According to reports, this has been confirmed by DNA tests, and it appears to have been an on-ground operation and firefight, not a drone strike, in Pakistan.
Month: May 2011
Deep Thought
In case you do not recognize the picture, this is Wisconsin governor Scott Walker.
N/t Neophyte at the Stellarparthenon BBS.
Ha Ha!
Anonymous has apparently penetrated the US Chamber of Commerce, and now released a 1.2 Gigabyte file containing the documents.
It seems to contain files from the Chamber, the American Legal Exchange Council, and the the Mackinac Center.
The last two are right wing front groups.
The ALEC writes legislation to kill unions as well as the poor and the elderly, and the Mackinac Center is yet another of those right wing so-called “think” tanks.
There is a caveat here, one which has been posted at AnonNews:
On April 29th a person using the twitter account “@septscelles” released a large file to Barrett Brown that purportedly contained secret US Chamber of Commerce documents. This file was later made available via File Dropper as a (strangely truecypted) torrent named “chambersecrets2”. It is also reported to have been made available in an unencrypted form on the Pirate Bay.
Despite the promise of secrets and leaks, early research has thus far shown that this information is publicly available through a simple Google search. It’s very possible that “@septscelles” is just an attention seeking troll. Despite this, there is a more insidious possibility. We learned from the HB Gary emails that the Chamber of Commerce was advised to “feed the fuel between the feuding groups, [creating] disinformation.” Specific mention was made of “[creating] messages around actions to sabotage or discredit the opposing organization [and to] submit fake documents and then call out the error…”
The file is very large, and will therefore take some time to fully examine. Nevertheless, we would like to state that this information was provided by an unknown party and may be an attempt to discredit Anonymous through a campaign of misinformation. More information will be coming soon.
So obviously, breaking out the champagne is premature, though perhaps chilling it might not be a bad idea.
You can go through the documents by downloading this torrent.
H/t Hedgehog at the Stellarparthenon BBS.
If You Want a Good Primer on the F-35’s Electrical Power Systems…
And the problems therein, go read Bill Sweetman’s latest on the latest problem with the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).
Basically, it comes down to using bleeding edge technology, which, when juxtaposed with frantic weight reduction efforts, creates an absolute mess, just as it has with the failed bulkhead, the 360 degree vision system helmet and HUDless cockpit, etc.:
Another observation — relevant to future programs — is that the electrical problems (both this one and the AA-1 incident) have arisen from the use of a new system which, while it may have net advantages, is not core to the aircraft’s capability — you could in theory build a short-takeoff-and-landing stealth fighter without it.
The same goes for another headache area, the wide-field-of-view video helmet and HUD-less cockpit. The lesson may be that any innovations that fall into the nice-to-have rather than mission-essential capability should be low-risk when you incorporate them into the design.
In the larger picture, this is actually the alpha and omega of weapons development.
Too much whiz-bang for too much bucks.