FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Hire a Veteran. Contributor Jillian Hamilton explains, “Veterans leave service with a wide range of skills and education. Military experience makes veterans a great asset to your company, particularly if you do work with the Department of Defense. In addition to practical skills, military values are often cited as a key benefit of hiring veterans. And in case you needed more reasons, below are just a few of the attributes they bring to the table . . . .”
2. Recruiting makeover. Also from Jillian Hamilton, “What if recruiting got a makeover? Finding niche skills or upper management positions may require recruiters to tap into the creative side of things. Usually, top talent is employed elsewhere. Here are five unique ways to grab a candidate’s attention . . . .”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. President Obama v. World. TheAtlantic.Com’s Jeffrey Goldberg explains, “President Obama, speaking before the United Nations General Assembly, just delivered a speech that reminded me of Hillary Clinton at her most pugnacious, and of John McCain at his most tranquil. He reminded me of the second-term George W. Bush as well.” Consider for yourself—read the President’s remarks to the U.N.
2. Khorasan group explained. AP’s Ken Dilanian and Eileen Sullivan report, “While the Islamic State group is getting the most attention now, another band of extremists in Syria — a mix of hardened jihadis from Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Europe — poses a more direct and imminent threat to the United States, working with Yemeni bomb-makers to target U.S. aviation, American officials say. At the center is a cell known as the Khorasan group, a cadre of veteran al-Qaida fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan who traveled to Syria to link up with the al-Qaida affiliate there, the Nusra Front.”
3. Refined strikes in Syria—right in Daesh’s moneymaker. DefenseNews.Com’s Doug Stanglin and Ray Locker report, “US aircraft and those from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates struck Islamic State targets in Syria Wednesday, including 12 ‘modular oil refineries’ . . . . The 13 airstrikes used a combination of fighter aircraft and drones . . . . The targets were in the remote eastern part of Syria near the towns of Al Mayadin, Al Hasakah, and Abu Kamal. Another strike hit an IS vehicle near Dayr az Zawr, also in eastern Syria. The latest attacks follow strikes early Wednesday on five targets in Iraq and Syria connected to the militant Islamic State terrorist organization . . . .” But, “Islamist fighters advance in Syria despite U.S. strikes.”
4. Talking Turkey. AP’s Lara Lakes reports, “Moving from reluctance to refusal and finally to acceptance, Turkey is joining its NATO allies and fellow Sunni Muslim nations in a coalition to destroy the Islamic State militant group. . . . Turkey, often described as a difficult partner with much of the West, long has resisted being used as a launching pad for foreign troops to attack neighboring nations. Now, however, Turkey faces threats from militants who have overtaken much of northern Syria and Iraq, as well as from Kurdish separatists whom Ankara considers terrorists.” Christian Science Monitor reports, “Syrians inundate Turkey.” Aljazeera.Com reports, “Iraqis skeptical about war on ISIL” while “Islamic State overruns Iraqi military base in Anbar.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. $7 billion for 40 F-35s. GovConWire.Com reports, “South Korea will acquire 40 Lockheed Martin F-35A aircraft and receive fighter jet production technologies from the company under a $7.04 billion deal with the U.S. government . . . . The new planes will replace the country’s old fleet of F-4 and F-5 jets and the F-35s will cost around $115.3 million per aircraft, the report said. The U.S. and South Korean governments plan to finalize the deal within the month ahead of the planned F-35A deployments in 2018 for Seoul.” For details, see DefenseNews.Com’s Jung Sunk-ki’s report.
2. Gonna need 231 (not 230 or 235, but 231) more Tomahawks! MilitaryAerospace.Com Editor John Keller reports, “The 40-plus U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles fired at terrorist targets in the Middle East this week will be replaced with a new quarter-billion-dollar cruise missile procurement announced Wednesday. U.S. Navy officials announced the purchase of 231 Tomahawk Block IV all-up-round missiles from the missile’s designer, the Raytheon Co. Missile Systems segment in Tucson, Ariz., under terms of a $251.1 million contract.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Kevin Mitnick—50 shades of hacker. Wired.Com’s Andy Greenberg reports, “As a young man, Kevin Mitnick became the world’s most notorious black hat hacker, breaking into the networks of companies like IBM, Nokia, Motorola, and other targets. After a stint in prison, he reinvented himself as a white hat hacker, selling his skills as a penetration tester and security consultant. With his latest business venture, Mitnick has switched hats again: This time to an ambiguous shade of gray.”
2. More cyber-talk, less cyber-regulating. FierceGovernmentIT.Com’s Molly Bernhart Walker reports, “Federal regulatory agencies are taking on a greater advisory role in helping critical infrastructure and financial services companies apply the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s cybersecurity framework and reduce their cyber risks . . . . Agencies are working to ‘operationalize’ the cyber risk framework for particular sectors . . . . the FCC is working with companies to conduct meaningful risk assessments, communicate what companies have done to reduce risk, and relay that information to top executives.”
3. Boot camp! Learn to code. VentureBeat.Com’s Laura Schaefer reports, “Coding boot camps, which generally focus on Ruby on Rails and front-end coding languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, say they have job placement rates north of 90 percent. These intensive programs are generally selective and expensive. But do they really deliver results that justify their costs? . . . As boot camps proliferate—other names include MakerSquare, General Assembly, Hack Reactor, Fullstack Academy, and The Flatiron School—the question is, are they worth it? How many grads actually get jobs?”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Love-Hate: “Hillary Clinton needs to keep Obama’s supporters behind her if she runs for president in 2016. After Clinton was quoted in The Atlantic last month knocking Obama’s foreign policy mantra—‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle,’ she said—she issued a statement a few days later declaring her deep support for the president and insisting she wasn’t trying to attack him. Some Obama advisers, meanwhile, see Clinton as a lifeline—the best chance the lame-duck Democrat has to preserve his legacy, particularly Obamacare, after the open-seat election in 2016. Whether Obama himself views the situation that way is unclear. But so far, a number of former Obama aides have made an effort to show unity between the two sides.”
2. Middle road: “Some of the nation’s leading social conservatives are openly expressing dismay about the Republican strategy to reclaim the U.S. Senate as the 2014 midterm campaign hurdles into the homestretch. As the annual Values Voter Summit convenes in the District of Columbia this weekend, there’s a distinct sense among faith-driven leaders that pockets of their base remain uninspired by some of the candidates who are crucial to GOP success in November. The feeling of foreboding stems from a perception that Republican standard-bearers in key races are taking social conservatives for granted to cater to the highly prized independent voters who often swing margin-of-error contests.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “War without end: The U.S. may still be fighting in Syria in 2024, 2034, 2044 . . .” Reuters’ Jack Shafer argues, “In bombing Syria, President Obama, who inherited this war, has made this war his war, the next president’s war, and our war. Today, tomorrow, and for as far as the eye can see. Perpetual war for perpetual peace.”
2. “Defeating Islamic State – with an alternative vision.” Christian Science Monitor’s Editorial Board argues, “Mr. Obama’s plea to Muslims to offer an alternative vision may be designed to persuade these IS-governed Sunnis to reject the IS vision. An alternative vision would affirm a society with the self-evident truth of individual freedom, in which each person can find purity, in large part by honoring and respecting a similar desire in others.”
3. “ISIL and western media: Accidental allies?” Aljazeera.Com contributor Donatella Della Ratta argues, “Today, it has on its side the architecture of the participatory web and the viral circulation of content boosted by social media. And a very special – probably unintentional – ally: western media, drawn in by ISIL’s paradoxically hideous allure.”
