China's Amphibious Ready Group...

All photos via China Defense...

The thing that boils my blood the most is that they're not even trying to fake it anymore.  The Chinese are doing there very best to copy the very structure of the USMC.  In some areas they already match our capabilities.  In others they still trail...but the facts are the facts.  They are attempting to achieve parity.  This is a challenge that cannot be ignored.

Marines conduct SPIE rigging, fast roping...photos by Staff Sgt. Miguel Carrasco

Ebola is attacking America in the same way it attacked Africa!

No one is publicly saying it yet, but Ebola is going after America in the same way it went after Africa.

Note.  Ebola was late to be declared an emergency in Africa.  Public officials continue to say that Ebola is not a problem in America.

Note.  Ebola first hit in the small villages before spreading to the big cities where it became an epidemic.  In America it struck first in Dallas...a Southern city but is now in New York where people are basically stacked on top of each other.

Note.  Ebola killed medical professionals first..then ravaged the rest of society.  "Nuff said.  Its doing the same in America.  Not killing yet but its knocking our medical pros for a loop.

Ebola is attacking America in the same way it attacked Africa.  We can keep it at bay for much longer.  We can even kill it.  But before that happens we need to take it seriously.

X-Band radar delivered to Japan...

via Reuters.

The United States is damaging stability in the Asia-Pacific region by positioning a missile defense radar in Japan, China said on Thursday.
Japan, an ally of the United States, has voiced growing anxiety over China's more assertive posture in the East China Sea, where the neighbors are locked in a dispute over control of a group of uninhabited islets.
North Korea has carried out a series of missile tests this year, including two medium-range missiles capable of hitting Japan. Pyongyang has also threatened another nuclear test.
Japan's defense ministry has said an X-Band radar system was delivered on Tuesday to the U.S. military's communication facility in Kyoto in the western part of the country. It is scheduled to be fully operational by the end of the year.
"Neighboring countries pushing forward the deployment of anti-missile systems in the Asia-Pacific and seeking unilateral security is not beneficial to strategic stability and mutual trust in the region," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular briefing.
"It is not beneficial to peace and stability in Northeast Asia."

Countries should not use "excuses to harm the security interests of other countries," Hua added, describing the situation as "deeply concerning".

Sorry but I'm taking a different stance.  I don't think this has much to do with anti-missile defense, but everything to do with being able to detect Chinese stealth fighters, cruise missiles and drones.

We created stealth, others caught up and now we're having to defend against it with a poorly crafted development fighter (F-35) and anti-air defenses that are biased for action against last decades threats.


NOTE:  As Charlie pointed out ... I jumbled my information.  L-band radars are useful for detecting stealth aircraft .... time to go back to APA website and refresh my memory on these things.

This is what cops deal with...

Time to balance the scales.

I've been trashing police and the militarization that I see in their forces for at least the last few months if not the last year.  But just because I see them heading in a stupid direction doesn't mean that they don't deal with real issues.

The above video is a case in point.

Is it possible that if the cop that was providing slack to the one that approached the car didn't tackle the woman that we would see headlines blasting the fact that cops shot and killed an older woman?

Yeah we would have.

But the kicker is that this short video, at least to me, show that a shooting would have been totally justified.  Additionally the officer doing the tackling did not react properly to this situation!  He placed himself in danger and a by the book  response would have been for him to draw his weapon and fire.

Why?

Because the lady made a slashing motion...in effect she attempted to kill a police officer.  Her surviving this encounter is really an act of God and extremely restrained law enforcement.

Terror attack in NY City today?

via CNN

A man charged at four New York police officers with a metal hatchet Thursday, hitting two of them at a time of high alert for authorities concerned they might be targeted in the United States and Canada.
The suspect was hiding behind a bus shelter as if he was waiting to attack the officers, according to a law enforcement official, who said it almost appeared as if he was stalking them.
He struck one officer in the right arm and another in the head, police Commissioner Bill Bratton said. The two officers who weren't hit then shot at and killed the attacker.
The law enforcement official identified the suspect as Zale H. Thompson, who had a criminal record in California and had been discharged from the Navy for misconduct, according to the source.
The police officer who was struck in the head remains in critical but stable condition.
Authorities are looking to see if the unprovoked attack, in the New York borough of Queens, is tied to recent calls by radicals to attack military and police officers, law enforcement officials say.

Supposedly this clown has postings that link him to ISIS and other Islamic extremist.

The world is burning friends.  Don't be fooled by those that are trying to tell you that all is well.  Its anything but.

Are good Samaritans a threat to the nation?

A doctor from "Doctors without Borders" has come down with the Ebola virus after returning to New York from Liberia (I think).

The question must be asked.  Are good Samaritans a threat to the nation?  I mean seriously!  These people travel to a disease infested nation, spend a couple of weeks on the ground and then travel back to the US and put an entire city at risk!

Additionally think about our foreign policy.  God bless the dead, but we had journalists and now a foreign aid worker that were either beheaded/threatened to be that basically pushed us into aiding nations in the Middle East with a problem that they at the very least contributed to (ISIS received donations from several Arab nations...the same nations that are sitting on their hands while we do airstrikes).

If we can put travel bans on people traveling to the Middle East to fight for ISIS then certainly we should be able to ban people from traveling to nations in the middle of epidemics or in a state of war...even if they're going to render humanitarian assistance.

We've been lucky so far but luck is not a plan.  This shit will bite one day and all the "trust the science" idiots will hate the fact that they ignored their "spider sense".

NOTE:  This is part of my worse case scenario.  An Ebola patient in a major North East city.  The guy rode cabs, went to a bowling alley and rode the subway.  They better hope they're right about how this shit is spread or else NY is fucked!