Glad to hear that these guys are out finally, and what a crappy deal. -Matt
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Americans held in Iraq: FBI violated rights
July 20, 2009
Bill Gertz
For more than a month, two U.S. citizens who worked for contractors in Iraq were held in prison with no formal charges against them.
They were pressed to sign an Iraqi government […]

Anton Chigurh from the Movie No Country for Old Men
A sociopathic assassin hired to recover the drug money. The character was a recurrence of the “Unstoppable Evil” archetype found in the Coen Brothers’ work, though the brothers wanted to avoid one-dimensionality, particularly a comparison to The Terminator. The Coen Brothers sought to cast someone “who […]

    Click on this link to see what Doug Brooks from the IPOA said in the comments section. (I though it was funny)Anyways, I welcome the UNWG to the US and hope they have a good time. -Matt
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Mercenaries Organized in United States to be Examined by United Nations Working Group
July 19, 5:34
Lawrence Gist - LA […]

   Wow, Max Weber eat your heart out. lol Good job to the Defense Department and this is a great step.  Congrats to all those that have been involved with pushing this through and giving the government the guidance necessary to make this a reality.
   Hopefully between now and August, some Kaizen will be applied […]

     I would love to have a few of these for contracts. lol  It seems everywhere you go for a deployment, there are usually flies or mosquitos.  So I applaud any devilish and ingenious ways of eradicating the things. I think this contraption takes the cake. -Matt
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Carnivorous Robots Eager to Eat Your Pests
UK-based designers […]

   I thought that this was an interesting little quote and worthy of a mention here on FJ. On a funny note, notice the liberal use of ‘and’ in Sec. Gate’s replies?-Matt
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SEC. GATES: So now I’ll take a few questions. Yes, sir?
Q     Sir, Sergeant — (inaudible) — from 57-TRANS. A question, the subject is civilian contractors, especially down-range, […]

    This is great and I hope to see some FJ readers submit a paper.  Good luck. -Matt
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Small Wars Journal $8,000 Writing Competition - Warning Order
July 17, 2009
Papers are sought on the topics below. Winning entries and select others will be published in future special volumes of Small Wars Journal. For each of the two […]

     Well if you want to know the DynCorp story, read this sucker.  As a contractor, we are so removed from the world of the CEO’s, investors and upper level management, and reading this article made that reality very clear.  I wonder if these guys have any ’shared reality’ with their company?  Do they […]

   This was an interesting article, because Chuck was analyzing the situation much like Boyd would have.  And of course Chuck is a member of Boyd’s Acolytes, so I thought this to be certainly befitting of this category.  Enjoy. -Matt
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Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee
The Taliban Rope-a-Dope
By FRANKLIN SPINNEY
July 14, 2009
On July 7, […]

   This has to rank as one of the top technology posts here.  Robots feeding on dead bodies in war zones?  Interesting to say the least. Doug found this one by the way. -Matt
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Upcoming Military Robot Could Feed on Dead Bodies
Tuesday , July 14, 2009
It could be a combination of 19th-century mechanics, 21st-century technology — […]