It’s unfortunate that a rapid expansion wasn’t initiated in 2001 or early 2002 but at least something is happening:

The Army’s new chief of staff said he wants to accelerate by two years a plan to increase the nation’s active-duty soldiers by 65,000.

The Army has set 2012 as its target date for a force expansion to 547,000 troops, but Gen. George Casey said he told his staff to have the soldiers ready earlier.

“I said that’s too long. Go back and tell me what it would take to get it done faster,” he said in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press during a stop in Hawaii.

This could have sparked chaos in the kingdom and the world oil market:

Police have arrested 172 Islamic militants, some of whom were being trained abroad as pilots so they could fly aircraft in attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil fields, the Interior Ministry said Friday.

The ministry issued a statement saying the detainees were planning to carry out suicide atttacks against “public figures, oil facilities, refineries … and military zones” — some of which were outside the kingdom.

“They had reached an advance stage of readiness and what remained only was to set the zero hour for their attacks,” Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Mansour al-Turki told The Associated Press in a phone call. “They had the personnel, the money, the arms. Almost all the elements for terror attacks were complete except for setting the zero hour for the attacks.”

My concern has always been that Al Qaeda has been so quiet here because they’re looking to stage attacks similar in scope. That’s why you’re not seeing single suicide bombers in shopping malls and other easily staged but relatively limited attacks. They can ramp up the impact by attacking multiple low to mid value target in a swarm attack but even that may be a last resort since it doesn’t quite offer the bang for the buck that they saw on 9/11. This strategy depletes their resources and increases their risk of exposure.

Keep an eye on JohnMcCain.com and Ankle Biting Pundits for updates and video of the announcement. I’ve seen previews of the speech and it’s impressive but I suspect most Blogs of War readers have already made up their minds about John McCain many of the other leading candidates.

It isn’t really surprising that there’s an earth-like planet out there but the fact that we may have actually found one is very cool news.

For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for “life in the universe.”

The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away. But the star it closely orbits, known as a “red dwarf,” is much smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun.

There’s still a lot that is unknown about the new planet, which could be deemed inhospitable to life once more is known about it. And it’s worth noting that scientists’ requirements for habitability count Mars in that category: a size relatively similar to Earth’s with temperatures that would permit liquid water. However, this is the first outside our solar system that meets those standards.

“It’s a significant step on the way to finding possible life in the universe,” said University of Geneva astronomer Michel Mayor, one of 11 European scientists on the team that found the planet. “It’s a nice discovery. We still have a lot of questions.”

After blogging the news for six years I’m ready and willing to get on the first rocket heading there. I’m not the only one.

Update:
It has a Wikipedia entry.

The news is breaking everywhere. Profiles can be found on CNN and Wikipedia.

Or as she would apparently say now “goes a-panderin’.”

The following took place between 4:30 and 4:35 PM.

I was returning from eating sushi with a friend and preparing to parallel park in front of my building in Houston’s Midtown when my day turned into an episode of 24. I heard a scream just as I hit reverse and looked to my left where I saw a very scary looking guy, maximum security prison type scary, grab my neighbor, punch him, and throw him to the sidewalk.

This is a very nice part of Houston but it’s surrounded by some of the not so nice parts. Still, we don’t see much violence. This area is full of sidewalk cafes and upscale shops. So this event was already a departure from the norm but it was about to get worse.

I slammed the Explorer into park, jumped out and screamed something in an attempt to break things up. The attacker kept going, I didn’t want to get into this fight but the attacker’s buddy was moving in now and it was obvious that I was going to have to.

My neighbor didn’t stand a chance and he was getting pushed down the sidewalk. I decided to sprint for the attacker’s back and try to spear him and put him down when my neighbor, arms and legs bloodied, came up in a perfect shooting stance with a .380. He was amped and screaming “Don’t fu*king do it..back away” and I was in the middle of it.

I didn’t know what started this fight and I don’t know my neighbor well enough to be comfortable with him going Jack Bauer in my presence so I had a whole lot of factors to weigh and decisions to make in those few seconds. All of this occurred in about 15-20 seconds so there wasn’t a lot of time to think. My neighbor didn’t seem like a threat so I decided to hold my ground and try to be a voice of reason or at least a witness. I told the attacker that he was going to get shot, that he should leave, that police were on their way but he wasn’t budging. The whole thing was way more intense than I can convey in this blog post.

Now it’s bad enough that my parking attempt has turned into a primetime crime drama but the fact that the attacker and his buddy aren’t running scared is quickly making the entire episode turn much worse. My neighbor is still in his shooting stance and telling the guy to leave but he remains about 10 feet away, he’s very agitated, and talking trash. He’s screaming “You won’t shoot me pu**y” and acting like he’s going to charge. Meanwhile I’m screaming at him, my neighbor is screaming at him, and his buddy has taken my advice and left. Overall this isn’t going well.

Eventually the attacker backs across the street. My neighbor lowers his gun but the conversation between the two is ongoing and extremely heated. I asked my neighbor if he was licensed (he is) and then told him not to shoot the attacker as he was leaving since that seemed like a possibility. I didn’t want his fear and anger to get him into trouble. It’s generally not a good idea to shoot bad guys in retreat. Unfortunately, our bad guy wasn’t in full retreat.

Just when it seemed like the guy was going to leave he decided to charge back across the street. I was fearing for my safety at that point so I tried to get out of the way but he headed straight for my neighbor. The gun came back up and my neighbor retreated as far as he could. His back was to the building and I think we were both terrified at that point. When you’re facing an unarmed attacker who will charge a man with a gun there’s good reason to be scared. More screaming again as my neighbor is telling him “I fear for my safety - I will shoot you.” I fully expected and braced for the shot but the attacker retreated at the last minute. Another foot and he would have been a dead man. Most people, me included, would probably have shot him during the second charge but my neighbor gave this guy every opportunity to walk away.

The attacker didn’t retreat far though. He crossed the three lane street and grabbed a large rock. I saw this and, given the events so far, expected him to charge back and come back with it rather than throw it. I told my neighbor, the gun came up again, but the rock hit a parked car where it inflicted quite a bit of damage.

Luckily that was the end of it. Well, not the end. The attacker ran off and police (quite a few police) rolled up a couple of minutes later. One of the police officers who lives in our building was first on scene (off-duty) and he coordinated the search for the attackers. The police gave my neighbor surprisingly little trouble but there were also plenty of witnesses praising him for his restraint. Almost to a man the officers we talked to said that in the same situation they would have used deadly force. It would have been justified at almost any point but the second charge by the attacker made it a no-brainer.

I didn’t find out was provoked the attack until later. My neighbor had seen the attacker and his buddy mugging another man, yelled out his window for them to stop, and called 911. While he was on the phone to the dispatcher they moved out of view and he walked out to the sidewalk to see if he could determine their direction of travel for the police. Unfortunately, they hadn’t moved far and they immediately attacked him instead.

Two weeks after obtaining his Texas Concealed Carry License and I’d say he did quite well. He has only has minor cuts and bruises, nobody is dead, the initial victim was able to run away, and I didn’t have to get in there and scrap with these thugs in what would have been one hella ugly brawl. Whoever trained him did one hell of a job. I know this story won’t change any minds but sometimes the system works in favor of the good guys. I got to witness that firsthand this afternoon.

 
AirShowBuzz has posted a great video of Blue Angel 6:

AirShowBuzz cut this promo together for the movie “Flyboys”. In it, LCDR Kevin “Kojack” Davis, took the star of the film James Franko for the ride of a lifetime in a “Blue Angel” jet. Listen to “Kojack’s” soothing voice as he is flying upside down over the water. Kevin is a natural aviator who will be sorely missed by all.

Go watch.

When your business is tanking because you’re producing crap and failed to embrace an obvious technological revolution you can either take a good look in the mirror and start fixing things or sue your customers. The RIAA chose to sue their customers, and their customer’s parents, and their customer’s children, and even their customer’s grandparents. These people will sue the family pet if they can find a paw print on the keyboard. Hell, they’ll even sue you if you’re dead. I guess it isn’t surprising that they’re going after college students:

Another round of threatening letters is on its way to suspected music pirates at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, with 19 more students accused of illegally downloading music, the university said Friday.

It’s the third batch of students targeted at the university, bringing the total number to 80.

The Recording Industry Association of America filed “John Doe” lawsuits against five UNL students last week, alleging copyright infringement. Those five students have not been identified, and university lawyer John Wiltse told Nebraska regents at their Friday meeting that the alleged violators will not be identified unless the recording industry obtains a subpoena.

Otherwise, the process is fairly anonymous. The recording industry group’s letters are sent to the university, asking officials to pass them along to alleged offenders.

The thing to do, if you’re not a fan of these tactics, is to hold on to your money or at least spend it wisely. I’m a big fan of companies like Magnatune and eMusic which have looked for creative solutions and developed business models that are both artist and consumer friendly.

Related:
Slashdot - Safeguards For RIAA Hard Drive Inspection
EFF: Let the Music Play

In most countries that’s optional but Russia is more ambitious than that:

At their first meeting with journalists since taking over Russia’s largest independent radio news network, the managers had startling news of their own: from now on, they said, at least 50 percent of the reports about Russia must be “positive.”

In addition, opposition leaders could not be mentioned on the air and the United States was to be portrayed as an enemy, journalists employed by the network, Russian News Service, say they were told by the new managers, who are allies of the Kremlin.

So they’re going to mirror CNN’s programming? I guess they’re not out for ratings with this initiative.