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[...] I don't know if Boomers have passive sonar as good as that of an attack submarine, but it's probably pretty close. All this incident proves is that the engineers did their jobs well and made the sub nearly undetectable by passive means.

Even if they had the same Sonar suite / processing power, the end result would be that, all else being equal, the Boomer (missile sub) would have a better detection range than the attack sub, simply because the reactor would be optimized for noise, not speed.

the attack sub has need for speed transients (peak speeds inthe 35+ knots range), the boomer has not. Since detection by Active Sonar suites (Surface combatants and such, active sonobuoys etc) is an issue, the attack sub is preferably as small as possible, which denies it installing bulky noise reduction equipment, like a larger reactor cooling system which avoids the need for pumps.
As for spreading the boomers out, as elsewhere in history, geography dictates to history: even if the range is in the 4.000 nautical miles range, the areas that cover for example Iran and most of russia at the same time is not infinite, so depending on the strategic contingency planning (north Korea anyone?), the ocean can get smaller than it looks from space.

Now, if the President *wants* to hide, he goes to a secure bunker somewhere where the radio waves don't shine, somewhere that even the sneakiest guy with an antenna can't get within ten miles of.

The Raven Rock AJCC is a Terminator 3-eqsue hollow mountain complex about 60 miles north of DC outside of Emmitsburg, MD -- a little further up the Catoctins from Camp David. Cheney was moved there during the 9/11 attacks, and Bush II was routinely moved through there from time to time as well.

if i recall correctly, and i probably don't, this was the source: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32170.pdf

... will cause a chain reaction causing the atmosphere to ignite and destroy all life on the planet.

There's always some crackpot who thinks an experiment is going to end the world.

If the fallout is hot enough to kill a large number of people, it's hot enough to completely degrade within hours to months. The only place you're going to find those sorts of materials is inside a live reactor.

You don't need to kill a large amount of people instantly. You just need to contaminate an area sufficiently to raise the risk of cancer enough that no one wants to live there. A chunk of Cesium or cobalt, as found in medical applications or food irradiation plants, would be sufficient.

And, under the current law and the August 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review ruling, it is explicitly legal.

The FISA Amendments Act of 2008, passed by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress, allows for foreign intelligence collection on non-US Persons without a warrant, no matter where the collection occurs. The longstanding Smith v. Maryland, 442 US 735 (1979), allows for the collection of communications metadata, i.e., "to" and "from" information, without a warrant. The FISC ruling explicitly finds legal such collection under the now-sunset Protect America Act and, thus, the current FISA Amendments Act of 2008.

In order to determine which traffic content may be collected for foreign intelligence purposes, the traffic metadata must be examined. Even when a target in question is a specific non-US Person of foreign intelligence interest, traffic metadata must first be examined in order to target that person! Because examining traffic metadata was found explicitly legal and Constitutional three decades ago by the United States Supreme Court, doing so in order to target legitimate foreign intelligence collection is allowable under the law.

The major issues for foreign SIGINT were twofold:

- A lot of traffic is now digital versus analog, and cannot be targeted by aiming a directional antenna at a particular geographic locale. It is now traveling largely via things like fiber optic cables, intermixed with all manner of other communications. In order to target the collection, it is no longer a case of sitting on a Navy vessel offshore from some area of interest between individuals talking on two-way radios; it's finding that traffic in a sea of global digital communications.

- Foreign communications of non-US Persons physically outside of the US was increasingly traveling through the US. Previously fair game for foreign intelligence collection throughout the history of such collection in the United States, it suddenly became off-limits without a warrant because it was incidentally routed through locations in the United States. Foreign intelligence collection on non-US Persons outside of the US does not require a warrant, and fundamentally still shouldn't simply because their traffic happens to enter the US.

This was a case of changing technology necessitating an update to a law. A supermajority of both houses of Congress agreed.

Unfortunately, this discussion is so mired in politics, personal grinding of axes, confusion about early NSA programs (like the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program, or TSP, which was not renewed after January 2007), and isolated examples of legitimate abuse or misconduct, that not many seem interested in having any real discussion about how foreign intelligence can be reasonably conducted in the digital age. Instead it is a sea of frantic arm-waving and breathless blogging about how the Constitution is being shredded, when the mechanisms of law and judicial oversight have explicitly established the activities as legal.

Ironically, Tice's interview is spot-on. He says, "What was done was sort of an ability to look at the metadata ... and ferret that information to determine what communications would ultimately be collected," and adds, "we looked at organizations, just supposedly so that we would not target them."

"Supposedly?"

That's the whole point. So here's an example of someone explaining more or less what is happening, namely, that traffic metadata is examined to determine whether or not it constitutes a foreign intelligence target, and that measures were undertaken to not intercept the content of communications of entities which are not legitima

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2001/11/eo-pra.html

EXECUTIVE ORDER 13233
FURTHER IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to establish policies and procedures implementing section 2204 of title 44 of the United States Code with respect to constitutionally based privileges, including those that apply to Presidential records reflecting military, diplomatic, or national security secrets, Presidential communications, legal advice, legal work, or the deliberative processes of the President and the President's advisors, and to do so in a manner consistent with the Supreme Court's decisions in Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425 (1977), and other cases, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Definitions.

For purposes of this order:

(a) "Archivist" refers to the Archivist of the United States or his designee.

(b) "Presidential records" refers to those documentary materials maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration pursuant to the Presidential Records Act, 44 U.S.C. 2201-2207.

(c) "Former President" refers to the former President during whose term or terms of office particular Presidential records were created.

Sec. 2. Constitutional and Legal Background.

(a) For a period not to exceed 12 years after the conclusion of a Presidency, the Archivist administers records in accordance with the limitations on access imposed by section 2204 of title 44. After expiration of that period, section 2204(c) of title 44 directs that the Archivist administer Presidential records in accordance with section 552 of title 5, the Freedom of Information Act, including by withholding, as appropriate, records subject to exemptions (b)(1), (b)(2), (b)(3), (b)(4), (b)(6), (b)(7), (b)(8), and (b)(9) of section 552. Section 2204(c)(1) of title 44 provides that exemption (b)(5) of section 552 is not available to the Archivist as a basis for withholding records, but section 2204(c)(2) recognizes that the former President or the incumbent President may assert any constitutionally based privileges, including those ordinarily encompassed within exemption (b)(5) of section 552. The President's constitutionally based privileges subsume privileges for records that reflect: military, diplomatic, or national security secrets (the state secrets privilege); communications of the President or his advisors (the presidential communications privilege); legal advice or legal work (the attorney-client or attorney work product privileges); and the deliberative processes of the President or his advisors (the deliberative process privilege).

(b) In Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, the Supreme Court set forth the constitutional basis for the President's privileges for confidential communications: "Unless [the President] can give his advisers some assurance of confidentiality, a President could not expect to receive the full and frank submissions of facts and opinions upon which effective discharge of his duties depends." 433 U.S. at 448-49. The Court cited the precedent of the Constitutional Convention, the records of which were "sealed for more than 30 years after the Convention." Id. at 447 n.11. Based on those precedents and principles, the Court ruled that constitutionally based privileges available to a President "survive[] the individual President's tenure." Id. at 449. The Court also held that a former President, although no longer a Government official, may assert constitutionally based privileges with respect to his Administration's Presidential records, and expressly rejected the argument that "only an incumbent President can assert the privilege of the Presidency." Id. at 448.

(c) The Supreme Court has held that a party seeking to overcome the constitutionally based privileges that apply to Presidential records must establish at least a "demonstrated, speci

The real issue here is that in this situation I would want to see an individual from the private sector because when you work for the government you really don't have metrics on profit. Since the returns on investment are largely intangibles and have little for comparison it is difficult to quantify value. Because of this I want someone who can come in and at least have an idea of profit and value instead of just having to make things better. Even when you do have metrics on the improvement, it's hard to compare actual costs and apples to apples because a lot of costs are hidden in the details. Try finding a comparison for Boston's "Big Dig" for example and compare cost versus vehicles processed by the highway and make a percentage comparison. After that how do you factor in all the congestion that went on during the project? It's all very subjective.

I don't know what all their credentials for the job are and I don't know why they're not pulling someone from the airforce or pentagon who deal with the most high tech and high assurance programs in the government (I'm thinking the working level brains behind AFATDS level system like the Joint Integrated Fire Control System, for the airforce should be plenty competent for this). Some one from a systems engineering background instead of a admin/management background. You want change and solutions hire someone who's actually ran a program that produced a product.

Background on the Muslim Brotherhood:

It blamed the Egyptian government for being passive against "Zionists" and joined the Palestinian side in the war against Israel; and started performing terrorist acts inside of Egypt, which led to a ban on the movement by the Egyptian government. A Muslim Brother assassinated the Prime Minister of Egypt, Mahmud Fahmi Nokrashi, on December 28, 1948. Al-Banna himself was killed by government agents in Cairo in February, 1949.

[...] In 1964, Nasser granted amnesty to the imprisoned Brothers, hoping that their release would weaken interest in the recently formed Arab Socialist Union party; the result was three more assassination attempts by the Brothers on Nasser's life.

the aim-120 is the best dog fighter out there....
ok, in fairness, there are many missiles (fire and forget class) that are nearly in-defendable, air OR surface launched
dog fighting uav's have been around FOREVER (relatively)...

we in the Air Force are less concerned about Migs and more concerned about the missile threat.

JP

No UAV is capable of fighting a mannned air craft and winning.

Yet. Have you noticed that no UAV has been designed for dogfighting yet?
UCAV and it's on the way
the manned aircraft can turn their head and see the planes over their shoulder

A data acquisition/display issue.
A properly designed UCAV can look in all directions at once in visible, IR, and RADAR
And no human can withstand as much turning acceleration as a UAV can.

Nor does a UAV need life support or an ejector and all that associated weight
The main reason UCAVs aren't common yet is because fighter jocks tend to rise through the ranks and acquire fighters.

The US is behind the IDF in smoke operations, even the non-controversial sort.

WP is the most effective obscurant. Note the burn times in the FAS link and consider how an advancing force needs to reduce enemy vision.If the IDF wanted to target civilians instead of merely accept the risk of injuring a few they'd have set the fuzes for ground burst.

Fun fact:
The media like to show photos of airburst WP rounds (note the WP-impregnated felt sprinkling downwards) but generally does NOT show the thick clouds of smoke they produce.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/smoke.htm

Typical airburst pic, usually shown without related images, but there are more here:

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/84166551/Getty-Images-News

If you scroll down and click on the "similar images" link, then check "boom" "shell" "Gaza Strip" "horizontal", you'll see the clouds of smoke produced!

you know the "HR wall" in every workplace, where all the notices about OSHA etc. are posted? well, there will be a notice there telling you that it is illegal for an employer to require a polygraph.

or, you know, you could have just fucking googled it

But nice work if you can do it.

No it's not.

I dunno how things work on cable ships for other countries, but working on the USNS Zeus sucks bigtime.

No internet, no phones, no email, not even any outgoing traffic. NO electronic emissions of any kind. That also includes satellite TV because the dish does emanate some EMF. The only thing you can get is US Navy fleet broadcast coming in on UHF or EHF. You're gone for 3-4 months at a time, nobody onboard except for the captain knows where you're going or when you'll be back.

The Zeus would drive a Tibetan Hermit insane.

With Daisy Cutters and turn the ports into rubble. Then use the Navy to sink everything floating larger than an egg carton.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/blu-82.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_upy14pesi4

If your the right person you will not even get fined.

http://www.fas.org/news/china/1998/h980618-prc8.htm

Selling Loral's guidance system for Nuclear Weapons to
China for some campaign contributions was A-OK.

Verified:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/05/12/FBI-worried-as-DoD-sold-counterfeit-Cisco-gear_1.html

http://www.hereinreality.com/likashing.html

http://www.fas.org/news/china/1998/h980618-prc8.htm

Not most, just the advanced guidance systems for Nukes.

Nothing important or anything.

http://www.fas.org/news/china/1998/h980618-prc8.htm

LOL

Whispering was not required when you can trade campaign
donations for guidance systems for ICBM's.

http://www.fas.org/news/china/1998/h980618-prc8.htm

I assume it doesn't have any kind of networking enabled

Umm, you assume wrong....

And I am not a science-fiction writer, but WTF do you mean by "Anti-Radiation Weapons"?!?

The HARM and similar weapons....

The total lack of security with keying material until this guy was caught.
http://www.bop.gov/iloc2/InmateFinderServlet?Transaction=IDSearch&needingMoreList=false&IDType=IRN&IDNumber=22449-037&x=0&y=0

http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/heath.pdf

from here: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m998.htm

The High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) is the replacement vehicle for the M151 series jeeps. The HMMWV's mission is to provide a light tactical vehicle for command and control, special purpose shelter carriers, and special purpose weapons platforms throughout all areas of the modern battlefield. It is supported using the current logistics and maintenance structure established for Army wheeled vehicles. The HMMWV is equipped with a high performance diesel engine, automatic transmission and four wheel drive that is air transportable and droppable from a variety of aircraft. The HMMWV can be equipped with a self-recovery winch capable of up to 6000 pound 1:1 ratio line pull capacity and can support payloads from 2,500 - 4,400 pounds depending on the model. The HMMWV is produced in several configurations to support weapons systems; command and control systems; field ambulances; and ammunition, troop and general cargo transport.

Sounds like the Hummer can carry quite a FEW 400 pound laser packs. In fact, a light and fast platform like the HMMWV is IDEAL for a weapons system like this. I expect we'll see this deployed within 10 years.

Could be something like this:

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/05/army-removes-pa.html

http://www.rense.com/general37/skull.htm

http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dod/vts.html

"One application of V2K is use as an electronic scarecrow to frighten birds in the vicinity of airports."

Scarecrow for birds? They really had to stretch to come up with something more innocuous eh? ;).

Since it highlights the safety concerns of putting nuclear warheads on aircraft, this seems like a good excuse to resurrect a faded story that didn't live past the UK arms deal scandal. Whether or not the U.S. has, ahem, only a small number of serious incidents in its past, there's no doubting that we're guilty of significant negligence in our handling of nuclear weapons.

This first article was first published in July 2005, Lost Nuclear Warheads from a B-52 Now in Iran? and the second nearly a year later in April 2006, Cheney Violated International Law In Failing To Report The 1991 B-52 'Lost Nuke Incident' In Iran, According To Former Forensic Intelligence Officer. According to both, the incident involved W-69 SRAM warheads.

Here we have then Senator and later Secretary of Defense William Cohen's timely comments in 1992 regarding the W-69 warhead:

The Senator from Louisiana has pointed out--and I think very effectively, as has the Senator from New Mexico--that there are serious safety issues that have been raised... The Drell panel was the one that came to the conclusion that a substantial portion of our inventory still has major safety problems... The Senator from Louisiana started to deal with that, and he showed a photograph, which I did not see at the time, but perhaps it was that accident we had at Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota, in 1980 with a B-52 bomber. That bomber was loaded with SRAM-A missiles, and the W-69 warhead on that SRAM-A missile is not equipped with insensitive high explosives, or with a fire resistant pit, or with the enhanced nuclear detonation safety systems. It has none of those safety systems. We were lucky in this particular tragedy. As I recall, it was Dan Rowen who used the expression `the fickle finger of fate.' We were spared a major catastrophe by that fickle finger of fate, because the wind was blowing the wrong way that day.

So the Pentagon and perhaps the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services let a known safety problem and potential environmental disaster persist between 1980 and 1992 and more likely since the weapon's development in 1972. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence. I think their sudden interest in safer warheads in 1992 and the subsequent retirement of the W69 (pg 27) add credibility to the story's allegations. They may have been willing to overlook the risks until chance conspired to illustrate that it's also a proliferation risk. It'll be a few more decades before we admit that we actually lost them.

Oh? See "National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual (NISPOM)," see http://www.fas.org/sgp/library/nispom.htm. Classified information = not yours. If your contract requires access to it, you need to abide by government rules in applying measures to protect it. Of course another problem is that not all government information is classified, and is not covered under NISPOM but still merits protection. For example using the aggregation principle, lots of otherwise unclassified information might through clever analysis reveal classified information. Also, unclassified, albeit sensitive, technical information (also protected, but under under separate directives) may not be initially identified as such until it, or the systems engineering process, reaches a certain level of maturity (e.g., back-of-napkin engineering rendered to memorandum or charts). The fact that an awful lot of unclassified information needing better control resides on networks of wildly varying quality and hardness is, or hould be, a national security concern.

Cobra Ball

is an Air Force airborne intelligence platform (RC-135) which carries infrared telescopes for tracking ballistic-missile tests at long range. COBRA BALL operates out of Offutt AFB NE and deploys to various locations around the world.

.... can I just shoot them if they try to hunt me down? What about a nice EMP blast? And will they be armed? Or will they behave more like searchers from the Chronicles of Riddick?

I'm really not sure if I'm looking forward to that. Either they won't be armed, and they'll be easily disabled, or they will be, and then.... Meh.

The fun thing about EMP blasts are that, you know, the easiest way to make them is by detonating a nuclear weapon in the air. If you consider that "easily disabled", remind me to not get on your shitlist :)

There is already a collision avoidance system in place, called TCAS. Unfortunately, that did not prevent all the mid-air collisions.

Interestingly, the US has had, for several decades, a system which can detect UFOs - GEODSS, the Ground Based-Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance System. Each GEODSS site (there are three currently active, plus a mobile unit) has a pair of 40-inch telescopes. These were the first fully computerized telescopes, working since the 1980s. The telescopes scan the sky every night. They can detect moving bright objects as streaks, but there's more capability than that. They have a star atlas, and know what should be in each image, so anything that shouldn't be there is detected. If a known star is missing, that's interesting too; it may indicate a dark object. There are two telescopes, so for low-orbit objects, they can get parallax. Multiple sites can be coupled together to get parallax on more distant objects. They can even use one telescope with a laser to illuminate satellites while taking a picture with the other. This is how the USAF finds new satellites, near-earth asteroids, and nonmetallic space junk. The system was recnelty upgraded to use CCD imagers (it used to be tube camera based) and to use better alignment algorithms, so it's now both more sensitive and more accurate.

This is all tied to NORAD in Colorado Springs. GEODSS knows what an incoming ICBM trajectory looks like, and if it ever sees one, NORAD gets notified, without any action from the GEODSS site operators.

GEODSS is a real, live, functional UFO detection system that's been running for decades. If anything big enough to be interesting was anywhere near the planet for more than a few hours, it would be noticed. Even the target didn't reflect radar or light, it could be detected because it would occasionally occult a star.

Read the Patriot Act and the FISA bill for your self and see:

Patriot Act:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_PATRIOT_Act
http://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html
http://www.rense.com/general34/takeover.htm

FISA bill:
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FISA_Amendments_Act_of_2008
http://www.politico.com/static/PPM104_080619_fisapromise.htm

Ryskin wrote about methane erupting from the ocean like a volcano. Probably there would be very high concentrations of methane in the atmosphere just above the middle of the ocean. At the edges of the ocean, methane would pour out across the land. Somewhere at the front of the methane fog cloud on the land, the methane/air mixture would get to about 5-15%, and be the right conditions for exploding. If the methane levels get over 15%, it won't explode, it'll just burn.

CH4 + 2 O2 => CO2 + 2 H2O. You need twice as much oxygen as methane to get a clean burn. Since the atmosphere is normally about 20% oxygen, anything over 10% methane burning or exploding, is going to cause a localised shortage of oxygen. The methane cloud rolls in, explodes or burns, and suddenly, all the oxygen is gone from that area. Yow. It'll be like the ocean is tossing fuel-air bombs at the land.

And in case you think you can "save the planet" by not burning any more coal, read this carefully: "Upon release of a significant portion of the dissolved methane, the ocean settles down, and the entire sequence of events (i.e., development of anoxia, accumulation of dissolved methane, the metastable state, eruption) begins anew. No external cause is required to bring about a methane-driven eruption--its mechanism is self-contained, and implies that eruptions are likely to occur repeatedly at the same location." Yes that's right, it just happens naturally.

Really fascinating reading in Ryskin's paper. Here's another chunk: "Because methane is isotopically light, its fast release must result in a negative carbon isotope excursion in the geological record. Knowing the magnitude of the excursion, one can estimate the amount of methane that could have produced it. Such calculations (prompted by the methane-hydrate-dissociation model, but equally applicable here) have been performed for several global events in the geological record; the results range from 10^18 to 10^19 grams of released methane (e.g., Katz et al., 1999; Kennedy et al., 2001; de Wit et al., 2002). These are very large amounts: the total carbon content of today's terrestrial biomass is ~ 2 x 10^18 grams. Nevertheless, relatively small regions of the deep ocean could contain such amounts of dissolved methane; e.g., the Black Sea alone (volume ~ 0.4 x 10^-3 of the ocean total; maximum depth only 2.2 km) could hold, at saturation, ~ 0.5 x 10^18 grams. A similar region of the deep ocean could contain much more (the amount grows quadratically with depth). Released in a geological instant (weeks, perhaps), 10^18 to 10^19 grams of methane could destroy the terrestrial life almost entirely. Combustion and explosion of 0.75 x 10^19 grams of methane would liberate energy equivalent to 108 Mt of TNT, 10,000 times greater than the world's stockpile of nuclear weapons, implicated in the nuclear- winter scenario (Turco et al., 1991)."

Many people are very worried about global warming and the effects of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, most people don't consider the ocean. The ocean contains much more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere. Many gases transfer very easily from the atmosphere to the ocean, or the other way. The ocean is huge compared to the atmosphere. What happens in the ocean will have a very great effect on human activity. But most people never think about the ocean. Won't somebody please think about the ocean?

This scenario leads to the death of most terrestrial life. It might be time to build some of those giant underwater cities like Jar Jar Binks lives in.

Actually, the reason we can't reprocess nuclear fuel has little to do with cost - Japan, France, and countless other nuclear nations do that all the time, which is why they don't need Yucca Mountain-equivalents. Due to proliferation concerns, the US government has had a wary-to-schizophrenic relationship with nuclear fuel reprocessing. This nice little fact sheet (note - it's a PDF) helps illustrate that.

To be fair, both Obama and McCain are hamstrung in certain areas by their ideological base. McCain, by the religious right - Obama by the environmental left.

In my opinion, the environmental left has created a lot more devastation through forcing coal power on us. Back in the 1970s we could have gone 80% nuclear and 20% renewable like France, instead (thanks to the anti-nuclear left) we are at a paltry 20%. The emissions from this dirty industry kill thousands of US citizens every year. Carter was nothing less than a disaster for fission power research.

McCain:
As President, I will put the country on track to building 45 new reactors by 2030 so that we can meet our growing energy demand and reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases. Nuclear power is a proven, domestic, zero-emission source of energy and it is time to recommit to advancing our use of nuclear energy. The U.S. has not started construction on a new nuclear power plant in over 30 years. Currently, nuclear power provides 20 percent of our overall energy portfolio. Other countries such as China, India and Russia are looking to increase the role of nuclear power in their energy portfolio and the U.S. should not just look to maintain, but increase its own use.

Obama gives a tepid answer, and doesn't propose any increase in nuclear energy.

A new generation of nuclear electric technologies that address cost, safety, waste disposal, and proliferation risks.

Sure the religious right accomplished relatively minor, but worrying, changes to education curriculum in a few states. On the other hand, anti-GM people have got the democrats to cut government research into GM crops with real world consequences.

McCain clearly comes out in favor of GM foods, and his voting record reflects this.

Genetic research can already provide real assistance for those in some of the poorest regions who lack access to adequate food sources. Through increased research and development, we can help foster a new Green Revolution like the one that transformed Asia several decades ago. In partnership with government institutions, our colleges and universities should help train a new generation of African agro-scientists. Our aid programs should help focus on research into higher-yielding crops and make investments in infrastructure that will help farmers increase their yields and deliver their products to market.

Obama is more tepid, and his voting record shows he really doesn't support government sponsored research into GM foods. Only commercial development, which means it won't be destined for those who need it most.

Advances in the genetic engineering of plants have provided enormous benefits to American farmers. I believe that we can continue to modify plants safely with new genetic methods, abetted by stringent tests for environmental and health effects and by stronger regulatory oversight guided by the best available scientific advice.

Don't get me wrong. I support Obama, but I would like to insert some balance into this discussion. (I'm sure I will be modded down, no secret on which side of the political spectrum most Slashdot readers lie).

The summary makes it sound like Wikileaks has some kind of mole in the CIA who handed them documents in a shadowy meeting on a grassy knoll... Wikileaks only "obtained" the documents in the sense that "obtained" means "read about in a blog." The documents were first published a couple days ago on Steven Aftergood's excellent newsletter, Secrecy News.

You read wrong. Until Pokhran II, India would not confirm nuclear weapon capability, and hence could have no official doctrine . After Pokhran II, India published a draft doctrine commiting to no first strike, http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/india/nuke/

China, India and Pakistan are large, populous countries. Invading them isn't as easy as you think (with India and China, even airstrikes will need to cover a lot of surface area).

Re India's first strike policy:

India has a declared nuclear no-first-use policy and is in the process of developing a nuclear doctrine based on "credible minimum deterrence." In August 1999, the Indian government released a draft of the doctrine which asserts that nuclear weapons are solely for deterrence and that India will pursue a policy of "retaliation only." The document also maintains that India "will not be the first to initiate a nuclear first strike, but will respond with punitive retaliation should deterrence fail" and that decisions to authorize the use of nuclear weapons would be made by the Prime Minister or his 'designated successor(s).'" According to the NRDC, despite the escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan in 2001-2002, India remains committed to its nuclear no-first-use policy.

I am not Pakistani, but you don't know what your talking about. I looked up the article, and I had it backwards. India proposed to Pakistan that neither should use nuclear weapons first in a conflict with each other, Pakistan was the one who refused and an Indian official's response was that Pakistan had far more to lose from an nuclear exchange then India did. India has a first strike policy BTW it is no first strike. http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/india/doctrine/990817-indnucld.htm
A first strike policy is basically this: Country A, if invade by ground troops from country B, reserves the right to retaliate with nuclear force. The US reserved the right to first strike during the cold war to counter the vastly superior ground forces of the USSR if they decided to take western Europe. I was wondering what the policy India and Pakistan had toward this.

There are so many overhead assets that all the responses above are accurate. In this day and age if you want something to stay hidden, you keep it under wraps. Not just any kind of wraps though. Floating above are devices that can look at pretty much any part of the spectrum, along with active systems such as synthetic aperture RADAR. RADAR is quite cool, it can even peek through various layers and see what's underneath to a limited extent.

Here are some RADAR images.
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/radar.htm

There is a lot of interesting stuff on fas.org that would have (and probably still would) see me thrown in jail were I to ever make such info accessible on line. I'm not sure how they get away with it.

--
Ex 3 letter agency drone.

Are you saying that there are secret regulations not available to the public that they must still follow?

Yup; google for "secret law" to read about it. Here's an article about one recently-passed US secret law that might affect a few /. readers.

The wikipedia article on secret law is short, but has a few good links to other informative articles.

The old saw that "Ignorance of the law is no excuse" no longer applies in the US; it's more like "Ignorance of the law is legally enforced". We have laws on the books that you must obey, but you can't read. Unauthorized knowledge of the text of the secret laws is itself a crime, as is informing anyone else of the laws' text.

There have recently been reports of judges recusing themselves from a case on the grounds that they didn't have clearance to read the applicable laws.

The American Society of Civil Engineers faulted the Corps's levee design, and the Corps has admitted their failure. That has nothing to do with any actions taken by the state.

Nor had the state taken over flood control. The Army Corps of Engineers was still working on flood control projects in the area, though they were massively underfunded.

I didn't say the levie's design wasn't at fault. I said that congress under the Bush and Clinton administrations sent money down to repair some of them years before Katrina was ever a thought in anyone's eyes. Instead of fixing and repairing known issues, two of which were cited as reasons for the breach that flooded the 9th ward, In fact, money had been going to NO since the 1960's and more recently for repairs since the 1980's. And yes, the state, well local parishes have control of some of the projects. In 1996, the East Jefferson Levee Authority took part of the money and created an entirely new canal. The MRGO canal was another distraction of funds as well as two bridges that didn't exist but all the sudden was needed. Now, you will have to look around to find information on those, they used to be in the Wiki pages on the levy system along with links to sources but that seems to be far to complexed and accurate for wikipedia to keep. Here is some food for through though, (PDF warning) The amount of funding has increased since 1996 by about 1.5 billion and the amount of projects have expanded to a point that the corp of engineers claimed they couldn't start any new major projects. BTW, the state provides a portion of the funding in which they have aserted control over.

In 2004, USACE requested $11 million for the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project; Bush's budget requested only $3 million. Congress increased the amount to $5.5 million. In 2005, the Corps requested $22.5 million - Bush, $3.9 million, and Congress approved $5.7 million.

In 2004, 4.19 billion was requested for the New Orleans flood levies and a total of 4.57 billion dollars was approved. Now, when you break it down to specific wards and vicinities, your probably right. But when you look at it as a whole, you quickly see that the pork is just rampant. One of those pork projects was an entire canal that wasn't needed.

Investigative articles by the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of the Iraq boondoggle as a reason why funding for the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project dried up in 2003. $250 million in crucial projects was left incomplete, including work right at the site of the main breach.

Yes, I have read that article. Or should I say those articles. They all say something along the lines of some local person made the claim. Some investigative journalism there. But the reality of it is that the funding for the entire NOLA area flood system between 1996 and 2005 increase by 1.51 billion dollars at a yearly average of 150 million more each year and in all cases except for 1996, congress approved more then each president asked for. You can find an easy to read table in the above PDF showing this.

o add insult to the injury, 35 percent of the Louisiana National Guard had been deployed to Iraq, thus making them unavailable to, you know, Guard that part of the Nation.

That is actually irrelevant. The governor failed to even use the national guard until days after Katrina hit. Having 35% more there sitting on their thumbs waiting on the problems to become worse would have made no difference at all. In fact, FEMA had control of national guard units from other states in excess of the 35% number away and they had to wait for the governor to sign the papers for them to get started. The feds brought in 17,200 active duty and guard troops bringing the total in the are

That governments have permitted terrorist acts against their own people, and have even themselves been perpetrators in order to find strategic advantage is quite likely true, but this is the United States we're talking about.

That intelligence agencies, financiers, terrorists and narco-criminals have a long history together is well established, but the Nugan Hand Bank, BCCI, Banco Ambrosiano, the P2 Lodge, the CIA/Mafia anti-Castro/Kennedy alliance, Iran/Contra and the rest were a long time ago, so thereâ(TM)s no need to rehash all that. That was then, this is now!

That Jonathan Bushâ(TM)s Riggs Bank has been found guilty of laundering terrorist funds and fined a US-record $25 million must embarrass his nephew George, but it's still no justification for leaping to paranoid conclusions.

That George Bush's brother Marvin sat on the board of the Kuwaiti-owned company which provided electronic security to the World Trade Centre, Dulles Airport and United Airlines means nothing more than you must admit those Bush boys have done alright for themselves.

That George Bush found success as a businessman only after the investment of Osamaâ(TM)s brother Salem and reputed al Qaeda financier Khalid bin Mahfouz is just one of those things - one of those crazy things.

That Osama bin Laden is known to have been an asset of US foreign policy in no way implies he still is.

That al Qaeda was active in the Balkan conflict, fighting on the same side as the US as recently as 1999, while the US protected its cells, is merely one of history's little aberrations.

The claims of Michael Springman, State Department veteran of the Jeddah visa bureau, that the CIA ran the office and issued visas to al Qaeda members so they could receive training in the United States, sound like the sour grapes of someone who was fired for making such wild accusations.

That one of George Bush's first acts as President, in January 2001, was to end the two-year deployment of attack submarines which were positioned within striking distance of al Qaeda's Afghanistan camps, even as the group's guilt for the Cole bombing was established, proves that a transition from one administration to the next is never an easy task.

That so many influential figures in and close to the Bush White House had expressed, just a year before the attacks, the need for a "new Pearl Harbo

I believe the Clinton administration found that the Iraqi's were likely culpable, and responded in a measured way:

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/oig/fbilab1/05bush2.htm

Honestly, this reminds me of DTED and orthorectification techniques used in the satellite imaging world. Just now applied to tagged photos at the consumer level.

When building a virtual Earth using satellite imaging you basically use the same techniques.

Great idea for the 'consumer', but nothing revolutionary, just exploiting the same tech that's been around for 10ys.

They do have laser guided bombs:

http://eng.ktrv.ru/production_eng/323/518/519/

So this is the accuracy I guess:

Root mean square deviation, m : 4 - 7

Lets see what comparable bombs the us has:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/gbu-27.htm

has a CEP of 8 but the GPS + some other Laser guided ones are better.

Someone mentioned the lack of Glonass guided bombs though:

http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-4381.html

The question is whether they use guided bombs. I would think though that guided bombs are far more efficient. You would need far less bombs to achieve a certain goal, this could reduce the number of planes to use in a mission and who knows what kind of infrastructure is necessary to run
the whole effort. Given that Russia is also running a PR war the added benefit of only hitting what they want may factor into their considerations as well.

Here is a link claiming that their ground weapons used are inaccurate:

http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2008/08/09/whos-winning-in-georgia/

No problem:

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/process/rapport_echelon_en.pdf

Bill Clinton, he wanted congress to pass the Comprehensive Anti-terrorism Act of 1995 which would have given him many of the powers the PATRIOT Act gave Bush.

All you "ohnoes! Militarisating space!!!" dumbasses please look up the X-planes.

Grow the fuck up and try reading an actual history book instead of that anti-military, anti-American, crap your ultraleftist teachers have foisted on you.

No, the Pentagon still sucks at shooting things out of the sky with a laser.

BS. On what are you basing that statement? That's like saying that the Pentagon still sucks at mining Helium3 on the Moon. Yes it does, but that's only because they're not actually doing it very much if at all. When the Pentagon DOES test laser defense technologies, it tends to do very well.

All of the unclassified literature I've been seeing seems to confirm that the various US laser defense technologies have been very successful in testing to date.

http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/asat/971022-miracl-mr.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2407807.stm

Frankly, its none of your business what is being said in the classified literature about the results of laser testing.

Then how about:
The InterAcademy Council
The National Academies
The International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences
The European Academy of Sciences and Arts
The National Research Council
The Federation of American Scientists
The World Meteorological Organization
Need I go on?