Theodore's World

US plans new space weapons against China
telegraph co.uk
The Pentagon is spending billions of dollars on new forms of space warfare to counter the growing
risk of missile attack from rogue states and the “satellite killer” capabilities of China.
Congress has allocated funds to develop futuristic weapons and intelligence systems that operate
beyond the Earth’s atmosphere as America looks past Iraq and Afghanistan to the wars of the future.
The most ambitious project in a new $459 billion (£221.5 billion) defence spending Bill is the
Falcon, a reusable “hypersonic vehicle” that could fly at six times the speed of sound and deliver
12,000lb of bombs anywhere in the world within minutes.
The bombs’ destructive power would be multiplied by the Earth’s gravitational pull as they
travelled at up to 25 times the speed of sound towards their target.
The cost of the vehicle has not been revealed, but a spokesman for the Pentagon’s Defence
Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) said a first test flight was scheduled for next year.

Loren Thompson, a leading defence analyst in Washington, said the focus of the
project was attacking “time sensitive targets” in states such as North Korea and Iran, which have
either developed nuclear weapons without international approval or are suspected of doing so.

“If we received intelligence that a strike was about to happen on South Korea, or on
Israel, we would want to destroy that within minutes and not hours. But from most current US bases
that is not feasible.

“With a hyper-sonic vehicle launching from the Middle East or Asia you could be over
hostile territory within minutes,” he said. “It’s not just a question of can we destroy North Korean
weapons, but can we get there quickly enough in the event of an imminent launch?”

Darpa is also developing a small unmanned launch vehicle that would provide “responsive and
affordable” access to space, for less than $5 million per launch. The first test flight was made in
March.
It would be capable of re-launching satellites that had been attacked, or acting as a fast-moving
replacement for a damaged satellite with intelligence sensors of its own that could identify enemy
installations.
In its 621-page report on the Defence Appropriations Bill, Congressmen from both
Republican and Democratic parties said: “Enhancing these capabilities is crucial, particularly
following the Chinese anti-satellite weapons demonstration last January.”
In China’s first successful test of an anti-satellite system, a ground-based missile fired
into space shattered a weather satellite in low earth orbit. The Pentagon has also given warning
that China is making greater efforts to hack into its defence computers.

Congress awarded $150 million for the Falcon project and its associated
“prompt global strike” programme. A defence industry source said it was likely that hundreds
of millions more were being spent on space warfare “away from the public view”.

The “global strike” platform would give America the “forward presence” it requires
around the world without the need for bases outside the US.

Attempts to base missile defence shields in Poland and Czechoslovakia have provoked a fierce
row with Russia, while Uzbekistan, which neighbours Afghanistan, evicted the US from an
air base two years ago.
FALCON HYPERSONIC CRUISE VEHICLE
Max speed: Mach 6 (4,614mph)
Payload: 12,000lbs including cruise missles, 1,000lbs penetrator munitions and independent ‘kill gliders’
CRUISING ALTITUDES
Satellites: 370 miles
Space shuttle: 230 miles
Falcon: 28 miles
Concorde: 12 miles
Airliners: 6 miles

Wild Thing’s comment……..
So much for Bill Clinton selling China the ability to put weapons in orbit. The title of this article
sure makes it sound like the U.S. is the aggressor. “US plans new space weapons
against China”. We’ve gotten ourselves into a real mess with China thanks to the Clinton’s
especially, and it’s going to get a lot worse from here on out. imo

Spitzer said to abandon license plan
WASHINGTON (AP)
New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has decided to abandon his plan to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, officials familiar with the decision told The Associated Press Tuesday night.
The governor is due to meet Wednesday morning with New York’s congressional delegation, many of whom have openly opposed the program. Debate over the issue has spilled over into the presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The governor’s office signaled to New York lawmakers Tuesday that the morning of the meeting, he will say he is shelving the plan and that immigration is a federal issue to be handled by Washington, according to congressional aides who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because no formal announcement had been made.
Clinton has been criticized by her Democratic rivals for her non-committal answers on the subject. She has said she sympathizes with governors like Spitzer forced to confront the issue of immigration after the federal government has failed to pass immigration reforms. She has not taken a position on the actual plan offered by Spitzer.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
I’m cautiously optimistic over this but it looks like (at least for now) the good guys have won. This is juicy. Spitz abandons the plan that Hillary just said she supports. Hahahaha OOPS Hillary.
I guess now we will hear Hillary say…..”she supported it, before she didn’t support it’’.

Hillary Clinton’s speech recently at the Jefferson Jackson dinner in Iowa.

Wild Thing’s comment……….
This is SCARY, when you watch it listen how she builds louder and louder and more intense with her horrible voice, exactly how Howard Dean did a few years ago. Weird how similar they are in their leftie scream.
I know I will not be able to stand her voice for 4 LONG years, that commie screaming like she is standing in Red Square, Russia handing out pamplets to join a commie party and yelling at those that will listen. That is the scene I always think of when I hear her talk. augh!!!

IRAQ: BUCCA DANCING WITH PERFORMERS

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Wild Thing’s comment……..
I love it, and also the reaction of the performers is GREAT!! You can tell it not only is making the solider and rest of the troops happy, but the performers are loving it too……….. as it should be!

‘Run, Al, Run’ concert called off
washington times

“Iowans who support former Vice President Al Gore have been forced to cancel a concert in his honor.
The $20 per ticket “Run, Al, Run” event, which I wrote about last month and was scheduled for Sunday in Des Moines, was called off because organizers feared they wouldn’t sell enough tickets.
Peter Ryder of Cedar Rapids told me there are two reasons the rally and concert won’t go on as planned, despite folk singer Paul Kaplan writing an original song in Gore’s honor.
The idea was to “send a message to Al Gore there is a tremendous surge of feeling about you running, but after he won the Nobel Peace Prize, he really got that message pretty loud and clear,” Ryder said.
Given the importance of Iowa for the declared Democratic candidates, “we felt it would be difficult to sell the number of tickets to make the whole thing financially viable,” Ryder added.”

Wild Thing’s comment……..
LOL too funny. Well he will be busy anyway I am sure.
Al Gore joins famed Silicon Valley venture capital firm

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – In a career marked by second acts, Al Gore, the former vice president of the United States and co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is becoming a partner at Silicon Valley’s most storied venture capital firm.
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers said on Monday that Gore, a campaigner for action to slow global climate change, will join the Menlo Park, California-based venture capital firm as a partner focused on alternative energy investments.

IBD Editorials
Homeland Security: Los Angeles police want to map potential terror hotbeds in the Muslim community, but critics are crying “religious profiling.” Actually, it’s just smart law enforcement.
And it couldn’t come at a better time. The FBI is warning police in Los Angeles, as well as Chicago, that shopping malls there are possible targets of a new al-Qaida plot.
By mapping the local Muslim community, the LAPD would increase its chances of disrupting such plots. Its counterterrorism unit hopes to ID areas that might be more isolated and removed — and therefore riper targets for radicalization and even al-Qaida recruitment.
Shining a spotlight on these neighborhoods would take the terrorists and their facilitators out of the shadows where they prefer to operate.

“We just don’t know enough about the communities,” explains deputy LAPD chief Michael Downing, adding that the planned mapping project “has nothing to do with profiling.”

But predictably, the ACLU has joined CAIR and other Muslim groups in denouncing the move.

“The mapping of Muslim communities seems premised on the faulty notion that Muslims are more likely to commit violent acts than people of other faiths,” the ACLU complained.

Tolerant as this may sound, it ignores overwhelming statistical evidence to the contrary. Just since 9/11, more than 9,000 separate violent acts have been carried out in the name of Islam.

As Islamic terror expert Robert Spencer points out, we don’t “see Presbyterians blowing themselves up in crowded restaurants, Buddhists flying planes into buildings and Amish waving placards crowing that they will soon dominate the world.”

If the authorities ignored this reality just to appease the civil liberties crowd, they’d be committing politically correct suicide on behalf of the people they’re charged with protecting. And civil rights are of no use to charred bodies.
You’d think patriotic Muslim groups would jump at the chance to cooperate in such a mapping project, which is supported by 69% of Americans, according to a CNN poll.
It’s in the moderates’ best interest to help police expose the extremists.
That way police can narrow their surveillance and gather more useful intelligence to protect not only society at large but also moderate Muslims who eschew violence.
The police are not the enemy here.
They know that the Muslim community is not monolithic or homogenous, especially in L.A., which is home to the second-largest Muslim population in the U.S.
They know that it contains harmless Sufi mysticists, as well as Shia and Sunni quietists, who neither support nor act out on jihad.
But police need to identify the pro-jihad Salafists — the radical fundamentalists — living among them who do pose a threat.
And the moderates can help them do it. They shouldn’t let themselves be used by certain self-serving Muslim-rights groups looking for another false issue and inflammatory headline.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
I will never understand how a human being can say NO to doing things that make our country more secure. You all and I would do anything we could, say yes to whatever it takes to accomplish the things that needed to be done to protect all of us, and our country. It sickens me and angers me too when I hear of things like that and how certain PRO terrorists groups and that is what they are, fight those every step of the way that are wanting to do their job.

Sen. Hillary Clinton at Human Rights Campaign Board Meeting

traditionalvalues.org
this is from March 8, 2007
Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) recently appeared before the Human Rights Campaign to present a keynote speech on her support of the homosexual/bisexual/transgender agenda and her efforts to defeat any attempts by Congress to pass a constitutional amendment that will ban same-sex marriage.
HRC President Joe Solomese introduced Clinton and revealed their long-term relationship in fighting against the pro-family movement. Solomese describes numerous meetings with Clinton as they strategized together about how to defeat any constitutional amendment on marriage.

According to Clinton, “I am proud to stand by your side.”

Clinton also noted that with Democrats in control of the both the House and Senate with Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid in power positions, groups like HRC have less to worry about having a constitutional amendment passed that will ban homosexual marriage.

Clinton told her homosexual activist audience that they will have a close “partnership … when I am President.”

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Wild Thing’s comment……..
I pray she NEVER becomes President. It was a total nightmare when Bill was President.
Here’s what will be on the White House Christmas tree ….and it already was during BJ Clinton’s regime
From “Unlimited Access” by Gary Aldrich, reviewed here: ( also this is an excellent review of his book)
http://www.natall.com/free-speech/fs977b.html

“Gary Aldrich tells of being asked to help decorate some of the Christmas trees in the various rooms of the White House in December 1994 and being horrified when he discovered that the Christmas-tree decorations supplied by Hillary consisted of condoms, various miniature items of drug paraphernalia, and little sex toys.”

The new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle undergoes initial inspection upon its arrival to Balad Air Base, Oct. 27. The MRAPs Design, including its “V” shaped hull, will provide greater protection from explosions for Soldiers out on combat logistics patrols. Photo by Spc. Thomas Keeler, 316th Expeditionary Sustainment Command.

LOGISTICS SUPPORT AREA ANACONDA — The military’s newest fighting vehicles are now on the ground at LSA Anaconda.
Lt. Col. Jeff Meo, 402nd Army Field Support Brigade commander from Army Material Command, says the MRAPs will provide more protection for Soldiers out on combat logistics patrols.

“The MRAP is mine protected with a ‘V’ hull, which allows it to ‘push off’ the explosion when it’s hit,” said Meo.

In addition to being up-armored, the interior seating has also been redesigned.

“The MRAP has seats that flex with an explosion, and what that does is absorb a lot of the energy so Soldiers aren’t injured,” he said.

This shipment of five MRAPs to LSA Anaconda is the first of many. Manufacturers are scheduled to deliver 4,600 of the vehicles into theater over the coming weeks and months.

“They are pushing these things out the door as fast as they can,” said Meo.

(Story by Spc. Thomas Keeler, 316th Expeditionary Sustainment Command)

Wild Thing’s comment……..
I love that they keep on working on making things better and better for our troops. To keep them safe as much as possible is so important.

A worker inspects a Proton Waja at Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional Bhd (Proton) assembly plant in Shah Alam near Kuala Lumpur.

New Islamic car to have compass to find Makkah
Gulf News
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Iran, Turkey and Malaysia are planning to build an “Islamic car” that will have a compass to find the direction of Makkah, Malaysia’s state news agency reported.
The proposed car will also have a compartment for the Quran and prayer scarves, the Bernama agency quoted an official of Malaysian automaker Proton as saying.

“The car will have all the Islamic features and should be meant for export purposes,” said Proton’s managing director, Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir.

“We will identify a car that we can develop to be produced in Malaysia, Iran or Turkey,” he said during a visit to Tehran.

Syed Zainal said the vehicle was an Iranian initiative. “What they (Iran) want to do is to call that an Islamic car,” he said.

The managing director said that with government support, the Islamic car producers will be able to get a big volume of orders.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
Hmmmmmm I wonder does it blow itself up in crowds of innocent civilians? See Achmed, here is where we place the bomb! American liberals will want them, to show solidarity with the oppressed.

The Marine who beat 70 Iraqi roadside bombs DISARMING DUTY: Marine Staff. Sgt. Matthew Bateman just returned from third tour in Iraq as an EOD, Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician who job is to detonate or disarm IEDs, Improvised Explosive Devices.

Veterans Day means more after you’ve stared down death for a living.
Orange County Register
Over here, death waits in discarded rice bags. In motor-oil cans. Even in the carcasses of dead dogs on Iraqi roadsides.
That’s where the bombs lie hidden. Waiting.
Most U.S. troops hope they never see an “improvised explosive device,” or IED – the No. 1 killer of Americans in Iraq. But Marine Staff Sgt. Matt Bateman goes out looking for them every day.
That’s his job.
On this day, he’s been called to a small pile of rocks in the median strip of an intersection northwest of Baghdad. He’s arrived with his two-man demolition team and a camera-laden robot. The robot has identified the IED and now is delivering a charge of TNT to destroy it.
Suddenly the robot hits a snag. It’s stuck. Someone must leave the Marine cordon and retrieve it. By hand. It’s Bateman who makes the 100-yard walk alone.
He’s seen buddies die. Seen firefights. Seen what IEDs can do to trucks and tanks and men.

“Some days, you get nervous or butterflies,” he says. “But you have to stay focused so the feeling doesn’t turn into fear or panic or overtake you.”

For 100 yards he keeps his focus. Then something catches his eye: blinking lights in the pile of rocks. The IED has been triggered.
He thinks: I hope this doesn’t hurt.
WORST DAY
They’re the go-to guys, the celebrities, the rock stars of Iraq – members of the Explosive Ordinance Disposal team, or EOD.
Someone in a convoy or patrol sees a possible roadside bomb, they call EOD.

“It’s rewarding to see we make a difference,” says Bateman, 36, a husband and father of two from Camp Pendleton. “We help guys out. They’re really thankful and that’s one of the rewarding parts of the job.”

The downside?
He lifts his right arm to show a wristband: “Michael ‘Mikey’ Tayaotao, USMC Nov. 9, 1979 – Aug. 9, 2007. Fallen But Never Forgotten.”

“I’ll tell you my worst day there,” he says.

They were responding to an IED that halted a 35-vehicle convoy on a major supply route in western Iraq.

“I hate to say it was routine,” Bateman says. “But we handled it without major incident.”

Then a second IED was found near the back of the convoy. The team moved in:
Sgt. Mark Zambon controlled their Talon robot, with its four cameras and robotic arm. Sgt. Tayaotao drove their 20-ton, armored truck – in military-speak a “Mine Resistant Ambush Protected” Cougar that could withstand most IED blasts – and set up the explosive charges used to detonate IEDs. Bateman was team leader.
They’d responded to as many as five IEDs in a day, so two at one scene wasn’t unusual. But the second IED wasn’t an IED. It was bait. The real bomb lay nearby, waiting to be triggered – by a footstep.
JUST WENT NUMB
As Tayaotao began to investigate, he triggered a booby trap that killed him.

“My brain didn’t want to accept it,” Bateman says. “But I realized we had to do something.”

As leader of his EOD team and a security force of some 20 other Marines, Bateman had to give orders: Call a corpsman, reset security, call in a helicopter, clear a path to his fallen comrade, conduct a post-blast assessment, collect evidence.

Everyone turned to him: “What do we do next?”

In this strange place, people like to put bombs in the road,Bateman writes in an e-mail home. It’s my job with my team to go and make it safe. On top of that, people like to shoot at us sometimes while we are working. What a strange place.
One thing the bombs and shooting taught him: No one ever died from not having a cool car. From not having the latest cell phone. From going without MySpace and YouTube.
I don’t miss football or baseball,he writes. I don’t need to seal myself off from my family while I sit in my room playing X-Box. I know I am a family man and I am very happy and proud of that fact.
His wife, Anita, would write him two or three e-mails a day and check her inbox every few hours.

“He was constantly on my mind,” she says. “I couldn’t watch the news. Knowing he’s a target, it’s very stressful.”

At first, Bateman couldn’t even grieve his buddy’s death.

“It was too big to process at once,” he says, “so everyone just went numb for a while.
It wasn’t until 48 hours later, when Bateman finally could call Anita on the phone, that his emotions bubbled up.
“I just kept everything bottled up,” he says. “And when I finally got on the phone with her, I got to let go of it.”

OUTSIDE THE WIRE

Over here, they call it “outside the wire.” As in, “Every time we went outside the wire, I’d say a little prayer.”

As in, “Every time we went outside the wire, we had a security team.”

As in “Every time we went outside the wire, we had on our uniform, boots, body armor, helmet, extra gear hanging on our body armor, pistol on our hips and a rifle. Even if it was 125 degrees.”

Outside the wire – the fenced security of their base – is where most Marines spend most of their time in Iraq. That’s what Bateman hopes people remember this Veterans Day.

“People forget the sacrifices made, not just in this war but in all wars,” he says. “That there are men willing to say, ‘I’ll do this,’ so we can have our barbecues or our day on the beach.”

“Hopefully people won’t take for granted those things they have that are comfortable to them,” he says.

He can’t anymore, because he knows life outside the wire. That’s where more than 3,850 Americans have died in this Iraq war. Where more than 28,000 have been wounded. Where he watched his buddy Mikey die.
And where he faced his own death in a pile of rocks with blinking lights inside.
THE THINGS YOU HAVE
A chess match – that’s how Bateman sees his job on the bomb squad.

“We constantly change our procedure because we know they’re watching us every step,” he says.

One time their armored truck ran over an IED while driving to investigate an IED. Another time they found an IED that was fake, not with a booby trap but with a note naming insurgents in town. He never found out if it was real or a trap. Another time, they took small-arms fire as soon as they stepped out of their truck to investigate an IED.
On successful days, it’s exhilarating.

“Afterwards, we do a mental touchdown dance,” he says. “We crossed the goal line. Everyone comes back with all their fingers and toes.”

On this day, however, he is not so sure: The robot is stranded with TNT in its claw. Next to an IED ready to explode. He sneaks in. That’s when he sees lights blinking in the rock pile.
The IED is trying to explode. But on this day, Bateman’s crew is able to jam the signal – a procedure that doesn’t always work. He is able to walk away. To live another day.

“It was a rush, coming out of the other side of it, wow,” he says. “Not a rush like, ‘Wow, skydiving – I can’t wait to do again.’ But, ‘That was exciting – I hope that never happens again!'”

After facing and defeating more than 70 IEDS in Iraq, Bateman finally returned to his wife and children at Camp Pendleton last month. His routine? Mow the lawn, clean the kitchen, play with the kids and occasionally grab a good, old-fashioned In-N-Out burger.
I know now,he wrote in an e-mail last summer, that it is so important to want the things you already have.
And to appreciatethem, he might add today.

“You don’t have to do anything amazing,” he says of Veterans Day. “You don’t have to buy a vet dinner or donate to a cause. Just please remember them for a moment. That’s all a lot of us ask, just that acknowledgment.”

Wild Thing’s comment……..
Thank you Staff Sgt. Matt Bateman! You are in our prayers and we are so grateful for all you do.