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WASHINGTON – The Pentagon says China's military power is on the rise as it pursues more land-based missiles and attack submarines, and that the secrecy of its drive increases the risk of miscalculation. The annual military assessment was released Monday. It comes at a time of strained U.S. relations with Beijing.

The old liberals command the Church is increasingly without reservation. But the boring mush they produce doesn't attract anyone any more. [kreuz.net] "The Cloister, which young people today are drawn to, is something which the most traditional societies offer." Trappist, Father Guillaume Jedrzejczak explained on July 2nd, to the article appearing in the Catholic daily 'La Croix'. Father Jedrzejczak is the former Abbot of the French Trappist Abbey Mont-des-Cats.

Yoshinori Ishimi could hear a high-pitched whine coming from the apartment in Nerima Ward, Tokyo, he was about to enter. When he went inside, he saw black "mini-twister" clouds of flies. The last tenant had been a 60-year-old divorced man whose body was not found until a month after he had died. "Every time I encounter such scenes, I hesitate to step inside. But someone has to clean up these flats . . . and be professional about it," said Ishimi of Anshin Net, a cleaning service that is part of R-Cube Co. in Ota Ward, Tokyo. The Nerima man's...

Prosecutions Draw Attention to Influence of Witness Videos That Anthony Graber broke the law in early March is indisputable. He raced his Honda motorcycle down Interstate 95 in Maryland at 80 mph, popping a wheelie, roaring past cars and swerving across traffic lanes. But it wasn't his daredevil stunt that has the 25-year-old staff sergeant for the Maryland Air National Guard facing the possibility of 16 years in prison. For that, he was issued a speeding ticket. It was the video that Graber posted on YouTube one week later -- taken with his helmet camera -- of a plainclothes state...

What's rapid economic growth to a Democrat? Or truth? Or fairness? Hillary Clinton gave us pretty good indication of all three on May 27th, when she said: "The rich are not paying their fair share in any nation that is facing the kind of employment issues [America currently does] - whether it's individual, corporate or whatever [form of] taxation forms." She then went on to cite Brazil as a paragon of economic growth - and taxation: "Brazil has the highest tax-to-GDP rate in the Western Hemisphere and guess what - they're growing like crazy." But, as with any "fact" a...

The clear and present danger of homegrown Islamist terrorism grows weekly. Plots are coming at New York and America from every which way and at increasing speed. Hard on the heels of Najibullah Zazi's subway bomb try, the Manhattan U.S. attorney has indicted two Brooklyn men, U.S. citizens, for allegedly conspiring to abet Al Qaeda's communication needs and its capacity to detonate explosives.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Ranging from vulgar language to talk of murder, threats against senators and representatives nearly tripled in recent months as the health care overhaul sparked public anger, The Washington Post reported. House and Senate lawmakers reported 42 threats from January to March, compared with 15 in the last three months of 2009, Senate Sergeant at Arms Terrance W. Gainer said in a story posted on the newspaper's Web site late Thursday. Nearly all the threats, including at least three that led to arrests, appeared to come from people who opposed the health care bill Democrats championed and President...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Methane, a potent global warming gas, is bubbling out of the frozen Arctic faster than had been expected. Methane had become trapped in the permafrost over time and a warming climate is now resulting in its release, researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science. "The amount of methane currently coming out of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is comparable to the amount coming out of the entire world's oceans," said Natalia Shakhova, of the University of Alaska Fairbanks International Arctic Research Center and the co-author. Concerns about global warming have centered on rising levels of...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12, 2010 – Optimism is on the rise in Afghanistan, with 90 percent of Afghans reporting in a new survey that they believe their country is headed in the right direction and support the Afghan national government. Survey results released yesterday reveal a dramatic increase in confidence about the state of Afghanistan compared to a year ago, and increased support for the U.S. and NATO troop presence there. The survey – commissioned by ABC News, the BBC and ARD German television -- was conducted in mid-December, and included a random sample of 1,534 Afghan adults from all 34...

WASHINGTON – A new government report is sending a sober economic warning to Democrats trying to push President Barack Obama's health care overhaul plan through the Senate. The analysis from nonpartisan economic experts at the Health and Human Services Department concludes that the nation's health care tab will grow more rapidly under the Democratic plan senators are debating. .. In more bad news, .. warns that a new long-term care insurance plan .. "face a significant risk of failure." ..

One of the pet peeves of anthropogenic global warming skeptics is how the media and climate change alarmists like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore only address events supporting that which they conflate and abuse data to prove. A perfect example is the discussion concerning receding glaciers, as these folks will either ignore when such recession began, .. Maybe even worse, the media alarmists will always ignore information that might throw a monkey wrench into the position they’re trying to advance. With that in mind, it seems a metaphysical certitude American press outlets will ignore reports of glacial expansion around the globe, most...

Former eBay executive Meg Whitman has opened up a wide lead in the Republican race for governor, according to the latest Capitol Weekly/Probolsky Research poll. About a third of Republicans and decline-to-state voters who said they intend to vote Republican said they favor Whitman, who has a 3-to-1 edge over rival contender Tom Campbell, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner remains stuck in a distant third, with 5.5 percent of Republican support. The numbers show a significant increase in recent weeks for Whitman that reflects her prodigious spending. Already, seven months before the primary and full year before the general election, Whitman...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE WARRIOR, Iraq, July 14, 2009 – As security improves in Kirkuk, the business community has the opportunity to grow. But some small businesses still need a helping hand. Army 1st Lt. Daniel Braud takes a photo of Salar Ghazi Fauzi showcasing the new impact socket wrench he purchased for his automotive repair shop using a U.S.-issued microgrant in Daquq, Iraq, July 7, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Jason Douglas  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. U.S. forces issue microgrants of up to $5,000 to help Iraqi small-business owners build or revitalize their businesses, and they...

When historians track the beginnings of the second American Revolution, their search will take them to Morristown, N.J., just like the first time. And like the first, it will have started with a tax revolt, and anger at an unresponsive government Something is happening in this country. And it would be not only arrogant, but unwise, for our elected officials to ignore it. In the past, movements like the July 4 national Tea Parties were usually sparsely populated by libertarians, radicals and reactionaries. This movement has them too, but with a whole lot more regular folks. The crowd Saturday at...

May 5, 2009 -- Perched on the soaring Karakoram mountains in the Western Himalayas, a group of some 230 glaciers are bucking the global warming trend. They're growing. Throughout much of the Tibetan Plateau, high-altitude glaciers are dwindling in the face of rising temperatures. The situation is potentially dire for the hundreds of millions of people living in China, India and throughout southeast Asia who depend on the glaciers for their water supply. But in the rugged western corner of the plateau, the story is different, according to a new study. Among legendary peaks of Mt. Everest like K2 and...

Sixty one percent of the kids at Watsoville High (Watsonville, California) are eligible for free breakfast or lunch provided by the taxpayers but instead head off for the local convenience store or fast food joint. Still it's all our fault that they are fat. Watsonville faces a growing number of overweight children By JONDI GUMZ Posted: 02/08/2009 01:30:41 AM PST WATSONVILLE -- Too often, children in Watsonville are eating food that is not good for them, and it shows. About 31 percent of Watsonville's children are obese by age 8, and another 23 percent are overweight, a study for the...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Five years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, the US military is flagging under long and repeated deployments that have taken a toll on troops and hurt its readiness to deal with other crises. "People are tired," is the way Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, summed it up at a congressional hearing last month. The third longest war in US history -- after the Revolutionary War and Vietnam -- has forged a battle-hardened ground force with bitterly won experience in counter-insurgency warfare. But military leaders and experts say it also has left...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 31, 2007 – It will take 10 years to breed Iraq’s noncommissioned officer corps, the general who oversees training for Iraq’s security forces said today. Often described as “the backbone of the Army,” a noncommissioned officer, or NCO, is an enlisted member of an armed force who has been given authority by a commissioned officer. The NCO corps includes all grades of sergeant, in addition to corporals. “Growing an NCO corps is not a month-long deal; it’s a decade-long deal,” Army Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, commander of Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq, told online journalists and “bloggers”...

BRUSSELS (AFP) - Global warming could create tens of millions of climate refugees, although numbers are hard to predict with accuracy and the definition itself is open to debate, experts say. "According to some estimates, there are already almost as many environmentally displaced people on the planet as traditional refugees," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). "As the impacts of climate change strike home, the numbers are likely to rise considerably, possibly as high as 50 million by 2010," de Boer said on Friday on the sidelines of a meeting in...

JERUSALEM (AFP) - The Palestinian Hamas movement has grown stronger since its shock election a year ago despite Israeli and Western efforts to weaken the group, a top Israeli military commander said Wednesday. "The strength of Hamas is increasing ever since it won the election (in January 2006)," Major General Yoav Galant, who heads the Israeli southern command, told reporters. "Even if we don't like the situation, this is the situation right now." At the same time, the moderate secular Fatah party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is gradually getting weaker, he said. The Islamic Resistance Movement is building up...