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Half of US Nuclear Missile Wing Implicated In Cheating
mdsolar writes "Just over half of the 183 nuclear missile launch officers at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana have been implicated in a widening exam cheating scandal, the Air Force said on Thursday, acknowledging it had 'systemic' problem within its ranks. The cheating was discovered during an investigation into illegal drug possession among airmen, when test answers were found in a text message on one missile launch officer's cell phone. The Air Force initially said 34 officers either knew about the cheating or cheated themselves. But Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told a Pentagon news conference on Thursday that the total number of implicated officers had grown to 92, all of them at Malmstrom, one of three nuclear missile wings overseeing America's 450 inter-continental missiles, or ICBMs."
At least it wasn't launch codes on his cell phone. Let's all be glad about that.
What are the questions for this exam? Why do they need to cheat?
No surprise to me.
It is a terrible, mind numbingly boring job that is essentially a career killer in the Air Force. Not to mention the fact that the likelihood of them actually having to do what they train for is very low and if they do have to do what they trained for it basically means they are helping end life on this planet as we know it.
I completely understand why they would not be motivated to excel on the exams and/or might smoke a little grass.
I wonder what their Russian counterparts' moral is like.
Wax on, wax off baby!
in our school systems.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Hold on, let me consult the cheat sheet...
It strikes me as odd that this many people would go bad. Maybe the tests were a joke they were so hard so everybody just winked and cheated; otherwise the place might have been empty with a bunch of people "failing" for no good reason.
A good example of this is apparently in China nearly everyone bribes to get a driver's license. The test is pretty much impossible. I read that some people try to take it as a challenge. For example some of the questions on the test have exactly opposite correct answers to what is essentially the same question.
The problem is that once you make it impossible to pass, forcing them to cheat, then people might not study the material at all; the result being that the people end up knowing even less than if they were just offered an easier test.
SAC was famous for tight discipline and esprit de corps. When TAC ate SAC, many SAC folks we'd inherited predicted slack standards and the end of the highly disciplined SAC culture. Years of fuckups proved their point.
Some jobs require performance of a very high standard. Go old-school and crush the cheaters in an exemplary manner. Do what Curtis LeMay would do to shitbags and replace the lot.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
At gunpoint, the same way Americans do everything. Hell, if you don't mow your lawn in America, the guys with guns come to your house to force you to do it.
The same way we do everything else: by force. Our government sees itself as the masters of the world, unfortunately. Don't agree to their terms? They'll bomb your country. Don't want to provide them with cheap products? They'll hack into your corporate networks, steal plans, and hand it over to American companies (for which their cousin/nephew/whatever works). Don't want to provide them with a constant stream of where you are and what you're doing at all times? Too bad, that wasn't an option.
I am deeply ashamed at how our government is behaving yet still tries to hold up the illusion of democracy.
So the NSA, for all of it's intrusion into privacy to protect us all, could not find 93 co-conspirators who had access to nuclear weapons, how on earth can we expect them to find a small terrorist cell? What the hell are we trading our liberties, privacy, and freedom for if they can't even uncover something as large as this?
With all of the organized cheating that happens in american schools too (and to move up the ranks in out businesses), I'm not surprised. Cheating is as american as apple pie.
Twinstiq, game news
Nothing to worry about. It's just a 50th Anniversary tribute to Dr. Strangelove.
http://www.newyorker.com/onlin...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
OK, if the children can't take care of their toys it's time to put them away. I say (not that I have any say in the matter) we have a chat with the Russians and agree to get rid of an additional 450 deployed launchers each, and reducing the warhead count. Call it New START II. We can then turn the 450 boosters over to Orbital Sciences to use for space launch missions.
I can do this:
Marijuana - check
Cocaine - check
LSD - check
Peyote - check
Mushrooms - check
Strawberry Daqarita - check
Ayn Rand Looney time - check
Do I pass?
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
How can part of a missile cheat at anything? And what does "half a wing" mean? Aren't the fins on the missiles one-piece?
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Answer the fucking question.
You can't handle the truth.
Repeat after me: I misinterpreted the rules.
Thirty four characters live here.
will keep control at the top where it belongs
Adherence to military discipline ranks higher than that, or it should among men trusted to operate the most dangerous weapons on the planet.
how are we trying to convince others to give up their nukes while we keep our own?
O is trying to Russia to work on a new start treaty, but with China as part of it. So far, putin and China are fighting against that.
But, I can not think of where else we are trying to get nations to give up their nukes.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Oh get off it.
The US government has nukes because it started building a stockpile before the world came together to make a non-proliferation pact. It has been reducing its stockpile steadily. Meanwhile, it tells other countries that they can't have nukes because they signed an agreement saying that they would not have nukes.
And that's a good thing. The survival of human civilization is more important than your kindergarten sense of fairness.
'Career Killer' in the sense that they aren't retiring as an O-5, they're retiring as an O-4 if they're lucky, probably 'let go' after 10 years as an O-3.
To be a USAF officer you have to have your Bachelour's. That translates to most officers being at least 22. 42 is their earliest retirement age, 'Late 30's' would be for an enlisted member. An officer retiring that way would have to be an 'OE', or an enlisted member who went officer. They tend not to get stuck in capsules.
I don't read AC A human right
DID YOU ORDER THE CODE RED?
BTW, you do realize that Russia has several 1000 more nukes than does USA? Yes?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
By the article, it implies much of the chain of the command is either in on the cheating or turning a blind eye. They have unit solidarity and loyalty to the US government, what they don't have is tolerance for micromanaging politicians who apparently instituted an exam system that is so far from reality that pretty much the entire wing agrees they are a waste of time.
is it Tuesday again? On the ball as always there /.
Here is one of the messages containing a test answer:
"When they ask ' How about Global Thermonuclear War?', answer NO!"
You would think that would be obvious, but.
Monstar L
Why the hell aren't they all being dishonourably discharged and even court-martialed?
It takes 5 minutes to decertify somebody and pull them from their duties. You can't be 'dishonourably discharged' without a General Court-Martial, which the civilian equivalent is a full up court trial. As such, it takes time to build a case, time to put together a court, time to assemble a jury of equal or higher rank*, time to hold the trial, etc...
Now complicate it by having to do it by x92. A *busy* base might have 1 general court marshal(overseen by a federal judge) per month. Most only have 1 court room, though I suppose they can set up others ad-hoc, but the rooms can't be too bad or it generates a point to base an appeal on.
As such, in order to expediently conduct the trials they'd have to ship the offenders to bases all over the country. Finding enough federal judges would be a problem.
Honestly, I do expect a number of discharges ranging from 'Dishonorable' to 'Other than honorable', even a number of honorable discharges - the military is shrinking so even if the court doesn't find them liable enough for discharge(standards for this are NOT supposed to change year by year), what will happen is that the conviction or article 15 will be a black mark for the 'Quality of Force Review Board' to hook on, forcing them to stand a board and defend themselves as part of a 'whole person' concept, including said black mark, when the board is looking to kick out between 30-70% of those they review.
Their careers in the military are done, even if it might take a couple years for some to be forced out.
*Easy for enlisted, not so easy for officers.
I don't read AC A human right
No I ordered the Baja Blast
Why bother what the questions are if half of the people taking them are cheating? Why did they get the job in the first place? What tests did they have to pass to get the job? How is it possible that half of the people that are supposed to be 100% honest and dependable get implicated in cheating? We can't afford to have this happen with the people that are supposed to handle such a responsible job. Until this is absolutely clear, new test methods have been devised and retesting has been done, world peace is in trouble.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Then stop whining on slashdot and fucking do something.
too late... ron paul quit politics
now america is fucked either way
Have a look at all the international and UN treaties that the USA hasn't ratified... the USA has no high moral ground to stand on.
Hiroshima blast ~== 16,000 tons of TNT. H-bomb ~== 10,000,000 tons of TNT. If that isn't an order of magnitude, I don't know what is.
What would happen if the result was a vote voting in an ineligible candidate, whether Obama, Bush Jr., or Mickey Mouse?
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The best of the BEST of THE BEST, SIR!
bickerdyke
The opening sequence has a missile operator discussing the quality of the sensemilia his girlfriend was growing with the other. And the bonus easter egg for those of you that do is the sign in the corridor :-)
Please remind me: why does the government think that whistleblowers are the greatest threat to national security?
are getting screwed at every turn (treatment for injuries and psychiatric problems, etc.) and the BS soldiers are subject to when they are on active duty (drugs tests, radiation tests, inadequate pay to support their families, etc.), I'm amazed that anyone voluntarily goes into the military.
Is killing people and getting shot at or blown up really so much fun that it makes up for all that?
If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'. If you get caught, you ain't tryin' hard enough.
How dare snowden release this information! This is a breach of trust and puts the national security at risk!
These people are not reporters or whistleblowers, but traitors, and should be tried in a military court!
erm... oh.. right.
When was the last time the U.S. actually convinced someone to give up their nukes?
North Korea? Hmm...no...
Iraq? Never had them to begin with...
Israel? No...
Iran? We'll get back to you on that.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Sometimes there's a difference between what Congress agrees to, and what the State Department negotiates.
As to why Congress won't ratify, the reasons are many; legitimate or not.
Functioning as designed, for better or worse.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Trust me, you don't want CowbyNeal authorizing nuclear launches.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
Someone get Stephen Falken on the line.
This is the by product of the Zero Defect mentality in the military. The same issue arose when the Army had small Tactical Nukes a while ago. They had the same mindset and it caused lots of issues like lying to their commanders about violations or illegal activities. Those who work closely with nuclear material in the military know that they have to have HIGH standards. They can't mess up, If they do then they are deemed a risk to everyone. Now, if they do stuff behind everybody's back. No one would know what is going on. No human is perfect and we cant always get a 100% on every test. We are bound to mess up and make mistakes. Things need to change to avoid stuff like this from happening sometime in the future again.
In the US, the popular vote for President is of no legal significance. The individual states select Electors, typically the ones picked by whoever won the popular vote in that state. These Electors then vote for President and Vice-President, and if an eligible person has a majority that person wins. If no eligible person has a majority, the House of Representatives votes for anybody in the top three list (voting by state, not by representative), and anybody who gets a majority of that is elected. The Senate votes (individually) for VP candidates, and again a majority is required. Assuming party-line votes, it's likely that the House will fail to come up with a majority, since equally split state delegations will effectively abstain. The Senate is less likely to fail, since individual Senators vote.
If no President can be elected by Inauguration Day, the position is taken by the VP-elect; if there is none, by whoever by law takes over. I think that would be the Speaker of the House. It would be interesting....
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
yup. A 3000 mile long tunnel with a nuke power plant in it, and apparently, other nuclear work.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So no president could be elected if the top 3 electoral winners were Bush Jr, Obama, and Mickey Mouse. Whoever the senate votes in for VP will be the president, then select their own VP. Maybe we can get that to happen. At least then, we might finally get rid of the Electoral College, one of the worst ideas by the founding fathers (though not done now as originally written, as it was even worse before).
Learn to love Alaska