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Baghdad seeks airstrikes to rid Tikrit of IS; Saddam tomb leveled
Today's Headlines
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Police say naked man standing in doorway is not breaking law
[WBTV] Residents in a Charlotte neighborhood say they are fed up with a neighbor they say stands at the front door of his home naked, but police say he's not doing anything illegal.
I suppose the principle is "if you can't be nekkid in your own home where can you get nekkid?"
People in the Cardinal Glen neighborhood in north Charlotte say the man has been doing this for nearly ten years and on Friday, they called police again.
You're allowed to walk past fences, too. You're not allowed to aggravate the dog behind it.
"I was out rolling the trash can on Friday and I just happened to look over there and he was standing there buck naked," neighbor Pecolia Threatt said. "It's not good to have people walking around here naked like that a grown man like that with all these kids out here you know,"
Some people have less body consciousness than others. They have a good time at nudist camps, or so I'm told.
Neighbors say the man opens his door in the nude and even talks on his cell phone all in clear view of his neighbors. They're disgusted and fed up.
Other people have a fascination with their own pee-pees. They have a good time in the bathroom or under the covers.
"Because my daughter grew up in this neighborhood. Even this week, when she was home from spring break, she would call me at work and say 'Mom, I'm getting ready to go outside, but let me check if he's out there first'. That's how bad it is in the neighborhood," another neighbor Adrienna Harris said.
Other people have very high body consciousness and a fascination with their own gennies. They insist on showing it all off, preferably loaded, to the general public. Perhaps we could define that point as "perversion" and throw the nasty things in jail.
Posted by: Fred || 03/17/2015 11:37 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Isn't there a line that when you put your trash out, it's no longer legally protected from unlawful search and subject to examination down at the precinct house?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 03/17/2015 11:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Rode a submarine tender out of New London last few years I was in the Navy, there was one lady who stood behind her screen door naked and watched us go out and come back. I forgot to complain several times.
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 03/17/2015 12:06 Comments || Top||

#3  Stay tuned to this Channel for the evening news, Pictures at 11 !!!
Posted by: Fleger Chaimble7683 || 03/17/2015 14:20 Comments || Top||

#4  AA5839, how old was she and what did she look like? It makes a big difference.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 03/17/2015 15:04 Comments || Top||

#5  Charge him with insufficient exposure!
Posted by: irishrageboy || 03/17/2015 16:39 Comments || Top||

#6  A nudist was in his front garden,
Just getting his prize rhubarb chard in,
When two polite Mormons
Observed his performance
And beat it while begging his pardon.
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220 || 03/17/2015 19:30 Comments || Top||

#7  A nudist of Lewis and Harris
Stood eating his beta vulgaris.
His habit was spartan --
A tat of his tartan
Picked up in his time with the paras.
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220 || 03/17/2015 19:49 Comments || Top||

#8  I bet they can get him on some neighborhood beautification ordnance violations though!
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/17/2015 20:30 Comments || Top||


Champ regime Has What It Needs To Give Up Lois Lerner's E-mails
[Daily Caller] Obama administration investigators now have everything they need to provide Congress with Lois Lerner's emails, The Daily Caller has learned.

Treasury Department deputy inspector general Timothy Camus last testified that his office found more than 30,000 of Lerner's emails, including emails from 2011 that were on a backup tape at a storage facility in West Virginia that the IRS never went to. (RELATED: Search For Lerner Emails On Hold Over Software Problems).

But Camus said that the investigation was on hold because his office was haggling over licensing issues with a company that makes special software that Camus said he needs to "match" the emails on the new tapes with the emails that have already been turned over to the House Oversight Committee. Camus said he just needed to make sure that he wasn't giving Congress emails that it already had.

The Daily Caller has confirmed that the Treasury inspector general's office has received the special software and is in the process of using it to match the emails.

Camus is now perfectly capable of matching those emails and handing them over to Congress in a timely fashion.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/17/2015 03:54 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The government sure is "slow-walking" the IRS investigation. "Slow walking" is a kind word.
Posted by: JohnQC || 03/17/2015 7:37 Comments || Top||

#2  My guess is we'll never see the end of this; too many other people and agencies involved in her treachery. Anyone remember Fast and Furious ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/17/2015 8:03 Comments || Top||

#3  I'm beginning to think all of the scandals will drag on until the end of the reign of Barak the First, ending with a regal blanket pardon of unprecedented size.
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 03/17/2015 12:07 Comments || Top||


French Experts Say No Foul Play in Arafat Death
[AnNahar] French experts have ruled out that the 2004 death of iconic Paleostinian leader Yasser Arafat was the result of poisoning, a prosecutor told Agence La Belle France-Presse Monday.

The prosecutor of the western Gay Paree suburb of Nanterre said the experts found there was no foul play in Arafat's death, which sparked immediate and enduring conspiracy rumors.

The findings echo those of Russian experts but a Swiss team has said that the poisoning theory is "more consistent" with their own test results.

A center in the Swiss city of Lausanne had tested biological samples taken from Arafat's personal belongings given to his widow after his death, and found "abnormal levels of polonium" -- an extremely radioactive toxin, but stopped short of saying that he had been poisoned by polonium.

The French experts "maintain that the polonium 210 and lead 210 found in Arafat's grave and in the samples are of an environmental nature," Nanterre prosecutor Catherine Denis said.

Arafat died aged 75 on November 11, 2004 at the Percy de Clamart hospital, close to Gay Paree. He had been admitted there at the end of October that year after developing stomach pains while at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where he had lived since December 2001, surrounded by the Israeli army.

Arafat's widow Suha lodged a complaint at a court in Nanterre in 2012, claiming that her husband was assassinated, sparking an inquiry.

The same year, Arafat's tomb in Ramallah was opened for a few hours allowing three teams of French, Swiss and Russian Sherlocks to collect around 60 samples.

Many Paleostinians believe that the Israelis poisoned Arafat with the complicity of some people in his entourage.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/17/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under: PLO

#1  I don't think the Israelis did it, Polonium is not very Kosher. They probably would have used some really nice quickly metabolizing pharmaceutical like the ones that nurse in Massachusetts used on 20 some odd people.

Polonium is a KGB signature.

If not the KGB, perchance Iran?

Anyway, if he was poisoned, there are organizations in "Palestine" with more to gain from his death than Israel.
Posted by: Mystic || 03/17/2015 0:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Good old Suha Arafat. I miss her, dammit. In the same way I miss hating J.R.
Posted by: Ominetch Flaigum1482 || 03/17/2015 0:12 Comments || Top||

#3  Never mind his festering corpse, what about the binder? What happened to the Red Binder?
Posted by: SteveS || 03/17/2015 0:52 Comments || Top||

#4  AIDS?
Posted by: Albert Thravins4110 || 03/17/2015 1:52 Comments || Top||

#5  French experts have ruled out that the 2004 death of iconic Paleostinian leader Yasser Arafat was the result of poisoning.

An unfortunate finding. I understand poisoning can be a painful way to go.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/17/2015 3:27 Comments || Top||

#6  One should not look a gift horse in the mouth too closely.
Posted by: JohnQC || 03/17/2015 7:38 Comments || Top||

#7  It's relative matter. When you compare it to his foul life, how foul could his death be?
Posted by: ed in texas || 03/17/2015 7:56 Comments || Top||

#8  Reference #6. Gift horse indeed. I can easily think of a half-dozen or so political 'leaders' whom I'd like to see join him.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/17/2015 8:01 Comments || Top||

#9  re #8 Beso, you are either much more benevolent or much less imaginative than I am.

Half dozen? I'd have a hard time keeping it below 20 just in our own country. 8^(
Posted by: AlanC || 03/17/2015 8:06 Comments || Top||

#10  God has a full plate Alan. I try to keep my prayers specific and narrowly focused. But yes, new ideas,'imagination' etc, have been a lifelong challenge. Every man should know his limitations...someone once said.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/17/2015 8:17 Comments || Top||

#11  AIDS?

I think the French were too discreet to say so.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 03/17/2015 12:18 Comments || Top||

#12  Non, monsieur. HIV.
Posted by: Clonter Thruling4064 || 03/17/2015 16:08 Comments || Top||

#13  Well, this seems old. See Wikipedia.
Posted by: KBK || 03/17/2015 17:59 Comments || Top||


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Porn belongs in the classroom, says Danish professor
[THEGUARDIAN] A leading sexologist in Denmark has called for pornography to be shown in the classroom, claiming that starting a debate about the industry could help teenagers become "conscientious and critical consumers" who are able to tell the difference between pornography and the reality of sexual relationships.

Prof Christian Graugaard of Aalborg University caused a furore in Denmark when he suggested on public television that pornography should be shown in schools. This was preferable, he told the Danish public broadcaster DR, to sex education classes that were "boring and technical, where you roll a condom onto a cucumber".

Graugaard's proposal is not simply following in the long tradition of sexually permissive Scandinavia. It is, he insists, a sensible way of teaching teenagers that pornography is nothing like real sex.

"My proposal is to critically discuss pornography with 8th and 9th graders [age 15 -- the legal age of consent in Denmark -- and 16 respectively] as part of a sensible didactic strategy, carried out by trained teachers," he told the Guardian.
Posted by: Fred || 03/17/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I believe Instapundit has been documenting that already.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 03/17/2015 0:09 Comments || Top||

#2  Search Results

didactic
dɪˈdaktɪk,dʌɪ-/
adjective
adjective: didactic
intended to teach, particularly in having moral instruction as an ulterior motive.
"a didactic novel that set out to expose social injustice"
synonyms: instructive, instructional, educational, educative, informative, informational, doctrinal, preceptive, teaching, pedagogic, academic, scholastic, tuitional; More
edifying, improving, enlightening, illuminating, heuristic;
pedantic, moralistic, homiletic;
rarepropaedeutic
"the inmates preferred social rather than didactic activities"
in the manner of a teacher, particularly so as to appear patronizing.
"his tone ranged from didactic to backslapping"

Did the journo mistranslate?
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 03/17/2015 7:09 Comments || Top||

#3  Somehow, I don't think this exposure to pron is going to help already hormone-active teenagers to make distinctions between pron and the reality of sexual relationships.

What's next; an in-class lab? The kids today are assaulted by sex from every direction.
Posted by: JohnQC || 03/17/2015 9:01 Comments || Top||

#4  "Hell Yeah!" - said every pubescent boy evah!
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 03/17/2015 11:58 Comments || Top||

#5  And hell yeah said every paedophile teacher.
Posted by: JFM || 03/17/2015 12:15 Comments || Top||

#6  I am so very, very sick of the creeps who are in charge of everything these days.
Posted by: Jomotle Glavith2740 || 03/17/2015 22:32 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Russia starts nationwide show of force
[Rooters] More than 45,000 Russian troops as well as war planes and submarines started military exercises across much of the country on Monday in one of the Kremlin's biggest shows of force since its ties with the West plunged to Cold War-lows.

President Vladimir Putin called the Navy's Northern Fleet to full combat readiness in exercises in Russia's Arctic North apparently aimed at dwarfing military drills in neighboring Norway, a NATO member.

"New challenges and threats to military security require the armed forces to further boost their military capabilities. Special attention must be paid to newly created strategic formations in the north," Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said, quoted by RIA news agency.

Shoigu said the order came from Putin, who has promised to spend more than 21 trillion rubles ($340 billion) by the end of the decade to overhaul Russia's fighting forces.

Putin made his first public appearance since March 5 on Monday, an absence from view that had fueled feverish speculation over his health as well as his grip on power. He was meeting Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev at the Constantine Palace outside Russia's second city of St. Petersburg.

Norway is currently holding its "Joint Viking" drills involving 5,000 troops in Finnmark county, which borders Russia in the resource-rich Arctic circle where both countries are vying for influence.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/17/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Alexis Tsipras invited to Berlin as Yanis Varoufakis denies giving Germany the finger
[THEGUARDIAN] The Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, has been invited to Berlin during a new low in Greco-German relations, after the Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, was forced to deny "giving the finger" to Germany in a two-year-old YouTube video.
E pur se muove.
The German leader, Angela Merkel
...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom...
, invited Tsipras for his first visit to Berlin since he came to power in January on an anti-austerity platform that has led to festivities with Greece's creditors, including Germany.

This is soon after Varoufakis, appearing via videolink on Gunther Jauch, one of Germany's most-watched political discussion programmes on the state TV channel ARD, was shown a video of himself criticising the Greek government for accepting the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
's bailout conditions.

In the video, filmed at a conference in Zagreb in May 2013, the finance minister said in English: "Greece should simply announce that it is defaulting, just like Argentina
...a country located on the other side of the Deep South. It is covered with Pampers and inhabited by Grouchos, who dance the Tangle. They used to have some islands called the Malvinas located where the Falklands are now. They're not supposed to cry for Evita...
did, within the euro in January 2010, and stick the finger to Germany" -- at which point he appeared to raise his middle finger -- "and say, 'Well, you can now solve this problem by yourself'."

Jauch then asked Varoufakis, who could be seen shaking his head in the background: "The middle finger for Germany, Mr Minister? The Germans pay the most and are criticised the most for it. How does that go together?"
Posted by: Fred || 03/17/2015 12:15 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Again, the GREECE CRISIS = UKRAINE-CRIMEA CRISIS = about the so-called "GERMAN QUSTION" + "TURKISH/OTTOMAN QUESTION" as anything else, at least as far as MOSCOW = RUSSIA = DARTH VLAD IS CONCERNED.

Speaking of the UKRAINE = "GERMANY II/LITE" ...

* TOPIX, DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > UKRAINE MAY HAVE TO GO NUCLEAR, WARNS KIEV LAWMAKER.

Iff the US-West fail to peacefully diplomatically recover the lost Crimea from Vlad + Mama Russia.

versus

* BIGNEWSNETWORK > [Radio Free Europe] RUSSIA DEPLOYING STRATEGIC BOMBERS ["Bears",
"Backfires"] TO CRIMEA, [Iskander]MISSLES TO KALININGRAD.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/17/2015 23:23 Comments || Top||


The Grand Turk
Turkish teacher convicted for cutting schoolgirl's throat
[Hurriyet Daily News] A teacher in Ankara has been convicted to five months in prison for cutting a 12-year-old schoolgirl's throat with a box cutter, Turkish media reported March 16 in the latest episode of violence against women in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
Onur Özbek, a 35-year-old science class teacher at Ülku Ahmet Durusoy Secondary School in the Turkish capital, received a five-month sentence for "deliberately injuring a person." The school's principal received the same sentence for "not reporting a crime committed by a public servant," daily Haberturk added.

The lightly injured school girl reportedly told the court that she had no previous disagreement with the teacher. "He was not even teaching us. He just came by as I was sitting at the canteen with my friends and touched my throat with the box cutter, saying he 'slits throats, not wrists,'" she said.

In his defense, the teacher said he accidentally scarred the schoolgirl's throat with his nails, not the box cutter, which he admitted to have on him after he had confiscated one during a frisk of students.

Özbek's lawyer, on the other hand, maintained his client's innocence by stressing that he was appointed as the deputy principal of another school in Ankara after the incident.

The newspaper also reported that Özbek had received a suspended sentence for injuring a student at a previous school at which he taught in a southeastern Turkish province.
Posted by: Fred || 03/17/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What is it with boxcutters?

They can't afford a knife?

Posted by: Jomotle Glavith2740 || 03/17/2015 23:26 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Nationwide polio campaign hits snags
[DAWN] Although the third National Polio Campaign of the year 2015 was slated to start from Monday, but the drive has been postponed in at least nine cities across the country due to security reasons and adverse weather conditions.

In Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Quetta, the polio
...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set...
campaign was suspended due to the impending Pakistain Day parade on March 23. In Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
, the campaign has been moved forward due to security reasons and the city has been divided into two portions for the purposes of the campaign. In parts of Abbottabad
... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden....
, Chitral, Mansehra
...a city and an eponymous district in eastern Khyber-Pakthunwa, nestled snug up against Pak Kashmir, with Kohistan and Diamir to the north and Abbottabad to the south...
, Astore and Skardu, the campaign has been affected by heavy snowfall.
Posted by: Fred || 03/17/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Science & Technology
The F-35 Can't Use (Some Of) Its Bombs, Either
"The news about the F-35's inadequacies keeps rolling in. A month ago, we learned that software problems meant that the F-35 wouldn't be able to fire its gun for the first few years it is in service. Now, it turns out it won't be able to use a bomb critically useful for close air support (CAS) missions until 2022. Military.com reports:

F-35 Joint Strike Fighter pilots will have to wait until 2022 to fire the U.S. military's top close-air-support bomb after the Small Diameter Bomb II enters service in 2017, JSF officials explained.

The Small Diameter Bomb II (SDB II) is an upgrade from previous precision-guided air-dropped weapons because of its ability to track and hit moving targets from up to 40 miles. However, the F-35 will not have the software package required to operate the bomb loaded onto the fifth generation fighter until 2022, officials said."
A camel is a horse designed by committee.

Posted by: Hupineger Glomomp52169 || 03/17/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [14 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It can't fire its gun???

Holy incompetence Batman, which Admiral was the Program Manager of this Charlie Foxtrot.
Posted by: Mystic || 03/17/2015 0:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Say the "DOH"! loud, + say it noud, HOMER!

Perhaps the F-35 should be called "AARDVARK II" in honor of its original Vietnam-era JTF McNamara-ian controversy???

* FYI TOPIX > [Instapundit] OUR NAVY [+ USDOD] IS GETTING DANGEROUSLY SMALLER. AND NO ONE [cares or] IS PAYING ATTENTION.

More reasons as to how-n-why CHINA got control of GUAM-WESTPAC [WN's Blogs Not-Camel-Rock] + HAWAII???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/17/2015 0:16 Comments || Top||

#3  Just another reason to throw a few hundred million more at this piece of shit. They should rename it the obama-35
Posted by: chris || 03/17/2015 0:21 Comments || Top||

#4  By all means, scrap the A-10 so we can use the funds to fix the F-35!
Posted by: Raj || 03/17/2015 0:30 Comments || Top||

#5  Ah, but you only get to solve one of the problems with that money. That we already know about.
Posted by: gorb || 03/17/2015 1:37 Comments || Top||

#6  1. SDB II is a Block 4 weapon. It was never supposed to be ready with the F-35 until Block 4, currently 2022. SDB I is a Block 3 weapon. Some other weapons the F-35 will not IOC with are JASSM, JSM, and frickin' lasers.

2. The fit problem affects only the F-35B. Currently it can fit 2 per bay. The other models with a larger bay are not affected. Note the SDB I (designed before the F-35 was frozen) does not have this problem.

3. The SDB II was designed after the F-35 design was frozen. Raytheon knew the outline of the F-35B internal bay but decided for their reasons not to conform to it. SDB II is a higher priority for other fighter/bombers that can less afford to be within IADS exposure.

4. The fix that the F-35B will implement is to reroute some (1?) piping, i.e. trivial. It will wait for Block 4, along with a bunch of other fixes, so the production line is not affected.

So, this article is blaming the wrong party, gets the scope of the problem wrong and neglects to mention the how minor the fix, and that the fix is already in the pipeline. Believe very few reports on defense matters. The typical journalist has no competence in this subject and anti-military bias has been drilled into their skulls since J School. 9/10 the author is regurgitating some anti-military think thank, like POGO.


It can't fire its gun???

There is a heck of a lot more to the JSF cannon than pressing a trigger. The aircraft is still in development. Software to track the target, compute the point of impact, integration with the helmet mounted display, testing and lots of other details have to implemented before IOC. In addition, the new APEX ammunition production has to be ramped up. All this comes together by the Air Force IOC date.


scrap the A-10

The Air Force offered to transfer the A-10 to the Army. They didn't want it.

BTW, the F-35 will go through all other air forces and IADS like shit through a goose. Pilots lust after it and other aircraft want to be it, but they don't measure up.
Posted by: Clonter Thruling4064 || 03/17/2015 2:05 Comments || Top||

#7  scrap the A-10.............The Air Force offered to transfer the A-10 to the Army. They didn't want it.

No, the Army doesn't want Nuclear subs, satellites, or the National Park Service either.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/17/2015 3:25 Comments || Top||

#8  And who nominated that Admiral?
Posted by: JFM || 03/17/2015 6:41 Comments || Top||

#9  Hey, Clonter, try reading for comprehension. The "fighter" will be in active service and not able to use its gun. That tells me it's actually still in development, and being rushed out so some deadline is met.

Posted by: Rob Crawford || 03/17/2015 7:01 Comments || Top||

#10  "However, the F-35 will not have the software package required to operate the bomb loaded onto the fifth generation fighter until 2022"

This cannot be anything but a lie.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 03/17/2015 7:12 Comments || Top||

#11  Jan 10, 2015:
http://www.styrk.com/posts/f-35-on-schedule-despite-gun-software-issue-pentagon-says

A software problem associated with the gun on the F-35 won't delay the stealth jet's operational timeline or its arrival at Hill Air Force Base, Pentagon officials say.

On Dec. 31, the American news website Daily Beast reported that due to a software production delay, the General Dynamics-built gun on the nearly $400 billion Joint Strike Fighter would not be able to fire during missions until 2019 -- four years after the jet is scheduled to become operational.

The article quoted an unnamed Air Force official associated with the F-35 program who said that the software that controls the jet's four-barrel, 25 mm Gatling-type rotary gun called the GAU-22, would not be available until 2019. The Daily Beast story posited that until the gun issue is resolved, the F-35 would not be able to provide close air support for troops on the ground.

But this week Pentagon F-35 spokesman Joe DellaVedova told the Standard-Examiner that the story was misreported and while recent tests did uncover a small issue in the gun's software system, it would cause no delays and have no impact to the program or its timeline.

Comprehensive flight tests on the gun for the Air Force's F-35A variant are scheduled to begin mid-2015 at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., and will include ground fire tests, muzzle calibration, flight test integration and in-flight operational tests. DellaVedova said the F-35 program remains in its developmental phase and software and other capabilities are only delivered after they are inspected and cleared through flight testing.
----

The gun was always scheduled for Block 3F software. The Air Force moved up IOC date (late 2016) to Block 3I (Block 3 hardware upgrades with Block 2F software ported to the new hardware). IOC previously was with 3F software (i.e. 2017).

BTW, looks like the gun is firing, has been firing, and will fire in F-35As in flight this year but won't be declared operational until 2017 when 3F software is declared operational.

Here is some work on the external gun pod (F-35B and F-35C) that was going on back in 2010. Seems it fired.
http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2010armament/TuesdayLandmarkADouglasParker.pdf


No, the Army doesn't want Nuclear subs, satellites, or the National Park Service either.

Yet the Army planned to buy a fleet of 145 C-27J fixed wing cargo lifters for $6 billion and yearly operational costs exceeding an equal number of C-130Js.

BTW, how expensive is a shot down A-10 and the captured pilot? We've seen that the Soviet equivalent SU-25 have been dropping like flies over the last 10 years whenever the opposition has manpads. The Ukrainians don't even try to fly them over the pro-Russian "rebels" anymore.

Sure, keep 3 or 4 squadrons of A-10 operation to scare away the Fuzzy Wuzzies, as long as Putin doesn't slip a few SA-18s or 24s into their care packages. But if you want to kill them, a smart bomb from altitude is the better choice since they don't hear the bomb until a few seconds before impact and too late seek cover or run. Hence the A-10C.
Posted by: Clonter Thruling4064 || 03/17/2015 9:43 Comments || Top||

#12  Clonter is pretty much right about the F-35. The gun works, but there are some software patches to test for safety and the usual stuff. The SDB works fine, but the SDB II, which is only now being built and won't be ready for service in any plane for a while, and will not be ready for the F-35B until some modifications. The F-35A and C models are on schedule.

As for the A-10 Clonter is wrong not in his facts, but in worrying over much about the air to ground threat vis-a-vis the A-10. It is a very difficult aircraft to bring down, even with a modern hand held SAM. Further, the A-10 delivers more weapons on target at less cost than anything but a B-1, and we have already learned that using a B-1 for CAS is fraught with risk.
Posted by: rammer || 03/17/2015 10:05 Comments || Top||

#13  Harrumph harrumph, but battleships!
Posted by: Shipman || 03/17/2015 10:22 Comments || Top||

#14  Battleships. It's what's for breakfast.
Posted by: Cloth-Covered Swordfish Biplane || 03/17/2015 11:08 Comments || Top||

#15  Submarines and targets, only types of ships are two!
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 03/17/2015 12:02 Comments || Top||

#16  Submarines and targets, only types of ships are two!

Subs gotta surface sometime.
Posted by: Pappy || 03/17/2015 12:35 Comments || Top||


#18  http://archive.defensenews.com/article/20120227/DEFREG02/302270007/Alenia-Warns-U-S-Over-C-27J-Sales
Once a nearly $6 billion Army program for 145 aircraft, the Air Force took over the effort in 2009 and capped the purchase of C-27Js at 38 planes. But in its recent 2013 budget request, it decided to end the program at 21 aircraft, 17 fewer than expected, and retire the fleet next year.

With the draw down in Iraq and the Air Force take over of the program, the Air Force first reduced numbers then canned the project at 21 aircraft. Newly built aircraft were immediately mothballed. The Coast Guard were given most of the aircraft and SOCOM were slated to take a few but don't think anything came of them arming the aircraft into mini gunships.

As for the A-10, 4 or 5 out of the 6 aircraft shoot downs in Desert Storm were from the crappy SA-7 or very short range SAMs. Worse, 20 others suffered major damage and were out of the war and nearly half suffered battle damage and out of action until repaired. By far the worse record of any aircraft. If the war had gone on for 3 or 6 months, the US Air Force would have run out of in theater A-10 and badly eaten in into stateside inventory. The Air Force saw the writing on the wall.

Now the threat is far more deadly with 2 or 3 color IR SAMs that can distinguish between flares and engine heat and mobile short range SAM/gun systems like the TOR and Pantsir. These are 2-3 times the speed, 10-20 times the weight and 20 times the warhead of manpads. A hit by one of these and the A-10 wont be limping home on one engine. They are also showing up in places like Syria and Iran.
Posted by: Clonter Thruling4064 || 03/17/2015 15:12 Comments || Top||

#19  Clonter: Please be advised. I respect your countermeasures knowledge, but you're moving rapidly from open source info, into the classified realm.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/17/2015 15:18 Comments || Top||

#20  Huh?
Posted by: Clonter Thruling4064 || 03/17/2015 15:46 Comments || Top||

#21  The only info I looked up was A-10 attrition rates. You can find it here:

http://2951clss-gulfwar.com/
Pilots often flew up to three missions per day with A-10's accounted for destroying 1/4 of Iraq's entire arsenal. [Read more on statistics....] Often exposed to withering anti-aircraft fire and surface-to-air missile threats the slow, highly maneuverable A-10's incurred extensive combat battle damage during Desert Storm. A total of six A-10s were lost: five in combat action, another destroyed attempting to land at KKMC Forward Operating Location #1 after being badly battle damaged durng combat. Nearly twenty more sustained significant battle damage and many others incurred minor damage.
Posted by: Clonter Thruling4064 || 03/17/2015 15:50 Comments || Top||

#22  No source references or further dialogue required. Just mind the OPSEC implications please [Open source or otherwise]. Some of us here still believe we're at war.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/17/2015 16:28 Comments || Top||

#23  Who in the hell thinks that in a high threat environment you're not going to take loses? The only way not to is not to get within range of the threat. What's the purpose of that kind of strategy cause you can not dominate a battlefield without being there? Obviously I'm missing something from the record of the history of actual combat. There is no magic. You can plan, you can push technology, but once you face someone with capabilities closing on yours and willing to take casualties and you're not, you're betting on luck. Luck is not a strategy.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 03/17/2015 17:42 Comments || Top||

#24  Ted Striker: My orders came through. My squadron ships out tomorrow. We're bombing the storage depots at Daiquiri at 1800 hours. We're coming in from the north, below their radar.
Elaine Dickinson: When will you be back?
Ted Striker: I can't tell you that. It's classified.
Posted by: Bunyip || 03/17/2015 17:45 Comments || Top||

#25  UNtil the F-35 is fully operational, and has PROVEN IT, we need to keep the A10s around. Simple as that. They are too cost effective in low intensity warfare of the sort we fight doing counterinsurgency and anti-terr stuff.
Posted by: OldSpook || 03/17/2015 21:15 Comments || Top||

#26  Biplane sock off....

Heck, keep the A-10 around longer than that. Give it a bunch of anti-radiation missiles or Brimstones for SEAD and use it as a Forward Air Controller.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 03/17/2015 21:55 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Missouri lieutenant governor: €˜There is more racism in the Justice Department' than in the St. Louis area
[Yahoo News] Missouri's lieutenant governor lashed out at the Justice Department on Monday, accusing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama administration of racism in the wake of the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in Ferguson last year.

"There is more racism in the Justice Department than there is in anywhere I see in the St. Louis area," Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder said in an interview with NewsMaxTV Monday. "We are making progress. We've come an enormous way in 50 years. That's not to say we don't have still have more to do. But it is the left -- it is the Eric Holder and Obama left -- and their minions who are obsessed with race, while the rest of us are moving on beyond it."

Kinder, a Republican, criticized the administration for "[inciting] a mob" during the protests that followed Brown's killing.

"The whole blowup of this protest movement was based on the lie that never happened of 'hands up don't shoot,'" Kinder said in remarks that were first reported by BuzzFeed. "It's bad enough the protesters were behaving that way, but we have a right to expect much more from the attorney general, the head of the Justice Department of the United States, and the president of the United States. And instead, what we got too often from them was incitement of the mob, and, uh, encouraging disorder in Ferguson and disrupting the peaceable going-about of our daily lives in the greater St. Louis region."

He added: "Many of them have spent most of their careers defending Black Panthers and other violent radicals."

Kinder's comments come on the heels of a Justice Department report that concluded officer Darren Wilson had reason to fear Brown when he fatally shot him and would not be charged -- a decision President Obama said he fully supported.

"You can't just charge him anyway because what happened was tragic," Obama said. "That was the decision that was made, and I have complete confidence and stand fully behind the decision that was made by the Justice Department on that issue."

The same Justice Department probe found pervasive racial bias on the part of Ferguson's mostly white police force. Ferguson's police chief, city manager and a municipal judge resigned in the wake of the findings.

Last week, two police officers were shot during a protest related to the case. Both officers were treated and released by a local hospital.

On Sunday, Jeffrey Williams, a 20-year-old man, was charged with first-degree assault in the shootings.

According to St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch, Williams told authorities he was not targeting police but was shooting at someone else.

"This arrest sends a clear message that acts of violence against our law enforcement personnel will never be tolerated," Holder said in a statement.

Kinder is something of a controversial figure in Missouri. In February, he made headlines for requesting a daily allowance from the state legislature to cover his expenses when he is working in Jefferson City. Kinder, who lives in Cape Girardeau and maintains a second home in the state capital, said he's experienced "gradual impoverishment" during his decade in public office. He receives an annual salary of about $86,000, according to public records.
Posted by: gorb || 03/17/2015 12:41 || Comments || Link || [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I would agree with that.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/17/2015 13:36 Comments || Top||

#2  Would love to the Just Us department emails FOIA'd. Let's see how politically correct those Marxist racists are when they think they are not monitored.
Posted by: Clonter Thruling4064 || 03/17/2015 15:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Good luck with that Clonter - why do you think they prefer private email servers?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/17/2015 16:06 Comments || Top||

#4  It's one of those "duh" sorts of thing Lt. Gov. Kinder but I'm glad you said it.
Posted by: JohnQC || 03/17/2015 17:26 Comments || Top||

#5  Gusty move - how long until he gets audited by the IRS and investigated by the Justice Dept for civil rights violations, and maybe even the EPA if he has a pond in his yard.
Posted by: OldSpook || 03/17/2015 21:10 Comments || Top||

#6  and maybe even the EPA

"That wet spot in the corner? That's the septic tank."
"No, sir. That's a designated wetlands. You can't mow there without a permit"
Posted by: SteveS || 03/17/2015 22:16 Comments || Top||


Science
A Compact Fusion Reactor
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 03/17/2015 03:11 || Comments || Link || [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Combine that with this:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150313171740.htm

And maybe we're getting somewhere.
Posted by: gorb || 03/17/2015 12:51 Comments || Top||

#2  How sad all the enviro's will be, if Lockheed actually pulls this off. What excuse will they have left to urge impoverishment and slow growth on us? I'm sure they are brainstorming already.

Hmmm, animal rights, I bet. That would work --- "Remember children, every human that is born destroys the habitat of a cute little wild animal! Save the butterflies!! Save Bambi -- use a condom!" starting in kindergarten.
Posted by: dlr || 03/17/2015 13:11 Comments || Top||

#3  FYI caught glimpse of a Stealth Delta-Winged Aircraft again very early this AM, circa post-Midnite-ish Guam time.

The "UFO" looked like it was flying low-n-slow, seemingly attempting to fly just over the former NAS Agana, + likely to land on AAFB.

EITHER THAT OR I'D OVERDOSED ON MICKEY D' FRENCH FRIES.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/17/2015 20:49 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2015-03-17
  Baghdad seeks airstrikes to rid Tikrit of IS; Saddam tomb leveled
Mon 2015-03-16
  Iraqi forces poised for final Tikrit assault
Sun 2015-03-15
  Suicide bombers kill 14 people outside Pakistani churches
Sat 2015-03-14
  Iraqi offensive on Tikrit appears to stall
Fri 2015-03-13
  Clashes between Assad and Nusra forces kill 50
Thu 2015-03-12
  Iraqi army targets ISIS in Tikrit, regains major areas
Wed 2015-03-11
  Chad and Niger launch offensive against Boko Haram
Tue 2015-03-10
  Retreating ISIS blows up bridge in south Kirkuk
Mon 2015-03-09
  Yemen defense minister flees Sanaa to join president in Aden
Sun 2015-03-08
  Boko Haram leader pledges allegiance to IS
Sat 2015-03-07
  Advancing Iraq troops enter al-Dour
Fri 2015-03-06
  Blast hits Nusra Front in Syria, kills commander
Thu 2015-03-05
  Pakistani man found guilty in al-Qaeda plot to attack NYC subway
Wed 2015-03-04
  Turkish ISIL agent charged with running underage Syrian prostitution ring
Tue 2015-03-03
  Bibi Netanyahu’s Speech: Liveblog
Mon 2015-03-02
  Iraq Launches Offensive on ISIS North of Baghdad


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