@eyo

Boeing Is Fixed In Titanium Valley
Monday December 26, 2016
The world's largest aerospace company Boeing and the world leader in the production of titanium forgings for the aviation industry VSMPO-AVISMA Corporation announced the expansion of capacities of Ural Boeing Manufacturing on December 21, 2016. The new production facility will be located in the Special Economic Zone Titanium Valley, located in the territory of Sverdlovsk region. There will be performed the processing of titanium forgings within all programs of the Boeing civil aircrafts, including 787 family and new 737 MAX and 777X families, the beginning of this manufacture is scheduled for 2017. The opening of the plant is scheduled for the 1st quarter of 2018.

Defensenews drive-by, can't get the Clash version of Clampdown outta my head right now.
DoD concerned with Chinese investments in US high-tech startups

WASHINGTON — A report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Defense was circulated among senior Trump administration officials this week, stating that Beijing has been encouraging Chinese companies to invest in American startups.

According to the report, Chinese firms with strong ties to China’s government have increasingly been investing in companies with cutting-edge technologies, many of which have potential military applications, reported The New York Times.

According to three people knowledgeable about its contents, who spoke to The New York Times on the condition of anonymity, U.S. government controls that are intended to protect critical technologies are not working.

Who is the enemy, is it everyone? Deals R Us. Also, oops:
Already a year delayed, KC-46 program at risk of further schedule slips

Because of delays, Boeing will have to compress its original delivery timeline for those 18 aircraft from 14 months to 6 months.

“This delivery period assumes Boeing will deliver 3 aircraft per month, a greater pace than planned during full rate production,” the report stated. Twelve of those aircraft are already over 70 percent complete, GAO adds, but the company is far from being in the clear.

Two major challenges stand in the way. First, Boeing may not be able to conduct an electromagnetic effects test scheduled for May 2017. The test, which is held at a specialized facility, will evaluate whether the KC-46 creates any electromagnetic interference. However, because the Federal Aviation Administration has yet to approve the aircraft’s aerial refueling pod design, the Air Force will have to decide whether to test the aircraft and pods separately or risk pushing the test to a later date.

Or maybe just not test at all? Wouldn't that be "more efficient". Hopes not.

Thanks

@solublefish

Thank you!

"We cannot pretend with the military leading our wars that we are nation building, nor is it a police action. It's an empire...."

First thing that I thought of when I heard this news was Roman Empire. Trump has just granted "imperium" to the field commanders, shredding the last pretence - and since the Korean War it has only been a pretense - of civilian control of the military.

[edited to correct spelling error]

@The Wizard

... A standoff between Israel and Russia is happening. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the recent air strikes by his country inside Syria targeted weapons bound for Lebanon's Hezbollah, and the same would be done again if necessary. Israel considers Hezbollah terrorists and therefore their right to bomb in Syrian Territory. There are Russian soldiers and support personnel in Syria. The Israeli bombs came close to Russians on the ground. Russia apparently called the Israeli ambassador to the Kremlin and told him in no uncertain terms to stop. It is Israel's policy to respond to terrorists with an iron fist. It is Russia's policy to protect Russian personnel, using what ever means necessary, including tactical nuclear weapons if overwhelming conventional forces are used against Russians.
The Syrian military is also deeply involved. “Syria could retaliate against Israel by firing SCUD missiles, should the latter strike Syria one more time” said the message that was delivered through the Russian mediators." Syria is thought to have 800 cold war era SCUD missiles with 1000 lb warheads. Syria claimed to have fired air to ground missiles and destroyed an Israeli warplane. Israel denies that the missile hit its target. ...

This smells like a set-up where the smaller psychopathic bully forces the target to defend himself so that the huge psychopathic bully can "obliterate" him with 'justification'... there are unlikely to be survivors anywhere around the world to lay blame for forcing nuclear defenses on Syria, Russia and multiple other long-targeted corporate-independent countries for long, anyway. The resultant decade-or-more-long nuclear dimming/drought alone (quite apart from the radiation levels and other potential effects) of this Nuclear War On The World - now predictable via modern computer modelling of the results of even a regional nuclear war between two small countries - would predictably globally wipe out crops and oxygen-producing plant life then no longer sufficient to support life on already-industrially/militarily poisoned and rapidly-diminishing Earth: Game Over for complex, oxygen-dependent life on the planet.

Anyone remember Clinton consistently promising to "totally obliterate" Iran for any strike against Israel?

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-politics-iran-idUSN2224332720080422

Politics | Tue Apr 22, 2008 | 1:43pm EDT

Clinton says U.S. could "totally obliterate" Iran

By David Morgan | WASHINGTON

... "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran (if it attacks Israel)," Clinton said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."

"In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them," she said.

I wonder why the next 10 years were specified? Political reasons or estimates that we might at this point have less than a decade left of life on the planet? Especially if pollinators - and much of the world's irreplaceable remaining wildlife and food/water/oxygen producers dependent upon them - are successfully murdered now to create a very tight and limited food monopoly using robotic bees in this short-term (and shrinking) looting phase.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2158218-hillary-clintons-letter-...

The amount of media ownership/power held by this man is scary, as are his priorities. Please read this in full at source, if at all possible.)

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/04/22/meet-hillarys-1-campaign-donor-i...

Meet Hillary’s # 1 Campaign Donor, Israeli Billionaire Haim Saban

By GPD on April 22, 2016

Hillary Clinton has gone all in to win US Presidency and is using foreign donors to do it making a special deal with one issue guy Israeli Haim Saban

Haim Saban is an Israeli media proprietor, investor, philanthropist, musician, record, film & television producer.

An accomplished businessman primarily involved with business interests pertaining to financial services, entertainment, and media, and an estimated net worth of $3 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 143rd richest person in America.

Saban is the founder of Saban Entertainment, producer and distributor of children’s television programs in the US such as Power Rangers. He headed up consortiums which purchased the broadcasters ProSiebenSat.1 Media and Univision Communications. He is a major donor to the US Democratic Party and active in pro-Israel political efforts in the US. ...

... Saban has been a generous and consistent donor to the United States Democratic Party according to his mandatory Federal Election Commission filings. Mother Jones, in an analysis of the major donors to the campaigns of 1998 election cycle, ranked Saban 155th among individual donors. Amy Paris noted that Saban’s Clinton-era “generosity did not go unrewarded. During the Clinton administration, the entertainment executive served on the President’s Export Council, advising the White House on trade issues.” The New York Times reported that Haim and his wife “slept in the White House several times during President Clinton’s two terms.” Saban remains close friends with the former President. Clinton described Saban as a “very good friend and supporter.” Saban contributed between $5 million to $10 million to the William J. Clinton Foundation. ...

... In March 2008, Saban was among a group of major Jewish donors to sign a letter to Democratic Party house leader Nancy Pelosi warning her to “keep out of the Democratic presidential primaries.”The donors, who “were strong supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign”, “were incensed by a March 16 interview in which Pelosi said that party ‘superdelegates‘ should heed the will of the majority in selecting a candidate.”The letter to Pelosi stated the donors “have been strong supporters of the DCCC” and implied, according to The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, that Pelosi could lose their financial support in important upcoming congressional elections.

On May 19, 2008, it was reported that Haim Saban had “offered $1 million to the Young Democrats of America during a phone conversation in which he also pressed for the organization’s two uncommitted superdelegates to endorse Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee for president.” ...

(Bolding mine)
https://theintercept.com/2015/09/09/hillary-clinton-goes-militaristic-ha...

Hillary Clinton Goes to Militaristic, Hawkish Think Tank, Gives Militaristic, Hawkish Speech
Glenn Greenwald

September 9 2015

... But when it comes to gifts to Israel, that’s not all! Echoing the vow of several GOP candidates to call Netanyahu right away after being elected, Clinton promised: “I would invite the Israeli prime minister to the White House during my first month in office to talk about all of these issues and to set us on a course of close, frequent consultation right from the start, because we both rely on each other for support as partners, allies and friends.” She then addressed “the people of Israel,” telling them: “Let me say, you’ll never have to question whether we’re with you. The United States will always be with you.” For good measure, she heaped praise on “my friend Chuck Schumer,” who has led the battle to defeat the Iran Deal, gushing about what an “excellent leader in the Senate” he will make. What’s a little warmongering among friends? ...

Just as was true in her book, she implicitly criticized Obama — who boasts that he has bombed seven predominantly Muslim countries — of being insufficiently militaristic, imperialistic, and violent. She said she wanted more involvement in Syria from the start (though did not call for the U.S. to accept any of its refugees). In a clear rebuke to the current president, she decreed that any criticisms U.S. officials may utter of Israel should be done only in private (“in private and behind, you know, closed doors”), not in public, lest “it open[] the door to everybody else to delegitimize Israel to, you know, pile on in ways that are not good for the — the strength and stability, not just of Israel.” About Russia, she said, “I think we have not done enough” and put herself “in the category of people who wanted us to do more in response to the annexation of Crimea and the continuing destabilization of Ukraine.” ...

(Auto-play video has Trump promising to stand against any enemy attacking Israel.)

http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/world-news/the-israeli-connection/tr...

Trump’s victory: Will he keep his promises to Israel?
The Republican President-elect mentioned Israel multiple times throughout his campaign. He promised that the American Embassy will transfer to Jerusalem, to aid in the fight against extreme Islamic terror and to provide a strong stand against Iran. His advisers promised that his government will continue to deliver aid to Israel.

Nov 9, 2016, 7:10PM
Daniel Gilenson

All of the listed as long-targeted countries no longer have anything to lose by uniting to take the US monster out while they can, as it's been made obvious that they'll all be flattened regardless of anything they do. And that this group of pathological US self-interests and their lackeys/dupes will in any event destroy all life on the planet, at best within the next few decades, in the pursuit of 'having it all', unless the corporations and billionaires - not just their political lackeys and lobbyists - are entirely (and immediately) taken out of politics/policy.

A blast from the past, with video at source:

http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2010/07/01/128170775/a-very-scary-l...

A Very Scary Light Show: Exploding H-Bombs In Space
6:12

July 1, 20104:01 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered

Robert Krulwich

... Back in the summer of 1962, the U.S. blew up a hydrogen bomb in outer space, some 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean. It was a weapons test, but one that created a man-made light show that has never been equaled — and hopefully never will. ...

... Some of the images in this video were until recently top secret. Peter Kuran of Visual Concept Entertainment collected them for his documentary Nukes In Space.

If you are wondering why anybody would deliberately detonate an H-bomb in space, the answer comes from a conversation we had with science historian James Fleming of Colby College.

"Well, I think a good entry point to the story is May 1, 1958, when James Van Allen, the space scientist, stands in front of the National Academy in Washington, D.C., and announces that they've just discovered something new about the planet," he told us.

Van Allen described how the Earth is surrounded by belts of high-energy particles — mainly protons and electrons — that are held in place by the magnetic fields.

Today these radiation belts are called Van Allen belts. Now comes the surprise: While looking through the Van Allen papers at the University of Iowa to prepare a Van Allen biography, Fleming discovered "that [the] very same day after the press conference, [Van Allen] agreed with the military to get involved with a project to set off atomic bombs in the magnetosphere to see if they could disrupt it."

Discover It, Then Blow It Up

The plan was to send rockets hundreds of miles up, higher than the Earth's atmosphere, and then detonate nuclear weapons to see: a) If a bomb's radiation would make it harder to see what was up there (like incoming Russian missiles!); b) If an explosion would do any damage to objects nearby; c) If the Van Allen belts would move a blast down the bands to an earthly target (Moscow! for example); and — most peculiar — d) if a man-made explosion might "alter" the natural shape of the belts.

The scientific basis for these proposals is not clear. ...

... In any case, says the science history professor, "this is the first occasion I've ever discovered where someone discovered something and immediately decided to blow it up."

Code Name: Starfish Prime

The Americans launched their first atomic nuclear tests above the Earth's atmosphere in 1958. Atom bombs had little effect on the magnetosphere, but the hydrogen bomb of July 9, 1962, did. Code-named "Starfish Prime" by the military, it literally created an artificial extension of the Van Allen belts that could be seen across the Pacific Ocean, from Hawaii to New Zealand. ...

(Get nothing but crap on searches; probably at least in part because too tired to think of appropriate terms...)

http://www.universetoday.com/25370/how-does-the-earth-protect-us-from-sp...

How Does the Earth Protect Us From Space?
Article Updated: 24 Dec , 2015
by Fraser Cain

... Risk: Solar flares. Violent explosions on the surface of the Sun release a huge amount of energy as flares. In addition to a blast of radiation, it often sends out a burst of plasma traveling at nearly the speed of light. The Earth’s magnetosphere protects us here on Earth from the effects of the plasma, keeping it safely away from the surface of the planet. And our atmosphere keeps the X-ray/gamma ray radiation out. ...

Gee, just suppose that protective effect had been experimentally destroyed? Guess we wouldn't be sitting here now, so I guess it's OK for such experiments with the life-support system to continue until one does - ooooopsies! - wipe out all life on Earth, just to see if some set of pathological nutcases can find some new way to kill/control/profit from more of every facet of Life.

And in view of not only some of the secondary effects of nuclear explosions but direct ones of the globally toxic, acid-rain-producing and ozone-destroying sun-life-blocking 'geoengineering fixes' being promoted by polluters planning to profit further from Life's destruction before it goes entirely, due to their profiteering:

... However, exceptionally energetic convection processes, such as volcanic eruption columns and overshooting tops in severe supercell thunderstorms, may carry convection into the stratosphere on a very local and temporary basis. Overall the attenuation of solar UV at wavelengths that damage DNA by the ozone layer allows life to exist on the surface of the planet outside of the ocean. ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratosphere

... The mechanism describing the formation of the ozone layer was described by British mathematician Sydney Chapman in 1930. Molecular oxygen absorbs high energy sunlight in the UV-C region, at wavelengths shorter than about 240 nm. The oxygen atoms produced combine with molecular oxygen to form ozone. Ozone in turn is photolysed much more rapidly than molecular oxygen as it has a stronger absorption that occurs at longer wavelengths, where the solar emission is more intense. Ozone (O3) photolysis produces O and O2. The oxygen atom product combines with atmospheric molecular oxygen to reform O3, releasing heat. The rapid photolysis and reformation of ozone heats the stratosphere resulting in a temperature inversion. This increase of temperature with altitude is characteristic of the stratosphere; its resistance to vertical mixing means that it is stratified. Within the stratosphere temperatures increase with altitude (see temperature inversion); the top of the stratosphere has a temperature of about 270 K (−3°C or 26.6°F).[5] This vertical stratification, with warmer layers above and cooler layers below, makes the stratosphere dynamically stable: there is no regular convection and associated turbulence in this part of the atmosphere. However, exceptionally energetic convection processes, such as volcanic eruption columns and overshooting tops in severe supercell thunderstorms, may carry convection into the stratosphere on a very local and temporary basis. Overall the attenuation of solar UV at wavelengths that damage DNA by the ozone layer allows life to exist on the surface of the planet outside of the ocean. ...

... Sydney Chapman gave a correct description of the source of stratospheric ozone and its ability to generate heat within the stratosphere; he also wrote that ozone may be destroyed by reacting with atomic oxygen, making two molecules of molecular oxygen. We now know that there are additional ozone loss mechanisms, and that these mechanisms are catalytic meaning that a small amount of the catalyst can destroy a great number of ozone molecules. ...

... Circulation and mixing

The stratosphere is a region of intense interactions among radiative, dynamical, and chemical processes, in which the horizontal mixing of gaseous components proceeds much more rapidly than does vertical mixing. The overall circulation of the stratosphere is termed as Brewer-Dobson circulation, which is a single celled circulation, spanning from the tropics upto the poles, consisting of the tropical upwelling of air from the tropical troposphere and the extra tropical downwelling of air. Stratospheric Circulation is a pre-dominantly wave-driven circulation in that the tropical upwelling is induced by the wave force by the westward propagating Rossby Waves, in a phenomenon called Rossby-Wave pumping.

An interesting feature of stratospheric circulation is the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) in the tropical latitudes, which is driven by gravity waves that are convectively generated in the troposphere. The QBO induces a secondary circulation that is important for the global stratospheric transport of tracers, such as ozone[8] or water vapor.

Another large-scale feature that significantly influences Stratospheric Circulation is the breaking planetary waves[9] resulting in intense quasi-horizontal mixing in the midlatitudes. This breaking is much more pronounced in the winter hemisphere where this region is called the surf zone. This breaking is caused due to a highly non-linear interaction between the vertically propagating planetary waves and the isolated high potential vorticity region known as Polar Vortex. The resultant breaking causes large scale mixing of air and other trace gases throughout the midlatitude surf zone. The timescale of this rapid mixing is much smaller than the much slower timescales of upwelling in the tropics and downwelling in the extratropics.

During northern hemispheric winters, sudden stratospheric warmings, caused by the absorption of Rossby waves in the stratosphere, can be observed in approximately half of winters when easterly winds develop in the stratosphere. These events often precede unusual winter weather [10] and may even be responsible for the cold European winters of the 1960s.[11]

Stratospheric warming of the polar vortex results in its weakening. When the vortex is strong, it keeps the cold, high pressure air masses "contained" in the arctic; when the vortex weakens, air masses move equatorward, and results in rapid changes of weather in the mid latitudes. ...

To say the least, experimentally messing with the life support system is going beyond unsustainable and far into deep, mindless lunacy. And that's what we are dealing with.

But some of these policy-purchasing billionaires (and, it would appear, their [ultimately destined to become Silicon Valley, hedge-funding-careered-types, as seems a trend from the Bush Admin on?] corporate-connected political lackeys) believe that they can become unliving 'immortals' able to survive even the hell they're creating by having their memories recorded as programs transferred into computers/robots or their brains transplanted into repairable machine bodies actually incapable of providing the complex biological sustenance and triggers our brains require - and a number of techies as well are being brainwashed into believing that machines are 'better than life' because more efficient in specific areas - and they may potentially be, in certain areas, and as tools when programmed/operated properly in the improvement of life for life, machines being rather pointless on their own as a planned-by-the-few replacement for 'less-efficient' life. But that's typical of the psychopathic viewpoint they're trying to 'normalize' - such scamps!

And some billionaires have invested heavily in technology toward the end of turning themselves into 'nano-tech-brain-improved' cyborgs or machines, (hoping, I suppose, to become their own tools (and not the programmable tools of others,) since the belief among some is that life should be replaced by machines ASAP) although this direction is now shifting to head transplants, which at least seems more biologically feasible, although this goes beyond traumatic spinal cord injury and repair, not to mention that potential degree of likely unavoidable damage of the brain deprived of circulation/nourishment for at least some period - or of just exactly whose healthy bodies are to be used to try out for these greed-heads, (how many tries will be required for success where the isolated brain can at least perceive some of, and communicate with, the outside world?) or even found in their to-be-freely poisoned world which life will soon be incapable of surviving, much of it already rapidly dying off at accelerating rates and almost at irrecoverable levels now.

Wouldn't it be nice if we somehow saved ourselves at this last hour?

And again something appropriate turned up in the mix just now. Maybe I just listen to a lot of protest stuff, but there is a lot out there...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydGrJ0DjyQ0&list=RDydGrJ0DjyQ0#t=220

Muse - Unsustainable [MUSIC VIDEO] Alternative Version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGdW4PaY4hA&list=RDjGdW4PaY4hA#t=281

Muse - City of Delusion (Official Video)

If you task the military to achieve an objective they will use all available lethal force. The situation in Syria is very complex.
Problem #1:
A standoff between Israel and Russia is happening. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the recent air strikes by his country inside Syria targeted weapons bound for Lebanon's Hezbollah, and the same would be done again if necessary. Israel considers Hezbollah terrorists and therefore their right to bomb in Syrian Territory. There are Russian soldiers and support personnel in Syria. The Israeli bombs came close to Russians on the ground. Russia apparently called the Israeli ambassador to the Kremlin and told him in no uncertain terms to stop. It is Israel's policy to respond to terrorists with an iron fist. It is Russia's policy to protect Russian personnel, using what ever means necessary, including tactical nuclear weapons if overwhelming conventional forces are used against Russians.
The Syrian military is also deeply involved. “Syria could retaliate against Israel by firing SCUD missiles, should the latter strike Syria one more time” said the message that was delivered through the Russian mediators." Syria is thought to have 800 cold war era SCUD missiles with 1000 lb warheads. Syria claimed to have fired air to ground missiles and destroyed an Israeli warplane. Israel denies that the missile hit its target.

Problem#2:
Raqqa. This is ISIS headquarters in Syria. It is a city of about 220,000 people. The US has made it its business to drive ISIS out, with absolutely no legal authority to have a military presence in Syria. They have the usual "coalition forces" plus Kurdish fighters. The situation is complex especially since Turkey has troops on the ground in Northern Syria but will not work with the US because of the Kurdish element. Meanwhile, Syria and Russia are telling the US to stay out, that they are not being helpful and that this US military operation is illegal under international law. What happens next? If the US drops bombs on the city then there will be considerable civilian casualties. If the US is successful at a huge cost in lives and property will the US then occupy a city within the Syrian State?

I'm mot implying that these are the only problems, just that these are becoming the most acute at this time.

With delicate, difficult geopolitical decisions to be made, our CIC has left it up to the military brass. Like I said, just in case go get some iodine pills because there are two nuclear powers at loggerheads now in the ME and the radiation will eventually make it to our shores.