Thursday, December 11, 2008




644th CBCS conducts Dragon Thunder exercise

US plays cross-strait war games

A crisis-simulation drill based on a growing Chinese military threat to Taiwan was played out this week by United States decision makers, Pentagon officials said.

The exercise, called Dragon's Thunder, was held on Monday at the Pentagon's National Defence University (NDU) even as China prepared to stage a mock invasion of the island.

Pentagon officials cautioned against reading anything into the timing of the strategy drill or into the deployment of seven US aircraft carrier strike groups worldwide simultaneously.

'Neither the deployment of carrier strike groups worldwide nor this NDU table-top exercise should be seen as sending a signal to any specific country,' said Pentagon spokesman Flex Plexico.

The US Defence Department announced on June 5 that it would deploy seven carriers to demonstrate a new navy plan for 'surging' its operations to project force.

The NDU said the scenario in the US exercises, ninth in a series prompted by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, 'specifically examined responses to an increasing possibility of military action by China against Taiwan'.

Details of the scenario and 'lessons learned' were classified, but such crisis-simulation was meant to be as realistic as possible, said NDU spokesman David Thomas.

'Participants examined the complexity and difficulty inherent in responding to a sequence of escalating tensions between China and Taiwan.'

The NDU said: 'The exercise sought to understand the full range of policy options and associated consequences available to the US to restore stability to the Taiwan Straits and surrounding region, while avoiding nuclear confrontation with China.'

Participants included Mr Rumsfeld's staff, the Pentagon's Joint Staff, the US Pacific Command, the White House National Security Council, the National Intelligence Council and the departments of State and Commerce as well as 14 members of Congress.




644th CBCS conducts Dragon Thunder exercise

ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam - This tent served as the 644th Combat Communication Squadron's base of operations during the squadron's deployment to "Guamania" as part of the Dragon Thunder field training exercise Nov. 20 here. Airmen from the 644th CBCS set up the deployed location during the Phase I exercise held Nov. 12-14. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Shane Dunaway) Download Full Image | E-mail a friend

Fort Drum Blizzard Online

17-19 named Operation Dragon Thunder. Soldiers from several units participated in the exercise, including 2nd Battalion, 15th Field Artillery Regiment; ...



Kingdom of Bhutan
Kiwi Collection, Canada - Dec 5, 2008
... to catch up with reading: a particularly worthwhile book is Facts about Bhutan: The Land of the Thunder Dragon, by Lily Wangchhuk, published in 2008. ...


InformationWeek, NY - Dec 7, 2008
To provide viable military options to the COCOMS, the Air Force Research Laboratory, Directed Energy Directorate's High Power Microwave Division (AFRL/RDH) .


Posted by George Hulme, Dec 7, 2008 01:20 PM
While it won't destroy buildings, or directly kill people, it will shut down everything in its path with a power button.
Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) bombs have been written about for quite some time, and are supposed to have been used in a number of conflicts in the past 15 years. These weapons are designed to shut down cities, as well as military communications and weapon systems, not physically destroy them.
Well, only the electrical parts.
The U.S. military already has EMP capabilities, but it looks like, based on this Air Force solicitation published in the past couple of days, that they're about to get more tactical:
Combatant commanders (COCOMS) have expressed desires for additional military options against the variety of electronic systems that are used in military, industrial, civil, and asymmetrical applications. To provide viable military options to the COCOMS, the Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate' s High Power Microwave Division (AFRL/RDH) is seeking to develop and demonstrate the capability and operational utility of a high power microwave (HPM) aerial demonstrator.
The objective of this effort is to develop, test, and demonstrate a multishot and multitarget aerial HPM demonstrator that is capable of degrading, damaging, or destroying electronic systems. For this effort, the contractor shall develop a compact HPM payload for integration into an aerial platform. The contractor shall produce five aerial demonstrators. One aerial platform without the HPM source shall be developed for a flight test to demonstrate delivery, controlability, and fusing. The remaining four aerial platforms with the integrated HPM source shall be developed for flight testing, demonstration, and HPM effects tests.
Want to cause mayhem before an invasion, or perhaps get a bright-white surrender flag waving at you before the first physical bullet is fired? Unleashing one of these over a modern city has the potential to shut down TV and radio broadcasting and receiving, car starters, home and office electronic circuitry, network routers, computers, embedded circuitry.
Want to use your cell phone? Forget it. Need an ATM? No cash for you. Dependent on a life-support system? You have a problem.
Sounds like the perfect weapon to use against any modern society. The more dependent that society is on electronics, the better.
Perhaps that's why a number of U.S. commanders believe Iran is working on a similar weapon to be used against the West.
I've got to run to Home Depot now, see if they carry gas-powered generators and have the materials to build one of these around my home.
This is if we have full blown civil unrest they can shut down your city with a EMP bomb

Solicitation Number: BAA-08-RD-04
Agency: Department of the Air Force
Office: Air Force Materiel Command
Location: AFRL - Directed Energy Directorate

Solicitation Number:
BAA-08-RD-04
Notice Type:
Solicitation
Synopsis:
Added: Oct 16, 2008 4:13 pm
PRESOLICITATION RELEASE NOTICE FOR
COUNTER-ELECTRONICS HIGH POWER MICROWAVE ADVANCED MISSILE PROJECT (CHAMP)
JOINT CAPABILITY TECHNOLOGY DEMONSTRATION (JCTD)
16 October 2008
THIS IS AN ADVANCE NOTICE. DO NOT SUBMIT PROPOSALS FOR THIS ANNOUNCEMENT. THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IS PROVIDED TO GIVE INDUSTRY ADVANCE NOTICE OF AN ANTICIPATED BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT.
Description
A. INTRODUCTION. The High Power Microwave Technologies Branch of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Directed Energy Directorate (RD), Kirtland AFB New Mexico, is seeking innovative techniques and approaches for the development of non-lethal weapons technology that targets high valued electronic systems.
Combatant commanders (COCOMS) have expressed desires for additional military options against the variety of electronic systems that are used in military, industrial, civil, and asymmetrical applications. To provide viable military options to the COCOMS, the Air Force Research Laboratory, Directed Energy Directorate' s High Power Microwave Division (AFRL/RDH) is seeking to develop and demonstrate the capability and operational utility of a high power microwave (HPM) aerial demonstrator.
The objective of this effort is to develop, test, and demonstrate a multi-shot and multi-target aerial HPM demonstrator that is capable of degrading, damaging, or destroying electronic systems. For this effort, the contractor shall develop a compact HPM payload for integration into an aerial platform. The contractor shall produce five aerial demonstrators. One aerial platform without the HPM source shall be developed for a flight test to demonstrate delivery, controllability, and fusing. The remaining four aerial platforms with the integrated HPM source shall be developed for flight testing, demonstration, and HPM effects tests. Of the four HPM prototypes one shall be used for ground tests, two shall be used for flight tests, and the remaining one shall be used as a back-up for the flight test.
Offerors will be required to have SECRET level clearances, and some personnel must be clearable for access to RESTRICTED DATA, CRITICAL NUCLEAR WEAPON DESIGN INFORMATION, FORMERLY RESTRICTED DATA, SCI, and Non-SCI.
B. The estimated total program budget for these efforts is approximately $40M over 39 months. This funding profile is an estimate only and will not be a contractual obligation for funding. All funding is subject to change due to government discretion and availability. All potential offerors should be aware that due to unanticipated budget fluctuations, funding in any or all areas may change with little or no notice.


FY09 FY10 FY11 FY12
$9M $17M $10M $4M

C. GENERAL INFORMATION. The government anticipates awarding one Cost-Plus-Fixed Fee completion effort contract, but reserves the right to award a procurement instrument best suited to the nature of the research proposal, or no awards pursuant to this BAA.
The contract award is anticipated to be unclassified. In the event the government is unable to conclude negotiations with the apparent successful offeror, the government reserves the right to conduct negotiations with another offeror. If the offeror is a large business, any resultant contract will include a subcontracting plan, which must be submitted prior to award. In addition, AFMC 5352.209-9002, Organizational Conflict of Interest Clause, will be applicable, with probable inclusion of Alternates III and VI. The successful awardee may be required to enter into a non-disclosure agreement with the AFRL/RDOS support contractor to permit administrative access to proposal and contract data. It is anticipated a DD Form 254, Contract Security Classification Specification with a classification level of Secret will be required during the performance of this contract.
Foreign-owned firms are excluded from participating. It is expected that contractors may have access to, or generate, data that is unclassified with limited distribution and/or subject to U.S. Export Control laws. Therefore, offerors will need to be certified by the Defense Logistics Information Services (DLIS) prior to award. Contact the US/Canada Joint Certification Office, DLIS, Federal Center, 74 Washington Ave, North, Battle Creek, Michigan 49017-3084 (1-800-352-3572) , or logon to http://www.dlis.dla.mil/jcp for further information on certification and the approval process. Also, DD Form 2345, Militarily Critical Technical Data Agreement, must be completed by the successful offeror and processed prior to award of a contract.
All DOE Federally Funded Research & Development Centers (FFRDCs) and DOD FFRDCs C3I Lab, Lincoln Laboratory or Software Engineering Institute may submit proposals in response to this solicitation. Other FFRDCs or contractors that propose using FFRDCs not discussed herein shall provide rationale in the proposal that research is within the purpose, mission, general scope of effort or special competency of the FFRDC and that the research to be performed would not place the FFRDC in direct competition with the private sector. Offerors must mark their proposals with the restrictive language stated in FAR 52.215-1(e). For the purposes of this BAA, the business size standard is 500 employees, NAICS 541712.
The acquisition is unrestricted, full and open competition. All firms responding to the subsequent solicitation shall state whether they are, or are not, a small business, a socially and economically disadvantaged business, an 8(a) firm, a woman-owned business, a hubzone certified small business, a historically black college or university, a minority institution, a veteran-owned small business or a service-disabled veteran owned small business. Foreign owned firms are advised they will not be allowed to participate. There will be no opportunities for foreign owned sub-contractors as well.



Jimmy Carter vs the dragon



It sounds like the plot of a preposterous B-movie: former US president Jimmy Carter is going to single-handedly slay a dragon that has been terrorising the world since biblical times.

For accuracy’s sake we may have to replace ‘single-handedly’ with ‘backed by a huge amount of money from Bill Gates and the British government’. And we’ll have to change ‘dragon’ to ‘affliction with little dragons’.

What we’re actually talking about here is the nasty parasitic Guinea worm (dracunculiasis: "affliction with little dragons") that is found in Sudan, Ghana, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria. This, says the New England Journal of Medicine, is “a plague so ancient that it has been found in Egyptian mummies and has been proposed by some to have been the ‘fiery serpent’ described in the Old Testament as torturing the Israelites in the desert”.

Carter announced last week that there were fewer than 5,000 cases remaining worldwide, and he unveiled a collaboration between his Carter Center, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK’s Department for International Development to finally slay the dragon.

“Guinea worm is poised to be the second disease eradicated from Earth, ending needless suffering for millions of people from one of the world's oldest and most horrific afflictions,” says Carter (press release). “The reduction of Guinea worm cases by more than 99 percent proves that when people work together, great positive change is possible.”

The full, horrific details of the worm are provided by the US Centres for Disease Control:

Approximately 1 year after a person drinks contaminated water, the adult female Guinea worm emerges from the skin of the infected person. Persons with worms protruding through the skin may enter sources of drinking water and unwittingly allow the worm to release larvae into the water. These larvae are ingested by microscopic copepods (tiny "water fleas") that live in these water sources. Persons become infected by drinking water containing the water fleas harbouring the Guinea worm larvae.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes that just filtering infected drinking water can eliminate the disease. Distributing filtering materials has been a key strategy, along with treating water to eliminate the water fleas. “Once we eliminate it from a particular water hole, it is gone forever,” Carter says.

As most villages have been cleaned up, the ones remaining are likely to be the hardest to deal with, hence the new push. “Our staff are having to wade through swamps, sometimes up to their necks, to reach remote villages in Southern Sudan,” Craig Withers, of the Carter Center, told the BBC.

Image: Carter slays the Guinea Worm (actually: Rogier van der Weyden’s Saint George and the Dragon, via Wikipedia).

Dragon treads warily in Nepal
Times of India, India - Dec 7, 2008
But the dragon is treading warily in Nepal. It wants to see if the Maoist government has staying power, which would justify further investment in the ...OTC:PPLB


The 'Terrorist' is no Fire-Breathing Dragon
MorungExpress, India - Dec 8, 2008
If you consider the ‘terrorist’ as a fire-breathing dragon, then one cannot negotiate. The psychoanalyst brings in a broad idea of the unconscious and ...


Toronto website slays the 'please press 1' dragon
CBC.ca, Canada - 19 hours ago
AP In Dante's epic poem Inferno, the main character has a guide, the Roman poet Virgil, to show him through the nine circles of hell. ...

The Children of The Dragon series of SF/vampire books - 7 books!
Mania, CA - Dec 9, 2008
The Children of The Dragon series is a chronicle of the Xosan, living vampires from the planet Antellus who were human but were transformed by a dragon's ...

Dragon offers free small business mentoring
Utalkmarketing, UK - Dec 10, 2008
Following the successful Small Business Week BT Business, in conjunction with Peter Jones, announce a free mentoring programme to help UK small businesses ...

Comcast Rolls Out ‘Dragon’ Chinese Tier in Boston
Multichannel News, NY - Dec 2, 2008
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 12/2/2008 2:26:00 PM Comcast has launched the Comcast Dragon Pack in Boston and Brookline, Mass., ...CMCSA

Ratings soar for 'Dragon's Den' on CBC-TV; 12th episode extends season
The Canadian Press - Dec 4, 2008
Perhaps both, judging by the one place where everything is heading in the right direction - ratings for the CBC venture-capitalist series, "Dragon's Den. ...


Sky News
Dragon out of race for Woolworths
BBC News, UK - Dec 4, 2008
Dragons' Den entrepreneur Theo Paphitis has pulled out of the race to buy parts of troubled retailer Woolworths. Mr Paphitis, who has been named among ...
Woolworths sale after Theo Paphitis of Dragon's Den says 'I'm out' Times Online
Dragon's Den star Theo Paphitis pulls out of Woolworths purchase Sunday Mirror
Dragon bows out of deal for Woolies International Supermarket News
The Bookseller - This is London
all 464 news articles »



Dragon and Goat
Daily Illini, IL - Dec 7, 2008
By Dan Dougherty The Daily Illini encourages on-topic discussion through article commenting on its articles and blogs. It is our policy not to delete any ...
America is at the crossroad of self-destruction.
Florida Times-Union, FL - 17 hours ago
I saw that the beast was like a leopard, with paws like a bear and a mouth like a lion; the dragon (neo-conservatives/neo nazis) had handed over to it his ...

TheStranger.com
The New Economy Is Delicious
TheStranger.com, WA - 17 hours ago
The old Magic Dragon space on Broadway—a Panda Express–style restaurant that always seemed to be staffed by one lonely-looking man behind a steam table—was ...
Dragon 'facing administration
Scotsman, United Kingdom - Dec 7, 2008
DRAGON'S Den tycoon Doug Richard was reported yesterday to be on the verge of calling in administrators at his venture capital data company, Library House, ...
Trutap cuts 80 per cent of staff Real Business
all 2 news articles »

Can anybody supply me with the summary of the epic "Beowulf" in as ...
eNotes, WA - Dec 9, 2008
After 15 year, a Gaet steals a cup from a Dragon's treasure, and the dragon attacks the Gaets. Beowulf and his men go after the dragon. ...

China Dragon Power to build 30 biomass plants by 2010
Reuters - Nov 21, 2008
SHANGHAI, Nov 21 (Reuters) - China's Dragon Power Co plans to build about 30 biomass power plants by 2010, with an estimated total investment of 10 billion ...





Silver Dragon Resources Inc. Issues President's Letter to Shareholders
MarketWatch - Dec 2, 2008
However, Silver Dragon has managed to secure financing at favorable terms in China, and consequently reported a $3.0 million cash balance in our third ...


Andersen Airmen hear Dragon Thunder
Air Force Link, DC - Nov 26, 2008
... Guam (AFNS) -- Andersen Air Force Base Airmen sharpened their expeditionary skills during Exercise Dragon Thunder Nov. 17 through 21 here. ...


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Sin Chew Jit Poh
Travel: Land Of The Thunder Dragon
Sin Chew Jit Poh, Malaysia - Nov 30, 2008
PRISTINE: One of Bhutan’s greatest icons is the Taktshang Monastery, or ‘Tiger’s Nest’, which is perched on a cliff. It takes about two hours to hike up to ...
Author's adventure in Bhutan
Wiltshire Times, UK - Nov 25, 2008
By Victoria Ashford » AN ENTHUSIAST in the Bhutanese culture has launched a new book after joining the King of Bhutan in the royal coronation celebrations. ...



San Diego CityBEAT
The gender dragon
San Diego CityBEAT, CA - Dec 2, 2008
By Katherine Sweetman “What if you go insane and become a dragon forever?” I ask Micha Cárdenas as she leads me through UCSD’s Calit2 building toward her ...


SpaceX Successfully Tested Draco Thruster
Slashdot - 3 hours ago
Although I understand the need for a small on-orbit engine such as Draco, I don't quite understand the point of the 'Dragon' craft, given that we already ...



SpaceX Performs Firing and Restart of Draco Thruster
Satellite Today (subscription), MD - 18 hours ago
SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft will use 18 Draco thrusters for maneuvering, attitude control and to initiate the capsule's return to Earth. ...

Posted by neverknwo at 10:26 AM

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