A Shark Nudges before it Bites or Just a perfect storm

Yesterday there was a major cyber attack on the Pentagon computer systems. Today there are no stories about it in the papers why?

China’s ambitions extend to crippling an enemy’s financial, military and communications capabilities early in a conflict, according to military documents and generals’ speeches that are being analysed by US intelligence officials. Describing what is in effect a new arms race, a Pentagon assessment states that China’s military regards offensive computer operations as “critical to seize the initiative” in the first stage of a war.

China has also cyber attacked several nations that support Taiwan and have threatened to continue until they withdraw support of the tiny nation.

The plan to cripple the US aircraft carrier battle groups was authored by two PLA air force officials, Sun Yiming and Yang Liping. It also emerged this week that the Chinese military hacked into the US Defence Secretary’s computer system in June; have regularly penetrated computers in at least 10 Whitehall departments, including military files, and infiltrated German government systems this year.

Add to that the recent activities of the Bear.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday embarked on a four-nation Latin American tour seen as sending a defiant message to the United States at the close of the George W. Bush presidency.

The tour, naval exercises off Venezuela and a visit to arch US foe Cuba, has evoked fears of renewed Cold War-style rivalry in Latin America, while attracting some ridicule from sceptics. Yet we keep buying venezuelan oil because we are forbidden by the Democrats to drill our own.

"The current level of cooperation could be broader than in the Soviet era. Latin America has already ceased to be the United States' backyard," a Russian diplomatic source told the Russian daily Kommersant.

"Now the region is following its own line, which gives Russia an opportunity to strengthen our position," said the official.

 As the stock market tanks from a combination of the Democrat sub-prime fiasco and fear of an incoming president that has stated he will raise capital gains and corporate taxes, what happens if both China and Russia dump Dollars?  and Venezuela makes the deal to stop selling oil to us and trade it instead with Russia.

And what do we have to Deal with all this fun, President Elect BO heading up what's looking more and more like a new Clinton administration. God Bless Change.

But to prove god still has a sense of humor I offer these two gems: 

Arianna Huffington looks set to cement her position as the Queen of Capitol Hill in the next few days.

The Times has learnt that the Huffington Post, her influential political website, will confirm within the next week that it has completed a $15 million (£10 million) fundraising from investors.

The money will finance the expansion of HuffPo, as it is known, into the provision of local news across the United States and into more investigative journalism. And it will ensure that Ms Huffington's influence continues to spread across the US political scene.

She is a close friend of Barack Obama, the President-elect - who, with Hillary Clinton, has posted on her site - and, at a dinner in London on Wednesday night, joked: “I only text three people - my two teenage children and Barack Obama.”

 And on the Global Warming front.

At least 200 narwhal whales in Canada's Arctic, trapped by winter ice and facing starvation or suffocation, must be culled, officials say.

Hunters from the village of Pond Inlet on Baffin Island discovered the animals trapped near Bylot Island, about 17 kilometres from Pond Inlet, on November 15.