New Star Wars Weapons for Navy, USAF, USA & local police!

Creech AFB recently invited a selected group to a showing of some new UAV technology. Terrorist UAV’s used against Israel, UAVs we’re using now and stuff recently off the drawing board and in production.

Here’s a special treat for our readers courtesy of Seal Beach pilot, Jerry Rootlieb. Photos and commentary of new unmanned weaponry that was shown by Colonel Chris Chambliss, Commander of the 432nd (UAS) Wing at Creech AFB were sent to Jerry by his friend Bud Kiesow.

All of the Air Force’s unmanned drones are now operated from Creech Air Force Base, 45 miles northwest of Las Vegas at Indian Springs. They used to run out of Nellis AFB and now have their own Wing at Creech AFB

Some of his comments:

-“It’s the most deadly remote controlled plane in the world.”

–“Pilots fly it like a teenager playing a video game.”

–“Airmen at Creech AFB can control the Predator drone and the second generation Reaper anywhere in the world.”

Col. Chambliss went on to say  “Since at least 2001, Predator’s have been airborne 24/7, primarily over Iraq and Afghanistan. There has never been a time since 2001 when they weren’t in the air.”

The unmanned program is so successful it’s now under the command of the Air Force. “We are going to increase the number of combat air patrols that we fly with it and the number of hours astronomically” Col. Chambliss said. This year the Predator drone will fly 75,000 hours — up 20-percent from last year.

What a different perspective on future combat roles!

Here’s some photos from the present and the future: Flight of the Extreme UAVs –  From Smallest to Deadliest

Most Famous

The MQ-1 Predator was an evolution of the earlier Gnat-750. Originally intended purely for reconnaissance, it was later armed with a single Hellfire missile. This combination appears to be extremely effective at precision strikes according to the Department of Defense, which claims a success rate of “nearly 100 percent.” Predators are used by both the Air Force and the CIA.

The MQ-9 Reaper is a scaled-up version of the Predator, larger, faster and more powerful. Reaper was designed from the outset as a hunter- killer. It can carry up to 14 Hellfire missiles or other weapons such as the 500-pound, laser-guided bombs shown. The 432nd Wing of the U.S. Air Force was activated to operate MQ-9 Reaper on May 1, 2007. Photo: U.S.Air Force

Widest Range RQ-4A Global Hawk is the Air Force’s endurance drone, able to cruise at around 400 mph for 35 hours. It has an operational ceiling of 65,000 feet, and from this altitude it can scan an area the  size of Illinois (40,000 nautical square miles) in just 24 hours. It is equipped with radar and infrared, as well as optical sensors.

Stealthiest The Joint Unmanned Combat Air System demonstration program, or J-UCAS-D, is intended to be the forerunner of the next generation of stealthy robot-strike aircraft. Its geometry and radar-absorbent materials make it difficult to impossible to spot on radar, as well as making it look “badass.” Operating from aircraft carriers, the UCAS-D could fulfill the Navy’s goal of an aircraft that can carry a payload (such as bombs) of up to 2,000 pounds, plus an extra 2,500 pounds externally when stealth is not required. A typical use would be to send unmanned drones in as a first wave to take out enemy air defenses and clear the way for manned aircraft.

Most Welcome

The CQ-10 Snow Goose is a parafoil-wing UAV for carrying medical equipment or other urgent supplies to Special Forces operating in unfriendly territory. The flexible wings are made of textile, like a parachute. The Snow Goose can be launched from the ground or from the loading ramp of a transport aircraft. Range and payload are inversely proportional; the CQ-10 can carry a 75-pound payload for 200 miles, or 500 pounds for a shorter distance depending on launch altitude and wind speed.

Most Alarming The MIRSAD-1 drone has been flown over Israel by the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah (mirsad means “ambush” in Arabic). It may be armed; Hezbollah has claimed that it can be loaded with a warhead of 40 to 50 kilos (90 to 110 pounds) of explosives, turning it into a flying suicide bomber able to reach anywhere. The Israeli Defense Force shot down two similar drones in 2006.

Toughest

The Battle hog 150 is intended to meet the Marine Corps requirement for a vertical takeoff drone capable of operating from aircraft carriers. It can fly at over 300 mph with a payload of 500 pounds, with armaments likely to include Hellfire missiles, rocket pods and 7.62-mm mini-guns. The Battle hog series is designed to be as robust as possible, being able to withstand small-arms fire from close range. The drone is steered entirely by moving the two wingtip fans, so there are no vulnerable flight controls. Image: American Dynamics Flight Systems Wingspan

The Killer Bee is part UAV, part missile. It’s intended to be deployed in ‘constellations’ of many vehicles work- ing cooperatively. These swarms can be used for either reconnaissance or for attack with up to 30 pounds of weapons per drone. The Killer Bee is designed so several can be stacked together in the cargo bay of an aircraft or in a truck, maximizing the number that can be carried.

Carrier Copter The MQ-8 Fire Scout made by Northrop Grumman is operated by the U.S. Navy and can make an automated landing on a moving aircraft carrier. Typical missions include surveillance, locating targets and directing fire. There have also been weapons tests with a Firescout armed with 2.75-inch rockets. The U.S. Army has now shown interest in having its own version.Though nine MQ-8 vehicles are in the flight-test stage, the model is not yet operational. The Navy plans to eventually have a fleet of 168. Photo: U.S.Navy

Honeywell MAV, or micro air vehicle, will be an integral part of the U.S. Army’s Future Combat System, giving reconnaissance capability to front-line troops. The small ‘Class I’ version seen here  will be back-packable. It has a planned weight of 20 pounds, and is capable of  a 50-minute mission spying on locations up to half a mile away. The vertical takeoff and hovering capability make it well-suited to the urban canyons of the modern battlefield.

This is my favorite.  Looks almost like a large moth.  A most versatile morphing micro air/land vehicle, or MMALV, is a hybrid that can fly, then land, fold up its wings and crawl around buildings or other tight spaces. The MMALV project is lead by Bio Robots, in collaboration with the Biologically Inspired Robotics Laboratory at Case Western Reserve University , the University of Florida and the Naval Postgraduate School . Photo: Richard Bachmann,  Bio Robots

The German-made Micro drone is equipped with GPS, a camera and a loud-hailer to give instructions to those on the ground, and is currently being tested by police in the UK . This type of UAV is the one you’re most likely to see hovering around your neighborhood. Its quad-rotor design is intended to make it resilient — Micro drone can return to base with just two rotors. Law-enforcement officials hope the Micro drone can carry out some of the tasks of police helicopters, but at a fraction of the cost.Photo: Micro drones

Originally used for tracking schools of tuna, the Scan Eagle drone is used by the Marine Corps in Iraq , where various versions of the model have flown several thousand hours of missions. It has a stabilized, gimbaled camera turret that can be fitted with either daylight or infrared imagers. No runway is required; instead it is fired aloft by a pneumatic launcher and retrieved by a rope-and-hook arrangement where a crane snags it out of mid-air

IF YOU WANT TO PASS THIS ON TELL YOUR EMAIL FRIENDS TO GO TO <whatsupinsealbeach.com> It will also be available in  our archives under October 2010

What have the Democrats been thinking?

The Democrats are about to get clobbered…we are told by the pundits…and they are probably correct.

1-The “Tea Party” believes, and tells any who will listen, that the Obama Administration has burdened us all with too much debt, created massive unemployment and invested money in large corporations rather than solving unemployment.

2-The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to allow unlimited donations by corporations, unions and wealthy individuals to any political cause.  Justice Andrew Kennedy said we need not worry about donators being able to hide their donations because with the advent of Internet “searching” skills….it would be impossible for donators to hide their names.

3-When George W. Bush’s Treasury Secretary . Paul O’Neill objected to new tax cuts and warned Dick Cheney that deficits of ½ a trillion dollars for 2002 he was told “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.”  ( A month later Cheney told O’Neill he was fired.)

The Democrats haven’t told their story to the people …. And so there are even more uninformed voters than usual.

ANSWER #1 – Barack Obama was elected on November 11, 2008 and inaugurated on January 20, 2009.  In the three months before he took office over three million Americans lost their jobs-the biggest such loss in history –  and Bush signed a bill for ¾ of a trillion dollar bail out in October . A bill that had to be paid by Obama.  that arguably saved most of the giants of our financial  industry who, also arguably, were directly responsible for the crisis.  Losing 3 million jobs in 3 months was a first in our history and not surprisingly a drop like that had so much impetus behind it that unemployment couldn’t be slowed down for another six months.

WHY HASN’T THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE GOTTEN THIS MESSAGE OUT?

ANSWER #2 – This year’s election has produced unconscionable amounts of money for political advertising by both Democrats and Republicans.

However, last August, the Republican National Committee had only $5 million in its coffers and was $2mm in debt.  The Democrats, also running low, were prematurely ecstatic, thinking their opponents  wouldn’t be able to generate the large donations for the last few months of TV ads they normally do.   Guess what?  The rich Republicans figured out that donations to the RNC meant their names would be made public. But if they made the same donations to 527 and 501 ( c ) (4) organizations, sometimes called “Shadow RNCs”  .. run by Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie and Michael Duncan and others, the donors names would not be known.  Present estimates are that approximately $400 million is what will be spent by these Republican organizations by November 9. (That figure does not include “regular” donations of about $350million)   Seems that Justice Kennedy was incorrect in his predictions of clarity with donations.  The money will elect Senators and Representatives who will surely have a debt to the corporations and people who  gave the money.  Such political systems have existed before in our world…and they weren’t called democracies.

HOW WOULD INDEPENDENTS REACT TO THOSE FIGURES?  HOW WILL THE SUPREME COURT ACT?

ANSWER #3-When Bill Clinton left office in 2000 there was a $3 trillion surplus.  When Barack Obama took office there was a deficit of $1.43 trillion. That’s a swing of $4.5 trillion after two terms of George Bush tax-cuts.

There is tons of empirical evidence that tax cuts don’t improve the middle class.  The majority of the Bush cuts helped the wealthiest among us more than the poorest among us.  There is also evidence that increasing taxes increases the size of the middle class…as long as the taxes are not designed to pass on to the wealthiest citizens.

Also, Obama was locked into correcting the Mother of all “Recessions” with an almost immediate commitment to another $1 trillion in domestic spending to save American jobs. Additionally nearly $700 million a year was committed to Iraq and Afghanistan.  At least we’re out of Bush’s tragic war in Iraq, and scheduled to start leaving  Afghanistan next year.

Obama got a medical care bill passed that Republicans had blocked since 1932 and every Democratic President had promised since FDR!

The rest of the industrialized world is amazed at the cost of the U.S. health care system to its citizens.  More Americans declared bankruptcy because  of health costs in their senior years than for any other cause. (Until the present loan fiasco that was corrected by the financial reform bill.)

Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, not up for reelection, has dedicated the next four years to overturning  the new health care plan and making sure the President only serves one term.  So much for “hands across the aisle.”

Obama got financial reform passed that would have avoided the terrible recession we are presently experiencing had it been passed during the Bush Administration. Already Republicans are being lobbied to soften the effects of the financial reform. Republican Congressional Leader, John Boehner, who used to pass out checks from big tobacco corporations to Republicans on the house floor, was non-committal when asked if he became Speaker would he disclose what went on in meetings with lobbyists. Of course, Mr. Boehner has received $4.5 million from donors so far this year. Including Googlel, Citigroup, RJ Reynolds.

THE OPPOSITION HAS TOLD YOU WHAT THEY WILL DO DNC – YOU MUST TELL THE PEOPLE!

Seal Beach Pony League Baseball Registration Is Now!

Baseball and Softball and T-Ball signs up soon.  50% off for military families.

Play begins on February 12, 2011 but registration begins today! Pony Baseball and Softball registration is available online at: https://sbpony.d4sportsreg.com/ until Thursday, January 20.

Skill assessments take place January 22 for Pinto, Mustang and Softball teams.

Which division is the right one for your “slugger”? Well go to: http://sbpony.clubspaces.com/pagecustom.aspx?id=17&o=473024

Ages shown are as of January 1, 2011 for girls and May 1, 2011 for boys.

Boys Baseball

-Mustang Division is ages 9-10       -Pinto Division is ages 7-8

Girls Softball

-10U Division – ages 9-10      -8U   Division – ages 7-8

Mixed Boys and Girls

-Shetland Division – ages 5-6       -T-Ball –ages 3-4

Alison Cotter is the volunteer publicity chairperson for Seal Beach Pony Baseball and Softball. She can be reached at Alison_cotter@yahoo.com

Seal Beach Pony Baseball and Softball registration is now open and available online at https://sbpony.d4sportsreg.com/ until Thursday, January 20. Skill assessments take place January 22 for Pinto, Mustang and Softball teams.

Yet another benefit comes with a walk on the Pier.

Brain’s gray matter doesn’t seem to shrink with this amount of exercise, study finds. Up and down our pier…is about 1/2 mile. So a walk in the a.m. and the afternoon equals a mile. Easy,right? Seal Beach is a town of walkers…we all know that. And new research says walking about six miles a week appears to protect against brain shrinkage in old age, which in turn helps stem the onset of memory problems and cognitive decline, new research reveals. “We have always been in search of the drug or the magic pill to help treat brain disorders,” noted Kirk I. Erickson, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and the study’s lead author. “But really what we are after may be, at least partially, even simpler than that. Just by walking regularly, and so maintaining a little bit of moderate physical activity, you can reduce your likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease and [can] spare brain tissue.” A report on the research, which was supported by the U.S. National Institute on Aging, is published online Oct. 13 in Neurology. Erickson and his colleagues began tracking the physical activity and cognitive (or thinking) patterns of nearly 300 adults in 1989. At the start, all participants were in good cognitive health, they averaged 78 years old and about two-thirds were women. The researchers charted how many blocks each person walked in a week. Nine years later, they were given a high-resolution MRI scan to measure brain size. All were deemed to be “cognitively normal.” But four years after that, testing showed that a little more than one-third of the participants had developed mild cognitive impairment or dementia. By correlating cognitive health, brain scans and walking patterns, the research team found that being more physically active appeared to marginally lower the risk for developing cognitive impairment. But more specifically, they concluded that the more someone walks, the more gray matter tissue the person will have a decade or more down the road in regions of the brain — namely the hippocampus, the inferior frontal gyrus and the supplementary motor area — that are central to cognition. And among the more physically active participants who had retained more gray matter a decade out, the chances of developing cognitive impairment were cut in half, the study found. However, the researchers stressed that the relationship between walking and gray matter volume appears to apply only to people who regularly walk relatively long distances that equal about six to nine miles a week. Walking more than the six- to nine-mile range, however, did not have cognitive benefit, the study found. “That’s because the size of our brain regions can only be so large,” Erickson said, adding that the opposite isn’t true. “So with no exercise, there can be significant deterioration and decay with age.” However, he added, “what we often tend to think of as an inevitable component or characteristic of aging — memory decline and brain decay — is clearly not inevitable. There’s plenty of evidence now, and this study is part of that, that shows that we can retain our brain tissue and retain our memories well into late adulthood by maintaining an active and engaged lifestyle.” Dr. Steven V. Pacia, chief of neurology at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, described the study’s finding as both “intriguing” and an “undoubtedly positive message to send to the public.” “My first reaction to studies like this is that only in America do we have to prove to people that it’s good to walk,” he said with a chuckle. “But it stands to reason that being active as we age is going to have a beneficial effect on the brain, just as being inactive is going to have a negative impact,” Pacia noted. “Because the brain lives in the environment of the body.” But there may be a catch. “This is just an observational study,” Pacia noted. “And while we may assume that the relationship between the brain and activity is a prevention-of-atrophy issue — just like it is with muscle and bone — this study doesn’t actually prove that. We don’t yet know enough about the use-it-or-lose-it notion with respect to brain and exercise. So we do need more research to look at that.” To find out more go to: http://www.lifelinescreening.com/health-updates/health-news/walking-may-save-memory.aspx?SourceCd=LETT-696

Mike Bubhe Picks For Council Seats- – 1, 3 and 5

Dear Seal Beach Voter –
Vote for the following candidates to help retain the unique beach town character of Seal Beach:

-Ellery Deaton Old Town, District 1
-Gordon Shanks The Hill, District 3
-Anne Seiffert Leisure World, District 5

Through my work to keep Seal Beach small by limiting Old Town to a two-story height limit, I know that these candidates will keep the village character of Seal Beach.  Please vote for them, and remember that mail-in ballots must be received by November 2, this coming Tuesday.

Each candidate must win with 50% of the vote plus one vote.
Be the one vote to put your candidate over the top!

Thank you, Mike Buhbe
miketwostories@mac.com

“It Ain’t Over yet folks” – – Slide Show Still Scheduled for Marina Center October 27.

The “Quiet General” Strikes Back..and how!

Lloyd Grove, 23 years with the Washington Post, now writing for The Daily Beast, recently interviewed retired General Hugh Shelton regarding his new book, “Without Hesitation.”

Shelton was the nation’s top military man under Presidents Clinton and Bush and while serving would never criticize (or flatter) any political leader publicly.   Well things have changed.

Succinctly the retired general says: John McCain was a “bully with a screw loose”, Al Gore was an arrogant grandstander; and Donald Rumsfeld  was a power-mad  know-it-all who wouldn’t listen to any military advice.

The 68 year old warrior served 38 years in the U.S.Army and from 1997 to 2001 as the top soldier for Clinton and Bush. He’s a staunch defender of the “Don’t Ask/ Don’t Tell” policy and says its worked for 17 years and it should continue. Regarding McCain he thought it didn’t matter if he got re-elected as a Senator since as part of a group of 100 the damage he could do was limited.

To read the entire article go to: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-15/general-hugh-shelton-on-clinton-rumsfeld-and-mccain/?om_rid=NsfafK&om_mid=_BMuE$YB8VNp1SM

Can’t Retire Yet…We’ve got good news for you!

A recent study seems to say that “use it or lose it” hits the nail on the head…so to speak….for retirees. (We all knew that..right?)

The researchers find a straight-line relationship between the percentage of people in a country who are working at age 60 to 64 and their performance on memory tests. The longer people in a country keep working, the better, as a group, they do on the tests when they are in their early 60s.

The memory test looks at how well people can recall a list of 10 nouns immediately and 10 minutes after they heard them. A perfect score is 20, meaning all 10 were recalled each time. Those tests were chosen for the surveys because memory generally declines with age, and this decline is associated with diminished ability to think and reason.

People in the United States did best, with an average score of 11. Those in Denmark and England were close behind, with scores just above 10. In Italy, the average score was around 7, in France it was 8, and in Spain it was a little more than 6.

Laura Carstensen, Director of the Center on Longevity at Stanford University found the study incredibly interesting and exciting. The two economists, Susann Rohwedder and Robert Willis, who published the  paper “Mental Reitrement” in the Journal of Economic Perspectives said that “Early retirement appears to have a significant negative impact on the cognitive ability of people in their early 60s that is both quantitatively important and causal.”

They came to this conclusion after testing retirees and non-retires from the U.S., England, and several European and Scandanavian countries. (Surprise…the U.S.scored pretty well for a change.”

Good news/Bad news- – – depending on your outlook; the sooner you retire the more likely you are to lose some of your cognitive ability.  ” In an informal manner  we are arguing that public policies that affect the age of retirement may be used as instrumental variables to generate cross-country variation in retirement behavior in order to identify the causal effect of retirement on cognition.”  (Pension variations, taxes, disability policies, etc.) http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.24.1.119

Not surprising is that not everyone is convinced. (Perhaps those striking workers in France?) At Harvard Lisa Berkman, director of the Center for Population and Development Studies said; “If you do Sudoku, you get better at Sudoku. You get better at one narrow task but you don’t get better at cognitive behavior in life.”  (So what does she know..said William Halpin of Seal Beach.)

This is a very exciting story for those of us who wonder if we’re losing it.  Maybe not?

For the entire N.Y. Times article and to see test results GO TO: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/science/12retire.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&emc=eta1

Provide a bed for a homeless person…for NOTHING!

By Kim Masoner (Save Our Beach)

Have any single use grocery bags you don’t know what to do with? I just found out what I’m going to do with mine — crocheting single use plastic grocery bags into comfy bed rolls for homeless!

So if you have any Vons, Ralphs, Albertsons, Stater Brothers, Kmart, Target, Walmart, 99 Cent Store bags, please bring them to our beach cleanup this Saturday. If you can’t make it to our cleanup this Saturday, and you do have extra bags, please email me at kim@saveourbeach.org

Remember “Beach Cleanup” this Saturday with free yoga from 8 to 9 a.m. and then the cleanup is anytime from 8 a.m. until Noon.

Here’s why I’m giving out blue marbles this Saturday thanks to United By Blue http://bit.ly/aICtS0. United By Blue clothing company picks up 1 pound of trash for every item of clothing they sell. Love the concept!

Hope to see you in the sand ~ Kim Masoner, Founder
Save Our Beach – www.saveourbeach.org

(Editor’s Note) The saving of the Chilean miners was a “feel good” story that made the whole world feel better this week.  There is such a tendency to report only the awful things that occur in our world that sometimes its depressing to pick up a newspaper.

We here at “Whats Up in Seal Beach” are just amazed at how many selfless people there are in our community willing to help others and the environment. 

Our hat is off to all of you.  Keep up the good work!  You help make this a wonderful world.

Seal Beach at 95…and at 190!

They came from near, and not so near, to help us celebrate our 95 years of “cityhood.”  And guess what.  There is a TIME CAPSULE … that is scheduled to be opened in October, 2110…and I hope some of you are still around when its opened.

Congratulations should go out to Libby Applegate and Nancey Kredell and all of our friends and neighbors who gave of their time and money to create this great idea of a Founder’s Day.  They are too numberous to name here but go to see pictures of the group:

http://sbfoundersday.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/95th-seal-beach-founders-day-parade/

We walked the streets of the town both Saturday and Sunday and everyone we saw was quite excited about what was going on.

IS THIS A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE OR WHAT?

Anyone who has photos of the day please send them to us and we’ll put them in What’s Up immediately.  Just identify the people you want to…or the dog, or the baby, or the venue.

We’re an easy touch for publicity.

Thanks again to the Founder’s Group.  You guys are great!

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