BlackFive

DEBKAfile reports that thousands of Iranian industrial computers have been disabled by a virus.

Mahmoud Alyaee, secretary-general of Iran’s industrial computer servers – which includes those involved in nuclear facilities – states that 30,000 computers have been infected and disabled.

Since August, American and UN nuclear watchdog sources have been reporting a slowdown in Iran’s enrichment processing due to technical problems which have knocked out a large number of centrifuges and which its nuclear technicians have been unable to repair. It is estimated that at Natanz alone, 3,000 centrifuges have been idled.

Alyaee states that the virus began attacking their computers two months ago.

Not only has it taken control of automatic industrial systems, but has raided them for classified information and transferred the date abroad.

In that case, perhaps we could use the acquired intel to build a few new nuclear plants ourselves. Cheap, clean, and putting Americans back to work.

Cassandra, over at Villainous Company, does a wicked takedown of one of my “favorite” politicians, Babs “call me Senator” Boxer.  She makes the point that Boxer’s new found love for the military is most likely election year temporary:

Boxer began her political career as an anti-war activist and endeared herself to core Democratic voters with her advocacy against the first Gulf War and her vote against the invasion of Iraq, which she has described as her "proudest moment." In her 1992 campaign, a year when she advocated chopping defense spending in half, her television ads highlighted how she had exposed pricey purchases by the Pentagon in the mid-1980s that included $7,622 coffee pots.

And her record speaks of hypocrisy:

In the 1990s Boxer campaigned on her record of eliminating "wasteful" defense spending from the budget. Military might, she maintained, was not the key to a strong national defense. Changing times demanded drastic cuts to the defense budget and the redirection of American tax dollars to domestic programs:

"If we cannot take care of our children, it doesn't matter how many tanks or missiles we have; we won't be a strong nation," Boxer said in an interview.

This is hardly a surprising position for a progressive from California, but it begs the question: why does a Senator who vehemently opposed the use of military power for decades want to force taxpayers to buy an enormously expensive cargo plane the military neither wants nor needs?

Go read the whole thing.

Chuck Z sent a note that a Soldier that was hit by am IED. Triple amputee (legs and arm).

Family doesn't have many resources.

Will need our help.

More to follow.

B5 out.

Sent from my iPhone

It's not about "Burden's simple model" but about you all...

Things have been a little lively lately at one of Matty O's schools the University of Ill-a-nwah. First we had the professional academic hater who was appalled by chants of USA, then a lovely beatdown by the President of the Veterans Student Association who is a former Marine. Well said brother, I don't think anything needs added to that. Well maybe a little icing for the cake. Looks like the school did something very right.

In a very unusual move, University of Illinois trustees Thursday denied giving emeritus status to controversial retired professor William Ayers. The vote, at a U. of I. board meeting in Urbana, was unanimous and came after a passionate speech by board chair Christopher Kennedy, who invoked the 1968 assassination of his father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, in saying that he was voting his conscience.

In the what goes around comes around category we have.

He said he could not confer the title "to a man whose body of work includes a book dedicated in part to the man who murdered my father."

Kennedy was referring to a 1974 book co-authored by Ayers, "Prairie Fire," which was dedicated to a long list of people including Robert Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan and "all political prisoners in the U.S."

Yep that radical shite will bite you in the ass once in a while won't it Billy? The sad thing is that it took the connection between Ayers dedicating a book to a Palestinian terrorist who killed Bobby Kennedy and Kennedy's son being on the damn board to stop this from happening. Ayers is a world class terrorist scumbag himself. He is unrepentant and undeserving of any honor whatsoever. He deserves to be frog-marched out of academia and polite society (two discreet entities for certain) and sent to forage in the wastelands.

So anyhow that's a hearty FU! from the U of I and the rest of America Billy.

UPDATE 1:  It's incredible.  After 24 years, I've found one of the people mentioned below.  I'm not going to say WHICH one, just yet, but I wanted to let you know one has been 'found' and contact made.  AND WHAT A SURPRISE IT WAS.  Just. Incredible.  And it was joyous. 
I"ll go into details soon; I'm still trying to make contact with the other two- we're REALLY close. Keep the info coming- all of it helps.  AND TO THOSE WHO PROVIDED INFO- THANK YOU!

ORIGINAL POST: Well, I've been thinking about this post for some time.  Knowing the power of the internetsington, I need to post a small request.  I'm not gonna use Classmates or Find-A-Friend or any of that stuff, 'cause they just can't work right.

I need some help finding some old compatriots that have fallen off the map long ago.  I'm hoping some of you can at least point me in the right direction.  Or may have served with them.  There are 3 that I'm hoping to get locales on:

1.  Jeffery Bailes- this guy is hard to miss.  He's about 6-ft 3, probably close to 230lbs by now, was bald before bald was bad.  Medic type.  Went to ROTC and Airborne with me, but left ROTC before commissioning.  Went active duty before I was graduated. Not sure of his first assignment, but I believe it was Germany.  But could be wrong.  This would have been '85 til later time frame.  I would believe he was a lifer.  From Ohio

2.  Craig Reardon-  or Riordan.  Don't remember exact spelling.  Jungle Expert badge, wanted to go Public Affairs before even I knew what it was.  SoCal guy- and TOTALLY SoCal.  Skinny, but tough.  Went thru some 'training' in Ft Lewis with me.  

3.  Elizabeth Peto - last but not least.  OBC together- best of friends.  Signal, former DI, and top marathon runner.  Had a married name of Rickel at one point.  Went to Signal Bn in Germany, and lost touch after a year there.  Hungarian.  One tough chick.  She still owes me a pull-ring off my reserve parachute.  I'll tell that story someday.  Oh, her Hungarian name was Erzike.  Muffed ABN school due to heights issues.

If anyone has served, or heard of them, write me at the.mr.wolf at the gmail dot com address. 

Okay, I've got a soft spot for anyone who would call Gen. Odierno "Shrek" to his face, and get his head shaved by said general. I also know that he has helped out troop support charities, such as ReMind.  In fact, he's been a good supporter of the troops and the wounded. 

This, however, is not funny.  At All. 

Sir, if this is you, fail.  Big time.  As in truly despicable, and undermining of all the good you've ever done.

If it is not you, but a writer working for/with you, you need to acknowledge, sack them, and apologize for them. 

Either way, step and and man up for the tastless, humorless, and needless slap at the troops, especially those who have given their lives for your right to show your ass (and it isn't pretty at all).

LW

Yeah so what else is new, I know. But since they shifted fire from Iraq to Afghanistan they are helping us tilt the playing field.

"Bottom line, Spirit of America's support is helping keep (and make) Garmsir District safe for US Marines … and most of all the people of Afghanistan."
-- A Marine Officer in Afghanistan re: radios donated by Spirit of America

We all know that communications technology has had a huge impact here in the US. It turns out that it also has a huge impact in rural Afghanistan. To help our troops improve conditions and make progress, Spirit of America has provided two different kinds of radios....

Two-Way Radios for Afghan Soldiers and Police
When we learned that Afghan security forces were having difficulties communicating in rural areas of Helmand Province, Spirit of America provided two-way radios.

Here's an email from a Marine in charge of mentoring the Afghan Border Police in the Garmsir. It's a long email but provides great insight into the real-world impact of your support.

-- Begin email -- "The Afghan Border Police (ABP) are arguably the least trained, most under resourced national security force in Afghanistan. Yet here in Garmsir District, Helmand Province, two companies, roughly 160 soldiers, independently man 5 security checkpoints - 3 of them in an area with little coalition presence - and provide security to an area that spans 45 square kilometers. Despite their gross lack of nearly everything a military unit requires for success, the ABP in Garmsir continue to accomplish their mission. In the past five months there has been only one IED event in their area, and that roadside bomb was identified and reported to the ABP by a local villager - a positive sign that the local populace is on the side of the government."

Telling you Spirit of America is doing good is like pointing out that Soldier's Angels is too. But we should do so as often as possible.

RE:  President Obama - Politics Trump Victory in Afghanistan

Major Brigadier General (retired) Tata has a post up at Big Peace about President Obama's confidence that we could weather another 9/11...

...For a sitting president to declare to our enemies that it is, in effect, okay to attack our country because we’re strong and we’ll be okay in the aftermath requires swift action from our national leadership to send a strong message to our enemies overseas that, in fact, it is not fine if they attack. President Obama’s callous remarks ignore the reality that men and women were jumping to certain death from their windows in the World Trade Center on 9-11; fire and smoke rolled through Pentagon hallways killing everyone in its wake; and thousands of brave men and women have perished in response so that we may be free...

But the comment of the day was provided by reader DT from the greatest "real" blogger of all time, James Lileks ("the bleat"). This one is from September 2003:

...the same people were crowding the message boards of internet sites on the afternoon of the attacks, eager to blame everyone but the hijackers. They hate this nation. In their hearts, they hate humanity. They would rather cheer the perfect devils than come to the aid of a compromised angel. They can talk for hours about how wrong it was to kill babies, busboys, businessmen, receptionists, janitors, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers - and then they lean towards you, eyes wide, and they say the fatal word:

But.

And then you realize that the eulogy is just a preface. All that concern for the dead is nothing more than the knuckle-cracking of an organist who’s going to play an E minor chord until we all agree we had it coming.

I’ve no doubt that if Seattle or Boston or Manhattan goes up in a bright white flash there will be those who blame it all on Bush. We squandered the world’s good will. We threw away the opportunity to atone, and lashed out. Really? You want to see lashing out? Imagine Kabul and Mecca and Baghdad and Tehran on 9/14 crowned with mushroom clouds: that’s lashing out. Imagine the President in the National Cathedral castigating Islam instead of sitting next to an Imam who's giving a homily. Mosques burned, oil fields occupied, smart bombs slamming into Syrian palaces. We could have gone full Roman on anyone we wanted, but we didn’t. And we won’t.

Which is why this war will be long...

Read the whole post.

Well if they are terrorists, then Bravo Well Done. Another "revelation" from Woodward's book is that some of the swine we have been returning to their component molecules in Pakistan had US passports. Oh Lawdy lawd I do declare. Yeah well I declare a congratulatory terrorist fist bump to whoever created those particular dead tangos.

CIA drones killed “many Westerners, including some U.S. passport holders” in Pakistan’s tribal area during the George W. Bush administration, the new book by Bob Woodward says...

Hayden and his deputy, Stephen Kappes, had gone to meet with Zardari, elected only two months earlier, to gauge his reaction to the drone strikes, which were generating widespread protests in Pakistan.

According to Woodward’s unattributed account of the meeting, Zardari said, “Kill the seniors. Collateral damage worries you Americans. It does not worry me.”

Hayden had told Zardari that “many Westerners, including some U.S. passport holders, had been killed five days earlier on the Kam Sham training camp in the tribal area of North Warziristan,” Woodward writes. “But the CIA would not reveal the particulars due to the implications under American law.”

Well I don't know that anyone is sure exactly what US law says about this. We may or may not have known they were Americans, and if we did know and they are doing the al Qaeda dance then tough shite. By the very nature of the acts they commit, terrorists forfeit any rights they may have accrued under any laws or treaties. We cannot afford to miss a chance to take out any of these barbarians any time we get positive ID. Failing to do so would put the blood of anyone they kill later on us. Better to hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the pampered and protected-by-their-betters left about how we are uncivilized for shooting rabid animals.

Anwar al Awlaki that means you. Better watch your ass Fred!