Monday, March 19, 2018
Blogs With Rule 5 Links
These Blogs Provide Links To Rule 5 Sites:
The Other McCain has: Rule 5 Sunday: Gal Gadot
Proof Positive has: Best Of Web Link Around
The Woodsterman has: Rule 5 Woodsterman Style
The Right Way has: Rule 5 Saturday LinkORama
The Pirate's Cove has: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup
Wright Lumber Company fire, West 28th Street, New York, 1928
More Great Pictures:
Vintage Photo: Greyhound in 1923...
Amazing Photos Collection #1
Amazing Photos Collection #2
Amazing Photos Collection #3
Amazing Photos Collection #4
Amazing Photos Collection #5
Amazing Photos Collection #6 -or- Surreal picture of a Zeppelin under construction, circa 1935
Canal Street, New Orleans, circa.1910 or Photo Collection #7
War By Robots: Army Looking For Armed Ground Prototype By 2019
The new combat vehicles must be “optimized for fighting in dense urban terrain.” Fighting in narrow streets, in turn, requires smaller vehicles than the massive M1 — and one way to reduce weight is to take the humans out.
After 20 years of cancelled programs, the Army now wants prototypes of all-new robotic and “optionally manned” combat vehicles by 2019 so soldiers can begin field-testing them in 2020. Compared to current vehicles, they’ll be lighter, smaller and optimized for urban combat, said Brig. Gen. David Lesperance, head of the armor school at Fort Benning, Ga. and the hand-picked head of the service’s Cross-Functional Team on future ground vehicles.
Both established defense contractors and non-traditional companies are currently working on concepts, he told me and two other reporters this afternoon, and there’ll be intense experimentation, modeling, and simulation in the next “six to 12 months.”
Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley created the Cross Functional Teams last fall to advance his Big Six modernization priorities. What’s called Next-Generation Combat Vehicle (NGCV) is No. 2, second only to long-range artillery and missiles. Until this week, however, the CFTs have kept quiet. But Gen. Milley promised the Army would seek “radical,” ten-fold improvements in technology on a tight timeline. Lesperance’s proposal would definitely deliver on that promise — if it works.
Risk Factors
The problem is the post-Cold War Army’s track record on new armored fighting vehicles is unblemished by success. (The successful Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicleis essentially a modified Bradley, not an all new design). While continually upgrading and modernizing the 1980s-vintage M1 Abrams tank and the M2 Bradley, the Pentagon has cancelled the M8 Armored Gun System (1997), the Crusader howitzer (2002), the Future Combat Systems (2009), and the Ground Combat Vehicle (2013). FCS in particular is the dead elephant in the room, because it was the Army’s last attempt at this kind of technological great leap forward, specifically including both manned and robotic vehicles.
Milley has said specifically his Big Six modernization program won’t repeat the mistakes of FCS, and there are grounds for hope. First, technology is just better. The private sector has made dramatic advances in computing power, artificial intelligenc and ground robots since FCS was cancelled in 2009, when the iPhone was in its infancy and self-driving cars were a fantasy.
The Army, for its part, is taking care to prototype the new technology before it commits to an acquisition program, unlike FCS. It has also abandoned the cumbersome mega-program approach of FCS, which was a single contract for eight manned vehicles, multiple ground robots and drones, and a mobile network to...
More Evidence Surfaces About Fake Vatican Letter
To recap, Vatican communications director Msgr. Dario Vigano had attempted to elicit Benedict’s endorsement of an 11-volume set he co-authored on the theology of Pope Francis, whereupon the former pontiff replied with a letter saying he would not be able to offer any support for the work.
Apparently angered by the reply, Vigano and his colleagues proceeded to alter p. 1 of the letter, and craftily hiding the second page they photographed the letter and sent it to media outlets on March 13 as a promo to rebut critics of Francis who question his theological and philosophical heft and say he represents a rupture from Benedict’s doctrine-minded papacy.
The Vatican admitted to The Associated Press on March 14 that the letter was doctored. The bottom 2 lines of p. 1 were phased out via Photoshop, so that what was highlighted was a revised p. 1 in which Benedict purportedly criticized Church conservatives for their “foolish prejudice” in not recognizing that “Pope Francis is a man of profound philosophical and theological formation.”
We now have this update from Vatican specialist Sandro Magister that an entire paragraph from p. 2 of Benedict’s letter was deleted by Vigano because Benedict therein expressed his displeasure that anti-papal heretics and enemies co-authored the 11-volume set. The deleted paragraph reads:
“Just as a side note, I would like to mention my surprise at the fact that the authors also include Professor Hünermann, who during my pontificate put himself in the spotlight by heading anti-papal initiatives. He played a major role in the promulgation of the “Kölner Erklärung,” which, in relation to the encyclical “Veritatis Splendor,” virulently attacked the magisterial authority of the pope, especially on questions of moral theology. Also the “Europäische Theologengesellschaft,” which he founded, was initially designed as an organization in opposition to the papal magisterium….
“I am certain that you will have understanding for my declination.”
Magister says in his report, “The letter by Benedict XVI that Settimo Cielo published on March 13 in its complete form was in reality not complete. Between the paragraph omitted in the press release and the valediction there were, in fact, other lines.”
And so we see the Vatican attempting to use the aging Benedict to endorse the multi-volume work that was co-authored by arch-enemies of the papacy and the Church. Deo Gratias that Papa Benedict is still in his wits!
What we need to consider more closely is the diabolical nature of the individual who orchestrated the fake letter. The fact is that Vigano, a known homosexual, hired the radical LGBT communications company Accenture to redo and take over the Vatican’s news service in 2017, which is precisely what led to this insidious...
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