March 7, 2011

• ABC’s “Good Christian Bitches” Title Bashed
• Saudis Gird for Revolt
• Obama: Israel shouldn’t be afraid of changes in Mideast
• Race Baiter AG Holder Must Go.
• Golly-gee It is Iran Says Obama
• Chinese Navy Sends Warship to Libya As Obama Dithers
• Energy Secretary Likes $10 Gallon Gasoline.
• U. S. Loses War Game Versus China
• Obama’s Gigantic Tax Hike Plan Gores Sacred Cows
• Hilary Lauds Al Jazeera for ‘News’
• Space Plane Launch Success After Delay

From pacifist to terrorist, each person condemns violence - and then adds one cherished case in which it may be justified — Gloria Steinem

As if one needs another reason not to watch network television after the despicable behavior  of the likes of Charlie Sheen an ABC pilot called “Good Christian Bitches” has religious and women’s groups up in arms over what they describe as an extremely offensive and distasteful show title.

“It is not an appropriate term to use to describe any woman, regardless of their faith,” one critic said. “Entertainment media, especially music and films, have been normalizing misogynistic language for years.”

“The media keeps trying to redefine words and morality to mean what they say, not what they really do mean,” another added. “One wonders which network will be the first to drop the F-bomb in a TV title and whether the FCC will even intervene.”

One must wonder what secularist Gloria Steinem, who will be 77-years-old March 25^th might think of the title.

“As soon as he took office (Obama’s) new Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled 77 oil leases. And now that oil is trading at over $100 a barrel, it is time that we open up American energy interests. We need to go for shale oil or natural gas. We have 25 percent of the world’s coal. So we need to access our own energy so we can become less dependent on these unstable regions. - Rep Michelle Bachman (R) Minnesota

Saturday  Saudi Arabia mobilized up to 10,000 security personnel into its north-eastern Shia Muslim provinces, clogging the highways into Dammam and other cities with busloads of troops in fear of next week’s “day of rage” by what is now called the “Hunayn Revolution”.

Absent any meaningful U. S. response the entire Middle East has had the scab picked off a long festering wound.

Saudi Arabia’s worst nightmare - the arrival of the new Arab awakening of rebellion and insurrection in the kingdom - is now casting its long shadow over the House of Saud. Provoked by the Shia majority uprising in the neighbouring Sunni-dominated island of Bahrain, where protesters are calling for the overthrow of the ruling al-Khalifa family, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is widely reported to have told the Bahraini authorities that if they do not crush their Shia revolt, his own forces will.

The opposition is expecting at least 20,000 Saudis to gather in Riyadh and in the Shia Muslim provinces of the north-east of the country in six days, to demand an end to corruption and, if necessary, the overthrow of the House of Saud. Saudi security forces have deployed troops and armed police across the Qatif area - where most of Saudi Arabia’s Shia Muslims live - and yesterday would-be protesters circulated photographs of armoured vehicles and buses of the state-security police on a highway near the port city of Dammam.

The Saudi crisis has been largely provoked by leftist academics that have hitherto been dealt with kid gloves. the seriousness of the revolt against the Saudi royal family comes in its chosen title: Hunayn. This is a valley near Mecca, the scene of one of the last major battles of the Prophet Mohamed against a confederation of Bedouins in AD630. The Prophet won a tight victory after his men were fearful of their opponents. The reference in the Koran, 9: 25-26, as translated by Tarif el-Khalidi, contains a lesson for the Saudi princes: “God gave you victory on many battlefields. Recall the day of Hunayn when you fancied your great numbers.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) Minn. told Newsmax that President Barack Obama, Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi should apologize to the American people for the $105 billion appropriation they “deceitfully” hid in the healthcare reform legislation. She says Obama wants $8-a-gallon gasoline to drive America toward green energy.Redfining chutzpah Obama told  Jewish donors in Miami last week that, ” forces emerging in Egypt should be naturally aligned with Israel; is confident that looking back, this will be seen as dawning of new, better era.”

 

Obama told Jewish Democrat donors in Miami on Friday that Israel and the United States should not be afraid of changes taking place in the Middle East.

Acknowledging that the changes occurring could be construed as dangerous and worrisome, Obama recalled a meeting earlier in the week with Jewish leaders in the White House, saying, “I told them we have to be sober, we can’t be naive about the changes that are taking place.”

A large number of people protested outside the palace where Bahrain’s cabinet was meeting Sunday, the first time a protest had been allowed at the site.

 Protesters chanted slogans calling for the downfall of Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa Bin Salman Al-Khalifa, many waving one-dinar bills to criticize his purchase of the Bahrain Financial Harbour development for that amount in 2005.

 The protest, which lasted about two and a half hours, was peaceful and broke up before the cabinet meeting ended.

 There was no immediate comment from the government or Bahrain

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said a surge in U.S. government “activism,” including fiscal stimulus, housing subsidies and new regulations, is holding back the economic recovery.  Much intervention turns out to hobble makets rather than enhancing them,” says the 84-year-old.

Eric Holder, is America’s top law enforcement officer he is also a race baiter. On Tuesday, he testified during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the voting rights case involving members of the New Black Panther Party. In the 2008 election, Black Panthers - all black males dressed in military fatigues and wielding a club - threatened voters at a Philadelphia polling station. They denounced the voters as “crackers” and vowed those voters would not be allowed to help defeat then-candidate Barack Obama. Their goal was to bully and intimidate. This was a clear case of violation of voting rights. Such behavior may occur with impunity in banana republics - not in the world’s leading democracy.

Rep. John Culberson, Texas Republican, confronted the attorney general, demanding to know why the Justice Department refused to prosecute the Black Panthers - especially considering they were caught making the menacing gestures on tape. Mr. Holder shamelessly played the race card. Holder, who is also black, claimed to take offense at comments by civil rights activist Bartle Bull, who called it the most serious example of voter intimidation he had ever seen at the polls.

“When you compare what people endured in the South in the ’60s to try to get the right to vote for African-Americans, to compare what people subjected to that with what happened in Philadelphia … to describe it in those terms I think does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line for my people,” Mr. Holder (himself black),said.

Excuse me - his “people”? This is one of the most outrageous - and divisive - statements by a senior government official in recent memory. His people are and should be the American people - all of us.

Mr. Holder is the nation’s top law enforcement officer. His duty is to uphold the law and apply it fairly and equally to everyone - regardless of race. In other words, his job demands that he be colorblind. By his own words, he has shown he is unfit for the position. He is a racial tribalist - race trumps justice. When he talks about his people, Mr. Holder sounds like the grand wizard of a black Ku Klux Klan.

This is not the first time Mr. Holder has made offensive racial comments. In 2009, he claimed that when it comes to discussing race, Americans are “a nation of cowards.” He said in a 1996 interview with The Washington Post that regardless of how “affluent, educated and mobile” a black person becomes, “his race defines him more particularly than anything else.” In other words, according to Mr. Holder, no matter how successful and integrated blacks are in U.S. society, they will always be victims; racial solidarity must supersede their American identity.

Mr. Holder is deliberately evading questions about the Black Panther case. He is guilty of nixing an investigation into blatant voter intimidation because the culprits were black - and the victims white. He refuses to answer questions directly or release documents about the decision-making process that led the Justice Department to drop much of the case. In particular, he refuses to answer whether Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes instructed her subordinates to pursue only civil rights investigations involving victims who are black. Mr. Holder is stonewalling in a desperate attempt to cover up his race-based policies.

Mr. Holder is a product of the 1960s. He embodies radical chic, the belief that America is based on racial domination and capitalist exploitation. The reason he refuses to go after the New Black Panthers is that he largely shares their worldview. The original Black Panthers were fascists. They championed black nationalism, racial supremacy and economic collectivism. Their aim was the violent overthrow of the “white power structure.” In short, they were the very opposite of Martin Luther King Jr., who espoused nonviolence, assimilation and the creation of a truly colorblind society.

Since the late 1960s, however, black racial separatism has been growing. The New Black Panthers are the direct descendants of it, as are Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. They are race baiters who seek to erect an ethnic spoils system that will balkanize America. Mr. Holder is a polished version of Mr. Sharpton. Despite the fancy suits and lawyerly demeanor, Mr. Holder embraces the same destructive ideas: black nationalism, anti-Americanism, state socialism, support for affirmative action and racial quotas, and the politics of grievance and victimology.

The attorney general insists on making false - and inflammatory - comparisons to the civil rights movement. No one is saying that the Black Panther case is akin to segregation in the South or that whites are systematically being denied the right to vote. Rather, the New Black Panthers are thugs. Their actions represented a fundamental assault on our democracy.

When it comes to America’s mortal enemies - such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 - Mr. Holder goes out of his way to defend their rights. This includes supporting efforts to have Mohammed tried in a civilian court. Hence, Mr. Holder thinks jihadists are entitled to full constitutional protections while peaceful, law-abiding Americans exercising their God-given right to vote are not - especially if they are white and possibly pro-Republican.

Mr. Holder lacks the character or competence to be attorney general. He has abused his office and violated his sacred oath. Like other practitioners of racial politics - white, black and Latino - Mr. Holder acts as if everything begins and ends with race. This is a form of intellectual and moral corruption that threatens the very long-term unity of America. This kind of black nationalism is poisonous to the nation’s bloodstream. It is divisive, destructive and dangerous. And it is why Mr. Holder must go.

The foregoing is an essay by Jeffrey T. Kuhner a radio talk show personality and a columnist at The Washington Times

 Obama has determined that Iran was fomenting unrest in such countries as Bahrain, Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Officials said the Teheran regime was using Hizbullah and Hamas to destablize Sunni regimes in Egypt as well as the Gulf.

This marked the first time that the Obama administration cited Iran as a factor in the wave of unrest that has swept the Middle East in 2011. While al ost everyone else, everywhere else has long since admitted Iran’s deep involvement, sponsorship, and supply.

On March 1, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, absurdly claimed the U.S. military “did not detect” an Iranian role in the massive anti-regime protests in Bahrain making himself and the Pentagon look foolish..

“We are seeing no indications of any credible influence from Teheran in that regard,” Mullen told a Pentagon briefing sending eyes rolling..

But in testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee on March 2, that military wizard Hilary Clinton outlined Iranian intervention in Arab states. She said Hizbullah was assigned by Iran to relay orders to regime opponents in such countries as Bahrain, Oman and Yemen.

“They are doing everything they can to influence the outcomes in these places,” Ms. Clinton said. “They are using Hizbullah to communicate with counterparts.”

The secretary’s testimony came after a longtime U.S. assessment that Shi’ite unrest in Bahrain and Yemen were not connected to Iran. Officials said the U.S. intelligence community had long argued that Shi’ites in these two Gulf Arab states were motivated by official discrimination.

In Egypt, Iran was said to have been using Hamas to relay orders to the opposition. She pointed to Hamas’s strong ties to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

“They in turn communicate with counterparts in Egypt,” Ms. Clinton said.

The whole episode makes the U. S. look even more bumbling and incompentent.

Iran has directed Hizbullah to infiltrate countries throughout South America, according to U.S. government documents. The documents said Hizbullah was believed to have penetrated Chile, regarded as one of the most pro-Western states in the region. “There is substantial information that indicates that significant fund-raising for Hizbullah is taking place in Chile within the Muslim community,” Craig Kelly, then-U.S. ambassador to Chile, said.

My grandfather entered a coalmine in Scotland at age 9 as the 19^th century ended and worked in U. S. mines until someone discovered he was 68=years old. He took me into Hitchman’s coalmine when I was about 8 or 9 years old and with his hand on a plaque listing the 119 men klilled there in 1924 andscores since warning me afterward never to go back into a place like that again. He once told me John L. Lewis (1880-1969), iconic head of the United Mine Workers ” saved my life”  by insisting on safer work rules.

 My father a lifelong steel man, lamented that overzealous unions would destroy America’s steel industry, saying they would kill the goose that had laid the golden egg and he was prophetic.

In Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Indiana. Maine and elsewhere public employee unions are under severe pressure and  losing popular almost everywhere.Thing are changing, and fast.

The union membership rate for public sector workers (36.2  percent) was      substantially higher than the rate for private sector workers (6.9 percent). Workers in education, training, and library occupations had the highest unionization rate at 37.1 percent.

 Last week Ohio passed a ban on public employee’s striking and increased pension contributions.

 Twelve states have laws granting collective bargaining rights only to certain groups of workers, such as teachers or firefighters, according to a 2002 U.S. GAO report. Twelve others have no laws guaranteeing collective bargaining rights for any public workers. But those numbers may rise soon. Fifteen states have proposed legislation this session that would restrict collective bargaining.

 Indiana’s Senate and Wisconsin’s House have already approved such measures (SB 575 and AB 11a, respectively). Indiana ended collective bargaining for most public employees in 2005 via an executive order by Gov. Mitch Daniels (R). Indiana SB 575 would eliminate such power for teachers.

Charlie Sheen said that he’s now more popular than President Obama, at which point Mike Huckabee accused him of growing up in Kenya. — Leno

As Obama continues to dither. China’s Navy has made an unprecedented dispatch of a warship to Libya to protect ships evacuating Chinese nationals from the troubled North African state.

Observers said the evacuation is the first time China’s Navy has been involved in such an operation.

China sent warships to conduct anti-piracy operations off Africa in 2008.

The missile frigate Xuzhou was sent from Chinese anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden to Libya, the Chinese Defense Ministry said in a notice reported by state media Feb. 25. The statement said order are to protect ships carrying Chinese nationals to safety.

According to state-run press accounts, the mission was approved by the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission, the ultimate military authority in China headed by President Hu Jintao.

China in the past has avoided all military activities that appear to be intervention over concerns that doing so would encourage other states to intervene militarily against China.

The Libya mission “shows the Chinese Navy is willing to play a more active role in international aid operations in international waters,” Zhu Feng, a professor at Peking University’s School of International Studies told Associated Press in Beijing.

Analysts said the dispatch of the Xuzhou is also meant as a political message to Libya not to harm the estimated 30,000 Chinese nationals in the country.

Two ferries carrying 4,100 Chinese nationals arrived on the Greek island of Crete on Feb. 24 and another 2,100 were expected to arrive in Malta on Feb. 25. Another 450 arrived in Beijing on Friday morning aboard a pair of charter flights. A total of 12,000 were evacuated so far, according to Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Song Tao.

U.S. military analysts note that the use of a warship for the evacuation operation shows China is breaking out of its Pacific-oriented based to operate in the Indian Ocean. Such out-of-area operations require bases and logistic supply lines that are useful for future military operations.

China also is seeking to show Chinese, both in China and abroad, that it is protecting its citizens. The relatively fast response of the warship is also unusual since such military decisions in the past took weeks.

A divorce attorney’s group says Facebook contributes negatively to 20% of divorces. A popular match making website is advertising it is responsible for one in five marriages. Both statistics are suspect.

Obama’s Energy Secretary Steve Chu said before his confirmatiuon America needs $10 @ gallon gasoline to discourage use of personal cars and encourage alternate fuels and mass transit. That could explain White House lethargy as gasoline prices skyrocket.

Only one Gulf drilling permit has been issued this year.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday, March 2nd that volatile oil prices will be reined in by spare world oil capacity without the United States having to tap into its own strategic oil reserves.

Chu said the administration is “watching the situation very closely” and he acknowledged that oil price spikes could have a “bad effect on consumers and industry and the economy.” But he stressed that there is no indication that the United States will have to tap into its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a 727 million barrel stockpile of oil that can be used in the event of a major oil shortage.

Chu’s comments comes as unrest in Libya, the world’s 17th largest oil-producing country, and elsewhere in North Africa and the Middle East has pushed oil prices above $100 dollars a barrel.

There is no shortage of excess supply in the world, so there is no need to tap into the reserves, Chu said. “Because we have spare capacity, we expect naturally that the market forces will take care of this,” he told reporters. “But we are concerned and we will watch it very carefully.”

However, Chu, noting that the decision to tap the reserve is ultimately up to President Obama, said the administration will continue to monitor oil prices.

“You reevaluate that position if the price continues to rise because we have a very fragile economy,” Chu said. “It’s really hard to predict what’s going to happen in the next couple of days.”

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a potential Republican presidential contender, accused the Obama administration Wednesday of favoring a run-up in gas prices to prod consumers to buy more fuel-efficient cars.

Just 16% of Adults have a favorable opinion of Charlie Sheen.  Seventy-one percent (71%) have an unfavorable impression of the “Two and a Half Men” star.  These findings include four percent (4%) who have a Very Favorable opinion of Sheen and 42% who have a Very Unfavorable view of him.

There is nothing sensational that U. S. intelligence agencies are war gaming - that’s a big part of what they should and do. The “sensatioal” part was when in 2009 they schemed about China’s new nuclear debt weapon it could detonate by calling in American debts it now owns in increasing amount.

Last week the U. S. Treasury announced last week that deby is a third ;arger than previously believed a last June which was $1,611 trillion. About that time China was pitching a conniption fit about proposed defensive arms sales to Taiwan.

The Chinese Major General Luo Yuan suggested China could attack the U. S. by :oblique means and stealthy feints,” including “using economic means, such as dumping some U. S. governmemt bonds.”

The U. S. State Department oooh-poohed that as “hollow” because that woulkdn’t be in China’s “best interest” Hilary Clinton lamented the “difficulty” of pressing China’s communist government, saying in a cable “How do you get tough with your bankers?”

The Pentagon was invited to the wargame involving  financial weapons ( stocks, bonds, currencies and gold reserves and for the first time pulled together financial system, military power and politics in a multi-sided “game” including: U. S., China, Russia and Japan - “the U. S. does not always win.”

Since 2009 China’s Debt Bomb has only gained mega tonnage and the word “always” can be replaced with “usually.”

Despite Def Sec Gates’ Alfred E. Neuman repeated  “wjat me worry” dismissiveness about Cjonia’s poser” past U.S. academic studies that consistently downplayed China’s military capabilities are continuing to be exposed. The latest example comes from a RAND Corp. study on the Chinese Air Force that contradicts the 1995 RAND assessment China’s Air Force Enters the 21st Century, by Kenneth W. Allen, Glenn Krumel, and Jonathan D. Pollack.

The 1995 report concluded that “it is highly unlikely that the FB-7 will play a major role in the future.”

However, the new study said there are now about 150 JH-7A/JH-7 (FB-7) strike fighters in the PLAAF and PLA Naval Air Force, and they are powered by successfully co-produced British Rolls Royce Spey engines, and will be armed with progressively more capable attack weapons.

Today the bombers play a key attack role for the PLA, and there is enough “grey” data to indicate that a stealthier version could emerge soon.

The current RAND study says there are only 70 JH-7s available, a figure that some analysts say is incorrect, but the study still describes the bomber’s role more accurately.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is running neck and neck with another former governor, Mitt Romney, R-Mass., for the GOP nomination. Nonetheless, Obama leads in matchups with potential GOP nominees even after taking a five point drop in his approval rating, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed last week. Newt Gingrich affirmed in a radio interview Thursday that he plans to take his first official step toward a presidential bid.

Secreted deep inside Obama’s 2011-2012 budget plan are gigantic tax hikes  most ominously including:

• Ending the mortgage interest tax deductions and replace it with a flat 12% tax credit. That means, effectively, that we lose 2/3 of the deduction. This at a time when we are trying to encourage home building!
• limiting the charitable giving tax deduction to a 12% tax credit meaning he’ll allow you to offset one out of eight tax dollars you pay when you contribute to a charitable organization or institution. He says he wants to help the poor. But only if the government is writing the checks! Most predict dire consequences for America’s chairitable groups including churches and religiously related schools, hospitals and other institutions.
• He wants to limit the state and local tax deduction to 28%, cutting it by about one-fifth this will increase as states and localities are set fpor massive tax increases.
• Charge Social Security (FICA) taxes on your entire income, not just on the first hundred thousand.

Between Charlie Sheen, Christina Aguilera, and Lindsay Lohan, it’s been a rough time for stars. Who knew Britney Spears would be the role model? - Leno

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton waddled to the microphone Wednesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to report that Al Jazeera is gaining more prominence in the U.S. because it offers “real news”–something she said American media were falling far short of doing.

She is half right in Saying the U.S. is losing the “information war” in the world and that U. S. main stream news media stinks

“Viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it’s real news,” she said. “You may not agree with it, but you feel like you’re getting real news around the clock instead of a million commercials and, you know, arguments between talking heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news which, you know, is not particularly informative to us, let alone foreigners.”

Al Jazerra’s alleged domestic popularity is at least in part driven by its generally hyper critical views of America buoyed by a contermporary America aproaching an illiteracy rate rivaling many third world countries, and a shameful public education system that has failed iit miserably.

In 1985 27 million Americans were illiterate and 45 million only marginally so about one of three. That percentage is worse today if you consioder literacy as reading at a 6^th grade level. In 1987 the US Department of Edukathun estimates 150,000 graduated from high schhol but were unable to read their diploma. In 1996 then President Clinton estimated 40% of 3^rd graders could not read.

A letter, postmarked Aug. 9, 1944, in Montgomery, addressed to Miss R.T. Fletcher, American Red Cross Station Hospital, Camp Roberts, Calif. Was recently delivered - sort a. That building was torn down years ago. Women who worked at the hospital were typically nurses or administrative clerks.

Camp Roberts was closed in 1970, so the letter was delivered to the Camp Roberts Historical Museum. Curator Gary McMaster says he hasn’t opened the letter for privacy reasons.

The envelope is torn where the return address would be located, so it’s not clear who sent it. But the tear reveals a handwritten letter inside.

An experimental robotic space plane developed for the Air Force launch was delayed Friday but did successfully launch from Cape Canaveral Saturday, fueling an ongoing mystery about its hush-hush payload and overall mission.

Watching the pilotless X-37B spacecraft along with the Pentagon will also be wary Russian and Chinese military officials who have raised questions about U.S. intentions since the government launched its first version of the secret plane into orbit almost a year ago.

The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle looks like a miniature version of the space shuttle. Because of its clandestine nature, some industry analysts have theorized it could be a precursor to an orbiting weapon, capable of dropping bombs or disabling foreign satellites as it circles the globe.

“It’s a mystery, because the Air Force is being so closed-mouthed about the program,” said Brian Weeden, a former Air Force officer and expert in space security. “It leads people to say, ‘What exactly are they hiding?’ ”

Air Force officials have offered few details beyond saying the experimental space plane provides a way to test new technologies in outer space, such as satellite sensors and other components.

“It’s a classified mission,” said Maj. Tracy A. Bunko, an Air Force spokeswoman. The spacecraft will be carrying “reusable technologies for America’s future in space and operating experiments, which can then be returned to and examined on Earth.”

The first X-37B was launched from the Cape last April, and 224 days later it landed on its own - fully automated - on a 15,000-foot-long airstrip at Vandenberg Air Force Base, northwest of Santa Barbara. The plane being launched this week is also expected to land there sometime late this year.

The space plane was built in tight secrecy by Boeing Co.’s Space and Intelligence Systems unit in Huntington Beach. Engineering work was done at the company’s facilities in Huntington Beach and Seal Beach. Other components were kicked in from its satellite-making plant in El Segundo.

In recent weeks, the scheduled blast-off has drawn new attention. Lt. Gen. Oleg Ostapenko, the commander of Russia’s space forces, told state-run Novosti news agency that the military was following the development of the space plane. He said Russian scientists were developing similar technology.

Li Daguang, a professor at People’s Liberation Army National Defense University in China, wrote an editorial that the technology “will soon have a revolutionary impact on space exploration.” He went on to write that if the X-37B is used for military purposes, “it is capable of taking military actions against the enemy’s satellite and space transportation devices.”

Most U.S. military analysts are increasingly skeptical that the plane - in its current form - is a space bomber or satellite hunter.

“That’s highly unlikely,” said Weeden, the former Air Force officer who now works at the Secure World Foundation, a Colorado-based space policy group. “At this point, it is an experimental plane. The technology may develop into something bigger - that’s the nature of experimental planes - but it’s just a test bed now.”

Although the X-37B program is “classified,” some of the particulars are known. More than 10 years ago, it began as a NASA program to test new technologies for the space shuttle. But when the government decided to retire the aging fleet of shuttles, the Pentagon took the program over and cloaked it in secrecy.

The spacecraft is about 29 feet long, or about the size of a small school bus, with stubby wings that stretch out about 15 feet tip to tip. It is one-fifth the size of the space shuttle and can draw on the sun for electricity using unfolding solar panels. It is designed to stay in orbit for 270 days.

Weather permitting, the plane is set to be launched Friday atop a 19-story Atlas V rocket, which will lift the spacecraft into orbit inside the nose cone. Once in orbit, the X-37B will emerge for its estimated nine-month journey.

The launch will be handled by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp. The launch alone is estimated to be costing taxpayers more than $100 million. Funded through the Pentagon’s top-secret “black” budget, the project’s overall cost is unknown.

The high price tag adds to the speculation about the mission and why the Pentagon would be willing to spend a good chunk of money on an orbiting laboratory at a time when it is supposedly reining in its budget.

“It’s all very puzzling,” said Laura Grego, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit organization based in Cambridge, Mass. “The only unique capability of a space plane appears to be its ability to return from orbit and land autonomously on a runway.”

China and Russia will think twice about messing with the US - one hiccup from them and we can wipe out all their satellites and set back their space plans for decades.  China is certainly the most sneaky country in the world and the least trusted.  China is not a benign power like the US - if they had what we have, the world would be in trouble in many ways.  Russia is also a weasel, but there is hope for Russia once Putin steps down.  China will one day crumble under its own weight, and then that will usher in a period of long peace.

It is good to know the U. S. has an edge in something before Obama gives this up too. The gadget is certainly a DEPENDS MOMENT for Russia and Chinas that have had clear sailing on Obama’s watch.

In a new book, the Pope exonerates the Jews for the death of Jesus. Well, not a moment too soon. He really nipped that one in the bud. — Leno

Adm. Robert Willard, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, said he is excited about what is being called the AirSea Battle Concept that was ordered in 2009 by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to bolster military forces in the Pacific.

The concept, which is still being developed, grew out of several war games that showed U.S. forces, primarily Navy and Air Forces systems, were ill-equipped to challenge Chinese forces if a conflict erupted over Taiwan or other Asian hotspots.

Since then China has upped the ante bysuccessfully  testing an aircraft carrier killing ballistic missile that reportedly could destroy a U. S. carrier from thousands of miles away.

The plan responds to China’s “anti-access” strategy of using ballistic and cruise missiles, submarines and aircraft to drive U.S. forces out of the western Pacific or limit them in aiding U.S. allies.

The US Navy has withdrawn to its base on Guam an island isolated in the mid-Pacific. Guam is over 3,800 miles from Pearl Harbor and 1,700 from Taiwan.

Sunday the lawyer for that nutty incestuous Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) infamous for vile protest at Military funerals, and anti-Semitism said Sunday Obama will certainly “go to Hell.”

Reportedly the congregation is largely a small group of hatefilled blood relatives. Last week the U. S. Supreme Court overwhelimgly upheld the group’s free speech right to such protest WBC called the ruling “God’s will.”

The WBC is not affiliated with any known Baptist conventions or associations. The church describes itself as following Primitive Baptist and Calvinist principles,