http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2013/05/29/ottawa-lockheed-martin-f35-bus-ad-campaign.html



Lockheed Martin is running a PR campaign which includes F-35 ads on Ottawa city buses.

F-35 ads on OC Transpo buses part of new PR campaign
CBC News
Posted: May 30, 2013 6:19 AM ET
Last Updated: May 30, 2013 6:15 AM ET

The company behind the F-35 fighter jets is in the midst of a new PR campaign aimed at ordinary Canadians, not just politicians and military officials.

Lockheed Martin has taken out ads on Ottawa's OC Transpo buses, with slogans such as "putting high tech where it's needed, on the front lines."

They've also launched a website and social media campaigns and have been bringing a simulator to events such as Ottawa's Cansec, the largest defence trade show in Canada.

"We're trying to reach out to Canadians going through traditional channels," said Keelan Green, who’s running the F-35 campaign through PR firm Thornley Fallis.

http://breakingdefense.com/documents/push-to-keep-lima-tank-plant-gathers-steam-before-hasc-markup/



Push To Keep Lima Tank Plant Gathers Steam Before HASC Markup
Source: Colin Clark

CAPITOL HILL: Few here care more about the Lima, Ohio tank plant than Rep. Mike Turner, chairman of the House Armed Services tactical air and land force subcommittee. Mr. Turner hails from Ohio and was mayor of Dayton, which is not far from Lima — at least by Ohio standards. You just head straight north on Interstate 75.

Now Turner has gathered the support of more than one quarter of the House of Representatives to keep the plant open, getting over 120 lawmakers to sign a letter to Army Secretary John McHugh — once the HASC’s ranking member — urging him to keep the plant open by funding American work there. The Army, perhaps knowing that Congress will push money at the plant no matter what it says, argues that pending Foreign Military Sales will generate enough work to keep Lima operating. Congress, to put it simply, does not believe the Army and believes jobs are at stake. Lobbying by General Dynamics, operator of the government-owned plant, has helped encourage this conclusion.

The Army has refused to fund work at Lima for the next three fiscal years saying that it can reopen the plant when needed after three years. Congress has not bought those arguments, faced with job losses and what many on the Hill believe will be steep costs to restart the plant.

“The industrial base cannot be turned on and off like a light switch,” the letter argues. Failing to fund the fund plant in fiscal year 2014 would likely result in a production break in 2016 that would significantly impact the skilled workforce as well as drive many small companies out of business; leaving our Nation without the necessary industrial capacity to produce tanks when we need them.”

http://breakingdefense.com/2013/05/29/best-case-for-sequester-is-still-disaster-top-experts-say/



Best Case For Sequester Is Still Disaster, Top Experts Say
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on May 29, 2013 at 9:56 PM

CAPITOL HILL: The best case for sequester is still a disaster – but we’re not going to get the best case. That’s the common denominator from a range of budget options rolled out today by an extraordinary alliance of four thinktanks.

Their consensus recommendations to cut military readiness, Army brigades, Navy carriers, Air Force ICBMs, and an array of aircraft – including, in three of the four groups’ proposals, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter – came from a kind of fiscal wargame. The simulation was developed by the influential Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments to explore alternative ways to implement approximately $500 billion in cuts to defense spending over the next 10 years. [Click here for detailed slides]. The subtle sting: They arrived at their dire conclusions based on what CSBA budget expert Todd Harrison admitted were “some very generous assumptions.”

Finding over $500 billion in cuts was a manageable misery under CSBA’s rules for the budget wargame, said Robert Work, the former undersecretary of the Navy, who now heads the Center for a New American Security. But that doesn’t reflect the rigid restrictions of the current sequestration law, which, among other things, requires cutting the exact same amount, about $52 billion, every year for the next 10 years.

That’s “craziness,” said the always-blunt Work, a retired Marine Corps artilleryman. “If we have to hit the targets year by year, the wheels will come off, and I speak from personal experience….We will go back to the 1975 era when I had to buy toilet paper for my Marines.”



unhappycamper comment: All this anguish is about a lousy five percent budget cut.

http://breakingdefense.com/2013/05/30/gops-war-on-terror-2-0-more-drones-more-missiles-more-boots-on-ground/



GOP’s War On Terror 2.0: More Drones, More Missiles, More Boots On Ground
By David Axe on May 30, 2013 at 9:32 AM

President Barack Obama says he wants to end the 12-year-old war on terror. Not so fast, said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and Armed Services Committee member. Not only does Graham warn against declaring victory over al Qaeda, he wants more drones, more deployed missile defenses and more U.S. troops on the ground in the Middle East.

Speaking at his office in Columbia, S.C. on Wednesday, Graham shot back, saying the U.S. should ramp up its military efforts. “The war is not winding down, it is morphing,” he said. “If you don’t believe the enemy wants to hit us here at home you’re very naïve.”

Call it the war on terror 2.0, GOP style.

In a landmark speech on May 23, Obama said it was time to scale back the military and law-enforcement initiatives that have defined U.S. security policy since 9/11, including the use of armed drones.

http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/industry/302263-graham-treads-path-alone-on-military-sexual-assaults#ixzz2UgyllI5A

Sen. Graham treads path alone on military sexual assaults policy
By Jeremy Herb - 05/29/13 05:00 AM ET

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is staking out a lonely position on how the military should stop a rise in sexual assaults.

Graham opposes changes to the military’s judicial system, including stripping commanders’ ability to overturn guilty verdicts — a stance that puts him at odds with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, military leaders and lawmakers from both parties.

He has been the only lawmaker in recent weeks to take a vocal position against that change, as an outcry has emerged in Congress to tackle the issue.

But Graham’s isolated position has hardly stopped the South Carolina Republican from speaking frequently about military sexual assault, as he has downplayed the judicial changes and focused on what he thinks will help solve the problem.



unhappycamper comment: I haven't seen shit in the news lately about Brig. Gen. Jeffery Sinclair's trial for sexual assault, sodomy and porn on his computer in Afghanistan. I was under the impression that he was due back in court last week.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/05/29/2617059/ap-exclusive-soldier-to-admit.html



The Joint Base Lewis-McChord Stryker soldier accused of massacring 16 Afghan civilians last year plans to plead guilty to the killings next week in a deal that will spare him the death penalty, his attorney said Wednesday.

JBLM soldier to plead guilty to Afghan massacre
ADAM ASHTON; Staff writer
Published: May 29, 2013 at 1:40 p.m. PDT — Updated: May 29, 2013 at 8:01 p.m. PDT

The Joint Base Lewis-McChord Stryker soldier accused of massacring 16 Afghan civilians last year plans to plead guilty to the killings next week in a deal that will spare him the death penalty, his attorney said Wednesday.

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales’ plea hearing is set for Wednesday, an Army official told The News Tribune.

Bales, a married father of two young children formerly of Lake Tapps, must give a full account of the killings and persuade a judge that he understands the charges against him.

He will plead guilty to 16 counts of premeditated murder, defense attorney John Henry Browne said.

http://ecowatch.com/2013/sit-in-demanding-moratorium-on-fracking-illinois/



Sit in continues in front of Gov. Quinn’s Office in the Capitol Building, Springfield, IL.

Sit In Continues Demanding a Moratorium on Fracking in Illinois
Jeff Biggers

What happens in Illinois, doesn’t stay in Illinois—especially when you’re dealing with the national ramifications of a combined fracking and coal mining rush unparalleled in recent memory.

As a sit in movement continues at the office of Gov. Quinn in Springfield, IL, besieged southern Illinois residents who have been left out of backroom legislative negotiations over a controversial and admittedly flawed regulatory fracking bill are calling on the nation to contact Gov. Quinn and Lt. Gov. Madigan to put a moratorium on drilling to investigate its full climate and health impacts.

~snip~

From water contamination, air pollution to earthquakes in one of the nation’s most deadly seismic zones—conferring with a U.S. Geological Survey, there is already a 90 percent chance that a magnitude six or seven earthquake will occur in the New Madrid seismic area within the next fifty years—the unleashed fracking rush promises to not only leave southern Illinois in shambles.

If passed, Illinois’ so-called historic compromise of regulatory doublespeak—hailed by Gov. Quinn as “a new national standard for environmental protection and job creation potential”—will open the floodgates for similar fracking operations across the nation.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/16592-hancocks-reaper-drone-remote-control-there-and-here

Hancock's Reaper Drone; Remote Control There and Here
Saturday, 25 May 2013 13:11
By Ed Kinane, Syracuse.com | Op-Ed

Here in upstate New York, pretty much below the radar, a tragedy unfolds. But not without resistance.

For several years the unmanned robotic Reaper drones of the 174th Attack Wing of the New York National Guard have been piloted from Hancock air base. These weaponized robots kill and maim - and terrorize - the people of Afghanistan. Many - maybe most -- of these hapless Afghans are non-combatants: infants, children, mothers, elders, unarmed men; also livestock.

The Attack Wing does its killing by remote control from its safe perch at Hancock just outside Syracuse thousands of miles from where the Reaper's Hellfire missiles and 500-pound bombs strike. Nonetheless the Attack Wing technicians and their chain of command play judge, jury and executioner. They play God with human life. Few of these players know anything about the culture, politics, or people of Afghanistan. Few, if any, know whom they slay or even why. Robotically, drone-like, they follow orders.

Hancock's cowardly remote control tactics not only wreak havoc "over there," they are mirrored here. By deploying their influence on - their remote control of -- local law enforcement agencies and the judges of the DeWitt Town Court, Hancock tactically targets those seeking to expose its war crimes.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/thousands-bridges-risk-freak-collapse-19256103


Thousand of Bridges at Risk of Freak Collapse
By MIKE BAKER and JOAN LOWY Associated Press
SEATTLE May 25, 2013 (AP)

Thousands of bridges around the U.S. may be one freak accident or mistake away from collapse, even if the spans are deemed structurally sound.

~snip~

Public officials have focused in recent years on the desperate need for money to repair thousands of bridges deemed structurally deficient, which typically means a major portion of the bridge is in poor condition or worse. But the bridge that collapsed Thursday is not in that deficient category, highlighting another major problem with the nation's infrastructure: Although it's rare, some bridges deemed to be fine structurally can still be crippled if they are struck hard enough in the wrong spot.

~snip~

"Today, they're still building fracture critical bridges with the belief that they're not going break," Rosenker said.

Fracture critical bridges, like the I-5 span in Washington, are the result of Congress trying to cut corners to save money rather than a lack of engineering know-how, said Barry B. LePatner, a New York real estate attorney and author of "Too Big to Fall: America's Failing Infrastructure and the Way Forward."



unhappycamper comment: If we don't have the money to fix our critical infrastructure, I'd suggest looking into the single largest money pit in our non-discretionary National Budget.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/25/191949/a-long-ago-war-a-missing-plane.html#0



Sherrie Hassenger poses with a picture of her husband, Arden Hassenger, who was killed when his aircraft crashed in Laos while conducting operations in support of the Vietnam War.

A long-ago war, a missing plane and an enduring mystery
By Matthew Schofield | McClatchy Washington Bureau
Posted on Saturday, May 25, 2013

TA-OY, Laos — Maj. Derrell Jeffords bounced his roaring Spooky 21 down and off the runway at Da Nang Air Base in Vietnam. It was just before 7:30 a.m., on Christmas Eve 1965. The big camouflaged belly of his twin-prop AC-47 was easily visible against a blue sky as he banked west.

The cargo plane-turned-gunship was on its way to Laos; its mission was top secret.

Jeffords put the South China Sea at his back and the plane lumbered over a landscape mimicking the twists and folds of an unmade bed. The flight plan showed that he and his five-member crew would be returning to base in under six hours. Back in time for a late lunch.

~snip~

This is a story of that flight, and the nearly half-century it took to find and bring home its six crew members. Guiding that effort through all those years was the pledge that those who go into battle make to each other: No matter what, we will come back for you. You will not be forgotten.