North Korea flying missiles over Japan and detonating a potential 100-kiloton hydrogen bomb just turbo-charged what was already the beginning of a Southern California “Star Wars” defense boom.

The 6.3-magnitude quake on September 3 recorded near North Korea’s main testing site indicates that “Dear Respected Comrade” Kim Jong Un likely detonated a thermonuclear bomb with about 10 times more power than a 10-kiloton test carried out a year ago. Unlike fission weapons that split atoms apart to generate explosions, advanced thermonuclear weapons explode a small fission bomb to trigger an exponentially larger fusion blast.

Donald Trump campaigned on the idea that after 16 years of constant military deployments, America’s military equipment was worn out and our weapons systems needed to be replaced and upgraded. When President Trump asked Congress in March for defense increases of $30 billion this year and $54 billion next year, paid for by a 10-12 percent slash in most federal government departments, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) responded, “President Trump has shown that he does not value the future of our children and working families.”

But both President Trump and Rep. Pelosi know key components of America’s nuclear triad of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), strategic bombers, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles have reached the end of their useful life, and development efforts have been underway in Southern California for decades to upgrade triad systems and add space-based weapons as a fourth strategic defense component.

Southern California aerospace employment peaked just before the Soviet Union’s 1990 collapse, at 273,178 jobs. It then shriveled to a trough of 92,361 in 2015. But according to Price Waterhouse Consulting, “demand for new, emerging technologies – like autonomy, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, cybersecurity, robotics, advanced communications and analytics – is causing the boundaries between traditional aerospace and defense (A&D) and commercial technology companies to blur.”

President Ronald Reagan announced on March 23, 1983 that he was launching the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to protect the American homeland from nuclear annihilation by building space-based lasers to knock-out incoming Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). In the last 34 years, the United States has spent more than $239 billion (in 2016 dollars) on the effort.

The Left lampooned the SDI as a “fanciful, technologically implausible concept” and nicknamed space-based weapons systems as “Star Wars.”

President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Defense Les Aspin declared “the end of the ‘Star Wars’ era” in 1993. Then Clinton gave North Korea $4 billion as incentives under the 1994 “Agreed Framework” to refrain from developing nuclear weapons. But after North Korea sent a two-stage missile over Japan in 1998, Clinton was forced by Congressional Republicans to sign the National Missile Defense Act of 1999, committing the United States to deploying a national missile defense system.

Over the next 18 years, 26 ground-based missile interceptors have been installed at Fort Greely, Alaska, four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and 14 at undisclosed locations. Another 440 SM-3 Block I & II missile interceptors are installed on U.S. and Japanese ships. The number will rise to 440 in 2018, as Poland receives shipments.

Other big development program updates involving Southern California aerospace companies that are about to go into production include Northrup Grumman’s B-21 Third Generation Stealth Bomber and Boeing’s Minuteman IV ICBM with multiple warheads.

Breitbart News reported the SpaceX August launch of the X-37B “Spaceplane,” jointly developed by Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing’s Phantom Works. The weapons platform is America’s first hunter-killer space-based weapon system. The fleet of X-37Bs is expected to be armed with look-down 150-kilowatt Laser Weapon Systems and Rail Gun Hyper Velocity Projectiles to take out satellites. But the X-37B may also be able to take out North Korean in-flight missiles and disable their ground facilities.

Southern California aerospace revenue up-ticked in 2016 to $18 billion. The industry is now on a hiring boom, led by Aerojet Rocketdyne, AeroVironment Inc., Boeing, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, GE, Lockheed Martin, Virgin Galactic, Vulcan Stratolaunch and Elon Musk’s Space X. The “Aerospace Engineering Jobs” website lists 15 pages of openings and 300 positions. The average starting aerospace salary is $79,654 a year.

A research group analyst claims that Facebook inflates the number of people that their ads reach by millions.

CNBC reports that Brian Wieser, a research analyst at the Pivotal Research Group, claimed that Facebook has been inflating their ad reach numbers by millions in order to give the appearance of improved advertisement reach. Facebook claims that their advertisements can reach 41 million 18-24 year-olds and 60 million 25-34 year-olds in the U.S. However, according to census data, there are only 31 million 18-24 year-olds and 45 million 25-34 year-olds in the entire U.S.

When questioned about the apparent discrepancy in population numbers, Facebook stated that their advertisement numbers are “estimates” of how many users are “eligible” to see advertisements and “are not designed to match population or census estimates.”

Wieser commented on the implications of Facebook’s overestimation, saying, “While Facebook’s measurement issues won’t necessarily deter advertisers from spending money with Facebook, they will help traditional TV sellers justify existing budget shares and could restrain Facebook’s growth in video ad sales on the margins.”

Facebook’s ad reach estimation is based on a number of factors such as Facebook user behavior, user demographics, and location data collected from devices. In September of 2016, Facebook informed advertisers that their advertising metrics had been artificially inflated as Facebook was only counting videos that had been watched for more than three seconds by users, Facebook’s benchmark for what counts as an advertisement “view.”

Facebook attempted to be more transparent in their reporting of metrics in November 2016, launching a blog called Measurement FYI which shares updates on the website data collection and corrects previous data reports.

Terrorism, political extremism, and social tensions due to mass migration are Germans’ greatest concerns ahead of the federal election, according to a survey.

The annual survey by R & V insurance published Thursday reveals that at the top of Germans’ concerns was terrorism, with 71 per cent of respondents saying they were fearful of potential terror attacks, reports Die Welt.

The results of “The Fears of Germans 2017” show a marked change compared to just over one month ago when Germans responded to a similar survey, conducted by the Kantar Emnid opinion research centre, where respondents claimed that their greatest concern was climate change (71 per cent) with terror attacks in third place at 63 per cent.

The month of August saw a spate of acts of terrorism across Europe including a sword attack on police outside Buckingham Palace, a 37-year-old Algerian mowing down six French soldiers on the streets of Paris, and the Catalonia terror attacks which saw an Islamist cell of a dozen Moroccan and Moroccan-origin men commit vehicular ramming attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils, Spain.

Police: Alt-Left Extremists Committed over 2,000 Crimes at G20 ‘Welcome to Hell’ Clashes
https://t.co/FdKzNQc0AI

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 29, 2017

In total, the summer months (June to August) saw 19 attempted or executed terror attacks resulting in 27 fatalities and approximately 250 injuries across the continent.

Of next greatest concern was political extremism, with 62 per cent of Germans saying they were concerned by right wing and left wing extremists.

Left wing violence in Germany and Europe is becoming an epidemic as reports show incidents of left wing violence have far outpaced right wing violence. Senior German officials warn that Alt-Left violence has been severely underestimated and that left-extremists could be willing to kill.

Police in Germany are often subject to attack by violent leftists; in July, nearly 500 officers were injured and 2,000 crimes were committed by Antifa and other Alt-Left extremists during the G20 riots in Hamburg.

Cologne Police Reveal ‘Cover Up’ Of New Year’s Eve Rape Attacks Ordered By Government https://t.co/ucd1yUqmCM http://pic.twitter.com/QrkQAI5ucP

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 6, 2016

In a close third, 61 per cent of the citizens also fear that a further influx of migrants from the Middle East and Africa could lead to tensions between Germans and with foreigners already living in the country.

Since the start of the migrant crisis in 2015, when Chancellor Angela Merkel invited migrants from the Middle East and Africa to travel to northern Europe in unlimited numbers, the country has seen a rise in crime, sectarian violence between rival migrant groups, and sexual assaults and rapes.

Following the mass sex attacks on girls and women at Cologne Station on New Year’s Eve 2015/2016, a survey found more than half of German women no longer feel safe walking in their own neighbourhoods.

Germany is set to go to the polls on September 24th, with Chancellor Merkel expected to win a fourth term in office. In a debate between the Christian Democratic Union leader and her Socialist rival Martin Schulz, Merkel stood by her decision to allow one million unvetted migrants into the country, saying that migrants are “no threat to Germany”.

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Police are investigating a banner found hanging above a New York overpass that reads “More Dead Cops.”  The banner also bears the “circle A” brand used by Antifa activists.

Retired police Capt. John Cooney said whoever hung the sign is “ignorant,” PoliceOne.com reported.

‘More dead cops’ banner hung on NY overpass https://t.co/oRrNhDbuQ5 http://pic.twitter.com/FfNpHeonHa

— PoliceOne.com (@PoliceOne) September 6, 2017

Police found the banner hanging from an overpass on a highway near the state’s capital of Albany, New York. Someone removed the banner shortly after police received a call reporting the offensive slogan.

A “circle A” brand also appeared on the banner, police said. The mark is similar to that used by Antifa activists who carry out acts of violence at various rallies across the country, Fox News Insider reported.

“It’s absolute horror,” community resident Johnathan Falk told the local Fox News reporter. “We’re talking about people who put their lives on the line every day for strangers for not a lot of money, and they’re getting so disrespected. It’s terrible.”

As for a reaction from local police, Retired Captain John Cooney told the reporter, “We will continue to do our job and serve the citizens as we always have.”

Capt. Cooney said the legality of the banner is “murky at best,” News 10 ABC reported. He said trespassing or unlawful use of property are the likely offenses police could pursue if they find the suspects.

“It’s a waste of their time, and to be frank, to worry about the statement made on the banner today would be a waste of our time,” he concluded.

Officially, police say they are “looking into the matter.”

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.