Good Friday Finale & Farewell Gabriel Garcia Marquez
FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Jobs—Cleared IT Regions. Contributor Tranette Ledford maps the trends: “Despite the fact that IT job postings are down a bit over last year’s numbers, the demand for cleared IT professionals is still high, particularly in specific regions. The following five regions make up those with higher than average job opportunities with great salaries.”
2. Jobs—Defense and Aerospace. Also from T. Ledford, “Big mountains and great skiing may be the first things that come to mind at the mention of Colorado, but cleared veterans may want to look at some of the state’s smaller cities with big opportunities. Colorado defense jobs and aerospace careers continue to be competitive, especially in these smaller cities. The push is on to build Colorado as one of the best states in which to do business in defense and aerospace.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Ukraine—Deal, or no deal. Reuters’ Pavel Polityuk and Thomas Grove report from Kiev, “Armed pro-Russian separatists were still holding public buildings in eastern Ukraine on Friday, saying they needed more assurances about their security before they comply with an international deal ordering them to disarm. The agreement, brokered by the United States, Russia, Ukraine and the European Union in Geneva on Thursday offered the best hope to date of defusing a stand-off in Ukraine that has dragged East-West relations to their lowest level since the Cold War.” Related, a Russian in any other uniform is still a Russian. See also, “U.S., Poland Defense Leaders Find New Areas for Cooperation.”
2. Syria—Homs, deal, or no deal. Aljazeera.Com reports, “Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN-Arab League special envoy to Syria, has said that a deal that allowed some civilians to leave Homs has broken down. Brahimi’s comments came as activists said on Thursday that barrel bombs were being dropped by government forces targeting opposition-held areas in Homs after Syrian troops and pro-regime militiamen fought their way into the neighbourhoods during the course of the week, after besieging them for nearly two years.”
3. Special ops suicides—no immunity. Time’s Charlie Campbell reports, “U.S. special operations forces personnel are committing suicide in record numbers, according to military officials, who blame the traumatic effects of ‘hard combat.’ According to Reuters, Admiral William McRaven, who leads the Special Operations Command, told a conference in Tampa, Fla. that troops from elite units such as the Navy SEALs and Army Rangers have proved prone to depression and self-harm over the past two years.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Radar lock on Pratt & Whitney—F-35’s over-pricey engines. AviationWeek.Com’s Amy Butler reports, “Performance continues to fall short of projections for two major reasons: cost from the prime contractors and major subcontractors — including labor rates and overhead — and delayed purchases by Joint Strike Fighter customers. Now, after years of pushing Lockheed Martin, the aircraft prime, to push down its production pricing cost, prime engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney is in Bogdan’s crosshairs. ‘We had a price curve for these engines. We thought we knew how much it was going to cost . . . Pratt is not meeting their commitment. It is as simple as that . . . . It is not good. Not good at all’ . . . .”
2. $5 billon on NOAA’s horizon. FederalTimes.Com’s Steve Watkins reports, “A long-awaited RFP for an estimated $5 billion procurement program managed by the Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be released by September . . . . Mitchell Ross, director of NOAA’s Acquisition and Grants Office, said his office is drafting a final acquisition plan now for the Professional and Technical Support Services Contract Vehicle, or Pro-Tech, which has an estimated value of between $3 billion and $5 billion over five years. The contract will deliver a wide array of specialty services in the categories of ocean and coastal services, satellite/observing systems services, fisheries, meteorological services, and enterprise operations.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. The inevitable robot rebellion. DefenseOne.Com’s Patrick Tucker reports that “computer scientist and entrepreneur Steven Omohundro says that ‘anti-social’ artificial intelligence in the future is not only possible, but probable, unless we start designing AI systems very differently today. Omohundro’s most recent paper, published in the Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, lays out the case. We think of artificial intelligence programs as somewhat humanlike. In fact, computer systems perceive the world through a narrow lens, the job they were designed to perform.” Read Omohundro’s paper, “Autonomous technology and the greater human good.”
2. Internet evolution—less flexible. FierceGovernmentIT.Com’s David Perera reports, “The Internet of tomorrow will be less resilient, less available and not as robust as today’s . . . . Not the least is the fact of the increasingly tight coupling of the Internet with societies and their economies. The Internet is no longer a virtual space apart, but connected with real life in places like the electrical grid and global logistical supply chains. As that’s occurred, organizations are unknowingly exposing themselves to greater levels of cyber risk, a trend caused by reliance on digital networks and compounded by poor cyber risk management.”
3. Ask Vlad T.V. . . . Snowden does. VentureBeat.Com’s Barry Levine reports, “Edward Snowden, who leaked secret U.S. documents that revealed mass surveillance, asked ex-KGB agent and current Russian President Vladimir Putin on live TV today about spying on civilians: ‘Does Russia intercept, store, or analyze, in any way, the communications of millions of individuals?’ . . . . The Russian leader then said that his government employs bugging to fight crime and terrorism for specific targets but that, ‘on a massive scale, on an uncontrolled scale we certainly do not allow this, and I hope we will never allow it.’”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Year of the Baby, baby: “Chelsea Clinton announced Thursday she is pregnant with her first child, due late this year. The former first daughter, 34, made the big reveal in New York City at an event hosted by the Clinton Foundation. ‘We have our first child arriving later this year,’ Clinton said, according to reports. Hillary Clinton, 66, attended the event and said she is ‘really excited’ to welcome her first granddaughter. ‘I just hope that I will be as good a mom to my child and hopefully children as my mom was to me,’ Clinton said.”
2. Man, or Muppet: “Experts say Edward Snowden’s public questioning of Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested the former National Security Agency contractor is firmly in the Kremlin’s grasp. They said it is hard to imagine that Snowden was not prompted and coached to pose his question about domestic surveillance in Russia to the country’s leader. And the answer he got in return – that none of Russia’s programs reached the size and scope of anything at the National Security Agency (NSA) – was most likely a lie. ‘They’ve got him by the shorthairs,’ said James Lewis, director of the strategic technologies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. ‘He knows from his NSA days that their surveillance system — their domestic surveillance system — puts ours to shame, and the fact that he’s calling in with these questions, he’s [got to be] sitting in the room with a guy with a gun.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “The long reach of Putinismo.” LATimes.Com contributor Timothy Garton Ash argues, “Tell me your Ukraine and I will tell you who you are. The Ukrainian crisis is a political Rorschach test, not just for individuals but also for states. What it reveals is not encouraging for the West.”
2. “Anti-Semitism card overplayed in Ukraine.” USAToday.Com contributor Abraham H. Foxman argues, “When Jews are considered a natural part of the Ukrainian nation, anti-Semitism in Ukraine should wane and the temptation to use anti-Semitism in politics should follow. And that will be a relief, because anti-Semitism is a big enough problem without having anyone with a political ax to grind add to it artificially.”
3. “Transparency Can Be Bad for Liberty.” DefenseOne.Com contributor David Frum argues, “Energetic and effective government is not the enemy of rights. In a world of predators, energetic and effective government is the vindicator of rights. Freedom unprotected by power is no freedom at all. Power unguided by information is no power at all. And the information most needed for national defense is not obtained by asking nicely for it.”
THE FUNNIES
3. Hell’s Kitchen.
