Pentagon understated cost of new bomber by $25bn, blames ‘human error’
RT | August 31, 2015
Very little is known about the US Air Force’s new long-range strike bomber (LRSB) – including, apparently, the cost. Facing questions over a $25 billion discrepancy in development costs, the Pentagon blamed “human error” and shrugged it off as a “mistake.”
The LRSB project is intended to replace the aging and expensive US bomber fleet by the mid-2020s, at the cost of $500 million per plane. Two aerospace conglomerates, Northrop Grumman and Boeing-Lockheed Martin, are bidding for the contract.
Last year, the Air Force told Congress that the 10-year cost of developing the bomber, between 2015 and 2024, would be $33.1 billion. This year, however, the estimate for 2016-2026 rose to $58.2 billion. The 76 percent increase prompted Representative Jackie Speier (D-California), ranking minority member on the House Armed Services oversight and investigations subcommittee, to ask about the $25 billion gap.
“This sudden 76 percent increase in estimated cost is alarming, because it raises questions about the management of a crucial program that lacks transparency, on which we cannot afford serious cost overruns, development errors, and reduced production numbers that would deprive the United States of one of its core military capabilities,” wrote Speier.
The response from Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James only added to the confusion, by introducing another number to claim that the cost estimate hasn’t actually changed. According to James, the real figure was $41.7 billion all along.
“There has been no change in the costing factors over the last two years … it was a mistake. It was a regrettable mistake,” James said during a Pentagon press briefing last week. “It occurred in part because of human error and in part because of process error, meaning a couple of people got the figures wrong and the process of coordination was not fully carried out in this case.”
James said that senior officials have “counseled” the people involved, “tightened up” the process, corrected the price tag with Congress and double-checked all the other figures contained in the reports.
“The key thing is there has been no change in those cost figures,” she said.
Northrop Grumman was behind the B-2 ‘Spirit’ stealth bomber, manufactured between 1989 and 2000 at the cost of $737 million per plane. The total cost of the program stood at $45 billion in 2004. Only 16 B-2s are currently operational, and cost $135,000 per hour to fly, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin has been catching flak over the cost overruns that have plagued the F-35, a fifth-generation strike fighter produced in three separate configurations for the Air Force, Navy and the US Marine Corps. By 2011 estimates, the US government was going to spend $1 trillion on the fleet of F-35s – $382 billion to buy 2,443 aircraft, and another $650 billion in operating expenses. That was more than the entire GDP of Australia at the time ($924 billion), according to The Atlantic. The costs have only gone up since, even as the F-35 failed combat tests to a 1970s design currently in service.
Lockheed also produced the F-22A Raptor, the current US air superiority fighter, between 1997 and 2011. Fewer than 200 Raptors were made, at a cost of $150 million each and the overall program cost of $66.7 billion as of 2011.
The contract for developing the LRSB was supposed to be awarded in June or July, but the Air Force has already missed that deadline. Unconfirmed reports from defense sources speak of a September or October announcement.
NATO kicks off naval drills in Black Sea with Ukraine
RT | August 31, 2015
Ukraine is hosting naval military exercises in the Black Sea with NATO forces, involving 2,500 troops and some 150 military vehicles, from warships and helicopters to armored cars.
The host nation of Sea Breeze 2015 has deployed 1,000 troops, nine warships and eight aircraft for the drill. The US has sent 1,000 troops as well as five warships, two submarines and six aircraft.
The remaining 500 troops, six warships, three submarines and 6six aircraft were provided by Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Romania, Turkey, the UK and the non-NATO nations Moldova and Sweden.
“The exercise is meant to boost trust and security in the region, [and to increase] the compatibility between the Ukrainian Navy and the navies of NATO members and partner countries,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Sea Breeze is held in Ukraine’s Odessa and Nikolaevsk region not far from Russia’s Crimea, which Kiev and its foreign sponsors consider to be Ukrainian. It will last till mid-September. Ukraine will be participating in a total of 11 NATO drills in 2015.
NATO is also currently conducting another war game, called Swift Response, in Germany, Italy, Bulgaria and Romania. It is one of the largest such events since the Cold War and is planned to last until September 13. A separate exercise, called Simple Strike, is under way in the Baltic.
Italian activist arrested and beaten in occupied Palestine
Vittorio Fera violently arrested. Photo credot – Haim Schwarczenberg
International Solidarity Movement | August 31, 2015
Occupied Palestine – Italian activist Vittorio Fera was violently arrested and beaten by soldiers at weekly demonstration in Nabi Saleh in occupied Palestine. The Italian activist, 31-year old Vittorio Fera, is falsely accused of throwing stones and attacking soldiers. His case will be taken to court the second time Monday 31st August between 9 and 11 am.
During a weekly demonstration in Nabi Saleh Israeli soldiers randomly arrested two protesters: one 18-year old Palestinian youth and the Italian activist Vittorio Fera. Fera went to the protest to document human rights violations by the Israeli army against Palestinians and became a victim of military violence himself.
While documenting an Israeli soldier strangling a 12-year old boy, Vittorio and the other activists were ambushed by Israeli forces. Vittorio was separated from the group and violently shoved to the ground. “We were shocked to see the boy being choked by a soldier, when suddenly soldiers came running at us and attacked Vittorio”, Josephine from Denmark explains.
Vittorio Fera with clear marks of military assault
Journalists witnessed soldiers kicking and beating him during the arrest, even though he did not resist or fight back. Vittorio, and the Palestinian youth, were forced into a military jeep where they were detained for almost nine hours by the Israeli army, before they were finally taken to a police station. Despite various demands of Fera’s lawyer to have him brought to a police station immediately, both he and the Palestinian were illegally kept in the military jeep until shortly before midnight.
Vittorio Fera with clear marks of military assault
The military accuses Vittorio Fera of throwing stones and attacking the soldiers – an unfounded accusation. A first sentencing in court late Saturday night only resulted in the postponing of the sentencing until Monday morning. The hearing will take place in in Jerusalem Monday the 31st August 2015 between 9 and 11 am.
See the video of the arrest here
Major US industrial union votes in favor of BDS movement
Press TV – August 31, 2015
A prominent industrial union in the United States has endorsed the international movement of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) to support the Palestinians against Israel, calling on Washington to cut off financial support to Tel Aviv.
The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America union voted in favor of a resolution entitled “Justice and Peace for the Peoples of Palestine and Israel” during its national convention on August 20, the union reported on its website.
Citing Israel’s “long history of violating the human rights of the Palestinians,” the union has become the first nationwide union to join the boycott against Israel.
Union delegate Autumn Martinez said, “It’s absolutely disgusting what is going on. Free Palestine!”
In a statement, the union attacks Israel for its human rights record “starting with the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians in 1947-48 that turned most of Palestine into the State of Israel.”
It explained that the goal of endorsing the BDS campaign was “to pressure Israel to end its apartheid over the Palestinians just as similar tactics helped to end South African apartheid in the 1980s.”
The union also voted on a number of other foreign policy issues, including the demand to end US military intervention in the Middle East and other regions.
“We (need) to get rid of this culture of war,” said Mike Ferritto, a local delegate.
“We have done enough damage. We need to get out of the Middle East,” said another delegate, Brandon Dutton.
The resolution was part of a series of resolutions, including support for the Iran nuclear agreement. The union said it was the first US national union to endorse the movement.
The BDS campaign, which began in 2005, encourages organizations and institutions such as universities and churches to divest from Israel until the fundamental rights of the Palestinians have been recognized.
Pacific walruses hauled out at Point Lay Alaska again this year
By Susan Crockford | Polar Bear Science | August 28, 2015
A photo of a mass walrus haulout at Point Lay, Alaska taken a few days ago from a distance show thousands of animals. But no one’s counting because apparently, no one’s interested.
The picture on the left (above, courtesy Alaska Dispatch News ) was taken 23 August by global warming activist photographer Gary Braasch, the day after a news report appeared about the US Fish & Wildlife Service and aviation authorities asking the media to approach USFWS about walrus photos and information that gave no hint that a large haulout of walruses was already in place (22 August 2015, “Federal agencies, Point Lay seek to minimize walrus disturbances” ):
“Federal agencies are stepping in to shield a North Slope village from the possibility of a deluge of international attention should a large walrus haulout develop nearby, as it has in years past — agreeing to act as an information clearinghouse on behalf of the Native Village of Point Lay.” [my bold]
Here is what the global warming activist site that published the pictures says about the haulout:
“Thousands of Pacific walrus are coming ashore near Point Lay, NW Arctic coast of Alaska. The huge sea mammals and young began coming up on this barrier island along Kasegaluk Lagoon about August 20, according to local natives. This is one of the earliest known summer haul outs of the walrus along the Alaska coast of the Chukchi Sea, according to wildlife biologists.” [my bold]
They say “thousands.” But the photos taken, reproduced in the Alaska Dispatch News story I read, were taken from a greater distance than the famous photo of ~35,000 animals released by government officials last year and looks like the total could be as large, or larger, than the 2014 haulout.
Said a Washington Post story (27 August 2015):
“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed to the Post Wednesday evening that a mass of walruses had “hauled out,” or gathered on shore, near the remote community of Point Lay. The service did not estimate the number or provide images. But photojournalist Gary Braasch has posted dramatic photographs, taken during an Aug. 23 flyover, of what appear to be at least several thousand walruses crowding onto a barrier island.” [my bold]
According to The Guardian “Extreme Arctic sea ice melt forces thousands of walruses ashore in Alaska”
“Braasch has spent about a decade photographing evidence of climate change in Alaska, and had been tracking the movement of tagged walruses through the US Geological Survey mapping projects.
“What they looked like by eye was three brown smudges along the beach. They were not visible as individual animals,” he said. But he said the blown-up images revealed large numbers of animals. “Certainly they were in the low thousands at that point.”
Maybe I’m wrong. I’m not an expert on estimating numbers from aerial photos. But have a look and ask yourself – why didn’t the FWS say there was a haulout last week when they made their announcement about protecting the herd from disturbance?
And now that the cat is out of the bag, why have they not released any official photos or made an official estimate? Considering the hype they generated last year, why the reticence now? It just seems odd to me.
Is it that they don’t want to emphasize how many walruses there really are? That all the walruses didn’t all die last year due to global warming? Or did they simply realize that their alarmist rhetoric and the media storm it generated last year made the situation worse for the animals?
Compare this year from the new required great distance (below upper) to an official photo from last year (below lower):
Apparently, photographer Gary Braasch was “at least a mile away”:
“Braasch said he took precautions, including flying in a small aircraft, and at a distance, “so as not to disturb the herd.”
“I used a very long telephoto lens,” Braasch said. “My pilot says we were at least a mile away.”
The high resolution copy of the photos at the World View of Global Warming website shows lots of animals in the water in the 2015 photo, indicating the walruses were actively feeding, as the animals were last year – not sitting on the beach starving to death. It’s likely that in a few days they’ll be gone, if they aren’t already.
Now the Feds are threatening to press charges against the photographer who flew over the haulout without permission, saying he may have broken their rules (“Feds investigating if photographer flew too near walruses hauled out at Point Lay”)
As far as I know, there is no new population information on walrus that wasn’t available last year, when I covered this topic extensively (Crockford 2014; video below).
Hottest Month Claims
By Ken Haapala | Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) | August 29, 2015
Divergence: It is summertime in the US, and temperatures are warmer. Several readers have asked TWTW for comments on the recent claims that July 2015 was the hottest month ever and similar announcements by certain US government entities, including branches of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). These entities are making strong public statements that the globe continues to warm, and the future is dire. A humorist could comment that the closer we are to the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP-21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to be held in Paris from November 30 to December 11, the hotter the globe becomes.
However, there are three significant forms of divergence that are being demonstrated. One divergence is the increasing difference between atmospheric temperatures and surface temperatures. The second divergence is the growing difference between temperatures forecast by models and observed temperatures, particularly atmospheric temperatures. This leads to the third divergence, the difference between the activities of what can be called the Climate Establishment and what is observed in nature.
The atmospheric temperatures are reported by two independent entities: the largely NASA-financed UAH entity at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) in California. The surface temperatures are reported by NOAA, NASA, and Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office, combined with those of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia. These measurements depend, in part, on the historic record maintained by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Unfortunately, for more than two decades, the historic record of the surface temperatures has been adjusted numerous times, without adequate records of the details and the effects. The net effect is an inflation of a warming trend, particularly obvious in the US where excellent historic records continue to exist. The UAH data have been adjusted, but the adjustments and effects have been publically recorded.
The divergence between the temperatures forecasted by the global climate models and the observed temperatures is becoming extremely obvious, particularly with the observed atmospheric temperatures. The adjustments to surface temperatures lessen this divergence somewhat, particular with the latest adjustments by the NCDC, where superior measurements taken by fixed or floating buoys were inflated to correspond with earlier, inferior measurements taken by ships. The director of NCDC, Tom Karl, was a lead author in the paper announcing this change. As a result, we should see announcements that sea surface temperatures, and global surface temperatures, are increasing, although the increase may be strictly an artifact of human adjustments rather than an occurrence in nature.
The questionable adjustments in reported surface temperatures leads to the third form of increasing divergence – the differences between what is reported by the Climate Establishment and what is occurring in nature. The Climate Establishment can be defined as those who embrace the findings of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), particularly the assertion of a high confidence, a high degree of certainty, that human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are causing unprecedented and dangerous global warming. Simply because data is adjusted to reflect the IPCC view, does not mean that the IPCC view is occurring.
The greenhouse effect takes place in the atmosphere, yet it is not being observed in the atmosphere. The satellite data, independently verified by four sets of weather balloon data, clearly shows it is not. There has been no significant warming for about 18 years. These data are the most comprehensive temperature data existing and are largely independent of other human influences that bias surface data such as urbanization, including building of structures and impervious surfaces, and other changes in land use. Those who broadcast claims of the hottest year ever, based on adjusted surface data, are actually emphasizing the divergence between science practiced by the Climate Establishment and Nature, and are not engaged in a natural science.
Unfortunately, many government entities and government-funded entities are involved in the Climate Establishment. The leaders of such government entities and funding entities demonstrate a lack of concern for institutional credibility, no respect for the scientific bases on which such institutions were built, including those who came before them and those who will replace them, and will leave their institutions in an inferior condition, rather than strengthen them.
It is important to note that not all government-funded entities are so involved. The National Space Science & Technology Center (NSSTC) at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), which is largely funded by the federal government (NASA) is a notable exception.
US Freedom Act a ‘surveillance act in disguise’ – ex-MI5 agent
RT | August 30, 2015
The US is playing games with public trust by passing different versions of the same intrusive surveillance system, a modern day Panopticon. Any alleged changes to the bulk collection program are purely cosmetic, according to ex-MI5 agent Annie Machon.
The recently passed USA Freedom Act was hailed as a stepping stone on the way to renewed public trust after the highly controversial Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which expired in May. Under the new law, the practice of bulk data collection on US citizens will be entrusted to telecom companies, and the NSA will be able to obtain the records through seeking a warrant from the FISA court.
So what does this recent decision mean with regards to the NSA’s bulk collection program, and can Americans feel more at ease about the security of their phone data with the introduction of the new Freedom Act? RT asked the former MI5 agent-turned-whistleblower for her take.
RT: Firstly, what’s your take on this? It’s an isolated court case, you could say, but does it have any big impact, do you think, on the NSA spying program.
Annie Machon: It’s business as usual for them. I’m sure they’re very happy to be told what they’re doing is legal, now. I mean, there have been a number of challenges, where different levels of courts in the US have said bulk metadata collection is legal; it’s illegal; it’s legal again. But, actually, what they’ve been doing is just business as usual under the 215 Section of the Patriot Act, which I think Congress was due to re-ratify at the beginning of June, but it became a bit gridlocked in the whole system. So, you know, they will be very happy with this result.
RT: Certainly, President Obama seems very happy. You know, the White House has hailed the ruling. But earlier in the year, we did hear Obama saying “We’re promising to reform things, too.” Do you think there’s been a significant change in attitude in the White House?
AM: I think they’ve passed the buck, basically, to the judiciary to take the hard decisions. So, now they’ve got this ruling, they don’t need to make the hard political decisions. They’ll just say, “Well, the judge just said its constitutional; that’s fine,” which is bad enough for the American citizens, within America, who will continue to be spied on extensively in the face of this nebulous and ever-changing terrorist threat. However, of course, none of this, whatsoever, had any relevance to the rest of us around the world, where the NSA could merrily go on spying on us all, to every degree they want to, because we’re not American citizens. So, it’s a bit of a back step for privacy advocates in America, but it’s no change for the rest of us.
RT: Yeah, you say no change, Annie, but you know, we’ve got the new Freedom Act to look forward to, too. You know, the one that will replace the Patriot Act. Surely, that’s a step forward, though, isn’t it?
AM: That’s one for Orwellian Newsspeak, I think. “You’re free.” No you’re not. It’s not a freedom act; it’s a surveillance act. They’re trying to recast it to make it sound good, but it’s not. And even if that’s the case in America, even if the NSA were reigned in, and they were not allowed to spy on American citizens, all they have to do is ask their buddies in the Five Eyes group, which would be Canada, New Zealand, Australia, or the UK, to do the spying for them, which would be perfectly legal under any of those countries’ oversight systems, and then just pass the information to the Americans. So, it is, as I said, very much business as usual. They will always find a way to subvert any notional political oversight within their own countries by sharing this information between themselves, and spying on everyone else’s systems. So, we are all still, very much, living under a global Panopticon.
And none of this has any real impact on protecting us from terrorism. We’ve seen this time, and time again. An NSA whistleblower, Thomas Drake, senior staff, said that, actually, there was a lot of information the NSA had in the run up to 9/11, and yet it was not communicated or acted upon appropriately, so the attack occurred. And then we see current and very recent intelligence chiefs in America saying, for example, you know, “Well it stopped all these terrorism attacks.” And they’ve been caught lying under oath to Congress about this. This bulk metadata creates a huge haystack from which no needles have, effectively, been found.
READ MORE:
Virginia teen with pro-ISIS Twitter account sentenced to 11 years in prison
Whistleblowers sue DOJ, FBI, and NSA for malicious prosecution, civil rights violations
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Book Review
How the CIA hid their MKULTRA mind-control program
By Jon Rappoport | No More Fake News | September 17, 2021
Back in the early 1990s, I spoke with John Marks, author of Search for the Manchurian Candidate. This was the book (1979) that helped expose the existence and range of the infamous CIA MKULTRA program.
Marks related the following facts to me. He had originally filed many Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests for documents connected to the CIA’s mind-control program. He got nothing back.
Finally, as if to play a joke on him, someone at the CIA sent Marks 10 boxes of financial and accounting records. The attitude was, “Here, see what you can do with this.”
I’ve seen some of those records. They’re very boring reading.
But Marks went through them, and lo and behold, he found he could piece together MKULTRA projects, based on the funding data.
Eventually, he assembled enough information to begin naming names. He conducted interviews. The shape of MKULTRA swam into view. And so he wrote his book, Search for the Manchurian Candidate.
He told me that three important books had been written about MKULTRA, and they all stemmed from those 10 boxes of CIA financial records. There was his own book; Operation Mind Control by Walter Bowart; and The Mind Manipulators by Alan Scheflin and Edward Opton. … continue
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