Headlines & Senate women tackle sexual assault
FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Young, cleared, and ready to work. Contributor Tranette Ledford plots the best five cities for the cleared kids’ crowd: “According to the U.S. Census Bureau and the American Community Survey, some cities have an exceptionally high number of younger workers. When those cities also have a strong defense industry presence, they’re good bets for younger, cleared veterans looking for jobs.”
2. Microsoft and Veterans – the magnet drawing us west. Also from contributor T. Ledford, last week, “Microsoft launched the Microsoft Software & Systems Academy, which offers free software development training and testing for transitioning service members. The 16-week course builds on service members’ technical skills and helps prepare them for industry-recognized IT certifications as developers, applications engineers and IT project managers. Once they complete the program, they’re offered IT jobs as software testers at Microsoft or Launch Consulting, the company administering the program.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Philippines’ relief – the hub and spoke system. Armed Forces Press Service’s Cheryl Pellerin reports, “Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John E. Wissler, commander of the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force, spoke . . . from his Joint Task Force 505 headquarters in Manila. The task force was officially activated yesterday to lead humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations in support of the Philippine government. . . . 13,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are engaged in the relief effort. Troops have delivered 1,300 tons of relief supplies, logged nearly 1,000 flight hours moving 1,200 relief workers into Tacloban, and airlifted more than 8,000 survivors out of affected areas.”
2. On Iran, Senate gives POTUS some breathing room. United Press International reports from Geneva, “The US Senate will put off a vote on new Iranian sanctions that could derail nuclear talks, senators said, as a crucial round of talks was to begin Wednesday. . . . At the same time, the senators urged Obama to reject any nuclear deal with Iran that did not include a tangible rollback of its nuclear weapons program . . . .” Aljazeera.com reports, “Iran minister optimistic over nuclear deal” and Reuters reports, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that there “was ‘every possibility’ of a successful conclusion provided there was good faith and the political will among all involved to resolve problems.”
3. Incremental progress: Assad’s forces capture Qara. Aljazeera.com reports, “Syria troops have captured the village of Qara in the mountainous Qalamoun region along a key supply route between Damascus and Homs. The capture of the strategic area on Tuesday comes days after pro-Assad forces launched an offensive against the town near the Lebanese border. . . . The Syrian civil war has claimed an estimated 120,000 lives and generated the biggest refugee crisis in two decades, raising fears that the conflict could spill over into volatile neighbouring states like Lebanon and Iraq.”
4. In Afghanistan, security pact depends on apologies and confessions. Reuters’ Jessica Donati and Hamid Shalizi report from Kabul, “The text of a security pact between the United States and Afghanistan that sets out a military blueprint once Washington starts pulling out its troops after 2014 is unfinished a day before thousands of Afghan elders were due to start debating it. . . . Last-minute efforts to finalize the pact stalled on Tuesday by differences over whether President Barack Obama had agreed to issue a letter acknowledging U.S. mistakes made during the 12-year war.” Khaama.Com leads with “US officials rejects reports of apology to Afghanistan,” but also reports, “Afghan president Hamid Karzai and US Secretary of State John Kerry have agreed a final version of the bilateral security agreement between the two nations. Presidential palace spokesman, Aimal Faizi said Tuesday that the agreement was reached between president Karzai and John Kerry during a telephone conversation.”
5. In Iraq, waves of attack continue to roil.
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Beefing up contractor security requirements. American Forces Press Service reports, “An amendment published yesterday to the Defense Federal Acquisition Supplement will require defense contractors to incorporate established information security standards on their unclassified networks and to report cyber-intrusion incidents that result in the loss of unclassified controlled technical information from these networks. The amendment will apply to all new contracts that will use or generate technical information, said Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics . . . . this is a one of many significant follow on actions to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s Oct. 10 memo directing actions to protect DOD unclassified controlled technical information from cyber intrusions and minimize the consequences associated with loss of this information.”
2. Contractor back-pay on the table. GovExec.com reports, “When Congress reopened government in October, after a shutdown that lasted more than two weeks, it elected to pay furloughed federal employees retroactively for the time they missed. Now, a group of Democratic lawmakers is calling on the government to similarly make whole federal contract employees. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., introduced the Low-Wage Federal Contractor Back Pay Act, which would amend the continuing resolution funding agencies through mid-January to add appropriations for the retroactive pay. Some contractors providing support to federal agencies and buildings required their employees to take unpaid leave due to a lack of funding and agency closures.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Bat drone – Northrop Grumman’s re-missioned gadget. Wired.com’s Allen McDuffee reports, “Small, tactical drones may have a new role in military strikes after Northrop Grumman’s catapult-launched Bat demonstrated an electronic attack capability for the first time in new tests. With its 12-foot wingspan, the low-flying Bat, which maxes out at 70 miles per hour, was able to jam radar during tests. That means the Pentagon will soon have the option of deploying a flexible, largely undetectable drone with radar-jamming capability to protect manned aircraft against radar and surface-to-air missile guidance systems. . . . While the Bat has been in operation for some time, it has remained a surveillance vehicle until now. Northrop integrated its Pandora electronic attack payload — a lightweight, low-cost derivative of the company’s family of APR-39 systems — on the Bat in less than two months.”
2. Cybersecurity funding stagnant. FederalTimes.com’s Andy Medici explains that “cybersecurity experts can command salaries that are two or three times higher than what the government can pay, which puts agencies at a disadvantage. But Congress is wary about new hiring authorities that have the potential to be abused.”
3. Eye scanners – in your pocket. VentureBeat.com’s Rebecca Grant reports, “Eye scanner identification systems are the stuff of spy movies, but EyeVerify is bringing them to the mainstream. . . . EyeVerify’s biometric software verifies your identity on your phone with your “eyeprint.” Using a smartphone camera, the technology captures images of your eye and creates a template with information about blood vessels, vein patterns, and other physical things.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Say hello to my leetle friend. Demonstrating GOP’s bipartisan support for easing up the War on Drugs, Rep. Trey Radel, a first-term Republican from Florida, was charged Tuesday with possession of cocaine . . . . Radel describes himself as a ‘hip-hop conservative.’ House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., noted at an event Tuesday evening that Radel’s drug charge came shortly after the House Republican majority voted to require food stamp recipients to take drug tests.” [“Hip-hop conservatives” has a better ring than “tea party” . . . .]
2. Can’t even shut the government down right. Jeez! FederalTimes.com reports, “More than 95 percent of the Veterans Affairs Department’s 332,000 employees kept working during at least part of the 16-day shutdown, for example, while about 84 percent of the Justice Department’s lawyers, corrections officers and other staff stayed on the job, according to the numbers assembled on the website Masters-in-accounting.org. At NASA, by contrast, only about 3 percent of employees continued to work; the ratio was not much higher at the Housing and Urban Development Department, the Education Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, the figures show.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “An Iran nuclear deal is a win for U.S.” Reuters contributor Kelsey Davenport argues, “It would be foolish for Washington and its partners to sacrifice a good deal that freezes Iran’s nuclear program and allows time for a comprehensive agreement by making unreasonable demands.”
2. “US-Iran negotiations are fragile, but there’s room for hope.” Christian Science Monitor contributor Ramin Jahanbegloo argues, “A diplomatic deal is clearly preferable for all sides, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, which in the long run have no other option but to accept a broader American strategy of deterrence and containment of a nuclear Iran rather than a costly military engagement that would involve a great number of states and political actors in the region.”
3. A lesson in rhetoric, by WaPo’s Kathleen Parker: “We in the news business could stand to apply the brakes to our runaway impulse to ‘similize.’ I personally love a good simile, which can inject levity into a column. But lately we’ve seen instances of simile-itis that might have saved readers and viewers some angst, even if writers and pundits were left with less to say. (Let’s go light on the air horns, please.)”
