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29,000 troops ‘axed within 5 years’
The US Army could axe as many as 24,000 enlisted staff and up to 5,000 officers within five years to meet a projected reduction in the force driven by budget cuts and the winding down of two wars, a Pentagon chief signalled.
Pressed on the possibility of involuntary terminations, Thomas Lamont, an assistant secretary of the army, told a Senate Armed Services panel that redundancies were possible as the army shrinks from a peak of 570,000 to 490,000.
“I hate to throw out numbers, but I have seen numbers that would approach enlisted category perhaps as high as mid-20s, 23, 24,000,” Mr Lamont said.
“On the officer contingent, again these are very rough numbers and all based again on assumptions and attrition rates, officers may go up” to 4,500 to 5,000.
Defence secretary Leon Panetta, in announcing the Pentagon budget earlier this year, also said the Marines would drop by 20,000, to 182,000. The Pentagon has indicated that the reductions would Read more…
Pentagon confirms plan to create new spy agency
March 7, 2012: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP)
The Pentagon confirmed Tuesday that it is carving out a brand new spy agency expected to include several hundred officers focused on intelligence gathering around the world.
At a time of budget cutbacks, particularly in the military, it’s unclear how the Defense Department has been able to move around the money to afford a new agency. The Pentagon wouldn’t get into specifics saying only that the so-called “Defense Clandestine Service” wouldn’t involve “significant new resource requirements.”
The service would be an offshoot of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Officers drawn from that agency would be sent to beef up U.S. intelligence teams in areas that are now receiving more attention. They include Africa, where Al Qaeda is increasingly active, as well as parts of Asia, where the North Korean missile threat and Chinese military expansion are causing increasing U.S. concern.
Pentagon spokesman Capt. John Kirby called the Read more…
Biometrics: Those Tell-Tale Signs That Say Who You Are
ScienceDaily (Apr. 23, 2012) — Forget about fingerprints or iris recognition; the way you walk or move your hands, even your pulse, can be analysed for unique characteristics. EU-funded researchers are looking at ways this new technology could protect your security and make identity checking less obtrusive and more accurate.
You might think that PIN codes and fingerprints are pretty secure identity systems, but they are in fact simple to hack. The criminal community has found it too easy to steal PIN numbers just using cameras, card copiers or the point of a knife at the cash point. And James Bond famously tricked an adversary to believing his false identity by wearing ‘fake fingerprints’.
The use of biometric identification — using the unique properties and characteristics of an individual to help identify them — continues to grow in popularity. Modern electronic passport checks use face recognition, and iris scanning has also been tested in some airports.
Recognising the growing market fo Read more…
1 billion face starvation worldwide if India, Pakistan unleash nukes: study
More than a billion people around the world would face starvation if India and Pakistan unleash nuclear weapons — even if that war is regionally limited, a study released Tuesday warned.
That’s because the deadly and polluting weapons would cause major worldwide climate disruption that would dramatically drive down food production in China, the United States and other countries.
“The grim prospect of nuclear famine requires a fundamental change in our thinking about nuclear weapons,” said study author Dr. Ira Helfand of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
“The new evidence that even the relatively small nuclear arsenals of countries such as India and Pakistan could cause long lasting, global damage to the Earth’s ecosystems and threaten hundreds of millions of already malnourished people demands that action be taken,” Helfand said in a statement.
“The needless and preventable Read more…
4/24/2012 — Two stars — very bright unknown at this point — need to Identify if possible
watch the video of the webcam frames here:
http://powervideotube.com/watch_video.php?v=7471484A9Y98
Below is a screenshot: I cannot read the japanese.. but from the looks .. the volcano APPEARS to be Sakurajima.. in which case this would be an east or southeast facing camera I would think..
Steallarium isn’t really showing something that should be THIS bright.. through the clouds etc..
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screenshot 4/24/2012 @ 615am CDT:
Here is the link:
Choose the camera 5th up from the bottom of the list:
Arctic methane leaks threaten climate
Methane released as ice retreats could force greater climate warming (Image: KPA/Zuma/Rex Features)As Arctic sea ice breaks apart, massive amounts of methane could be released into the atmosphere from the cold waters beneath.
High concentrations of the greenhouse gas have been recorded in the air above cracks in the ice. This could be evidence of yet another positive feedback on the warming climate – leading to even faster Arctic warming.
The Arctic is home to vast stores of methane – there are billions of tonnes of methane in permafrost alone. It is a potent greenhouse gas, so a major methane release would greatly accelerate climate change. The gas is found in icy crystals called hydrates beneath the shallow seas that flood some areas of the continental crust, as well as in permafrost. It is also being released from Arctic wetlands.
But this doesn’t explain why Eric Kort of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and his colleagues found patches of methane in remote regions of the Arctic Ocean, far from any of these known methane sources.
The team found the patches during five flights over the Arctic Ocean between 2009 and 2010, as part of a project to systematically map greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.
Kort estimates Read more…
‘Internet Doomsday’: FBI Gives New Deadline to Disinfect Computer of Malicious Malware by July 9 or Else
Earlier this year, we reported that any computer infected with a nasty piece of malware could be shunned from using the Internet by the feds. The deadline for that was March 8 but an extension was ordered to provide users with more time to clean up computers. Now, Federal Bureau of Investigation has said all must be virus free by July 9 or be subject to was PC World calls “Internet doomsday.”
The malware is a piece called DNS Changer Trojan that was the work of six men from Estonia who were arrested and charged in 2011. The malware infected more than 4 million computers in 100 countries and is relatively easy to spread, hence why the government is ready to stop those with the virus from accessing the Internet.
(Related: Seven charged for infecting 4 million computers with ‘false advertising’ malware)
Individuals and companies have been working to scrub the malware from their systems but as of March at least one computer in half of all Fortune 500 companies was infected and more than two dozen government agencies had a carrier as well. PC world reports that estimates are more than 350,000 computers are still infected. Read more…
Who Installed “This Object” At The Bottom Of The Ocean?
Our oceans are full of secrets, and this is one of them.
Deep beneath the waters we find ruins of ancient lost civilizations, wreckage of old ships and planes, and sometimes we come across very strange, unidentified objects.
Looking at this odd construction, one has to ask – Who installed this object at the bottom of the ocean?
This construction was video-recorded by Olympic Challenger, a ROV Support Vessel on 11 September 2010.
It’s an unknown object which appears to have been installed on the ocean floor, rather than being a piece of wreckage from Deepwater Horizon.
The ROV Vessel quickly rose and sped away after coming upon this construction or object.
Russia, China seek info on US drone held by Iran
FILE – This file photo released on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, claims to show US RQ-170 Sentinel drone which Tehran says its forces downed earlier this week, as the chief of the aerospace division of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, right, listens to an unidentified colonel, in an undisclosed location, Iran. Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency said Thursday, April 18, 2012 that Russia and China have asked Tehran to provide them with information on a U.S. drone captured by the Islamic Republic in December. (AP Photo/Sepahnews, File) EDS NOTE: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HAS NO WAY OF INDEPENDENTLY VERIFYING THE CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS IMAGE. ANONYMOUS — AP
Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency says Russia and China have asked Tehran to provide them with information on a U.S. drone captured by the Islamic Republic in December.
The Thursday report quotes Ahmad Karimpour, an adviser to Iran’s defense minister, as saying Tehran has received requests for many countries for information on the RQ-170 Sentinel, but Moscow and Beijing have been most aggressive in their pursuit of details on the drone. He did not elaborate.
Iran said in December that it had downed the unmanned stealth aircraft in eastern Iran.
U.S. officials have acknowledged losing the drone. They have said Iran will find it hard to exploit any data and technology aboard it because of measures taken to limit the intelligence value of drones operating over hostile territory.
Big Government on Steroids: Senate Bill Calls for Black Box Recorders on All New Cars
The same Senate bill, 1813, known as MAP-21, that calls for the Secretary of State to revoke or deny a passport to any US citizen that the IRS Commissioner deems as having ‘seriously delinquent tax debt’, also calls for, in section 31406 of the bill. the mandatory installation of ‘black box’ event recorders to be installed in every new passenger vehicle starting with model year 2015:SEC. 31406. VEHICLE EVENT DATA RECORDERS.
(a) Mandatory Event Data Recorders-(1) IN GENERAL- Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall revise part 563 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, to require, beginning with model year 2015, that new passenger motor vehicles sold in the United States be equipped with an event data recorder that meets the requirements under that part…
(d) Revised Requirements for Event Data Recorders- Based on the findings of the Read more…
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