Weekend wrap: Expeditionary links

As our elected officials dithered and pouted and called each other names while the clock ticked down to America's first default on its debt, here were some of the stories we didn't get a chance to write about this week:

• Mark Benjamin warns at Battleland that the soldier charged this week with planning another attack on Fort Hood could signal a new era for terrorism in the U.S., one based on shooting sprees, rather than plane crashes or explosives.

• Michael Fabey reports in AvWeek that one thing the Army is sure about as it studies options for a new helicopter is that human pilots aren't obsolete -- it wants to keep a "man in the loop," at the same time it relies more on UAVs.

• John wrote at Defense Tech that the topside lights came on aboard China's aircraft carrier Shi Lang, another potential indication it could be getting closer to sea trials.

• Speaking of the Chinese, we always hear about how their cyber-snooping has helped them leapfrog forward in military capability because they steal American secrets. But Daniel Goure of the Lexington Institute says the U.S. Air Force's Air Logistics Centers have borrowed something from the Chinese -- what he calls "predatory business practices."

• Foreign Policy has a series of photos of the war in Afghanistan taken by iPhone cameras and given that special extra treatment you get with Hipstamatic.