Hey ... I think there may be an app for that.
6 hours ago
Proactively “From the Sea”; an agent of change leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case to synergize a consistent design in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model through cultural diversity.
As just one of many examples, swift, fast sailing frigates were once the eyes of the fleet. In the future, the eyes of the Navy will be its Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Force (MPRF).Man, Bob does not like frigates. The paragraph above is just full of holes; where do I start? First of all, we don't have 18th & 19th Century frigates. That is the definition he uses above. In the 20th & 21th Century; the US Navy on its actual website defines a frigate as;
With its combination of Broad Area Maritime Surveillance unmanned aerial systems and manned P-8A Poseidon Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft, the MPRF will provide US naval commanders with an unparalleled level of maritime domain awareness. As a result, counting the number of ships in the Navy's battle force no longer gives one a full appreciation for the broad, cross-domain capabilities, capacities, and enablers found in the combined Navy-Marine Corps Team.
Frigates fulfill a Protection of Shipping (POS) mission as Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) combatants for amphibious expeditionary forces, underway replenishment groups and merchant convoys.I'm sorry Bob, but - fail one. Bob is a good, smart, hard working and dedicated public servant - but his almost palatable blinkered dislike of frigates is a foundation weakness of many of his arguments. Good man; just wrong.
Jack served with the Suffolk Regiment, the First Battalion of the Cambridgeshire Regiment, and was fighting a fierce last stand in Singapore when it eventually fell to the Japanese in February 1942.Read it all, here.
Jack explains: “After the surrender had been signed we had to just wait for the Japanese to come and collect us. 500 of us were rounded up and taken to sit in a tennis court at the back of a large house. We had to sit there for five days, in the full sun, with water only occasionally and just biscuits thrown over the fences for food.
“We were then moved and put into Changi prisoner of war camp – worn out, tired and starving. The camp was packed by the time our company had arrived, so we had to settle for anything. After a meal of rice and watery soup, we felt better.
Corporal Adam Tucker said Cpt Head had been called to Padaka after a suspicious wire was seen protruding from the ground. She attached a device to the bomb and extracted all the components from the ground remotely using a wire and hook.Read it all. Of note, her parents were just two years older than I am. That's all I have to say.
As they were being laid out in the sunshine to be photographed for intelligence purposes she stepped on a pressure pad designed to set off the second bomb on the other side of the alley.
"That's when I heard a small pop as the second device partially detonated,” he said.
"There were no injuries. She was not even thrown to the floor. There was small bit of dust around her feet.
"Obviously, it shook her up. She retired to a safe distance and had a Condor moment. She had a few cigarettes and made light of it.
"I asked her if she was happy to continue and being a stubborn Yorkshire woman she was."
The third bomb, a five kilogram device of ammonium nitrate and aluminium detonated just as Cpl Tucker noticed that Cpt Head, from Huddersfield, was in danger.
The blast blew off both her legs, her right arm and fingers on her left hand. Despite protective body armour and a helmet she sustained severe brain injury.
Cpl Tucker and colleagues raced down the alley, applied field dressings and called for a helicopter. Cpt Head was taken to the field hospital at Camp Bastion, before being flown to the Queen Elizabeth military hospital in Birmingham, where she died on April 19 last year surrounded by her family.
Canada's center-right government called for the retirement age to be raised and for major public service cuts Thursday, in an austerity budget that aims to balance the books by 2016.We will have to do this one day as well - the sooner we do the less pain there will be.
Tackling unpopular measures that many industrialized countries are being forced to consider as their populations age, the Canadian government said its budget would help the country move a step ahead.
"Other Western countries face the risk of long-term economic decline. We have a rare opportunity to position our country for sustainable, long-term growth," Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said in the House of Commons.
"Looking ahead, Canadians have every reason to be confident," he said presenting what was dubbed a budget for "the next generation."
Under the plan, Canada will cut its deficit this year through "moderate" spending cuts, as the economy grows by 2.1 percent, Flaherty announced.
But much deeper cuts, including the laying off of 19,200 government staff, or 4.8 percent of the federal workforce, are planned for the coming years.
Flaherty said old age security and guaranteed income supplement benefits worth up to a total of Can$15,000 and now paid out at age 65 would be offered only at age 67, starting in 2023.
If any of these assumptions prove to be faulty, future shipbuilding plans will include fewer ships and battle force inventory will change, inevitably dropping below 300 ships.Go to page 5 - the plan doesn't even reach 300 (exactly 300 for 1 year) until 2019 and then dips below it until touching it again in 2023. Child please. I feel cheap just reading it.
Hat tip PD.
The first Chief Petty Officers Club on Yokosuka Naval Base was in Building H-83 located in the area of the new Middle School. It had been used by the Imperial Japanese Navy as a gymnasium for Judo and Fencing, it remained the CPO Club from 1945 until it was destroyed by fire in 1949. Three months later H-43, (where JRNOC is currently located) which previously had been a galley and dining area for the Imperial Japanese Navy shipyard workers, was remodeled into a CPO Club. It remained so until 1978 when it was also gutted by fire.
The Chiefs Club then moved to the old Seaside Club Building J-201 and utilized the Bar Area as the CPO Club until the completion of the Arleigh Burke Officers Club when they moved into the Chain Locker.
The current CPO Club, Building B-39, was completed sometime in 1927 in which the Japanese Imperial Navy used first for offices of the Shipyard Superintendent and later as a Supply Office. At the end of World War Two, the Occupation Forces continued to use it as Supply Offices until 1949 when it was renovated and remodeled into a recreation facility for Petty Officers below the grade of Chief Petty Officer. The Petty Officers Club closed in 1982 with the opening of the new Club Alliance at the Main Gate.
In 1982, CNFJ Force Master Chief, SKCM Jim Berry, realized that the Chain Locker in the Officers Club was not working out and convinced CNFJ and CFAY to relocate the CPO Club to B-39. The inside was renovated and the current CPO Club opened for business in 1983.
The Mitsubishi Air Lubrication System (MALS) was the first air lubrication system in the world to be applied to a newly built ship, and resulted in a substantial reduction in the ship’s resistance. Therefore, a performance estimation method using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) needs to be established as soon as possible to apply the MALS to general commercial ships.As reported in Wired six months ago;
The boats, to be completed by 2014, rely on Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ proprietary Mitsubishi Air Lubrication System (MALS). Mitsubishi claims that MALS can reduce CO2 emissions by a quarter compared with conventional dry bulk carriers. Considering the ships will carry about 100,000 tons including cargo, fuel and crew, that’s a significant reduction. The three ships ordered by ADM will be 131 feet wide and 777 feet long and will be built by Oshima Shipbuilding.
‘I Don’t mean to be flip with this,’’ said Mitt Romney during a q-and-a with students at the University of Chicago last week. “But I don’t see how a young American can vote for a Democrat.’’ He cheerfully apologized to anyone who might find such a comment “offensive,’’ but went on to explain why he was in earnest .With, of course, the help of their father - my kids get it and none of them can even drive yet.
The Democratic Party “is focused on providing more and more benefits to my generation, mounting trillion-dollar annual deficits my generation will never pay for,’’
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Washington’s staggering spending binge is entailing a burden of fearsome proportions on the millennial generation — voters in their late teens and 20s. With the government more than $15.5 trillion in debt and continuing to borrow 40 cents of every dollar it spends , Generation Y is in for a prolonged economic beating. The national debt now exceeds the entire annual output of the US economy. Millennials will be paying for it through higher taxes, slower growth, reduced public services, fewer jobs, lower incomes, and a more uncertain future than their parents or grandparents confronted.
Unaware that a microphone was recording him, President Obama asked outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Monday for breathing room until after Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign to negotiate on missile defense.Good googly moogly, I'm glad I don't have to explain this away.
“On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it’s important for him to give me space,” Mr. Obama told Mr. Medvedev at the end of their 90-minute meeting, apparently referring to incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Medvedev replied, “Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…”
“This is my last election,” Mr. Obama said. “After my election, I have more flexibility.”
The Russian leader responded, “I understand. I transmit this information to Vladimir.”
Loud, concussive explosions on the battlefield may last only a few seconds, but many soldiers returning from combat in the Middle East are experiencing lingering symptoms that cause them to perceive sounds even when it is quiet. Doctors can do little to treat the problem—typically described as a ringing in the ears—because they lack an effective way of delivering medication to the inner ear. That could change in a few years, in the form of an implantable polymer-based microscale drug-release system that delivers medicine to the inner ear.
Called tinnitus, the condition afflicts at least one in every 10 American adults and is the most common disability among Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Up to 40 percent of all veterans may be suffering from tinnitus, and the VA spends about $1 billion annually on disability payments for tinnitus, according to a study published last year in Nature. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)
To address the problem, the U.S. Department of Defense has commissioned Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Mass., to spend the next year fleshing out a concept for a small delivery device inserted near the membrane-covered window—no more than three millimeters in diameter—separating the middle ear from the inner ear. Once at the membrane the device (essentially a polymer capsule, although Draper is not developing any of medicines that might be placed inside) would release a drug into the cochlea, the tubular organ residing in the inner ear that enables us to hear. The plan is to embed wireless communications into the capsule so that a patient or doctor can control the dosage. After the capsule finishes delivering its supply of drugs, it would dissolve.
An international conference on the future of Afghanistan is to be hosted by Nato in Chicago in May, when donor nations will be asked to contribute $4.3 billion (£2.7 billion) a year after 2014 to maintain the country's reconstruction effort after three decades of incessant conflict. Washington has indicated that it is prepared to contribute £1.75 billion, with the remainder coming from Europe and other states, such as Japan and Australia, that are currently supporting the Nato mission.Chicago is a strange place to hold such a summit ... but sobeit.
The first thing that former senior military and civilian Pentagon officials of the Cold War era mention, when discussing reductions to the defense budget, is cutting the inflated size of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff.We are shedding Sailors and actual operators left and right - but the bloat bloats. It also plays games.
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... in the defense secretary’s office ... The fiscal 2013 budget for the office projects a reduction of $186.6 million from this year, but it may turn out to be less, say $121 million, because of inflation. Nevertheless, the office’s fiscal 2013 budget will still be $2.1 billion for the 2,124 civilians and 405 officers and enlisted personnel who work primarily in the Pentagon. Ten years ago there were 1,489 civilians and 481 military personnel on that office payroll.
The Joint Staff has also ballooned.It has substantially increased the past two years, apparently with the absorption of functions from the controversial closing of the Joint Forces Command. The Joint Staff grew from an average of 1,007 officers and enlisted men in 2011 to 2,089 in 2012. Civilian employees on the Joint Staff also grew in the past year, from 364 in 2011 to 693 in 2012, according to Pentagon figures.
While the plan is to cut the Joint Staff military numbers by 683 next year, the number of civilian employees is projected to grow to 923 by the end of 2013. Some 465 of that military reduction represents a transfer of personnel to Transportation Command, part of the realignment of Joint Forces Command personnel, according to Pentagon documents, Another 137 of the military reduction represents a transfer of personnel to the Air Force as part of the realignment of work by the Joint Information Operations Warfare Center.Some credit is due for some cuts - some - we think.
The Joint Staff had almost 1,100 contractors working full time in 2011 and 2012. Reducing 180 of them next year, who work under five joint staff programs, is expected to save $45.2 million, according to Pentagon materials. That averages out to almost $250,000 per person. The Pentagon notes the average salary of Joint Staff civilian employees is $145,500 and justifies that “premium” pay because they possess Top Secret/Special Compartmented Intelligence security clearances, which could get them higher salaries from private sector firms.Read Walter's whole thing.
Like Mr. Pennington, many veterans injured in combat are finding that their invisible psychological and neurological wounds are proving more debilitating than their obvious physical ones.Well meaning, perhaps. Typical "vets are victims" slideshow included.
About 1,700 American service members have lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan, most in roadside bombings that seared skin, shattered bones and damaged internal organs as well. Most of those troops also came home with traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder, which in many cases were not recognized for months.
You can go back 500 years. You cannot find a more audacious plan. Never knowing for certain. We never had more than a 48 percent probability that he was there.There you go front porch: you can go back to 1512.
the US economy, as represented by its Balance of Payments, the profligacy of the US consumer, the massive expansion of consumer leverage, and the collapse in US manufacturing jobs, and specifically its current near-terminal state, is as much as legacy of the baby boom generation's actions (and lack thereof), as of everything else that has already been mulled over and scapegoated an infinite number of times in both the mainstream and fringe media.Click for larger.
Today, I listened to the advice of more than a few people and finally went to the TMC and Combat Stress hospital. My right hand hasn’t stopped twitching after nearly a month and it’s beyond irritating. I’m not sleeping, not eating, and highly irritable. I’ve been under a lot of stress and feel like many of those above me are just making things worse.Read it all.
So, for three hours today, I sat and got to revisit many issues related to my PTSD, depression, and anxiety as well as some new ones. While waiting to speak with one of the case workers, I had the opportunity of sitting down with “SFC Zeke.”
Zeke looked very busy when I entered the room, but could tell immediately I was there for business. He set aside his distraction and gave me his complete attention. He didn’t say a word. Just sat there and listened to me. He didn’t judge me; he didn’t interrupt me; and he never blamed me. In five minutes, Zeke did what few others could do having just met me -- he calmed me down and made me feel like I was worth listening to. I want to introduce you to Zeke:
In an unusual reversal, a panel of admirals cleared a Norfolk-based Navy captain who was fired for alleged misconduct aboard the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower, and it found major flaws with the service's investigation of the case.BZ to Rear Admiral Shelanski.
But, despite the panel's January ruling, Capt. Robert Gamberg likely will not be allowed to return to sea command, his lawyer said in an interview this week.
Gamberg's firing was first reported in June, shortly after the Navy issued a news release saying he had been relieved of his duties as second-in-command aboard the Eisenhower. An investigation found he had engaged in "an improper relationship," the release said. Navy officials wouldn't elaborate.
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In January, Gamberg faced what is known as a board of inquiry - a panel of three admirals tasked with deciding whether he should be allowed to remain in the Navy, and if not, whether his actions warranted retirement at a reduced rank and pay grade.
Because the matter did not go to a court-martial, it was Gamberg's first chance to defend himself in a courtroom setting.
At the end of the two-day hearing, the board decided that he should stay in the service. What's more, the members unanimously agreed that he had committed none of the misconduct for which he already had been punished - an outcome that Gamberg's Navy-appointed attorney, Capt. Michael Palmer, called exceptionally rare.
In written remarks attached to the decisions, the board's senior member, Rear Adm. Herman Shelanski, wrote that the government failed to meet the burden of proof for all of the charges. He criticized the Navy's investigation for relying almost exclusively on one source, the female officer's then-husband, who made the complaint that launched the investigation.
"The complainant did not provide a sworn statement, was of questionable motive and did not appear for the inquiry," Shelanski wrote.
He described the method by which the officer's husband obtained the emails used in the investigation as "illegal," saying it called into question his intentions. He also agreed with Palmer that the government could not prove the emails hadn't been altered.
"Had the totality of the evidence presented to the board been available during the initial investigation, prior to the (admiral's mast), the board believes Capt. Gamberg would not have been removed from his position as executive officer on USS Dwight D. Eisenhower," Shelanski said.
Compton City Councilwoman Janna Zurita owes her Hispanic last name to a grandmother from Spain, whom she never met. Zurita considers her mother black and said her father “wants to be black” even though he “looks Latino.”(For the record: I am not implying rolling around nakid with Zurita; just the goodness of the schadenfreude. In any event - for those who know my actual Latin American predilections, it has nothing to do with flatness...)
Zurita, the mayor pro tem of Compton, sometimes jokes with her sister about their racial roots.
“She always tells me I look just like a Mexican: flat booty, straight hair. You know, just all kind of – how Mexicans used to look. You know, now they have big booties,” Zurita said in a legal deposition in November. “You know, little jokes about it.”
While Zurita takes a sometimes-playful approach to her racial identity, it became the serious subject of a recent lawsuit under the California Voting Rights Act. In January, a judge ruled that a trial would be necessary to figure out whether Zurita could be considered Latina and whether that means Latinos have a voice on the council.
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Armed with 2010 census data, a network of attorneys is increasingly targeting local governments – from cities and school boards to hospital and community college districts – for not reflecting the demographics of their constituents.
In Compton, lawyers representing two Latina residents argued that Zurita is not Latina. Zurita, on the other hand, pointed to her election as evidence that Latinos are represented. But even she seemed conflicted during her deposition, at one point saying that she is Latina, at another point that she isn’t.Sad, isn't it? Zurita, I don't look at race either - too bad our government doesn't. Read more at the link ... this is why we fight ... but let's move on.
Asked point-blank by an opposing lawyer, Zurita replied, “I don’t think there is any pure races.”
The brouhaha over Zurita’s race “raises an issue that I believe is silent in the legislation, which is, how are you calculating ethnicity?” said Compton City Attorney Craig J. Cornwell. “Is it people who have Latino ancestry? Is it how a person self-identifies themselves?"
The U.S. Census doesn’t provide clear answers, because it considers being Hispanic or Latino separate from race. On government forms, Zurita sometimes marks black, sometimes “other” and couldn’t remember if she ever marked Latino.
Adding to the confusion, Zurita later referred to her Spanish grandmother as Mexican. The attorney sought to clarify: “So she was from Spain, but her heritage was Mexican?”
“Well,” Zurita replied, “you know, I don't know. All this Mexican, third generation, fourth generation, Latina, Latino – I just kind of refer to the group as Mexican.”
Regardless, Zurita maintained that she represents all residents of Compton, where 65 percent of the population is Hispanic.
“I don't even think race, you know,” she said. “I don't look at race.”
In order to make sure gays and lesbians are adequately represented on the judicial bench, the state of California is requiring all judges and justices to reveal their sexual orientation. The announcement was made in an internal memo sent to all California judges and justices.Both here and the link above - the steps the (D)iveristy Industry is taking continues to diverge from the fundamentals of a free society, but that shouldn't shock anyone. Their intellectual foundation is Cultural Marxism (look it up).
The next influx of UC students may be asked to state their sexual orientation.Leave them kids along.
In January, the Academic Senate recommended that upon accepting admission offers from a University of California school students should have the option of identifying themselves as lesbian, gay, bi-sexual or transgender.
The UC Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools had mixed reactions but agreed that the question would allow them to collect important statistical information. They recommended putting the question on the SIR forms instead of college applications to protect students’ privacy.