Archive for March, 2008
This is one I can’t wait to check out: On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For by Rick Perry:
Texas governor Rick Perry, through the legacy of the Boy Scouts of America, takes dead aim at the moral relativism of the secular humanist movement, indicting its corrosive impact on the culture. Examining the left’s legal assaults on the Boy Scouts of America – which span more than 30 years – Perry offers prescient insight into the multi-faceted war, which pits the proponents of traditional American values against the radical leftist movement that seeks to tear down our social foundations.
On My Honor underscores the depth to which the culture warriors of the left will go to force their secular humanist minority view upon American society and revered American institutions. It is a revealing look at a culture war that rages close to the surface of American life, and it is a must read for any American concerned that our society is slipping from the high moral ground of liberty to the valley of license.
Also check out the official website.
My son is a Boy Scout and Murdoc is on the parent committee. It’s a great program that has done wonders for my boy and I see it doing good things for a lot of other boys right before my eyes. The boys learn self-confidence, moral values, patriotism, and how to take care of themselves among many other things.
No wonder so many people hate the Boy Scouts so much.
Lawmakers’ Support for DDG 1000 Program Ebbs
Construction contracts have been given for the two lead Zumwalt-class ships, but the program is in serious trouble.
Advanced Gun System (AGS) firing Long-Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP)The Navy has advertised the first two ships as costing $3.3 billion each to build, although subsequent hulls will be cheaper. Labs now thinks $5 billion is more likely, with higher figures possible.
The Navy is asking for money to buy the third DDG 1000 in the 2009 budget, but support for the seven-ship DDG 1000 program already is waning. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the powerful House Appropriations defense subcommittee, announced Feb. 27 he is considering delaying the destroyer in order to buy other ships, including an LPD 17-class amphibious ship and two more T-AKE ammunition ships.
In Navy posture hearings over the past few weeks, the possibility of delaying or canceling the DDG 1000 program has been routinely discussed. No lawmaker has stood to support the program on its merits – only for the shipbuilding work it represents.
A big part of the problem is that the Nave seems to want to live in imaginary land when talking budgets.
Lawmakers have seen so many big differences between the Navy’s funding requests and its actual outlays that many of them no longer take the Navy’s numbers seriously.
Some members are placing more stock on the cost estimates provided by CBO than by the Navy, O’Rourke said, and he referenced a comment March 14 by Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., who called the Navy’s estimates for its shipbuilding plan “pure fantasy.”
In February, the Navy revised its annual shipbuilding budget requirements from $14.4 billion to $23 billion per year over 30 years. That means they had previously undershot by about 60%.
Last year’s plan showed the Navy buying 60 ships from 2009 to 2013 at a cost of $75 billion. Now the plan is to buy 47 ships for nearly the same amount, $74 billion.
And has anyone seen any evidence anywhere that today’s projections are really any more realistic than yesterday’s?
I was going to post about how the EX 171 Extended Range Guided Munition (ERGM) was in trouble, but I wasn’t quick enough and now it’s had its funding stopped.
The end comes after the Navy spent more than $600 million on unsuccessful efforts by Raytheon to produced a precision munition that could be fired from a ship’s 5-inch gun and then fly, guided by satellites, to a target about 50 miles away.
ERGM failed a series of test firings in February, according to industry sources.
Below is a video of an ERGM test.
Read the rest of this entry »
Navy-contracted ship opens fire in Suez
An American cargo ship under contract to the U.S. Navy fired warning shots at a small Egyptian boat while moving through the Suez Canal, the military said Tuesday in a statement. Egyptian authorities said at least one man was killed in the incident.
The MV Global Patriot, which was under short-term charter to the Navy’s Military Sealift Command, entered the canal from the Red Sea at Suez after dark Monday when it was approached by several small boats, according to both U.S. and Egyptian officials.
–The boats were hailed and warned by a native Arabic speaker using a bullhorn to warn them to turn away. A warning flare was then fired,” said a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. –One small boat continued to approach the ship and received two sets of warning shots 20-30 yards in front of the bow. All shots were accounted for as they entered the water,” indicating no casualties.
An Egyptian security official claims that one man is dead and three wounded.
There was a US Navy security team aboard the Global Patriot, but the story doesn’t indicate if they are the ones who fired or not. It seems likely, but it’s also possible that it may have been security personnel with the shipping company if any were aboard.
The body of the man, Mohammed Fouad, went to the hospital morgue before being transferred to the Ibrahim Nafie mosque ahead of burial, said the head of the union of seamen in Suez, Abbas al-Amrikani.
“We are praying over his the body right now,” al-Amrikani said over audible sounds of prayer. “I saw the body. The bullet entered his heart and went out the other side.”
I’m sure that US officials would like to get a look at the wound. I’m also fairly sure they won’t be allowed to.
No doubt there will be calls for stricter rules of engagement after this.
Tugboats tow the decommissioned aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67) through the Delaware River to the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility in Philadelphia, Penn., March 22, 2008. Kennedy was deactivated March 23, 2007, following approximately 40 years of service. The ship will remain in Pennsylvania until the Navy decides to sell, scrap or reactivate the ship. DoD photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ann Marie Gorden, U.S. Coast Guard.
Provided nameless folks don’t complain that they’re offended, in which case you’ll be told that it’s offensive and that –that’s all you need to know.”
Funny, but try this with some other minority groups on campus and I bet there’d be a bit of a ruckus.
Danger Room: ‘Star Wars’ Turns 25, Eats $120 Billion; Worth It?
Murdoc votes ‘Yes, probably.’
A US Air Force (USAF) Booster Verification Test-5 (BVT-5) rocket launches from Space Launch Complex Twenty-One at Vandenberg Air Force Base (AFB), California (CA), at 10:40 AM on January 9, 2004. The USAF BVT-5 tested a three-stage booster configuration for use with the Missile Defense Agencys (MDA) Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system. The GDM is designed to intercept and destroy long-range ballistic missiles. Location: VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, CALIFORNIA (CA) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (USA) Camera Operator: SSGT MOLLY A. GILLIAM, USAF Date Shot: 9 Jan 2004
Meanwhile: Israel’s Military Shoots Down Laser Cannon
UPDATE: Though this concept from 1984, of course, would have been much cooler:
An artist’s concept of the interception and destruction of nuclear-armed re-entry vehicles by a space-based electromagnetic railgun. The LTV Aerospace and Defense Co. has demonstrated hypervelocity launch technology in the laboratory that is applicable to a ballistic missile defense system.
Last Wednesday, a B1-B bomber became the first Air Force plane to fly faster than the speed of sound on a blend of the new coal-derived synthetic fuel:
The fuel, a 50/50 blend of synthetic and petroleum gases, is being tested as part of an ongoing Air Force program to help the environment and to use a fuel produced domestically.
Air Force officials are in the process of evaluating and certifying this alternative fuel, which is derived from natural gas using the Fischer-Tropsch process, for use in all Air Force aircraft.
“The goal is to have every aircraft using synthetic fuel blends by 2011,” said Maj. Don Rhymer, assigned to the Air Force Alternative Fuels Certification Office. “By 2016 we hope at least 50 percent of this fuel will be produced domestically.”
The Air Force uses over 50% of the federal government’s fossil fuel, so switching over to the blend would obviously have a major impact. MO first pointed out this effort in 2005, and in 2006 we saw the first Coal-fired B-52 bomber. Last fall I noted a proposal to turn part of Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana, into a coal-to-liquid fuel facility.
However, a major obstacle has been raised. According to an article by Tim Kauffman in Defense News (subscription only):
Pentagon’s Plans To Use Alternative Fuels Hit Turbulence
A little-noticed provision in a new law could cause big problems for the Department of Defense and other U.S. agencies trying to use more alternative fuels.
An energy bill signed into law in December prohibits agencies from contracting for alternative or synthetic fuels whose creation and use would emit more greenhouse gases than conventional gasoline.
The provision — embedded in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act — was added by House leaders as a check against Air Force plans to develop jet fuel derived from liquefied coal. Some estimates claim fuel from liquefied coal produces nearly twice the greenhouse gas emissions of conventional fuel .
Note that this doesn’t apply only to this particular synthetic blend, but to all alternative fuels.
Testing with such fuels is not prohibited, and the Air Force plans to continue the program to certify aircraft on the new fuel. But plans to build up production infrastructure will certainly be threatened if widespread use is prohibited because profitability potential would obviously be limited. This, in turn, would limit our ability to rapidly switch over to the fuel in the event of an oil supply catastrophe.
But at least greenhouse gas emissions will be under control.
UPDATE: I see that Instapundit points out an article on this and writes
THE AIR FORCE IS PUSHING coal-to-oil plans. Do they know something we don’t?
Navy Short on Shipbuilding Funds
Who would have ever seen this coming?
Rachel Lucas, whose boyfriend is leaving to deploy to Iraq:
I hereby declare March 23 as Punch A Hippie In The Nuts Day. All you have to do to celebrate it is find a hippie, ask him how he feels about the military, and if he says anything other than –I love it because those guys make it possible for me to be a worthless hippie”, punch him right in the nuts.
It may not be religious, but that is one RIGHTEOUS suggestion for a holiday.
Via Snowflakes in Hell.
