"looking for 'counter-insurgency activity'" - what insurgency?

You can have counter insurgency activity without an insurgency. Perception is reality. All you need is a group of people who believe there is an insurgency in order to start a counter-insurgency movement. Groups like the anti-border crossing patrol volunteers, or even anti-muslim hate groups come to mind as people who may believe there is an insurgency already going on here.

Why are they looking at counter-insurgent activity? Shouldn't they be looking at insurgent activity?

A local / state militia could be considered a "counter-insurgent" group. The vigilante guys who wanted to patrol the US border could be a "counter-insurgent" group. It doesn't really matter whether they are insurgent or counter-insurgent. It is a group of people organizing and developing a capability to act in a planned, cohesive fashion when they feel threatened. Opinions change, sometimes dramatically. But that organization/training stays.

As such, I am not surprised they want as much info as possible on any organized and even loosely cohesive group of actors... you know, just in case...

What entity which is not part of the government should be involved in this and why?

That's been going on for a long time...

"We need a smaller government" -> "outsourcing to private consultants" -> "more power to those private consultants so they can function as an extension of the government" -> "more capable and effective private consultants" -> "more outsourcing to private consultants" -> "smaller government"...

For some, that would be a virtuous cycle... sigh...

Skills don't enter that equation at all. Introducing the concept of 'skills' divorced from a degree introduces thought into the equation. Thinking is hard. And, since HR is usually staffed by morons, or so overworked that they aren't physically able to evaluate each resume they receive, they use the lack of degree as a filter to narrow things down.

Maybe this movement ought to start by convincing CEO's at major corporations to staff HR with people that don't even have a bachelor's degree. Only then will HR consider the lack of a BA/BS to be "acceptable". Good luck with that.

Plenty of highly respected individuals and groups have been talking about this for years, but suddenly it's news because Assange is saying it?

Yes, sorry, that is exactly the case. Assange is a persona now, a celeb of odd sorts. He will be able to draw attention to issues for better or worse. I'm sure you can think of many instances where highly educated and reputable people, non-profits, think-tanks, etc. all support an idea but it doesn't catch on mainstream until a celeb makes it "news".

Assange isn't a big enough celeb to make it much news though, it just so happens his particular brand of star-power has greater reach within a certain ideological subculture. Now you just need Brad Pitt or Bono to go take up the cause. LoL...

As soon as I saw the topic, protecting NYC from "real" storms, I thought that all of NYC should be replicated virtually on massive servers in a subterranean environment and then all of the people could be dispersed or located elsewhere and play out their parts in NYC as if it were real.

Then I realized that was The Matrix.

Darn!!!

We knew Kurgen/Gothic on the Moral Decay MUD where he and his wife both played and became wizards. As I understand it, his activity has been much greater on Eve, but we feel like a member of our family was lost as well... RIP Kurgen.

Not at all. Airline statistics tell a big story. They are incredibly safe now. Not too many computers are flying the plane into a mountain.

Wow, I lol'd at this... How could you possibly compare these two? Airspace has an incredibly consistent, standardized and mostly centralized air-traffic control system. you have ~7,000 aircraft simultaneously in the entire US Airspace. We have over 242 Million registered vehicles in the United States. I couldn't find data on how many are in operation simultaneously, but I think it is safe to say you can find over 7000 in operation simultaneously during rush hour in any average city on the interstates there alone.

Add to that the room/flexibility to maneuver in a vehicle on a road system, parking lot, parking garage, shoulder, dirt road, etc. compared to "air space".

Both have weather hazards, granted. Except that often when weather is rough, planes don't fly there (route around it). Motor vehicles don't work that way.

I'm sure I have BARELY scratched the surface here. Maybe we should instead be debating what I meant by "quite a long time". I'd say a significant number of autonomous vehicles in operation in the U.S. is at least a decade away, maybe two.

While they may go for years without addressing serious problems and safety issues, or doing complex things like resurfacing roads...

Why can't they have autonomous vehicles resurface roads? That seems like an ideal situation for efficiency... controlled environment since the lanes are usually blocked off anyway, repetitive and standard task, etc. Its always been something done at a bad time of day for humans anyway and you might reduce union problems (once you get over the obvious initial ones to implement it to begin with)...

These cars have logged hundreds of thousands of miles, with ONE accident. That's far, far safer than the average human driver.

Where are you getting that the average human driver has an at least one accident every few hundred thousand miles? I wouldn't call this "far, far safer" yet. It has the potential to be.

Also, most of the tests have been in still fairly controlled environments. Meaning, the car wasn't woken up in the middle of the night to get a pregnant woman to the hospital quickly over dirt roads, past nighttime street-racers, etc... Loads of "special cases" exist in the world of cars. It will be quite a long time before we have a really solid understanding of their viability. Right now, a "typical commute" is probably the safest use, or even for standard-route delivery vehicles without a high time sensitivity. Even better if certain roads / routes / lanes get set aside for autonomous vehicles only, which would make them even safer and more efficient.

if you are going to quote Iranian officials saying that they will erase Israel from the map, you'd be a fool if you do not place it as verbal showcasing intended as something to gather support from Arabic populations.

Well, that is another mass stereotyping of "Arabic populations"... But the mere fact that this is perceived as a viable strategy across such a large population (calling for the violent annihilation of another population) kinda makes me lean towards none of "them" having a bomb.

To be frank I'm surprised nobodies 'stolen' a car at defcon or black hat yet for one of the demo's.

It would have been highly amusing if Gen. Alexander's car had refused to either arrive or depart Defcon this year... Or whatever car he was being chauffeured in.

...Angry Birds: Cruisin' Down the Highway.

I prefer a multi-player FPS type game... imagine an augmented reality interface where you can see the virtual turrets mounted on your hood and aim them at other cars logged into the game. You could see those cars taking damage and then eventually being "destroyed". Of course, you also have to watch your six and consider your shield levels as well. If you had passengers in the car, maybe they could man the rear guns or monitor system health and repairs...

I think I just made family road-trips much more fun...

The as-yet-unpublished research was presented to the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Electronic Vehicle Controls and Unintended Acceleration, established to investigate the safety and security of automobile electronics following the large-scale recall of malfunctioning cars in 2010.

LOL... or, one manufacturer might use such exploits to create a series of improbable events labeled "malfunctions" which damages their competitor's sales and forces large scale and costly recalls. Hmmm... Industrial Espionage just moved up a tick in the automotive industry... distributed industrial sabotage.... trademark pending?