[GEO.TV] A 5.4-magnitude earthquake on Tuesday jolted Islamabad, Peshawar, Swat, and several parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Seismic Network of the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) said in a statement.
The seismic centre reported that the epicentre was in southeast Afghanistan at a depth of 22 kilometres.
There were no immediate reports of damage from the latest earthquake.
The epicentre of the tremor was close to the site of a magnitude-6.0 earthquake that struck late Sunday night, devastating remote areas in mountainous provinces near the border with Pakistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/03/2025 00:00 ||
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[FoxNews] Elite 75th Ranger Regiment bypasses Pentagon procurement system to test drones and weapons in real time
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said U.S. soldiers are improvising with government credit cards to buy and test battlefield gear as they adapt to the exploding drone threat — as the Army shifts its long-term posture toward countering China in the Indo-Pacific.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Driscoll described how elite units like the 75th Ranger Regiment are bypassing the Pentagon’s cumbersome procurement system to test new drones, sensors and weapons in real time. At the same time, he said the Army is aligning with the Pentagon’s assessment of China as the nation’s "pacing threat," building a force optimized for the Indo-Pacific but still capable of deploying worldwide at a moment’s notice.
After a visit with the regiment at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia, on Tuesday, Driscoll said Rangers "basically just use their corporate credit card to go online and purchase things to test, and they will find what works."
"They’ll do a lot of that outside the traditional procurement process. That flexibility lets them innovate and test at a speed that’s just really hard to do in the conventional force," he added.
Driscoll described the 75th Ranger Regiment as "live G.I. Joe dolls." Watching them train in close-quarters battle, he said, you can’t help but notice their sheer size and physicality as they wedge themselves through doorways during room-clearing drills. That raw power, he added, is a reminder of why the U.S. invests so heavily in maintaining elite infantry forces.
But even America’s premier ground fighters are being forced to rethink how they operate. Driscoll said the age of slipping silently onto an objective under cover of night — fast-roping from a Black Hawk, breaching doors, and overwhelming defenders — is vanishing.
The spread of cheap battlefield technology, from drones to acoustic sensors to loitering munitions, has made stealth insertions far more difficult. "We don’t really own the night like we used to," he said, noting that night-vision gear and detection tools that were once expensive and rare are now accessible to adversaries at scale.
That shift, he argued, has turned special operators into improvisers. Rangers and other elite units are now experimenting with disposable drones, commercial quadcopters and custom-built weapons to stay ahead.
Unlike conventional forces bound by long acquisition cycles, these units have the flexibility to innovate quickly.
The idea is for Rangers to test rapidly, see what works, and then pass those lessons along to the rest of the Army.
The problem, he acknowledged, is what comes next. While small-unit experimentation is thriving, scaling those solutions across the broader force runs headlong into bureaucratic red tape.
Driscoll pointed out that Congress once gave the Army a dozen broad funding categories it could move money between — say, vehicles in one bucket, drones in another. Today, he said, there are more than 1,400 narrowly drawn "buckets," some tied to specific makes and models, making it nearly impossible to pivot quickly. That rigidity might not matter for tanks or trucks, but with drone technology evolving every few weeks in Ukraine, he said, the Army risks falling behind.
Driscoll visited the airfield just weeks after a shooting on base at Fort Stewart, where Hunter is located. He met with students of the criminal investigation division (CID), which is currently leading the probe into the shooting. Five soldiers were injured after a sergeant allegedly opened fire with a personal handgun he brought on base.
While he praised the CID’s "speed and professionalism" with the investigation, Driscoll added, "The Army wants zero of these incidents, and so we are looking at everything we can to try to ensure it never happens again."
Driscoll spoke with Fox News Digital ahead of an expected global force posture review set for late summer or early fall. That review may lead to sizable shifts in the number of troops deployed at bases throughout Europe, the Middle East or the Indo-Pacific.
Driscoll said the Army is aligning itself with the Pentagon’s assessment of China as the nation’s "pacing threat."
He emphasized that the service is designing its force to be effective in the Indo-Pacific — particularly in providing the logistics, sustainment and long-term presence needed to deter or fight a peer competitor.
At the same time, Driscoll cautioned against focusing too narrowly on one theater. "Human history has been pretty difficult to predict where the next conflict may unfold," he said, stressing that the Army must remain capable of deploying anywhere the president and defense secretary direct. That flexibility, he argued, is a defining feature of land power.
Driscoll declined to outline his full recommendations for the upcoming review but made clear one priority: counter-drone measures. "With the Secretary of Defense’s support, we are putting together plans to make a pretty aggressive investment in how to counter the threat from drones across the world and here at home," he told Fox News Digital.
In his tenure, Driscoll has kicked off the Army Transformation Initiative, a top-to-bottom modernization drive he says is essential for the Army to remain decisive against peer adversaries like China.
"If you look at what the Army was like in the late 1990s as it went into the counterinsurgency operations of the early 2000s, we really haven't changed all that much," he said.
Now, "the Army is running as fast as it possibly can to try to reinvent itself, to be ready for modern warfare."
#1
"That shift, he argued, has turned special operators into improvisers. Rangers and other elite units are now experimenting with disposable drones, commercial quadcopters and custom-built weapons to stay ahead."
The Pentagon has always been lethargic and our special operators have been doing this for ever. You really cant blame the Pentagon for their actions, they do live in DC. Their funding is being criticized by both left and right. When they experiment with a new product and it fails, both sides attack. Then the politicians bring stuff like this up and ask why the Pentagon cant keep up. Then there are all the required military testing, EMP resistant, vibration testing, ruggedizing, and on and on. In their defense they cant win. Then the political class dictates what to buy, like Graham forcing an extra 40 C130 aircraft when no one asked for them, at the expense of ground troop programs. And then there is the machine paying congress kickbacks, just how many fighter jets are in the works right now at the tune of 100 million a piece.... Rangers and the infantry are said to be the most important, but they are honestly at the bottom of the list. The air force is the best, "This is a multi-role fighter" they say. It can do ground support, they say. But when it rolls off the line its only configured for air to air, the ground support configuration gets cut in budget reviews. So the Rangers and SF folks improvise. I put a filter on a aircraft that cost $60K in R&D. Boeing tried to shut it down for theirs that was over $500K in R&D. Boeing lost...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/03/2025 11:02 Comments ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
09/03/2025 2025-09-03 00:09 ||
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[1754 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] President Donald Trump blasted the leaders of China, Russia and North Korea for 'conspiring against the United States of America' as they assembled to watch a massive military parade in Beijing.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping hosted the parade to mark 80 years since WWII, showcasing China's newest high grade weapons - including a laser which experts fear could burn out electronics or even blind pilots.
Xi's guests included Vladimir Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong Un, who arrived earlier at the historic Tiananmen Gate to watch the parade.
Putin and Kim put on a display of unity with Xi as they flanked him to make their way onto a viewing platform overlooking the Tiananmen Square. They paused to shake hands with five WWII veterans, some older than 100.
The summit was billed as an alternative to the US-led global system and was packed with displays of unity between Moscow, Beijing and Delhi, India.
Trump slammed the gathering in a Truth Social post on Tuesday night, asking Xi to 'please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America.'
He questioned whether Xi 'will mention the massive amount of support and ''blood'' that The United States of America gave to China in order to help it to secure its FREEDOM from a very unfriendly foreign invader.
[Daily Caller] THE OVAL OFFICE — President Donald Trump told the Daily Caller that he is open to bringing back insane asylums to institutionalize mentally ill individuals on America’s streets.
Daily Caller White House Correspondent Reagan Reese sat down with Trump in the Oval Office on Friday for an hour-long interview. The president spoke at length about his work cleaning up the streets of D.C., and also added that he was open to having the government reopen insane asylums, telling the Caller about how they used to run in New York.
REESE: It’s horrible. I want to get to Russia. I want to ask you another question about D.C. crackdown. Would you be open to the government reopening insane asylums for people with serious mental illness?
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/03/2025 8:13 Comments ||
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#3
About time.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
09/03/2025 8:47 Comments ||
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#4
Involuntary drug rehab. Albuquerque built a tiny house complex for the homeless. It remained virtually empty as one of the rules was no drug or alcohol. How many had mental health issues before or after drug use? My alternate position is the use the seized drugs and just let them OD.
#5
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."
Watch this movie if you ever wonder why we shut these mental hospitals down in the first place.
You think they're better off sleeping in tents on the sidewalks? And if it hadn't been for Jack Nicholson's character, those guys in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest wouldn't have had it so bad.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/03/2025 13:43 Comments ||
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#6
"Let's bring back asylums."
"Too soon!"
[a lunatic bays at the moon]
Herb: "Comrades, defend
Addicts rights to the end!"
["And Jack Nicholson's underage poon!"]
As I'm sure Abu knows, lots of the streetly-housed aren't sleeping in tents. Nothing like getting all giddy about Ruth Etting's filth-smeared star and giving leary foreigners a bit of Shaking the Blues Away, only to find them staring at a twitching foot sticking out of a pile of rags.
#7
One of the reasons for insane asylums was to keep crazy people from running around outside getting into various flavors of mischief. That part seemed to work.
[Red State] Multiple reports indicate that Donald Trump will soon announce that he is moving the U.S. Space Command headquarters from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Huntsville, Alabama. This may or may not be the main subject of the president’s 2 p.m. ET scheduled announcement from the Oval Office.
#3
I've seen this movie! Spoiler Alert:
Trump does X
Judge says No!
Trump appeals
Higher court says the President bees the President. Suck it, bitches!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
