Thirsty Thursday & A Giant of a win

FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM

1. Ingenuity, innovation, inspiration—what matters in Defense. Editor Lindy Kyzer advises, wisely, “If you’re going to go after a person based on age you had better have a few good counterpoints to throw into the mix. Otherwise you’re throwing away your professional reputation for one bad rant.”

2. Analyst job growth. Contributor Tranette Ledford reports, “The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects market research analysis jobs to grow more than 30 percent over the next eight years. That growth is driven by the increasing shift to use of data and analytics across all industries.”

THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT

1. U.S.-Israeli relations on shakiest ground. The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reports, “The relationship between these two administrations— dual guarantors of the putatively ‘unbreakable’ bond between the U.S. and Israel—is now the worst it’s ever been, and it stands to get significantly worse after the November midterm elections. By next year, the Obama administration may actually withdraw diplomatic cover for Israel at the United Nations, but even before that, both sides are expecting a showdown over Iran . . . .” Peripherally related, see “Israel planning to increase F-35 buy.”

2. Tunisia—ISIS’ top sourcing. Washington Post’s Kevin Sullivan reports, “Tunisia, a small North African country of 11 million people, has become the largest source of foreign fighters joining the Islamic State and other extremist groups in Syria and Iraq, according to estimates by the Tunisian government and private analysts. As many as 3,000 Tunisians, most of them men under 30, have joined the battle, placing this popular Mediterranean tourist destination higher than even Saudi Arabia and Jordan on the list of the homelands of the 15,000 or so foreigners fighting with the Islamic State and other radical militant groups.” See also, “Watch out for Islamic State attacks in the U.S.” and “Small victories against ‘very determined’ ISIS enemy.”

3. Combat opening to women. Christian Science Monitor’s Anna Mulrine reports, “As Norway became the first NATO country to require women to register for the draft this month, it has American military analysts debating whether the US could be on the verge of taking the same step, too. . . . [T]he US Supreme Court ruled that requiring only men to register for the draft was constitutional, since there were US laws that banned women from fighting in combat. . . . But with the Pentagon’s decision to lift the ban on women in combat by January 2016 – and its move in recent months to open a number of jobs to female troops previously held only by men – those Supreme Court arguments from 33 years ago may no longer apply . . . .”

4. Our transgender military. Washington Post’s Sandhya Somashekhar reports, “Thousands of men and women serving in the U.S. military are . . . caught in the gap between shifting cultural mores and military regulations that still require the immediate dismissal of any service member found to be transgender. This confusing situation results in part from a widespread expectation that the Pentagon will lift the ban on transgender service, just as Congress three years ago repealed ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ the policy that barred gays from serving openly.”

5. Defense budgeting’s new normal. DefenseNews.Com’s Paul McLeary reports, “The Pentagon’s chief financial officer admitted on Wednesday that he is ‘not super optimistic’ about Congress reaching a budget deal once the current continuing resolution temporarily funding the federal government expires on Dec. 11.”

CONTRACT WATCH

1. F-35 buy discount. DoDBuzz.Com’s Brendan McGarry reports, “The U.S. Defense Department has struck a deal with Lockheed Martin Corp. to buy another batch of F-35 stealth fighter jets, an agreement they say will reduce the aircraft’s unit cost by almost 4 percent. . . . A 3.6-percent reduction would reduce the figures to about $108 million per F-35A, $134 million per F-35B and $125 million per F-35C.” See also, “Pentagon Acquisition Chief Doubts USMC’s July F-35 IOC Target.”

2. UH-60s going glass—Curtiss-Wright helps. MilitaryAerospace.Com Editor John Keller reports, “Helicopter avionics experts at Northrop Grumman Corp. needed rugged commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) embedded computing components for a project to install glass cockpits in Army UH-60 utility helicopters. . . . Curtiss-Wright has received a contract from the Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems segment in Woodland Hills, Calif., to provide rugged COTS single-board computers, network switches, and graphics display modules for the Army’s UH-60V program.”

TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY

1. Heck. No revenge hacking! NextGov.Com contributor Brendan Sasso reports, “Businesses, under siege from hackers looking to steal sensitive information, increasingly want to take matters into their own hands. But the head of the National Security Agency is warning them not to become hackers themselves. ‘Be very careful about going down that road,’ Adm. Michael Rogers, the NSA director, said . . . .” See also, “

2. IT spending’s slow grow. FederalTimes.Com’s Steve Watkins reports, “Federal IT spending will grow very slowly over the next five years, with growth on the civilian agency side slightly outpacing that of defense-related agencies, predicts trade association TechAmerica in its latest annual forecast. Federal spending on all IT programs in 2015 is estimated to hit roughly $80 billion, of which roughly $73.7 billion is for unclassified programs . . . .”

3. Faux privacy. VentureBeat.Com’s Ruth Reader reports, “A company’s terms of service (TOS) is supposed to clear up confusion for users about how location or other personal information may be used or stored within a company’s databases. Though many people fail to read the TOS before engaging with a site or app, once they agree to the terms, it is a binding contract. In the case of Whisper, you’re agreeing to being tracked.”

4. Smooth sailing. Wired.Com’s Alex Davies reports, “Like a pontoon boat, the Martini sits on two long hulls shaped like skis. Those are connected to a platform at the front and back by metal arms. Each corner, where the arm meets the hull, has a linear accelerometer, a pneumatic airbag, and a DC servo motor. To match the movement of the ocean, detected by the accelerometer, the motor turns a ball screw that pushes or pulls the control arm, lowering and raising that end of the hull as necessary.”

POTOMAC TWO-STEP

1. Michelle Obama for Pope in 2018: “Michelle Obama will not be following in Hillary Clinton’s footsteps. Despite recurring rumors to the contrary—the freshest of which emerged last week—the first lady is not interested in running for the Senate or any other office. She never has been and she never will be, Obama and people close to her have said repeatedly. ‘She is as likely to put her name in contention to be the next pope as she is to run for political office,’ her former communications director, Kristina Schake, said Tuesday in the latest denial from the first lady’s orbit. Still, the rumblings won’t die.”

2. Salty language: “House Speaker John Boehner condemned the Obama administration on Wednesday after a report surfaced in which an anonymous U.S. official called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘a chickenshit.’ . . . [T]he Ohio Republican deplored ‘the disrespectful rhetoric used time and again by this administration with respect to the special relationship the United States has with the state of Israel.’ . . . [Press Secretary Josh Earnest] chafed when asked about Boehner’s strong rebuke of it. ‘[That’s] an interesting observation by the Speaker of the House, who has a penchant for using salty language himself . . . . It’s a little rich to have a lecture about profanity from the Speaker of the House.’”

OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS

1. “Putin Is Living in the Past.” TheMoscowTimes.Com contributor Ivan Sukhov argues, “With Russia not actually under attack from anyone, Putin has launched a counteroffensive that is rooted in the past and hopelessly takes aim at the reality of the present.”

2. “The U.S.-Iran non-alliance alliance against Islamic State.” Reuters contributor Aki Peritz and Faris Alikhan argue, “If the United States and Iran are strange bedfellows, they’re not going to share the same bed often—and they’re going to do so with great embarrassment. But Tehran already has the ears of politicians in Irbil and Baghdad. Perhaps more than Washington does, or ever did. Let’s exploit all forms of leverage to fight Islamic State for our own ends. That’s how you win wars.”

3. “Bush’s Nightmare Is Coming True.” USNews.Com contributor Lamont Calucci argues, “America fought World War I and World War II for a set of values; a constellation of moral and political goals to ensure that regimes like the Nazis and militarists never held sway. A world in which the Assad regime and the Islamic State group are allowed to continue makes these goals into a mockery.”

THE FUNNIES

1. I believe.

2. California hello.

3. Politics as usual.

Related News

Ed Ledford enjoys the most challenging, complex, and high stakes communications requirements. His portfolio includes everything from policy and strategy to poetry. A native of Asheville, N.C., and retired Army Aviator, Ed’s currently writing speeches in D.C. and working other writing projects from his office in Rockville, MD. He loves baseball and enjoys hiking, camping, and exploring anything. Follow Ed on Twitter @ECLedford.