Monday Headlines & Farewell Mickey Rooney
FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Cleared Jobs—Spy City St. Louis. Contributor David Brown reports, “Many things come to mind when you think of St. Louis, Missouri. . . . legions of analysts hunched over maps and satellite imagery, studying terrain, gravity, light, and elevation in order to produce the most precise geospatial-intelligence in the world. As it turns out, spies are to St. Louis what apple pie is to the U.S. of A.”
2. Whatcha been doin? Contributor Diana Rodriguez preps you for your first interview in months: “During an interview, many hiring managers may ask, ‘What have you been doing during these past six months of unemployment?’ Being prepared to answer this question with a list of positive answers can make all the difference when being considered for a hire.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Combat stigma. Christian Science Monitor’s Brad Knickerbocker reports, “Immediately after the Fort Hood rampage last week, many were quick to label the shooter as a soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But to others – soldiers and mental health experts alike – this snap judgment stigmatizes combat veterans diagnosed with this signature ailment of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it’s a simplified and short-hand reading of a far more complicated issue.”
2. Ukraine unrest—lure to Russian troops. Reuters’ Richard Balmforth reports from Kiev, “Protests in eastern Ukraine in which pro-Russian activists seized public buildings in three cities are part of a plan to destabilize Ukraine and bring in Russian troops . . . . Saying Russian troops were within a 30 km (19 mile) zone from the Ukrainian border, Yatseniuk told a government meeting: ‘An anti-Ukrainian plan is being put into operation … under which foreign troops will cross the border and seize the territory of the country.’” See also, Navy shoring-up missile shield in Europe.
3. Afghan elections—it worked! Khaama.com reports, “More than seven million people turned out to vote on Saturday in order to elect the next president of Afghanistan. The turnout of the election was three million more than last time and a third of them were women. There have been some claims of fraud in various parts of the country, but there’s no evidence yet of the mass ballot stuffing and vote buying seen in the last presidential elections in two thousand and nine.” See also DefenseOne.Com’s AFGHANISTAN ELECTION: SPECIAL REPORT and SecDef sends Congrats.
4. Palestinian Army welcomes women. AP’s Karin Laub and Mohammed Daraghmeh report, “Palestinian women in combat fatigues and headscarves rappelled down a six-story tower, fired assault rifles at imaginary terrorists and in a drill straight out of the movies bundled a would-be VIP into a car and sped off after a shooting. The 22 future commandos are trailblazers in a still largely male-dominated society, set to become the first female members of the Presidential Guards, a Palestinian elite force of 2,600 men. Their inclusion is the result of gradual changes in the West Bank in recent years.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Helping hire Vets—SAP NS2. GovConWire.Com reports, “SAP NS2 looks to veterans to fill a large percentage of its workforce as it supports the national security missions of the U.S. through work in enterprise applications, analytics, databases, cloud computing and mobile software. But, for many veterans looking to enter the workforce, the skills they developed during their service don’t always immediately align with the skills employers need to run their organizations. That has contributed to the unemployment rate for veterans averaging up to 9 percent higher than the national average over the last five-to-six years.”
2. $5 billion for Cybersecurity at National Institute of Standards and Technology. FederalTimes.Com’s Nicole Blake Johnson reports, “NIST plans to award a $5 billion contract to operate the [federally funded research and development center] and support its National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, or NCCoE for short. The NCCoE is tasked with developing and promoting the adoption of practical cybersecurity solutions. The contract will have a base period of five years with a maximum of 25 years. Proposals are due May 22.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. DARPA’s Robots in Space. Wired.Com contributor Allen McDuffee reports, “Building satellites in the future could be as easy as sending robots packed with hardware into orbit, if a new project from Darpa takes off. Under its new Phoenix program, which recently completed Phase 1 testing, Darpa is totally rethinking how the U.S. builds and maintains its satellite fleet. The idea is for robots to assemble modular satellite architecture, called satlets, that weigh about 15 pounds and contain the satellite functionality such as the power supply, controls and sensors. All of this is delivered on the Payload Orbital Delivery (POD) system, which is meant to be easily and quickly deployable.”
2. Night Vision Contact Lenses. Also from Wired.Com and Allen McDuffee, “Researchers at the University of Michigan, Ted Norris and Zhaohui Zhong, have created a super-thin infrared light sensor using graphene — an atom-thin material related to graphite — that could be layered onto contact lenses. Graphene absorbs infrared rays and translates them into an electrical signal, in a similar fashion to how silicon chips work with visible light in a digital camera.”
3. Civil Nav Sats—courtesy USAF. AviationWeek.Com’s Guy Norris reports, “The U.S. Air Force is set to start early implementation of the long-anticipated GPS Civil Navigation (CNAV) message at the end of this month, and will use the process to help develop new countermeasures against spoofing. The GPS satellites will begin the early broadcast of more accurate navigation messages on the new civil L2C and L5 signals, mainly to aid development of compatible user equipment and CNAV operational procedures. However, according to the Air Force, an element of the pre-implementation phase will evaluate new ways to protect against the growing threat of spoofing, in which vehicles can be put off course by counterfeit signals. Spoofing is a more insidious threat than jamming because users are not aware that their navigation system is being misled.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Just don’t screw it up: “President Barack Obama clocked a huge win by hitting his target 7 million Obamacare enrollment. Now he’s faced with a tougher task: not blowing it. Obama’s got a history of watching his victories slip away before fully capitalizing on them. Last year alone, his reelection bump disappeared into a triple whammy of low-grade spring scandals. Then, all the goodwill he had coming out of the government shutdown was eclipsed by the devastating HealthCare.gov rollout.”
2. Launch the fleet! “Two F-16 fighter jets were scrambled Sunday afternoon to intercept a plane flying in restricted airspace over Washington, D.C., according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command. NORAD directed the mission around 12:30 p.m. after the plane entered the Special Flight Rules Area over the capital and was deemed out of communications with air traffic controllers. By the time the jets intercepted and visually identified the aircraft, it was leaving the restricted flight area and resumed communication with controllers, NORAD said.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “Understanding Russia.” Aljazeera.Com contributor Vartan Oskanian explains, “If we are going to understand Russia’s behaviour and intentions, we have to begin with Russia’s perception of its fundamental weakness – its borders. Historically, Russia has always based its national security doctrine on the notion of strategic depth through allies around its periphery. Therefore, Russia is always pressing westward. But Europe is always pressing eastward.”
2. “Afghan elections redefine U.S. role.” Reuters contributor Senator Robert Menendez argues, “If successful, this transition will mark the first time in Afghanistan’s history that an elected president peacefully and democratically hands power to a successor. The United States is prepared to support one of our most important allies in the region — the Afghan people.”
3. “The Military Must Hunt Corruption, Not Just Terrorists.” DefenseOne.Com contributor Sarah Chayes argues, “Curbing or rolling back entrenched corruption is a monumentally difficult prospect. Yet there are security advantages in visibly keeping a distance, even where U.S. policy changes won’t lead directly to reforms on the ground. At present, the U.S. government is hardly positioned even to try.”
THE FUNNIES
1. The Doctor is In.
2. Uphill Battle.
