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Nothing you have posted is even slightly believable to even the uneducated

You better warn wikipedia because they've got some trash up there. Also, you might want to let the US Air Force know that project blue book never existed. Sheesh, the quality of information available from the government is certainly going downhill!

But I'll give you a 6/10 for your debunking post. It contains no facts but really elicits the disbelief of the reader. It does an excellent job of maintaining the socially acceptable position of UFO debunking whilst also tying in subtle insult by association very efficiently. Unfortunately the clear close mindedness of the debunk leads the educated to recognise it's nature as pure propaganda.

But it does seem doubtful that this quality of socially engineered debunk will see you lose your job. And always remember, if you repeat a lie often enough people will believe it.

We haven't had a public breakthrough weapons technology as good as megaton nukes, since the 60's.

I don't think that is correct. The impact of precision guided munitions has already had a huge impact, and it continues to grow. The following except refers to events around Operation Desert Storm in 1992. At that time precision guided munitions were largely bombs and missiles, and a few expensive anti-tank artillery rounds. Now that capability is finding its way to more mundane artillery and mortars as well, not to mention much smaller missiles. The devices are becoming smaller, lighter, more precise, easier to use, and cheaper, so there will be a lot more of then in the future. A large strike by precision weapons could easily reverse the tide of battle in a way that nothing short of a nuclear weapon could in the past. Compared to nukes there are few drawbacks and many substantial advantages, such as not contaminating the battlefield and the fact that their use doesn't really have any of the political problem that nuclear weapons have.

IMPACT OF PRECISION WEAPONS ON AIR COMBAT OPERATIONS

We are writing a new and exciting chapter on air power--a chapter made possible in part by precision guided munitions (PGM). Air power advocates have long dreamed of a day when the weapon, platform, and willingness to use them properly would come together to make air power a decisive force. Today, those dreams are reality. One need only look back to our raids on Schweinfurt, Germany, in World War II to see how dramatically precision weapons have enhanced our capabilities over the last 50 years. Two raids of 300 B-17 bombers could not achieve with 3,000 bombs what two F-117s can do with only four. Precision weapons have truly given a new meaning to the term mass.

To shut down an industry in World War II, we were forced to target entire complexes because of the inaccuracy of our weapons; today we would need to hit only a couple of key buildings. What we historically achieved with volume we now can accomplish with precision. After all, the objective has never been to see how many bombs we could drop, but to produce results.

Precision weapons may also constitute a revolution in mobility. Of the 85,000 tons of bombs used in the Gulf War, only 8,000 tons (less than 10 percent) were PGMs, yet they accounted for nearly 75 percent of the damage. If we had wanted to, we could have airlifted all of our PGMs with just five C-5s or nine C-141s a day.2 . . . more

We haven't had a public breakthrough weapons technology as good as megaton nukes, since the 60's.

I don't think that is correct. The impact of precision guided munitions has already had a huge impact, and it continues to grow. The following except refers to events around Operation Desert Storm in 1992. At that time precision guided munitions were largely bombs and missiles, and a few expensive anti-tank artillery rounds. Now that capability is finding its way to more mundane artillery and mortars as well, not to mention much smaller missiles. The devices are becoming smaller, lighter, more precise, easier to use, and cheaper, so there will be a lot more of then in the future. A large strike by precision weapons could easily reverse the tide of battle in a way that nothing short of a nuclear weapon could in the past. Compared to nukes there are few drawbacks and many substantial advantages, such as not contaminating the battlefield and the fact that their use doesn't really have any of the political problem that nuclear weapons have.

IMPACT OF PRECISION WEAPONS ON AIR COMBAT OPERATIONS

We are writing a new and exciting chapter on air power--a chapter made possible in part by precision guided munitions (PGM). Air power advocates have long dreamed of a day when the weapon, platform, and willingness to use them properly would come together to make air power a decisive force. Today, those dreams are reality. One need only look back to our raids on Schweinfurt, Germany, in World War II to see how dramatically precision weapons have enhanced our capabilities over the last 50 years. Two raids of 300 B-17 bombers could not achieve with 3,000 bombs what two F-117s can do with only four. Precision weapons have truly given a new meaning to the term mass.

To shut down an industry in World War II, we were forced to target entire complexes because of the inaccuracy of our weapons; today we would need to hit only a couple of key buildings. What we historically achieved with volume we now can accomplish with precision. After all, the objective has never been to see how many bombs we could drop, but to produce results.

Precision weapons may also constitute a revolution in mobility. Of the 85,000 tons of bombs used in the Gulf War, only 8,000 tons (less than 10 percent) were PGMs, yet they accounted for nearly 75 percent of the damage. If we had wanted to, we could have airlifted all of our PGMs with just five C-5s or nine C-141s a day.2 . . . more

While attempting its first overseas deployment to the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, on 11 February 2007, six F-22s of 27th Fighter Squadron flying from Hickam AFB, Hawaii, experienced multiple system failures while crossing the International Date Line (or 180th meridian of longitude) caused by software errors.[230][231][232] The fighters were able to return to Hawaii by following tanker aircraft.

From wikipedia. The references are:
230 "F-22 Squadron Shot Down by the International Date Line." Defense Industry Daily, 1 March 2007. Retrieved: 31 August 2011.
231 "This Week at War". CNN, 24 February 2007.
232 Johnson, Maj. Dani. "Raptors arrive at Kadena." US Air Force, 19 February 2007. Retrieved: 9 May 2010.

This delay was "released" on Friday, I can't find anything relating to this at all. I wonder if this was spawned by Al Jazera or the like and it went viral. Can anyone find an actual official release? All I see is the same opening paragraph, political filler, but no authentic, non-repudiable source. http://www.defense.gov/releases/ http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-and-releases There was a delay for a Minuteman III test out of Barksdale but that was released on 2/28/13 for an upgrade to it systems: http://www.afgsc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123291773

$75 million will buy a little more than 3 F-16 Falcon fighter jets.

Well, then at least we could send those to Europa.

$75 million will buy a little more than 3 F-16 Falcon fighter jets.

I am not that AC but the [Citation Needed] crowd is really getting on my nerves. Google shit yourself or watch some news or read some blogs. You guys bitch about Fox News and the like spoonfeeding America drivel and FUD so why do you want me to provide you with source material? Free your own mind. Shit is getting bad out here and there's no reason to make any of it up. Since we need some awareness tho here ya go:

http://www.arnold.af.mil/sequestration/

That only refers to the civil service folks on just this one base. I am a contractor with the main contractor here, ATA, and we will be officially notified next week of our impending layoff because union contractors here can't sequester. They have explicitly said it is because of sequestration, not because the economy is bad and we have no work (quite the contrary we have a labor shortage cause the economy was picking back up but we can't hire anyone), or we are all incompetant, or whatever conservolibertarian BS you wanna pull out of your ass. I am getting laid off, precisely because the repubs in congress hate the demos soooo much that they are acting like spoiled ass brats and fucking us all over in the process. No matter how you wanna spin that, reality is the whole country is getting fucked over.

Try to call that out as lies. I'm proof.

The economics of food prices around the world isn't the only reason to abandon biofuels. The problem with biofuels is that they don't make sense from an energy balance point of view. Photosynthesis is horribly inefficient, we have solar panels that do a lot better (mandatory xkcd ). However, plants are amazing, they can gain additional energy for growth from the ground. We have found a very good way to supercharge plant growth by giving them growth enhancing energy drinks in the form of fertilizers.

This use of fertilizers to aid plant growth is the big problem. Fertilizers come from fossil fuels. Converting fossil fuels to fertilizers to be used to grow plants to be converted to fuel is a lot less efficient use of energy, land, water, etc. than just using the fossil fuels as fuel directly

Aside: this is one of the reasons I like electric vehicles. We have the technology to put them on the road today and then we only have a few large, stationary fossil fuel "engines" to focus on instead of millions of small mobile ones. /Aside

There is a wonderful article that has been written on the inefficiency of biofuels pdf warning

Methinks there is now a confusion of flaps and slats and ailerons in this conversation.

Since pilots generally do not want to bank their aircraft on takeoffs and landings, being as how most planes these days do not have wing skids, ailerons are generally in the neutral position at these times. (Or they are being used as auxiliary flaps and not as coordinated roll controllers).

NASA is going back to wing warping: an 'aeroelastic" wing fighter plane, the USAF story. Using ailerons is a constant fight against the aerodynamics of flight, and a loss of efficiency. Wing warping works with aerodynamic properties and is much more efficient.

Here, don't want to leave you without at least one citation.

"The aircraft’s low in-commission rate and high cost of maintenance were both disturbing and frustrating. The aircraft and its systems were complex and new to the Air Force, and spare parts were short. More dramatic and more important to its reputation were crashes. "

That's for the infamous F-105. Interesting article at

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj98/spr98/werrell.html

The reaper will probably become a drone.

"Probably"? It already is. Or did you mean that the F-35 will probably become a drone?

I think an air attack drone might be interesting to see. The current generation are all biased towards ground attack - Much like how the A-10 would make for a rather lousy anti-air asset, they're just not equipped to do the task.

I wasn't sure about that figure, so I went to look on the Reaper's fact sheet.

They're actually $53 million apiece. You could buy four F-16s with that.

I'm going to go cry in a corner now.

Yup. The Air Force demonstrated this about six years ago: "Raptors wield 'unfair' advantage at Red Flag."

For a Babylon 5 analogy, think of Starfurys going up against Minbari fighters during the Earth-Minbari War.

you mean like Libya? Iraq? Korean War? Check out this list

Around Lake St. Clair, from SANG

http://www.127wg.ang.af.mil/

Space launch is something that costs billions of dollars. That's why the government uses commercial companies to help them out after the government-only launch programs stagnated years ago. Who is able to "put their money where there mouth is" regarding space launch or satellite design/build/deploy? If I did then why would I be posting on /. using a TRS-80?

The "liberal Kool-Aid" comment was referring to jhoegl's post that sounded like a Democratic talking paper. Didn't mean to jump the rails but comments like that really wear me down, unfortunately they are far too common as we're inundated with commercials and talking points ad nauseam.

I stand by the fact the government's role is not to design, build, launch, and operate satellites the boosters and the launch facilities. The government's role is to to state the strategic vision of the country, put incentives in place for corporations to meet those needs (unless military specific like GPS [originally] or DSP), and get out of the way.

http://www.af.mil/information/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=96

The final F-22 was delivered this May, the production line is dead (and Mitt Romney is an idiot if he honestly thinks he's going to reconstitute it).

Shit, I hate when people who have no clue start deciding what's best to cut from other people's sacred cows...

Unfortunately, it is one of the contagions in our biological weapon program.

Just so everybody is clear. . .

Biological Weapons - (United States)

In anticipation of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, President Nixon terminated the United States offensive biological weapons program by executive order. The United States adopted a policy to never use biological weapons, including toxins, under any circumstances whatsoever. National Security Decisions 35 and 44, issued during November 1969 (microorganisms) and February 1970 (toxins), mandated the cessation of offensive biological research and production, and the destruction of the biological arsenal. Research efforts were directed exclusively to the development of defensive measures such as diagnostic tests, vaccines, and therapies for potential biological weapons threats. Stocks of pathogens and the entire biological arsenal were destroyed between May 1971 and February 1973 under the auspices of the US Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and the Departments of Natural Resources of Arkansas, Colorado, and Maryland. Small quantities of some pathogens were retained at Fort Detrick to test the efficacy of investigational preventive measures and therapies.

Factors influencing the decision to terminate the offensive biological program included pragmatic as well as moral and ethical considerations. Given the available conventional, chemical, and nuclear weapons, biological weapons were not considered essential for national security. The potential effects of biological weapons on military and civilian populations were still conjectural, and for obvious ethical and public health reasons, could not be empirically studied. Biological weapons were considered untried, unpredictable, and potentially hazardous for the users as well for those under attack. Field commanders and troops were unfamiliar with their use. In addition, the United States and allied countries had a strategic interest in outlawing biological weapons programs in order to prevent the proliferation of relatively low-cost weapons of mass destruction. By outlawing biological weapons, the arms race for weapons of mass destruction would be prohibitively expensive, given the expense of nuclear programs.

After the termination of the offensive biological program, the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) was established in order to continue the development of medical defenses for US military members against potential biological attack. USAMRIID conducts research to develop strategies, products, information, and training programs for medical defense against potential biological weapons. Endemic or epidemic infectious diseases due to highly virulent pathogens requiring high-level containment for laboratory safety are also studied. USAMRIID is an open research institution; no research is classified. The in-house programs are complemented by contract programs with universities and other research institutions.

Next Generation Bioweapons:Genetic Engineering and BW - The Former Soviet Union’s Biological Warfare Program

Despite signing the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC), it is now certain that the former Soviet Union (FSU) continued a clandestine and illegal offensive biological weapons program until at least the early 1990s. Biopreparat (a huge military program with civilian cover) was organized to develop and weaponize biological agents for BW.3 It employed approximately half of the Soviet Union‘s 60,000 workers in more than 18 BW facilities, and in the 1980s had an annual budget equivalent to tens of millions of U.S. dollars.4 Unlike the American offensive BW program (1942-69) that worked primarily with organisms that were not contagious in humans (e.g., anth

Ugh ....
Maryland - Goddard Space Flight Center
New Mexico - AF Research Lab - Space Vehicles, Sandia Labs, Los Alamos Labs
Colorado - Ball, Raytheon, etc
California - JPL, Livermore Labs and way too many others to list
Virginia - Navy Research Lab, Wallops Island
Texas - UT Dallas, Texas A&M, Johnson Space Center, many more
Arizona - Orbital Sciences Corp., GD, etc
Tennessee - Oakridge
Alabama - U.S. Space and Rocket Center
Utah -Space Dynamics Laboratory, L3
Florida - Kennedy, ATK and many more
Alaska - Kodiak Island

The space industry is spread out over the entire country. This list could go on and on. Saying it is only Florida and Texas that benefit is mildly absurd. I agree with the idea, but it isn't nearly as narrow as that.

I don't doubt this report. However, my understanding is that the point of F-22 is to conduct its engagements at long-range and avoid these close-range knife fights. If the threat gets to dog-fighting range, the F-22s have screwed up and lost their greatest advantages.

I certainly do doubt it. First of all, the F-22 has fought in many, many mock combat situations against the best pilots in the USAF and the Navy flying the F/A-18, F-15e, etc. When results are reported through reputable sources, the F-22 typically is said to get somewhere between 15:1 and n:0 kills:losses. In direct combat, they never begin beyond visual range as it's considered a waste of time. They've tried that and every plane that did it went down against the F-22 before they could do anything. Then they started them within visual range, but even then almost no one could get/stay behind the F-22s. Most reports indicate pilots either can't get or can't maintain a stable lock in any kind of reliable fashion even with the F-22 sitting plainly in front of them. In full red vs blue exercises, the F-22s primarily act as local AWACS and target pre-planned enemies. Having them act within their typical role of full-on air dominance fighters would just be a waste of time and gas.

So on the one hand, we have a dozen or more reports of exercises and full-on productions wherein the best pilots in the world flying the best planes in the world (including the battle-tested F-15e, which has NEVER been shot down in combat) with the best avionics in the world can barely manage to do any locking even when they vastly outnumber the F-22 and start in the most advantageous position possible, and on the other, we have some guy with an obvious axe to grind (the ridiculously inflated cost figures and flippant remarks about the aircraft's safety/reliability) writing an article for Wired who's quoting some magazine article that isn't even linked telling us "This key piece of gear allows pilots in other planes — including the German Typhoon — to lock missiles onto a target merely by looking at it. “We had a Raptor salad for lunch,” one German pilot quipped after using his jet’s helmet sight and maneuverability to get the best of an F-22 over Alaska."

So we're to believe that the F-15e with its advanced avionics and best-in-the-world pilots who've seen actual combat around the world gets absolutely slaughtered, but some German pilots just waltz up to the F-22, follow it around with ease, and then take a good look at it when they're ready to blow it up?

Please. The author shows his bias throughout the "article" which is actually just a re-hash of a magazine article he read and decided to "report" on for Wired once he applied his own spin. I don't see any actual numbers from this, but according to this article: http://www.jber.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123307285 the F-22s cleared all enemy aircraft from the sky. They talked about difficulties too; such as the language barriers between allied pilots. Until I see something other than some magazine article (as in, some kind of official or at least solid source), it's somebody's fantasy put to paper and regurgitated by those who either have an axe to grind (anti-war folks) or who just want ratings/readers. I don't doubt that some pilots talked some smack, but reporting that as if it has any meaning is terribly misleading at best.

But what is the cost of a large unemployed population ?

Historically, this has led to political instability and social unrest.

Conveniently, we are currently beta-testing robots to deal with those pesky problems...

Yeah it's not like we had a Space Command before or anything

From this article:

Benson said a vacancy for Giffords' 8th District congressional seat could be declared only by the U.S. House of Representatives and "not the state of Arizona."

Here is another article not so supportive of the idea. It states as follows;

However, no such precedent exists for a sitting Member of either House who has taken the oath of office, and a vacancy with respect to such a sitting Member would generally exist only by virtue of resignation, death, acceptance of an incompatible office, or expulsion.

Note that it does not say it can not be done but that it has not been done. In emergency conditions it may have to be done.

What mechanism prevents the majority party from simply declaring all opposing seats vacant?

1. A vote would have to be held for every removal. Unless the majority party had 2/3 majority they could not stop debate and the minority party could filibuster till the next election.
2. Any party who tried this would get zero seats in the next election. No party is going to do this to gain two years control because they would never be in power again.

To describe 10 million Iranians as "insane" smacks of anti-persian racism.

Could you list a few of the suicide bombings that black Americans carried out in WW2, including against the United States? Any like the Beirut bombing? - The 1983 Marine Barracks Bombing: Connecting the Dots

Iran’s End Times Documentary

It's the same kind of nonsense people said about blacks during WW2 ("They are not sane or intelligent enough to handle big equipment like tanks or planes.").

92nd Infantry Division, 784th Tank Battalion, 761st Tank Battalion , , 858th Engineer Aviation Battalion

Tuskegee Airmen

"Only if the USAF has perfected some kind of unobtanium fueled drive system. Otherwise, no."
See Dyna-Soar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-20_Dyna-Soar

The Dyna-Soar does not "boost into a new orbit" as you specified. It's a Saenger type vehicle that will barely complete one orbit once it starts to skip.
 

"No such panel of sufficient size has been noted by amateur observers - not to mention that the space a solar panel would take up is required for radiators since the skin of the drone is unsuitable."
Ahh no you are wrong.
http://www.af.mil/information/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=16639
Power: Gallium Arsenide Solar Cells with lithium-Ion batteries

No solar cell of significant size has been seen by observers, therefore there is no retractable panel of any size. Given that the bay door will be covered at least partially by radiators, that sharply limits the size of the available panel and thus the amount of power generated.
 

What else would should I expect from a six digit user.

That's the best you have? Cut and pasted crap you failed to comprehend and then a slam because of my user number? You really are a sad little man. (Or woman, or earthworm or whatever.)

"Only if the USAF has perfected some kind of unobtanium fueled drive system. Otherwise, no."
See Dyna-Soar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-20_Dyna-Soar
"No such panel of sufficient size has been noted by amateur observers - not to mention that the space a solar panel would take up is required for radiators since the skin of the drone is unsuitable."
Ahh no you are wrong.
http://www.af.mil/information/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=16639
Power: Gallium Arsenide Solar Cells with lithium-Ion batteries

So much for news for nerds... What else would should I expect from a six digit user.

You realize that in Red vs Blue combat exercises, F-22s are so dominant against F-15e aircraft (and everything else) that they don't allow the F-22s to engage BVR anymore and actually start a lot of the sorties with multiple "red" aircraft behind each F-22 to give them a chance? Most Gen4 aircraft have a very hard time locking an F-22 even if it's sitting right in front of them.

During Exercise Northern Edge in Alaska in June 2006, 12 F-22s of the 94th FS downed 108 adversaries with no losses in simulated combat exercises. In two weeks of exercises, the Raptor-led Blue Force amassed 241 kills against two losses in air-to-air combat; neither Blue Force loss was an F-22. Shortly after was Red Flag 07-1 in February 2007. Fourteen F-22s of the 94th FS supported Blue Force strikes and undertook close air support sorties themselves. Against superior numbers of Red Force Aggressor F-15s and F-16s, 6-8 F-22s maintained air dominance throughout. No sorties were missed because of maintenance or other failures, and only one Raptor was judged lost against the opposing force's defeat. F-22s also provided airborne electronic surveillance.

According to Lt. Col. Larry Bruce, 65th AS commander, aggressor pilots turned up the heat on the F-22 using tactics they believe to be modern threats. For security purposes these tactics weren't released; nonetheless, they said their efforts against the Raptors were fruitless.

"We [even] tried to overload them with numbers and failed," said Colonel Bruce. "It's humbling to fly against the F-22." This is a remarkable testimony because the Red Flag aggressor pilots are renowned for their skill and experience. Lt. Col. Dirk Smith, 94th Fighter Squadron commander, said the aggressor forces represent the most lethal threat friendly forces would ever face. http://www.acc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123041725

The F-22 is an air dominance aircraft. You don't fly F-22s against Iraq (where there's no air force) or Afghanistan (where there's no air force). You fly them against countries fielding Gen4 aircraft that could actually give F-15s some trouble. You do that because the F-22 will shoot down everything in the sky that isn't friendly before the unfriendlies know there's an enemy in the area. The F-22 is the hedge against a country using Russian, Chinese, or French built aircraft.

If you want to talk about costs, you need to look at the costs of an AIM-120D ($700,000) vs the cost of one of those Russian/Chinese/French aircraft ($40 Million - $60 Million). Add to that the cost of training a modern fighter pilot ($2.5 Million) and I'd say we're stupid to not have these things in play. The F-22 dominates anything on any drawing board anywhere in the world. With the time and expense of designing and building modern aircraft, that means we could sit by without doing any upgrades on the F-22s for the next 15 years and still dominate any airspace on the globe. The simple fact is, there isn't a nation on Earth with aircraft that can do anything but die horribly against the F-22. So let's throw our $700,000 missiles at their $50 Million planes and bring our pilots home to their families. Or we can try it your way: mass produce slightly cheaper aircraft and lose tons of them the next time we face someone with an actual air force.

The F-35 tries to do too many things. I'd be happy to see that thing scrapped in favor of more specialized (and functional) replacements, but we can't because it'd piss off everyone who put money into the program (which is just about all our allies). Typical stupid political crap. The same is said for the scrapping of the F-22. First they cut production to a fraction of what it was supposed to be, then they rolled up all the R&D costs and complained about how much each plane cost the country. That'd be like a major pharmaceutical company spending $30 Billion on R&D for a drug that cures cancer, then deciding to only make 10 pills and bitch that each pill cos

This little guy might have benefited from some body armor.

Looks like he didn't need it. He lived another 17 years after completing his mission. Incredible story; I hadn't heard it before. Thanks for the link.

Anyone who regularly consults Internet sites which promote terror or hatred or violence will be sentenced to prison

Such a law would be a joy for military recruiters. Click the links below to be put onto a French terrorist watch list!
Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines!
Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines!

I suppose the French President meant violence he does not agree with should be prosecuted. That makes more sense.

This little guy might have benefited from some body armor.

The fact that it also covers up government wrong-doing, like spying on American citizens

It is hard to understand why the government would ever engage in surveillance of American citizens, isn't it? You've got to wonder, what are they thinking? Are they stepping over the line?

And that's not all - at times it's almost like they are guided and operating according to something other than criminal law, almost as if they had a body of law that nobody else knows about that lets them do things like shoot dead large numbers of people, en masse, legally, with neither trial nor warrant. How could that be? Does Congress know about this? Does Congress approve?

The recruiter: Anwar al-Awlaki, portrait of an American jihadist CNN: Al-Awlaki threatens Americans
40 Americans Have Joined Al Qaeda Group
U.S.-educated Misunderstander of Islam pleads guilty to jihad war crimes, turns government witness

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 27, 2012

Denver: Man Arrested for Providing Material Support to a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization

Jamshid Muhtorov was arrested by members of the FBI’s Denver and Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Forces on a charge of providing and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic Jihad Union, a Pakistan-based designated foreign terrorist organization. Full Story

Baltimore: Man Pleads Guilty to Attempted Use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction in Plot to Attack Armed Forces Recruiting Center

U.S. citizen Antonio Martinez, aka Muhammad Hussain, pled guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction against federal property in connection with a scheme to attack an armed forces recruiting station in Catonsville, Maryland. Full Story

Washington Field: Man Pleads Guilty to Shootings at Pentagon, Other Military Buildings

Yonathan Melaku, of Alexandria, Virginia, pled guilty to damaging property and to firearms violations involving five separate shootings at military installations in northern Virginia between October and November 2010, and to attempting to damage veterans’ memorials at Arlington National Cemetery. Full Story

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 13, 2012

1.Tampa: Florida Resident Charged with Plotting to Bomb Locations in Tampa

A 25-year-old resident of Pinellas Park, Florida was charged in connection with an alleged plot to attack locations in Tampa with a vehicle bomb, assault rifle, and other explosives. Full Story

2.Baltimore: Former Army Solider Charged with Attempting to Provide Material Support to al Shabaab

A man who secretly converted to Islam days before he separated from the Army was charged with attempting to provide material support to al Shabaab, a foreign terrorist organization, and was arrested upon his return to Maryland after traveling to Africa. Full Story

Desert Story is regarded as the first space war (because of satellites), and after that, China got on the ball with anti-satellite weaponry to combat this, then the U.S. and China started developing space war tech. The documents on this are always interesting (U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission) (Air & Space Power Journal)

Falcone thinks he can sue TWO government entities at the same time? File this under the heading of "more money than brains". Especially since one of his targets is the DoD, which has the first, last and only word on GPS operation.

If I remember correctly, the U-2 some years ago swapped out the original engines for essentially modified B-2 bomber engines (the F-118), which cut the fuel consumption and allowed for longer flights at altitudes above 70,000 feet. I believe that with the J57 and J75 engines, the U-2 maxed out at around 73,000 feet; the F118 could probably take it to over 76,000 feet.

Correct on the engines. But the Air Force will only admit to 70,000 feet. (wink wink).

I have no idea what a TR-1 is, but the official US Airforce page still calls them U-2s or TU-2s.
http://www.af.mil/information/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=129

Maybe you are talking about NASA's versions.

I'd be more impressed if someone found a way to NOT get into space with a helium filled weather balloon.

Maintaining a constant altitude, and thus preventing the balloon bursting, would be very cool.

Happens all the time. NASA, USAF, and any number of universities and commercial entities launch zero pressure balloon all the time that use vent mechanisms and pourable ballast to maintain constant float altitude at 90k - 140k feet.

Steve Jobs sent out an email telling his employees (I was one at the time) to please vote for Obama, and contributed to the Democratic party directly to get around the donation cap for a presidential campaign.

Steve was very much a Democrat, you need to quit painting him as a Republican merely because you disagreed with his take on economics.

China was granted Most Favored Nation status under Clinton, and continued it under Bush, and now Obama, just so you can't call me as playing favorites.

If this status was revoked, 95% of imports from China would be subject to additional tariffs, which in turn could be linked to pollution controls, Carbon emissions, and labor reforms, which would tend to raise the cost of doing business in China, making it more economical to employ American workers to achieve the same results. See also: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rl30225.pdf

The U.S. is pricing itself out of certain types of labor by the artificially depressed costs of doing business elsewhere, including government subsidies. If you actually read the article, then you would have noted that the reason China's factories were able to move so quickly on the glass iPhone screens was that there was immediate Chinese government subsidy for a speculative build-out of the factory.

Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are willing to address the sacred factory cow that's protected by business interests, such as CD and DVD pressing on behalf of RIAA/MPAA member companies -- it's not just Apple. People will pay more for Apple products; they probably wouldn't pay more for another crappy movie retread of a story from the last century whgich had better actors.

-- Terry

It could easily be 500 megabits/s. What most people here seem to fail to realize is that the Global Hawk is not some camcorder with an MPEG-2 stream. The RQ-4 collects high-resolution *still-frame* imagery.

FMV streams are some video typically ranging from 1 Mbps to 10 Mbps -- i.e. they record no more and no different than a digital camcorder. The RQ-4 records National Image Transmission Format (NITF) images rather than a video stream, which might range from hundreds of MB to a few GB per image, depending on resolution, and it can collect those images at some frequency. These images are encoded with geospatial data and would probably need to be lossless. It has a high-powered, high-resolution digital camera, rather than a camcorder, not significantly different in concept than the imaging sensors employed on the U-2 or SR-71. The sensor(s) on the RQ-4, if used as robustly as possible, could very likely over-saturate even the 500 Mbps link.

This article from the actual Air Force: http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123185754 has the RQ-4 collecting 400-700 images in 14 hours. This article: http://air-attack.com/page/54/RQ-4-Global-Hawk.html claims the RQ-4 can collect 1,900 images in 24 hours. Just doing the math on that first estimate from the Air Force, 550 images at a low end of 500MB per image is still almost 50 Mbps. That's an order of magnitude lower than the 500 Mbps claim in the PDF file (which, you'll note the claim comes from the Navy, NOT from Wired). However, the numbers I used are the low estimate. At the high estimate, 1,900 images/day at 3 GB/image, you're looking at a 528 Mbps requirement. Pretty spot on.

No. Read the report:

http://usaf.aib.law.af.mil/ExecSum2011/F-22A_AK_16%20Nov%2010.pdf

This wasn't a case of extraordinary circumstances. This was calm, high altitude flight where a critical (but understood) subsystem failed.

The pilot then became distracted by the system failure possible because of oxygen deprivation, or because the emergency air control was in an ergonomically challenging location. While distracted, he became inverted (240 degree roll during descent) and didn't attempt to correct until 3 seconds prior to impact.

The ergonomic issue may be a contributing cause. but a pilot *must* be able to continue instrument scan while dealing with an emergency. Just because you're air doesn't work doesn't mean you can't still crash while dealing with that.

It's sad, but more or less understood what happened.

It was probably the JSTARS or Joint STARS surveillance planes that you read about. They use Synthetic Aperture radar to observe terrain and record the screen views which they can replay to backtrack an event. http://www.379aew.afcent.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123130660 http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htecm/articles/20060326.aspx

Yes, geeks and Linux enthusiasts at the Air Force.

I think there would be some other people somewhat upset if you just dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars on what are now tiny black bricks useless to you. Accounts, commanding officers, taxpayers, etc.

I wonder if a FOIA request would yield any information about what exactly those PS3s are doing now?

This is something that Germany was very aware of in the aftermath or WWI and run-up to WWII. Having your nations military so beholden to outside sources gives others a stranglehold over it. Of course, the same could be said for the nation's economy as a whole...

While a C-17 can't land there, the LC-130s can, the C-17s can drop cargo, which is part of what Operation Deep Freeze does.

http://www.af.mil/news/story_print.asp?id=123270536

The military is not a Constitution-free zone: The UCMJ actually makes it quite clear that they're implementing the same rules, just within a military structure.

For instance, since he's military, his trial may be in front of a court-martial, rather than in front of a civilian judge. Similarly, his right to counsel may be fulfilled by JAG rather than a civilian attorney. There are limits within military law on what a commander can do to punish somebody under their command (e.g. your CO can't just shoot you without repercussions).

You can read the UCMJ for yourself if you don't believe me:
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ucmj.htm

My family and I took a Military Space Available (MAC) flight from Hickam to Travis and back. It was an interesting experience compared to routine commercial flight. No windows (unless you got up and went to one of the doors with a window), sitting facing backwards, loud as hell, and sweating like a pig on the ground waiting to take off and then freezing my ass off in the air made it all the more confusing.

The first flight was a C130, on the flight back, we were on a KC-135 I believe. Just before take-off, one of the crew told us we would be a doing refueling operations and the flight would be about 10 hours instead of 5-6. About 5 hours later I felt a series of some of the steepest turns I ever felt in a plane and then a moment later some shaking and felt a lot of slowing down. We had touched down. If we refueled anyone, I didn't notice.

http://www.amc.af.mil/amctravel/index.asp

Here is an interview with the guy who built the airforce PS3 cluster. They haven't gotten any special privileges from Sony:

"The server runs on a Linux operating system that isn't available on the newer firmware of current systems," said Mr. Barnell. "We have to abide by the end-user license agreement like everyone else, so we're only able to use the systems as we get them."

If a Condor PS3 breaks it can't be sent in for repairs because it comes back with system updates that are unable to run Linux. After an update, it's useless in the Condor cluster.

"I have a few spares," he said. "But as they break, we'll end up removing consoles from the cluster."

It's probably not a question of who may see it, but how much it cost. The gov't (and therefore we) pay a small fortune for every one of these innovative new devices deployed. It's definitely worth while for the gov't to want to go collect a stolen unit, rather than just ordering a new one. According to the USAF, that item cost approximately $173,000

That's a single system cost with bulk discounts. An individual aircraft is much cheaper (?) at only $35,000. That's still far too much considering what's in them - your government could make substantial savings if they hung out on diydrones.com and built their own drones.

A single Raven costs about $35,000 and the total system costs $250,000. The RQ-11B Raven UAV weighs about 1.9 kg (4.2 lb), has a flight endurance of 60–90 minutes and an effective operational radius of approximately 10 km (6.2 miles).

It's probably not a question of who may see it, but how much it cost. The gov't (and therefore we) pay a small fortune for every one of these innovative new devices deployed. It's definitely worth while for the gov't to want to go collect a stolen unit, rather than just ordering a new one. According to the USAF, that item cost approximately $173,000.

I'm interested. How much is parts, how much is labor and how much is kickback?

    I'd be pretty sure the gov't would have provisions in place in case a transceiver did fall into the wrong hands. Military aircraft, vehicles, and troops, can all be subject to capture by an enemy. At that point, there is a good chance that any specialized equipment would be captured (along with their weapons, MREs, and fuel in the vehicle).

    It's probably not a question of who may see it, but how much it cost. The gov't (and therefore we) pay a small fortune for every one of these innovative new devices deployed. It's definitely worth while for the gov't to want to go collect a stolen unit, rather than just ordering a new one. According to the USAF, that item cost approximately $173,000.

    I do wonder if it was a legitimate item, or a home made knockoff that looked close enough, and the title was of the item, that the gov't believed it was a legitimate item. That still counts as far as their case goes. If you have what you say is an illegal item, and you try to sell it as that illegal item, then it's an illegal item.

    If I went on Craigslist, and offered up 10 kilos of heroin, and had photos of what looked like 10 kilos of heroin, I'd be going to jail for selling 10 kilos of heroin, and anything that may have been involved in my procurement of said item.