Space Dog - the other white meat ...

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai

Yang Liwei, the 44-year-old military pilot who commanded the Shenzhou Five mission in 2003, revealed the menu on-board the spacecraft in his autobiography, The Nine Levels between Heaven and Earth.

"Many of my friends are curious about what we eat [in space] and think that the astronauts must have some expensive delicacies, like shark's fin or abalone," he wrote. "Actually we ate quite normal food, there is no need to keep it a secret," he added.

He listed a menu including braised chicken, steamed fish and dog meat from Huajiang county in Guangdong, which is famed for its nutritional benefits in China.
A local proverb in the south of China is that "Huajiang dog is better for you than ginseng", referring to the medicinal root that plays a vital role in traditional Chinese medicine.

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NATO targeting Gadhafi in bombing raids

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is alive despite what a Libyan government official called a NATO attempt to kill him by bombing his compound, a government spokesman asserted in a defiant statement Monday.

"The message that was sent by NATO in the early hours of this morning was sent to the wrong address," Mussa Ibrahim said in a written statement.
The statement came hours after the sounds of loud explosions and jets pierced through Tripoli's skies and state-run TV reported that airstrikes flattened a building at Gadhafi's compound.

The airstrikes appeared to be some of the heaviest attacks by NATO in the last few weeks as the deadly fighting in Libya rages on.

Libyan state TV said military and civilian casualties resulted from the strike on the Bab el-Azizia compound.

A banner on Libyan state television cited a military source saying that the "crusaders' airstrikes" were targeting both civilian and military targets, resulting in casualties and damage.

It was unclear where Libya's longtime ruler was on Monday.
Meanwhile, despite reports that Gadhafi's forces have withdrawn from the war-torn port city of Misrata, reports of casualties there continue to mount.
Misrata is the scene of some of the deadliest battles of the war as rebels attempt to oust Gadhafi, who has been in power for 42 years.

At least 36 people were killed there on Sunday, rebel spokesman Col. Ahmad Bani told CNN Monday.


Bani says at least one Gadhafi brigade duped a group of opposition fighters on Sunday by raising the rebel flag, then opening fire when the rebels cheered and approached.
"They were happy to see them and they were clapping, and that's when the Gadhafi brigade started shooting," Bani said.

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Mullen accuses Pakistan's ISI having ties to insurgents

The US military's top officer, Adm Mike Mullen, has accused Pakistan's spy agency of having links with militants targeting troops in Afghanistan.

He said Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had a "long-standing relationship" with a militant group run by Afghan insurgent Jalaluddin Haqqani.

The comments came as he held talks in Islamabad on Wednesday. Pakistani officials are also in the US for talks.

Pakistan routinely rejects charges of collusion with militants.

The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that US officials have in the past spoken anonymously or in circumspect terms about associations between the Pakistani establishment and insurgents.

But that with this blunt statement Adm Mullen has for the first time claimed a clear link between the two, our correspondent says.

"It's fairly well known that the ISI has a long-standing relationship with the Haqqani network," Adm Mullen told Pakistan's Dawn newspaper.

"Haqqani is supporting, funding, training fighters that are killing Americans and killing coalition partners. And I have a sacred obligation to do all I can to make sure that doesn't happen."

He said the spy agency's support of the network remained at the "core ... and the most difficult part of the relationship" and that he would take it up with Pakistan's army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani.


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Satellite Mission Control Segment decommissioned

Editors note: If they are looking for a good home for the SATCOM receivers- I know of one.


SCHRIEVER AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Senior Airman Jon Mondragon, 4th Space Operations Squadron, runs a final system check prior to powering down the Satellite Mission Control Segment April 18. The legacy system was officially decommissioned in a ceremony attended by Wing leadership and 4 SOPS squadron members. (U.S. Air Force Photo/Dennis Rogers)
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by Jennifer Thibault
50th Space Wing Public Affairs

4/19/2011 - SCHRIEVER AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- In a ceremony held April 11, 4th Space Operations Squadron members decommissioned the Satellite Mission Control Subsystem and Air Force Command Post Terminal closing the door on a legacy of operations.

"Today we turn the lights off on the command and control system that has been operating the wing's secured, protected military satellite communication operations for 16 years," said Lt. Col. Douglas Schiess, 4 SOPS commander.

Through the SMCS, 4 SOPS has been operating the Milstar constellation, the Air Force's protected SATCOM system that provides warfighters global, secure, survivable, strategic and tactical communication during peacetime and throughout the full spectrum of conflict.

The SMCS and AFCPT have been providing ground control operations for Milstar since 1995. At that time SMCS was leading technology that outperformed its predecessor, the Mission Control Element. This time, the Advanced Satellite Mission Control Subsystem is taking over the lead and is providing ground control support for both the legacy Milstar and the next generation of protected MILSATCOM weapons systems, the Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellites.

"This is a huge leap forward in capability for both our operators and our end users," said Col. Wayne Monteith, 50th Space Wing commander. "We have proven this capability to provide combat effects to the warfighter much faster. This is a big day for us and it's long overdue."

The commander also recognized the wing's partners in this endeavor.

"We couldn't have done this without the great support from our partners at Headquarters Air Force Space Command, the MILSATCOM program office and the contractors who worked hard to make this transition a reality," said Colonel Monteith.

The ceremony included members outside of Mod 13, as the 148th Space Operations Squadron conducted power down of the unit's fixed constellation control station at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

Now that the equipment has been turned off, 4 SOPS members are working with local and national museum curators to find the right home for the legacy equipment.

Dead aliens do taste like chicken! Hoax alert!

RT: A video of what was claimed to be a mutilated alien corpse, which scored hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube, has turned out to be fake.
The tiny “dead alien” is just skin from chicken filled with bread, reports the website 7d.org.ua. Police questioned the men who claimed to have found the “body” and they allegedly confessed to creating it themselves.

The chief editor of the local Kabansk-Info newspaper initially thought that it was the body of an infant in the video and alerted the police. Officers immediately started the investigation and identified the alleged author.

They went to his house and asked him about the infant’s body. The scared man reportedly showed a fake alien corpse. It was even painted in “alien colors”. Scolding is the only possible punishment for such a stunt as it cannot be considered a crime, the report says.

The footage was taken near the village of Kamensk in the Russian republic Buryatia, just north of Lake Baikal, the file’s description said.
It showed what appeared to be a humanoid body less than a meter high with a skeletal big-eyed head and thin naked body. One of its legs was missing.
Emotional off-screen comments said the body was found a couple of hours before and was clearly very dead.

Local media reported there were numerous reports of UFO sightings in the area in March, some of them later attributed to bombing training at a nearby military range.
The video was uploaded on YouTube on April 14. Three days later it was translated into English and its popularity skyrocketed in the following days. It beat the one million benchmark on Tuesday.


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