Archive for January, 2008
Teenager arrested in suicide hijacking plot
Kids these days:
Authorities have charged a teenage boy who said he planned to hijack a commercial jetliner in an attempt to commit suicide, an FBI spokesman told CNN late Thursday.
The 16-year-old was taken into custody by airport police without incident on Tuesday evening after flying from Los Angeles, California, to Nashville, Tennessee, on Southwest Airlines Flight 284.
“His stated intent was to hijack the airplane and commit suicide,” said George Bolds, an FBI spokesman in Memphis, Tennessee. “He did indicate he intended to die in Louisiana. It appears he had a ticket to Louisiana.”…
The teen wanted to crash the plane into a Hannah Montana concert in Lafayette, Louisiana, two CNN television affiliates in Nashville, WSMV and WTVF, reported, citing unnamed sources. The concert is scheduled for Friday night at the Lafayette Cajundome.
Boeing, Lockheed to team up for new bomber
Boeing and Lockheed Martin plan to announce today a joint development program for a next-generation bomber for the U.S. Air Force.
The two defense contractors — sometime bitter rivals, sometime partners — have agreed to team up “to perform studies and system development efforts” for the anticipated Air Force long-range bomber program.
Murdoc’s semi-serious prediction: Six years and 7.8 gazillion dollars later, the decision will be to go with an FB-22 in order to “save time and money.”
I don’t know what the percentage of Ron Paul supporters are that fit this, but those that do are the ones Murdoc has problems with. Comic from xkcd.
I’ll quickly weigh in on this strictly for the record.
$300 or $600 or $1200 or whatever tax rebate checks are not any sort of solution for any sort of economic situation. They aren’t part of “fixing” whatever different sorts of folks claim is wrong with the economy. They aren’t really going to change anything.
However, they are giving tax money back to Americans, and therefore they’re undeniably good.
I’m disturbed about the fact that some people who don’t pay taxes are getting rebate checks. That, my friends, is Wrong. Those folks, and I’m not making any sort of statement about them other than they don’t pay taxes yet are getting rebate checks, are getting free money from taxpayers. The same taxpayers who are getting smaller rebates than the President originally called for. Like I said, it’s disturbing.
What makes it even weirder, to me personally, is that (if I understand correctly) my family will not get a rebate for my wife’s contribution, because my wife doesn’t work.
Now, I wouldn’t normally expect my wife to get a tax rebate (because she pays no taxes) if everyone else who paid no taxes was also not getting a tax rebate. But 35 million people who paid no taxes are getting some of their tax money back. Oops…They’re getting my tax money back. Except for my wife, though. She doesn’t get her own tax money, my tax money, or anyone else’s tax money.
Some Democrats are upset that unemployment benefits weren’t extended or that Food Stamp benefits weren’t increased. You can mock this rebate plan however you want, but it’s basically a quick way to get tax money away from the government and back into the hands of the people. It’s just that the Democrats see it as merely another wealth redistribution plan, not a way to cut the tax burden. Call it the Robin Hood Rebate. And we’ve seen how all the other wealth redistribution plans have worked so far. The party that vowed to bring fiscal responsibility back to government is refunding money never collected. Nice.
Businesses are getting some tax breaks, which is good. Tax breaks/reductions are where real change can come from. No doubt this isn’t nearly enough, of course, but maybe they can give someone else some of my tax money (well, someone else besides my wife, at least) and try to keep glossing the tax rates over a bit longer.
General: Taliban Offensive Unlikely
Army Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez told a Pentagon news conference that Taliban and al-Qaida fighters operating from havens in the largely ungoverned tribal areas of western Pakistan appear to have shifted their focus toward targets inside Pakistan rather than across the border in Afghanistan.
“I don’t think there’ll be a big spring offensive this year,” Rodriguez said.
Though what’s good for Afghanistan and the US and NATO troops in the country isn’t terribly great for Pakistan, and Pakistan knows it. They’ve just launched a new offensive in South Waziristan.
Iraqi Force Developments and Sensationalistic Press Reporting
DJ Elliott with lots of good information, including:
In 2007, the planned expansion standardized the IA at four brigades to the division and three line battalions to the brigade, adding two peshmerga divisions and five ISOF battalions. Additionally, there are indications that a 16th division is being established south of Baghdad where Major General Lynch needs seven more Iraqi Army battalions to join the 8th IA Division and the oversized 4-6 IA Brigade (five battalions). The Iraqis currently plan an army with at least 16 IA regular divisions, 65 brigades, and 195 battalions. In addition, the ISOF is splitting off from the IA and expanding to at least three brigades (probably six or seven).
He points out that the US planning and direction of the new Iraqi Army was focused on the anti-insurgency force, which consisted of the first 10 divisions and was reached in 2006.
DJ then runs down the list of Iraq’s potential enemies (all of which are currently capable of defeating Iraq if they put their minds to the task) and the list of Iraq’s current military capabilities. The most glaring weakness of the Iraqi Army at this time, in terms of conventional warfare, is its low number of tanks and virtually complete lack of artillery. Though the individual soldiers are becoming quite capable, the lack of armor and artillery, coupled with minimal logistics, mean the Iraqi Army isn’t capable of fighting anything tougher than insurgents.
Go read the whole thing for a wealth of information on the subject.
Contractors working for General Dynamics Land Systems Inc. are putting in 10-hour days at Fort Lewis to get the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division’s recently returned fleet ready for duty again. The 270 or so armored vehicles arrived at the Port of Olympia in November after 15 months of hard duty in Iraq.
The reset process began earlier this month and typically takes about seven days per vehicle…Nineteen of the brigade’s hardest hit Strykers were sent to the General Dynamics plant in Anniston, Ala., for structural repairs. Another 20 destroyed in Iraq are being replaced with new trucks, officials said.
The brigade needs to be on stand-by by June 1st.
New Ammo Will Decrease Fragments in Close Urban Environs
Brig. Gen. James E. Rogers, commanding general of the Joint Munitions Command at Rock Island, Ill., approved the full materiel release of the M-1030 12-gauge shotgun breaching cartridge in late 2007.
“The M-1030 is an anti-material cartridge designed to be used for defeating wooden doors (deadbolts, knobs and hinges) and padlock hasps,” said R. Ned DeWitt, product manager of crew served weapons with the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center. “The cartridge is functional with the Mossberg 500/590 and the Remington 870 shotguns. The cartridges will be tested in the XM62 Modular Accessory Shotgun System as part of the product qualification testing for the weapon.”
The round is designed to cut down on the number of fragments scattered by current breaching, normally 00 Buckshot. I guess I thought that they already had specialized breaching rounds. I sure wouldn’t want to hold the muzzle of a 12-gauge up to a locked door and pull the trigger on a load of 00 Buckshot.
Anyway, don’t miss this bit:
The M-1030 is a Soldier-enhancement program that uses commercial-off-the-shelf technology. The first requirement was approved by the U.S. Army Infantry Center in 1997.
It took 11 years for a COTS program to come up with a new shotgun round in the middle of a war. I’m glad they didn’t decide to design this thing from scratch. By the time they got it right it would have been made obsolete by wrist-mounted laser cutters.
Here’s the story: Kansas City official resigns over immigration flap
Kansas City parks board commissioner Frances Semler has resigned because his “immigration flap” has been more or less responsible for two groups choosing not to hold conventions in KC.
What’s the flap?
She’s a member of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC).
Membership in a group that does nothing illegal to help stop people who do things that are illegal is enough to get you on the blacklist these days.
Semler didn’t join the Minutemen until December. Blacklists spread fast, these days.
Kansas City mayor Mark Funkhouser told Semler not to attend a Minutemen meeting next month.
“Any individual or organization who speaks with concern of the impact of the well-organized invasion of illegals in this country is subjected to being called terms such as bigot or racist,” Semler said in her resignation letter.
Iraq Parliament Purges Hussein Vestiges on Flag
NYT:
BAGHDAD — Iraqi lawmakers adopted a modified version of the national flag on Tuesday, removing three stars that symbolized the Baathist ideals of unity, freedom and socialism, and Saddam Hussein’s handwritten calligraphy of the Koranic incantation –Allahu akbar.”
The incantation, which means God is great, will remain on the flag, though it will now be written in a different calligraphic style.
Members of Parliament voted 110 to 50 for the flag, which was introduced in 2004 and bears the red, white and black stripes of Iraq’s original banner. The design preserves a sense of continuous national identity, while purging the flag of Baathist allusions, supporters say.
Here are Iraq’s flags 1963-2008:
1991-2004
Approved Jan 2008
1963-1991
2004-2008
And the aborted proposal from 2004:
