US to business: “Take our weapons – please”

This is a real problem and Scott highlights the problem of allowing contractors to keep software proprietary.  He doesn’t have to point out what happens when a company that designs weapons and is then acquired by a foreign company, or off-shored – and then we’ve lost control.  This problem is bubbling much as the crappy home loan problem bubbled.  Eventually someone will be crying “whodathunkit?”  John Scott thunk it – that’s who.

For years, the U.S. military has been losing an asymmetric battle that involves not improvised explosive devices, bullets or al-Qaida, but instead swarms of defense industry contractors seizing control of taxpayer-funded ideas because government policy and regulations were engineered to buy iron and steel, not to deploy a software-based military.

via Pentagon Is Losing the Softwar(e) – Defense News.

Warriors too deep in their Wheaties?

Maybe if the Air Force wasn’t so busy flirting with 60 Minutes crews, patting themselves on the back for fighting just like the ground guys

“Yeah, when you drive past Las Vegas and look down to the Strip, and turn the corner and head north to the base, you’re leaving one world and you’re going to the other. You know we go from being parents and spouses to being warriors,” he replied.

and this exchange:

“We were in short order able to engage that individual successfully,” Gough told Logan.

The target was hit with a Hellfire missile.

“What if you get it wrong?” Logan asked.

“We don’t,” Gough replied.

“Ever?” Logan asked.

“That’s a tough question,” Gough said after a pause. “Yeah. We have the resources to make sure we’re right. In battle, in combat, in the fog and friction of war, there are always gonna be times that your judgment isn’t with hindsight, you can see things with more clarity.”

“But you’re not there in the fog and friction of war. You’re sitting here in your cockpit in Nevada,” Logan remarked.

“And that’s what makes us more powerful and have that clarity, because I’m able to distance myself from the fight and use resources that are otherwise unattainable to the combatants,” Gough replied.

Then this wouldn’t happen:

In this case, the military Predator operators in Nevada tracked the convoy for three and a half hours, but failed to notice any of the women who were riding along, the report said.

According to military officials in Washington and Afghanistan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters on the case, intelligence analysts who were monitoring the drone’s video feed sent computer messages twice, warning the drone operators and ground command posts that children were visible.

from  Operators of Drones Are Faulted in Afghan Deaths – NYTimes.com.

Not to take too cheap a shot at an obviously battle-field stressed commissioned officer, but the Army operators of the same equipment are specialists and sergeants, forward in the battlespace, under the command of officers and warrant officers with less prestigious titles that the AF officers.  Maybe someone needs to get out of Vegas for a bit more than an evening.

Hello Unified Med Command? – What’s Brewin’

This will be interesting.  I wonder how many times they will try to “decentralize” themselves right back to where they were:

The fiscal 2011 Defense Authorization Bill approved by the House Armed Services Committee yesterday calls for replacement of today's Military Health System with a new Unified Medical Command modeled on the Special Operations Command.

via Bye MHS, Hello Unified Med Command? – What’s Brewin’.

Chinese computer equipment – they make our weapons

And more of my paranoid fears seem to come to pass:

According to the Sunday Times, “A leaked MI5 document says that undercover intelligence officers from the People's Liberation Army and the Ministry of Public Security have also approached UK businessmen at trade fairs and exhibitions with the offer of 'gifts' and 'lavish hospitality.' The gifts — cameras and memory sticks — have been found to contain electronic Trojan bugs which provide the Chinese with remote access to users' computers.”

via Can you trust Chinese computer equipment? | ITworld.

More CIA triumphs unveiled

Now what was it called when Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA of being less than truthful?

The CIA today was accused of lying to Congress and covering up its role in the deaths of two innocent Americans, a mother and her infant daughter, at the hands of the CIA and the Peruvian Air Force nine years ago.

via ‘Justice Denied’ in CIA Shootdown of Missionaries – ABC News.

Still not working

Just in case there was some extra tax money someplace, or a sensible person in the Tripe Department at the Pentagon:

Over the weekend, the Missile Defense Agency released news of another failed intercept test. And no, the interceptor didn’t fail to lift off or fly off course. This time, the tracking radar that wasn’t up to scratch.

via Missile Defense Test Flops as U.S. Unveils New Strategy | Danger Room | Wired.com.

R or D in charge, missile defense continues to be the worst idea ever (well, maybe except for this) and, no matter how much integrity or common sense our leaders pile on the smoking heap of fail that is, they can’t even fake this one.

Give me some blood to save America!

I am not really in favor of demonizing any foreigners, much less our neighbors to the south that do so much for us. But, I’ll sign onto this with a wink, if it will convince more Americans to find time during their busy days to donate blood and plasma to blood donor centers and these pay for play places, to get them off of my Soldier’s backs.

Increase in plasma donations raises several concerns
As more Mexicans opt to donate their plasma in exchange for extra cash, some Americans are expressing concern that novel pathogens that might be in Mexico could enter the U.S. plasma supply. The industry and regulators, however, said that the same safety measures in plasma collection are being undertaken in the border as in any other location and that there has been no known case of disease transmission through plasma products in more than 10 years. Another issue being raised is the high price of the products developed from donated plasma — a single plasma donation worth $30 could result in a pharmaceutical product worth at least $300.  New York Times, The (12/5)

Good on Wichita Falls’s Times Record News

One of the most balanced articles I’ve read about the effect of donating locally to support operations elsewhere. If everyone was donating when they could, the blood supply (and money supply to helping organizations) would be fat and easy on all.

Perhaps few assumed their blood donations would arrive in Killeen, Texas, but realized the trickle-down effect of stepping up during a time of national crisis. Any donations locally would relieve the stress of transporting and supplying blood to the affected region.

National disasters can, then, impact local supplies.

via Our opinion: Local blood donors respond to tragedy » Times Record News .

GunGod Nut has a helpful suggestion

Ms. Anti-Gun control shoulda-woulda-coulda Suzanna Hupp throws her two cents in on the shootings at Fort Hood, since no tragedy is enough to make the GunGod nuts shut up.

Suzanna Hupp, a former state representative whose parents were among the Killeen Luby’s massacre victims in 1991, said allowing soldiers on base to carry arms would not prevent attacks like Thursday’s, but would likely reduce the damage.

via Fort Hood assault prompts variation on typical gun control debate – PoliTex.

Sure, Mrs. Hupp – that’s just what we would need, 100 Soldiers with guns in their pockets, shooting in all different directions and running out of the building with guns in hand. I’m sure that it would make it so much easier for the cops to shoot the right person as they run out of the SRP site.

24 Hours With Secretary of State

IAVA board member Leslie Gelb has a great article on Madame Secretary of State in the U.S.’ most widely read magazine.  As if the upbeat stories about her weren’t enough, he describes in detail how we are getting our money’s worth from this dedicated public servant.

“We’re going to work you to death,” Hillary Clinton promised me with a laugh. She was taking me—and PARADE’s readers—along on a typical day in the life of the U.S. Secretary of State

via 24 Hours With Secretary of State Hillary Clinton | Parade.com.