Jon Stewart, Iraq War Critic, Runs a Program That Helps Veterans Enter TV

The NY Times reports Jon Stewart, Iraq War Critic, Runs a Program That Helps Veterans Enter TV "Instead, the staff of ‘The Daily Show’ developed an intense five-week immersion program to give veterans a crash course in their business, with behind-the-scenes looks at areas including talent booking and editing...He added that the veterans he had hired had been assets and “way less whiny” than most of his hires."

I don't understand why they felt the need to point out (in the headline no less) that Stewart was an Iraq War critic. First, everyone knows that, second, that has nothing to do with supporting veterans. I know people have difficulty separating supporting the war and supporting the troops, but it never made sense to me.

New Stuxnet Details

Ars Technica writes Revealed: Stuxnet “beta’s” devious alternate attack on Iran nuke program. "Researchers have uncovered a never-before-seen version of Stuxnet. The discovery sheds new light on the evolution of the powerful cyberweapon that made history when it successfully sabotaged an Iranian uranium-enrichment facility in 2009."

Interesting stuff, though by "no later than" I think they meant "at least as early as".

F-22s and F-35s Not Looking So Good

Danger Room had a couple of articles on the current state of our most advanced fighter planes...

Air Force to Stealth Fighter Pilots: Get Used to Coughing Fits "Those admissions, buried in newly released Congressional records, represent the latest twist in the years-long saga of the F-22′s faulty oxygen system, which since at least 2008 has been choking pilots, leading to confusion, memory loss and blackouts — combined known as hypoxia — that may have contributed to at least one fatal crash. Ground crews have also reported growing sick while working around F-22s whose engines are running."

Engine Crack Grounds Pentagon's Entire Fleet of F-35 Stealth Fighters "The U.S. military’s entire fleet of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters has been grounded, owing to a crack in the engine of one jet. This is at least the fourth full or partial stand-down of the F-35, the Pentagon’s main future fighter, in just the last two and a half years."

7 Secret Ways America's Stealth Armada Stays Off the Radar

Danger Room describes 7 Secret Ways America's Stealth Armada Stays Off the Radar. "But in addition to shaping and RAM, the Pentagon's current stealth planes -- the B-2 Spirit bomber, the F-22 Raptor fighter, the RQ-170 Sentinel drone and the in-development F-35 Joint Strike Fighter -- boast other, lesser-known qualities that help them avoid detection. (We left the Army's stealth helicopter out of the discussion owing to a lack of information.)

These other stealth enhancements include: chemicals to eliminate telltale contrails; sophisticated, untraceable sensors and radios; specially designed, hard-to-detect engine inlets; radar-canceling paint; and cooling systems for reducing a plane's heat signature. All of these evasion methods have been disclosed by the Air Force, although sometimes in scant detail."

Trends in U.S. Military Spending

The Council on Foreign Relations posted Trends in U.S. Military Spending "The following charts present historical trends in U.S. military spending and analyze the forces that may drive it lower. These charts draw on data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Both data sets include spending on overseas contingency operations as well as defense. This distinguishes them from data used in the U.S. budget, which separate defense spending from spending on overseas operations."

There are a lot of good charts here, the first one is telling:



This one is perhaps too busy, but it's a summary of three charts that they described previously:



And some perspective:



Many more on the page.