Hot Crew! : Anna Paquin

Now she’s a high falutin actress who got her start in the 1993 film The Piano. To me she’ll always be Rogue from the X-men movies. Now she’s appearing naked on True Blood.

Chew on this: RIP the King Of Pop

August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009

Tasty Links around the interwebs:

1. 101 Game Facts That will Rock Your world
2. ‘Stoned wallabies make crop circles’ BBC
3. politicsdaily.com, New Basic Training: Not your father’s (or Hollywood’s) Army. (H/T XBradTC)
4. F-22 is not a cold war jet! (H/T ELP Defens(c)e Blog)
5. F-22? The Senate wants MOAR! (wired)
6. F-22′s for Japan? Some in the Senate are pricing them already. (Ares blog)
7. Universal Health Care: Not a hit with health care consumers (Michelle Malkin)
8. “15 Year Old Invents Algae Powered Energy System” (Slashdot)

9. President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don’t stand to gain from the extra care.

   (Powerline)

10. “You need youngsters who are deep into this stuff…. If they have been slightly naughty boys, very often they really enjoy stopping other naughty boys,” said Lord West, who was appointed Britain’s first cyber security minister.

    (wired on the UK’s cybercommand)

War and Peace: Iran and the Left

I was wondering why the left in America is so quite on the Revolution in Iran:

The American Left consistently comes down on the wrong side of history. Proof? How about the Code Pink press release from Friday;

CODEPINK calls on the Obama Administration to fulfill its commitment to pursue diplomacy with Iran through face-to-face talks without preconditions; as Obama promised during his campaign, “We should not just talk to our friends, we should be willing to engage our enemies as well. That is what diplomacy is all about.” CODEPINK also affirms the Obama administration’s decision to withhold comment on the Iranian election and its government’s decisions around conducting a recount or reelection.
…
Emphasis is mine. In other words, Code Pink supports the mullahs on their continued murder of gays and stoning of women as well as the current atrocities on the streets of Iranian cities. Peace at any cost.

This Ain’t Hell quotes a Code Pink Press Release.

It seems that the left can’t let go of the Bush years. Others point out that without our support of pro-western movements and governments we get things that are worse. Latin American, the Middle East, Asia and Africa, it’s the same story: commies, fascists and religious fanatics come in, overthrow the government at things get worse.

Why does the left love these guys? Mostly because of Marxism. They somehow see these clowns as the “people’s movement”, overthrowing unpopular western-supported regimes. It’s all supposed to be sweetness and light once the dictators is overthrown and the imperialist powers (read the US) are kicked out.

The truth is that most revolutions swapped one tyrant for another. Iran has the Shah, installed by the CIA (yes it’s true) . His attempts at a secular Iran were done by force. His secret police were very brutal. With military hardware supplied by the US, he stayed in power until forced out in the 1970′s. The religious leaders who led the revolution destroyed many of the secular institutions except the secret police. Keeping oil wealth for themselves, the Mullahs used a newer meaner secret police to brutalize the populace. Women, gays and anyone too “western” get stoned, hung or worse. Instead of a Shah hording wealth and power, the revolution now has many Mullahs hoarding wealth and power among them.

A vile strain now common among radical Muslims and the left is anti-semitism. Jew hatred has the Mullahs denouncing the “Zionist media” for the green revolution in the streets. The left chimes in. They blame American corporations and the government, but how controls them? You guessed it the Jews. Israel/the CIA/the Jewish lobby etc. Of course radical muslims nod in agreement

The biggest disappointment with the left is that they are not really saying anything new. Marxism is a failed ideology, a parasite on western civilization. History repudiated Marx when the Iron Curtain fell. Yet most of the anti-war movements are lead by communists/Marxists. No real change in the core philosophy. The hatred of Jews goes hand in hand with the elitist background of most of those east coast liberals. They came from backgrounds that hated eastern Europeans and Jews. They rationalize it by talking about “imperialism” and “suffering” of the Palestinians, but it’s the same ol’ bigotry.

Unlike many Middle eastern nations, Israel is a democracy with true equal rights for Arabs, Jews, Gays, and other minorities. Tell that to the left. They want us to make peace with nations like Iran or Saddam-Era Iraq. They kill their own people. They start wars with impunity. Think the US likes to start wars? During the Cold War, the USSR gave away tons of equipment to the Arab states to destroy Israel. Up to and including ballistic missiles. US support for Israel was always controversial here, the USSR just gave it away without a thought.

Mostly, the situation in Iran, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan expose the empty hollow shell that is the left. They want centralized power, they want more control. That’s what leftist dictatorships abroad have. Total control with vicious attempts to fight of civilization. Not globalization (there is no such animal).

As barriers fall and people see freedom in action, they want it. Blue jeans, rock and roll and freedom of expression. For most youngsters today, wars like Vietnam, the Iran-Iraq war, and the revolutions are far away. The calls to revolution mean noting while the people are poor and freedoms are few.

The left wants to prop up the Potemkin villages and paper over the crushing oppression. They see total control and want it.

CODEPINK denounces Obama plan for Afghanistan
Calls for reallocation of war funds in American needs, rapid withdrawal, diplomacy

WASHINGTON — At a time of sky-high unemployment, rising cost of living and lower wages, and outrageous corporate bail-outs and bonuses, CODEPINK Women for Peace condemns President Obama’s announced plan today on Afghanistan, which will continue to drain billions from on our economy, further destabilize the Middle East and Central Asia, and threaten worldwide security. CODEPINK calls for a reallocation of war funds into the needs of the American people: health care, education and infrastructure, a rapid withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the closing of bases, and tireless diplomatic engagement with Afghan and Pakistan governments.
–CODE PINK

Never mind that the Taliban (like Iran only worse) sheltered terrorists, blew up girls schools and threw acid on a girl with the gall to learn to read. They have even begun to profit from the drug trade over there. Health care? Even the left won’t use the “universal health care” they keep pitching.

Every leftist “people’s revoltuion”, every radical Islamist revolt simply changes the dictators under the guise of freedom. Sadly, like the those revolutions, the left paints itself as a beautiful princess when she’s really a common whore.

And then I saw the end of the war. I saw us pull out, and then I saw the communists move in and slaughter 2 1/2 million people in South Vietnam and Cambodia. And I saw the left that had precipitated this turn away, just walk away from it. … They didn’t take seriously the blood that they had been directly causing. And it didn’t – but I must say programming is very, very deep. And I didn’t really pull out of it for quite a while afterward. But that’s where the dime dropped and things started to happen. And then I , you know, then 9/11, of course.
John Voight

Chew on this: Strykers, health care and Dream Cars

Tasty links, Deloreans and a phony vet club gets a beatdown:

1. VoteVets: not about Vets, and not about voting for them, This ain’t Hell exposes their agenda.
2. ArmyofDude: more Strykers on the way. Gee, and here I thought that the Strykers sucked? Isn’t that right POGO?
3. CDR Salamander’s Fullbore Friday: A man jumps a barbwire fence and becomes an icon of hope during the cold war.
4. So much for hope and change: Ace of Spades reports that the Administration’s agenda is on life support.
5. “SSG Sean Samaroo Receives Silver Star For His Actions At The Battle Of Wanat, Afghanistan”; Tankerbabe posts a link to a hero of not only receiving a medal, but a range at Fort Jackson is named after that battle.
6. Georiga, home of Fort Stuart and Fort Benning, is not getting any love from this administration: Chickenhawk Express (h/t: This Ain’t Hell)
7. Jawa Report: Smoking dope is bad for you. That explains a lot about the American left.
8. Guess who voted against supporting Iran: Uncle Ron, the bigots pal.
9. Attack of the Bridezilla: Pujiba brings teh crazy brides and the weddings they commit.
10. two from Agent Bedhead: Pixar film Up! brings hope to a girl with cancer and Anonymous fights the Iranian regime.
11. Iraqi’s back the Iranian revolution: Gateway Pundit
12. Some thoughts on Iran from Brad.

And now a DMC:
John Delorean made a classic car, lost his fortune and inspired the public imagination. His story is the basis of an album and three movies. Neon Neon dedicated their album “Stainless Style” to him:

War and Peace: The F-22 and the future of American Air Power

It seems that the press and the left are having a conniption fit over the F-22. We need to upgrade our air power. While we enjoy an edge now, our air power is rapidly aging, the air force and navy have planes that will become unflyable in a few years..

F-22 pic

“It means a step down from air dominance,” Richard Aboulafia, an air-warfare analyst for the Teal Group, which conducts assessments for the defense industry, told me. “The decision not to replace the F‑15 fleet with the F‑22 ultimately means that we will accept air casualties. We will lose more pilots. We will still achieve air superiority, but we will get hurt achieving it.”
The Last Ace
by Mark Bowden

It gets worse:

Fleet age v.s New Purchases

The age of our current fight fleets int he Air Force and Navy is going up as purchases of new jets go down.

Chinese FT-2000 Missile

Advanced Surface to Air Missiles are a particular concern since they are relatively cheap, often highly effective, and unchallenging in personnel training demands. Russia has exported large numbers of the S-300PMU / SA-10C, S-300PMU1 and PMU2 Favorit / SA-20, and is set to export the new S-400 Triumf / SA-21, which includes a 200 nautical mile range missile built to kill AWACS, JSTARS and jamming aircraft like the EA-6B Prowler and EA-18G Growler. These missile systems are often described as “Patriot class” and are similar to the US Patriot in basic design, but employ more refined radar designs, longer ranging missiles, and are much more mobile than the Patriot, making them vastly more difficult to kill compared to legacy Soviet era or Patriot SAM batteries. An opponent operating SA-10C/12/20/21/23 SAM systems can play the same “shoot and scoot” game even better than Saddam did with Scud launchers in 1991, or Serbia did with SA-6 SAM batteries in 1999, and evade US fighters most if not all of the time.
…

Deployed HQ-9 battery

While Russia remains the global leader in producing and exporting sophisticated “anti-access” weapons, China is now entering this market with a range of indigenous products, and derivatives of Russian products. This year China announced the export of the HQ-9/LD-2000, an improved Chinese derivative of the Russian S-300PMU/SA-10C SAM system, which includes the option of the FT-2000 passive anti-radar missile, designed to home on the radar emissions from an AWACS, JSTARS, U-2 or Global Hawk surveillance aircraft, or on emissions from jamming aircraft like the EA-6B Prowler and EA-18G Growler. To defeat US smart munitions in flight, the LD-2000 is on offer, a clone of the European Goalkeeper radar directed Gatling gun, carried on a high mobility truck. Other Chinese built anti-access products include Missile Approach Warning Systems for SAM batteries, and jammers, as well as a wide range of modern digital radars including low band designs with some counter-stealth capability, and phased arrays derived from the Russian S-300P series.
– “F-22 Termination: America’s Self-Induced Strategic Death Spiral” Air Power Australia

The answer should be obvious, build more F-22′s and F-35′s. Wrong according to many in the media. One journo tried to downplay the Chinese threat. His article boiled down to China makes junk, so their jets are crap and nothing to be afraid of. He forgets to add that China, while having help, built the J-10 on it’s own and has export orders for it. Another, writing for Time, argues we should build more F-15”s and F-16′s.

F-16 Block 50/60

Any additional funds saved by killing off major programs could be diverted into less glamorous programs the military needs more: cargo and tanker aircraft, Stryker combat vehicles and small littoral ships designed for coastal warfare. Today’s weapons can be radically improved with new electronics, engines and other components without having to build whole new ships, planes or tanks. The F-16′s builder says the latest version of that warplane rolling off Lockheed Martin’s assembly line in Fort Worth, Texas, yields “the most advanced multirole fighter available today.” In fact, the hottest F-16 now in the skies is flown not by the U.S. Air Force but by the oil-rich United Arab Emirates.– Mark Thompson: Can Robert Gates Tame the Pentagon?

So what? The F-15 Silent Eagle has been rolled out. Touted by Warisboring.com(when they are not advocating disbanding the air force), among others. The Congressional Budget Office put out a proposal to a proposal to deal with the future fighter gap. Out of four solutions, one was to buy 2,000 F-16E (block50/60). That is highly unlikely due to our commitment to F-35 partner nations. The other proposals called for increased funding of the F-35.

Boeing F-15SE Silent Eagle

Faced with upgrading enemies and a hostile world, 20+ year old designs can’t pass muster. We fight dirty small wars now, but the future is not set. Our allies in the middle east are upgrading their missile defense with our latest weapons. Shouldn’t we upgrade our air force with the best and the latest air craft? Even Boeing does not believe that it’s Silent Eagle has a future.

Air Defense History: The MIM-23 HAWK missile

The Raytheon MIM-23 HAWK is an American medium range surface-to-air missile. As a backronym, some consider HAWK to stand for Homing All the Way Killer. The HAWK was initially designed to destroy aircraft and was later adapted to destroy other missiles in flight. The missile entered service in 1960, and a program of extensive upgrades has kept it from becoming obsolete. It was superseded by the MIM-104 Patriot in United States Army service by 1994. It was finally phased out of US service in 2002, the last users, the US Marine Corps replacing it with the man-portable ir-guided visual range FIM-92 Stinger. The missile was also produced outside the US in Western Europe and Japan.

MIM-23 Hawk, Wikipeida

Hawk Missiles on an M113 chassis

Forgotten by the general public, Hawk was one of two missile systems the US Army had in Europe to stop the Soviet Air Force. Semi-Active radar homing would guide the missile to it target. The missile received signals from a ground based fire-control radar and used that to hit the target. Development started in 1952, by 1959 the Army had it’s first units, the Marines in 1960.

Of course the system used vacuum tubes back then. The first upgrades gave it solid-state technology. The mean-time between failure rates went from 43 hours in the 50′s, to over 300 at the turn of the century. Many other improvements happened.

US Army diagram of the HAWK system in action

The MIM-23A had a basic warhead of 54 kilograms, and over 4,000 eight gram frags. It was a giant shotgun shell against jets and helicopters. The MIM-23B I-HAWK (Improved HAWK) had a 74 kg warhead and 14,000 frags. A new motor improved performance. By 1971 all HAWKS were I-HAWKS. That’s all well and good, but that warhead is nothing if the missile can’t see it’s target.

Firing a HAWK missile.

Electronic warfare bloomed at vacuum tubes gave way to solid state. The USSR had experience jamming western propaganda broadcasts during the 50′s and 60′s. The war in Vietnam and the Arab-Israeli wars honed their expertise. As a result MIM-23 models C-M were developed all the way until 1997. There is speculation that home-on-jam was added to the D-models (the missiles would home in on a jamming aircraft, killing it). The K-M models had a bigger warhead with 30 gram frags.

The radars got upgrades to:

PAR radar

Early high power illuminator/tracker radar

The original HAWK system used 4 radars: to detect (PAR and CWAR), to track (CWAR and HPIR) and to engage (HPIR and ROR) targets. As the system was upgraded the functionality of some of the radars was merged. The final iteration of the system consists of only 2 radars, an enhanced phased array search radar and an engagement radar (HPIR).

The Army’s goal was to reduce the maintenance of the system. Having 4 radars means that you have four times the things that can go wrong in the field. As the system improved, the radars got better. The last radars were the AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel and a high power illuminator.

AN-MPQ-64 Sentinel Radar

High power illuminator/tracker radar

HAWK fought several battles in the Cold War. It was in Florida during the Cuban Missile Crisis, with 304 missiles defending American Soil. The Arab-Israeli was saw:
an Israeli MIM-23A shot down a damaged Israeli Dassault MD.450 that was in danger of crashing into the Negev Nuclear Research Center near Dimona, the first combat firing of the HAWK, and it’s first kill. During the 1969 War of Attrition, HAWK batteries had shot down between 8 and 12 Arab aircraft . During the 1973 Yom Kippur war, 75 Israeli missiles wdowned between 12 and 24 aircraft. Kuwait shot down one Iranian F-5 during the Iran-Iraq war. The French army in Chad shot down a Libyan Tu-22B in 1987. During Desert Storm, US Army and Marine HAWK units defended Saudi Arabia. White Stands Missile range tested an anti-Scud variant of the missile as the 1990′s came to a close.

HAWK Versus LANCE Impact

All in all HAWK was used by the following: Bahrain, Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Jordan, South Korea, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain,
Sweden, Republic of China (Taiwan), Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States. Training for the missile was done at Fort Bliss. Like Nike, many soldiers from other nations would come to Fort Bliss to train on HAWK. The German Air Force even had a school at Bliss to train their officers.

The system has been phased out of U.S. service for some time. Most NATO countries don’t have it anymore, but countries like Japan, UAE and Israel still use it. Today the Army uses the Avenger system.

Video:


Links:

• Redstone Arsenal Complex Chronology:
  The Redstone Arsenal Era, 1950-55, has a video of Hawk being fired.
• The Missiles of Key West: The Unofficial Web site of
  6th Bn (HAWK) 65th Arty (ADA) and 1st Bn (HAWK) 65th Arty (ADA)
• HAWK as TMD Federation of American scientists.
• ARMY AIR DEFENSE OPERATIONS, SUBCOURSE NO. AD0700 US Army Air Defense Artillery School. Declassified document at Globalsecurity.org.
• Gulf War: Arabian Knights
  Unit-by-Unit Narratives of Air Defense Artillery Units in Operation Desert Storm (Air Defense Artillery Online)
• Missile Defense Agency: HAWK Images
• Fun Fact: Tankers have Elvis, HAWK has actor Doug Sheehan of Knots Landing and Sabrina The Teenage Witch.

Chew on this: Iran, Iran so far away… (UPDATED)

Iran burns, elections are rigged and the President springs into action:

1. Ace of Spades takes our leadership to task, and so does Powerline, over the administration’s reluctance to lead during this crisis.
2. The MSM is shut out by Iran’s corrupt regime. So much for old media (Wired/CNN)
3. The revolution is on twitter and in the streets. (Wired)
4. The battlespills onto cyberspace. (wired)
5. “Thousands of Mousavi Supporters March in Iran”, video of Iranian militia firing on civilian crowds. *WARNING* CONTAINS VIOLENT FOOTAGE, BE ADVISED (LFG)
6. CNN gets raked over the coals for not covering the Iran situation early.(CNET)
7. Guards fire on crowds (Gatewaypundit, WARNING: VIDEO OF GUNFIRE ON CIVILIANS), LFG as more here and here.
8. NY Times columnist gets pOwned by reality, has to retreat from leftist fantasy land. (Newsbusters)
9. US asleep at the switch? (Patterico)
10. Time magazine looks into the election.
11. The President reacts to the violence in Iran days after it started
12. Oppositon leader Vows to “Pay any cost” CNN finally jumps on the story.
13. President Bush Obama plays golf during this crisis, watch his drive! (HT: Doubleplusundead)

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP (if you have twitter) hat Tip from the Jawa Report:

The purpose of this guide is to help you participate constructively in the Iranian election protests through Twitter.

1. Do NOT publicise proxy IP’s over twitter, and especially not using the #iranelection hashtag. Security forces are monitoring this hashtag, and the moment they identify a proxy IP they will block it in Iran. If you are creating new proxies for the Iranian bloggers, DM them to @stopAhmadi or @iran09 and they will distributed them discretely to bloggers in Iran.

2. Hashtags, the only two legitimate hashtags being used by bloggers in Iran are #iranelection and #gr88, other hashtag ideas run the risk of diluting the conversation.

3. Keep you bull$hit filter up! Security forces are now setting up twitter accounts to spread disinformation by posing as Iranian protesters. Please don’t retweet impetuosly, try to confirm information with reliable sources before retweeting. The legitimate sources are not hard to find and follow.

4. Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become ‘Iranians’ it becomes much harder to find them.

5. Don’t blow their cover! If you discover a genuine source, please don’t publicise their name or location on a website. These bloggers are in REAL danger. Spread the word discretely through your own networks but don’t signpost them to the security forces. People are dying there, for real, please keep that in mind…

Hot Crew! : Tactical Corset?

The Army is testing new body armor. However another company has something for the ladies:

It’s the toast of AR-15.com. Mentioned in boing-boing and Instapundit is taken by it.

Tactical Corset back

Tactical Corset

It’s Palin! Get her! AGAIN!

So Sarah Palin lost the election, she should be done right?

Wrong. It seems that she won’t go gently into the night. First, she works with government and industry to have a new pipeline built in her state.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – June 11, 2009 – TransCanada Corporation (TSX, NYSE: TRP) (TransCanada) today announced that TransCanada and ExxonMobil have reached an agreement to work together on an Alaska gas pipeline.

She warned us about the current administration’s approach to the economy.

What does she get? Some old dude on the tv joking about having her 14-year old daughter raped. Letterman has no shame, he dodges and evades when taken to task over his slimy remarks. He may even be losing a sponsor because of it.

Why does the left hate strong women? Conservative women stand for something and they get treated like dirt. Sarah Palin is no exception. But she won’t back down. None of us will.

Real women don’t hide behind their gender or race. Real women and men draw a line in the sand and say “NO MORE!”. None of this “we must understand” crap. They are not victims and don’t need anyone to speak for them. The left is full of victims. The victim is always repressed. The victim says “Walk all over me, my pain makes me special.” Because Sarah Palin and others refuse to be victims, the attacks and hatred flow from the “reality based community”.

234 Years of the U.S. Army

Born out of the smoke from Lexinton, Concord and Breed’s Hill, the U.S. Army has fought to defend American liberties even before there was an America. In 1775 the men who battled against a disciplined British army were little more than a rabble. By comparison, today’s soldiers are without peer – their capabilities and performance are unmatched in the history of the world. But these two armies, separated by 234 years, share a common trait – their soldiers all volunteered to serve their country. — Militarytimes