Whispers

Heaven Sent

“We lose every battle that we do not take part in. Tomorrow, you do battle for my daughters and I’m in battle with you and we pray and support you and we have faith in you.”
– Doctor Samir Pandya, recanting what the conjoined twins’ father said to him hours prior to the second and final phase of the procedure to separate his daughters

So, last month I briefly touched upon why I have no trouble remembering the birthday of my eldest daughter, Linda, largely because it falls on December 7th. Earlier today, her husband, Samir, currently a pediatric surgeon at the Maria Fereri Children’s Hospital, an integral part of the Westchester Medical Center in New York, was profiled by NBC Today. Last week, he completed the second of two phases involved in the separation of conjoined twins, who were attached at the hip and back and shared several common systems. If you’re interested in learning more about the 22-hour procedure as well as the family involved, please visit this link: NBC Today Health and Wellness

Obviously, our entire family is immensely proud of Samir and his accomplishment, and we wish the twins godspeed and a quick recovery as they spend the next few weeks rehabbing before they can return home to the Dominican Republic. I have since been told that their overall prognosis is excellent and even though they shared portions of their lower spine, it appears as if both children will be able to walk and perform full range of motion likely without the need for any medical assistance.

Related Links:

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/conjoined-baby-girls-separated-after-21-hour-surgery-new-york-Maria-Fareri-Childrens-Hospital-hudson-valley-411664765.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/parents-overjoyed-week-conjoined-twins-surgery-article-1.2954644

http://www.fox5ny.com/news/231493980-story

https://www.facebook.com/MFCHatWMC/

Doctors Samir Pandya and Whitney McBride, co-leads in the separation of 11-month old twins at the Maria Fereri Children’s Hospital, along side anchors Rosanna Scotto and Greg Kelly of Fox 5’s Good Day New York

Post Script: As Samir’s father-in-law, I feel obligated to add one final note to this amazing tale that has thus far not been touched upon by any of the antecedent news reports that have gone viral. When Samir was a teenager growing up in Nairobi, Kenya, he was attacked by a gang of youths and stabbed several times around various spots on his body. His father, an emergency room surgeon in his own right, was notified that evening that he had a patient coming in that needed immediate attention. For some inexplicable reason, he had a premonition that it was his own son that needed to be operated on, one which proved to be correct. That evening, his father repaired his son’s wounds and saved his life, thereby enabling him to go on to become a world famous surgeon. I bring up this point because in the years that followed, it isn’t easy for Samir to stand for hours on end in the operating room, much less spend upwards of 22 hours attending to the needs of his conjoined patients. Sometimes, there is a human interest story that needs to be told that lingers in the background and never comes to the fore, one that requires a little bit of prodding to come out.

Finally, this televised ad ran just minutes after the conclusion of Super Bowl LI (51) on Fox 5.

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The US Army: What Comes Next After the M1 Abrams?

For decades, the US Army’s family of M1 Abrams main battle tanks has been viewed as the king of the battlefield, demonstrating a lethal combination of firepower, mobility and armored protection that have come to symbolize the holy grail of armored warfare. Yet even with its track record and continued upgrade cycle to keep it up-to-date, which now comes in the form of the M1A2 SEP V4 scheduled to be fielded by US armored units in the early 2020s, the Defense Department recognizes that the venerable Abrams tank can only be upgraded to a point before it becomes obsolete and untenable as a fighting platform.

That said, the US Army’s TARDEC (Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center) is currently exploring a multitude of concepts for a new built-from-the-ground-up tank that is not only lighter, but more lethal yet survivable against threats from both the ground as well as the air. We Are the Mighty recently published a report on what just such a system might look like when it is scheduled to hit the battlefield in the 2030s. Integrating an Active Protection System (APS), and updated sensor package, more robust power plant, and latest munitions, the as yet unnamed vehicle will still likely feature tracks as opposed to wheels to get around from point-to-point and could potentially employ a laser weapons system as its primary means of taking on the enemy. More information on what lies ahead can be found here: http://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/the-us-army-next-generation-tank-abrams

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Trump’s Military: What Price Glory?

The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford CVN 78, is represented here in a combination model and live shot digital photo illustration. The ship is the first in a new class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, for the US Navy under construction at Newport News Shipbuilding.

There was a time during the Reagan era when it was inconceivable to permit the US Navy to fall below a 600-ship threshold as it stood toe-to-toe with its Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union. Fast forward 30 years and the US Navy is now down to less than half that number, patrolling the high seas, safeguarding certain sea lanes, and standing sentry near a number of geopolitical hot spots, despite being stretched to the limit. With Trump taking office this January, and lots of campaign promises to increase the size of the Navy to a more respectable total to fulfill its global mission, the magazine Popular Mechanics postulated what the Navy might look like in the coming years if he decides to stick to his renewed claims of glory for the country’s military. You can read the entire article here: http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a24284/trump-350-ship-navy/?src=nl&mag=pop&list=nl_pnl_news&date=121716

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Pearl Harbor: 75 Years and Counting

 

 

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Its not difficult for me to remember my eldest daughter’s birthday since it falls on December 7th, the anniversary of the Japanese Empire’s attack on Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii, way back in 1941. Several years ago, to celebrate her graduation from medical school, we were fortunate enough to take a family trip to the Hawaiian Islands, where I dutifully attempted to explain how the attack went down while standing at the mouth of the harbor, just in sight of the Arizona Memorial. I’m not sure if my family understood the gravity of the attack or how it took place that fateful day, as I pointed towards the low mountains in the distance which were used by the Japanese aviators to mask their approach as they began their aerial assaults.

Anyway, 75 years have passed since the surprise attack, which drew our nation into World War II, easily the greatest conflict in human history. On a personal level, I also remember showing my family where the surrender documents were signed by all parties concerned on board the USS Missouri, which is berthed, rather fittingly, just behind the USS Arizona, signifying both the start and end of the Second World War in the Pacific. So, while we celebrate this day as a means of honoring our daughter and her vast achievements, we also take a moment to reflect on what the attack meant to the greatest generation in American history, their role in safeguarding our way of life, and price paid so that my daughter, and others like her, could celebrate their lives as free and productive members of society.

kenya-wed030

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The US Marine Corps Keeps on Truckin’

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As Detroit looks towards producing fully-autonomous tractor trailers for the nation’s highways, and the US Navy puts unmanned surface and submersible vessels to sea around the globe, it was perhaps just a matter of time before drones were taken seriously as a means of moving assets from Point A to Point B. The venerable Stars and Stripes reports that the US Marine Corps is looking to field an unmanned tilt-rotor drone which can carry cargo and carry out other vital missions by 2023. Dubbed the V-247 Vigilant, the new Bell Helicopter proposal is slightly smaller than a manned V-22 Osprey, enabling it to take off and land on somewhat smaller sea-based platforms with limited space.

“Through plug-and-play mission packages, the Vigilant will be able to carry a significant payload and execute electronic-warfare, intelligence, surveillance-and-reconnaissance, escort, command-and-control, communications and fire missions,” says Stars and Stripes.

“The advantage that the Bell V-247 Vigilant provides is that it does not need a runway or other airfield resources,” said Vince Tobin, vice president of Advanced Tiltrotor Systems for Bell Helicopter. “It can, therefore, be co-located with the units on a ship or in the field that will make use of the asset. This reduces the issues associated with link-up at the proper place and time for the unit prosecuting military operations and the fixed-wing [Unmanned Aerial Vehicle] that may be taking off from a runway hundreds of miles away.”

There are many instances in which a vertical-takeoff-and-landing platform is more advantageous than a fixed-wing, runway-launched platform, Tobin said.

“In those cases, the Bell V-247 Vigilant provides the speed, range, payload and flexibility to meet mission requirements,” he said.

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Huge Price Hikes a Possibility in 2017

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“I would do a tax [on China]. And the tax, let me tell you what the tax should be … the tax should be 45%.”

  • Donald Trump, January 7th, 2016

When Donald Trump won the general election for the US presidency last week, one of his central and recurring promises was the tearing up of existing trade treaties between the US and a number of countries to seek a more equitable trade balance and possibly bring manufacturing jobs home to American soil. Trump also labeled the Peoples Republic of China as a currency manipulator, regularly adjusting the value of their currency to fit its economic goals and spur growth at home, oftentimes at the expense of other nations. Since the bulk of diecast manufacturing is done in China, and the GOP now controls both houses of Congress as well as the executive branch, there’s a good chance that one of Trump’s first acts when he takes office will be revisiting each ratified trade treaty, and, perhaps as a means of leverage, walking away from each deal, and imposing tariffs as high as 45% on foreign made goods. How this will affect new products being imported into the US going forward is anyone’s guess, no doubt increasing the cost of bringing in finished goods in an effort to bring about trade parity. Trump has likewise threatened to impose heavy tariffs on Mexico, the next most likely choice for relocating production capacity from Asia to the Americas, so anyone thinking that a Mexican gambit closer to home might be in for a rude awakening when NAFTA is reexamined.

Our guess is that many diecast manufacturers will seek to hasten the import of goods into the US ahead of his taking office and prior to Chinese New Year, in an effort to bring in as much product before any tariffs are imposed. Its unclear how the balance of 2017 will shake out, particularly if the price hikes remain in effect for an extended period of time or if the economy takes a turn for the worse, as some economists predict. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/donald-trump-trade-war-china-would-hurt-america-experts-n685886

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Hammers Slammer’s Nears Reality

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Just a day after we published a blog post discussing the US Army’s MPF program, and in an eye-popping development that would likely make the author of Hammer’s Slammers proud, comes news that any new combat vehicles being fielded henceforth would likely run on hybrid power and feature laser weapons. According to UPI, “The U.S. Army’s next-generation combat vehicle will likely run on hybrid power and feature laser weapons, possibly for offensive and defensive purposes, experts said during an event to discuss the system’s future on Tuesday at the Association of the U.S. Army.

The service’s efforts to field its first next-generation combat vehicle by 2035 requires major decisions to be made by 2025, less than a decade away, Col. William T. Nuckols, director of the Mounted Requirements Division at the Maneuver Center of Excellence,said during the association’s Institute of Land Warfare forum that focused on ground combat platforms.

Such a vehicle will likely also feature advanced-composite armor and active protection systems, but final decisions will hinge on future threats.”

UPI goes on to say that “when it comes to protecting such vehicles, different advanced-composite materials are being assessed, including nanotechnology and nano-grain metals, Dr. Bryan Cheeseman, team leader at the Army Research Laboratory’s Material Manufacturing and Technology Branch, said at the forum.

While several potentials were bandied about at the forum, the exact manifestation of the next-generation combat vehicle remains to be seen.

It could be a single combat vehicle replacing the Abrams tank, or Bradley fighting vehicle, or it could emerge as a family of vehicles.”

The problem with laser-based weaponry isn’t so much its lethality, but the size of the weapon itself. Typically, laser weapons are large and cumbersome, like the one shown here, which leads to a high and obvious profile on the battlefield. To acknowledge its employment on next-gen systems implies they have been able to reduce its footprint to the point where it does not appear any larger than a current weapons system, and that it can recharge itself quickly enough to get off rapid fire results.

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Mobile Protected Firepower: Big Guns, Slimmer Waistline

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Its no secret the US Army has faced the challenge of bringing firepower to bear anywhere around the globe within an acceptable period of time. If a regional conflict should erupt, the Army must either preposition heavy assets within protected enclosures for unforeseen periods of time or attempt to move them from one location to another, a timely, expensive and unrealistic option that could spell doom for a friendly ally.

Enter the Mobile Protected Firepower Program (MFP). According to The National Interest, “With the resurgent threat of Russia and the growing power of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Ground Forces, the U.S. Army is working on developing ways to increase the firepower resident within its infantry brigade combat teams (ICBT).

One such effort is the Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) program, which aims to provide a company of vehicles—which the Army adamantly does not want to refer to as light tanks—to brigades from the 82nd Airborne Division or 10th Mountain Division that can provide heavy fire support to those infantry units. The new vehicle, which is scheduled to enter into full-scale engineering and manufacturing development in 2019—with fielding tentatively scheduled for around 2022—would be similar in concept to the M551 Sheridan light tank. The Sheridan used to be operated the Army’s airborne units unit until 1996, but was retired without replacement.

The Army does not want a “new” vehicle per se, rather, the service wants something that it can quickly put into production in the shortest amount of time at the lowest possible cost. “What we have said in MPF is: We’re not willing to wait for you to go through a lengthy bottom-up design process,” Maj. Gen. David Bassett, the Army’s program executive officer for Ground Combat Systems told reporters at the Association of the United States Army annual meeting on Oct. 5. “What we are willing to do is to give you some time on your own to get a design ready to compete and then we’ll evaluate that into a fairly rapid engineering, manufacturing development phase.”

The Army has not quite fully figured out what kind of resources it has available for the MPF program, but the service is focused on keeping the cost and schedule under control using the Marine Corps’ Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) program as a model, Bassett said. The key is to have at least two competing designs. Ideally, the Army would benefit from having multiple contractors competing for the program. And there are already indications that the competition to secure the MPF tender will be fierce.”

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The Army is currently field testing a number of potential candidates that could fill the role of a lighter weight tank, one that could stand toe-to-toe with a number of adversarial vehicles from around the world until heavier and more capable ground systems could be brought to bear. (Images courtesy of Defense Technology Review)

Since mobility and air transportability would be key, whichever MPF system is chosen will mean the requisite use of lighter materials, including strengthened aluminum, much like the M551 “Sheridan” AR/AAV light tank employed by the US Army during the Vietnam conflict or the Bradley family of infantry fighting vehicles. Such vehicles have very thin armor so a similarly conceived vehicle designed to meet the MPF program would likely have to rely upon an active protection system to defend itself against a litany of direct-fire threats. It would also likely be rigged for low-velocity airdrop from the back of a cargo plane using a Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System (LAPES).

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Calibre Wings: Cheaper by the Half Dozen

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While we still await official product images for their first paring of Grumman F-14 Tomcats, Calibre Wings has thus far announced their intent to produce at least six different schemes and versions for the A and B models in the coming months, to say nothing of the D model hinted at in their marketing material. Scuttlebutt has it that they have run into some factory-related issues which has prevented them from posting anything online, but rumor has it that actual imagery should appear in early November.

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The community is expecting big things from this new manufacturer, despite running into heavy competition from the likes of Century Wings, Hobby Master and even True Scale Model Wings, all of whom now have product out the door. We certainly wish them luck getting both their photos and product in the hands of consumers before the holiday rush begins.

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Third Party Payment Options

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We recently resolved a problem we encountered accepting payments through Amazon (Checkout with Amazon) so all systems are green for go this holiday season. Likewise, PayPal has been operating smoothly of late, although payment notifications were slow to be sent out this past weekend as the Company worked to resolve some latency issues they were facing as well as a Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDOS) by a malfeasant operator yet to be identified.

The benefits of using either payment method in lieu of a credit card to complete an online transaction are clear cut. First, neither company provides the merchant with the customer’s credit card or banking information and instead stores it through their own secure and encrypted payment system. So, there is no need for the merchant to contact the customer and review their billing information with them should an order need to be processed outside the customary 30-day payment window. Likewise, there is no need for the merchant to require that the billing and shipping address match, since both payment systems provide the merchant with payment protection in case the situation warrants. The downside is that the customer is remitting funds to the merchant ahead of the transaction being completed. Ordinarily, this isn’t a problem if the item(s) in question on the order are all in stock and can be shipped out immediately. It can cause some consternation for the customer if the order cannot be shipped out for whatever reason (the order contains either back ordered or pre-ordered merchandise), so it can appear as if the merchant has accepted the funds without showing anything for it. Please keep all of this in mind when determining which payment option you wish to use when placing an online order.

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