I listened to an interview with some connected folks to this situation a few days ago, and there's a bit more to it.

(I don't remember any detail, but the gist was ...)

The ranch is directly adjacent to the refuge, and the government has been trying to grow the refuge.

The government has been trying to get the particular rancher's land for a while, offering to buy it, and generally making living there inconvenient, to encourage him/them to leave.

There was some funny business with the arson charge, like there being some hunters on the land that had a different account of the events, and their account was at odds with what the government asserted happened.

Folks have the opinion that the arson charge was a convenient way of dialing up the 'get out of town' message - and so this occupy whatever response is some sorta backlash. Something like : "You want us to leave so you can have our stuff? Oh yeah? Well why don't YOU leave and we'll take YOUR stuff?! Take that!"

Also, the group has not been isolated. People and media come and do all the time, and the group makes daily statements to the media. One reporter noted that he has only seen one person carrying a firearm the entire time (a single man with a pistol in a holster), and everyone else has no firearms on their person (regardless if they have any in general, they aren't walking around armed).

-scheherazade

@eric3579 Apparently, Penn/Teller confirmed on twitter that she wasn't a plant. (This from an unrelated blog post, I don't know how to find the tweet itself). Also, every participant has to tell a "judge" backstage how the trick is done, to avoid any funny business (for instance, denying that Penn & Teller's explanation is correct, even if it is).

This video lacks a lot of salient details.

Yes, the F35 is aiming at the A10 because contractors want jobs (something to do).

However, the strength of the A10 is also its weakness. Low and slow also means that it takes you a long time to get to your troops. Fast jets arrive much sooner (significantly so). A combination of both would be ideal. F35 to get there ASAP, and A10 arriving later to take over.

It's not really worth debating the merit of new fighters. You don't wait for a war to start developing weapons.

Yes, our recent enemies are durkas with small arms, and you don't need an F35 to fight them - but you also don't even need to fight them to begin with - they aren't an existential threat. Terrorist attacks are emotionally charged (well, until they happen so often that you get used to hearing about them, and they stop affecting people), but they are nothing compared to say, a carpet bombing campaign.

The relevance of things like the F35 is to have weapons ready and able to face a large national power, should a nation v nation conflict arise with a significant other nation. In the event that such a conflict ever does, you don't want to be caught with your pants down.

Defense spending costs scale with oversight requirements.

Keep in mind that money pays people. Even materials are simply salaries of the material suppliers. The more people you put on a program, the more that program will cost.

Yes, big contractors make big profits - but the major chunk of their charges is still salaries.

Let me explain what is going on.

Remember the $100 hammers?
In fact, the hammer still cost a few bucks. What cost 100+ bucks was the total charges associated with acquiring a hammer.
Everything someone does in association with acquiring the hammer, gets charged to a charge code that's specific for that task.

Someone has to create a material request - $time.
Someone has to check contracts for whether or not it will be covered - $time.
Someone has to place the order - $time.
Someone has to receiver the package, inspect it, and put it into a received bin - $time.
Someone has to go through the received items and assign them property tags - $time.
Someone has to take the item to the department that needed it, and get someone to sign for it - $time.
Someone has to update the monthly contract report - $time.
Someone has to generate an entry in the process artifacts report, detailing the actions taken in order to acquire the hammer - $time.
Someone on the government side has to review the process artifacts report, and validate that proper process was followed (and if not, punish the company for skipping steps) - $time.

Add up all the minutes here and there that each person charged in association with getting a hammer, and it's $95 on top of a $5 hammer. Which is why little things cost so much.

You could say "Hey, why do all that? Just buy the hammer".
Well, if a company did that, it would be in trouble with govt. oversight folks because they violated the process.
If an employee bought a hammer of his own volition, he would be in trouble with his company for violating the process.
The steps are required, and if you don't follow them, and there is ever any problem/issue, your lack of process will be discovered on investigation, and you could face massive liability - even if it's not even relevant - because it points to careless company culture.

Complex systems like jet fighters necessarily have bugs to work out. When you start using the system, that's when you discover all the bits and pieces that nobody anticipated - and you fix them. That's fine. That's always been the case.



As an airplane example, imagine if there's an issue with a regulator that ultimately causes a system failure - but that issue is just some constant value in a piece of software that determines a duty cycle.

Say for example, that all it takes is changing 1 digit, and recompiling. Ez, right? NOPE!

An engineer can't simply provide a fix.

If something went wrong, even unrelated, but simply in the same general system, he could be personally liable for anything that happens.

On top of that, if there is no contract for work on that system, then an engineer providing a free fix is robbing the company of work, and he could get fired.

A company can't instruct an engineer to provide a fix for the same reasons that the engineer himself can't just do it.

So, the process kicks in.

Someone has to generate a trouble report - $time.
Someone has to identify a possible solution - $time.
Someone has to check contracts to see if work on that fix would be covered under current tasking - $time.
Say it's not covered (it's a previously closed [i.e. delivered] item), so you need a new charge code.
Someone has to write a proposal to fix the defect - $time.
Someone has to go deal with the government to get them to accept the proposal - $time.
(say it's accepted)
Someone has to write new contracts with the government for the new work - $time.
To know what to put into the contract, "requrements engineers" have to talk with the "software engineers" to get a list of action items, and incorporate them into the contract - $time.
(say the contract is accepted)
Finance in conjuration with Requirements engineers has to generate a list of charge codes for each action item - $time.
CM engineers have to update the CM system - $time.
Some manager has to coordinate this mess, and let folks know when to do what - $time.
Software engineer goes to work, changes 1 number, recompiles - $time.
Software engineer checks in new load into CM - $time.
CM engineer updates CM history report - $time.
Software engineer delivers new load to testing manger - $time.
Test manager gets crew of 30 test engineers to run the new load through testing in a SIL (systems integration lab) - $time.
Test engineers write report on results - $time.
If results are fine, Test manager has 30 test engineers run a test on real hardware - $time.
Test engineers write new report - $time.
(assuming all went well)
CM engineer gets resting results and pushes the task to deliverable - $time.
Management has a report written up to hand to the governemnt, covering all work done, and each action taken - documenting that proper process was followed - $time.
Folks writing document know nothing technical, so they get engineers to write sections covering actual work done, and mostly collate what other people send to them - $time.
Engineers write most the report - $time.
Company has new load delivered to government (sending a disk), along with the report/papers/documentation - $time.
Government reviews the report, but because the govt. employees are not technical and don't understand any of the technical data, they simply take the company's word for the results, and simply grade the company on how closely they followed process (the only thing they do understand) - $time.
Company sends engineer to government location to load the new software and help government side testing - $time.
Government runs independent acceptance tests on delivered load - $time.
(Say all goes well)
Government talks with company contracts people, and contract is brought to a close - $time.
CM / Requirements engineers close out the action item - $time.

And this is how a 1 line code change takes 6 months and 5 million dollars.

And this gets repeated for _everything_.

Then imagine if it is a hardware issue, and the only real fix is a change of hardware. For an airplane, just getting permission to plug anything that needs electricity into the airplanes power supply takes months of paper work and lab testing artifacts for approval. Try getting your testing done in that kind of environment.



Basically, the F35 could actually be fixed quickly and cheaply - but the system that is in place right now does not allow for it. And if you tried to circumvent that system, you would be in trouble. The system is required. It's how oversight works - to make sure everything is by the book, documented, reviewed, and approved - so no money gets wasted on any funny business.

Best part, if the government thinks that the program is costing too much, they put more oversight on it to watch for more waste.
Because apparently, when you pay more people to stare at something, the waste just runs away in fear.
Someone at the contractors has to write the reports that these oversight people are supposed to be reviewing - so when you go to a contractor and see a cube farm with 90 paper pushers and 10 'actual' engineers (not a joke), you start to wonder how anything gets done.

Once upon a time, during the cold war, we had an existential threat.
People took things seriously. There was no F'ing around with paperwork - people had to deliver hardware. The typical time elapsed from "idea" to "aircraft first flight" used to be 2 years. USSR went away, cold war ended, new hardware deliveries fell to a trickle - but the spending remained, and the money billed to an inflated process.

-scheherazade

I just don't know what the heck is going on with Facebook.

We got a notification saying they're removing Facebook App profile pages in February and that we needed to migrate our app's profile onto a Facebook Page. So, we did that, but now VideoSift updates no longer show up on the new Facebook Page, so we've been updating the Page manually a couple of times a day.

That widget in the front page sidebar is still referencing facebook.com/videosift, but it's only loading posts from the old App profile, which no longer exists.

Despite all my efforts, I cannot find a way to make Facebook allow our updates to the new Page, as it seems the updates are only accepted on App profiles. But since they're removing App profiles soon, I guess it means we just can't make any updates any more.

I'm just frustrated and confuzzled by all of this. If anyone knows anything more about this funny-business, please do enlighten us.

[edit]
Strike the bit about updates not working. After a lot of toil and trouble, I finally figured out the obscure method required to allow that. The only outstanding issue is that the Facebook widget in the sidebar is still showing the old app feed. This is a Facebook bug that hopefully they'll soon fix. (I just submitted a bug report about it.)

>> ^dag:

Hold your breath. Make a wish. Count to three.
Come with me and you'll be
In a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you'll see
Into your imagination
>> ^alien_concept:
Thought that ANYTHING was possible if you just start a sift talk poll



That's exactly the type of funny business that got David Carradine in trouble.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

I mean seriously, you literally snipped out the phrase "I'm sure there will be congressional oversight", and cut off the part where I said why I thought that
Sure. You said it, but have no proof it will happen so why belabor it?

Holy. Fucking. Shit. You responded to my complaint about unrepresentative quotation by using another unrepresentative quote?

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
As with all piles of money in Washington, that 20 billion will get misappropriated and spent on unrelated crap with only token pennies on the dollar going to BP oil damages. Every citizen must view government as the ENEMY, because history proves that eventually it will be.

But you have no proof it will happen, so why belabor it?

Let's look at history, how did management of the 9/11 Victim's Compensation Fund go? Similar thing, did the gubbimint steal everyone's money there?

Also, here's the text of Obama's comments announcing the fund. Apparently it won't be controlled by the government either, and both BP and Obama are saying "[t]his fund does not supersede either individuals' rights or states' rights to present claims in court."

There's nothing but downside in trying to engage in funny business on this fund. The money is meant to go to victims of a disaster who are the center of national attention, and the object of national (if not global) sympathy. It'd be suicidal to try to steal from it.

Much easier to just put your pork into a defense appropriations bill (e.g. alternate engine for the F-35, and the C-17).

This is a terrific compilation of all the ridiculous "facts" and "evidence" that these truthers have been spouting for years.

- No plane parts at the Pentagon! Because the plane was flown purposely into the building, it did not hit the ground while pilots struggled to keep it aloft, like in all their other photo examples.

They have this long segment about the flight path of the plane, that is somehow supposed to bring into the question the veracity of the rest of what happened that day. They don't have any eye-witnesses who claim to have seen anything other than a single plane hit that building, aside from one person who I believe is confusing events. There were people driving on the freeway adjacent to the Pentagon that would have had a perfect view of some funny business with 2 planes.

28 views and counting and still no theories. C'mon all you armchair engineers on the sift. What gives? Seriously. All you guys that claim there is no funny business going on here. I'd like to hear some ideas.

Ya'all are way too quick to pass us who don't believe the official story off as "whack jobs", but entirely too slow to offer up any believable explanations as to exactly what happened here. And by here, I mean why didn't this building collapse to the side of the damage rather than in onto itself?

[edited due to obvious ignorant misconceptions of my intentions.]

If you feel that someone has unleashed a down-vote spree on you rather than your videos, I recommend offering evidence to those whose mission it is to uphold the spirit of the site (ie Dag and Lucky ). They have been known to check the voting time stamps to see if there is any funny business. But also remember that the goal here is not to have the most sifters with the most star points, but rather to have the highest quality videos possible. Some people think that violence, sex, drunkenness, etc., don't belong on the Sift. Indeed there are certain content points that I am inclined to down-vote out of hand; I see that as my prerogative as I believe it adds to the quality of the Sift.

(Just reading thru much of the comments I skimmed over earlier...)

>> ^kronosposeidon:
I believe in giving the benefit of the doubt when there is reasonable doubt to begin with, but do you really believe there is "reasonable" doubt in this case?

I know it's all over now, but to be honest, given the compelling plethora of information in the database, I do feel there is reasonable doubt. (And maybe it's only because of what I've seen or haven't seen in the database that convinces me as much.)

To convince myself further, I did a scan and found 2424 votes that were cast by within one minute of someone else's submission, and in all the cases I reviewed the videos are longer than one minute in length. Almost all instances of this were between respected, veteran members so there's obviously no funny business about it any further than one member giving another one word that they have a new video.

Again, no absolute proof one way or the other, but definitely very reasonable doubt. Unless all you veteran member accounts are also all run by a single individual...

Wait! Maybe that's what's going on here!

SiftBoooooot! Have you been hacking people again???!!! Show me the papers proving your whereabouts immediately.

Doesn't really matter to me as long as there is no funny business. People are entitled to privacy.

I still laughed a lot. I can't believe I was lucky enough to find a clip of that song that started right at the chorus though

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
Yeah, mine's a bit tardy, I suppose. Timing is everything in the funny business. Thanks for rubbing it in.

In reply to this comment by JAPR:
Hahaha, nice! Mine had better timing though

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
>> JAPR:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=127BTS1lKL4

LOL!

I'll see your video JAPR, and raise with this one.

Yeah, mine's a bit tardy, I suppose. Timing is everything in the funny business. Thanks for rubbing it in.

In reply to this comment by JAPR:
Hahaha, nice! Mine had better timing though

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
>> JAPR:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=127BTS1lKL4

LOL!

I'll see your video JAPR, and raise with this one.

very cool

i do have some questions though...

here's another vid of the same story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQMm5HN1Ums

they report that this specimen was filmed using an rov off the coast of indonesia

the problem?

only the latimeria chalumnae have this blue coloration, and this species is only found near south africa, tanzania, and comoros

the indonesian coelacanth, latimeria menadoensis, has a greyish-brown coloration

so there's either some funny business going on, or this is a *major* scientific find