A year 2000 Congressional report on the "current and future military strategy of the People’s Republic of China," by the U.S. Secretary of Defense, summarized with:

China’s rapid rise as a regional political and economic power with global aspirations is an important element of today’s strategic environment – one that has significant implications for the region and the world.

However, much uncertainty surrounds the future course China’s leaders will set for their country, including in the area of China’s expanding military power and how that power might be used.

It's common knowledge that China has been pumping large amounts of money into their military for several years now and has been working on some very high tech projects of late. Now it sounds as if China is making a move to be a front runner in the next generation of military warfare. Cyber Warfare!

Remember the shocking episode of the shooting down of an orbiting satellite with a Chinese ballistic missile, back in January of 2007. This came just months after the U.S. announced the United States 8th Air Force would become the new Air Force Cyberspace Command.

This is a serious situation for the U.S. and the entire world. It very well may be the start of a Global Star Wars build up. The building of an anti-satellite shield? A satellite defense system in space? A missile defense system set up in one part of the world to simply take out an incoming or out going missile will not work, because satellites orbit the earth, which means it could be taken out when it is over a particular country.

Chinese Cyberwar Alert!

The Air Force has been tracking aggressive cyber incursions by computer technicians in China, primarily focused toward gathering information on military network infrastructure and American trade secrets, the Air Force's cyber warfare commander said this week.

"China has put a lot of resources into this business," said Lt. Gen. Robert Elder, commander of Air Force Cyberspace Command. "China, at this point, is not interested so much in attack as they are in using the Internet to pull [industrial] data."

"They're interested in doing this in a way that they can be dominant without even having a fight," he added.

A recently-released Pentagon report on Chinese military development said Beijing is crafting an aggressive computer network operations strategy that the People's Liberation Army "sees as critical to achieving 'electromagnetic dominance' early in a conflict."

While his newly-established command is focused primarily on the defense of military information networks, communications nodes and command and control systems by "peer competitors" such as China, Russia and Iran, Elder told reporters during a June 13 breakfast meeting in Washington his cyber warriors don't see much of a threat from terrorist-initiated attacks.

"If you have a terrorist operating on their own they're going to have less capability than if they had nation-state sponsorship," Elder explained. "To seriously disrupt us, you're not going to be able to do this with a 'teenage hacker' capability."

Aside from the defense of Air Force cyberspace from would-be attackers, Elder said his command is focused on developing tactics to render adversaries' computer systems inoperable, dropping cyber bombs on enemy sensors, databases and battle management systems.

"Everything I talk about we're trying to do to an adversary we're trying to defend for ourselves," Elder said.

"We want to go in and knock them out in the first round," he added.

The Air Force formally established Cyberspace Command in November after the Pentagon-crafted Quadrennial Defense Review designated cyberspace as an emerging battlefield where American forces increasingly will have to fight in the future.

The vulnerability of networks and the disruption computer hackers can cause to a country's infrastructure was demonstrated in early May after cyber attacks on a wide range of civilian and government networks in Estonia crippled state-run banks, telecommunications companies and news organizations for weeks.

Estonian government officials allege the attacks were launched from state-owned networks in Russia, though the Kremlin denies they had anything to do with the computer assault. But the accusation raises questions about how Elder's command should respond to similar attacks against Air Force cyber infrastructure.

The service is working to develop doctrine on how to defend - and counter-attack - cyber adversaries who can potentially shield their identities or seek cover in networks that have no knowledge of the attack.

"We are looking to provide very precise effects - you want to minimize collateral damage," Elder said. "Would a civilian target be a legitimate target? Generally ... you don't go after civilian targets."

The Air Force has instituted security procedures to ensure individual workstations can't serve as gateways for an adversary into military networks, an effort Elder hopes will prompt Airmen to "recognize that this is not a safe neighborhood."

The Cyberspace Command has already begun to build its cadre of cyber warriors, drawing upon the nearly 45,000 Airmen already tasked with information technology-related duties in the service.

Air Force instructors will keep an eye out during initial training for potential cyber warriors to fill out the ranks, and Elder intends to establish a viable career path for his Airmen in hopes of keeping Cyberspace Command strong in the future.

"We're trying to get someone trained who can work on a production line who's an expert on doing their part, and over time you expand that," Elder said. "It's going to be really critical for us to be able to retain these people into continuing in the force."

ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS - Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2007

UPDATE: Aug. 29, 2007 - Chinese see military dependence on computers as weakness

UPDATE: Sept. 3, 2007 - Chinese military hacked into Pentagon

UPDATE: Sept. 4, 2007 - Pentagon: Chinese military hacked us

I am hearing from local radio news stations in the last couple of days, but nothing from the main stream media, about this SPP agreement made by the U.S., Canada and Mexico to bring the three countries into the North American Union in order to eliminate the illegal immigration issue and to attempt to secure all three countries in North America.

Some radio stations are actually debating the issue that Congress has already created a bill and that it's been signed into law, but are waiting till 2008 to spring it onto the people. However I can not find anything at all to support this report.

Where is the MSM on this one?

Controversy follows three-country accord into Canada

Kelly Patterson, CanWest News Service

To some, it is a "corporate coup d'etat," a conspiracy by big business to turn Canada into the 51st state by stealth. Others see it as a plot to destroy the U.S. by forcing it into a North American union with "socialist Canada" and "corrupt Mexico."

Its defenders hail it as a bold, visionary plan, the only way to give the three neighbours a fighting chance against the twin threats of global terrorism and robust economic rivals such as China.

Skeptics argue it's nothing but an eye-glazing bureaucratic boondoggle, with all the sex appeal of the phone book.

It is the Security and Prosperity Partnership, a sprawling effort to forge closer ties among the three nations in everything from anti-terrorism measures, to energy strategies, to food-safety and pesticide rules.

Launched two years ago by then-prime minister Paul Martin, President George W. Bush and his Mexican counterpart Vicente Fox at the so-called Three Amigos summit in Waco, Texas, the SPP grew out of concerns that security crackdowns would cripple cross-border trade.

With juggernauts such as China and India looming on the horizon, the three countries agreed they had to act fast to stay competitive. Now the SPP has grown into a mind-boggling array of some 300 initiatives, involving 19 teams of bureaucrats from all three countries.

Its stated mission is "to keep our borders closed to terrorism yet open to trade" by fostering "greater co-operation and information-sharing" in security protocols and economic areas such as product safety.

Little-known in Canada, the accord, if fully implemented, could affect almost every aspect of Canadian life, from what drugs you can access, to whether you can board a plane and even what ingredients go into your morning cornflakes.

While you may not have heard of the SPP, you may have heard about some of the controversies it has sparked: Canada's adoption of a no-fly list; negotiations to lower Canada's pesticide standards to U.S. levels; or fears the deal will lead to bulk-water exports.

Liberal party leader Stephane Dion charged Friday that, "under the veil of secrecy," Harper has let the Americans run roughshod over Canada, covertly using the SPP to impose a U.S. agenda on Canada. That's not what the Liberals intended when they signed the deal, which was meant to give Canada a stronger voice in Washington, not turn it into a pale "imitation" of the U.S., he says.

There have been many rumors bounding about with regard to the SPP. From what I have found, many do seem to be Myths, not facts. What do you think?

NASA has finally corrected the global temperature data that for years many have depending on to prove their global warming theories. Doing it quietly, with no fan fare or media attention, NASA has fixed a Y2K bug that apparently has effected the algorithm they used to generate this data and have now released the true corrected figures.

Blogger Finds Y2K Bug in NASA Climate Data

My earlier column this week detailed the work of a volunteer team to assess problems with US temperature data used for climate modeling. One of these people is Steve McIntyre, who operates the site climateaudit.org. While inspecting historical temperature graphs, he noticed a strange discontinuity, or "jump" in many locations, all occurring around the time of January, 2000.

These graphs were created by NASA's Reto Ruedy and James Hansen (who shot to fame when he accused the administration of trying to censor his views on climate change). Hansen refused to provide McKintyre with the algorithm used to generate graph data, so McKintyre reverse-engineered it. The result appeared to be a Y2K bug in the handling of the raw data.

McKintyre notified the pair of the bug; Ruedy replied and acknowledged the problem as an "oversight" that would be fixed in the next data refresh.

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events.

The effect of the correction on global temperatures is minor (some 1-2% less warming than originally thought), but the effect on the US global warming propaganda machine could be huge.

Then again-- maybe not. I strongly suspect this story will receive little to no attention from the mainstream media.

Where is the mainstream media?

NewsBusters explains it here.

Coyote Blog has more.