Mississippi, the state with the highest rate of both childhood obesity and childhood poverty, is trying to improve the diets of its youngest inhabitants
BattlelandProcurement
Contract Announcement of the Year (So Far)
Thursday’s roster of Pentagon contract announcements contains this gem:
MIT, Cambridge, Mass., was awarded a $32,000,000 cost-sharing contract. The award will provide for the study, development and creation of equipment and material. Work will be performed in Cambridge, with an estimated completion date of Dec. 31, 2017. One bid was
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BattlelandPacific
Japan’s Not-Quite-So-Nationalist Leader
TOKYO – For a supposed nationalist and right wing hawk, Japan‘s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, doesn’t seem to have his heart in it. Count on Japan’s long-suffering and largely misunderstood public to keep things that way — …
Has the Fight for Abortion Rights Been Lost?
Abortion-rights activists won an epic victory in Roe v. Wade. They’ve been losing ever since
Ouch!
A Visit with a Taliban Bomb-Maker
“I am here in Kandahar on a short vacation,” says the young man, about 27, who we will call Mullah Kalam. His beard is trimmed neat; he is wearing a black leather jacket and a striped beige turban. Kalam has been a student …
College Costs: Would Tuition Discounts Get More Students to Major in Science?
To steer more students into high-paying fields, Florida is considering freezing tuition rates for certain majors. Would it work?
The Next Cliff: Another Round of Debt Brinksmanship Looms
Originally devised as a solution to the last round of debt-limit negotiations, the fiscal cliff instead sets up another round of hostage taking
BattlelandMilitary Mental Health
Tallying the Suicide Toll
The Department of Defense has just issued a new report on the sad subject of military suicides.
The statistics are not news. We all know of the steadily rising suicide rate, especially in the Army. The rates of suicide are …
BattlelandIntelligence
How to Build a Spy-Proof Room
Defending the nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic, is a tough business. That’s why the U.S. government has Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities, where the nation’s secrets can be freely discussed by …
“Dinner’s Here!”
Food and other vital supplies are air-dropped to Forward Operating Base Lightning deep into the mountains of Paktya province Dec. 23.
BattlelandNuclear Weapons
New Nuke School Boosts Enrollment Four-Fold
The Air Force has opened a $4.2 million Nuclear Security Tactics Training Center in Guernsey, Wyo., so that the service’s 620th Ground Combat Training Squadron can train more airmen to protect the nation’s nuclear-tipped ICBM …
“Congress has prevented the worst possible outcome by delaying sequestration for two months. Unfortunately, the cloud of sequestration remains. The responsibility now is to eliminate it as a threat by enacting balanced deficit reduction. Congress cannot continue to just kick the can down the road.”
— Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, breathing a sigh of relief Wednesday, noting that some $600 billion in Pentagon budget cuts over the coming decade have been put on hold by last-minute congressional action over New Year's. As for his claim that Congress can't continue kicking the can, Panetta knows better: he served in the House from 1977 to 1993.