Tag: military industrial complex

US-China Space Wars & Moon-Mining

On May 30, two NASA astronauts were launched into space under the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, marking the return to a time when the United States transported its people into space without depending on foreign countries like Russia. U.S. private firms can now carry out launches to low-Earth orbits at competitive prices. Consequently, in addition to no longer being dependent on foreign countries for space assistance, NASA can now focus on its longer-term goal of launching Americans into deeper space.

In 2020, China’s Chang’e-5 moon mission discovered a new variant mineral now called Changesite-(Y). The crystal containing helium-3 could prove incredibly valuable as it may offer a new energy source. Scientists believe that the tiny crystals may be able to power nuclear reactors and are abundant on the moon. To put the power of helium-3 in perspective, about three tablespoons of helium-3 could replace 5,000 tons of coal.

Consequently, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) announced plans for three more moon missions over the next 10 years and the construction of a permanent lunar base.

The Chinese space agency frequently captures headlines heralding China’s achievements in space. Apart from Chang’e-5 landing on the moon, China managed to land a rover called Zhurong on Mars in 2021. However, China is slow in the space race. The United States sent its first uncrewed mission to the moon in 1962, followed by a human-crewed mission in 1969. Chinese unmanned craft reached Mars in 2020, a feat NASA had achieved with Mariner 4 in 1964, while the first U.S. craft to land on Mars was Viking 1 in 1975. Currently, with 2,944 satellites, the United States has nearly six times as many satellites orbiting the Earth as China with 499.

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Navy lied about fuel-laced water on US aircraft carrier

A US Navy whistleblower has reportedly accused his superiors on the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier of lying to crew members about the severity of a fuel leak into their drinking water and denying them medical treatment when they were sickened by the contaminated fluid.

“We were exposed to an unhealthy amount of JP-5,” a sailor on the carrier told Business Insider, referring to a common type of kerosene-based jet fuel. The media outlet, which posted its article on Saturday, said it didn’t identify the sailor out of concern that he might face retribution from the Navy for speaking out.

The incident occurred in mid-September, when members of the nearly 3,000-person crew noticed discoloration and a foul smell in the water that they use for drinking and showering. After initially advising the crew to drink only bottled water, the ship’s commanding officer and executive officer later announced that the Nimitz’s normal water supply was safe to use.

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Air Force tells ‘cisgender men’ not to apply for new internship

The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) announced a fellowship via email on September 14 that excludes “cisgender” men and instead is explicitly open to “undergraduate women and gender minorities interested in aerospace.”

As Fox News reports, the Brooke Owens Fellowship is only available to candidates from the Air Force who are “a cisgender woman, a transgender woman, non-binary, agender, bigender, two-spirit, demigender, genderfluid, genderqueer, or another form of gender minority.” The application adds, “If you are a cisgender man, this program isn’t for you.”

The academy, which is located in Colorado, said the 2023 Brooke Owens Fellowship application deadline was October 10 and that it is a “nine-week paid internship at a leading aerospace company.”

There are two “spinoff programs” for “cisgender men,”  the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship and the Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship Program. Of those two the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship is only for black men.

Fox News was alerted to the program from a cadet who wrote, “It’s a little worrying that we have more briefs about D&I (diversity and inclusion) than briefs about foreign adversaries, emerging technologies or current events across the world.”

The cadet’s revelation comes after reports that the Air Force Academy has implemented diversity trainings that include telling cadets to use gender-neutral language and drop the word “colorblind.”

In a slideshow titled, “Diversity & Inclusion: What it is, why we care, & what we can do,” the school tells its Air Force cadets to use “person-centered” and gender-neutral language when describing people.

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Senator Wyden: US military bought mass monitoring tool that includes email and browsing data

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has revealed that the US Naval Investigative Service (NCIS) has a contract for “Augury” – a mass monitoring tool that reportedly covers 93% of the world’s internet traffic and provides access to petabytes of current and historical data.

Wyden made the revelation in a recent letter that urged officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Defense (DOD), and Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate their department’s “warrantless purchase and use of records revealing the websites Americans have accessed online.”

The Senator wrote that public contracting records show that NCIS has a contract for Augury and that these records show that Augury provides access to network data “from over 550 collection points worldwide.” Wyden added that these records show Augury “is updated with at least 100 billion new records each day” and “confirm that Augury provides access to email data…and data about web browser activity.”

Not only does Wyden’s letter highlight this Augury contract but it also reveals that Wyden’s department was recently contacted by a whistleblower who had filed formal complaints “regarding the warrantless purchase and use of netflow data by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).” This whistleblower told Wyden’s department that NCIS is “purchasing access to data, which includes netflow records and some ‘communications content” from Team Cymru – a data broker that offers access to Augury.

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Bomb explodes at Northeastern University with note citing Mark Zuckerberg

A suspicious package sent to Northeastern University exploded on Tuesday injuring one staff member, according to officials. The package contained a message criticizing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. 

Just after 7 p.m. on Tuesday, a package that was delivered to Holmes Hall detonated after it was opened by a staff member who sustained “minor injuries” from the explosion, Northeastern University said in a statement. 

The staff member was transported to a local hospital. The explosion triggered a multi-agency response, including the Boston Police Department’s Bomb Squad, Boston Emergency Management Services, and other law enforcement agencies. 

The university said the building was evacuated and nearby evening classes were canceled. 

“The safety and well-being of our community is always our most important priority,” the school’s statement added. 

Federal law enforcement sources told CNN that the package included a message criticizing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, as well as the connection between academia and virtual reality. 

The package contained a hard plastic container that exploded when the university staff member unlatched and lifted the lid. 

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Man Behind US Navy’s Largest Corruption Case Hires a U-Haul, Cuts Ankle Tag, and Flees

His unassailable charm was said to have penetrated the U.S. Navy better than the Soviets ever could, as he gained unprecedented access to classified military information through a massive bribery network. Now, Leonard Glenn Francis has pulled off yet another daring feat, successfully escaping house arrest just weeks before he’s set to be sentenced for masterminding the Navy’s largest-ever corruption scandal. 

Widely known as “Fat Leonard” for his 350-pound, 6-foot-three stature, Malaysian businessman Francis cut his GPS monitoring ankle bracelet off on Sunday and fled his San Diego home, where he’s been under house arrest since 2018. 

Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Omar Castillo told reporters on Monday that police arrived at Francis’ home concerned about his health after being notified of a problem with his bracelet, only to find nobody home.

“As of now, multiple leads are being investigated,” Castillo said, adding that Francis’ neighbors had seen U-Haul moving trucks at his house in the days before his escape. None notified police of his brazen and slow-paced escape, though it’s not clear whether they knew who resided at the property.

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Who Benefits From US Government Claims That The UFO Threat Is Increasing “Exponentially”?

A US senate report which is an addendum to the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 has people talking due to the surprising statements it includes about the US government’s current position on UFOs.

I mean Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.

I mean Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena.

This latest moniker for the thing we all still think of as UFOs is the US government’s way of addressing how these alleged appearances, which began entering mainstream attention in 2017, are said to be able to transition seamlessly from traveling through the air to moving underwater in what’s been labeled “cross-domain transmedium” movement. Because branches of the US war machine are roughly broken up into forces specializing in air, sea, land and space operations, the notion that these things move between those domains gets special attention.

UFO enthusiasts are largely focusing on a part of the addendum which oddly stipulates that the government’s newly named Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena Joint Program Office shall not be looking into objects “that are positively identified as man-made,” because of the obvious implications of that phrase. This is understandable; if you’ve got a government office that’s responsible for investigating unidentified phenomena, you can just say it won’t be looking into phenomena that are “positively identified”. You wouldn’t have to add “identified as man-made” unless you had a specific reason for doing so.

But for me the claim that really jumps off the page, authored by Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mark Warner, is the claim that these unidentified aerospace-undersea phenomena are a “threat” that is increasing “exponentially”.

“At a time when cross-domain transmedium threats to United States national security are expanding exponentially, the Committee is disappointed with the slow pace of DoD-led efforts to establish the office to address those threats,” Warner writes in the report.

“Exponentially” is a mighty strong word. Taken in its least literal sense, it means that threats to US national security from UFOs are increasing at an alarmingly rapid rate. That they have swiftly become much greater than they used to be.

What is the basis for this incendiary claim? What information are US lawmakers being given to make them draw such conclusions and make such assertions? There’s a long chain of information handling between an alleged UFO encounter and a US senator’s pen, and corruption can occur at any point in that chain (including the first and last link).

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These Are The 10 Biggest Military Spending Nations In The World

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has continued, military spending and technology has come under the spotlight as the world tracked Western arms shipments and watched how HIMAR rocket launchers and other weaponry affected the conflict.

But, as Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte details below, developing, exporting, and deploying military personnel and weaponry costs nations hundreds of billions every year. In 2021, global military spending reached $2.1 trillion, rising for its seventh year in a row.

Using data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), this visualization shows which countries spent the most on their military in 2021, along with their overall share of global military spending.

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