Devil’s Cross

The A-10 Warthog (nicknamed the "devil's cross" by people it was coming after) has just received a major upgrade that should extend the operational life of the venerable ground attack aircraft until the 2020s or beyond. Even though the A-10 never did the job it was designed for - killing Soviet tanks - it has adapted to many other tasks through the years. Now, it will be a very precise weapon.

11/30/2006 - DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. (AFPN) – The A-10C Thunderbolt II made its official roll-out debut here Nov. 29, revealing its transformation and its enhanced capabilities under the Precision Engagement program.

The Precision Engagement program will offer the A-10 the most significant modifications it has ever received in its 30-year history, making it a more capable and survivable attack fighter, according to Maj. Dan Walls, 355th Training Squadron director of conversion training unit operations.

"Precision Engagement increases the lethality, survivability and standoff of one of the most respected and recognized attack aircraft in the world and ushers in a new era in the A-10 story," Major Walls said.

Under this program, the A-10 will receive numerous enhancements including the full integration of sensors, including data link and a targeting pod, allowing the A-10C to identify and strike targets from higher altitudes and greater distances without sacrificing accuracy. This integration also will enhance the aircraft's communication capabilities.

The cockpit will undergo modifications under the program with the introduction of two new multi-functional color displays and a new hands-on-throttle-and-stick interface. These enhancements translate into increased situational awareness for the pilot and the ability to perform most tasks without removing his or her hands from the throttle or stick.

As a result of this upgrade, the A-10C is projected to remain operational into the end of the 2020s, well beyond its initial expected lifespan, Major Walls said.

Via Pajamas Media, oddly, the hat tip goes to The Anchoress, even though she had nothing whatsoever about this item. I just followed another link over and found this item.

Evil Land Seals Invade England!

Oh sure, people just keep calling the authorities on us here at Blue Crab Boulevard. The visits from the health department folks are becoming tedious, even if they are showing us those stylish white sport coats. We have been warning about the newest attacks by deranged, yacht tipping seals but people keep laughing and pointing at us, then calling the health department. But they won't be calling now, we bet! Because the Animal Uprising's land seal invasion has begun in England!

Animal welfare experts are baffled after a seal pup was discovered in a country lane, miles inland.

The animal, a male common seal, was spotted by farmer's wife Mary Woods, 45, and her daughter, Joanne, as they drove near the village of Capernwray in Lancashire on Tuesday morning. The village is about a mile from the nearest river and four miles from the sea.

Joanne, 20, said: "As we were driving back home from Lancaster, my mum said 'What's that by the side of the road?'

"We reversed and looked out of the window and I said 'It's a seal' and we both jumped out of the car. It was right on the roadside near a verge and a hedge.

"He started coming towards us and we just stared at it in amazement. We couldn't understand what it was doing there -the nearest sea is at Morecambe about 25 minutes' drive away.

"We didn't want to touch him because he is a wild animal with sharp teeth, but there is quite a lot of traffic on the road so we didn't want to leave him there either.

"We wanted to call the RSPCA but we didn't have their number. I rang my dad on the farm and said 'You'll never guess what we've found!' but he didn't believe me.

"We decided to pick it up. My mum took off her coat to wrap him in because she knew he'd have sharp teeth.

"He was too heavy to lift, so I reversed the car right up to him and we managed to get him in the boot. He was a bit grumpy and scared once we started to lift him."

Grumpy, hell. He was mad as all get out that they had stymied his plan to attack them by using one of those long-sleeved jackets on him! Hey! Wait a minute! I don't think I want one of those white sport coats any more. I'll tell the nice man the next time he comes around.

Countdown In Fiji? Or Not?

It appears increasingly likely that a coup will occur in Fiji. The military has given a deadline for the government to meet demands. The government has apparently declined to do any more concessions than they already have.

FIJI'S capital Suva is bracing for an imminent takeover by the military with no signs that the Government will capitulate to a series of demands by the military.

All was quiet in the capital, however, as a  noon deadline for a threatened military coup passed.

Fiji's renegade military chief Frank Bainimarama last night warned he would remove the government if Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase did not meet a list of demands by noon (11am AEDT) today.

As the noon deadline passed, Commodore Bainimarama was at Suva sports stadium watching a soccer match between army and police teams.

He left before the game finished.

Mr Qarase said this morning  that he was uncertain of exactly what the military wanted after giving into most of their demands yesterday.

This morning Commodore Bainimarama briefed the country's president Ratu Josefa Iloilo on his plans.

Commodore Bainimarama's meeting with Mr Iloilo lasted about 30 minutes and he left without commenting.

It is understood that if the Government fails to make further concessions Commodore Bainimarama may ask for a state of emergency to be declared, allowing the military to begin securing the city.

The Fiji government's official website is now reporting that the differences between the Prime Minister and the rebellious military leader have been settled, however. But the date stamps are a bit confused as to what came first, so it may or may not still be in question. Here's the CIA factbook entry on Fiji. Here's the Wikipedia entry.

Dirty War In Oaxaca

Mark in Mexico is reporting a series of attacks and kidnappings in the Mexican city of Oaxaca. This really sounds very, very bad indeed. There are all the signs of a secret "dirty war" being conducted back and forth between the government forces and the leftists. This is getting very ugly indeed.

There have been some strange occurrences in the past couple of days, all very close to my office. Either yesterday or Tuesday, the date is unclear, a full busload of passengers (35-50 people) was stopped just 3 blocks from my office in broad daylight, at 10:30 am. A car with 6-8 men inside pulled over in front of the bus and blocked it. Three or four of them got out and forced their way onto the bus. The driver pulled a revolver, a very rare event. In fact, I have never seen nor heard of an armed bus driver before.

He failed to get off a shot however, and was dragged out of his seat and thrown to the floor. Then, in full view of the horrified passengers, he was shot twice in the back. Some passengers forced the rear door of the bus open and fled. Others crouched down in their seats and hoped for the best. One lady said that she witnessed the first shot, then just covered her face with her hands and prayed.

The men then dragged the wounded and bleeding driver out of the bus, threw him in the car, and off they sped. Passengers reported that a woman with a cellphone and riding a motorcycle was also involved. When the men fled with the wounded driver, one of them hopped on the motorcycle with the woman and they rode off together.

There are also well know leftist thugs being grabbed in broad daylight and whisked away. I think Oaxaca is going to be closed for business for quite a while.

AP Refuses To Correct Or Retract

Curt over at Flopping Aces has been an absolute bulldog on this phony police captain that the AP has quoted repeatedly. Despite the Iraqi government itself telling the world that this captain does not work for the police and has no authorization to speak for the government or police, the AP refuses to correct their story. (Curt also got mentioned in the New York Times blog, BTW).

At the end of the day, we have AP journalists with reporting and images from the actual neighborhood versus official spokesmen saying the story cannot be true because it is damaging and because one of the sources is not on a list of people approved to talk to the press. Good reporting relies on more than government-approved sources.

We stand behind our reporting.

Typically they ignore the bigger point here. There is absolutely NO proof that this incident occurred. They first told the world that four mosques were burnt to the ground and six men were burned alive. Then when they discovered (via Centcom and us bloggers) that four mosques were not burned, only one was and that one slightly, they changed the original story. They relied 3 sources who will not go on record, two that will. One of those has retracted his statement and the other (Jamil Hussein) has been shown to have lied about his employment.

The AP has no other evidence that this event occurred.

They, in fact, have a blown source for the original story. Their followup several days later is meaningless since people have had time to rehearse answers. The longer you wait to interview, the less reliable the sources are. The fact that the witnesses all refused to be named also casts a great deal of doubt. Curt's quite right, the AP story stinks and they are not addressing the real issues with their statements. They are sidestepping and shifting focus.

UPDATE: Confederate Yankee has the issue boiled down: it is not just this one incident. It is a pattern, a systemic failure.

Cheap In America, Part Two

John Stossel wrote an article talking about a certain former president named Carter and some celebrity type folks who think America is cheap because the government gave away only $20 billion in aid last year. Of course, Americans gave away $260 billion to charity. But since it was redistributed by government, that apparently doesn't count to Carter and Bono. Today Stossel takes a look at just who is giving that money. The answers will surprise you. Well, in some ways, maybe not so much in others.

To test what types of people give more, "20/20" went to two very different parts of the country, with contrasting populations: Sioux Falls, S.D. and San Francisco, Calif. The Salvation Army set up buckets at the busiest locations in each city — Macy's in San Francisco and Wal-Mart in Sioux Falls. Which bucket collected more money?

Sioux Falls is rural and religious; half of the population goes to church every week. People in San Francisco make much more money, are predominantly liberal, and just 14 percent of people in San Francisco attend church every week. Liberals are said to care more about helping the poor; so did people in San Francisco give more?

It turns out that this idea that liberals give more…is a myth. Of the top 25 states where people give an above average percent of their income, 24 were red states in the last presidential election.

I guess that doesn't surprise me. When you think about it, many on the left thinks it is government's job to give money. They care about the poor, they just don't actually want to give them anything personally. They want the government to take care of all that.

Arthur Brooks, the author of "Who Really Cares," says that "when you look at the data, it turns out the conservatives give about 30 percent more." He adds, "And incidentally, conservative-headed families make slightly less money."

And he says the differences in giving goes beyond money, pointing out that conservatives are 18 percent more likely to donate blood. He says this difference is not about politics, but about the different way conservatives and liberals view government.

"You find that people who believe it's the government's job to make incomes more equal, are far less likely to give their money away," Brooks says. In fact, people who disagree with the statement, "The government has a basic responsibility to take care of the people who can't take care of themselves," are 27 percent more likely to give to charity.

Read the whole thing. There are some very interesting things about giving patterns. But who you calling cheap, Jimmy?

Smoking Gun

US and coalition forces in Iraq have captured weapons bearing Iranian markings and with manufacture dates in 2006. These are not weapons that have found their way onto the international arms market. These had to have come directly from Iran. There is not even a pretense at plausible deniability here.

 WASHINGTON, Nov. 30, 2006 —  U.S. officials say they have found smoking-gun evidence of Iranian support for terrorists in Iraq: brand-new weapons fresh from Iranian factories. According to a senior defense official, coalition forces have recently seized Iranian-made weapons and munitions that bear manufacturing dates in 2006.

This suggests, say the sources, that the material is going directly from Iranian factories to Shia militias, rather than taking a roundabout path through the black market. "There is no way this could be done without (Iranian) government approval," says a senior official.

Iranian-made munitions found in Iraq include advanced IEDs designed to pierce armor and anti-tank weapons. U.S. intelligence believes the weapons have been supplied to Iraq's growing Shia militias from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is also believed to be training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran.

Evidence is mounting, too, that the most powerful militia in Iraq, Moktada al-Sadr's Mahdi army, is receiving training support from the Iranian-backed terrorists of Hezbollah.

Two senior U.S. defense officials confirmed to ABC News earlier reports that fighters from the Mahdi army have traveled to Lebanon to receive training from Hezbollah.

These are the folks the "realists" want to chat with. These are acts of war against the US.

UPDATE: Others: Hot Air, INDCJournal, Forward Movement, Instapundit, Riehl World View, Wake up America, Hyscience, Iowa Voice, The Sundries Shack, Decision '08, Macsmind, PrairiePundit, Ed Driscoll, This Blog is Full of Crap, Power Line,

No Nudes Is Good Nudes

A small village in Western Canada has had it up to here, so to speak, with what are reported to be truly world class potholes in their main road. So they have taken matters into their own hands, so to speak. They have decided to embarrass the provincial government into fixing their road, by embarrassing themselves. They posed in the potholes in the nude and made a calendar.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - People in a small town in Western Canada are so fed up with the rotten state of their main road that they came up with an unusual form of protest — a calendar that shows them posing nude in the potholes.

One inhabitant of Leader, Saskatchewan, is shown sitting in a canoe that is perched in a pothole. Another has his dignity preserved by a well-placed camera while a third man covers up with a strategic hubcap.

"The initial impression when people open the calendar for the first time is 'Oh my God!' It's pretty dramatic," said Wayne Elhard, the local member of the provincial legislature.

Leader, a town of just 1,000 in a largely farming area of southwest Saskatchewan, says it can't afford to fix all its roads.

"The potholes are not small, one-foot diameter potholes. They are many feet across and sometimes they're as deep as a foot deep and sometimes they will stretch for yards (meters)," Elhard told CBC television on Wednesday.

The man posed in a canoe IN the pothole. Now that is one big pothole.

In other news, Britney Spears hasn't been getting enough news coverage lately, so she has taken to flashing back at the photographers using their flashes. Now, I have no idea why anyone would care, but this is supposed to be a real traffic booster, so here's a link showing Britney Spears' beaver. 

AP Caught?

The New York Times has picked up the story of the "police captain" that the AP quotes rather often, who appears to be a fake (the information appears in the Lede, one of the Times' blogs). The Iraqi government has formally stated that Jamil Hussein is not employed by the Iraqi police, nor is he a spokesman for anything.

Yesterday, the wire service moved a lengthy story in which they went back to the Hurriyah neighborhood in Baghdad where the immolation incident reportedly took place, and interviewed other witnesses, who corroborated the story.

(The piece also took a swipe at the military’s continuing dealings with message-massaging firms like the Lincoln Group.)

And so things stand today.

The one thing that remains unclear, though, is this: The Associated Press said in its story yesterday that Mr. Hussein “has been a regular source of police information for two years and had been visited by the AP reporter in his office at the police station on several occasions.” The military, meanwhile, seems to suggest that Mr. Hussein is not a police officer, nor a civil servant in the employ of any Iraqi agency.

So who IS Mr. Hussein?

Now, as one commenter said earlier, the AP may have already fulfilled its mission here by planting the false information. But if this continues to circulate, they will have damaged the only thing a news wire service must have - credibility. they could have actually done themselves real harm this time. One can but hope.

Christmas Time In Hell

A British home improvement store has a red face just in time for Christmas. It seems they played a jolly little Christmas carol over the store's PA system. The song upset the kids.

Christmas Time In Hell by Satan and the Damned was a bit much.

Instead of the usual festive hits ringing through the aisles, shoppers were subjected to a foul-mouthed song from the television cartoon series "South Park".

Due to an "oversight" at the store in Stockport, northwest England, bungling staff put on "Christmas Time in Hell" from the album "Mr Hankey's Christmas Classics".

The offending track contains references to sex, torture and US cannibal serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

Shopper Grant Sullivan, 42, from Stockport, was in the store's Christmas grotto with his daughter, Deonne, aged four.

"I couldn't believe my ears," he told The Sun newspaper.

"We were buying a tree and Deonne was looking for the star for the top of it. I was speechless.

"Christmas should be a wonderful time for kids — they shouldn't have to listen to filth."

Well, I suppose we could try to look at the bright side here. At least it was a Christmas song, not a "happy non-denominational, generic seasonal greetings unless you're offended by that, too" song.

Toss In A Shamu Snack

Shamu, the star orca who made Seaworld what it is today, has decided that he is not going to work for mackerel anymore. No, he's decided that a raise in the minimum wage is in order. From now on, he eats trainers!

SAN DIEGO - A trainer at SeaWorld Adventure Park remained hospitalized Thursday after a killer whale grabbed him and twice held him underwater during a show, officials said.

The trainer was in fair condition at the University of California, San Diego, Medical Center, nursing supervisor Denise Thompson said. Ken Peters, 39, was "resting comfortably," SeaWorld San Diego spokesman Dave Koontz said.

Koontz did not know the extent of Peters' injuries and the hospital declined to release details.

Peters was hurt around 5 p.m. Wednesday during the final show of the day at Shamu Stadium, a 36-foot-deep tank.

The show's finale called for a female orca named Kasatka to shoot out of the water so Peters could dive off her nose. The whale is about 17 feet long and weighs well over 5,000 pounds.

As several hundred spectators watched, the whale and trainer plunged underwater, where Kasatka grabbed Peters by the foot and held him for less than a minute before surfacing, Koontz said.

"The trainer was being pinned by the whale at the bottom of the pool," Karen Ingrande told KGTV-TV.

When they came up, Peters tried to calm the animal by rubbing and stroking its back but it grabbed him and plunged down again for about another minute.

The crowd "began to realize there was not something right and the whale was down again under the water. Again they were splashing the water to try to get the whale to come to the surface," Ingrande said.

WC Fields famously refused to work with children or animals.  

UPDATE: Visitors coming over from Tim Blair's site will enjoy this post a lot. To the best of my knowledge, Paco has never left a comment here unless it was under another handle, but he has sent a number of people over from Tim's site. Thanks, Paco.

A New Age Dawns

The CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, has warned Republicans - pointedly - that they had better learn to use the internet effectively before the 2008 campaigns begin. If they do not, they will have a tough, uphill battle.

MIAMI (Reuters) - Google's chief executive offered some advice on Wednesday to Republicans looking ahead to the 2008 presidential contest: make better use of the Internet's electioneering power if you want to win next time.

"The ones that take advantage of this most effectively will be the ones that will be the winners of the next election," Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told Republican governors gathered in Miami.

He offered a few examples of how the Internet, especially video file-sharing sites like Google's newly acquired YouTube, had changed the political landscape by enabling anyone to disseminate information widely and instantly.

Schmidt said the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain got a taste in the run-up to its elections last weekend, when someone used the Google Earth satellite mapping feature to photograph the ruling family's lavish houses, and posted them on line, juxtaposed next to the homes of ordinary citizens.

The government tried to censor the photos, which instantly boosted their popularity, he said.

Democratic U.S. Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania felt the sting when somebody resurrected secretly recorded footage taken during the FBI's Abscam bribery sting in the late 1970s.

Murtha rejected a bribe offer from undercover agents dressed as Arab sheiks and was never charged during the investigation, but the video showed him telling the purported sheiks that "I want to deal with you guys a while before I make any transactions."

The footage was posted on YouTube and other Web sites just as Murtha was trying to persuade fellow Democratic representatives to elect him as their majority leader. He lost.

The lessons are out there, if the Republicans are smart enough to heed them. If they don't, they will be in trouble in very short order. And they need to act very, very quickly.

The Fix Appears To Be In

The left wing here in the US has charged many times that some elections were rigged, that Gore and Kerry was robbed, etc., etc. But all that talk finally quieted down after the Democrats won the elections. It would be a good thing for the left to acknowledge that there appears to be a blatantly rigged election about to happen in Venezuela. So much so that one of (T)Hugo Chavez's allies is calling on people to storm privately-owned television stations.

Chavez, speaking at his own rally in southeastern Trujillo state, warned that the U.S. government was backing Rosales and would try to undermine the election.

"If the imperialists and its lackeys try to destabilize Venezuela with riots, they will regret it for the rest of their lives. I warn them," he said.

The exchange of warnings came as a top lawmaker from Chavez's ruling party, Iris Varela, called on government supporters to take over private TV stations that report Rosales in the lead ahead of official results.

Varela said the opposition-aligned media may use rigged exit polls to show that Rosales is ahead in order to mislead the public.

"When they start to do that, we must take over the TV channels … a peaceful takeover as we have always done at the doors of these TV stations," she told the state TV broadcaster in an interview, singling out two Caracas stations in particular, Globovision and RCTV — both highly critical of the government.

Varela denied she was emitting a threat, saying, "we are only going to demand they say the truth, that's it."

In other words, no one must ever say anything but that Chavez has won. If they do, they will be silenced.

Mahmoud’s Missive

Investors Business Daily takes a look at the letter our pal Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent to all us "noble Americans". They aren't real impressed with the rhetoric, especially in light of a video that is circulating at the moment, as well as election news from Iran.

Try as he might, he can't quite get the tone right. From the "Noble Americans" salutation onward, the prose suggests Borat's evil twin. If he were harmless, he would be pleasantly ridiculous.

But he's far from harmless, and his rule is far from benign. His open letter could be seen as an attempt to paper over some embarrassing and ominous news that has come out of Iraq lately.

The embarrassing part is exemplified in a video being shown in the West by Iranian dissidents. As the London Observer notes, "the film shows the public hanging of Alireza Gorji, 23, and his friend Hossein Makesh, 22, in July in Broudjerd, Iran."

According to officials, the two were put to death for behaving "immorally." Opposition activists say they were political activists executed on trumped-up charges. As one human-rights observer noted to the British newspaper, "Both these men had been involved in anti-government protests in their hometown, and everyone who watched the hanging knew this."

The Iranian record on human rights is abysmal, and the U.S. is far from alone in pointing this out. The Observer noted that the United Nations has condemned the Tehran regime more than 50 times "for severe human rights violations," most recently in a General Assembly vote before Thanksgiving. Iran is an efficient police state and a "democracy" carefully purged of genuine dissent.

That Iran has been able to hoodwink some people in the West into thinking they can be reasoned with is obvious. That the regime in Tehran cannot be trusted is also obvious. And the person campaigning to take over as lead mullah proves that in spades:

And it seems likely to get worse. Another significant piece of news — the ominous one — surfaced earlier this month in media reports on the rise of Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi.

Mesbah-Yazdi, an ideological mentor to Ahmadinejad, is an extremist cleric who endorses the use of suicide bombers against Israel and for confrontation with the West.

He is also campaigning to succeed Grand Ayatollah Ali Khameini as head of the Iranian Islamic state, and his ties to fellow fundamentalist Ahmadinejad give him a leg up. If he wins, as appears all too probable, Iran will be taking another step away from democracy and toward war.

Iran has been running a clandestine low-level war against the US since 1979. Mahmoud's ambition is to replace missives with missiles. It would be a good idea to keep that in mind.

Operating Presumption

"My operating presumption is that this is either a problem or a potential problem in every single one of our missions." Those are the words of the UN's assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, Jane Holl Lute. The problem she is describing is the sexual exploitation of children by UN peacekeepers.

Children have been subjected to rape and prostitution by United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti and Liberia, a BBC investigation has found.

Girls have told of regular encounters with soldiers where sex is demanded in return for food or money.

A senior official with the organisation has accepted the claims are credible.

The UN has faced several scandals involving its troops in recent years, including a DR Congo paedophile ring and prostitute trafficking in Kosovo.

The assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping operations acknowledges that sexual abuse is widespread.

"We've had a problem probably since the inception of peacekeeping - problems of this kind of exploitation of vulnerable populations," Jane Holl Lute told the BBC.

We are lectured on a routine basis about how wonderful and necessary the UN is - usually by UN officials. One presumes these same cheerleaders would not welcome the UN peacekeepers into their home. Or allow them near their own children.

In Haiti, the BBC's Mike Williams spoke to a street girl as young as 11 who had reported sexual abuse by peacekeepers outside the gates of the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince.

A 14-year-old described her abduction and rape inside a UN naval base in the country two years ago.

Despite detailed medical and circumstantial evidence, the allegation was dismissed by the UN for lack of evidence - and the alleged attacker returned to his home country.

In Liberia, meanwhile, a 15-year-old said she had been attacked by a UN officer on 15 November.

In May this year, another BBC investigation discovered systematic abuse in Liberia, involving food being given out to teenage refugees in return for sex.

So, tell me again why this organization is worth having around? This is the model for a world government in the eyes of the "internationalists". Some government.