Humph Day Highlights & Farewell Ben Bradlee
FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Where the jobs are. Contributor Tranette Ledford offers, “Veterans looking for cleared tech jobs may want to steer a little north or south of some of the more popular, sprawling urban behemoths. Major cities are always good spots for civilian jobs, but some lesser-targeted regions may hold better opportunities to technically skilled job seekers with a clearance. At least that’s what the numbers say. September’s tech job ads totaled more than 800,000 across the U.S. But four pockets had the largest year-over-year increase, and they aren’t the usual suspects. . . .”
2. High-end IT jobs. Also from Tranette Ledford, “This year’s job market for cleared professionals is more stable over last year, pushing a handful of IT fields to the top of the list of high-paying skills. Cleared veterans interested in better than average salaries may want to update their resumes to ensure their skills and training match what hiring managers are looking for to fill openings in the second half of 2014.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Back to Anbar. Reuters’ Ahmed Rasheed, Saif Hameed, and Ned Parker report, “In recent weeks, the world has watched the battle to save Syria’s border town of Kobani from Islamic State. But the radical jihadists have for longer been engulfing another strategically more vital target—Iraq’s western Anbar province and its road to Baghdad. . . . Sunni tribal fighters fear they are outmanned and say the U.S. military and Iraqi government are not sending enough support.” See also, “Iraqi PM Abadi says the US is not to be trusted” and “Tribes in tense Abu Ghraib vow to keep IS out.”
2. The big deal about Kobane. Aljazeera.Com reports, “While the actual strategic value of Kobane remains widely mooted, what’s missing from the debate is how exactly the once-irrelevant town become a powerful symbol of Kurdish national aspirations across the four corners of the notional Greater Kurdistan – as well as an important card on the Turkish negotiating table.” See also, “Fighters seize weapons cache meant for Kurds” and “Airstrikes Help Ground Forces Take Fight to ISIL.”
3. Opium all-time high . . . in Afghanistan. NextGov.Com’s Charles S. Clark reports, “[A]fter various agencies spent $7.6 billion over more than a decade on counternarcotics efforts, opium poppy cultivation levels in Afghanistan hit an all-time high in 2013, according to a report released Tuesday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.” Read SIGAR’s report.
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Tank rounds to Iraq: $600 million for General Dynamics. DefenseNews.Com’s Joe Gould reports, “The US State Department has cleared the sale of M1A1 Abrams tank ammunition to Iraq, according to an announcement by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA). . . . The government of Iraq has requested a possible sale of 10,000 M831 120mm high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) munitions, 10,000 M865 120mm kinetic energy warheads, 10,000 M865 120mm KEW-A1, and 16,000 M830 120mm HEAT-MP-T tank ammunition.”
2. Another GAO blow to USIS. FederalTimes.Com’s Andy Medici reports, “The Government Accountability Office dealt background investigation contractor USIS another blow by upholding a protest from a rival company over the awarding of a $210 million contract. FCi Federal had challenged the award by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to USIS subsidiary’s Professional Services Division, arguing that the Department of Homeland Security failed to consider allegations by the Justice Department of fraud before determining USIS was a responsible contractor.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Ebola-bots. DefenseOne.Com’s Patrick Tucker reports, “On Nov. 7, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy along with researchers from the Texas A & M University’s Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue, CRASAR, the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and others will convene a workshop to explore ways to keep health workers in Africa safe through robotics. But before we can send drones to battle Ebola, we first have to invent the right robots for the job.”
2. Security holes in Cloud contracts. FierceGovernmentIT.Com’s Dibya Sakar reports, “A review of cloud computing services in the Commerce Department found missing clauses in contractors’ agreements to permit reviews of their facilities and operations, as well as lack of compliance with federal security standards. . . . Additionally, one contract did not contain a Federal Acquisition Regulation clause that would permit the agency access to a service provider’s installations, documentation, records and databases, which is needed to make sure that government data remains secure and confidential . . . .”
3. Holes for healthcare hackers. Reuters’ Jim Finkle reports, “The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is investigating about two dozen cases of suspected cybersecurity flaws in medical devices and hospital equipment that officials fear could be exploited by hackers . . . . The products under review by the agency’s Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, or ICS-CERT, include an infusion pump from Hospira Inc and implantable heart devices from Medtronic Inc and St Jude Medical Inc . . . .”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Hands off! “The woman who voted next to President Barack Obama on Monday says she was ‘embarrassed and just shocked,’ after her fiancé jokingly told him ‘Mr. President, don’t touch my girlfriend.’ Casting his ballot in Chicago on Monday, Obama stood at a voting booth next to Aia Cooper, whose fiancé, Mike Jones, decided to crack wise with the president, which prompted Obama to reply with ‘I really wasn’t planning on it,’ before adding that Jones was ‘an example of a brother just embarrassing you for no reason.’”
2. No time like the present: “President Obama is not even preparing for a political world in which Republicans control both the House and Senate, the White House said Tuesday. When asked whether Obama had considered what ‘life would be like’ with a Republican Senate, White House press secretary Josh Earnest replied, ‘Uh, not really.’ Republicans are increasingly bullish about their chances of taking back the Senate in the Nov. 4 midterm elections, and Obama has been on the defensive for linking his agenda to vulnerable Democratic senators.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “Islamic State’s rules of attraction, and why U.S. countermoves are doomed.” Reuters contributor Peter Van Buren argues, “The U.S. State Department is producing anti-Islamic State propaganda to persuade American and other would-be jihadis not to join the extremist group. It’s ham-handed, and often sarcastic, and unlikely to have the intended effect. Why? Because the department fails to understand how Islamic State attracts recruits in the first place.”
2. “Here’s why Israel loses no sleep over Islamic State.” Reuters contributor Dimi Reider explains, “The view in Israel is that the moderate Arab regimes are sufficiently threatened by the spread of Islamic State to prioritize drawing the Americans in, warts and all. If anything triggers revolutions in these countries, it will not be the plight of the Palestinians.”
3. “Afghanistan’s opium problem will keep growing.” Aljazeera.Com contributor Haroun Mir argues, “In order to defeat this drug mafia in Afghanistan, US and UK authorities must review their strategy in Afghanistan. They will not be able to curb drug production and trafficking in Afghanistan without the cooperation of other countries in the region and without eliminating the political influence of drug lords in the corrupt Afghan administration.”
THE FUNNIES
1. Police brutality.
3. Let’s eat!
