Good song and worth a listen:
Friday, August 17, 2012
The Obama-nation
This is compliments of Ray Stevens...Famous for his Mississippi Squirrel revival and a host of others.
Good song and worth a listen:
Good song and worth a listen:
X-51 Scramjet Engine demonstrator
Compliments of Global Security.org
A
flight test scheduled for 14 August 2012 reportedly ended in failure
according to a tweet from Wired.com's Danger Room on 15 August 2012,
which said that a fin problem had caused control of the aircraft to be
lost before the main engine could even be started. No official press
release from the US Air Force of DARPA on the results of the test or
possible rescheduling of the test were available by the end of the day
on 14 August 2012. At that time, it was estimated that $250-300 million
had been spent on the X-51 program.
In a note sent to the media on 15 August 2012, the US Air Force said that the X-51A test flight had ended prematurely. While the X-51 vehicle had safely separated from the B-52 carrier aircraft and the rocket booster had fired as planned, after 16 seconds, a fault was identified with one of the cruiser control fins. Once the X-51 separated from the rocket booster, approximately 15 seconds later, the cruiser was not able to maintain control due to the faulty control fin and was lost. The control subsystem at fault had not experienced issues in the previous 2 test flights and program officials were to begin to explore the circumstances of the failure. Following the 14 August 2012, one of the 4 X-51A aircraft product up to that point remained, but it was unclear whether that vehicle would be tested in its existing configuration.
The X-51 Scramjet Engine Demonstrator Waverider Program is an advanced hypersonic propulsion development effort funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The X-51A Flight Test Program plans to demonstrate the scramjet engine within the Mach 4.5 to 6.0+ range with four flight tests beginning in 2009. The program will set the foundation for several hypersonic applications, including access to space, reconnaissance-strike and global reach.
The first flight 26 May 2010 set a record for duration at hypersonic speed. The flight was about 10 times longer than any previous hypersonic scramjet flight and "80 to 90 percent" of flight test objectives were achieved. By that time, it was estimated that $200 million had been spent on the program. Program officials said 15 March 2011 that the Air Force planned to fly its second X-51A Waverider hypersonic flight test demonstrator as early as 22 March 2011. During the test attempt in March, the scramjet failed to release from the B-52 and the team went to work to create a solution.
A B-52H Stratofortress on loan to Edwards released the experimental vehicle from an altitude of approximately 50,000 feet 13 June 2011. After release, the X-51 was initially accelerated by a solid rocket booster. The hypersonic aircraft was successfully boosted to just over Mach 5 and the scramjet engine lit, but it failed to transition to full power. The second X-51 supersonic combustion scramjet test vehicle actually produced more thrust than expected before the test flight ended in failure. Although the second flight test of the X-51A Waverider scramjet ended prematurely, the coordination and performance of the Hypersonics Combined Test Force and the 419th Flight Test Squadron was flawless. This second flight ended with a controlled landing into the ocean. Read the rest here
X-51 Scramjet Engine Demonstrator - WaveRider (SED-WR)
A
flight test scheduled for 14 August 2012 reportedly ended in failure
according to a tweet from Wired.com's Danger Room on 15 August 2012,
which said that a fin problem had caused control of the aircraft to be
lost before the main engine could even be started. No official press
release from the US Air Force of DARPA on the results of the test or
possible rescheduling of the test were available by the end of the day
on 14 August 2012. At that time, it was estimated that $250-300 million
had been spent on the X-51 program.In a note sent to the media on 15 August 2012, the US Air Force said that the X-51A test flight had ended prematurely. While the X-51 vehicle had safely separated from the B-52 carrier aircraft and the rocket booster had fired as planned, after 16 seconds, a fault was identified with one of the cruiser control fins. Once the X-51 separated from the rocket booster, approximately 15 seconds later, the cruiser was not able to maintain control due to the faulty control fin and was lost. The control subsystem at fault had not experienced issues in the previous 2 test flights and program officials were to begin to explore the circumstances of the failure. Following the 14 August 2012, one of the 4 X-51A aircraft product up to that point remained, but it was unclear whether that vehicle would be tested in its existing configuration.
The X-51 Scramjet Engine Demonstrator Waverider Program is an advanced hypersonic propulsion development effort funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The X-51A Flight Test Program plans to demonstrate the scramjet engine within the Mach 4.5 to 6.0+ range with four flight tests beginning in 2009. The program will set the foundation for several hypersonic applications, including access to space, reconnaissance-strike and global reach.
The first flight 26 May 2010 set a record for duration at hypersonic speed. The flight was about 10 times longer than any previous hypersonic scramjet flight and "80 to 90 percent" of flight test objectives were achieved. By that time, it was estimated that $200 million had been spent on the program. Program officials said 15 March 2011 that the Air Force planned to fly its second X-51A Waverider hypersonic flight test demonstrator as early as 22 March 2011. During the test attempt in March, the scramjet failed to release from the B-52 and the team went to work to create a solution.
A B-52H Stratofortress on loan to Edwards released the experimental vehicle from an altitude of approximately 50,000 feet 13 June 2011. After release, the X-51 was initially accelerated by a solid rocket booster. The hypersonic aircraft was successfully boosted to just over Mach 5 and the scramjet engine lit, but it failed to transition to full power. The second X-51 supersonic combustion scramjet test vehicle actually produced more thrust than expected before the test flight ended in failure. Although the second flight test of the X-51A Waverider scramjet ended prematurely, the coordination and performance of the Hypersonics Combined Test Force and the 419th Flight Test Squadron was flawless. This second flight ended with a controlled landing into the ocean. Read the rest here
Dishonorable Disclosures
When I was in the service, I was part of the branch that was "always out front". We did and saw things that most people never saw or will see. When I was in, one of the things I had besides a security clearance was a 75 year non-disclosure...basically I cannot tell or talk about what I did while I was in. Any discussions had the possibility of leaking some kind of information that could compromise something. So we just never talk about it. I have been out for 21 years and people ask what I did, I make some comment about " I did a lot of things" or I just worked in the mail room or something.(which I did for 90 days). The point is that we just don't talk about it. I have been appalled by the leaks that I have seen, the release of the OBL hit right after it happened. Nothing like putting a bulls eye on somebody or their family. Remember these people don"t have the same belief in the sanctity of human life like we do. they would think nothing about taking out the families of Seal Team Six as a form of jihad. We used to have leaders that respected operation security...these clown are more concerned about getting reelected than doing the right thing. They are elitist, the people that are at risk are the people from "flyover country". The ones that didn't get into the right schools... Didn't become part of the apparachik, the cultural elitist, the ones that know what is best for the rest of the dumb masses.
The people that will have to deal with the fallout from these leaks will not be going to the houses of the Hollywood celebrities for fundraisers, they will not be getting their name in the newspaper for some policy decision, they will be the ones that stand guard over this country, walking the perimeters at night, going into all the dark places that they go and protect this country like their parents and grandparents have done before them.
The people that will have to deal with the fallout from these leaks will not be going to the houses of the Hollywood celebrities for fundraisers, they will not be getting their name in the newspaper for some policy decision, they will be the ones that stand guard over this country, walking the perimeters at night, going into all the dark places that they go and protect this country like their parents and grandparents have done before them.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
X-48C Completes successful test flight
X-48C completes successful test flight
A
Boeing-designed futuristic aircraft with the potential to boost fuel
efficiency significantly while reducing noise had a successful test
flight, NASA said.The remotely piloted X-48C Blended Wing Body research aircraft, a scaled-down model of the proposed design, flew Tuesday at Edwards Air Force Base in California’s Mojave Desert.
Built by Cranfield Aerospace Limited in Britain, the X-48C has a wingspan of about 20 feet, weighs about 500 pounds and can fly up to 140 mph, reaching an altitude of 10,000 feet.
Tuesday’s flight lasted 9 minutes and reached 5,500 feet, seattlepi.com reported.
The aircraft is a successor to the X-48B, which flew from 2007 to 2010.
Modifications include moving wingtip winglets to the fuselage, extending the length by 2 feet and replacing the X-48B’s three 50-pound thrust jet engines with two 89-pound thrust engines.
“In our earlier flight testing of the X-48B, we proved that a BWB aircraft can be controlled as effectively as a conventional tube-and-wing aircraft during takeoffs and landings and other low-speed segments of the flight regime,” Bob Liebeck, Boeing’s blended wing body program manager, said in a release. “With the X-48C, we will be evaluating the impact of noise shielding concepts on low-speed flight characteristics.
Read more: http://defensetech.org/2012/08/09/x-48c-completes-successful-test-flight/#ixzz23gHholKZ
Defense.org
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
gratuitous violence
I was over visiting Peters Website, he had posted a Wile E. Coyote and roadrunner cartoon. I watch them while I am at work during break on my kindle fire. Back then the cartoons were funny with a lot of cartoon violence...unlike the fare offered today that is full of preachy politically correct drivel. that espouses the latest global warming alarmist tripe or what other cause is the cause celebrity of the moment. The kids miss out on plain old fashioned funny. Sure the coyote gets hurt...but he is fine the next frame.
Something that I always wondered.......How did the Coyote PAY for all this stuff.......?
Something that I always wondered.......How did the Coyote PAY for all this stuff.......?
"Open letter to every teenager"
A Judges words back in 1959 have gone viral. Some sage advice from a judge is going viral and soon could be making its way to a Facebook post near you. In 1959, Judge Philip B. Gilliam of Denver, Colorado, published a letter in the Pierce County Tribune in North Dakota.
Fast-forward just over half a
century when in 2010 the Tribune's editor posted the letter on the
paper's website. From there, principal John Tapene all the way in New
Zealand posted the letter in his school's newsletter. Finally, some of
Judge Gilliam's wise words found their way to Canadian radio station
96.7, which posted the letter to its Facebook wall with the title "Every teenager should have this framed and hung on their wall in their room."
Open Letter to Teenager
Always we hear the plaintive cry of the teen-ager. What can we do?...Were can we go?
The answer is GO HOME!
Hang the storm windows, paint the woodwork. Rake the leaves, mow the lawn, shovel the walk. Wash the car, learn to cook, scrub some floors. Repair the sink, build a boat, get a job.
Help the minister, priest, or rabbi, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army. Visit the sick, assist the poor, study your lessons. And then when you are through - and not too tired - read a book.
Your parents do not owe you entertainment. Your city or village does not owe you recreational facilities.
The world does not owe you a living...You owe the world something.
You owe it your time and your energy and your talents so that no one will be at war or in poverty or sick or lonely again.
Grow up; quit being a crybaby. Get out of your dream world and develop a backbone, not a wishbone, and start acting like a man or a lady.
You're supposed to be mature enough to accept some of the responsibility your parents have carried for years.
They have nursed, protected, helped, appealed, begged, excused, tolerated and denied themselves needed comforts so that you could have every benefit. This they have done gladly, for you are their dearest treasure.
But now, you have no right to expect them to bow to every whim and fancy just because selfish ego instead of common sense dominates your personality, thinking and request.
In Heaven's name, grow up and go home!
The answer is GO HOME!
Hang the storm windows, paint the woodwork. Rake the leaves, mow the lawn, shovel the walk. Wash the car, learn to cook, scrub some floors. Repair the sink, build a boat, get a job.
Help the minister, priest, or rabbi, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army. Visit the sick, assist the poor, study your lessons. And then when you are through - and not too tired - read a book.
Your parents do not owe you entertainment. Your city or village does not owe you recreational facilities.
The world does not owe you a living...You owe the world something.
You owe it your time and your energy and your talents so that no one will be at war or in poverty or sick or lonely again.
Grow up; quit being a crybaby. Get out of your dream world and develop a backbone, not a wishbone, and start acting like a man or a lady.
You're supposed to be mature enough to accept some of the responsibility your parents have carried for years.
They have nursed, protected, helped, appealed, begged, excused, tolerated and denied themselves needed comforts so that you could have every benefit. This they have done gladly, for you are their dearest treasure.
But now, you have no right to expect them to bow to every whim and fancy just because selfish ego instead of common sense dominates your personality, thinking and request.
In Heaven's name, grow up and go home!
5 Things to not say or do while traveling....
I got this on Yahoo.com. It has some common sense approach to travel. I will also include some of my own opinions in Red.
(Photo: David Wilson via flickr/CC Attribution)
"Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word, before you let it fall," said Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Thinking before you speak is an excellent strategy for anyone, but it's especially appropriate for the traveling set. To fend off foot-in-mouth syndrome while on the road, banish the following five phrases from your lexicon.
(Photo: polandeze via flickr/CC Attribution)
Do You Speak English?
There are basic foreign-language expressions that every international traveler should learn before crossing borders, and this is one of them. Even if you're light-years away from fluency, a rudimentary grasp of simple phrases in the regional tongue—like "please," "hello," "thank you," "no thank you," and "where is the bathroom?"—will work wonders. Add to this list "Do you speak English?" to be stated in the applicable language. It's a show of respect. And locals will likely be more responsive and helpful to anyone who doesn't behave as if all citizens of the world ought to speak his or her native language. Before you travel, it is good to brush up on the layout of the city where you are going, if going to a foreign country, google something about the language, there are translation apps out there. Also get an idea of the local customs, and check on the local holidays, if you show up during a holiday, it could make it difficult to get around. memorize the ways out of the city in case there is a social upheaval and you have to get out fast.
(Photo: Elvert Barnes via flickr/CC Attribution)
Do You Have Change for a $20?
This phrase shouldn't be spoken to your bellman, tour guide, airport-shuttle driver, hotel housekeeper, or any other serviceperson not stationed behind a cash register. Travel and tipping go together like Lewis and Clark. Thus, road warriors should make a point of obtaining small bills in the local currency at the beginning of every trip. Don't put your service person in the position of awkwardly fumbling through his or her wallet in order to receive due recompense. Also keep your wallet in your front pocket, don"t use a purse...that screams "grab me" to the local moped gang. Before you travel, thin out your wallet, only take the basics, drivers license, medical card, 1 credit card( notify your CC company that you are traveling so they can keep an eye on unexplained purchases) and make a copy of your passport( more about that later)
(Photo: Enrico via flickr/CC Attribution)
Can You Help Me? I'm Lost, and I'm Staying at [Name of Hotel].
Have you seen the movie Taken? It's about a girl who gets kidnapped in Paris after human traffickers have found out where she is staying. Yes, it's Hollywood. But, to some degree, art imitates life. Many criminals target unsuspecting travelers—especially in popular tourist destinations—and it's not a smart idea to tell a stranger that you're from out of town or to publicize where you're bunking down for the night. You might not get sold into sex slavery, but you could get robbed, especially if your hotel lacks top-notch security. Remember the copy of the passport I mentioned earlier? Most hotels that cater to tourist have a safe in the room, Leave the original passport in the safe and use the copy when you are around town. You have to safeguard the passport, if you have to get out fast, having a passport will make things easier with the U.S. Embassy. Also stay on the ground floor in case you have to leave in a hurry and the doors are blocked. Also keep a basic "bug out" bag in the safe with your passport, something small that allows you to keep some money, passport, small first aid supplies. Also dress like the locals...no bling, try to blend in with the local scene.
(Photo: Jeremy Keith via flickr/CC Attribution)
I Don't Want To Go There; There Aren't Any Reviews!
While we appreciate the power and practicality of user-generated reviews, they have their limits. New establishments, locals-only joints, tiny B&B's, and less-traveled hideaways often get left off the reviews grid. Developing a dependence on the aggregated opinions of the faceless masses will prevent you from discovering anything remotely, well, undiscovered.
One traveler told our sister site IndependentTraveler.com, "Some great travel memories I have are from exploring Switzerland by train. I stopped over in many towns [without] knowing anything about the place or where I would end up staying. It was liberating to fend for myself and discover all things with new eyes."
(Photo: redjar via flickr/CC Attribution and Share Alike)
Geez. It's Not Like I Have A Bomb.
Airport security can often seem like a joke—especially when young children get pat-downs or Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents steal from passengers. But that doesn't mean you should play the part of the comedian when going through the metal detector. Travelers have been arrested for making jokes about terrorism in the airport. According to the TSA, "Belligerence, inappropriate jokes, and threats are not tolerated. Jokes and/or comments about threats to passengers or the aircraft will be taken seriously and can result in criminal or civil penalties for the passenger." Be on the safe side and save the jokes for after you've left the airport. The TSA don't have a sense of humor.
If y'all have anything else to add, please do and I will do a follow-up article
(Photo: David Wilson via flickr/CC Attribution)MORE AT SMARTER TRAVEL
"Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word, before you let it fall," said Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Thinking before you speak is an excellent strategy for anyone, but it's especially appropriate for the traveling set. To fend off foot-in-mouth syndrome while on the road, banish the following five phrases from your lexicon.
(Photo: polandeze via flickr/CC Attribution)Do You Speak English?
There are basic foreign-language expressions that every international traveler should learn before crossing borders, and this is one of them. Even if you're light-years away from fluency, a rudimentary grasp of simple phrases in the regional tongue—like "please," "hello," "thank you," "no thank you," and "where is the bathroom?"—will work wonders. Add to this list "Do you speak English?" to be stated in the applicable language. It's a show of respect. And locals will likely be more responsive and helpful to anyone who doesn't behave as if all citizens of the world ought to speak his or her native language. Before you travel, it is good to brush up on the layout of the city where you are going, if going to a foreign country, google something about the language, there are translation apps out there. Also get an idea of the local customs, and check on the local holidays, if you show up during a holiday, it could make it difficult to get around. memorize the ways out of the city in case there is a social upheaval and you have to get out fast.
(Photo: Elvert Barnes via flickr/CC Attribution)Do You Have Change for a $20?
This phrase shouldn't be spoken to your bellman, tour guide, airport-shuttle driver, hotel housekeeper, or any other serviceperson not stationed behind a cash register. Travel and tipping go together like Lewis and Clark. Thus, road warriors should make a point of obtaining small bills in the local currency at the beginning of every trip. Don't put your service person in the position of awkwardly fumbling through his or her wallet in order to receive due recompense. Also keep your wallet in your front pocket, don"t use a purse...that screams "grab me" to the local moped gang. Before you travel, thin out your wallet, only take the basics, drivers license, medical card, 1 credit card( notify your CC company that you are traveling so they can keep an eye on unexplained purchases) and make a copy of your passport( more about that later)
(Photo: Enrico via flickr/CC Attribution)Can You Help Me? I'm Lost, and I'm Staying at [Name of Hotel].
Have you seen the movie Taken? It's about a girl who gets kidnapped in Paris after human traffickers have found out where she is staying. Yes, it's Hollywood. But, to some degree, art imitates life. Many criminals target unsuspecting travelers—especially in popular tourist destinations—and it's not a smart idea to tell a stranger that you're from out of town or to publicize where you're bunking down for the night. You might not get sold into sex slavery, but you could get robbed, especially if your hotel lacks top-notch security. Remember the copy of the passport I mentioned earlier? Most hotels that cater to tourist have a safe in the room, Leave the original passport in the safe and use the copy when you are around town. You have to safeguard the passport, if you have to get out fast, having a passport will make things easier with the U.S. Embassy. Also stay on the ground floor in case you have to leave in a hurry and the doors are blocked. Also keep a basic "bug out" bag in the safe with your passport, something small that allows you to keep some money, passport, small first aid supplies. Also dress like the locals...no bling, try to blend in with the local scene.
(Photo: Jeremy Keith via flickr/CC Attribution)I Don't Want To Go There; There Aren't Any Reviews!
While we appreciate the power and practicality of user-generated reviews, they have their limits. New establishments, locals-only joints, tiny B&B's, and less-traveled hideaways often get left off the reviews grid. Developing a dependence on the aggregated opinions of the faceless masses will prevent you from discovering anything remotely, well, undiscovered.
One traveler told our sister site IndependentTraveler.com, "Some great travel memories I have are from exploring Switzerland by train. I stopped over in many towns [without] knowing anything about the place or where I would end up staying. It was liberating to fend for myself and discover all things with new eyes."
(Photo: redjar via flickr/CC Attribution and Share Alike)Geez. It's Not Like I Have A Bomb.
Airport security can often seem like a joke—especially when young children get pat-downs or Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents steal from passengers. But that doesn't mean you should play the part of the comedian when going through the metal detector. Travelers have been arrested for making jokes about terrorism in the airport. According to the TSA, "Belligerence, inappropriate jokes, and threats are not tolerated. Jokes and/or comments about threats to passengers or the aircraft will be taken seriously and can result in criminal or civil penalties for the passenger." Be on the safe side and save the jokes for after you've left the airport. The TSA don't have a sense of humor.
If y'all have anything else to add, please do and I will do a follow-up article
Special Ops groups attack Obama over the OBL bragging and the intell leaks
I saw this on Yahoo News. I still think it is strange that the operators that got OBL were then in a regular shithook(CH-47) when it got shot down and many were killed rather than the standard MH-47 that they normally use that is operated by 160th SOAR. Make me wonder if there was a leak at the high level and it was a payback for the OBL hit. With the way the present administration plays Chicago Politics, I would not be surprised.
They have pointed to media reports about clandestine drone attacks, informants planted in al Qaeda affiliates and alleged cyber-warfare against Iran that Republicans say were calculated to promote Obama's image as a strong leader in an election year.
The White House has denied leaking classified information.
It also set itself up as a nonprofit organization under section 501(c)4 of the U.S. Tax Code, allowing it to keep donors' identities secret. Spokesmen for the group declined to discuss its sources of financing.
Several group representatives say their main motivation for setting up OPSEC was dismay at recent detailed media leaks about sensitive operations.
In an interview, Taylor denied OPSEC had any political slant. He described the group as a "watchdog organization" but added that the current administration "has certainly leaked more than others."
U.S. President Barack Obama prepares …
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of former U.S. intelligence and Special Forces operatives is set to launch a media campaign, including TV ads, that scolds President Barack Obama for taking credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden and argues that high-level leaks are endangering American lives.
Leaders of the group, the Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund Inc,
say it is nonpartisan and unconnected to any political party or
presidential campaign. It is registered as a so-called social welfare
group, which means its primary purpose is to further the common good and
its political activities should be secondary.
In the past, military exploits have been turned against
presidential candidates by outside groups, most famously the Swift Boat
ads in 2004 that questioned Democratic nominee John Kerry's Vietnam War
service.
The OPSEC
group says it is not political and aims to save American lives. Its
first public salvo is a 22-minute film that includes criticism of Obama
and his administration. The film, to be released on Wednesday, was seen in advance by Reuters.
"Mr. President, you
did not kill Osama bin Laden, America did. The work that the American
military has done killed Osama bin Laden. You did not," Ben Smith,
identified as a Navy SEAL, says in the film.
"As a citizen, it is my civic duty to tell the
president to stop leaking information to the enemy," Smith continues.
"It will get Americans killed."
An Obama campaign
official said: "No one in this group is in a position to speak with any
authority on these issues and on what impact these leaks might have,
and it's clear they've resorted to making things up for purely political
reasons."
Obama has
highlighted his foreign policy record on the campaign trail, emphasizing
how he presided over the killing of bin Laden, as well as how he ended
the war in Iraq and set a timeline for winding down the war in
Afghanistan.
However, Obama has come under sharp attack from
Republican lawmakers who have accused his administration of being behind
high-level leaks of classified information.They have pointed to media reports about clandestine drone attacks, informants planted in al Qaeda affiliates and alleged cyber-warfare against Iran that Republicans say were calculated to promote Obama's image as a strong leader in an election year.
The White House has denied leaking classified information.
The president of
Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund Inc, Scott Taylor, is a former
Navy SEAL who in 2010 ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination
for a congressional seat in Virginia.
Calling itself "OPSEC" for short - which in spy jargon
means "operational security" - the anti-leak group incorporated last
June in Delaware, a state that has the most secretive corporate
registration rules in the U.S.It also set itself up as a nonprofit organization under section 501(c)4 of the U.S. Tax Code, allowing it to keep donors' identities secret. Spokesmen for the group declined to discuss its sources of financing.
Several group representatives say their main motivation for setting up OPSEC was dismay at recent detailed media leaks about sensitive operations.
In an interview, Taylor denied OPSEC had any political slant. He described the group as a "watchdog organization" but added that the current administration "has certainly leaked more than others."
OPSEC spokesmen
said the group has about $1 million at its disposal and hopes to raise
more after the release of its mini-documentary, entitled "Dishonorable
Disclosures," which aims, in spy-movie style, to document a recent spate
of leaks regarding sensitive intelligence and military operations.
Following the
film's release, OPSEC's spokesmen said, the group expects to produce TV
spots on the anti-leak theme that will air in a number of states,
including Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Colorado, North Carolina and Nevada -
key battleground states.
Fred Rustmann, a former undercover case officer for the
CIA who is a spokesman for the group, insisted its focus on leaks was
"not a partisan concern." But he said the current administration had
been leaking secrets "to help this guy get re-elected, at the expense of
peoples' lives.... We want to see that they don't do this again."
Chad Kolton, a
former spokesman for the office of Director of National Intelligence
during the George W. Bush administration who now represents OPSEC, also said the group's message and make-up are nonpolitical.
"You'll see
throughout the film that concern about protecting the lives of
intelligence and Special Forces officers takes precedence over
partisanship," he said.
Responding to criticism about the president taking credit for the bin Laden
raid, an Obama campaign official pointed to an interview with CNN last
month in which Admiral Bill McRaven, commander of the raid, said: "At
the end of the day, make no mistake about it, it was the president of
the United States that shouldered the burden for this operation, that
made the hard decisions, that was instrumental in the planning process,
because I pitched every plan to him."
"I think Admiral
McRaven knows more about the President's role in the bin Laden operation
than this group," the campaign official said.
(Additional
reporting by Lauren French and Alexander Cohen in Washington. Editing by
Claudia Parsons and Ciro Scotti)
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Explaining the 2012 elections....
I saw this from Sultan Knish He did a very good job stating the case
"To vote for Obama after years of grotesque economic mismanagement that has no precedent in history, that exceeds the worst actions of Andrew Jackson or Ulysses S. Grant, is not the instinct of an American, but a selfish greedy looter scrambling to grab a few dinner rolls off the tray while the ship is going down. There is no policy justification for voting for a man with the worst economic and foreign policy record in the country's history. There is no American justification for voting for him. Only the Un-American motivation of carving up a dying country into group fiefdoms privileging identity politics over the common good.
This is an Un-American campaign. It is an Anti-American campaign. It is a campaign by those who hate and fear what America was and who resent having to care about anyone outside their own group. Its group jingoism, its dog whistles and special privileges are repulsive and cynical, treating the people of a great nation like a warren of rats eager to sell each other out for a prize from the Cracker Jack box of identity politics entitlements."
In 1980, when President Reagan asked Americans, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago", it was still possible to campaign on a theme as simple as the job performance of the other guy. But now, 32 years later, the campaign hinges on a much more fundamental split among the voting population.
Romney appeals to voters who are dissatisfied with the last four years.
Obama appeals to voters who are dissatisfied with America.
This basic gap was obscured in the 2008 campaign by the window trappings of inspiration. Among all the plastic pillars and stolen quotes from poets who stole them from sermons, it was harder to see that the underlying theme of the campaign was dissatisfaction with America. But in 2012, Obama can no longer run as a reformer or an optimist.
The coalition that he committed to last year is a coalition of those who are unhappy with America, not in the last four years, but in the last two-hundred years. Its core is composed of groups that fear democracy and distrust the will of the people. There is no optimism here, but a deeply rooted pessimism about human nature and the country as a whole. It is the Democratic Party's coalition against democracy.
After 2010, the numbers were crunched, and it was clear that Obama and the Democrats could not win a mainstream campaign. Instead, they targeted narrow groups, stirred up conflicts over issues aimed at that group, whether it was union pensions, racism or birth control. There was no more pretense of a national election, only a frenzied rush to polarize as many groups as possible and join them together into an acrimonious coalition, not so much for anything, as against Republicans.
There isn't any inspiration here. Just paranoia over everything from gay marriage to abortion to racial profiling to illegal immigration. A dozen illegal benefits being handed out with the explicit threat that they will be lost if Romney wins. A dozen mini-civil wars being stirred up to divide Americans and set them at each other's throats for the benefit of the Obama campaign.
From Occupy Wall Street to Wisconsin, from Trayvon Martin to Chick-fil-A, the goal of these manufactured conflicts has been to divide and conquer the electorate by emphasizing group rights over individual economic welfare.
Obama can't win on the economy. He can't win on foreign policy. He can't win on any aspect of his administration. All he can do is stir up violence and then promise to heal the country in his second term while winking to all the representatives of the grievance groups. It's not a new game, but the Democratic Party has never played it quite this baldly in a national election. And if it succeeds, then national politics will have finally been reduced to the level of a Chicago election.
We were expected to believe that the typical Obama voter in 2008 was hoping for a better country, but in 2012 there is no more hope, only hate and fear. The typical Obama voter is not acting as an American, but as a representative of an entitled group looking to secure and expand those entitlements at the expense and the detriment of the country at large.
To vote for Obama after years of grotesque economic mismanagement that has no precedent in history, that exceeds the worst actions of Andrew Jackson or Ulysses S. Grant, is not the instinct of an American, but a selfish greedy looter scrambling to grab a few dinner rolls off the tray while the ship is going down. There is no policy justification for voting for a man with the worst economic and foreign policy record in the country's history. There is no American justification for voting for him. Only the UnAmerican motivation of carving up a dying country into group fiefdoms privileging identity politics over the common good.
This is an UnAmerican campaign. It is an Anti-American campaign. It is a campaign by those who hate and fear what America was and who resent having to care about anyone outside their own group. Its group jingoism, its dog whistles and special privileges are repulsive and cynical, treating the people of a great nation like a warren of rats eager to sell each other out for a prize from the Cracker Jack box of identity politics entitlements.
There is not a single Obama voter anywhere in the land who believes that
another four years of him will make this country better. Not a single
one from coast to coast. No, what they believe is that he will make the
country a worse place for those people that they hate. That he will have
four more years to sink their ideas deeper in the earth, regardless of
how many families go hungry and how many fathers kill themselves because
they can no longer take care of their families. What they believe is
that Obama will grant their group more special privileges and the rest
of the country can go to hell.
In his DNC keynote address in 2004, Obama said, "There is no Black America or White America or Latino America or Asian America, there is just the United States of America." And now he has completely disavowed it. He isn't campaigning to lead the United States of America, instead he is running for the presidency of a dozen little Americas, Trayvon Martin America, Abortion America, Illegal Alien America, Sharia America, Gay Marriage America, Starbucks America and any others you can think of. And if he can collect enough of these little Americas together, then he may get the privilege of running the United States of America into the ground for another four years.
Obama has never been the President of the United States of America. He has been the president of Washington D.C., of Wall Street and of Solyndra. He has been the President of Green America and of Chicago. He has been the President of Warren Buffett, George Soros, Bill Gates, Penny Pritzker and James Crown. He is the President of George Clooney, Harvey Weinstein and Anne Hathaway. And now, facing disaster, he still isn't running to be President of a country, but of a dozen little countries with money from freshly bailed out Green America and Wall Street, not to mention Hollywood.
The Obama campaign is not accidentally divisive. It did not stumble into divisiveness. It is not even divisive as a byproduct of its real aims. Divisiveness is its aim. Divisiveness is the only way that a divisive administration can hold on to power. The anger and the violence are not an accident, they are the whole point. Set one group against another, feed the hate, massage the grievances and very soon there is no longer a nation but a handful of quarreling groups being roped into a mutual alliance to reelect their lord protector whose appeal is that of the outsider becoming the insider.
Bain is a metaphor whose details don't truly matter. The target audience for that swill doesn't really care where Romney was when a steel plant was shut down. It doesn't care that like so many private equity bigwigs, the man who actually was in charge is one of Obama's bundlers. This isn't about truth, it's about menace. The Bain message is that Romney is a man who takes things away. That is the image that the UnAmerican alliance is meant to take away. The ominous sense that Obama's era of giving them things is about to come to a close and Romney's era of taking away things will begin.
It doesn't take much prompting for the UnAmericans to come to this conclusion. Thieves are always looking over their shoulders. They always expect to have their ill-gotten gains taken away from them. And that is Obama's true achievement. Like Tammany Hall, he has corrupted a massive section of the population and made it complicit in his criminality. What the old political machines did to cities or small groups of vested interests, the Zero has done to tens of millions, if not a hundred million people, who want him in power not because they think he's the best man for the job, but because he's their crook. The middle man for a crime ring that begins with him and ends with them.
The true insidious evil of the man is that he is the face of a machine of power and privilege that turns Americans into UnAmericans, that corrupts and degrades every ideal and principle, suborns every office and picks every pocket, while wrapping that thievery in the flag and every bit of history that it can filch. The Hussein Way is the clearest expression of the rot at the heart of the Democratic Party, the marriage of leftist agitation and powermongering with the old urban political machines for a level of abuse usually seen only in banana republics.
The abomination in Washington is a welfare-state technocracy that mixes crony capitalism with radical social policy. It steals from everyone and gives back to some. It plays the game of divide and conquer with the panache of marketing executives knowing that the worse the economy is, the more likely everyone is to look in everyone else's mouth. Its worst aspect is its insistence on cloaking its cynicism as righteousness, wrapping every ugly means in the glorious flag of the ends when the truth is that its means are its ends.
Divide and conquer isn't just a means to the greater end of giving Zero Hussein another four years. And perhaps another four years after that. It's also the end. Every tyrant from Joseph Stalin to Saddam Hussein knew that a divided people are easier to rule. The more you divide them, the less likely they are to give you any trouble when you're raiding their last pennies to pay for the latest Green gimmick that your billionaire backers have thrown up all over Wall Street.
Obama is the ultimate Post-American figure passing himself off as the embodiment of all that is truly American. But the UnAmericans got the real message in 2008 and in 2012 there is no other message. There is no more hope and faith, and the ones who have been waiting for are the UnAmericans who think that they are about to come into their own, when they are little more than pawns being used to rob and destroy a great nation.
This is the Post-American, Anti-American and UnAmerican campaign to divide up, carve up and toss aside the laws and traditions of the United States and replace them with the power of arrogance. It is the last stand of a beleaguered nation facing barbarians inside its gate. Every previous election was a contest between two American candidates who wanted to preside over the United States.
This is an election contest between the United States and an emerging
Post-American order. That entity will be an American EU run by unelected
bureaucrats, governed by politically correct technocrats and upheld by
corrupt financial pirates disguising the collective bankruptcy with
numbers games so elaborate that they make every billion-dollar con game
and pyramid scheme that has come before seem as simple as child's play.
The entity is already here. Its czars are running things in D.C., and its judges are dismantling both constitutional government and democratic elections. It creates a crisis and then makes sure that it doesn't go to waste. It has excellent design skills and terrible planning skills. It has all the money in the world and none at all. It is the Post-American America, and 2012 is its big referendum. The one that will decide whether this Post-American America, this horrid graft of E.U. governance and Mussolini economics, Soviet propaganda and FDR volunteerism, Tammany populist criminality and U.N. foreign policy will be permitted to devour the United States of America.
Obama cannot win an American election. But he isn't running in an American election. He's running in a Post-American election.
"To vote for Obama after years of grotesque economic mismanagement that has no precedent in history, that exceeds the worst actions of Andrew Jackson or Ulysses S. Grant, is not the instinct of an American, but a selfish greedy looter scrambling to grab a few dinner rolls off the tray while the ship is going down. There is no policy justification for voting for a man with the worst economic and foreign policy record in the country's history. There is no American justification for voting for him. Only the Un-American motivation of carving up a dying country into group fiefdoms privileging identity politics over the common good.
This is an Un-American campaign. It is an Anti-American campaign. It is a campaign by those who hate and fear what America was and who resent having to care about anyone outside their own group. Its group jingoism, its dog whistles and special privileges are repulsive and cynical, treating the people of a great nation like a warren of rats eager to sell each other out for a prize from the Cracker Jack box of identity politics entitlements."
In 1980, when President Reagan asked Americans, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago", it was still possible to campaign on a theme as simple as the job performance of the other guy. But now, 32 years later, the campaign hinges on a much more fundamental split among the voting population.
This basic gap was obscured in the 2008 campaign by the window trappings of inspiration. Among all the plastic pillars and stolen quotes from poets who stole them from sermons, it was harder to see that the underlying theme of the campaign was dissatisfaction with America. But in 2012, Obama can no longer run as a reformer or an optimist.
The coalition that he committed to last year is a coalition of those who are unhappy with America, not in the last four years, but in the last two-hundred years. Its core is composed of groups that fear democracy and distrust the will of the people. There is no optimism here, but a deeply rooted pessimism about human nature and the country as a whole. It is the Democratic Party's coalition against democracy.
After 2010, the numbers were crunched, and it was clear that Obama and the Democrats could not win a mainstream campaign. Instead, they targeted narrow groups, stirred up conflicts over issues aimed at that group, whether it was union pensions, racism or birth control. There was no more pretense of a national election, only a frenzied rush to polarize as many groups as possible and join them together into an acrimonious coalition, not so much for anything, as against Republicans.
There isn't any inspiration here. Just paranoia over everything from gay marriage to abortion to racial profiling to illegal immigration. A dozen illegal benefits being handed out with the explicit threat that they will be lost if Romney wins. A dozen mini-civil wars being stirred up to divide Americans and set them at each other's throats for the benefit of the Obama campaign.
From Occupy Wall Street to Wisconsin, from Trayvon Martin to Chick-fil-A, the goal of these manufactured conflicts has been to divide and conquer the electorate by emphasizing group rights over individual economic welfare.
Obama can't win on the economy. He can't win on foreign policy. He can't win on any aspect of his administration. All he can do is stir up violence and then promise to heal the country in his second term while winking to all the representatives of the grievance groups. It's not a new game, but the Democratic Party has never played it quite this baldly in a national election. And if it succeeds, then national politics will have finally been reduced to the level of a Chicago election.
We were expected to believe that the typical Obama voter in 2008 was hoping for a better country, but in 2012 there is no more hope, only hate and fear. The typical Obama voter is not acting as an American, but as a representative of an entitled group looking to secure and expand those entitlements at the expense and the detriment of the country at large.
To vote for Obama after years of grotesque economic mismanagement that has no precedent in history, that exceeds the worst actions of Andrew Jackson or Ulysses S. Grant, is not the instinct of an American, but a selfish greedy looter scrambling to grab a few dinner rolls off the tray while the ship is going down. There is no policy justification for voting for a man with the worst economic and foreign policy record in the country's history. There is no American justification for voting for him. Only the UnAmerican motivation of carving up a dying country into group fiefdoms privileging identity politics over the common good.
This is an UnAmerican campaign. It is an Anti-American campaign. It is a campaign by those who hate and fear what America was and who resent having to care about anyone outside their own group. Its group jingoism, its dog whistles and special privileges are repulsive and cynical, treating the people of a great nation like a warren of rats eager to sell each other out for a prize from the Cracker Jack box of identity politics entitlements.
In his DNC keynote address in 2004, Obama said, "There is no Black America or White America or Latino America or Asian America, there is just the United States of America." And now he has completely disavowed it. He isn't campaigning to lead the United States of America, instead he is running for the presidency of a dozen little Americas, Trayvon Martin America, Abortion America, Illegal Alien America, Sharia America, Gay Marriage America, Starbucks America and any others you can think of. And if he can collect enough of these little Americas together, then he may get the privilege of running the United States of America into the ground for another four years.
Obama has never been the President of the United States of America. He has been the president of Washington D.C., of Wall Street and of Solyndra. He has been the President of Green America and of Chicago. He has been the President of Warren Buffett, George Soros, Bill Gates, Penny Pritzker and James Crown. He is the President of George Clooney, Harvey Weinstein and Anne Hathaway. And now, facing disaster, he still isn't running to be President of a country, but of a dozen little countries with money from freshly bailed out Green America and Wall Street, not to mention Hollywood.
The Obama campaign is not accidentally divisive. It did not stumble into divisiveness. It is not even divisive as a byproduct of its real aims. Divisiveness is its aim. Divisiveness is the only way that a divisive administration can hold on to power. The anger and the violence are not an accident, they are the whole point. Set one group against another, feed the hate, massage the grievances and very soon there is no longer a nation but a handful of quarreling groups being roped into a mutual alliance to reelect their lord protector whose appeal is that of the outsider becoming the insider.
Bain is a metaphor whose details don't truly matter. The target audience for that swill doesn't really care where Romney was when a steel plant was shut down. It doesn't care that like so many private equity bigwigs, the man who actually was in charge is one of Obama's bundlers. This isn't about truth, it's about menace. The Bain message is that Romney is a man who takes things away. That is the image that the UnAmerican alliance is meant to take away. The ominous sense that Obama's era of giving them things is about to come to a close and Romney's era of taking away things will begin.
It doesn't take much prompting for the UnAmericans to come to this conclusion. Thieves are always looking over their shoulders. They always expect to have their ill-gotten gains taken away from them. And that is Obama's true achievement. Like Tammany Hall, he has corrupted a massive section of the population and made it complicit in his criminality. What the old political machines did to cities or small groups of vested interests, the Zero has done to tens of millions, if not a hundred million people, who want him in power not because they think he's the best man for the job, but because he's their crook. The middle man for a crime ring that begins with him and ends with them.
The true insidious evil of the man is that he is the face of a machine of power and privilege that turns Americans into UnAmericans, that corrupts and degrades every ideal and principle, suborns every office and picks every pocket, while wrapping that thievery in the flag and every bit of history that it can filch. The Hussein Way is the clearest expression of the rot at the heart of the Democratic Party, the marriage of leftist agitation and powermongering with the old urban political machines for a level of abuse usually seen only in banana republics.
The abomination in Washington is a welfare-state technocracy that mixes crony capitalism with radical social policy. It steals from everyone and gives back to some. It plays the game of divide and conquer with the panache of marketing executives knowing that the worse the economy is, the more likely everyone is to look in everyone else's mouth. Its worst aspect is its insistence on cloaking its cynicism as righteousness, wrapping every ugly means in the glorious flag of the ends when the truth is that its means are its ends.
Divide and conquer isn't just a means to the greater end of giving Zero Hussein another four years. And perhaps another four years after that. It's also the end. Every tyrant from Joseph Stalin to Saddam Hussein knew that a divided people are easier to rule. The more you divide them, the less likely they are to give you any trouble when you're raiding their last pennies to pay for the latest Green gimmick that your billionaire backers have thrown up all over Wall Street.
Obama is the ultimate Post-American figure passing himself off as the embodiment of all that is truly American. But the UnAmericans got the real message in 2008 and in 2012 there is no other message. There is no more hope and faith, and the ones who have been waiting for are the UnAmericans who think that they are about to come into their own, when they are little more than pawns being used to rob and destroy a great nation.
This is the Post-American, Anti-American and UnAmerican campaign to divide up, carve up and toss aside the laws and traditions of the United States and replace them with the power of arrogance. It is the last stand of a beleaguered nation facing barbarians inside its gate. Every previous election was a contest between two American candidates who wanted to preside over the United States.
The entity is already here. Its czars are running things in D.C., and its judges are dismantling both constitutional government and democratic elections. It creates a crisis and then makes sure that it doesn't go to waste. It has excellent design skills and terrible planning skills. It has all the money in the world and none at all. It is the Post-American America, and 2012 is its big referendum. The one that will decide whether this Post-American America, this horrid graft of E.U. governance and Mussolini economics, Soviet propaganda and FDR volunteerism, Tammany populist criminality and U.N. foreign policy will be permitted to devour the United States of America.
Obama cannot win an American election. But he isn't running in an American election. He's running in a Post-American election.
U.S. Military test hypersonic jet.
A superfast jet that could fly from L.A. to New York City in less than an hour may be one step closer to reality after a key test this week.
The X-51A WaveRider, an unmanned aircraft that could reach speeds up to Mach 6 will be launched from the wing of a B-52 bomber high above the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The WaveRider is expected to zip up into the atmosphere and fly at hypersonic speeds—3,600 mph—for 300 seconds, before breaking up into the ocean.
If successful, if would be the longest jaunt for the test aircraft. The newspaper noted that the development of WaveRider could lead to progress on a passenger jet that could theoretically travel across the U.S. in 46 minutes.
"Attaining sustained hypersonic flight is like going from propeller-driven aircraft to jet aircraft," Robert A. Mercier, deputy for technology in the high speed systems division at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio told the L.A. Times.
But beyond passenger flights, achieving hypersonic speeds could also lead to the development of the next generation of missiles, space vehicles and military aircraft, the Times points out.
The WaveRider program had an issue in June of 2011 when the test vehicle in a similar test to the one planned for Tuesday failed to reach full power.
The Pentagon said it spent about $2 billion on technology and engineering around hypersonic flight over the last decade, the Times reports. This program is estimated to cost $140 million, according to Globalsecurity.org, a military policy research website.
If you're keeping score, the Concorde, a supersonic airliner, crossed the Atlantic at 1,350 mph.
It would take about 3.5 hours, about twice as fast as current commercial airlines. The Concorde was retired in 2003
Monday, August 13, 2012
Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters video
A friend of mine at work showed me this really neat video from the shuttle program. It was the video from the Solid Rocket boosters from launch to retrieval.
Monday Music
This is a continuation of my recently restarted Monday Music
This was a groundbreaking video in its day. Even now it is a a very neat video to watch.
This is A-Ha "Take on me" It came out in 1985,
This is A-Ha "Take on me" It came out in 1985,
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Ryan as Romneys VP pic..
I will give my take on this development. Senator Ryan is a brilliant man, on par with Gingrich without the baggage. But this will play to Obungler's group oriented rhetoric. I can see it now from the Obungler's camp and pushed by the lamestream media. This is the campaign of the "1%ers vs the rest of us". The country is already polarized through class/race/income like never before due to the policies of Obama and crew. He will use it to court the women/black/hispanic voters. "See you have two white males trying to take us back to the days of Jim Crow, back street abortions and where the hispanic's are in the field." I hope I am wrong but I see the way this will be used to pummel Romney and Ryan. I wish he would have picked somebody else..I hate saying that but the reality of the political scene today is that Romney had picked somebody that was either black,hispanic or female. This would pull some of the minorities away from Obama along with the independents Now he can use the "us versus them" stuff that has made him famous.
I hope for the sake of the republic that I am wrong and Romney defeats Obama, but I have severe doubts.
Teddy Roosevelt#2
Teddy Roosevelt#2
"A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user."
Theodore Roosevelt
"A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user."
Theodore Roosevelt
Courting Disaster......
CIA Book Review, for the historical record . . .
----------
As President George W. Bush's top speech writer, Marc Thiessen was provided unique access to the CIA program used in interrogating top Al Qaeda terrorists, including the mastermind of the 9/11 attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM).
As President George W. Bush's top speech writer, Marc Thiessen was provided unique access to the CIA program used in interrogating top Al Qaeda terrorists, including the mastermind of the 9/11 attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM).
Now, his riveting new book, "Courting Disaster", How the CIA Kept America Safe (Regnery), has been published.
Here is an excerpt from "Courting Disaster":
"Just before dawn on March 1, 2003, two dozen heavily armed Pakistani tactical assault forces move in and surround a safe house in Rawalpindi. A few hours earlier they had received a text message from an informant inside the house. It read: "I am with KSM."
Bursting in, they find the disheveled mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in his bedroom. He is taken into custody. In the safe house, they find a treasure trove of computers, documents, cell phones and other valuable "pocket litter."
Once in custody, KSM is defiant. He refuses to answer questions, informing his captors that he will tell them everything when he gets to America and sees his lawyer. But KSM is not taken to America to see a lawyer Instead he is taken to a secret CIA "black site" in an undisclosed location.
Upon arrival, KSM finds himself in the complete control of Americans. He does not know where he is, how long he will be there, or what his fate will be.
Despite his circumstances, KSM still refuses to talk. He spews contempt at his interrogators, telling them Americans are weak, lack resilience, and are unable to do what is necessary to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals. He has trained to resist interrogation. When he is asked for information about future attacks, he tells his questioners scornfully: "Soon, you will know."
It becomes clear he will not reveal the information using traditional interrogation techniques. So he undergoes a series of "enhanced interrogation techniques" approved for use only on the most high-value detainees. The techniques include waterboarding.
His resistance is described by one senior American official as "superhuman." Eventually, however, the techniques work, and KSM becomes cooperative-for reasons that will be described later in this book.
He begins telling his CIA de-briefers about active al Qaeda plots to launch attacks against the United States and other Western targets. He holds classes for CIA officials, using a chalkboard to draw a picture of al Qaeda's operating structure, financing, communications, and logistics. He identifies al Qaeda travel routes and safe havens, and helps intelligence officers make sense of documents and computer records seized in terrorist raids. He identifies voices in intercepted telephone calls, and helps officials understand the meaning of coded terrorist communications. He provides information that helps our intelligence community capture other high-ranking terrorists, KSM's questioning, and that of other captured terrorists, produces more than 6,000 intelligence reports, which are shared across the intelligence community, as well as with our allies across the world.
In one of these reports, KSM describes in detail the revisions he made to his failed 1994-1995 plan known as the "Bojinka plot" to blow up a dozen airplanes carrying some 4,000 passengers over the Pacific Ocean.
Years later, an observant CIA officer notices the activities of a cell being followed by British authorities appear to match KSM's description of his plans for a Bojinka-style attack.
In an operation that involves unprecedented intelligence cooperation between our countries, British officials proceed to unravel the plot. On the night of Aug. 9, 2006 they launch a series of raids in a northeast London suburb that lead to the arrest of two dozen al Qaeda terrorist suspects. They find a USB thumb-drive in the pocket of one of the men with security details for Heathrow airport, and information on seven trans-Atlantic flights that were scheduled to take off within hours of each other:
* United Airlines Flight 931 to San Francisco departing at 2:15 p.m.;
* Air Canada Flight 849 to Toronto departing at 3:00 p.m.;
* Air Canada Flight 865 to Montreal departing at 3:15 p.m.;
* United Airlines Flight 959 to Chicago departing at 3:40 p.m.;
* United Airlines Flight 925 to Washington departing at 4:20 p.m.;
* American Airlines Flight 131 to New York departing at 4:35 p.m.;
* American Airlines Flight 91 to Chicago departing at 4:50 p.m.
They seize bomb-making equipment and hydrogen peroxide to make liquid explosives. And they find the chilling martyrdom videos the suicide bombers had prepared."
----------
Today, if you asked an average person on the street what they know about the 2006 airlines plot, most would not be able to tell you much.
Few Americans are aware of the fact al Qaeda had planned to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11 with an attack of similar scope and magnitude.
And still fewer realize the terrorists' true intentions in this plot were uncovered thanks to critical information obtained through the interrogation of the man who conceived it: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
This is only one of the many attacks stopped with the help of the CIA interrogation program established by the Bush Administration in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Editor's Note: For other foiled terrorist plots, see page 9 of "Courting Disaster".
In addition to helping break up these specific terrorist cells and plots, CIA questioning provided our intelligence community with an unparalleled body of information about al Qaeda Until the program was temporarily suspended in 2006, intelligence officials say, well over half of the information our government had about al Qaeda-how it operates, how it moves money, how it communicates, how it recruits operatives, how it picks targets, how it plans and carries out attacks-came from the interrogation of terrorists in CIA custody.
Former CIA Director George Tenet has declared: "I know this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than what the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us."
Former CIA Director Mike Hayden has said: "The facts of the case are that the use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work."
Even Barack Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, has acknowledged: "High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country."
Leon Panetta, Obama's CIA Director, has said: "Important information was gathered from these detainees. It provided information that was acted upon."
And John Brennan, Obama's Homeland Security Advisor, when asked in an interview if enhanced-interrogation techniques were necessary to keep America safe, replied: "Would the U.S. be handicapped if the CIA was not, in fact, able to carry out these types of detention and debriefing activities? I would say yes."
On Jan. 22, 2009, President Obama issued Executive Order 13491, closing the CIA program and directing that, henceforth, all interrogations by U.S. personnel must follow the techniques contained in the Army Field Manual.
The morning of the announcement, Mike Hayden was still in his post as CIA Director, he called White House Counsel Greg Craig and told him bluntly: "You didn't ask, but this is the CIA officially nonconcurring". The president went ahead anyway, over ruling the objections of the agency.
A few months later, on April 16, 2009, President Obama ordered the release of four Justice Department memos that described in detail the techniques used to interrogate KSM and other high-value terrorists. This time, not just Hayden (who was now retired) but five CIA directors -- including Obama's own director, Leon Panetta -- objected. George Tenet called to urge against the memos' release. So did Porter Goss. So did John Deutch. Hayden says: "You had CIA directors in a continuous unbroken stream to 1995 calling saying, 'Don't do this.'"
In addition to objections from the men who led the agency for a collective 14 years, the President also heard objections from the agency's covert field operatives. A few weeks earlier, Panetta had arranged for the eight top officials of the Clandestine Service to meet with the President. It was highly unusual for these clandestine officers to visit the Oval Office, and they used the opportunity to warn the President that releasing the memos would put agency operatives at risk. The President reportedly listened respectfully -- and then ignored their advice.
With these actions, Barack Obama arguably did more damage to America's national security in his first 100 days of office than any President in American history
Friday, August 10, 2012
Raid on Entebbe
I am watching a movie on the Military Channel called Raid on Entebbe I sitting at the computer started to research the movie. Here are some tidbits from the movie:
As most of this film was shot at the Stockton Airport in California, it's very obvious that the production had the assistance of the California National Guard that has a facility there. The C-130's are all National Guard aircraft. their camouflage being very different from that of Israel. All of the vehicles were of national guard origin. The Ford M151A1 "jeeps" (mutts) were then in use in active military and national guard. In the film both the Israelis and Ugandans were driving them. When the Ugandan reinforcements arrive, they're driving current "deuce and a half" trucks that would only be found in the current US military, Uganda would have most likely had old hand-me-down UK equipment.
The character of Lt Col Yonatan Netanyahu (played by Stephen Macht) was the brother of the former Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
The song sung by the Israeli soldiers on their way to Entebbe and at the end of the movie is Hine Ma Tov, a setting of Psalm 133
Operation Entebbe was a counter-terrorist hostage-rescue mission carried out by commandos of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on 4 July 1976.[3] A week earlier, on 27 June, an Air France plane with 248 passengers was hijacked, by terrorists of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the German Revolutionary Cells, and flown to Entebbe, near Kampala, the capital of Uganda. The hijackers separated the Israelis and, according to some, Jews from the larger group and forced them into another room.[4][5][6] That afternoon, 47 non-Israeli hostages were released.[6][7][4] The next day, 101 more non-Israeli hostages were allowed to leave on board an Air France aircraft. More than 100 Israeli and Jewish passengers, along with the non-Jewish pilot Captain Bacos, remained as hostages and were threatened with death. [8][9]
The IDF acted on intelligence provided by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. The hijackers threatened to kill the hostages if their prisoner release demands were not met. This threat led to the planning of the rescue operation.[10] These plans included preparation for armed resistance from Ugandan military troops.[11]
The operation took place at night. Israeli transport planes carried 100 commandos over 2,500 miles (4,000 km) to Uganda for the rescue operation. The operation, which took a week of planning, lasted 90 minutes. 102 hostages were rescued. Five Israeli commandos were wounded and one, the commander, Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, was killed. All the hijackers, three hostages and 45 Ugandan soldiers were killed, and thirty Soviet-built MiG-17s and MiG-21s of Uganda's air force were destroyed.[12] 24 hours later, a fourth Israeli hostage was killed[13][14] by Ugandan army officers at a nearby hospital.[15]
The rescue, named Operation Thunderbolt, is sometimes referred to retroactively as Operation Jonathan in memory of the unit's leader, Yonatan Netanyahu. He was the older brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, who served as the two-time Prime Minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009-present.[14]
You can read the rest here
The Raid on Entebbe is considered one of the best counter-terrorist operations planned in the modern era. it did much to burnish the reputation of the IDF that had received a bloody nose from the 1973 Yum Kippur War
As most of this film was shot at the Stockton Airport in California, it's very obvious that the production had the assistance of the California National Guard that has a facility there. The C-130's are all National Guard aircraft. their camouflage being very different from that of Israel. All of the vehicles were of national guard origin. The Ford M151A1 "jeeps" (mutts) were then in use in active military and national guard. In the film both the Israelis and Ugandans were driving them. When the Ugandan reinforcements arrive, they're driving current "deuce and a half" trucks that would only be found in the current US military, Uganda would have most likely had old hand-me-down UK equipment.
The character of Lt Col Yonatan Netanyahu (played by Stephen Macht) was the brother of the former Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
The song sung by the Israeli soldiers on their way to Entebbe and at the end of the movie is Hine Ma Tov, a setting of Psalm 133
Operation Entebbe was a counter-terrorist hostage-rescue mission carried out by commandos of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on 4 July 1976.[3] A week earlier, on 27 June, an Air France plane with 248 passengers was hijacked, by terrorists of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the German Revolutionary Cells, and flown to Entebbe, near Kampala, the capital of Uganda. The hijackers separated the Israelis and, according to some, Jews from the larger group and forced them into another room.[4][5][6] That afternoon, 47 non-Israeli hostages were released.[6][7][4] The next day, 101 more non-Israeli hostages were allowed to leave on board an Air France aircraft. More than 100 Israeli and Jewish passengers, along with the non-Jewish pilot Captain Bacos, remained as hostages and were threatened with death. [8][9]
The IDF acted on intelligence provided by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. The hijackers threatened to kill the hostages if their prisoner release demands were not met. This threat led to the planning of the rescue operation.[10] These plans included preparation for armed resistance from Ugandan military troops.[11]
The operation took place at night. Israeli transport planes carried 100 commandos over 2,500 miles (4,000 km) to Uganda for the rescue operation. The operation, which took a week of planning, lasted 90 minutes. 102 hostages were rescued. Five Israeli commandos were wounded and one, the commander, Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, was killed. All the hijackers, three hostages and 45 Ugandan soldiers were killed, and thirty Soviet-built MiG-17s and MiG-21s of Uganda's air force were destroyed.[12] 24 hours later, a fourth Israeli hostage was killed[13][14] by Ugandan army officers at a nearby hospital.[15]
The rescue, named Operation Thunderbolt, is sometimes referred to retroactively as Operation Jonathan in memory of the unit's leader, Yonatan Netanyahu. He was the older brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, who served as the two-time Prime Minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009-present.[14]
You can read the rest here
The Raid on Entebbe is considered one of the best counter-terrorist operations planned in the modern era. it did much to burnish the reputation of the IDF that had received a bloody nose from the 1973 Yum Kippur War
Teddy Roosevelt...Day 1
I got this idea from Daddy Bear. He has a great blog and you need to check it out. He has been taking quotes from famous Americans then putting his take on them. It is very well done. Well when I was looking for some stuff to add to the story I posted about the athlete flying 2 flags. I saw a lot of good stuff so I figured I would make a go at it.
"The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name."
Theodore Roosevelt
"The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name."
Theodore Roosevelt
American Athlete flies 2 flags
The man who loves other countries as much as his own stands on a level with the man who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife.
Theodore Roosevelt
This is what happened when multiculturalism is encouraged. Mr. Manzano is an American citizen, but he is encouraged to embrace his ancestry due to the rampant political correctness that permeates America. When people identify themselves as hyphenated Americans, their loyalty is suspect.
We can have no '50-50' allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.
Theodore Roosevelt
(AP)
A U.S. athlete is under fire by some in the Mexican-American
community for carrying a Mexican flag after winning a silver medal in
the 1,500 meters.
Leo Manzano, a Mexican immigrant who became the first American man to win a medal in the metric mile since 1968, draped himself in the flags of both his countries after his race at Olympic Stadium. That decision earned some cheers, but mostly jeers from Mexican-Americans.
Ruben Navarrette Jr., a CNN contributor and Washington Post Group writer, was among those criticizing the flag choice. Manzano competes for the United States, not Mexico, Navarrette wrote. Why would he carry a flag of the country his parents left when he was 4 years old?
I talked to a friend with a Mexican background and she was vehemently against Manzano's action. "It's fine to be proud of your roots," she said, "but not in this context."
At least Manzano wears the red, white and blue. To me, it's even more offensive when athletes who live, train and hold citizenship here make the choice to compete for other countries because it makes for an easier path to the Olympics. To take one example: Milorad Cavic, the man who nearly beat Michael Phelps in the 100 fly in Beijing, was born and raised in the United States but made the choice early in his life to swim for Serbia where he holds dual citizenship.
A poll on the CBS Atlanta website showed that 83 percent of respondents think Manzano shouldn't have carried the Mexican flag. I believe it's more complicated than a yes or no answer, but can't disagree. Athletes with dual citizenship are naturally going to have competing loyalties and mixed feelings. Yet, when they step to the starting line with a USA on their chest, there should be no confusion.
Theodore Roosevelt
This is what happened when multiculturalism is encouraged. Mr. Manzano is an American citizen, but he is encouraged to embrace his ancestry due to the rampant political correctness that permeates America. When people identify themselves as hyphenated Americans, their loyalty is suspect.
We can have no '50-50' allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.
Theodore Roosevelt
(AP)Leo Manzano, a Mexican immigrant who became the first American man to win a medal in the metric mile since 1968, draped himself in the flags of both his countries after his race at Olympic Stadium. That decision earned some cheers, but mostly jeers from Mexican-Americans.
Some people will insist that this is
Manzano's choice to make, that it was his sweat and sacrifice that got
him to London, and this was his victory to celebrate however he saw fit.
Those people are wrong. They're focused on the individual. But the last
thing the Olympics is about is the individual.
It's about being part of a team -- the
U.S. Olympic team. It's about national pride, not ego. Manzano wasn't
there to compete for himself but to represent his country. All he had to
do was decide which country that was. He chose not to choose.
What am I missing? Where were the
Italian-American athletes waving the Italian flag, or the
Irish-Americans waving the Irish flag? I didn't see that.
The last one is the money quote. We all come from somewhere. Not
everyone is an immigrant, but every Olympian has roots. But did you see Danell Leyva holding a Cuban flag at his medal ceremony? Or Michael Phelps carrying a Union Jack because he has English blood in his ancestry?I talked to a friend with a Mexican background and she was vehemently against Manzano's action. "It's fine to be proud of your roots," she said, "but not in this context."
At least Manzano wears the red, white and blue. To me, it's even more offensive when athletes who live, train and hold citizenship here make the choice to compete for other countries because it makes for an easier path to the Olympics. To take one example: Milorad Cavic, the man who nearly beat Michael Phelps in the 100 fly in Beijing, was born and raised in the United States but made the choice early in his life to swim for Serbia where he holds dual citizenship.
A poll on the CBS Atlanta website showed that 83 percent of respondents think Manzano shouldn't have carried the Mexican flag. I believe it's more complicated than a yes or no answer, but can't disagree. Athletes with dual citizenship are naturally going to have competing loyalties and mixed feelings. Yet, when they step to the starting line with a USA on their chest, there should be no confusion.
The Progressive Double Standard
Chicago Mayor Rahm
Emanuel recently said of the Chick-fil-A fast-food franchise that
"Chick-fil-A's values are not Chicago's values." Why? Because
Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy is on record as being opposed to gay marriage
-- as is close to half the U.S. population, according to polls. The
mayors of Boston and San Francisco also suggested that the company isn't
welcome in their cities.
Oddly, none of these public officials have lectured President Obama to keep clear of their cities. Yet until recently, Obama was likewise on record as opposing gay marriage. Why the exemption?
Nor have the mayors in question disinvited any black churches from their cities. Yet some pastors in churches with black congregations have been quite loud in their denunciations of gay marriage. Fundamentalist Islamic mosques routinely disparage homosexuals, often publicly so in their literature. Is there something about white Christian males that makes their opposition to gay marriage different from that of their black or Muslim counterparts?
Even as Emanuel warned Cathy that his company did not reflect "Chicago values," his own city remains among the most murderous in the world. This year, Chicago youth have killed more Americans than have the Taliban in Afghanistan. Unable to stop the carnage, a desperate Emanuel welcomed in Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan to help quell the mostly black-on-black violence, even though the latter has a long record of racist and anti-Semitic tirades. Is the Chick-fil-A CEO a greater danger to Chicago than gun-toting gangs, or more illiberal than the racist Farrakhan?
Politics -- not just race or religion -- is also a key to the paradoxical double standard. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) just slandered Nuclear Regulatory Commission member Bill Magwood, an African-American, as "one of the most unethical, prevaricating, incompetent people I've dealt with." Reid, furious with Magwood because of his support for the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository in Reid's state, also called Magwood a "treacherous, miserable liar," "a first-class rat" and a "sh-t stirrer."
In 2008, Reid condescendingly attributed presidential candidate Barack Obama's success to the fact that he was "light-skinned" and spoke "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."
More recently, the crude Reid, in McCarthyesque fashion, claimed that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney had not paid income taxes for 10 years -- based on a rumor that an anonymous source supposedly had passed on to him. "His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son," Reid said of the late George Romney, Mitt's father.
Reid has demonstrated that he is both vulgar and illiberal, but there are no calls for him to vacate his post. That exemption was not extended to an earlier counterpart, Sen. Trent Lott (D-Miss.). Lott, in similarly illiberal and crass fashion, said at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party in 2002 that America would have avoided "all these problems over all these years" if Thurmond had been elected president in 1948. Lott was pressured by both the Republican Party and the media to step down, and he did so in shame.
There is a common theme here. Our self-appointed priests of fairness from time to time freely commit sins of intolerance. But don't dare hold them to the same sort of accountability to which they hold other, less progressive Americans, whose similarly dumb remarks are not gaffes but rather windows into their prejudicial souls.
We must make allowances for the supposed Biblical conservatism of some black pastors in a way we cannot for the white, Christian CEO of Chick-fil-A. Farrakhan's hatred cannot possibly earn him ostracism. We cannot extend the anger at evangelical Christians for their incorrect attitudes toward feminism and homosexuality to the Muslims who often share similar views.
Such selectivity is untenable. Classical Western liberalism was predicated on judging people as individuals -- and on their merit and performance -- rather than collectively as identity groups identified by gender, race and religion. Using illiberal means to advance supposedly liberal ends results not just in hypocrisy and cynicism, but in the current disaster of "Chicago values."
Politically correct exemption is doomed, because who can sort out the conflicting agendas of various identity groups? Who certifies who's really black, brown or white in a multiracial, intermarried America -- Barack Obama or Elizabeth Warren? Who deserves how much compensation for which particular past oppression?
Can black pastors who oppose gay marriage be judged prejudicial? Is the Asian-American who opposes illegal immigration subject to the same charge of nativism leveled at so-called whites? Can Harry Reid be judged a bigot and McCarthyite if he claims he's liberal?
A simple antidote to multiculturalism and political correctness is to evaluate all Americans on their actual behavior, regardless of their politics, race, gender or religion -- in other words, a return to the ancient liberal idea that one common culture treats all sorts of different people absolutely the same.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and
historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author,
most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans
Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing
author@victorhanson.com
Oddly, none of these public officials have lectured President Obama to keep clear of their cities. Yet until recently, Obama was likewise on record as opposing gay marriage. Why the exemption?
Nor have the mayors in question disinvited any black churches from their cities. Yet some pastors in churches with black congregations have been quite loud in their denunciations of gay marriage. Fundamentalist Islamic mosques routinely disparage homosexuals, often publicly so in their literature. Is there something about white Christian males that makes their opposition to gay marriage different from that of their black or Muslim counterparts?
Even as Emanuel warned Cathy that his company did not reflect "Chicago values," his own city remains among the most murderous in the world. This year, Chicago youth have killed more Americans than have the Taliban in Afghanistan. Unable to stop the carnage, a desperate Emanuel welcomed in Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan to help quell the mostly black-on-black violence, even though the latter has a long record of racist and anti-Semitic tirades. Is the Chick-fil-A CEO a greater danger to Chicago than gun-toting gangs, or more illiberal than the racist Farrakhan?
Politics -- not just race or religion -- is also a key to the paradoxical double standard. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) just slandered Nuclear Regulatory Commission member Bill Magwood, an African-American, as "one of the most unethical, prevaricating, incompetent people I've dealt with." Reid, furious with Magwood because of his support for the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository in Reid's state, also called Magwood a "treacherous, miserable liar," "a first-class rat" and a "sh-t stirrer."
In 2008, Reid condescendingly attributed presidential candidate Barack Obama's success to the fact that he was "light-skinned" and spoke "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."
More recently, the crude Reid, in McCarthyesque fashion, claimed that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney had not paid income taxes for 10 years -- based on a rumor that an anonymous source supposedly had passed on to him. "His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son," Reid said of the late George Romney, Mitt's father.
Reid has demonstrated that he is both vulgar and illiberal, but there are no calls for him to vacate his post. That exemption was not extended to an earlier counterpart, Sen. Trent Lott (D-Miss.). Lott, in similarly illiberal and crass fashion, said at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party in 2002 that America would have avoided "all these problems over all these years" if Thurmond had been elected president in 1948. Lott was pressured by both the Republican Party and the media to step down, and he did so in shame.
There is a common theme here. Our self-appointed priests of fairness from time to time freely commit sins of intolerance. But don't dare hold them to the same sort of accountability to which they hold other, less progressive Americans, whose similarly dumb remarks are not gaffes but rather windows into their prejudicial souls.
We must make allowances for the supposed Biblical conservatism of some black pastors in a way we cannot for the white, Christian CEO of Chick-fil-A. Farrakhan's hatred cannot possibly earn him ostracism. We cannot extend the anger at evangelical Christians for their incorrect attitudes toward feminism and homosexuality to the Muslims who often share similar views.
Such selectivity is untenable. Classical Western liberalism was predicated on judging people as individuals -- and on their merit and performance -- rather than collectively as identity groups identified by gender, race and religion. Using illiberal means to advance supposedly liberal ends results not just in hypocrisy and cynicism, but in the current disaster of "Chicago values."
Politically correct exemption is doomed, because who can sort out the conflicting agendas of various identity groups? Who certifies who's really black, brown or white in a multiracial, intermarried America -- Barack Obama or Elizabeth Warren? Who deserves how much compensation for which particular past oppression?
Can black pastors who oppose gay marriage be judged prejudicial? Is the Asian-American who opposes illegal immigration subject to the same charge of nativism leveled at so-called whites? Can Harry Reid be judged a bigot and McCarthyite if he claims he's liberal?
A simple antidote to multiculturalism and political correctness is to evaluate all Americans on their actual behavior, regardless of their politics, race, gender or religion -- in other words, a return to the ancient liberal idea that one common culture treats all sorts of different people absolutely the same.
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