The plane uses a biofuel blend of JP-5 aviation fuel and camelina oil.

An examination of liquid biofuels published in Strategic Studies Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal for security professionals, has concluded that they fail to provide meaningful benefits when pitted against petroleum products.

“The United States cannot achieve energy security through biofuels, and even the attempt is ironically achieving effects contrary to ‘clean’ and ‘green’ environmental goals and actively threatening global security,” writes US Navy Captain T. A. “Ike” Kiefer.

Read more on Breaking Energy.

COMDEF: After decades without a significant new rotocraft technology, the head of Pentagon buying says he’s going to try and fund a new initiative to move helicopters and their brethren like the V-22 ahead.

It won’t be easy. “Anything is going to be very hard to squeeze into the budget,” Kendall told reporters during a Q and A session here. The US has not had any “cutting edge design for some time,” he said after a morning speech at the ComDef international defense conference.

Read more on Breaking Defense.

All summer long, we here at Fashionista have debated (argued over?) the song of the summer. I’ve been on team “Blurred Lines” despite its rape-y overtones and despite the fact that Robin Thicke filed a preemptive lawsuit to defend his song from claims of copyright infringement. (But seriously, how did he not copy Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up”?) Others have lobbied hard for Miley Cyrus’s “We Can’t Stop” (to be fair, this was pre-VMA performance) and Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” was undeniably everywhere.

Well, I’d like to declare “Blurred Lines” the controversial winner.

See, apparently Carine Roitfeld and the whole CR Fashion Book crew listened to it (and watched the video) all summer long, too. And loved it. Roitfeld loved it so much she plucked the video’s star model, Emily Ratajkowski, to cover Issue 3 of CR Fashion Book (the cover that doesn’t feature a very pregnant Kim Kardashian).

Read more on Fashionista.

Whether you’re on Amtrack, Metro-North, NJ Transit, Chicago’s Metra, or the lawless LIRR, the rules of the quiet car stand: thou shalt not blast music so loud that people can hear it through your headphones, carry on an indoor conversation in an outdoor voice, and, most importantly, never, ever call someone on your cell phone and proceed to give them and, by extension, the rest of the car, the rundown of your entire day, including a detailed account of how you “marched into the boss’s office and told him, ‘I’ll get you the damned TPS report when I’m good and ready!'”

And yet, day in and day out people violate these rules we hold so dear in flagrante. For example, this guy.

Read more on Dealbreaker.

Back in June, we got a chance to see an absolutely great response to a cease and desist letter. The author of that response letter, Stephen B. Kaplitt, is an Above the Law folk hero for kicking off his response to an unnecessarily threatening C&D with “obviously [this] was sent in jest, and the world can certainly use more legal satire,” before systematically ripping the opposing attorneys a new one.

Now comes another great response to a C&D letter, and this one may even be better because of the firm on the receiving end.

Teaser: Biglaw smackdown! Snarky footnotes! Spice Girls references! Lollipops!

Read more on AbovetheLaw.

Silver Spring Networks topped Inc. Magazine’s rankings.

The editors at Inc. magazine have released their rankings of the 5,000 fastest-growing companies in America. The list offers an interesting snapshot of where growth is taking place in the energy sector.

The boom in America’s unconventional oil and gas development is clearly evident on the list. Out of the 110 energy companies mentioned, there were dozens of firms providing drilling services, pipeline construction services, and consulting on fossil energy development. With the U.S. now producing more liquid fuels than Saudi Arabia, the growth of those companies isn’t surprising.

Read more on Breaking Energy.

USS WASP: The Marines and Navy have spent most of the last three weeks putting the new F-35B through its paces here, executing more than 90 short takeoffs and vertical landings, including 19 at night.\

More than 1,200 Marine test pilots, engineers, experts from the Joint Program Office running the program and Navy and industry civilians are collecting enormous amounts of data from the two aircraft, BF-1 and BF-5, and the ship itself to ensure the planes are performing as they should. The Marine version of the Joint Strike Fighter is designed to take off from smaller aircraft carriers, some other Navy ships, roads and land bases. It can land vertically and usually does a short take off.

Read more on Breaking Defense.

Are you getting paid enough? We posed that question less than a month ago with the release of Fashionista’s first-ever salary survey. A whopping 5,000 of you answered. And we thank you for that!

Now you can browse through the slides to get an idea of salaries in more than 40 different fashion-related jobs. We covered retail and sales, marketing, publicity, design, social media, and creative (aka, the art department). Remember, the salaries listed reflect an average: so if you are making way more or way less than you’re seeing next to your title, it doesn’t mean you’re as out of the ordinary as you think. But also remember that industry insiders from hundreds of fantastic companies—Conde Nast, J.Crew, Macy’s, and Hearst, to name of few—completed this survey. So if you are looking for a pay upgrade, it could be a good negotiating tool.

Let the voyeurism begin!

Read more on Fashionista.

If you took a random poll of family, friends, colleagues, and strangers on the street, asking them how they’d feel about going to prison, the majority if not all of them would probably say, “Not good.” For most people, prison is a place to steer clear of, for all the reasons you can think of (living in a cell, isolation from the outside world, bad food, low paying jobs, daily risk of sodomy) and probably some you can’t.

Not too long ago, hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam counted himself among those who for whom jail time was something to avoid (if not by being an upstanding, law-abiding citizen than by hiring a high-priced attorney to try and get him off after being charged with 14 counts of conspiracy and securities fraud). But now? After having served 21 months of his eleven-year sentence? Raj can honestly say that this prison is great.

And not because hard time forced him to take a serious look at his life or to think about what he’d done or change himself for the better or any of that metamorphosis type crap, but because minus the not being allowed to leave the grounds rules? Raj’s life in prison is arguably better than his life on the outside, which did not include servants or a 34 inch waist.

Read more on Dealbreaker.

When it comes to the question of whether pipeline or rail is safer for moving crude, the answer depends somewhat on the source, but pipelines are broadly understood to come out ahead, not only on safety, but also on cost and efficiency. However, newfound oil abundance in areas not traditionally associated with oil and gas make a strong case for using both transportation methods.

A fatal train derailment and explosion in Quebec last month has focused attention on crude-by-rail, prompting a flurry of data releases and commentary about whether it is as safe a mode of crude transportation as pipelines are.

Read more on Breaking Energy.