30 Comments

1. US moves stealth fighters to Okinawa base
   

   The first nine stealth fighters arrived Monday at Kadena Air Base on the southern island of Okinawa in Japan, the key US Air Force stronghold in East Asia.

   A total of 12 F-22 Raptor fighter jets will be redeployed to the Okinawa air base. The stealth technology used to build these aircraft allows them to slip unnoticed under the radar of enemies and allies alike.

   The Pentagon has been regularly sending F-22 Raptors on a several months’ stay in Okinawa since 2007. This time the warplanes flew all the way from their Virginia base amid a heating spat between Japan and China over the disputed Senkaku/ Diaoyu Islands, located 420 km southeast of mainland China in the East China Sea.

   China claims the archipelago is occupied by Japan and has several times tried to reassert its sovereignty by sending patrol boats to the area.

   The US hasn’t taken either side of the conflict but added its security agreement with Tokyo would force the Pentagon to protect Japanese interests.

   Voice of Russia, TASS

   

   Kadena Air Base

   

   

2. Where’s Mao when you need him? I suppose when they need to feed the ‘Gear-up’, they’ll sell off a few bushels of wheat from the elevators they’ve just finished building up here.

3. Don’t get it. We have to slowly borrow away our own sovereignty to finance protecting of the sovereignty of other nations? That kinna plays right into the hands of the progressive doesn’t it?

4. They are just fucking with us as usual watching us scurry around like alarmed rats wasting money figuring out how we respond to their shit.

5. Consider also, with the Chinese looking at 4 more years of American paralysis, that this might be the best time to bring Taiwan back in the fold. A couple hundred ballistic missiles (DF-21Cs and Ds), an amphibious landing, all before Barack can finish the back 9. A fait accompli for the ages.

   They have been gearing up for Taiwan a lot longer than they’ve been gearing up for Japan, but bringing the petulant Nationalists back into the fold will give the Chinese a springboard for their southern expansion.

   I’d doubt Stymie would lift a finger to oppose them. I could see Hagel sending them an atta boy email afterwards. Fucking morons.

6. Yeah …… I dont think those Tanks and artillery pieces are for an uninhabited Rock.

   I guess their real problem (in taking Taiwan) is going to be getting there.

   Its gonna be a little harder to traverse the Strait than it was to sneak down the Ho Chi Minh trail or wade across the Yalu. Especially reinforcements.

   ……. unless a trillion dollars and 240 ICBMs buys you a free pass.

   ….. what is the protocol Mike for lighting up an adversary’s ship with targeting radar during peacetime?

   …. I would assume thats S.O.P.

   ….. of course that does give them an opportunity to study data on your beam …. for future jamming.

7. Illumination is a hostile act and considered provocation. It would bring about an instant frenzy aboard ship on both sides. We would not do it for kicks. Once when we were on plane watch escorting a carrier we by mistake swept the flight deck with our 51c radar and all the planes on deck shit their chaff. They were pissed with all the clean up they had to do.
   The question is will we even be there. If sequestration happens we will be a shadow of our former selves. Ships currenty being overhauled will be our only force. In six months their replacements won’t be sea worthy and it won’t be long until they aren’t seaworthy again. They have alredy canceled the yard maintenance for several LHA’s, LHD’s, LSD’s, CG’s and DDG’s. Unlike the old days, ships personnel can do very few repairs to modern warships. The shipyards will loose ¾ of their workforce and it will be worse for subcontractors. We will be truly screwed and unable to defend our assets.

   You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille

8. Oh, I forgot they have also canceled all F-18 maintenance at the overhaul facility here. So the carriers have no reason to go to sea.

   :

9. Illumination is a hostile act and considered provocation.

   I wonder if the Chinese are too new at this game to know that …… or if they were trying to provoke a response?

10. Dangerous Neighborhood
    

    There are signs that North Korea has conducted a threatened nuclear test, with an earthquake of magnitude 4.9 detected near the underground site where it was expected to carry out the explosion.

    The US Geological Survey said on Tuesday it had detected the earthquake in North Korea but neither Pyongyang nor Seoul confirmed whether the widely anticipated third nuclear test had happened. South Korean reports described the quake as “manmade”.

    The South Korean defence ministry said it was trying to determine whether North Korea had conducted a nuclear test. Nuclear blasts can create tremors but they are distinct from those caused by natural earthquakes.

    The quake occurred at 11.57am Korean time (2.57am GMT) and South Korea’s presidential office said that it was “likely” a nuclear test, according to the South’s Yonhap news agency.

    North Korea is not prone to seismic activity.

    The USGS said the epicentre of the quake was a kilometre underground and close to the North’s known nuclear test site.

    In Vienna, international monitoring group the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) said it was analysing an “unusual seismic event” in North Korea.

    The CTBTO is an independent body that monitors for nuclear tests and has 270 facilities around the world that check for quakes, radioactive particles in the atmosphere and other evidence.

    North Korea’s politburo vowed to continue firing “powerful long-range rockets” in a statement on Tuesday that made no mention of Pyongyang’s promise to conduct a nuclear test.

    Cue Barry McGuire

11. North Korea conducted it’s third nuclear test today defying UN resolutions, angering the United States and Japan and prompting it’s only major Allie China to call for calm. The US president labeled the act a highly provocative and threatens regional stability and asked for new sanctions against the isolated country.

    North Korea conducted it’s fouth nuclear test today …

    North Korea conducted it’s fifth nuclear test today …

    North Korea conducted it’s sixth nuclear test today …

    North Korea conducted it’s seventh nuclear test today …

    North Korea conducted it’s eighth nuclear test today defying UN resolutions major Allie China to call for calm. The US president labeled the act a highly provocative and threatens regional stability and asked for new sanctions against the isolated country.

    North Korea is now a member of Nations and the normalization of regional instability paves the way for progressive dialog.

12. The recent Japanese protest that Chinese warships recently locked their weapons-control radars on to a Japanese navy destroyer and a military helicopter in two separate incidents not far from the bitterly disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea raises disturbing questions.

    One is the extent to which effective civilian control is being exercised over the armed forces in China. If the military, or rogue ultra-nationalist officers, call the shots in a crisis that potentially involves not just Japan but also its ally, the United States, it could trigger a wider war that would destabilise the Asia-Pacific region.

    After several days of silence, China’s Defence Ministry posted a denial on its website on Friday. It said that the radars on the frigates ”kept normal observation and were on alert”, but in neither case were fire-control radars used.

    Japan rejected the account and said that it was considering releasing data that would prove the fire-control radar was directed at its destroyer.

    Japan’s Defence Minister, Itsunori Onodera, had earlier warned China it may have violated the United Nations Charter by threatening force against Japan, which administers the uninhabited Senkakus in the teeth of rival ownerships claims from China and Taiwan.

    In an apparent sign of escalating militarisation in the dispute, Japanese officials say the Chinese navy’s use of weapons-targeting radar was highly threatening because it could signal preparations either for a missile or shelling attack.

    A Defence Ministry official in Tokyo said that in both radar incidents Japanese commanders took ”standard evasive manoeuvres”, such as changing course, but did not engage their weapons systems.

    The official said the destroyer was targeted ”for several minutes” on January 30 by a Chinese frigate about three kilometres away, while a ship-based military helicopter was locked on to 11 days earlier.

    The January 30 incident occurred in international waters about 100 kilometres north of the Senkakus.
    Since Japan effectively nationalised the islands in September by buying several of them from a private owner, China has taken increasingly intense measures to challenge Japanese control, with jet fighters and warships replacing unarmed coast guard-type planes and vessels in several of the latest encounters.

    A key question is who is authorising the Chinese build-up and actions that could lead to an exchange of fire?

    Japan’s Asahi newspaper reported on February 4 that China’s response to the Senkaku dispute was now under the direct command and co-ordination of a top-level task force of the ruling Communist Party of China, which China’s new leader Xi Jinping heads as general secretary.

    It seems highly unlikely that the captains of the two frigates involved in the radar-targeting incidents would have given the orders on their own. In China’s military organisation, each senior commander is flanked by a political officer to ensure that the interests of the party are acted upon.

    Indeed, the CPC’s 18th Congress in November that elevated Mr Xi to party chief and China’s President-designate sought to tighten party (which in China means civilian) control over the armed forces. Among other things, the Congress named Mr Xi as the chairman of China’s Central Military Commission. His two predecessors waited for two years for that job.

    Since then, Mr Xi has visited units of all five major service branches, including the army, navy, air force, armed police and the body responsible for missiles and nuclear weapons. One theme he has emphasised is the need for the armed forces to be combat-ready.

    Another theme he repeatedly underscored was the military’s absolute loyalty to the CPC and its leadership. This suggests that Mr Xi and his civilian colleagues may worry about the growing political clout of the armed forces and the propensity of some nationalist hardliners to take unauthorised actions that could spark a military crisis and sabotage a negotiated settlement.

    As China’s defence spending has risen rapidly to become the world’s second-largest (though still well behind the US), its armed forces have acquired a powerful array of weapons and equipment. These give the military a more direct interest in the conduct and enforcement of foreign and security policy, including China’s sweeping claims to ownership of disputed maritime zones in the East and South China seas that the armed forces consider vital for the country’s strategic interests.

    Some of China’s most strident hawks are serving or retired military officers. While they do not claim to speak for the leadership, they are given licence to speak out on some issues at certain times.

    Air Force Colonel Dai Xu is prominent among those calling for military action to secure offshore claims. With China challenging Japan in the East China Sea, and US ally the Philippines and Vietnam in the South China Sea, he has argued that a short, decisive war, such as China’s 1962 border clash with India, would return maritime territory stolen by Japan and the former colonial masters of south-east Asian countries, and deliver long-term peace.

    Colonel Dai, a researcher at Beijing University’s China Centre for Strategic Studies, asserts that the US would not risk war with China over these territorial disputes. ”Since we have decided that the US is bluffing in the East China Sea, we should take this opportunity to respond to these empty provocations with something real,” he wrote in a commentary last August in the Global Times, published by the CPC’s mouthpiece, the People’s Daily. ”This includes Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan, who are the three running dogs of the United States in Asia,” he wrote. ”We only need to kill one, and it will immediately bring the others to heel.”

    The military hawks appear to make up only a small proportion of China’s officer corps. But their influence, magnified by modern communications and social media, may be far more extensive than their numbers suggest. Their influence may also be shaping views and actions in the military command.

    Just last month, another hawk, Senior Colonel Liu Mingfu, an analyst at China’s National Defence University, said the US was building ”a mini-NATO” to contain China, with the US and Japan at its core, and Australia within its orbit. He told a correspondent for Fairfax Media that his views did not represent China’s policy but were consistent with what political and military leaders thought, if not what they said.

    He and other hawks have been buoyed by Mr Xi’s rise to the top. One of Mr Xi’s new political mottoes, the ”China Dream”, echoes the title of a book by the colonel, which has had sales restrictions removed since Mr Xi emerged as leader.

    The US and China’s Asia-Pacific neighbours, including Australia, will be hoping Mr Xi sees that it is in China’s interest to rein in the hawks, not pander to their extreme views and allow them to dictate policy.

    The writer is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South-East Asian Studies in Singapore.

    Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/troubling-signs-of-the-rise-of-chinese-ultranationalists-20130212-2ebf8.html#ixzz2KjKfuBpc

13. Mike can you say what you think about the threat level of the Chinese. Would they dare purposely start the kind of conflict that would escalate? Are they dangerously stupid, just fucking around or inexperienced like RT mentioned? Truth is I fear them.

14. Straight up we kick their ass, but in their backyard if we had insufficient assets for the battlespace they could overwhelm us. I think any conflict will be sea based or shelling of the disputed islands. I don’t believe we would respond to these territorial disputes and I don’t believe the Japanese would start a shooting war with them. If they attack Japan or the Philippines we will probably be drawn in, and it would be a particularly nasty war ending with nukes in my opinion.

15. I don’t think the Chinese are crazy enough to kick off a shooting war over mineral rights a couple hundred miles off-shore (just yet), but Taiwan is perfectly within their reach and they’ll be counting on their anti-carrier ballistic missiles to keep the US at a safe distance until the damage is done.

    And since the present CinC is a eunuch, if the attack is fast and overwhelming, he probably won’t look up from his fund-raiser.

    Oh, and I loved the tribute to Ambassador Stevens last night, it was touching.

16. lets get it done the snake oil salesman says. time to shut down harvard and colombia. hey btw i noticed something look at this list of last names ending in -er.
    jared lochner
    chris dorner
    ed asner
    chuck schuymer
    william shatner
    anyway these people seem very dangerous and its time to lock them up for the kids sake.

17. but Taiwan is perfectly within their reach and they’ll be counting on their anti-carrier ballistic missiles to keep the US at a safe distance until the damage is done.

    There doesn’t appear to be many pro-reunification sympathisers in Taiwan. So if you can rule out massive sabotage to Taiwan’s defensive capabilities, I’m not so sure taking Taiwan back by force would be as easy as some think.

    81 miles of open ocean would be a killing field for Taiwanese Air and (indigenously produced) mobile land based missile defense systems, if left intact before a PRC amphibious assault attempt. It would probably take a prolonged missile war before the PRC could establish air-superiority over Taiwan, or risk putting what few troop carrying ships they have in the straits.

    We probably would find some excuse to not honor the Taiwan Relations Act. Especially if the PRC could fabricate a plausible justification.

    I think our navy too would be a setting duck in the South China sea, and our island bases in the region defenseless. Not because we dont have more advanced defense systems, but simply because we have a finite number of projectiles to counter the massive waves they could send our way.

    I think the US airpower would be the vanguard of our response ….. after of course we poke their eyes out in space. They of course will return the favor….. if they dont take out our birds first. If I were them that would be my first shot.

    ….. and if you got the balls to attack US ships and bases …… you’re way past the fear of our nuclear reprisal. You’ve already calculated those potential losses. Just like we’d have to assume our direct involvement would put US bases ….. and cities …. at risk.

    Is preserving the democratic system in Taiwan worth it?

    I’ve been conditioned all my life to take the (anti-communist) Taiwanese side. But would the Taiwanese people piss on me if I was on fire? There kinda like Israel ….. a supposed ally that we wont allow to help us when we need it because of the political ramifications involved. And like our other democratic allies in the region we wont let them develop their own nuclear deterrence, but we probably wouldn’t risk US cities to defend them even if they were nuked.

    I wonder if our allies in the region that want us to help protect their possessions from Chinese aggression would be willing to help us confront China over Taiwan? ANZAC? Or are we the only ones willing to intervene in the final act of the Chinese civil war?

    What kind of ally are we to Taiwan if we won’t even consider having our president visit there? Eisenhower was the last one that didn’t care if the commies got offended.

    Why should I care if China takes back Taiwan? How would the forced reunification affect me?

    Computer hardware would be in short supply until other Asian countries could ramp up production.

    But really, it would be kinda interesting to watch China attempt to pacify 23 million people brainwashed from birth to resist them. How would they go about doing that without a defensible land bridge for resupply? Every Taiwanese adult is a trained veteran due to universal conscription.

    I’m not so sure they can occupy Taiwan.

    It would bleed the Chinese economy and military.

    The video images would clarify their capacity for brutality to the rest of the world. A pariah in the international community. A potential diplomatic, and perhaps economic, windfall for us.

    …….

18. Can’t believe we made this shit happen.

19. Communism used to kill academics and Journalists. We got the fucked up kind of Communism
    that kicks our ass with them.

20. …tictictic…Obama is Pekings best friend,they are in no hurry…

    …and now NK most diffidently has a nuke capabillity…SK is a bargaining chip….

    sooo…. this for that…..

21. So what if the sequester cuts our carrier force effectively in half? Six or 7 carriers is spreading the peanut butter far too thinly. We don’t keep up the maintenance on the F-16s, the USS Lincoln doesn’t get refueled on time, the marines and army get their numbers whacked, we’re still strung out in Iraq and Crackassistan. This is a blank check for shenanigans.

    No country has ever been attacked because their enemies perceived them to be too strong.

    The ill-advised words of one of Bush’s minions in the ME opened the door to Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait.

    Allowing nuclear proliferation to continue unabated in rouge states increases the chances of cataclysm down the road. Stymie’s asleep at the switch. Has he brought the guys who killed Ambassador Stevens to justice? Has he thought about that once since he uttered these words? I’d highly doubt it. He’s got global warming and universal day care and gay marriage to husband, he doesn’t have time for messy issues (economy, national defense) that don’t resolve themselves so he can later take the credit.

    He may be a sociopathic asshole prick, but he’s also a lout. Captain Inaction will get us all killed.

    My advise to you. If we get a black Pope named Peter, start shitting your drawers.
22. 
    

    In ꝑſecutione extrema S.R.E. ſedebit.

    Petrus Romanus, qui paſcet oues in multis tribulationibus: quibus tranſactis ciuitas ſepticollis diruetur, & Iudex tremẽdus iudicabit populum ſuum.

    Finis.

    Petrus Romanus ??

    The great star will burn for seven days,
    The cloud will cause two suns to appear:
    The big mastiff will howl all night
    When the great pontiff will change country

    

    Luckily, Benedict made sure the deck is stacked against him.

23. Nice, you’re up on this arcane shit as well.

    But we know not the hour nor the time, do we? That’s the only Biblical reassurance I have right now.

    The bridegroom comes in the middle of the night. Make sure your lamps have oil.

    And lay in a couple thousand rounds of .308

24. Any God scaring me, talking to me in riddles and cryptic crap he knows I cannot understand without drugs or irrational fear I have to challenge. He was plain enough about don’t touch fire or don’t play with alligators but eternal welfare is some leap of faith for an unbelievably tiny flock that everyone claims to be apart of? The apostles really appreciated it when he talked plainly to them in person! If you don’t have the Holy Spirit you don’t understand shit. That’s simple enough and explains nothing to us vessels made to be broken as example to the chosen. Glad I could help.

25. Nice, you’re up on this arcane shit as well.

    I had not heard of the Saint Malarkey’s predictions until yesterday, I had to research it to figure out what you were referencing.

    I dont believe any of this shit …… but given the current state of affairs I will be as relieved as anyone when we get to the 113th (267th) Pope.

    Being a faithful adherent is not a prerequisite for fearing the apocalypse.

26. Russian nuclear bombers circle Guam
    

    Two Russian nuclear-armed bombers circled the western Pacific island of Guam this week in the latest sign of Moscow’s growing strategic assertiveness toward the United States.

    The Russian Tu-95 Bear-H strategic bombers were equipped with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and were followed by U.S. jets as they circumnavigated Guam on Feb. 12 local time—hours before President Barack Obama’s state of the union address.

    Air Force Capt. Kim Bender, a spokeswoman for the Pacific Air Force in Hawaii, confirmed the incident to the Washington Free Beacon and said Air Force F-15 jets based on Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, “scrambled and responded to the aircraft.”

    “The Tu-95s were intercepted and left the area in a northbound direction. No further actions occurred,” she said. Bender said no other details would be released “for operational security reasons.”

    The bomber incident was considered highly unusual. Russian strategic bombers are not known to have conducted such operations in the past into the south Pacific from bomber bases in the Russian Far East, which is thousands of miles away and over water.

    John Bolton, former U.N. ambassador and former State Department international security undersecretary, said the Russian bomber flights appear to be part of an increasingly threatening strategic posture in response to Obama administration anti-nuclear policies.

    “Every day brings new evidence that Obama’s ideological obsession with dismantling our nuclear deterrent is dangerous,” Bolton said. “Our national security is in danger of slipping off the national agenda even as the threats grow.”

    Defense officials said the bombers tracked over Guam were likely equipped with six Kh-55 or Kh-55SM cruise missiles that can hit targets up to 1,800 miles away with either a high-explosive warhead or a 200-kiloton nuclear warhead.

    The F-15s that intercepted the bombers were based at Kadena Air Base, Japan, and were deployed to Guam for the ongoing annual Exercise Guahan Shield 2013.

    Two U.S. B-2 strategic bombers were deployed to Guam in late January and last fall advanced F-22 fighter bombers were temporarily stationed on the island. Three nuclear-powered attack submarines and the Global Hawk long-range drone also are based in Guam.

    About 200 Marines currently are training on the island. Earlier news reports stated that Japanese and Australian military jets joined U.S. jets in the Guam exercises.

    Guam is one of the key strategic U.S. military bases under the Obama administration’s new “pivot” to Asia policy. As a result, it is a target of China and North Korea. Both have missiles capable of hitting the island, located about 1,700 miles east of the Philippines in the Mariana island chain.

    This week’s bomber flights are a sign the Russians are targeting the island as well, one defense official said.

    Guam also plays a key role in the Pentagon’s semi-secret strategy called the Air-Sea Battle Concept designed to counter what the Pentagon calls China’s anti-access and area denial weapons—precision guided missiles, submarines, anti-satellite weapons, and other special warfighting capabilities designed to prevent the U.S. military from defending allies or keeping sea lanes open in the region.

    Defense officials disclosed the incident to the Free Beacon and said the Russian bomber flights appeared to be a strategic message from Moscow timed to the president’s state of the union speech.

    “They were sending a message to Washington during the state of the union speech,” one official said.

    The bomber flights also coincided with growing tensions between China and Japan over the Senkaku islands. A Chinese warship recently increased tensions between Beijing and Tokyo by using targeting radar against a Japanese warship.

    The U.S. military has said it would defend Japan in any military confrontation with China over the Senkakus. The bomber flights appear to signal Russian support for China in the dispute.

    Meanwhile, Obama on Wednesday telephoned Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to reiterate U.S. nuclear assurances to its ally following North Korea’s third detonation of an underground nuclear device.

    A White House statement said the president told Abe, who visits Washington next week, that the United States “remains steadfast in its defense commitments to Japan, including the extended deterrence offered by the U.S. nuclear umbrella.”

    “It shows that the Russians, like the Chinese, are not just going to sit idly by and watch the United States ‘pivot’ or ‘rebalance’ its forces toward Asia,” said former State Department security official Mark Groombridge.

    “One could argue the Russians were poking a bit of fun at the Obama Administration, seeing how they flew these long-range bombers close to Guam on the same day as the state of the union address,” he said.

    “But the broader implications are more profound,” said Groombridge, now with the private strategic intelligence firm LIGNET. “The Russians are clearly sending a signal that they consider the Pacific an area of vital national strategic interest and that they still have at least some power projection capabilities to counterbalance against any possible increase in U.S. military assets in the region.”

    Airspace violations by Russian Su-27 jets triggered intercepts by Japanese fighters near Japan’s Hokkaido Island last week. The Feb. 7. incident prompted protests from Tokyo and took place near disputed territory claimed by both countries since the end of World War II.

    The Russian air incursion around Guam was the third threatening strategic bomber incident since June. On July 4th, two Bear H’s operated at the closest point to the United States that a Russian bomber has flown since the Soviet Union routinely conducted such flights.

    The July bomber flights near California followed an earlier incident in June when two Bear H’s ran up against the air defense zone near Alaska as part of large-scale strategic exercises that Moscow said involved simulated attacks on U.S. missile defense bases. The Pentagon operates missile defense bases in Alaska and California.

    Those flights triggered the scrambling of U.S. and Canadian interceptor jets as well.

    The bomber flights near Alaska violated a provision of the 2010 New START arms treaty that requires advance notification of exercises involving strategic nuclear bombers.

    Military spokesmen sought to play down the June and July incidents as non-threatening, apparently reflecting the Obama administration’s conciliatory “reset” policy toward Russia that seeks better relations by tamping down criticism of Moscow, despite growing anti-U.S. sentiments and policies from the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey questioned his Russian counterpart, Gen. Nikolai Makarov, during a meeting at the Pentagon July 12th.

    The latest Russian nuclear saber rattling through bomber flights comes as the Obama administration is planning a new round of strategic arms reduction talks with Russia. State Department arms official Rose Gottemoeller was recently in Moscow for arms discussions.

    The president was expected to announce plans to cut U.S. nuclear forces by an additional one-third in a new round of arms reduction efforts with Moscow.

    However, the president did not announce the plans and said only during his state of the union speech that he plans further arms cuts.

    “Building Guam as a strategic hub has played a critical role in balancing U.S. security interests in responding to and cooperating with China as well as in shaping China’s perceptions and conduct,” wrote Government Accountability Office analyst Shirley A. Kan in a September 2012 report.

    “Since 2000, the U.S. military has been building up forward-deployed forces on the westernmost U.S. territory of Guam to increase U.S. presence, deterrence, and power projection for potential responses to crises and disasters, counterterrorism, and contingencies in support of South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, or elsewhere in Asia.”

27. AN FYI to all you conspiracy whackos. In the past 6 weeks, I’ve made more than a few trips North, towards Malmstrom AFB, homeplate for our guys watching the buried missiles. On the first trip, I caught up and passed a convoy of armored outfits, guns in the tubs and black tinted windowed Suburbans with Federal Police labels on the sides. Oh yes -- I almost forgot -- the black helicopter I spotted as I came out of the canyon before I ever got to the convoy. The chopper had me curious -- a Blackhawk. This past Wednesday made the 4th time I’ve seen this fiasco -- in less than two months. That, and Border Patrol SUVS more than a hundred and fifty miles from the border.

    I’ve seen the armored outfits before -- many times, usually traveling with camo Hummers. Never seen ‘em with 60′s in the tubs. Never seen ‘em with FP escorts, stopping traffic at the on-ramps.

    Just sayin’…

28. It’s okay if you don’t believe, that’s what makes you (hmmm?) non-believers. The prophesies of St. Malachy (Irish) aren’t the word of God, they were from a vision he had on a pilgrimage to Rome.

    Michael Nostradamus wasn’t God either, but many think he was on the money about a lot of things. His end-of-the-world scenarios don’t dovetail with Malachy’s, so maybe Malachy wasn’t predicting the end of the world, perhaps just the end of the Roman Catholic Church.

    Feel sorry for all the atheists and anti-Catholic bigots at that point, but I’m sure they’ll find another target. You might have to cancel Real Time with Bill Maher, but other than that, I’m not too sure we’ll need to change much.

29. The bomber flights near Alaska violated a provision of the 2010 New START arms treaty that requires advance notification of exercises involving strategic nuclear bombers.

    A Chinese warship recently increased tensions between Beijing and Tokyo by using targeting radar against a Japanese warship.

    I don’t understand the language of vague hostile and intimidating acts or the humor in them but I do understand clearly stated intention followed by a hostile act. The humor will start a war. I understand you have to at least show up on the battlefield in force to negotiate a good settlement but why the hell do we have to mobilize and threaten with every frikkin thing while these fux just send a plane or ship or applaud NK.

30. Feel sorry for all the atheists and anti-Catholic bigots at that point, but I’m sure they’ll find another target.

    I fear the influence of religion and prophecy on people in a Democracy. If we were really a Republic I wouldn’t worry. I don’t mind the morality of Christianity, that might offend but not hurt anyone. Probably the opposite would happen. We are all progressives and things just want to progress. The Constitution is the rules of the road. Changing the road signs is the name of the game for progressives and my reads say Christianity is the unsung progressive hero on secular issues that don’t directly involve morality. And now they’re bitten in the ass for it and still don’t see the light.

    The Ruskies reverted to prophecy when their shit didn’t fly. The capitalist will lose the final battle and be hung with his own rope. Islam has some interesting prophecy, so does my mother. We’re all prophets and progressives. Sure glad we ratified common sense while we had it.