Steve Skojec

Breitbart is reporting this morning that a couple of Russian Tupolev 95 Bombers buzzed the USS Nimitz in the Pacific over the weekend. The bombers were followed closely by F/A18 Hornets, and no communications were reported to have exchanged.

When I was a kid in the eighties, I used to always watch the news with my dad. Reading stories like this, it’s deja vu all over again.

Foreign Policy tackles a handful of countries who are beefing up their military programs rather than downsizing them. Far and away, the U.S. is at the top of the list, with spending in excess of $400 billion dollars annually - and that’s the budget, not the extra expenses of war.

At only a quarter of that spending, China is still growing exponentially. With a 2.25 million member strong army, China has as nearly as many boots on the ground as there are people living in Chicago and about the same as the number of people in the U.S. prison system - now there’s an idea of what to do with them.

The Chinese are also on track to have quite possibly the largest navy in the world by 2020, with a complement of home-made nuclear submarines supplemented by Russian-built subs and destroyers.

The article nails it - China is gearing up for a conflict with America over Taiwan, a fact that is too often ignored in this country and probably will continue to be until it’s too late.

Looks like I need to move up my timetable on visiting the red dragon before it’s too late.

Let’s face it - China is still a far bigger threat to the United States than Islam and it’s rag-tag band of cavemen with machine guns and Semtex will ever be. The minute Taiwan decides it’s done with the oppressive rhetoric from Beijing - a minute that could come in their 2012 elections - we’re going to have decide if we want to put up or shut up regarding our alliance with them.

Today, The Air Force Times has a story on China’s own plans for such a conflict. China isn’t exactly keeping their plans secret. They want to develop a first-strike capability against our Pacific assets, and are not opposed to using the EMP effects of a nuclear detonation over the pacific to scramble electronics, or to shooting down our satellites or striking our air bases. In a heartening note, China’s own published materials on this mention that if they don’t move quickly they will lose a head-to-head battle with the US-of-A, a conflict they describe as being like “throwing an egg against a rock.”

This strikes me as a ploy. Not unlike the fact that Tom Brady was seen in New York in a walking cast this week - likely a Belichick mind-trap to lull the Giants into a sense of false confidence -  China is trying to sound like they don’t have a chance against our military unless they suckerpunch us first. We definitely have the superior power, but China is no slouch. This is why their ability to neutralize our reconnaissance and air power is vital to them. Without that, we’re definitely outnumbered and possibly out-gunned.

The article is worth a read if you prefer being a realist rather than a Pollyanna patriot.  We’re on a crazy trajectory in this country, and we need to start focusing on solutions to these problems before they are on our doorstep.

Whether you like what they have to say or not, sometimes you have to just stop and thank God for guys who say what we need to hear - guys like Ron Paul, Glenn Beck, and David Walker.

Okay, so you’ve heard of the first two, but who is the third? He’s the head of the GAO - the Government Accountability Office (which I have repeatedly joked to my wife as we walk by its ginormous expanse on the way to Mass needs to be much, much bigger) - making him the chief accountant for the U.S. Government.

What he has to say about our economic future isn’t very encouraging:

I’ve just finished reading Robert Spencer’s excellent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And the Crusades).

 It’s my first real foray into the topic of Islam, which I previously only really understood through shadowy memories from history classes that touched on the topic. From those memories, I had always had the distinct impression that Islam was an inherently violent religion. This later reinforced by a stunning homily I heard at Mass a few years ago by a priest not afraid to make the distinction between the notions that are pushed on us by Islam and the PC campaign to protect it and the reality that history and the Qu’ran itself bear witness to.  It was the first time I had heard the case clearly made that “Islam” did not mean “Peace” but rather “Submission.”

Europe still bears the scars of the centuries-long war with Islamic jihad, and once understood all too well that it is not a “religion of peace”. The refurbished 14th century Carthusian Monastery I stayed in as a student in Franciscan University’s Austria program was said to still bear the scorch marks from flaming arrows fired by the invading Turks.  I also spent a decent amount of time in southern Spain as well, walking the palace grounds of the Allhambra, home to the Moorish invaders during a good portion of their 800-year-long occupation of parts of the Spanish Kingdom.

These echoes of the glory days of jihad are treated as historical curiosities. What we in the West fail, it seems, to understand, is that Islam’s quest for global expansion and totalitarian control of all nations has never ceased. If I learned one theme from Spencer’s book, it’s this: while moderate Muslims may exist, the religion of Islam is itself never moderate.

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Robots are, in my Transformers-loving opinion, one of the best things ever invented because they are simultaneously heart-stoppingly scary and unfathomably cool.

What escapes the notice of most of us regular schleps is just how prevalent they’re becoming. I’ve even encountered an advanced robotics project in some of my client work.

Let’s be clear what I mean when I say robots - we’re not talking about the little dudes that blew smoke after you filled their noggins with 3-in-1 oil and bounced around the kitchen saying, “I am the atomic powered robot. Please give my best wishes to everybody!!!” before falling over and making helpless clicking sounds.

No, we’re referring to fully automated, large-scale machines that make “decisions”, navigate lenghty and intricate obstacle courses, and deploy live weapon systems.

Which brings us to our story. In South Africa last week, an unmanned weapons platform went SkyNet during a training exercise and started firing a fully automated GDF Mk V twin 35mm cannon system with explosive rounds.

9 Soldiers were killed. 14 were wounded.

A video of a similar incident has surfaced, and there’s an eerie feeling about the way the weapons system seems to be seeking out targets. You can find the video at Gizmodo or the Wired Danger Room blog, both of which covered the story today.

When asked recently by the CEO of my company what I think the most transformative technological change will be in my lifetime, I responded without hesitation: nanotech. Nanotech will change our health care, the materials we use, our ability to get to and from space, our military capabilities, and will enhance robotics.

Robots, subsequently (or perhaps in parallel?) will be the other big deal in our lifetime. This weapons system was not yet approved, but the fact that we’re at this stage of development is telling. And this was the South African military. I have to wonder what Uncle Sam has.

China is realy T.O.ed that we’re schmoozing with the Dalai Lama. Their reasoning, as usual, is completely founded upon zero tolerance for resistance to the Communist party’s totalitarian rule, and would be laughable if it weren’t so serious:

The Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India since staging a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, is to receive the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal on Wednesday after being hosted at the White House by President George W. Bush.

“We are furious,” Tibet’s Communist Party boss, Zhang Qingli, told reporters. “If the Dalai Lama can receive such an award, there must be no justice or good people in the world.”

This coming from the country that brought you over 75 million government-sponsored deaths among its own citizenry, and that beautiful paradigm of human philanthropic achievement, the one-child policy.

Meanwhile, Russia is jumping on the angry train as Soviet Premier President Vladimir Putin warns against the use of any Soviet Bloc Country Caspian Nation as a staging point for operations against Iran. Putin was hanging out in Tehran with that bastion of diplomatic sanity, the great Ahmedinejad.

Putin has warned the U.S. and other nations against trying to coerce Iran into reining in its nuclear program and insists peaceful dialogue is the only way to deal with Tehran’s defiance of a U.N. Security Council demand that it suspend uranium enrichment.

“Threatening someone, in this case the Iranian leadership and Iranian people, will lead nowhere,” Putin said Monday during his trip to Germany. “They are not afraid, believe me.”

I agree with Putin here about the likely futility of threats against Iran, though he seems personally, intimately confident that Iran is not afraid. What’s the subtext, Komrade Putin? Have you given Tehran some additional reason not to fear us? Just wondering.

Moving on, Vienna, home to the House of Hapsburg, heirs to what remains of the notion of the Holy Roman Empire, is hosting a “divorce fair” to facilitate the dissolution of the Austrian people’s marriages with expeditious convenience:

At the October 27-28 event, would-be divorcees can consult, anonymously if they wish, a whole host of lawyers and mediators on their rights and obligations, and seek advice on frequently difficult questions, such as alimony and child access.

They can also consult experts on how best to organise their new post-married lives.

Nearly 50 percent of all marriages in Austria end in divorce — the figure is 66 percent in Vienna — and the two-day fair is being held under the motto: “Start your life afresh”. Organisers are hoping it will bloom into a twice-yearly event.

Up to 20 exhibitors have so far registered, not only lawyers and mediators, but also estate agents, life-crisis experts and — reflecting the messier side of divorce — private detective firms and DNA laboratories offering paternity tests.

The archdiocese of the city of Vienna will also have a stand, as will a company offering package holidays for freshly divorced people.

And back here in the States, a Pennsylvania woman is facing possible jail time for swearing at her overflowing bathroom toilet. If swearing at the malfunctioning plumbing in one’s own home has become a punishable offense in this country, then to borrow a question from St. Peter, “Lord, who can be saved?”

Update:

Apparently Condi is a bit worried about Russia’s attitude problems lately too. Russia, for it’s part, has produced some rather blunt opinions of Condi in response:

Ms. Rice’s criticism can be explained with the politician’s personal peculiarities. Why is Condoleezza Rice so fond of her “strict teacher” role? Is it her technique that she follows to stay in the center of political attention? The leader of the Liberal and Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), Vladimir Zhirinovsky, expressed his opinion on the matter in an exclusive interview with Pravda.Ru.

”Condoleezza Rice released a coarse anti-Russian statement. This is because she is a single woman who has no children. She loses her reason because of her late single status. Nature takes it all.

”Such women are very rough. They are all workaholics, public workaholics. They can be happy only when they are talked and written about everywhere: “Oh, Condoleezza, what a remarkable woman, what a charming Afro-American lady! How well she can play the piano and speak Russian! What a courageous, tough and strong female she is!

”This is the only way to satisfy her needs of a female. She derives pleasure from it. If she has no man by her side at her age, he will never appear. Even if she had a whole selection of men to choose from she would stay single because her soul and heart have hardened. Like Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, or Alexander the Great of Macedon Ms. Rice needs to fight and release tough public statements in global scale. She needs to be on top of the world.

This is LOL funny. Don’t drink while reading Russian news. Seriously. It hurts when Vodka comes out your nose.