•·        Krauthammer Perfectly Lambast Torbid Obama

•·        Obama Taking Overhand Lefts and Rights.

•·        STUXNET Computer Worm ‘Gamechanger’

•·        FBI Seeking Russian Spy At NSA

•·        Second Test of 13,000 MPH “Glider” In 2011

•·        Secret U. S. X-37B Space Plane Returns After 7-Month Mission.

•·        China On Verge of 5^th Generation Fighter Now Not 2017

•·        Russia Rejects Obama On ABM: START In Peril

•·        Hanukkah Wildfires Kill 42 In Northern Israel: Arsonists Arrested

•·        Rangel Becomes 23rd Member of Congress To Be Censured.

•·        WikiLeaks Under International Attacks

•·        Lebanon Now Iran/Syrian Satellite

•·        Is ET Phoning Home

•·        One In Seven SSN’s “Bogus”

 

Torpid;  adjective inactive or sluggish. slow; dull; apathetic; lethargic. dormant, as a hibernating or estivating animal.

Our heretofore torpid administration needs to think creatively to stop Julian Assange says Charles Krauthammer a  nationally syndicated columnist, continues:

“It is understandable for the administration to underplay  the significance of the State Department cables released by WikiLeaks. But  while it was wise not to go into a public panic, it is delusional to think  that this is merely embarrassing gossip and indiscretion. The leaks have  done major damage.

• 1. First, quite specific damage to our war-fighting capacity. Take just one revelation among hundreds: The Yemeni president and deputy prime minister are quoted as saying that they’re letting the U.S. bomb al-Qaeda in their country, while claiming that the bombing is their government’s doing. Well, that cover is pretty well blown. And given the unpopularity of the San’a government’s tenuous cooperation with us in the war against al-Qaeda, this will undoubtedly limit our freedom of action against its Yemeni branch, identified by the CIA as the most urgent terrorist threat to U.S. security.
• 2. Second, we’ve suffered a major blow to our ability to collect information. Talking candidly to a U.S. diplomat can now earn you headlines around the world, reprisals at home, or worse. Success in the War on Terror depends on being trusted with other countries’ secrets. Who’s going to trust us now?
• 3. Third, this makes us look bad, very bad. But not in the way Secretary of State Hillary Clinton implied in her cringe-inducing apology speech, in which she scolded these awful leakers for having done a disservice to “the international community” and plaintively deplored the way this hampers U.S. attempts to bring about a better world. She sounded like a cross between an exasperated school principal and a Miss America contestant professing world peace to be her fondest wish. The problem is not that the purloined cables exposed U.S. hypocrisy or double-dealing. Good God, that’s the essence of diplomacy. That’s what we do; that’s what everyone does. Hence the famous aphorism that a diplomat is an honest man sent to lie abroad for his country. Nothing new here.

What is notable, indeed shocking,  is the administration’s torpid and passive response to the leaks. What’s  appalling is the helplessness of a superpower that not only cannot protect  its own secrets but shows the world that if you violate those secrets -  massively, wantonly, and maliciously - there are no  consequences. Time to show a little steel. To show that such miscreants  don’t get to walk away.

At a news conference on Monday, Attorney General Eric  Holder assured the nation that his people are diligently looking into  possible legal action against WikiLeaks. Where has Holder been? The  WikiLeaks exposure of Afghan War documents occurred four months ago.  Holder is looking now at possible indictments? This is a country  where a good prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. Months after the first  leak, Justice’s thousands of lawyers have yet to prepare charges against  Julian Assange and his confederates? Throw the Espionage Act of 1917 at them. And if that is  not adequate - if that law has been too constrained and watered down by  subsequent Supreme Court rulings - then why hasn’t the administration  prepared new legislation adapted to this kind of Internet-age violation of  U.S. security? It’s not as if we didn’t know more leaks were coming. And  that more leaks are coming still. Think creatively. The WikiLeaks document dump is sabotage,  however quaint that term may seem.

We are at war - a hot war in  Afghanistan, where six Americans were killed just this past Monday, and a  shadowy world war where enemies from Yemen to Portland are planning holy  terror.

Franklin Roosevelt had German saboteurs tried by military tribunal  and electrocuted. Assange has done more damage to the United States than  all six of those Germans combined. Putting U.S. secrets on the Internet, a  medium of universal dissemination new in human history, requires a  reconceptualization of sabotage and espionage - and the laws to punish and  prevent them. Where is the Justice Department? And where are the intelligence agencies on which we lavish  $80 billion a year? Assange has gone missing. Well, he’s no cave-dwelling  jihadi ascetic. Find him. Start with every five-star hotel in England and  work your way down. Want to prevent this from happening again? Let the world  see a man who can’t sleep in the same bed on consecutive nights, who fears  the long arm of American justice. I’m not advocating that we bring out of  retirement the KGB proxy who, on a London street, killed a Bulgarian  dissident with a poisoned umbrella tip. But it would be nice if people like Assange were made to worry every time they went out in out of the rain. ‘

Last week GE-owned MSNBC television network continued their class warfare rhetoric against Republicans on Thursday night over “tax cuts for the rich” but failed to cover the big financial news of the day - their corporate bosses had tapped the Federal Reserve for $16 billion in taxpayer paid bailout money.

Liberal economist Paul Krugman wrote in his New York Times column last week that Democrats will have to look elsewhere (other than to Obama) for leadership.

“It’s hard to escape the impression that Republicans have taken Mr. Obama’s measure - that they’re calling his bluff in the belief that he can be counted on to fold,” he wrote. “And it’s also hard to escape the impression that they’re right.”

Matt Schlapp, a former White House director in the second Bush administration, said Obama may have problems that go beyond differences between him and his party.

“I think most Republicans are looking at the White House and saying who’s running shop? How are they making these decisions,” he told FoxNews.com.

“Every appearance from the outside looking in suggests he doesn’t seem to be aware of how serious his problem is in terms of the tone of his policies or he’s just a left-wing college professor from a big city who is disdainful of what these Americans want,” Schlapp said. Or he believes he can bamboozle them into thinking these policies are what they want.”

Year-over-year monthly revenues are up in 27 states, and some are forecasting an increase in tax receipts for next fiscal year, according to Stateline.org.  Oklahoma and West Virginia have posted  revenue increases for six straight months, and Iowais on track to end the current budget year with a nearly $1 billion surplus. Rising sales tax receipts - buoyed by auto sales, up 1.2 percent nationwide - are leading the revenue recovery. Corporate tax collections are also up in many states, consistent with the national rise in corporate profits.

The construction of the worm that attacked and disabled Iran’s nuke program was so advanced, it was “like the arrival of an F-35 into a World War I battlefield,” says the computer expert who was the first to sound the alarm about Stuxnet. Others have called it the first “weaponized” computer virus.

Stuxnet is an incredibly advanced, undetectable computer worm that took years to construct and was designed to jump from computer to computer until it found the specific, protected control system that it aimed to destroy: Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.

The target was seemingly impenetrable; for security reasons, it lay several stories underground and was not connected to the World Wide Web. And that meant Stuxnet had to act as sort of a computer cruise missile: As it made its passage through a set of unconnected computers, it had to grow and adapt to security measures and other changes until it reached one that could bring it into the nuclear facility.

When it ultimately found its target, it would have to secretly manipulate it until it was so compromised it ceased normal functions.

And finally, after the job was done, the worm would have to destroy itself without leaving a trace.

Fingers are being pointed at Israel and USA as developers and for the cyber attack. That can’t be proved and about all that is certain is that STUXNET specifically targeted Iranian computers in a bytes before bombs attack.

To read the whole impressive report go to http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/26/secret-agent-crippled-irans-nuclear-ambitions/?test=latestnews

A 49-year-old San Francisco man who made dozens of threatening and abusive phone calls to lameduck Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s home and offices has been sentenced to 21 months in a federal prison he’ll be out in six months or less.

The National Security Agency (NSA) is conducting a counterintelligence probe at its Fort Meade, Md., headquarters in a top-secret hunt for a Russian agent, according to a former intelligence official close to the secret agency.

The former official said the probe grew out of the case of 10 Russian deep-cover spies, who were uncovered last summer and sent back to Moscow after the defection of Col. Alexander Poteyev, a former SVR foreign intelligence officer who reportedly fled to the U.S. shortly before Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited here in June.

Col. Poteyev is believed to be the source who disclosed the U.S.-based agent network.

NSA counterintelligence officials suspect that members of the illegals network were used by Russia’s SVR spy agency to communicate with one or more agents inside the agency, which conducts electronic intelligence gathering and code-breaking.

One sign that the probe is fairly advanced is that FBI counterintelligence agents are involved in the search.

“They are looking for one or more Russian spies that NSA is convinced reside at Fort Meade and possibly other DoD intel offices, like DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency],” the former official said. “NSA is convinced that at least one is at NSA.”

Some of the 10 spies were illegals who were posing as U.S. citizens helped service Russian agents working inside the U.S. intelligence community, the former official said.

North Korea used highly destructive thermobaric bombs when it fired on a South Korean border island in late November. The so-called fuel-air explosive can approach the power of a small nuclear detonation.

The Pentagon will launch a second super-high speed craft next year that plays a key role in a future system to strike targets deep inside China in any future conflict.

The first Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-2 (HTV-2) failed during a flight test in April and crashed into the sea. The vehicle is launched on a missile and then skims the upper earth atmosphere at speeds reaching 13,000 miles-per-hour. ( The earth’s circumference is 24,901.55 miles at the equator and slightly less around the poles so this thing could be over anyplace on Earth in less than an hour. )

The system is part of the Pentagon’s new conventional long-range strike weapon program called conventional prompt global strike, that has included Trident submarine missiles with high-explosive warheads, the HTV-2 and a high-speed missile equipped with a scramjet engine.

The Pentagon has said the systems for prompt global strike are designed specifically to take out terrorists or rogue states should they plan to use or sell nuclear or other unconventional arms.

But defense officials familiar with classified assessment of the program said it is also designed to hit targets in China.

Specifically, the high speed strike weapons are needed to knock out Chinese nuclear or missile facilities.

They also would be used to attack Chinese anti-satellite weapons, and centers engaged in cyber attacks.

All of China’s key military facilities for nuclear, ASAT and cyber warfare are located at interior parts of the country that are not easily reached by other U.S. forces, such as submarines or bombers based in Japan or Guam.

The high-speed strike weapons are considered crucial to the protection of U.S. satellites in a conflict with China.

Officials have said that China could cripple U.S. military forces by knocking out as many as two dozen satellites. The military uses satellites for both communications and missile targeting and the loss of certain satellites would have a crippling effect on the key strategic advantage of U.S. forces: command, control, communications, surveillance, reconnaissance and intelligence. Such information dominance has been a key target of Chinese military developments in the past 10 years.

Last month China demonstrated its  weapon system designed to attack U.S. aircraft carriers, a major focus of China’s military buildup since the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis. From July 21, 1995 to March 23, 1996 China conducted a series of missile “test” to show Taiwan its power and intimidate it on the eve of its presidential elections. The U. S. sent warships including the USS Nimitz into the Taiwan Strait in March 1996 backing down the PRC which it vowed never to let happen again.

The commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Europe said last week that the United States is pressing ahead with plans to deploy anti-missile systems in Europe, despite opposition from Turkey.

The super secret X-37B was launched into orbit 7 months ago on a classified mission. The pilotless aircraft touched down at VandenbergVandenberg Air Force Base in California last week. The plane was built for the U.S. military and was on a classified mission. A blurry photo of the plane sitting on a runway appeared in Saturday’s Santa Barbara daily newspaper.

The whole project has been shrouded in secrecy which has resulted in considerable speculation about what purpose the plane will serve. The Air Force refuses to say if there was anything in the cargo bay but claimed the main purpose of the mission was to test out the plane. Officials say the plane could be used to carry out experiments in space.

The robotic aircraft was launched atop an Atlas 5 rocket on 22 April, with a maximum mission duration of 270 days. Lt. Col. Tory Giese said:”We are very pleased that the programme completed all the on-orbit objectives for the first mission,” The aircraft may return to space next spring.

The craft is 8.9 m long with a 4.5 m. wingspan. It is about a quarter of the size of the space shuttle. It has a large engine at the rear that allows it to change orbit. Unlike the space shuttle which uses a fuel cell power system the X-37B uses a solar array and lithium-ion batteries. The plane was built by Boeing.

U. S. adversaries speculate the X-37B could involve weaponization of space or that it is a spy vehicle. USAF scoffs at the weaponization of space notion. Amateur space watchers claim it changed its orbit six times during the flight.

I don’t care WHO you are. You’re not walking on the water while I’m fishing - Bumper Snicker

China may roll out its first fifth generation fighter as early as this month, far earlier than the Pentagon projected China would have the advance warplane.

The reports have suggested that what the Pentagon calls the J-XX fighter will conduct a taxi test, running its engines and moving on a runway but not taking off.

The reports come as a Chinese general said China’s most advanced jet could be fielded as early as 2017, years earlier than U.S. intelligence projections.

The DIA said the first flight of the J-XX could take place in the next few years but that it will take China 10 years to deploy the fighter in significant numbers.

Gen. He Weirong, deputy commander of the Chinese Air Force, told Chinese state-run media a year ago the new advanced jet would fly soon despite U.S. intelligence projections that it will not be ready for combat for at least 10 years.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced last year that production of the world’s only operational fifth generation fighter, the F-22 would be capped at 187 aircraft based on projections that China would not have a comparable aircraft before 2020. Obviously Gates’ projections are woefully and dangerously wrong.

Fifth generation fighters have advanced avionics, radar-evading stealth features and supercruise and maneuvering capabilities.

Additionally, analysts say Russia’s sale of Su-35s to China, considered a fourth-plus generation warplane, will reduce U.S. air power if a conflict with China broke out, over Taiwan, North Korea or Japan.

Lameduck California Gov. Schwarzenegger attended a menorah-lighting ceremony. He said he always looks forward to Hanukkah. At least I think that’s what he said. He might have said “I like to play the harmonica.” — Leno

Obama , despite public denials, held secret talks with Russia aimed at reaching a ballistic missile defense agreement that Moscow ultimately rejected in May.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday pressed for a new anti-ballistic missile treaty, warning that a failure to reach an agreement would trigger a new strategic arms race.

The four-page document circulated on Capitol Hill stated that administration officials held four meetings with the Russians and last spring presented a draft Ballistic Missile Defense Cooperation Agreement (BMDCA) to Russian negotiators.

The internal report contradicts congressional testimony by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in June denying a missile defense deal was in the works.

Debate over missile defense talks with Russia could affect the administration’s push to win Senate ratification of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty [START] before the end of the year. New START opponents in the Senate have said the treaty, which limits offensive nuclear arms, could be used by the Russians to constrain U.S. missile defenses. Moscow has threatened to withdraw from the treaty if the United States expands its missile defenses, currently on ships and at bases in Alaska and California.

A You Tube sensation attracting 6.5 million viewers is a 100 person choir spontaneously singing the hallelujah chorus in a Canadian shopping mall.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/canada/Food+court+Hallelujah+Chorus+goes+viral/3918451/story.html - if it doesn’t click cut and paste it into your browser it is inspirational.

 Forty-two people have been killed in the giant Hanukkah blaze near Israel’s Carmel Mountains that started on Thursday. It is uncertain how or whom started the conflagration but officials say causes were most likely negligence. Two teenage brothers were under arrest on Saturday on suspicion of negligent conduct during a family outing on Thursday in the Carmel Mountains that police said was likely responsible for the Carmel inferno.

 

Police reported several firebomb attacks in the Haifa district  Dec. 2, after police backed by an Air Force drone caught two arsonists red-handed lobbing firebombs in several directions in a deserted area of Mt. Carmel. Police arrested two men suspected of starting fires in Northern Israel. But, their actions were not immediately linked to the deadly main Carmel mountains fire.

 Six wind driven wildfires are burning in northern Israel. Friday they totaled over 10,000 acres and were rapidly spreading. Friday fire authorities said the port of Haifa is no longer threatened.

 

Thirty-six of the victims were prison guards on their way to Damon prison, and were killed when the fast-moving fire engulfed their bus.

 

The Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) and American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), two of the largest Jewish organizations, already had people on the ground in northern Israel helping residents flee the flames and putting plans in place to help victims rebuild their lives once the conflagration abates.

 Other countries have offered aid including Turkey despite its currect cooling of relations with Israel.

Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.

 

The octogenarian Congressman Charles B. Rangel (D) Harlem N.Y.acknowledges that he has made mistakes but insists that he is not corrupt according to his definition. His defense that he is not as bad as others who have also been censured gained him nothing but derision.

 The House voted overwhelmingly (333-79) Thursday to censure the congressman which happened in the House chamber. Rangel’s trademark flashy style was permanently tarnished as he joined a list of infamy of only 22 other disgraced members of Congress including:

• Lovell H. Rousseau of Kentucky came in 1866, after he bashing a colleague with a cane on the House floor.
• In 2008, Frank Wolf (R-VA) stood by as his campaign spokesman thwacked a videographer with a cane.
• In September 2009, Joe Wilson (R-SC) yelled “You lie!” at Obama while he was addressing Congress. Wilson received only a reprimand.
• In 1864, Alexander Long of Ohio was censured for “recognition of the independence of the Confederacy in speech on the House floor,” the National Journal reported.
• Last July, Zach Wamp (R-TN) told Hotline OnCall, “I hope that the American people will go to the ballot box in 2010 and 2012 so that states are not forced to consider separation from this government.” Wamp did not receive a formal admonishment from Congress,

Rangel is the first member of Congress to be subjected to a censuring since 1983, when the ironically named Gerry Studds of Massachussetts was scolded for his affair with a 17-year-old boy page. Studds was openly homosexual.

 Rangel was convicted on multiple counts of financial shenanigans ncluding “forgetting” to pay taxes on hundreds of thousands of dollars in income, among other things. He has been removed from his chairmanship of the powerful tax writing Ways and Means Committee - which he’d have lost to the Republican majority when it takes over next month.

 California Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D) is next in the ethics barrel for alleged improprieties involving a Bank her husband is a major investor in. Black activists were quick to allege wrong doing since both Rangel and Waters are black.

 Camden, New Jersey versus Santa Barbara County, California. Both are broke. Camden’s City Council voted unanimously Thursday to begin handing out layoff notices to as many as 383 municipal employees including nearly half its police officers and firefighter. Layoff also include 40 percent of the police dispatch unit;  42 percent of the clerical staff in the courts, and 25 of the city’s 40 laborers, and that could paralyze the city in a snowstorm. Santa Barbara County, California is also broke but is giving its employees $20 million in raises. It has nearly doubling its deficit and is making no meaningful cuts banking on a Federal bailout of the state.

Cyberattacks and complaints against its hosting company forced WikiLeaks to shutdown a U. S. based website server and move it to Switzerland. The whistle-blowing organization appears increasingly engaged in a game of digital Whac-A-Mole as it struggles to stay online.

After reports surfaced that WikiLeaks has servers in France, the industry minister Eric Besson asked the French government on Friday to explore measures to “ensure that it is no longer hosted in France.

A new domain, wikileaks.ch, is registered to the Swiss branch of the Swedish Pirate Party, a political organization that has previously worked with WikiLeaks CEO Assange, who is being sought for questioning in connection to alleged sex crimes in Sweden.

The Pirate Party (Swedish: Piratpartiet) is a political party in Sweden founded in 2006 to reform laws regarding copyright and patents. The agenda also includes support for a strengthening of the right to privacy, both on the Internet and in everyday life, and the transparency of state administration.

Last week Wikileak implored supporters to “keep us strong” and provided a link for financial donations. Saturday WikiLeaks lost its major source of revenue after the online payment service provider PayPal cut off its account used to collect donations, saying the website is engaged in illegal activity.

The national unemployment rate jumped from 9.6% to 9.8% in November - meaning 15.2 million are unemployed — and many expect it to exceed 10% soon after the new year as holiday jobs end. A lot depends on what happens on taxes — it could improve assuming taxes are not increased on business owners.

The United States regards Lebanon as a vassal of both Iran and Syria. Leading members of Congress have concluded that the government of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri has abandoned the nation’s sovereignty and could no longer make independent decisions. They said Hariri has been consulting and seeking approval from both Iran and Syria for major government decisions.

“Hizbullah, with the help of Iran and Syria, is massively rearming, the Lebanese government is becoming more and more subordinate to Iran and Syria,” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, (R) Florida named the next chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee, said.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, who has opposed much of the foreign policy

of President Barack Obama, was said to have expressed a consensus among the Republicans as well as many leading Democrats

in Congress. At a meeting with United Nations envoy Terje Roed-Larsen, the Florida Republican warned that the United States could not support a Lebanese government that was becoming indistinguishable from Iran and its proxies, particularly Hizbullah. “The line between the Lebanese armed forces and Hizbullah is gradually being erased,” Ms. Ros-Lehtinen said on Nov. 30.

In August, Congress placed a hold on $100 million in U.S. military and security aid to Lebanon. Officials said the prospect that a Republican-dominated House would do the same in 2011 was high.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen told Roed-Larsen that U.S. and UN efforts to bolster Lebanon’s sovereignty have been faltering. She cited Hizbullah’s effort to delay the release of indictments by a UN tribunal that investigated the assassination of Hariri’s father, also a prime minister, in 2005.

“Above all, we must protect the security of the U.S. and our allies, uphold Lebanon’s sovereignty, and ensure that those responsible for Prime Minister [Rafik] Hariri’s murder are held responsible,” Ms. Ros-Lehtinen said.

For his part, Roed-Larsen has been warning of a Hizbullah military buildup in southern Lebanon in violation of a UN Security Council resolution in 2006. Resolution 1559 also called for the disbanding of Hizbullah and other militias in Lebanon.

“We need to have a clear vision of what the end-state is and how we can achieve it,” Ms. Ros-Lehtinen said.

Click here http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz and take the quiz to place yourself in the political spectrum. You may be surprised. If it does not click through clip and paste it into your browser.

Nature magazine published a story dealing with how there may be three hundred sextillion stars (that’s a 3 followed by 23 zeros - 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) in the universe. If this new number is correct, the stellar population of the universe tripled overnight as previous estimates put the number of total stars at around only one hundred sextillion. Why the underestimation? According to the study, many previous attempts at estimating the number of stars assumed that other galaxies had the same ratio of normal stars and dwarf stars as have been observed in the Milky Way.

Turns out,  that assumption was wrong.

Using the latest in imaging technologies, scientists have determined that many elliptical galaxies (our own Milky Way is a spiral) have a far higher percentage of dwarf stars than the Milky Way does. Result: if these findings can be applied to all elliptical galaxies, the number of total stars in the universe just about triples.

During a special press conference last Thursday, NASA astrobiologists announced that a team of researchers have uncovered microbes able to subsist on arsenic, which alters the longtime basic formula for life.

Scraped from the bottom of Mono Lake in California and then grown inside a laboratory, the bacteria uses the poisonous substance arsenic as a replacement for phosphorus, the element previously considered an essential backbone for all life.

Though this discovery doesn’t confirm the presence of extraterrestrial life elsewhere in the universe, it does prove the possibility of life forms that can thrive on elements that are unknown or, atypical to life on Earth.

The Mono lake “bug” ” is building itself out of arsenic,” said geo-microbiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon at NASA’s Astrobiology Institute and the U.S. Geological Survey, who led researchers from eight federal and university laboratories conducting the experiment. “All life we know is the same biochemically, and this is a little different. It is suggesting there is another way to be alive.”

The two stories suggest, if only statistically, that life exists elsewhere and comes in many forms. Granted there is an enormous gap between a microbe and sensient life meaning having sense perception; consciousness. As T. E. Lawrence put it “The living knew themselves just sentient puppets on God’s stage”

Some say intelligence can be described as experiencing sensation or feeling. So, if we consider the vast numbers and apply what NASA scientist have now proved there is a statistical likelihood that E. T. is, perhaps was or certainly will one day exist somewhere.

The problem is the vast distances and time involved and how many times, if at all, sensient life has come and gone elsewhere.

The U.S. Army has unleashed a new weapon in Afghanistan — the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System, a high-tech rifle that can be programmed so that its 25-mm. ammunition ( .98 inch diameter) detonates either in front of or behind a target, meaning it can be fired just above a wall before it explodes and kills the enemy.

It also has a range of roughly 2,300 feet — nearly the length of eight football fields — making it possible to fire at targets well past the range of the rifles and carbines that most soldiers carry today. 

A person or unit is defiladed if it is protected from direct enemy fire - behind a wall. That in non tactical terms is “hiding” so the XM25 is a weapon much. Much harder to hide from.

40 million Social Security numbers (SSN) have or are assigned to more than one name according to a study by a San Diego company of 260 million SS numbers. 20 million people use more than one SSN to apply for jobs and/or credit. One in seven Americans are involved.

The secret list of some 20 million suspect SSNs are known to the IRS and Social Security Administration are aware of the problem but apparently do not feel those who have been scammed have a right to know.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that there are about 12 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States. Those who are working are required to give a SSN to their employer. In 2007, the IRS said it believes 6 million undocumented workers paid federal taxes.  And every year, according to the Social Security Administration, nearly 10 million workers pay taxes using the wrong SSN, ending up in what the agency calls a “no-match” situation.

It did not say how many were clerical mistakes versus outright fraud.

A week ago a Federal judge ruled it is OK to use a bogus SSN.

Eight thousand English churches have had their roofs stolen. Thieves stole the roofs to sell the lead sheeting that can bring $2,400 per metric ton. Many of the church are of historic significance. Although seldom used now lead sheeting, because of its durability, had been popular for centuries.

Organized gangs are involved using Google Earth to spot targets. The run up in metal prices has accelerated as people shun paper investments. Lead was $900 a metric ton just a year ago.