It All Depends On How You Define 'Worked" I Guess

'It' being the air traffic security system as related to the terrorist attack last week on a US airliner. DHS Sec Napolitano said the "system" worked while on CNN yesterday.

So, DHS wants a system in place in which terrorists can explosives on board a plane and it is up to the passengers to take action to stop said terrorists from blowing up said plane? Because that's the only way Secretary Napolitano can be right.

And, apparently, that's what she means;

And one thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked. Everybody played an important role here. The passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action.

The last time I was on a plane (a few weeks ago) I must have missed the "be prepared to beat the shit out of some blood drunk Muslim fanatic" part of the air safety spiel.

I realize that the Secretary is going to try and spin this in order to save her career and the reputation of her boss (that would be the President; these people certainly do not see the citizenry as their boss); but this is just insulting. The system did not function. A terrorist was able to take advantage of lax security at a non-US airport. The fact that the attack only succeeded in injuring the attacker does not detract from this fact.

We got lucky.

The Challenges Of Networkcentric Warfare

...Are amply demonstrated by news that insurgents are able to intercept unencrypted video feeds from our UAVs.

This from the Army Times;

Insurgents in Iraq have hacked into live video feeds from Predator drones, a major weapon in a Pentagon spy system that serves as the military’s eyes in the sky for surveillance and intelligence collection.

Although militants could see the video, there is no evidence they were able to jam the electronic signals from the unmanned aerial craft or take control of the vehicles, a senior defense official said Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.
[...]
Shiite fighters in Iraq used off-the-shelf software programs such as SkyGrabber, available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet, to capture drone video feeds regularly, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The hacking was possible because the remotely flown planes had unprotected communications links.

The Defense Department has dealt with the problem, first discovered a year ago, and is working to encrypt all its drone video feeds from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, defense officials said. One defense official noted that upgrading the encryption in the drones is a lengthy process because at least 600 unmanned vehicles are in use along with thousands of ground stations.

Official said that systems in principal threat areas were upgraded first.
[...]
Dale Meyerrose, former chief information officer for the U.S. intelligence community, compared the problem to street criminals listening to police scanners.

“This was just one of the signals, a broadcast signal, and there was no hacking; it is the interception of a broadcast signal,” said Meyerrose, who worked to field the unmanned systems in the 1990s, when he was a senior Air Force officer.

The problem, he said, is that when the drones were first being developed they were using commercial equipment, which as time goes on could become vulnerable to intercepts.
[...]
The military has known about the vulnerability for more than a decade, but assumed adversaries would not be able to exploit it.
[Jeff's note: That's brilliant...never assume the other guy is a dumb as you are, apparently.]

Of course, we aren't the only ones who run into problems like this. It is well known that our forces - and those allied security services - use cell phone intercepts to gather intel and locate targets. Still, this shows how vulnerable high-tech systems can be to a wide variety of methods of attack and exploitation.

What You Need To Know About The Copenhagen Meeting

And the international elites who support turning over our economic destinies to a handful of those who have self-designated themselves our "betters." They gave Hugo Chavez, tyrant and narco-terrorist supporter, a standing ovation at the summit. check it out here.

Euro-Commies On The March

Collectivists of any stripe are dumber than turtles. Communists, fascists, socialists...they all adhere to Utopian systems based on the dominance of the state and the annihilation of the individual. But, there is a special circle of hell reserved for Euro-weenies wandering about with signs that betray a lack of historical knowledge, a lack of understanding about the ideology they claim to support and an amazing blind spot when it comes to the systems that afford them the luxury to demand the destruction of those same systems.

Check out the Reds in Copenhagen - Breitbart.

Somalia: Flee The War At Home, Get Dragged Into A Neighbor's War

Somalia has been a zone of anarchy for years now. So, it shouldn't be surprising that some Somalis try to go elsewhere, in the hope of a better life. Of course, that doesn't always work out. Apparently, a group of Somali refugees traveling through Yemen to Saudi Arabia have been intercepted by rebels and forced to fight against the government of Yemen. This from the BBC;

Hundreds of Somali refugees are being forced at gunpoint to join rebels fighting in northern Yemen, a Somali diplomat in Aden has told the BBC.

Hussein Haji Ahmed said they were being intercepted in mountainous territory crossing into Saudi Arabia.

"The refugees have told me that those who refused to join the rebellion were executed," he said.
[...]
More than 16,000 Somali refugees have fled to Yemen in recent years to escape the civil war in their country, making the dangerous sea crossing in fishing boats.
[...]
The Houthi rebels are seeking greater autonomy for their Zaydi Shia community in northern Yemen, and have been fighting the government since 2004.

The Future Of American Healthcare?

The UK has a government run healthcare industry, the National Health Service. Since many see this as a model for the US to follow, those who slavishly nod their heads in agreement might want to see what healthcare under the NHS is like.

Here is one example - an interview with a midwife - detailing what pregnant women go through;

Welcome to the modern NHS maternity ward. A world of shoddy practice, poor hygiene standards and a shocking disregard for patients' individual needs.

When I read about newly qualified midwife Theresa Naish, who hanged herself in January after a premature baby died on her shift, I couldn't help wondering if she, too, was a victim of the over-worked and under-resourced labour wards I have experienced.

Her father Thomas told the inquest into her death: 'Like all NHS staff, she was over-worked, doing too many hours in a department that was understaffed.'
[...]
Driven by targets and mired in red tape, our NHS maternity wards are becoming baby-producing factories where mothers' needs come very low on the agenda.

The quicker midwives turn out babies, the more successful everyone tells us that we are. We might as well be producing sausages. It's utter madness.
[...]
[C]urrent cutbacks mean fewer and fewer midwives are caring for more and more women.

No wonder new mothers are encouraged to leave hospital just hours after giving birth.

When I started in the mid-Nineties, there were 35,000 midwives working in Britain. A year or two ago, that number had fallen to 25,000, more than half of whom were part-time.
[...]
In the 13 years since I joined the NHS, conditions have deteriorated. Starting from the moment they arrive through the hospital doors, birth plans tucked neatly in their overnight bags, women are being betrayed.

There is reams of evidence to prove that a woman's labour is likely to be shorter and she runs less chance of needing medical intervention if she feels calm and relaxed in the early stages. It's not rocket science.

Yet because midwives don't have time to sit with women in early labour for more than a few minutes at most, we are encouraged to do the next best thing.

We offer them strong painkilling drugs such as pethidine or diamorphine - which is a form of heroin.

Drugs keep the mother nice and quiet which, of course, suits staff.
[...]
Once a woman is in full labour, you'd thought we'd put her needs first. But I'm embarrassed to admit that, all too often, we were not allowed to.

Most hospitals rigidly enforce the rule that, once in labour, a woman's canal must dilate at the rate of 1cm an hour.

If that isn't happening, midwives are encouraged to tell the her that her baby may be getting in distress - even if that isn't the case.

Terrified and exhausted by a haze of drugs, the woman agrees to anything which is offered.

In practice, this means we give her extra drugs to intensify the contractions and so speed the arrival of the child.
[...]
It's no news that hospitals are often dirty. By the time I left, I was almost inured to the filth around me.

With so many women and too little time, it was impossible to keep the wards spotless.

I regularly found myself wiping off blood which had been missed by the cleaners in their rush...

The point of posting this article is not to endorse all of the midwife's views; she obviously has a specific idea of how pregnant women should be treated and is pushing that idea. Rather, we are being to told that the slow motion nationalization of healthcare that the Administration wants to set in motion, is being sold to us as a panacea. As all nations with nationalized healthcare are finding, central control does not equal unlimited resources. This article helps to demonstrate some of the resource allocation decisions that the NHS has had to make. I wonder; will Americans put up with this sort of treatment if the White House and the DNC get their way?

What We Have To Look Forward To With Government Healthcare

The CDCP is recalling 800,000 doses of Swine Flu vaccine. This from AP;

Health officials are recalling hundreds of thousands of doses of swine flu vaccine after tests indicated they may not be potent enough to protect against the virus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified doctors about the recall Tuesday. The recall involves about 800,000 doses made by Sanofi Pasteur. The doses are pre-filled syringes intended for young children, ages 6 months to almost three years...

Oops.

NoVa Terrrorists In Pakistan

Pakistan is confirming that the five US citizens picked up a few days ago were looking to join up with an Islamist terror organization.

Here are a few new details from the WPost;

Five men from Northern Virginia who were arrested Tuesday in Pakistan traveled abroad hoping to work with jihadist groups and battle U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said Thursday.

The men contacted extremist organizations, including two with links to al-Qaeda, and proudly told their Pakistani interrogators, "We are here for jihad," said Usman Anwar, the local Pakistani police chief whose officers interrogated the men, all Muslims from the Alexandria area.

Anwar said police recovered jihadist literature, laptop computers and maps of parts of Pakistan when the men were arrested near Lahore. The maps included areas where the Taliban train. The men first made contact with the two extremist organizations by e-mail in August, officials said, but the groups apparently rejected their overtures because they couldn't find people to vouch for them.
[Jeff's note: So, terrorists have better security procedures than, say, the US Army. Someone should tell Al Qaeda they need to celebrate diversity...or whatever it is the US military does now.]
U.S. officials said they are exploring possible criminal charges in a case that has morphed from a missing-person investigation prompted by concerned family members in the Alexandria area, who contacted the FBI.

"To prove something in a U.S. court requires meticulous effort, so we want to be cautious and careful not to characterize anyone as a terrorist unless and until we are certain that charges can be filed," said one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing.

But, the official added, "These aren't just hikers lost in the woods."
[...]
The men, who range in age from 19 to 25, were identified by Pakistani officials and sources close to the case as Umar Chaudhry, Waqar Khan, Ahmad A. Minni, Aman Hassan Yemer and Ramy Zamzam. Chaudhry's father, Khalid, was also arrested in Pakistan and was being questioned, authorities said. The young men all are U.S. citizens, and some were born in the United States.
[...]
Several sources with direct knowledge of the investigation said that Zamzam, a dental student at Howard University who did well in school and was involved in a much-praised project to raise money to build mosques, is the man in a video the men left behind. Law enforcement officials said the video had jihadist overtones, and a prominent Muslim leader described it as a farewell statement.

The video quotes Koranic verses, cites conflicts between Western and Muslim nations, and shows wartime footage.
[...]
They said the men had contacts with Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Jangvi, which the U.S. government has branded as terrorist organizations and Pakistan has banned.
[...]
The case is the latest in a string of domestic counterterrorism investigations, including several connected to Pakistan. Earlier this week, U.S. authorities charged David C. Headley, a Chicago businessman, with conspiring with members of Lashkar-i-Taiba, an extremist Islamist group in Pakistan allied with al-Qaeda, to carry out last year's terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
[...]
Legal experts said the emerging facts from Pakistan could expose the men to charges of providing material support to terrorist organizations, charges that law enforcement sources confirmed yesterday are likely to be considered.
[...]
The families have declined to comment. But their attorney, Nina Ginsberg, said they are "extremely worried about the safety of their sons and do not believe that they could have been involved in the kind of activities currently being reported by Pakistani officials. Their only concern is that their sons be safely returned to the United States."

Friends and fellow worshipers at the Northern Virginia mosque were incredulous that the men could have traveled for jihad. They were described as respectful and devout Muslims who gave no indication of radical activities or beliefs. They got to know each other through youth groups at the mosque but had gone different ways to college.

"These were regular people," said Essam Tellawi, a spokesman for the mosque, who said the men's families have been attending services there since it opened nine years ago.

"Regular people"...hmmm...or, perhaps, regular Muslims. And, that is the real thing people want to avoid talking about. Just how many Americans who adhere to Islam are "respectful and devout Muslims"...and who are ready to kill their fellow citizens, provide support for those who are doing so or will provide cover for enemies of this country? Obviously, more than advocates for the "Religion of Peace" want us to believe there are. And, what is the excuse for their jihadist beliefs? We hear about how Islam spreads as a reaction to poverty, political oppression, cultural isolation and so forth. But these guys - and others - make it clear that they want to kill Americans, Jews, Westerners, etc, because we are the enemy. These men were not poor. They were not oppressed. This country has done all it can to welcome Islam, so any cultural isolation was of their own making. Could it be that their ideology - Islam - led them to the conclusion that god wanted them to kill Americans, because Americans are impediments to the ultimate victory of Allah? And that this conclusion, far from being a "perversion" of Islam, is actually far more mainstream than we wish to believe? It's an unsettling thought...but one we cannot just dismiss. Or, rather, if we do, it is at our peril.

This Is Great

From the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger;

Every serious person should welcome the president's proposals to lift the dormant economy and reduce unemployment. Not because every serious person would agree with them but because they are a clear test of how a left-wing government would run the American economy.

If this works, hats off to them and we become France. If not, Americans may finally dump left-wing economics into the ash heap of history, starting next November and then in the next presidential election, which can't come soon enough.

Read the whole thing.

The Enemy At Home

Every time we hear about domestic Muslim terrorists, we get lots of excuses made about why the carnage they either planned or carried out were not products of their religion/ideology. I wonder which will be deployed for these five men, picked up in Pakistan;

Five missing Muslim men from Northern Virginia have been arrested in Pakistan and are being held by Pakistani authorities, the FBI and a Muslim group said Wednesday.

Pakistani media reports said the young men were taken into custody at the home of an activist linked to Jaish-i-Muhammad, a jihadist group that was implicated in the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi and has been branded a terrorist organization by the United States. Those reports could not be immediately confirmed.
[...]
FBI agents have been interviewing family members, friends and classmates of the men in the Washington area. Their names have not been released, and it was unclear Wednesday afternoon where they attend school.

The Washington Post (source of the above quote) has left out a few details. This from USAToday;

U.S. officials tell the Associated Press that one of them left what investigators call a farewell video saying Muslims must be defended.

The officials spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
[...]
WTOP radio reports that one of the men is a Howard University dental student.

At this point, it is not clear what they were doing in Pakistan...but I think it is safe to say they weren't there selling cookies. It looks like we a have another group of Americans who owe there allegiance to their god and the associated ideology, not to their country, their fellow citizens or the Constitution.

(Sources: USAToday, Washington Post, Jihad Watch)