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that's a pretty impressive resume you've got there, kudos.

Well, it's not just me. My brigade there, the 197th Infantry Brigade (we used to call it the $1.97 brigade) had two things it did. We spent 1/3 of our tyme in training, we were being trained. One third of the tyme we spent training others. And the rest of the tyme we were in training if we were not training others.

Now obviously someone who's never had any training shouldn't be put into actual combat.

I was pushing the analogy a bit far, but that was pretty much my point. The wannabe admin has far too little time to get to the level he needs to be. Apparently I'm one of the few who feels his cry for help is just denial.

Even when the US went to war, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, the US didn't send people into combat without any training. Actually the people in the military then had tougher training than I went through. I don't recall what it was before but when I went in we had to run 2 miles in 17:59, 17 minutes and 59 seconds. We had to do 40 push ups and 40 sit ups in 2 minutes. The Army required more than that, faster tymes in the run and more push ups and sit ups, when my sister went into the Army 3 year before I did, she ragged on me for that.

Falcon

Searching for the actual video might prove instructive. Whether or not she believed it was the right thing before her son was ordered to Iraq, she's not sure now, and the headline and leadin foully misrepresent what she said. The Agence France-Presse version that appears on military.com similarly misrepresents her meaning, but at least bothers to quote accurately and thus advertise its own misrepresentation.

Vietnam Vets think McCain shouldn't be president, either.

The Oath of Enlistment (for enlistees):
"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

The Oath of Office (for officers):
"I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God."

From Wikipedia:

One notable difference between the officer and enlisted oaths is that the oath taken by officers does not include any provision to obey orders; while enlisted personnel are bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice to obey lawful orders, officers in the service of the United States are bound by this oath to disobey any order that violates the Constitution of the United States.

As I understand it, enlisted get stuck with much less freedom to have objections to orders, while officers are held to a much stricter standard in general behavior and ensuring the legality of their orders.

The specifics might be up in the air, but the spending is still many times th cosmetics statement:

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,161398,00.html

(that's what they are asking for, not current spending, I'm sure current spending is within 50% of those figures)

(from 2004)

I don't really care if the thing falls out of the sky and hits something. Just as long as its not my house. Why are we spending time and money to destroy something that will be destroyed when it hits anyway. I guess it is because we have the ability. I would however like to know when and where the satellite will be so that I can watch this explosion in space for myself.

Maybe they can shoot at it with the Navy's new rail gun. http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_RailGuns,,00.html

Here's what they'll be used for: http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_RailGuns,,00.html

Now about those "mistakes were made" issues? According to Knight-Ridder's senior military correspondent

Cheney and Rumsfeld were so convinced that they believed the invasion could be done on the cheap. The generals wanted an invasion and follow-on force of nearly 300,000 troops. Rumsfeld thought it could be done, a la Afghanistan, with fewer than 50,000. After all, there would be no need for an occupation force or any nation rebuilding.

So Rumsfeld hammered the head of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. Tommy Franks, to reduce the force to just over 200,000, cut two divisions out of the follow-on force, and reduce the total U.S. force to 138,000 to deal with occupying and keeping the peace in a fractious country the size of California with a population of 25 million, divided into ethnic and religious groups.

When the whole deal went south on them in the summer of 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld stuck with the idea of fighting this war on the cheap. American armored divisions, the deadliest in the world, were ordered to leave most of their armor at home, because it cost too much to run them. Tank crews dismounted and became infantry patrolling the deadly roads and streets in Humvees, slightly heavier versions of the old Jeep. Ditto artillery crews.

That bears repeating: the Rumsfeld Doctrine depended on high technology. So now, in 2007 in Wired, Noah Shachtman tells us that the geeks implementing the high tech are responsible for the mess. Shachtman frames the issue in a way that assumes the Rumsfeld Doctrine is correct and blames the geeks! Gosh, other than Noah Shachtman, how many supporters of the Rumsfeld Doctrine do you think you can find in the punditocracy? Does this framing tell us where Shachtman was cheerleading in the run-up to the Iraq war? I do believe it does. Shachtman appears to be one of the last true believers in the discredited Rumsfeld Doctrine, and the Wired article that sparked this story is his declaration of faith.

First it's unmanned sea vessels, then it's nuclear powered cyborg dogs who dream of flying steaks.

Or, if you prefer reality to science fiction: Robert Work, a retired Marine officer and analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, said piracy is a "persistent threat" that the Navy has worked to address in recent years. [...] "Essentially, you don't want to use a billion dollar DDG [guided missile destroyer] to suppress pirates,"

Missing the target isn't a problem. You mount a targeting laser next to the microwave transmitter and shoot it first and bounce it off a mirror next to the microwave receiver. When the satellite receives the bounce, it knows it's on target for the microwave.

In response to other posters mulling over the military application of this tech- China already has a satellite killer.

Seth

Yea this stuff has been around for years: http://www.touchtable.com/site/index.php http://www.ms.northropgrumman.com/touchtable/ http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldie rtech_TouchTable,,00.html http://www.merl.com/projects/DiamondTouch/ The Mitsubishi one can recognize multiple users. I've used it and it's pretty cool. Touch tables are nothing new but it would be cool to see Microsoft start marketing this to consumers.

http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldie rtech_PArmor,00.html

I saw this stuff on FutureWeapons (Discovery Channel). It is a vest that can take the full force of a Hand Grenade without actually damaging the armor, while protecting the occupant. Very cool stuff. It can take repeated bullets / shells without degradation of any sort.

Very Cool. Oh did I say that already??

Nah, it's not a slab. Wearable bulletproof materials are composed of interwoven fibers (occasionally with heavier armor plates backing 'em up), and if its made into a fabric, it's far more flexible and comfortable than a solid suit.

It's probably still pretty damn hot, and heavier than one would prefer. I'd be interested to see how this performs when coupled with some of the liquid armor tech the military has been working on.

I can think of *lots* of instances where m4's have torn up troops wielding ak47's at range granted in an urban enviroment ak's are handy, but then again jackhammers are more so, all around I'd have to say the m4 is the better weapon. But from a historical veiw point the ak matches with the m16, not the m4 as far as history is concerned the ak is probably the best most successful assault rifle of all time. The G3 is closing the gap though, but with the 10x series and Dragunov( on a side note the new lupa's are bad a$$) its unlikely the any competition will nock it out of the top slot anytime soon. You realy shouldn't be compary ww2 stuff with modern weaponry, its like comparing the sten to a http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldie rtech_HK,,00.html the comparison just isn't relevant. http://search.discovery.com/search?proxystylesheet =wwwMain&site=wwwContent&client=wwwMain&output=xml _no_dtd&filter=0&getfields=*&q=mp7&go.x=0&go.y=0

http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldie rtech_HK416,,00.html
This is old its been on future weapons, the new m16a#/m4* isn't anything to dis, although the new AN94's out of Russia are tight any AK before the 10x series realy is old news like the 45 1911 great for its time but the time is past, although that is still debatable.

I never called service members 'morons'. You smell like a typical right-wing war-mongering cock-throater. A felony conviction is not a 'major item'? A felony conviction means I can't vote or own a gun..but in 2006 Felons were welcomed into the armed forces via waivers.

Felons in armed forces: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,125220 ,00.html

There is no draft, but there is certainly a lack of man-power. Why else would all the contracts signed by reservists and active memebers be ignored and the men continually re-deployed with short breaks?

Yeah, whatever buddy! We were always at war with EurAsia!

>So instead of doing something valuable like finding killer asteroids that actually exist and have hit the world in the last 100 years
>we send a mission to Mars, send up commercial satellites on government paid for shuttles?

They need $1.0 billion that they apparently don't have and congress won't give them. Yet there seems to be $93.4 billion in the congressional sofa cushions for Iraq.

Houston - we have a real problem.

According to this article the timing couldn't be better if we assume that China is actually a world power with the capability of projecting force. Politically they are quite happy with their relationship to the U.S. Militarily there isn't much of a chance that we'll be playing in the sandbox nicely together.

don't worry, i'm sure the navy's rail guns will be working by then . . .

A land vehicle version is in the works by the Army. http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldie rtech_RailGuns,,00.html Just an FYI.

I feel sorry for this guy. He spent $15,000 on a suit that the military has no use for. The military currently working on liquid body armor. The liquid is used in addition to the Kevlar vests.

Now, lets maintain the status quo. When I balance up the "equation", Americans do not have much to show for the almost 3,000 coalition lives lost so far. An average of 4 have been killed this month alone. Please pay a visit to http://www.icasulaties.org/ to see what I am talking about.

You want to know which battle the insurgents won in IRAQ? Please have a look at http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,NI_0105 _Fallujah-P1,00.html then come back and tell me.

You could also tell me who controls Sadr City now. The only place the US has total control in IRAQ is the Green Zone. That's why the Commander in Chief, and all important US officials will NOT venture outside the Green Zone. To me, that means that someone else and NOT the Americans, are in control in areas outside on the Green Zone.

You're crazy. The AK-47 is indeed a fine weapon, but every time somebody toting one engages our forces, they get shot/killed/blown the hell up.

You're comparing light weapons to aircraft? Rather have that, you say? How about you shoot at me and miss because your weapon, while reliable, doesn't have the accuracy to hit me from any farther than maybe 300m, 50m if you shoot like an average Iraqi. (It's reliable because of the tolerances built into the bolt mechanism but that makes it far less accurate. Marines have to qualify at 500m.)

Have fun with that while I'm calling in air support and deciding whether I want to just kill you or to drop the entire building you're in.

This will give you the idea.

~ some jarhead

Oh, and I'm pretty sure the Seals "submerge" themselves every once in a while. Marines? Well, we never get near water, right?

They are so fast you can't "see" them coming on sonar.

Among errors of fact that one might have read in a newspaper or on-line news digest, or even seen in a TV documentary, is that Shkval-type weapons move faster than their own noise. This makes them totally undetectable to their victim -- a Virginia-class sub is sometimes mentioned in this context as a choice target -- until the rocket torpedo detonates and the American sub is destroyed. There's just one serious problem with this, not for the Virginia-class sub but for the enemy. The speed of sound in seawater varies subtly with local conditions, but is typically just under one statute mile per second -- five times the speed of sound in air, for comparison. This makes the speed of sound in seawater about 3,000 knots. A supercavitating weapon doing 300 knots is barely making Mach 0.1 in the medium in which both it and its target are located. And rocket engines are terribly noisy. That noise signature will travel on ahead of the Shkval to be heard by a submarine's passive sonars well before weapon impact. As detailed below, (and despite bellicose Iranian claims to the contrary), American submariners have an ample toolkit for swiftly throwing off the Shkval's aim, and then fighting back.

See this

Here's the links

http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldie rtech_TouchTable,,00.html
http://www.esri.com/library/fliers/pdfs/cs-northro p-grumman.pdf

It shouldn't be that hard to accomplish. Take a look at the camouflage the military is bound to enjoy. Combine these two and you've got a winner.

Doesn't modern RAM (RADAR Absorbing Material, not the DDR2 kind) do a good enough job of disrupting radar? Just look at the specs for the F-22.

Old news! Wired ran this story three years ago. The technology isn't any more advanced now than it was then. Military.com published an extremely informative guide to invisibility last year. Much better than TFA.

Wow, So being a cop for 18 years means you can violate civil rights because you THINK you are right.
Hmm. Lets go over the run down of bullshit things cops have done to just me (35 year old male)
Got pulled over once when a cop was behind me and he said after I ask why he pulled me over, "you where driving to carefully." NO KIDDING a cop car behind me and I was driving carefully. Then there was the time my girlfriend and I where driving in a car and I was pulled over and when I ask why he said he want to count the occupants of the car. So I counted for him, 2. Then there was the time I witnessed a cop car run a red light with none of its lights on and smash into a another car. The cops kept insisting that I did not see what I said I saw. Even to the extent that they tried to put words in my mouth through intimidation. That time was so bad I called a family friend of mine who is an FBI agent (lawyer would have charged me) to come to help me.

Then there was this Guy on his porch in the Bronx that got shot for reaching for his wallet. 41 times I believe. (Diallo's case)

There was a case in Devner of raiding the wrong house and killing the dude inside and then LIEING and puting a gun in the dudes hands. HOLLY SHIT.

http://v6.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~4330~11 29795,00.html

Now how about the cop in San Bernardino California that shot the air force security officer IN COLD BLOOD. http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,86767, 00.html?ESRC=topstories.RSS

Let me put it simple. You are a cop, (probably don't even know where the term cop comes from I bet, quick Google it) Have you ever heard of the Blackstone ratio? LOOK IT UP.

Here is a great post to a editorial comment on NYC police brutality.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0 6E1DD1239F935A35755C0A96F958260

Or maybe police cover there own asses.
http://www.aclu.org/police/gen/14542prs20040128.ht ml

I mean Google searching for police abuse returns 70 million hits. Teen sex only returns 72 million. Seems that maybe Police abuse could be nearly as pervasive as teen sex. WTF?

If there is any doubt as to whether to shoot or not shoot. You DON'T SHOOT. I would rather the police offer was shot then he shoots an innocent person. Sorry but that is the job YOU CHOSE. The civilian has more of a right to survive a misunderstanding then you. If you are unsure of the outcome of the situation you withdrawl rather then risk an innocent life.

I know others with similar stories, and I can definitely see how someone who'd like to fly military jets would perceive the risk/reward tradeoff as a good deal. Heck, I'd get the surgery if it meant someone would let me fly an F-14.

As quoted from the US Army SF Center:

"Special Forces have the ability to be virtually everywhere at once; this guarantees that they are the first on the ground or already at a crisis location when trouble starts.

Their missions include direct action operations, unconventional warfare, special recon, and counter terrorism. Their skills and training give them a thorough knowledge of foreign languages, customs and cultures. In addition, they are the masters of training and organizing insurgents, surrogate fighters, native forces and foreign armies."

Most of the things they do are during "peace time". Their missions don't appear on the news because nobody cares about X-istans civil disputes over Y resource. SF troops aren't regular soldiers. They aren't just elite versions of regular soldiers either. They have an entirely different job than the other 99% of militaries. The article is about UK's SAS, so i'm really just talking out of my ass. Really neat military technology though.

"It is time to admit what many security professional already know: We as security professional are drastically failing ourselves, our community and the people we are meant to protect. Too many of our security layers of defense are broken. Security professionals are enjoying a surge in business and growing salaries and that is why we tolerate the dismal situation we are facing. Yet it is our mandate, first and foremost, to protect."

Credit Card Breach Exposes 40 Million Accounts
Bank Of America Loses A Million Customer Records
Pentagon Hacker Compromises Personal Data
Online Attack Puts 1.4 Million Records At Risk
Hacker Faces Extradition Over 'Biggest Military Computer Hack Of All Time'
Laptop Theft Puts Data Of 98,000 At Risk
Medical Group: Data On 185,000 People Stolen
Hackers Grab LexisNexis Info on 32000 People
ChoicePoint Data Theft Widens To 145,000 People
PIN Scandal 'Worst Hack Ever'; Citibank Only The Start
ID Theft Hit 3.6 Million In U.S.
Georgia Technology Authority Hack Exposes Confidential Information of 570,000 Members
Scammers Access Data On 35,000 Californians
Payroll Firm Pulls Web Services Citing Data Leak
Hacker Steals Air Force Officers' Personal Information
Undisclosed Number of Verizon Employees at Risk of Identity Theft

> The laser pulse is so short and intense that the missile rotation does not matter.

Based on what do you say that? You're directly contradicting all available evidence about the system. For example:

---"It should be made clear at the start what the beam does not do. It does not vaporize or even melt the missile's skin. Instead it heats the skin until whatever internal forces present cause the skin to fail." (link)

---"the main laser is fired for 3 to 5 seconds from a turret located on the aircraft's nose, causing the missile to break up" (link)

---"Once the target "sweet spot" has been designated and the deformable mirror attenuated, the COIL fires, sweeping the target area for several seconds until the enemy missile's heated casing ruptures" (link)

Basically, all evidence suggests you're flat-out wrong: the ABL takes at least several seconds to destroy a target, which is enough time for a rotating target to spread the beam over a wide area. Unless the ground tests have been against rotating targets---which does not seem to be the case based on the photos in the links---rotating targets are likely to significantly affect the viability of the system.

You could sit in a tank all day for what good it would do you. Why not have the fam send you a big steel box to sit in?

The future will be light, hard composites. As the bullet strikes it, it pivots to a higher relative angle as the bullet trajectory. Much more efficient than stopping a bullet dead. Even this dragon skin is likely to put disabling bruises on your body.

That is, if it even works like you say. Who's spinning this?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns -ap-army-body-armor,1,6953058.story?coll=chi-news- hed

If the army just wanted you to go and die, they would have banned personal body armor in 2003.

I don't buy that a military guy could be as senseless as you. Why doesn't the army equip all soldiers with the latest high-tech weaponry that nobody knows how to use? Why don't you go out and buy the newest, most expensive car, it'll save your life in a car accident you know, at least that's what they tell you when you buy it. Maybe you should wear a football helmet when you go outside, even if it obstructs your vision.

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,usa3_0 42104.00.html

10 years ago all you could get was kevlar. You get all fired up over nothing, you fucking fool.

Kevlar isn't kevlar, you sad, stupid fuck. Kevlar isn't even relevant to rifle rounds, or most fragmentation explosives.

Military grade body armor uses ceramic plates, and the armor our troops first deployed with had none--it was what is considered "soft" body armor--kevlar. It barely stops a 9mm, and it serves as no protection against rifle rounds, or high velocity shrapnel--they might protect against hand grenade shrapnel at medium distance, but not against anything larger. Useless.

Our troops are currently deployed with Interceptor OTV vests. They're stiff, heavy, and they have an ceramic insert that is designed to protect the heart and lung area. You can see it here You see that little plate? It's so goddamned fragile, that if you so much as drop it, it becomes useless. If you duck for cover, there's a good chance that you'll break that plate, and whatever armor you had is now useless for anything stronger than a 9mm. That plate is designed to break apart, and absorb energy from a round. It's good for precisely ONE shot. Naturally, that plate is totally inflexible.

There are better armors on the civilian market. Take a look at Dragon Skin Armor It's made entirely of round titanium composite ceramic plates, intelocked, front, back, and side. They'll take dozens of 7.62 rounds, hundreds of 9mm rounds, more shrapnel than you can throw at it, they're just a tad heavier than Inteceptor armor, but they're very flexible, and they breathe like nothing else. It is a better system. It's a safer system. And now our troops can't use it, even if their families shipped them out at considerable expense.

I'm ex-military, and ex-republican (I'm a real conservative, not a pansy-ass neo-con like the shitheads that now occupy the Republican ranks), I was an officer in Desert Storm, and I can say, unafraid of criticism, that our troops don't have the best protection available for the cost we pay. It's a fact. There's better stuff out there, but the Pentagon is shitting their pants because it's a little more expensive. But to think that they won't allow our soldiers to use the better stuff, even if they afford it on their own... That's just fucking stupid!

To think that good men are dying while stupid-ass pieces of shit like yourself play the political card makes me want to explode something. You know what? You can sit on your blind as fuck ignorance and spin, motherfucker.

I mean, like, who needs ponies when you can create an Earth-Shattering Boom?

Obligatory Link to Earth-Shattering Boom Story

Videogames are indirectly teaching young people "violent" behaviour?!?!?

The primary activity of the Army is train young people to kill. Give them lots of hard experience with and remove all reservations about killing.

Not to mention torture, nay, "interrogate".

http://www.goarmy.com/JobDetail.do?id=152
Human Intelligence Collector (97E)
Some of your duties as a Human Intelligence Collector may include:

Conducting debriefings and interrogations of HUMINT sources in English and -foreign languages-
Performing difficult interrogations

Do the millions of ex-military people suddenly forget all their violence when coming back home? Doesn't look like it.

http://www.courttv.com/news/2005/0210/armydoctor_a p.html
Army doctor who killed wife and daughters delays parole hearing

http://www.courttv.com/news/2005/0805/soldier_ap.h tml
A soldier who returned from Iraq nine days earlier apparently shot and killed his wife and then himself

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,89236, 00.html Army officials have recommended a court-martial for a Purple Heart recipient accused of stabbing his young wife 71 times with knives and a meat cleaver.

The Army is needs of lots of violent, nay, "energetic", young people to kill people overseas, nay, "defend america". They pay salaries, promise bonuses, honors, and train assassins.

http://www.goarmy.com/

And they have their own videogame - America's Army. http://www.americasarmy.com/

They have been cutting back on the DoD budget. http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,83086,00. html That's just the most recent one. http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_cut s_021105,00.html They've been doing a lot more. Don't open your mouth if you don't know what you're talking about.

They have been cutting back on the DoD budget. http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,83086,00. html That's just the most recent one. http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_cut s_021105,00.html They've been doing a lot more. Don't open your mouth if you don't know what you're talking about.

Hey you stupid shit, the pentagon and the Administration are always looking to screw the little guy in the forces. Also, you're clearly too shortsighted to remember what his daddy, and the earlier republicans have done. Friends of the Military, they are not. Why so many servicemen support them defies me. They're always closing hospitals and bases (screwing over the towns that need them). They're always going after pensions and health care. They're always going after bonuses and hazard pay.

If one kept a journal of every time they tried to fuck over the backbone of the military, you'd have a thousand page book in short time. But since you're so sold on the party line, and how "liberals" (aka anyone against "them") are the spawn of Satan, Saddam, Lenin, Carl Marx, Mao, Stalin, Adolf Hitler and The Smurfs, then no amount of enlightenment is likely to eject your head from your ass, but it's worth a try, I guess.

Witness:
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292259-1989 240.php/
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/20 03/08/14/MN94780.DTL/
http://www.iupa.org/newsroom/PayDiff.html
http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,74425, 00.html
http://actforvictory.org/act.php/truth/articles/20 06_wont_be_first_year_bush_cuts_support_for_vetera ns

But, hey, they vote, and people support them also tend to vote, so they aren't so quick to clusterfuck their pawns in front of public scrutiny:

http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry= 7830

And when they do get around to giving pay increases, they're often less than the cost of living!

Iraq costs $6 BILLION each month.

While I'll be the first to admit that the US operates covertly no too many situations to count, or at least does not publically announce everything, it is always difficult to have a big-picture understanding of something if you are either not looking for the truth (but only what you want to see) or you do not have access to the other pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to understand what the real picture is.

Within the last year, the Army has reinstated the Anthrax inoculation policy and has re-started their efforts in getting all troops their vaccines. This issue is near and dear to my heart as I'm in the Army and that vaccine is particually painful (not to mention tests that have variable evidence of short term memory loss).

Dugway Proving Ground seems a logical place for these types of biological defense activities to be undertaken. We'll need plenty of vaccines to take care of all the Soldiers and probably Airman, Saliors, and Marines too. I'm not saying that this is definitvly the answer, but it is at least consistant with other Army reporting.

>>>I am intrigued by the thought of Kojima actually pulling off realistic urban guerilla
>>>warfare, but wonder if we have reached the stage where we can actually do that.

Why experience it merely in a video game?

This is so much better!

I'm a Tech Controller (3C2X1) in the Air Force and work network infrastructure (mostly Cisco stuff) and WAN type links.

21,445.2 Base Pay http://www.military.com/Resources/ResourcesContent /0,13964,49020,00.html
6,948.0 BAH (allowance to cover housing costs)
3,206.16 BAS (allowance to cover food costs)

That comes out to 31,599.36... 26.3k after taxes, more if I'm in an area where I draw Hostile Fire Pay/Imminent Danger Pay + combat zone tax exemption. After taxes, I should make about 27k this year.

FYI this is NOT a liquid laser. The term "liquid laser" is barely ever used in laser research and when it is, its used to referr to DYE lasers which are absolutely not what is being discussed here. It could concievably be used to describe a chemical laser where the chemicals are liquid before being reacted to lase but this would be incorrect because lasers are typically classified based on the phase of the medium which undergoes lasing. In the case of the chemical laser the lasing medium is a plasma formed in a reaction chamber by the mixed, previously liquid, chemicals. It's a gas laser. From what I can tell here though, neither of these things is what is being proposed for the HELLADS system. It looks like what they're trying to do is match the index of refraction of a cooling liquid to the index of refraction of the slabs of lasing material in a SOLID STATE laser such as Nd:glass. Thereby allowing the efficient removal of heat from the laser material while it is firing and while also preserving the quality of the beam. I would be willing to bet they are looking at using ytterbium-doped strontium fluoroapatite (Yb:S-FAP) slabs immersed in a very dense transparent flowing liquid (perhaps even a molten salt like NaNO3) which is optically pumped by specifically tuned solid state diode lasers.

Most US robotic technology is applied towards the military: smart missiles, driverless vehicles (there is a congressional mandate that one-third of all military vehicles be autonomous by 2015), "gun platforms" controlled by remote, pilotless military aircraft, smart mines. I think culture is playing a big role in the types of robots countries are building. Japan has a long love-affair with robots. The US seems to love its military. I had read a while back that european countries' robot technology for playing soccer is the best (not joking).

Couple links about US military robotics/smart platforms:
http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldie rtech_Talon,,00.html
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040303/n ews_1c3darpa.html

If she were a Democrat, she'd be touted as the next coming of Martin Luther King, Jr. That's all I'm saying.

Yes, since the Democratic party has no strong, intelligent black women. Idiot.

Jocelyn Elders was fired for suggesting that teenagers should be taught masturbation isn't evil. Condi Rice can tell Congress that no one could have expected planes to be flown into buildings - after the X-Files, Tom Clancy, and antimissile defenses at Genoa - and get promoted.

By the way, Jocelyn Elders worked as a maid to support herself while in college. I think her background is a wee bit more humble than Condi Rice's.

Most of the criticism I hear of her, like yours, is highly partisan.

So it's partisan to expect a political appointee to be competent at their job, or to demonstrate some understanding of what that is?

Or is it just partisan to assign responsibility to Republicans?

Or is Richard Clarke - a man who served under four presidents, three Republican - 'partisan'

Or does saying "partisan" allow you to turn your brain off and ignore criticism?