Secret Bases

I recently spent an idle evening flying around the world on Google Earth looking for US military bases. Here’s what I found…

• Let’s kick off with Area 51, the secret military test facility deep in the Nevada desert where alien spacecraft are rumoured to be housed. Punch these grid references into Google Earth to land on the runway…. Lat: 37°13’55.03″N Long: 115°48’11.38″W.
• How about the secret Anglo-American Airforce Base on Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean. You can even see a line of B52’s refuelling. (Lat: 7°18’52.20″S Long: 72°25’6.31″E)
• Count the Apache attack helicopters on the runway at Bagram Air base in Afghanistan (Lat: 34°56’6.18″N Long: 69°15’19.70″E)
• Check out the transport planes at the American supply base at Khana in Uzbekistan (Lat: 37°17’2.92″N Long: 67°18’47.12″E)
• Head over to Andrews Airforce base to see the giant hanger which houses Air Force One (Lat: 38°48’2.58″N Long: 76°52’44.91″W)
• Hover over the notorious Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay (Lat: 19°54’6.73″N Long: 75° 6’5.23″W)
• Count the aircraft carriers at the Norfolk naval base in Virginia (36°57’24.9″N 76°19’44.9″W)
• Big US military airfield in Djibouti, East Africa (Lat: 11°32’43.27″N Long: 43° 8’55.31″E)
• Count the fighters at the massive US Airforce base at Guam (Lat: 13°34’32.86″N Long: 144°55’21.13″E)
• Kadena Airforce base, Okinawa, Japan (Lat: 26°21’35.96″N Long: 127°46’19.50″E)
• British airfield and spy base at Akrotiri, Cyprus (Lat: 34°35’0.20″N Long: 32°59’51.54″E)
• Whiteman Airforce base, the home of the B-2 stealth bomber (Lat: 38°43’41.55″N Long: 93°33’19.51″W)

talking search engine

Strange new talking search engine from Microsoft. I don’t think so….

Iraq

Seems Bush’s Iraq strategy has been reduced to a lame plea for ideas. Here’s what The President said after a recent cabinet meeting:

"I'm open to any idea or suggestion that will help us achieve our goals of defeating the terrorists and ensuring that Iraq's democratic government succeeds".

There are no good options left for the Americans in Iraq.

It’s a total disaster.

Forget democracy, freedom and liberation for the Iraqis. It’s all about exit strategy now.

With the 2008 presidential elections looming, the only question left is how will they get out ?

James Baker, US Secretary of State during the first Iraq war and a long-standing Bush family fixer, has been recruited to come up with some answers.

In less than 5 years, the Bush Doctrine lies in tatters.

Just look at the countries fingered in the now infamous ‘axis of evil’ speech:

1. Iran – building nuclear weapons and poised to dominate in oil-rich southern Iraq
2. Iraq – broken and engulfed in a vicious civil war that threatens to ignite the region
3. North Korea – tested a nuclear weapon and armed to the teeth with long-range missiles capable of hitting Japan (the world’s second-largest economy) and, some argue, California (the world’s 10th largest economy).

Instability here we come.

Thanks, George.

Commuting

Hmmm…. I’m getting bored of commuting to an inbox.

Endless emails, too many meetings and that damn train twice a day are starting to wear me down.

Jesus will it never end.

Say I retire at 65, that gives me another 30 years of this.

Shit.