NSA versus Verizon - no 4th Amendment Proxy Protection

NSA versus Verizon - San Diego County Political Buzz | Examiner.com

In an effort to test the waters, a large unnamed phone service provider tried to challenge the National Security Agency (NSA) and not pass along the coveted “metadata” the federal intelligence agencies claim is essential to fight the “war on terror.” It didn’t go well for the phone company, on March 20th they were ordered by the court, under double secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) Judge Rosemary Collyer to continue breaking the privacy agreements companies make with their customers. The declassified opinion came from a secret “appellate” court most American’s don’t even know it exists.
...
In the Verizon case, the FISA judge ruled that Verizon could not bring a Fourth Amendment claim asserting unreasonable search and seizure against its customers because the Fourth Amendment is an individual claim and cannot be asserted by a proxy.
...
Therefore, the FISA judge ruled Verizon had no standing to raise unreasonable search and seizure on behalf of its customers under the Fourth Amendment.

U.S. Food Inflation Running at 22%

U.S. Food Inflation Running at 22%

California’s abundance of sun and ground water explain the state’s farming abundance but also explains the cyclical droughts. But those same cyclical forces are forming an El Niño condition in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that is expected to hammer the Golden State with torrential rain next year.

The real culprit for food inflation is the $940 billion of additional monetary stimulus from the United States Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing over the last twelve months. Inflation has been in hibernation for a long time, but it is wide awake now. 

22% food inflation with <1 going="" i="" interest="" is="" kill="" retirees.="" to="">

Vaccine for Traveler's Diarrhea Starts Clinical Testing

Navy Researchers and Collaborators Testing a Vaccine for Traveler's Diarrhea

By Doris Ryan, Naval Medical Research Center Public Affairs

SILVER SPRING, Md. (NNS) -- A vaccine to protect against Campylobacter jejuni was recently approved for human clinical trials by the Food and Drug Administration.

Researchers at the Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC) began an FDA approved phase 1 clinical trial for a C. jejuni vaccine at the Walter Reed Army Research Institute Clinical Trials Center in April. C. jejuni is a global health problem and is a leading cause of diarrhea in deployed military personnel and international travelers.

2009 Science and Technology Medal Recipient, Dr. Patricia Guerry, a senior scientist at NMRC, was one of the first molecular microbiologists to address the health concerns of Campylobacter in the 1980s, a decade after it was first discovered and recognized as a cause of human diseases. Teaming up with Dr. Mario Monteiro, from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, Guerry oversaw the design and development of a prototype C. jejuni vaccine.

The NMRC Enteric Diseases Department's research program is centered on the development of effective countermeasures to prevent or abate bacterial diarrhea, with most efforts aimed at vaccine research and development. NMRC researchers have identified many surface structures of the bacteria, found how it invades human cells, and characterized many aspects of the immune response. This work continues with the use of comparative genomics, expression arrays, and studies to try to better understand the protective immune response, all of which will enable researchers to develop an effective vaccine.

CDC - Campylobacter, General Information - NCZVED

Self Driving Cars & Internet of Things extend NSA's reach everywhere

Self-Driving Cars Will Turn Surveillance Woes Into a Mainstream Worry | Opinion | WIRED


We need to ask: what happens when cars become increasingly like computers? With self-driving cars, are we getting the best of the computer industry and the car industry, or the worst of both worlds?
“Self-driving” is another misnomer. Driving decisions are never “self-made.” They are accounted for by algorithms when they are not accounted for by drivers. These algorithms reflect many decisions that aren’t self-made either: they are the conscious answers to complicated safety, ethical, legal and commercial dilemmas. Calling a robotic car “self-driving” diverts attention from the surrender of autonomy to algorithms, making it harder to navigate the policy questions that arise.

Self-driving cars are coming–slowly and progressively, with various stages of automation before the streets are filled with no-hand-on-wheel vehicles like the prototype Google revealed Tuesday–but they are surely part of our near future. They hold considerable promise for the environment and for road safety.

They also embody our debate on freedom, autonomy, and privacy when it comes to computing systems–revealing just how intrusive remote access to computing systems by the government or individuals can become.

Articles: NSA's Big Payday

Key Judgments

Governments that can give you everything, say universal health care, can take anything; to wit, civil rights or personal privacy. The ACA was a party line vote. Nobody got to vote on the NSA expansion and surely not the PRISM computer and universal federal/commercial snooping.

Despotism has three requirements: control, compliance, and secrecy. The ethos of social and political absolutism are alive and well in the West, where failure is never pretty. But it still pays pretty well.

Agnes, the ageing empathy suit at MIT

BBC News - Meet Agnes, the aging empathy suit at MIT

The AgeLab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a suit that they say simulates the ageing process to give younger people a better idea of the physical challenges that older people face.

Dr Joseph Coughlin, director of the AgeLab, says the goal of the suit - called Agnes, for Age Gain Now Empathy System - is to make the world more accessible to the elderly and life better for people as they age.

Clinton - Inconsequential and "proud" of it

BLACKFIVE: Clinton "proud" of diplomatic accomplishments

And those are the accomplishments she picked. Pretty weak or even negative to this observer, certainly not much to be proud of or, dare I say, to run on. Then you have an entire cornucopia of catastrophes starting with the one that at this point makes a damn big difference. Benghazi- She failed to approve multiple requests for security. She failed to support them (or get Obama to) when they were under attack. She lied about the causes of the planned al Qaeda attack when in possession of plenty of eyewitness and expert information saying it was just that. She told those lies to the families of the dead.

Was Hillary Clinton a Good Secretary of State? - Susan B. Glasser - POLITICO Magazine

Timing, fate and the White House may have all conspired in it, but the truth is that Hillary Clinton never did find a way to turn Foggy Bottom into her ticket to history. And perhaps that’s exactly the reason why American politicians tend to become secretary of state after they’ve run for president and lost; it just might be a better consolation prize than it is steppingstone to higher office.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/12/was-hillary-clinton-a-good-secretary-of-state-john-kerry-2016-100766_Page3.html#ixzz333kRsJsn

Hillary Clinton 2016: How many secretaries of State became presidents? (+video) - CSMonitor.com

The last sec/State to become POTUS was James Buchanan, who is routinely rated worst US chief executive of all time.

China's BDS ratified by IMO for GPS

China's BeiDou system standard ratified by IMO
China's BeiDou system standard ratified by IMO - Global Times

The International Maritime Organization has ratified the performance standard of a receiver of the shipborne BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), the Ministry of Transport revealed Wednesday. This is the first BDS to be standard approved by an international organization. It marks the first step for China's home-grown system in its quest to go global, according to the ministry.

NovAtel GNSS Receivers Provide BeiDou Support

Coordinates : A resource on positioning, navigation and beyond » Blog Archive » BeiDou

Supreme Court decisions are not final

Harvard scholar: Changes in Supreme Court written decisions veiled in secrecy - FierceGovernment

The Supreme Court has been making substantial changes to its written decisions even years after they're issued, but the public is rarely notified of the changes, a forthcoming paper by Harvard Law School professor Richard Lazarus says.

Read more: Harvard scholar: Changes in Supreme Court written decisions veiled in secrecy - FierceGovernment http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/harvard-scholar-changes-supreme-court-written-decisions-veiled-secrecy/2014-05-28#ixzz333bQKXrm
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FindLaw: Cases and Codes: Supreme Court Opinions
SCOTUSblog

Google's Self Driving-Auto appears to violate Cal DMV rules

Official Google Blog: Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

Google's New Car Lacks A Steering Wheel (And Brakes) : The Two-Way : NPR

Why Google Made Its Self-Driving Car So Darn Cute | TechCrunch

Google's New Car to Change Self-Driving Debate | EE Times

Google self-driving car: no steering wheel, no problem? - CSMonitor.com

Google Shows Off Its Self-Driving Car Prototype, Talks A Little Bit About The Design And What's To Come

Google unveils self-driving prototype vehicle - Neowin

How does Google's self-driving car work – and when can we drive one? | Technology | theguardian.com

Google Introduces Driverless Prototype Cars It Designed - Bloomberg

For Self Driving car future, Traffic tickets are a trivial $6.5 billion for the USA vs $100 billion from relieving traffic jams another $100 billion from few deaths and injuries and 4 times more road capacity for larger cities and a potential 30% Urban GDP boost

spendergast: California DMV Adopts Autonomous Vehicle Testing Rules

The rules take as implicit that there is a driver's seat, and that the driver can take control immediately. Reports of the Google self driving car are that there is no driver's seat, and no controls available to the occupant except a shut off.

Google: People Trusted Our Self-Driving Cars Too Much | MIT Technology Review
The car is powered by an electric motor roughly equivalent to that used in the Fiat 500e and has a range of around 100 miles. Its maximum speed is 25 miles per hour to reduce the severity of injuries to pedestrians in the event of a crash, says Fairfield. The front of the vehicle is made of plastic material intended to cushion any impact with a human. Google says it intends to build up a fleet of 100 of the vehicles for testing this summer. However, existing laws mean that only versions that have had conventional controls installed can be tested on public roads.

Fairfield says that the decision to make a purely autonomous vehicle also had the benefit of bringing Google more in line with the company’s original vision of something that could “drive everywhere for everybody.” That more strongly differentiates Google’s approach to automated vehicles from those of conventional automakers, who have pledged to keep humans in ultimate control of their vehicles (see “Driverless Cars Are Further Away Than You Think”).

However, Google’s new focus sets it on a more difficult path to getting its technology into commercial production. The company previously decided to focus on freeway driving because it is a relatively manageable task for software to take on. The new vehicle will have to cope with the much more challenging conditions on urban roads.

X-band dual channel AESA Radar TR module

X-band dual channel transmit/receive module using heterojunction multilayer substrate - Jang - 2014 - Microwave and Optical Technology Letters - Wiley Online Library

X-band dual channel transmit/receive module using heterojunction multilayer substrate

by Sung-Hoon Jang, Byung-Chang Nam, Jong-Phil Kim, and Seon-Joo Kim 

via Microwave and Optical Technology Letters

ABSTRACT

This article presents a
X-band dual channel transmit/receive (T/R) Module for AESA radar applications. Instead of the conventional low temperature cofired ceramic technology, we suggested the heterojunction (Ceramic + FR4) multilayer substrate. This structure makes a simple T/R Module fabrication process with low cost. Dual channel allows reducing the size and weight of the T/R Module. The Substrates have RF cavities to attach each MMIC chip. The RF cavity has a subcover to seal the MMIC and to give an additional area for charging capacitors. The T/R Module's performance parameters include:

• output power is 10 W, 
• efficiency 23%, and 
• noise figure is under 3 dB. 

© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:1850–1854, 2014

Evolution of AESA Radar Technology | 2012-08-15 | Microwave Journal
Explores the history of AESA radars and how continuing advances in MMIC materials and fabrication technologies, advancing packaging technology and exponential growth in digital circuits opens many possibilities for the future

In assessing futures for AESA technology, advanced RF device materials and processes will comprise one part of the equation and exponentially growing density in photolithographically fabricated digital components is the other part. Brookner has recently identified the following benchmarks and trends in device and materials technology:³²

• Arrays using micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) phase shifters
• Low cost 24 GHz phased-array car radars driving down T/R module costs through volume
• Extreme MMIC circuitry for 8 to 32 element arrays on single SiGe/BiCMOS chips
• GaN technology offering tenfold higher power and higher efficiency, permitting >1000 W peak power with single transistor packages
• Low cost Silicon based SiGe single chip
• Purdue University low-cost S-Band two panel GaN Digital Array Radar having 700 MHz bandwidth, 25 W per element peak; gets wide angle scan through use of electromagnetic band gap (EBG) material for increased isolation between antenna elements (lower mutual coupling); has potential of eliminating circulator
• Arrays with instantaneous bandwidths of 10:1 up to 33:1
• 20 dB increased receiver dynamic range through improved A/D linearity and reduced intermodulation
• Exploitation of meta-materials in passive antenna components
• 3D micromachining technology for interconnections

Exponential density growth is a well documented feature of the digital landscape, but is less prominent in RF components, due to the encumbrances of impedance matching and need for analogue components.³³ Growth, especially in parallel processing computer hardware, will impact radar across all categories, by providing abundant capability to perform floating point arithmetic. Current General Purpose Graphics Processing Unit (GPGPU) chips have internal memory bandwidths in excess of 100 Gigabytes/sec and often in excess of 500 pipelined floating point optimized processing cores in a single chip. Density growth in this technology will yield larger numbers of cores and higher memory bandwidths, enabling signal and data processing algorithms which are currently computationally infeasible in realtime applications.
In conclusion, continuing advances in MMIC materials and fabrication technologies, advancing packaging technology and exponential growth in digital circuits open many possibilities for future AESA designs.

References

1. H. Von Kroge, GEMA: Birthplace of German Radar and Sonar, IOP Publishing Ltd., 2000 p. 118.
2. “Chain Home,” IEEE Global History Network, www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Chain_Home, accessed May 18, 2012.
3. “Upgraded Early Warning Radar, Supplement to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement,” National Missile Defense Deployment, U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, Huntsville, AL, January 2000.
4. “High Power Early Warning Radar Systems for BMD and Space Applications,” A.L. Mints Radiotechnical Institute, www.rti-mints.ru/drlo.htm, accessed May 12, 2012.
5. D.K. Barton, “The 1993 Moscow Airshow,” Microwave Journal, Vol. 37, No. 5, May 1994, pp. 24-39.
6. C. Kopp, “Almaz S-300P/PT/PS/PMU/PMU1/PMU2, Almaz-Antey S-400 Triumf; SA-10/20/21 Grumble/Gargoyle,” Technical Report, APA-TR-2006-1201, Air Power Australia, December 2006;and “NIEMI/Antey 9K81/9K81-1/9K81M Self Propelled Air Defence System / SA-12/SA-23 Giant/Gladiator,” Technical Report, APA-TR-2006-1202, Air Power Australia, December 2006.
7. N. Friedman, “SPY-1/FARS,” The Naval Institute Guide to World Naval Weapons Systems, 1997-1998, USNI, 1997, p. 374.
8. “AN/APQ-164 B-1B Radar,”Northrop-Grumman, www.es.northropgrumman.com/solutions/b1radar/index.html, 2012.
9. “AN/APQ-181 (United States),” Airborne Radar Systems, Janes Avionics Systems, January 2012.
10. Zaslon Fire Control System for M-G-31 Interceptor, Tikomirov NIIP Research Institute, www.niip.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12:-l-r-lr&catid =8:2011-07-06-06-33-26&Itemid=8.
11. C. Kopp, “NIIP 9K37/9K37M1/9K317 Buk M1/M2 Self Propelled Air Defence System / SA-11/17 Gadfly/Grizzly,” Technical Report APA-TR-2009-0706; “Flanker Radars in Beyond Visual Range Air Combat,”Technical Report APA-TR-2008-0401; and “Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback, Russia’s New Heavy Strike Fighter,”Technical Report APA-TR-2007-0108; Air Power Australia.
12. “AN/APG-77 F-22 Radar,”Northrop-Grumman, www.es.northropgrumman.com/solutions/f22aesaradar/.
13. “AN/APG-79 AESA Radar Active Electronically Scanned Array;AN/APQ-181 Radar System,”Raytheon SAS, www.raytheon.com.
14. “AN/ZPY-2 Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program (MP-RTIP),”Northrop-Grumman, www.es.northropgrumman.com/solutions/mprtip/index.html.
15. D. Majumdar, IN FOCUS: US Navy Next Generation Jammer Proceeds, but F-35 integration deferred indefinitely, FlightGlobal.com.
16. “Thales AESA RBE2 Radar Validated on Rafale,”Thales Group, www.thalesgroup.com/Press_Releases/Markets/Defence/2011/20110209_-_Thales_AESA_RBE2_radar_validated_on_Rafale/; Euroradar Captor E Technical Brochure, 2011.
17. Y. Guskov, “Active Phased Array Radar: History and Progress Made,” Phazotron, Information and Analytical Magazine of the Phazotron NIIR Corp., Special Issue, AeroIndia 2007; Viktor Litovkin, http://nvo.ng.ru/armament/2009-08-14/7_5generation.html.
18. C. Kopp, “Assessing the Tikhomirov NIIP L-Band Active Electronically Steered Array,” APA Analysis 2009-06, Air Power Australia Analyses, 14th September 2009, www.ausairpower.net/APA-2009-06.html.
19. “AN/ASQ-236 AESA Radar Pod,”Technical Note, Northrop-Grumman, www.es.northropgrumman.com/solutions/podded-aesa/index.html
20. “Israel to Receive the First of Three Eitam AEW Aircraft,” Defense Electronics (RF Design) Magazine, February 13, 2008.
21. C. Kopp, “Wedgetail - Australia’s “Pocket AWACS,” Australian Aviation, June 1999; “AEW&C EL/W-2090,” Technical Brochure, IAI Elta Ltd., April, 2010. “CAEW&C EL/W-2085,” Technical Brochure, IAI Elta Ltd., June, 2007.
22. C. Kopp, “Wedgetail - Australia’s “Pocket AWACS,” Australian Aviation, June 1999; “AEW&C EL/W-2090,”Technical Brochure, IAI Elta Ltd., April 2010. “CAEW&C EL/W-2085,” Technical Brochure, IAI Elta Ltd., June 2007.
23. C. Kopp, “PLA-AF Airborne Early Warning & Control Programs,” Technical Report APA-TR-2007-0702, Air Power Australia, July 2007, www.ausairpower.net/APA-PLA-AWACS-Programs.html.
24. C. Kopp, “Annex A - Representative ABM Technology in Almaz-Antey S-500 Triumfator M Self Propelled Air / Missile Defence System / SA-X-NN,”Technical Report APA-TR-2011-0602, Air Power Australia, June 2011.
25. J. Katzmann, “AMDR Competition: The USA’s Next Dual-Band Radar,” Defense Industry Daily, November 16, 2011, www.defenseindustrydaily.com/AMDR-Competition-The-USAs-Next-Dual-Band-Radar-05682/; “APAR Active Phased Array Multifunction Radar,”Technical Brochure, Thales-Nederland, October 2010; W.J. Fontana and K.H. Krueger, “AN/SPY-3: the Navy’s Next-Generation Force Protection Radar System,” IEEE International Symposium on Phased Array Systems and Technology, 2003.
26. C. Kopp and J.C. Wise, “HQ-9 and HQ-12 SAM System Battery Radars,” Technical Report APA-TR-2009-1201, Air Power Australia, December 2009.
27. C. Kopp, “NNIIRT 1L119 Nebo SVU / RLM-M Nebo M, Assessing Russia’s First Mobile VHF AESAs,”Technical Report APA-TR-2008-0402, Air Power Australia, April 2008.
28. D. Lynch and C. Kopp, Multifunctional Radar Systems for Fighter Aircraft, Radar Handbook, Third Edition, Merrill I. Skolnik, Ed, McGraw Hill Companies, Columbus, OH, USA, 2008, pp. 1-46.
29. C. Kopp, “Considerations on the Use of Airborne X-Band Radar as a Microwave Directed-Energy Weapon,” Journal of Battlefield Technology, Vol. 10, No. 3, Argos Press Pty. Ltd., Australia, pp. 19-25.
30. C. Kopp, “The Properties of High Capacity Microwave Airborne Ad hoc Networks,” Ph.D. dissertation, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, October 2000.
31. I. Dunn, “21^st Century Radar: Challenges and Opportunities,” Microwave Journal, Vol. 55, No. 1, January 2012, pp. 25-40.
32. E. Brookner, “Phased-Arrays: Basics, Past Accomplishments, Amazing Breakthroughs and Future Trends,” Raytheon Co., USA.
33. C. Kopp, “Exponential Growth Laws in Basic Technology and Capability Surprise,” IO Journal, Vol. 2, No. 4, Association of Old Crows, USA, pp. 21-27.

Carlo Kopp is an academic at Monash University in Australia and also a co-founder of the independent Air Power Australia military think tank. Kopp completed his PhD at Monash University in 2000, his dissertation dealing with the adaptation of AESAs for Gigabit datalinking and networking. Prior to his academic career, he spent 15 years in industry, mostly as a design engineer, with design experience in ECL logic, high speed analog circuits, optical receivers, high speed logic, SPARC processor boards, graphics adaptors, cooling systems, embedded software and operating systems. Kopp has also actively published as a defence analyst since 1980, with over 650 publications in related areas, including a contribution to the third edition of Skolnik’s Radar Handbook.

Where is Honor at the VA? - Shinseki should Go.

Where is Honor at the VA? - AMAC, Inc.

Where is the Accountability in Washington? - AMAC, Inc.

President Obama's Pathetic VA Press Conference - AMAC, Inc.

Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Holds Hearing to Address Veteran Deaths - AMAC, Inc.

Watchdog finds ‘systemic’ problems at VA, top Republicans join calls for Shinseki to resign | Fox News

General Shinseki has been head of the VA since 2008, more than five years.  Between April 2009 and today, there have been ten semi-annual Inspector General’s (IG) reports done on the VA.  Another is now pending.  Each is a damning six- month compilation.  In each report, Shinseki learned of more new problems.

1. 102 in the first
2. 133 in the second
3. 120 in the third
4. 143 in the fourth
5. 140 in the fifth,
6. 161 in the sixth,
7. 140 in the seventh,
8. 159 in the eighth,
9. 164 in the ninth,
10. 185 in the tenth. 

 So, the number of problems and investigations on his watch has been rising, not falling.

Is it a matter of budget? - VA Medical Budget

No. Over the five years from 2009 to 2014, the health expenditure per veteran increased 50% at the same time that the number of problems has almost doubled. Throwing money at the problem has not fixed the basic systemic problems. Cleaning this system seems to be akin to Hercules cleaning the Augean Stables and is beyond anyone. Maybe it is time to give this money via vouchers to the veterans who need it except for a core of service unique medical capabilities.

Fy2015-Volume II-Medical Programs And Information Technology.pdf

Includes $56.002 billion for Veterans’ medical care, supporting continuing improvements in the delivery of mental health care, specialized care for women veterans, and benefits for Veterans’ caregivers. In addition, the Budget includes $3.048 billion in estimated medical care collect ions for a combined resource of approximately $59.050 billion. 

Requests $58.662 billion in 2016 advance appropriations for medical care programs, to ensure continuity of Veterans’ health care services. In addition, the Budget includes $3.253 in estimated medical care collections for a combined resource of approximately $61.915 billion.

How many veterans are there in the United States?

According to U.S. Census 2006 projections, there are 23,977,000 veterans living within households in the United States (U.S. Census: National Security & Veterans Affairs). 17,261,000 (nearly 72%) of all U.S. veterans are over the age of 50 which also contributes to the growing need of access to quality health care.

What are some statistics involving veterans and healthcare?

The National Veterans Foundation has published several statistics that reflect the status of veteran health care in the United States. The numbers reported do not reflect the extensive number of veterans that do not have access to VA health benefits, nor do they reflect the qualifying veterans that do not take advantage of VA health benefits. More statistics are also available at the National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics website.

For 2014, $56 Billion Budget/24 Million Veterans = $2,333 per veteran.
Compare this to that in 2009, $38 Billion/ 23.8 Million Veterans = $1,596 per veteran

UK’s Urgent new Reaper UAV's delayed | The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

UK’s new Reaper drones remain grounded, months before Afghan withdrawal | The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

The expansion of Britain’s armed drone fleet has been in the works a long time: in December 2010 David Cameron announced a plan to double the UK’s Reaper capacity, including the purchase of five new aircraft and three ground control stations. Reaper is produced by US defence company General Atomics.  But the manufacturing was delayed because the demands of the US Air Force, which was ordering multiple additional Reapers of its own, took precedence over the British order, a defence spokesman told the Bureau.
 ...
The new Reapers were expected to be operational by 2013, but have also suffered hardware and software setbacks.
The aircraft completed their testing phase in the US by February, and have now been delivered to Afghanistan. There, they are being rebuilt and tested, and are expected to start flying missions in the ‘near future’, an MoD spokesman told the Bureau.
‘A late notice engineering change to the new production aircraft did delay the completion of acceptance testing. That work is now complete and delivery of the five new aircraft to the UK MOD is complete,’ the spokesman added.
The UK’s drone fleet has been further hampered by one of its five operational Reapers recently being out of action for ‘corrective maintenance’. This was originally revealed to campaign group Drone Wars UK in a Freedom of Information response issued in March.
A defence spokesman told the Bureau the US Air Force has loaned the RAF one of its Reapers to cover the shortfall.

CNO Will Lay Out Clear Plan for Littoral Combat Ship

LCS program under attack - "what we've got here is failure to communicate"

Navy Chief: We Will Lay Out Clear Plan for Littoral Combat Ship - Blog

The ship that was to revolutionize surface warfare has been controversial since its inception 12 years ago. But the firestorm over the littoral combat ship might have been avoided had the Navy better explained the rationale for the ship and answered critics' questions more clearly, said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert.

California DMV Adopts Autonomous Vehicle Testing Rules

DMV Adopts Autonomous Vehicle Testing Rules



SACRAMENTO
—The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) today announced that
the Office of Administrative Law has adopted regulations governing how
manufacturers can test autonomous vehicles on California roads,
effective September 16, 2014. 
...

Under the new regulations, vehicle manufacturers must obtain a testing permit from the DMV and comply with permit requirements when testing autonomous vehicles on California roads. DMV requirements for manufacturer testing include:

• Manufacturer must register the test vehicle with DMV
• Manufacturer completed previous autonomous vehicle testing under controlled conditions
• Manufacturer uses qualified test drivers who complete a training program and obey all provisions of the Vehicle Code.
• Manufacturer test drivers sit in the driver seat and are capable of immediately taking control of the vehicle
• Manufacturer reports to DMV any accident involving a test vehicle or any situation where the autonomous technology disengages during operation
• Manufacturer maintains $5 million insurance or surety bond.

MQ-1 Predators to Nigeria - search for Boko Haram

Defense.gov News Article: DOD Sends UAV, 80 Airmen to Help Nigerian Search
Predator team deploys to find kidnapped Nigerian girls | Air Force Times | airforcetimes.com

WASHINGTON, May 22, 2014 – The Defense Department’s addition of an unmanned aerial vehicle and 80 Air Force troops to U.S. efforts supporting Nigeria’s  search for over 200 missing schoolgirls has turned the mission into an  air operation, Army Col. Steve Warren, director of Pentagon Press  Operations, said today.

Poway Drones Reported Searching for Missing Nigerian Schoolgirls | Times of San Diego
UAVs involved in the search include the Predator MQ-1, built by General Atomics of Poway, according to media outlets, including Defense News and The Wall Street Journal.

Nigerians can't keep their own UAV up.

Murphy's Law: The Mishandled Nigerian UAVs
It appears that the military did not want to draw any attention to the Aerostars lest the shady circumstances of their purchase be revealed. So it wasn’t until someone else revealed the Aerostar situation that knowledge of Nigeria’s UAV fleet became widely known. Now the Nigerian military and procurement officials (some now retired) are running for cover and trying to shift the blame. In the meantime American UAVs have been brought in to search for the missing girls, who have apparently now been located.
 
Insecurity: NAF completes two unmanned test flights Friday, 23 August 2013

Two surveillance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) unveiled by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) in Kaduna have completed their maiden test flight yesterday.The vehicles are to tackle insecurity through enhanced air surveillance.The test flight took place under the close scrutiny of the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Alex Sabundu Badeh at the Nigerian Air Force Base, Kaduna.

Speaking after the flights of the UAVs and another unmanned jet, the Air chief said the UAVs are invented by the air force while 12 officers are undergoing training on how to operate and assemble the vehicles. He said to have train the 12 officers outside the country, it would have cost the air force $2million to $3million, but are training them in-country and try to develop their capabilities.

Nigerian Air Force UAV fleet grounded | defenceWeb
The Aerostar unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) acquired by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) in 2006 have reportedly been grounded due to a lack of maintenance, limiting surveillance operations against Boko Haram militants. Meanwhile the US has deployed a Predator team to Chad to search for kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls.

The nine Aerostar UAVs were acquired in 2006 and 2007 from Aeronautics Defense Systems (ADS), a company based in the Israeli capital Tel Aviv in a contract which also included the supply of unmanned patrol boats to the Nigerian Navy, bringing the net value of the contract to $260 million.

Dempsey says they're not UAS or Drones, but RPV.

Defense.gov News Article: Military Uses Remotely Piloted Aircraft Ethically

ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT, May 22, 2014 – Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey bristles when he hears someone use the word drone. “You will never hear me use the word ‘drone,’ and you’ll never hear me use the term ‘unmanned aerial systems,’” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said today. “Because they are not. They are remotely piloted aircraft.”

Labor Dept imports labor to solve non-existent STEM shortage

Labor Department Calls for More Foreign Labor

The Part of the Obama Admin. That’s Supposed to Help U.S. Workers Is Calling for More Foreign Labor | TheBlaze.com

The Obama administration’s Department of Labor, which is supposed to represent the needs of U.S. workers, said Monday that the government needs to find ways to get more skilled foreign workers into the country.

“We also need to fix our broken immigration system to encourage more highly educated foreign-born workers to come to the United States,” Deputy Secretary of Labor Chris Lu said in a blog post. “If we are to compete in a global economy, we must continue to attract and retain the world’s brightest minds.”

Thomas E. Perez, right, runs the Labor Department, which said on Monday that the U.S. needs more foreign workers. (AFP/Getty Images/Brendan Smialowski)

Study Finds No Shortage of High-Tech Workers in U.S.
A Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) report released on Tuesday ahead of a panel on the subject at the National Press Club found that from 2007-2012, STEM employment averaged "averaged only 105,000 jobs annually" while the U.S. admitted about 129,000 immigrants with STEM degrees. That means "the number of new immigrants with STEM degrees admitted each year is by itself higher than the total growth in STEM employment." During that time period, the number of U.S.-born STEM graduates grew by an average of 115,00 a year. 

Steven Camarota - What STEM Shortage?
Advertisement Reports by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the RAND Corporation, the Urban Institute, and the National Research Council have all found no evidence that STEM workers are in short supply. After looking at evidence from the EPI study, PBS entitled its story on the report “The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage: How Guest Workers Lower U.S. Wages.” This is PBS, mind you, which is as likely to report skeptically on immigration as it is to report skeptically on taxpayer subsidies for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

RAND’s analysis looked backward in time and found, “Despite recurring concerns about potential shortages of STEM personnel . . . we did not find evidence that such shortages have existed at least since 1990, nor that they are on the horizon.”

FCC's Wheeler Decides to regulate internet - not everyone cheers

Finding the Best Path Forward to Protect the Open Internet | FCC.gov by: Tom Wheeler, FCC Chairman April 29, 2014

I am a strong believer in the importance of an Open Internet. As President Obama has explained, “Preserving an Open Internet is vital not just to the free flow of information, but also to promoting innovation and economic productivity.” That is why I have made preservation of the Open Internet a priority for the FCC.

Unwanted FCC net neutrality vote sparks calls for gov’t regulated Internet | Human Events

The Internet's 51 New Regulators - WSJ.com

For two decades Congress has wisely refused to give the FCC the same power over the Internet that it holds over the telephone system. And for two decades the Internet has enabled a gusher of creativity that was unimaginable over a century of regulated telephony. Mr. Wheeler's brainstorm to change all this is simply to pretend the Internet is a phone network.

GOP lawmakers urge FCC to ditch effort to regulate Internet | Fox News

DE413 USS Samuel B. Roberts and the Battle of Leyte Gulf Books

Army - Chapter 8: The Leyte Operation
Battle of Leyte Gulf

The Battle of Leyte Gulf: 23-26 October 1944 (Bluejacket Books)  by Thomas J. Cutler

The last great naval battle of World War II, Leyte Gulf also is remembered as the biggest naval battle ever fought anywhere, and this book has been called the best account of it ever written. First published in hardcover on the battle's fiftieth anniversary in 1994 and drawing on materials not previously available, it blends history with human drama to give a real sense of what happened--despite the mammoth scope of the battle. Every facet of naval warfare was involved in the struggle that engaged some two hundred thousand men and 282 American, Japanese, and Australian ships over more than a hundred thousand square miles of sea.

Battle off Samar
25 Oct 1944

Kurita's northern pincer moved through San Bernardino Strait without incident. At about 0600 hours on 25 Oct, Japanese lookouts spotted aircraft on the southeastern horizon that appeared to have just taken off, which hinted presence of American carriers. At 0644, lookouts spotted masts. These masts belonged to a group of six escort carriers, three destroyers, and four destroyer escorts whose main responsibility was providing air power for the ground forces on Leyte. This force was part of a larger Task Group consisting of sixteen escort carriers, nine destroyers, and fourteen destroyer escorts divided into three Task Units. Nearest to the attacking Japanese force was TG 77.43, "Taffy 3", the northernmost of the three Task Units that comprised TG 77.4. None of the American vessels carried anything larger than 5-inch guns, and the escort carriers did not possess the speed to outrun Japanese warships.

Much has been written about the battle of Leyte Gulf and the Destroyers who screened "Taffy 3" in the battle off Samar. This work by John Wukovits, who specializes in World War II in the Pacific looks to be a good addition to the three previous works I'm familiar with on the topic.

For Crew and Country: The Inspirational True Story of Bravery and Sacrifice Aboard the USS Samuel B. Roberts Book Reviews

For Crew and Country: The Inspirational True Story of Bravery and Sacrifice Aboard the USS Samuel B. Roberts, by John Wukovits New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2014. Pp. xviii, 350. Illus., maps, notes, biblio., index. $16.99 paper. ISBN: 1250041910.

Books by John F. Wukovits (Author of One Square Mile of Hell) 

A small ship and a handful of men in a desperate sea fight against fearful odds.
Commissioned in early 1944, the destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts (DE 413) was lost off Samar on October 25, 1944, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.  In For Crew and Country Pacific war historian Wukovits gives us an excellent biography of the ship, the men who served on her, and their gallant action on that final day.  Wukovits devotes about a third of the book to the origins of the ship and of the men who served on her, giving us many glimpses into their lives, their training, their duties, and their war, which culminated off Samar.

The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour by James D. Hornfischer

“This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.”

With these words, Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland addressed the crew of the destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts on the morning of October 25, 1944, off the Philippine Island of Samar. On the horizon loomed the mightiest ships of the Japanese navy, a massive fleet that represented the last hope of a staggering empire. All that stood between it and Douglas MacArthur’s vulnerable invasion force were the Roberts and the other small ships of a tiny American flotilla poised to charge into history.

USS Samuel B. Roberts DE-413 Survivors Association

The USS SAMUEL B. ROBERTS (DE 413) was launched by the U.S. Navy on January 20, 1944, commissioned on April 28, 1944, and sunk by the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Battle off Samar on October 25, 1944. Why would a destroyer escort that existed for less than one year merit a web site? Read on.

Though our crew had only six months in 1944 to get to know one another, we formed bonds that exist today. These bonds will continue, long beyond the time that the last survivor has gone on to join those crew members who were killed when our ship was sunk, so many years ago. Children and other family members have formed strong friendships which will endure.