he said, adding that the soldiers attending the here will be among the first to attain the new MOS.

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Ballots from U.S. troops risk being discarded

WASHINGTON -- As absentee ballots pour in from U.S. troops overseas, officials are voicing concerns that many of those votes won't be counted. "It's dismal," said Rosemary Rodriguez, who works for the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission, a non-partisan group.

"These are the voters that are in some cases preserving our liberties and out there with their lives on the line."

Rodriguez estimates that in the last general election, only about 30 percent of overseas military ballots were actually returned and counted...

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Both campaigns experience foreign cyber attacks

Newsweek is reporting that both the Obama and McCain campaign computer systems came under assault from a foreign entity:

The FBI has feared the Russian mob's hacking ability for years and has warned American companies what kinds of attacks they prefer. The Chinese government has also apparently been active in carrying out full fledged assaults against our military networks including those related to nuclear missiles.

This is 21st century warfare carried out by governments. This is a war where the arms race is between those who seek new ways to break into systems past safety and security features put in place by experts on the other side whose job is to safeguard our vital systems.

What is known is that we are behind in this arms race but catching up as both the FBI and Secret Service departments responsible in this area have received massive new funding in recent years to counteract the threat. Hopefully, we'll be able to match the hacker's efforts in the near future.

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Hope and Change in the Real World

You can't deliver on hope and change when you have a vast government apparatus eating up 35 percent of gross domestic product and your program is to increase it. Here are the projected numbers for fiscal year 2009, according to usgovernmentspending.com.

Pension Industrial Complex: 5.9% GDP
Medical Industrial Complex: 6.4% GDP
Education Industrial Complex: 5.8% GDP
Military Industrial Complex: 5.4% GDP

Yep, that military industrial complex doesn't look quite as big and frightening today as it did in 1961 when President Eisenhower first mentioned it.

With so much money sloshing around you'd think that there would be plenty in there for change -- to look after seniors, to cure the sick, and educate the children. After all, the Pentagon is fighting a couple of foreign wars on its share of the national product. But Sen. Obama doesn't think so. He's not proposing to change very much. He is more into increases.

He proposes to increase the size of the medical industrial complex to extend health insurance to the 50 million uninsured. He's proposing to increase the size of the education industrial complex by introducing universal pre-kindergarten to pre-schoolers. And he's proposing to increase the size of the welfare industrial complex by giving "tax cuts" to people who don't pay federal income tax.

And the military? Well, something's got to be cut...

[to th tune of 25% if Barney Frank gets his way]

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Iraqi raid nets 220 Al Qaeda suspects

Baghdad - Iraqi forces hunting Al Qaeda members arrested 220 people in a raid in western Anbar province, a former insurgent stronghold, the province's police chief and the U.S. military said on Friday.

Police backed by the Iraqi army stormed houses in the village of Owesat, in southern Anbar where they believe the Sunni Islamist insurgents were hiding, on Thursday morning, said Anbar police chief Major General Tareq Yusuf ...

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Accused car-bomb doctors 'motivated by religion'

London - Two doctors accused of plotting to murder hundreds of people using car bombs packed with nails and gas were motivated by an extreme form of Islam, prosecutors will argue at their trial this week. Bilal Abdulla, 29, and Mohammed Asha, 28, are alleged to have staged failed attacks on a central London nightclub and the main terminal building at Glasgow Airport in June 2007.

[GWOT]

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Extremists face tougher UK entry

A ''presumption in favour of exclusion'' is being introduced to make it easier to prevent extremists entering the UK, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has said. Ms Smith said it would now be up to the individual concerned to prove they would not ''stir up tension'' in the UK. For the first time a list of the names of those excluded - including so-called ''preachers of hate'' - will be published and shared with other countries.

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[Hmm. a bit behind the curve I'd say...]

[photos from London, HT:DT]

Stoning victim 'begged for mercy'

[our enemy]
A young woman recently stoned to death in Somalia first pleaded for her life, a witness has told the BBC. "Don't kill me, don't kill me," she said, according to the man who wanted to remain anonymous. A few minutes later, more than 50 men threw stones.

Human rights group Amnesty International says the victim was a 13-year-old girl who had been raped.

[GWOT]

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Europe's Mosques Move from Back Alleys to Boulevards

There are plans to build several hundred new and often magnificent mosques throughout Europe -- particularly in Germany. Architecture has become the field of a fierce ideological battle about the visibility of Europe's 16 million Muslims. (Snip) stone by stone and minaret by minaret, Muslims in Germany want to become more visible -- they are no longer content to have their places of worship largely hidden from public view. In architectural terms, they want to be part of the cityscape...
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Satellite shows Georgia villages ''torched''

Washington - Hundreds of houses in ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia were torched in August, after Russian troops took control of the area, according to an analysis of satellite images released on Thursday.

The analysis, conducted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science on behalf of Amnesty International, did not show who was responsible for the damage but Amnesty said it may be evidence of war crimes.

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World Bank Under Cyber Siege in 'Unprecedented Crisis'

The World Bank Group's computer network — one of the largest repositories of sensitive data about the economies of every nation — has been raided repeatedly by outsiders for more than a year, FOX News has learned.

It is still not known how much information was stolen. But sources inside the bank confirm that servers in the institution's highly-restricted [or not] treasury unit were deeply penetrated with spy software last April.

[and we're now suppossed to sign up to a 'global' banking {and regulated} system?]

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Alaska’s Glaciers Are Growing

Alaska’s glaciers grew this year, after shrinking for most of the last 200 years. The reason? Global temperatures dropped over the past 18 months. The global mean annual temperature has been declining recently because the solar wind thrown out by the sun has retreated to its smallest extent in at least 50 years. This temperature downturn was not predicted by the global computer models, but had been predicted by the sunspot index since 2000. [snip]

Most of our Modern Warming occurred before 1940 and virtually all of our human-emitted CO2 came after that date. The temperatures in 1998—the recent peak—were only 0.2 degree C higher than in 1940. After the temperature drop of the past 18 months, the temperatures are now cooler than in 1940. [snip]

The sunspots are now predicting a 30-year cooling of the earth. That would thicken the Alaskan glaciers somewhat, but probably wouldn’t refill Glacier Bay with ice. That’ll have to wait for the next icy age.

The sunspot index has a 59 percent correlation with our temperatures (with a roughly ten-year lag). CO2 has only an “accidental” 22 percent correlation with our temperatures, which should be grounds for dismissing CO2 as a major climate player. All this is radically different from the 5-degree C warming predicted by the computer models.

However, the scientific rule says: if actual observations tell you something that’s the opposite of your theory, change your theory...

[poor fellow, he still thinks it's about science]

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U.S. FACES SERIOUS RISKS OF BROWNOUTS IN 2009

The United States faces significant risk of power brownouts and blackouts as early as next summer that may cost tens of billions of dollars and threaten lives. It will require about 120 GW of new electricity generation just to maintain a 15 percent reserve margin.

Examining the current state of energy generation in the United States today, researchers found that:

• The United States will require more than 14,500 miles of new electricity transmission lines by 2016. [but not allowed to run through anyone's neighborhood]
• While renewable energy proponents are saying that the United States needs to only add renewable power facilities such as wind farms, generators, at their [laughably optimistic] peak, only produce between five and 20 percent of required energy.

Moreover, the researchers identified the primary barriers to getting new power plants and transmission lines built. Chief among these is the opposition of well-funded environmental groups that oppose and file lawsuits against virtually every new infrastructure project proposed:

• Opposition to natural gas production, which is needed to fuel the growing reliance on natural gas fired power plants.
• Regulatory uncertainty associated with climate change policy development and the reluctance by state regulators to approve rate increases related to the imposition of new environmental regulation.

[face it: we've too many layers of obstruction have been built up over the years to make any progress with only pro-energy legislation, we need de-legislate much on the books.]

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National road toll devices to be tested by drivers next year

[UK]
Hundreds of drivers are being recruited to take part in government-funded road-pricing trials that could result in charges of up to £1.30 a mile on the most congested roads.

The test runs will start early next year in four locations and will involve fitting a satellite-tracking device to the vehicles of volunteers. An on-board unit will automatically deduct payments from a shadow account set up in the driver’s name.

[~$3.00 - a mile - and that's just the start...]

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School Clams Up on 'Gay' Pledge Cards Given to Kindergartners

A California school system refuses to say what action, if any, it will take after it received complaints about a kindergarten teacher who encouraged her students to sign "pledge cards" in support of gays.

During a celebration of National Ally Week, Tara Miller, a teacher at the Faith Ringgold School of Arts and Science in Hayward, Calif., passed out cards produced by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network to her class of kindergartners.

The cards asked signers to be "an ally" and to pledge to "not use anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) language or slurs; intervene, when I feel I can, in situations where others are using anti-LGBT language or harassing other students and actively support safer schools efforts." [snip]

Val Joyner, a school district spokeswoman, told FOXNews.com in an e-mail that when deciding what to teach on this subject matter, educators "gather materials from community agencies and other education groups" and that "the materials have grade level indicators which help determine what is age-appropriate." [special interest groups all, with no mention of parents being consulted anywhere in the article]

[we need universal vouchers. nothing else will work with these people.]

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THE WAR ON 401(K)S

House Democrats are considering an alternative plan that would replace 401(k)s with a flat tax credit at all income levels. The plan, supported by Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) states that:

• All workers would get a credit of $600 if they invest 5 percent of their pay into a retirement account run by the Social Security Administration and invested solely in special government bonds paying 3 percent plus inflation.
• Existing 401(k)s would be allowed to remain, but would no longer be tax-deductible.

This plan may have a short-term selling point in its risk-free bonds. Its participants would be in no danger of losing, or making, money in stocks -- but in a few months, the market may look quite a bit brighter and the public may not be so receptive to the idea of trading so much freedom for mediocre, if secure, returns.

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Mexican border city desperate to recruit police

The border city of Ciudad Juarez is sending police recruiters across the country and will keep 175 officers who have used drugs in the past as it tries to replace nearly half a police force gutted by firings and retirements. The tough industrial city of 1.2 million, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, has seen several policemen killed and dozen of people murdered in bloody drug gang turf battles in recent months.

[thanks to our impenetrable border security this is little more than an 'interest' piece which won't effect us]

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MEDICAL TOURISM: HEALTH CARE FREE TRADE

Global competition in health care is allowing more patients from developed countries to travel for medical reasons to regions once characterized as "third world." Many of these "medical tourists" are not wealthy, but are seeking high quality medical care at affordable prices.

To meet the growing demand, entrepreneurs are building technologically advanced facilities in India, Thailand, Latin America and elsewhere, and are hiring physicians, technicians and nurses trained to American and European standards. Fees for treatments abroad range from one-half to as little as one-fifth the price in the United States... [snip]

• Apollo Hospital in New Delhi, India, charges $4,000 for cardiac surgery, compared to about $30,000 in the United States.

One reason why medical costs are lower abroad is that labor costs are cheaper, another is that consumers are spending their own money and so rate the value of services with a competitive mindset. As more insured patients begin to travel abroad for low-cost medical procedures, medical tourism will result in sorely needed competition in the American health care industry.

[Q: think a US-government run program would tolerate such competition?]

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Slime

.
Where Obama stands on the issues

[from the Associated Press - on Nov. 5th.]

...