Phyrfight Intel

From: Michael Yon

PRIVATE JASON LEE RAWSTRON
2ND BATTALION, THE PARACHUTE REGIMENT
12TH SEPTEMBER 2008

Lieutenant Colonel Joe O’Sullivan, Commanding Officer 2 PARA paid tribute to Private Jason Rawstron on the night of his death:

Early this morning C (Bruneval) Company were conducting a patrol from their base at Forward Operating Base GIBRALTAR when they were engaged by the Taliban, and in the exchange of fire Private Jason Rawstron was killed.  Jason Rawstron began his service with C (Bruneval) Company 2 PARA, and although he later moved to the Assault Engineer Platoon, it was to Bruneval Company that he returned for the Battalion’s tour in Afghanistan.  Bruneval is the Parachute Regiment’s first Battle Honour, and Jason Rawstron, like all of his friends in today’s Bruneval Company and across the Battalion, was every bit the Paratrooper of that first Bruneval Company 66 years ago; tough, resourceful, fearless under the fire that he had experienced so often and never knowing defeat.  He joins eleven other members of 2 PARA Battlegroup who have given their lives for their friends and what they have been asked to do in this part of Helmand.  Bruneval Company and all of us in 2 PARA Battlegroup will mourn Jason Rawstron and our hearts go out to his family and friends at home.  We hope that what he was, and what he and friends and his battalion stand for and have achieved in this most demanding of summers will in some small way bring them comfort at this most painful time.

Utrinque Paratus

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The first private company has successfully launched a rocket and achieved orbital velocity. The company is called SpaceX, which was started by the founder of PayPal. This along with the suborbital flights of SpaceShipOne and the creation of Virgin Galactic could signal the beginning of a new era in space flight.
I am usually on top of events like this, but I did not know about the launch until after it occurred. I fault the regular news media for failing to let lay people know what is actually going on in the world, besides how many bombs went off in Iraq.

From: IBD

Barack Obama summed up well the perversity of Democratic Party thinking when he told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly that it is “neighborliness” for Washington to hike taxes on those who are “sitting pretty.”

…It’s galling that Obama thinks his definitions of “neighborliness” and “fairness” should be codified into tax law while ignoring the possibility that others might not agree with his personal interpretation of those words. Why should Obama’s definitions carry more weight than someone who believes that being a good neighbor and being fair means supporting one low rate for everyone?

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Some in the intelligence community believed that Al Qaeda was going to release a video on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, but the site on which it was supposed to be released was hacked by some code monkeys who have decided to fight the good fight.

Via the Hindustan Times:

Western intelligence suspects two hackers who have targeted Islamicist sites before were responsible: Aaron Weisburd from Internet Haganah and Rusty Shackleford from the web group My Pet Jawa.

The fact that one of the hackers used the pseudonym Rusty Shackleford makes me smile.

Gee I wonder if the Israelis can help them “find” it. They just bought 1000 bunker-busting GBU-39 smart bombs from us. I’ll bet those GBUs are the perfect thing for digging around in the sand to help the Iranians find things. The Israelis are notoriously helpful that way. In the 80’s, without even being asked, they helped the Iraqis tear down a large building that was about to be contaminated with dangerous radiation. I think they would be willing to help the Iranians too.

From:Telegraph.co.uk

Nuclear experts responsible for monitoring Iran’s nuclear programme have discovered that enough enriched uranium, which if processed to weapons grade level could be used to make up to six atom bombs, has disappeared from the main production facility at Isfahan.

American spy satellites have identified a number of suspicious sites, which the Iranians have not declared to nuclear inspectors, that intelligence officials believe are being used for covert research.

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Great training tip. from Paul Markel     http://paulmarkel.com/

For something a little more on the lighter side, here is something that is just plain cool.

Via Wired:

One thing environmentalists failed to acknowledge when supporting new CFL light bulbs was the fact that CFLs contain mercury. Mercury is a toxin that has been proven to cause birth defects and is the reason people should not eat certain types of fish. When it comes to the environment I guess the cause is more important than the environment itself. This video shows what the environmentalism mind-set has forced on everyone: Transcript courtesy of TomCat.

From: Uncle Ted

America needs more outsiders in Washington, D.C. now more than ever. We need more tough, standup hockey moms like Governor Sarah Palin. We need more ordinary Americans to springboard from small city councils to the halls of congress and beyond. We need welders, cops, teachers, ditch diggers, business people, construction workers, secretaries, auto mechanics, and guitar slingers to come to Washington, D.C. and replant the good old “We the People” tree.

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It’s September 3, 2008 22:20 CDT.  Moments ago Governor Sarah Palin finished her acceptance speech as the Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States and all across America millions of liberals just shit themselves.

A new study out today states that the sun failed to produce a single sunspot in the past month for the first time in a century. This combined with the fact that the sun is in a hot period right now may have something to do with the warming of the earth. The universe is a vast and complicated system with everything affecting everything else. To say that we know for sure that carbon-dioxide is the only thing responsible for the warming of the earth is hubris. Change is the only constant in the universe.