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Despite the headline, the US Government is not giving out frequent flyer miles to anyone with good credit. At least, not directly. The background: The United States government recently minted about $1 billion in gold coins. Each coin is worth a dollar, much like the well-known Sacagawea coin, and each one is printed with a different president. It was supposed to be part of a series of coins that would eventually feature every single president, but they’re only partway through the list. Unfortunately, they have been having trouble getting them into circulation, because no one really wants $1 coins all...

Politicians in Washington hardly let a few minutes go by without mentioning how broke the government is. So, it's a little surprising that they've created a stash of more than $1 billion that almost no one wants. Unused dollar coins have been quietly piling up in Federal Reserve vaults in breathtaking numbers, thanks to a government program that has required their production since 2007. And even though the neglected mountain of money recently grew past the $1 billion mark, the U.S. Mint will keep making more and more of the coins under a congressional mandate. The pile of idle...

In a better time, when the burdens of war were shared by an engaged nation and not shouldered exclusively by military families making up less than 1 percent of the population, the high farce that is the Afghanistan mission would have been obvious before President Obama uttered one word on Wednesday night. All you’d need to know is the story that came to light the day before. Turns out that the U.S. government has embraced a core tenet of sharia — that archaic corpus of Islamic law that Mitt Romney recently assured us would never gain traction in America. Patrick...

AT-6 Seen As Versatile Combat Aircraft By David Fulghum Washington The turboprop-powered T-6 Texan II began life as a trainer and then morphed into the AT-6 light attack aircraft for the Greek air force. Now, as the AT-6B/C, it is promising to become an inexpensive path to network-centric operations, precision strike and advanced surveillance for other air forces. Nor is there a foreseeable end to the development potential envisioned for the two-seater. It offers 1,600 shp, 5-6-hr. endurance and an A-10C cockpit—a combination that’s being created by the team of Hawker Beechcraft and Lockheed Martin. As for what a light...

Finders fail to become keepers as £100,000 worth of American money is returned to the family of its original owner The glass jar contained 80 American coins dating from 1854. Photograph: Hackney CouncilA hoard of gold coins found in Hackney by a local resident in 2007 does not qualify as treasure and should be returned to the descendent of the man who originally buried them, ruled an inquest last week (Monday 18 April).In 2007, Hackney resident Terence Castle was digging a frog pond with three others in a back garden in Stamford Hill when they struck suddenly struck gold, discovering...

U.S. Wants COIN Aircraft For Foreign Training By Graham Warwick, Bill Sweetman Washington, Washington For a time it looked as if the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan might spark demand for dedicated counterinsurgency (COIN) aircraft, the way Vietnam gave new life to the A-1 Skyraider and spurred development of the OV-10 Bronco. A little more than two years ago, the U.S. Air Force envisioned operating a fleet of 100 light-attack/armed reconnaissance aircraft as part of a specialized irregular-warfare wing, and the Navy was evaluating an organic light-attack platform for its special operations forces. Now it looks unlikely that U.S. forces...

Fifty thousand Roman coins found in a field in Somerset, England, in 2010 (including the artifacts above) amount to the largest hoard of coins discovered in a single vessel—and the second largest hoard of ancient coins ever found in Britain, according to British Museum experts. The coins, along with recently discovered Iron Age gold jewelry—both found by amateur treasure hunters—will be acquired by museums, thanks to a series of grants and donations, officials recently announced. The coins will go to England's Museum of Somerset, which will put them on display after it reopens this summer. The haul, most of which...

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I first learned of John Bernard through Diana West (“ROE Are Merely Symptom of ‘Hearts and Minds’”) and the Stars and Stripes blog entry, “Photo of dying Marine forces a difficult decision.” Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan murdered Mr. Bernard’s son, Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard. Media outlets ignored his wishes and the wishes of the Department of Defense by running a photograph of his son as he lay dying from his wounds. This initially outraged me but because our nation bombards us with insult after insult, my outrage has subsided and now I simply keep this action in mind as the...

That's Kate Middleton? Critics Slam New Royal CoinCritics say Kate Middleton has a reason to be mad about her likeness. The Associated Press 12:05 p.m. EST, December 24, 2010 LONDON -- Britain's Royal Mint has released a commemorative coin featuring supposedly lifelike portraits of Prince William and his bride-to-be - but critics say Kate Middleton has a right to be horrified. Images of the couple on the memento bear little resemblance to either the prince or his 28-year-old betrothed. Middleton appears plump in the face and lips and has bags under her eyes. Some critics claim William looks like Al...

PICTURE: Air Tractor prangs precision strike demonstrator By John Croft A too-short landing at an Army reserve base in California caused substantial damage Air Tractor's AT-802U surveillance, precision strike and utility demonstrator aircraft on 21 October. According to a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report, a pilot and flight test engineer flying in the two-seat modified agricultural single at the time were testing maximum performance takeoffs and landings on the 1,829m (6,000ft) hard clay Schoonover runway at Fort Hunter Liggett California when the accident occurred. Neither was injured. ©NTSB "The pilot was attempting a short field landing and had full...

Complementing Air Support? Tanks In Afghanistan: Supplementing or Augmenting Air Power Via Direct Fire Support By Murielle Delaporte md@sldinfo.com Leopard 2 (www.forces.gc.ca) 12/09/2010 – M1A1 Abrams vs Leopard 2A6M? If the Canadians and the Danes regularly use their tanks in the Afghan theatre – respectively since 2006 and 2007 — the U.S. military leadership has always been reticent to imitate its allies out of fear to replay the scenario of the Soviet intervention in the eighties in the minds of the Afghan population. The Canadians were the very first ISAF members to deploy seventeen Leopards 1C2, which they had to...

Indonesia has reduced its original order of sixteen Brazilian EMB-314 Super Tucano aircraft, to eight. The Indonesian generals wanted sixteen, but the politicians, and budget realities, cut that in half. The Tucanos will replace twelve 1960s era American OV-10s. The two seat, 5.2 ton, single engine turbo prop Super Tucano will be used for COIN (Counter Insurgency) operations. It can fly low and slow, yet still has a 1,000 combat kilometer radius, five hour endurance, 600 kilometers per hour top speed, and a 35,000 foot ceiling. The Super Tucano armament consists of twin 12.7mm (.50 caliber) machine guns and nearly...

Indonesia orders Super Tucanos for light attack role By Greg Waldron Indonesia plans to buy eight Embraer EMB-314 Super Tucano light attack turboprops, and could eventually double its order - the first for the Brazilian type in the Asia-Pacific region. "Air force headquarters has decided to replace our Rockwell OV-10 Broncos with as many as 16 Super Tucanos," says Indonesian air force operational commander Yushan Sayuti, according to a report by the country's official Antara news agency. The first Super Tucanos will arrive in 2012 under the initial order, which also includes ground-support stations and a logistics package. Several other...

Sales of precious metal coins during the festivals in India, the world's largest consumer of gold, are higher this year as compared to last year, the Times of India reports. Many jewelers ran out of low-denomination gold and silver coins on Wednesday evening, when Dhanteras kicked off the first five days of Diwali. The coins are typically gifted during the holidays. ''Most markets are witnessing a huge crowd," Praveen Khandelwal, president of Confederation of All India Traders, told the newspaper. "Business has been much better in comparison to the past two years." Indian demand for gold typically rises by 40...

#AUSA2010: OV-1D Mohawk revived as modern gunship A host of aircraft have been pitched for counter-insurgency. Revive the OV-10? Check. Convert the AirTractor cropduster into the AT-802U? Yep. Remake the T-6A into the AT-6? That too. Here's a new one: ATK has teamed up with Mohawk Technologies and Broadbay to revive the OV-1D Mohawk for the counter-insurgency market. The new version adds the ATK 30mm chain gun from the Boeing AH-64 Apache, plus a glass cockpit and integrated targeting system with electro-optical/infrared sensor turret. Mohawk owns six decommissioned OV-1Ds that are available for conversion, with dozens more of the aircraft...

Irregular warfare offers new role for propeller driven aircraft By Stephen Trimble Bringing back the propeller-driven fighter in the age of counterinsurgency may seem to some a belated no-brainer or to others a wasteful diversion with potentially suicidal risk to the pilot. As late as early 2008, the leadership of the US Air Force sided firmly with the sceptics. Lt Gen Donald Hoffman, then the USAF's top-ranking acquisition official, implied to a group of reporters in April of that year that the idea of deploying propeller-driven aircraft in modern combat is too risky. "We can rebuild the [North American] P-51...

It is not much to look at - a small pitted brass coin with a square hole in the centre-but this relatively innocuous piece of metal is revolutionising our understanding of early East African history, and recasting China's more contemporary role in the region. A joint team of Kenyan and Chinese archaeologists found the 15th Century Chinese coin in Mambrui-a tiny, nondescript village just north of Malindi on Kenya's north coast. In barely distinguishable relief, the team leader Professor Qin Dashu from Peking University's archaeology department, read out the inscription: "Yongle Tongbao" - the name of the reign that minted...

USAF test center fuses old, new technology for light attack 07:03 GMT, October 15, 2010 DAVIS-MONTHAN AFB, Ariz. | Test pilots and engineers here are learning what happens when high-tech systems are combined with low-tech airframes for a new, cost effective, light-attack aircraft. Light attack, a revitalized concept in the Air Force, addresses the need for an airplane that offers surveillance as well as strike capabilities and walks the line between remotely piloted aircraft and high-performance fighters. In appearance, Hawker Beechcraft AT-6Cs resemble the fighters of yesteryear with single engine propellers and shark-face nose art. They are, in actuality, one...

FARNBOROUGH: Air Tractor sells anti-insurgent fighter to first customer By Stephen Trimble Texas-based Air Tractor has launched production of the AT-802U surveillance, precision strike and utility aircraft for an undisclosed foreign customer, chief designer Lee Jackson confirms. Details about the order's size and identity remain secret at the request of the customer, Jackson says. The converted cropduster parked on the static line also displayed a full array of weaponry, including an all-new precision glide bomb with 3m (10ft) circular error probable (CEP) accuracy in the 50kg (110lb)-class designed by Moog/FTS that is called the "border protection weapon" (BPW). The AT-802...