Slashdot Mirror

lol :D

Oh well, more recently they hit 74% with all renewable energy combined: http://thinkprogress.org/clima...

Maybe the 50% is correct for this year or other pages have just picked up the hype and not checked the sources or noticed the dates either.

This includes wind, the slashdot article is only talking solar. I am less impressed by so called achievement of briefly generating a large percentage of the country's demand at a period of very low demand after spending hundreds of billions of euros than you are. That they are even spending more to build coal plants to make up for the unreliability is even less impressive when one looks at the actual goal of reducing carbon. I suppose if momentary bursts of power output were the goal, it would be a rousing success story.

"Now" is misleading when the article is 2 years old?

lol :D

Oh well, more recently they hit 74% with all renewable energy combined:
http://thinkprogress.org/clima...

Maybe the 50% is correct for this year or other pages have just picked up the hype and not checked the sources or noticed the dates either.
http://www.thelocal.de/2014061...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/qu...

Did I Fucking Love Science got it wrong?
http://www.iflscience.com/tech...

More 2012:
http://www.marketwatch.com/sto...
I can't see a year here:
http://theweek.com/speedreads/...

Anyway, even if it has happened recently too it's less impressive when it has already been done more than 2 years ago..

- the police are constitutionally not allowed to arrest a congressman, because if they could, then the executive branch could (legally) take over the government by physically arresting Congress to prevent votes, etc.

Are you just making this shit up as you go along?
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/11/19/2971381/trey-radel-cocaine/

The debtor's prisons that we've started running. Because we've reverted a medieval mentality.

Did you read your first reference? Or are you just some kind of special stupid?

Did you read my first reference? You are citing Darrel Issa's report, and my first source is all about pointing out that Darrel Issa's report is full of bad data. He lied. Made it up. Misled the American people. Intentionally. There is no scandal here and everyone not a Tea Party nutter knows it.

3 million stolen last year, doubling compared to the previous year

http://thinkprogress.org/econo...

The politicization of the IRS should be the biggest scandal ever. How many other institutions are being used to pursue a political agenda instead of their true function?

Maybe because the politicization of the IRS is a fake scandal that even Newsmax and Fox News aren't covering anymore?

Seriously, it turned out that the IRS was actually covering Liberal Groups more than the Tea Party groups, something we would have known earlier except the GOP intentionally limited the audit to GOP groups. Oh, and the IRS is required by law to "harass" (read: investigate) Non-Profits in order to prevent the very thing that the GOP is freaking out about -- rich people like the Koch Brothers using fake non profits as a political machine. Note that the GOP isn't freaking out about people doing this, they're freaking out that they might be caught.

In other words, the real scandal is that the IRS somehow DIDN'T notice the Koch Brothers are breaking several dozen federal laws by astroturfing tea party "chartiies" in order to push anti-science, anti-climate change, and anti-worker agendas across the entire US.

All of this is due to the guy handling most of the GOP's fake scandals, Darrel Issa. He's got his thumbs in pretty much every fake scandal plaguing the Obama administration, in something that has come to be known as the Paula Jones Technique - make up fake scandals or inflate existing ones in hopes that your opponent (in this case, President Obama's Administration) can't do anything but react to the scandals.

Actually I would not, I am not liberal, and dont blame things on the president without evidence that he/she was involved in it. I dont run crying foul at every little thing that happens negatively. Also I am not lying http://thinkprogress.org/polit....

I would love to see your citation for that. Even the most conservative web searches report more than that. http://thinkprogress.org/polit...

'At least, I think those bars are showing percentages."

Can you not read the label on the y-axis? It says, "APPEARANCES ON THE WATCH LIST".

And anyway, the 3rd bar (the next one higher than Tea Party groups) is for "Acorn Successors", ACORN being the group that many Republicans blame for electing Obama in the first place. So your arguments seem to be in a shambles.

How about a bunch to upset the little lies you're told on AM radio to get up your dander.

The pollution I blame on the US (and Europe, don't feel left out on the Asian peninsula!) is that WE let them get away with it. We buy their cheap, pollution producing crap. We buy it. And as long as we buy it, they will produce it. It is our pollution, whether you like it or not.

Don't forget that we also sell them the coal.

The Clean Air Act is controlling carbon emission now. It is the legal basis for increased CAFE standards. Also for new source regulations are just about to go into effect. That is why Kansas is rushing to get in under the wire. http://thinkprogress.org/clima... And proposed regulations on existing sources came out last Monday which are based on the Clean Air Act.

You've never seen a late October super storm that far North. Read it again. In 2012, climate damage increased crop insurance payouts be $14 billion. http://thinkprogress.org/clima...

Citation needed. Pretty sure that's not true.

Pretty easily to verify with Google:

More men are raped in the U.S. than woman, according to figures that include sexual abuse in prisons.

In 2008, it was estimated 216,000 inmates were sexually assaulted while serving time, according to the Department of Justice figures. That is compared to 90,479 rape cases outside of prison.

And that's just from prisons. There's also more men assaulted in the military:

Preventing sexual assault has frequently been framed as a women's rights issue in coverage over the past year, but the numbers show that it is very much a problem that cuts across genders. In an analysis of the final data, the Associated Press found that in terms of sheer numbers, there were many more men who were victims of assault in 2013 than women. "About 6.8 percent of women surveyed said they were assaulted and 1.2 percent of the men," the AP reports. âoeBut there are vastly more men in the military; by the raw numbers, a bit more than 12,000 women said they were assaulted, compared with nearly 14,000 men.â

To which there is a frequent "yeahbut women under-report rape", to which there is an easy "and that's different from men how"? That's 14,000 men in a macho man-up culture that have admitted to rape, so the real number is going to be much higher as well.

It's interesting to read the back and forth arguments anytime fossil fuels are discussed.

For some reason people, especially those benefitting from the carbon extraction industry, often take a very black and white view of the situation. Their view is usually that renewables are a waste of time, and that only our carbon based energy paradigm is practicable.

The reality is that the rest of the "First World" is moving ahead rapidly with renewable energy.

Whether it is China, Germany or Brazil the leadership in these other countries are taking the steps necessary to insulate themselves from the dependence on carbon based energy(fossil fuels). They are doing what is known in investing as "diversifying".

Right... I know you've heard this before...

Sure, we still need oil and gas. Of course we do. Oil should be used for plastics, etc. Gas for heating, energy, transportation, etc; But it seems to me this whole fracking boom that is going on is just another way to slow the adoption of renewable energy.

But what the US should be doing is throwing itself fully into renewable energy.

What are we waiting for, a "Sign from God"?
That sign from God may not be a pleasant one.

Forget Solar, forget Wind. There is vast Geothermal energy potential in the western US. Now, go ahead and remember Solar, because there is vast solar potential in the southewestern US, via Solar Thermal. Why aren't we moving full speed ahead on this? Wind energy? Sure, the plains, all the way from Montana to Texas have loads of potential?

The US could be a leader in renewable energy.
Obama said as much during his 2008 campaign, yet I haven't seen this switch to renewables.
America, it's time to wake the F up.

Here is a rejection given to Dr, James Hansen of NASA who is at the forefront of global warming research. The second reviewer is particularly vicious (as is his right). Hansen writes "The rejection was a bit like the one Snoopy received, which said, “Enclosed please find two rejection slips: one for the manuscript you submitted and one for the next one you write.”" - http://thinkprogress.org/clima...

Politcians from Wyoming and other mostly-Red States were only too happy to deny catastrophic aid to others unless their demands for budget cuts were met.

http://thinkprogress.org/econo...

You can be "stopped by" all the time. ( Not that I agree that they should be allowed to do that, but such is the law - get the law changed. ) Being stopped by doesn't mean being searched. And searched doesn't necessarily mean searched without consent. etc.

You obviously don't know what you're talking about, friend.

I never said it was legal or constitutional. Police abuse is rampant, and people's rights are being violated. You can blather on about refusing a search if you want, but if you find yourself getting stopped/frisked, good luck with that.

Check this out as well.

Bullshit, it's called getting the legal screws applied to your nuts, not some change of heart concerning privacy by Google. They're facing multiple lawsuits and they're making concessions that they know they'll have to implement anyway. I'm hoping Judge Koh throws the book at these hypocrites.

Butterfly communication has become unreliable due to destruction of milkweed corridors. http://thinkprogress.org/clima...

Portugal’s electricity network operator announced that renewable energy supplied 70 percent of total consumption in the first quarter of this year.

http://thinkprogress.org/clima...

I somehow doubt what you are saying.

If one panel provides all you need during daylight hours you use 2 or 3 or 4 and store it in a battery.

This, and not nuclear it undisputably the way of the future. There is no such thing as a safe nuclear plant. I'm sure the people that had to leave Fukushima prefecture would disagree about the lack of danger to public health. Would you live there now?

Germany will be 100% renewable by 5050. Portugal is already 75%.

We can not afford, on many levels, and do not need: nukes. This has been shown.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
Germany is the world's top photovoltaics (PV) installer, with a solar PV capacity of 35.996 gigawatts (GW) at the end of February 2014.[2] The German new solar PV installations increased by about 7.6 GW in 2012, and solar PV provided 18 TWh (billion kilowatt-hours) of electricity in 2011, about 3% of total electricity.[3] Some market analysts expect this could reach 25 percent by 2050.[4] Germany has a goal of producing 35% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and 100% by 2050.[5]

"In July 2009, India unveiled a US$19 billion plan to produce 20 GW of solar power by 2020.[2] Under the plan, the use of solar-powered equipment and applications would be made compulsory in all government buildings, as well as hospitals and hotels.[3] On 18 November 2009, it was reported that India was ready to launch its National Solar Mission under the National Action Plan on Climate Change, with plans to generate 1,000 MW of power by 2013.[4] From August 2011 to July 2012, India went from 2.5 MW of grid connected photovoltaics to over 1,000 MW."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

" In 2012 China installed 5.0 GW of solar panel capacity. As of 2012, about 8.3 GW of photovoltaics contribute towards power generation in China.[1] Solar water heating is extensively implemented as well.[2]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

And we're not even trying hard. Hopefully soon, well. Anything to avoid those damn dirty dangerous nuclear disaster that endanger countless future generations.

Let's see: Jesse Ventura, a Navy SEAL, was waterboarded, and says it's definitely torture. Apparently the SEALs used to use waterboarding in their counter-interrogation training, but stopped as the inability of anyone to tolerate it was damaging morale. The linked article says the mean-time-to-failure was 14 seconds.

Hitchens was waterboarded, and said it's definitely torture.

Rather uniquely, Oliver North claims to have been waterboarded and says it's not torture. Personally I'd like him to spend a few seconds at the hands of the guys Hitchens went to. I suspect he'd change his mind rather quickly.

Sean Hannity volunteered to be waterboarded, but backed-out. He maintains it's not torture, and points to North.

It's not just about his opinion. It's about his political donations (to California's Prop 8 specifically). Making him CEO will give him the wealth of hundreds of ordinary people which he could donate to further anti-gay-rights causes.

Opinions are worth boycotting too though. Throughout history, a few people have done horrible things wielding nothing but opinions and words. What if their opinions had been boycotted early on?

So are you saying that it was wrong for Tim Cook, as the CEO of Apple to use his position to influence politicians to oppose Prop 8? Are you saying that it was wrong for Tim Cook to threaten the Arizona Governor over anti-gay legislation there? Or are you saying that you are a hypocrite and it is only wrong if someone is against gay rights? See: http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/...

If you are of that double minded position, then you are a hypocrite sir. Either both are wrong or neither are wrong. I happen to think a CEO can use their "own" money from their compensation to fund any cause they wish but a publicly traded company's money belongs to the shareholders and not the CEO so he should never threaten politicians over a social issue using the company as leverage. Tim Cook should be fired IMO.

Oh what short (or selective) memory we have sometimes...

A private study funded DIRECTLY by the poster boys for climate change denialism found the exact opposite results they wanted. We have evidence of withheld studies that lead to conclusions not approved by the funder as well, just no idea how many there are.

Please stop spouting misinformation.

Or they simply tie up the charges in court for a couple decades & get the fines reduced to a relative pittance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

http://thinkprogress.org/clima...

the True Believers

White, young, male and privileged.

I'll just leave this here:

http://thinkprogress.org/econo...

I've heard of states (or counties or cities) giving breaks to corporations for income, property, or other taxes, but I've never heard of an arrangement where the company is allowed to keep any withholdings from employee's payrolls as you claim... do you have a concrete example you could share?

No problem. Reuters says there are at least 2700 companies with such arrangements.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Comme...

http://thinkprogress.org/econo...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

You're calling missing by a few tenths of a degree "not even close"? We're experiencing possibly the lowest solar activity in hundreds of years and the temperatures are higher than we've seen in hundreds of years. It seems that something other than the sun is causing warming somehow. Hmmm... I wonder what it could be?

The vast majority of political coal/oil money goes to conservative groups. For every joe manchin there are a dozen joe bartons. Deal with it.

In your rush to leap the defense of foreclosure, you missed the fact that none of what you're talking about has anything to do with what MickyTheIdiot was talking about, which is shit like being foreclosed on even if you've paid up or being foreclosed on, even though you don't have a mortgage.

It is a marvellous feat of engineering to build 20 new roads, bridges, train line and station, international airport, olympic venues and a ski resort that is climate change proof in such a short time. I'd really love to see more similar stories on how it is done.

There are a few tricks to it. For example, you can use immigrant workers from poorer countries in massive quantities for cheap labor, and make it even cheaper by not paying them at the end of the contract.

But don't forget that big pharma, for all its problems still is the number one creator of new drugs. In 2012 alone, the U.S. government and private companies spent a combined $130 billion (PDF) on medical research.

Ahh, very large numbers without context. Does such a good job of sounding like it means something. Here's some context: 70% increase in profits in the past 10 years, and we have way more drugs available than we can afford. Increasing government imposed restrictions on competition to drive up market price is what you do when a critical industry is having problems, not when they're flush with cash and demand and prices are skyrocketing. It's freaking econ 101 ferfucksake.

Also: Fuck beta. I am not the audience, I am one of the authors of this site. I am Slashdot. This is a debate community. I will leave if it becomes some bullshit IT News 'zine. And I don't think Dice has the chops to beat the existing competitors in that space.

Nuclear power has a larger carbon footprint than you might think: from the concrete used to build the stations, to the energy used in the mining, extraction and refining processes to produce the fuel. It can take more than 6 years to mitigate the energy used in building of the facility, let alone the actual construction costs.

On account of the fact that every utility scale fission reactor design is really nuclear steam power, every watt of power it produces requires two watts of heat dissipation using water. Of course this means the plants have to shut down if it's too hot, and that source of fresh water you were drawing on is not as cool as it was when the plant was built (eg, due to climate change).

It's also super expensive, because risks must be mitigated; some have pointed out this has led to a negative learning curve of nuclear power.

Much as it is kind of cool that people are using nuclear physics to make power, it really is very dated technology. Phasing it out in favor of cheaper, safer alternatives is a much better idea: with the advent of flow batteries, liquid metal batteries, you don't need to have peaking power plants paired with the renewables. You just need more renewables.

...reason. Deny the damn thing because it's only being built to export gasoline from southern states to China, not help get the US get off foreign oil: http://thinkprogress.org/clima...

No unions? Sign me up!

Yet conservatives may be shocked to learn that their idol Reagan was once a union boss himself. Reagan was the only president in American history to have belonged to a union, the AFL-CIO affiliated Screen Actors Guild. And he even served six terms as president of the organized labor group. Additionally, Reagan was a staunch advocate for the collective bargaining rights of one of the world’s most famous and most influential trade unions, Poland’s Solidarity movement.

And Reagan said this regarding unions:

By outlawing Solidarity, a free trade organization to which an overwhelming majority of Polish workers and farmers belong, they have made it clear that they never had any intention of restoring one of the most elemental human rights—the right to belong to a free trade union.

So you modern conservatives even make Ronald Reagan look like a leftist. And guess what? He was no leftist.

That ought to give you reason to consider your blind partisanship, but something tells me that would be highly unlikely.

Fuel cells are quite a lot more efficient than ICEs where most of our ethanol ends up. Ken Caldeira seems to have forgotten that: http://thinkprogress.org/clima...

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/12/22/3099141/climate-denying-groups-funding/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort/

http://guardianlv.com/2013/12/climate-change-denial-a-billion-dollar-industry-of-fabrication-says-study/

(sampled from the first few hits for: https://www.google.es/search?q=climate+change+denial+lobby+billions }

The challenges for solar cell adoption are:
Cost-effective manufacturing methods
The market price of silicon
Efficiency of conversion
Storing the energy for when it's required (or moving it to where it is helpful)
and Durability

The price of silicon isn't the biggest problem now. Solar cells are already at parity with coal in India, and keep getting cheaper every year.

Efficiency is generally sufficient. A house's whole roof can generally power it.

Durability also isn't generally an issue. Solar cells usually last for upwards of 20 years.

The primary challenges now are:
Installation costs
Electrical connection costs (i.e. an inverter)
and Storage (or grid hookup costs)

We do? Name one.

Fox News can't find one. Every time they give an example like that, and somebody checks their facts, it turns out Fox was wrong.

href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304527504579171710423780446">http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304527504579171710423780446

There is one.

Good example. That's what I meant when I said every time you check their facts, they turn out to be wrong. In this case, it turned out that UnitedHealthcare had decided to drop Sundby's policy even before Obamacare.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/11/04/2881581/wall-street-journal-horror-story-cancer-patient-losing-doctors-wrong/
The Real Reason That The Cancer Patient Writing In Today’s Wall Street Journal Lost Her Insurance
By Igor Volsky on November 4, 2013
But Sundby shouldn’t blame reform — United Healthcare dropped her coverage because they’ve struggled to compete in California’s individual health care market for years and didn’t want to pay for sicker patients like Sundby.
The company, which only had 8,000 individual policy holders in California out of the two million who participate in the market, announced (along with a second insurer, Aetna) that it would be pulling out of the individual market in May. The company could not compete with Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield of California and Kaiser Permanente, who control more than 80 percent of the individual market.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-horror-story-20131105,0,6361694.story
A closer look at the WSJ's newest Obamacare horror story
By Michael Hiltzik
November 6, 2013, 6:05 a.m.
As for Sundby, the idea that in the pre-Obamacare era, once UnitedHealth bailed out on her—as it surely intended to do eventually—she’d be able to find any insurer willing to cover her cancer treatment without restrictions, allow her to choose her own doctors and therapies without limit, and cap her personal financial exposure at any but a stratospheric level is, to put it bluntly, ludicrous. She may or may not know that, but the editors of the Wall Street Journal certainly do, and for them to put her story out as if her insurance problems would disappear if only the Affordable Care Act ceased to exist is nothing short of malpractice.

I've been reading the Wall Street Journal for 40 years. I used to read the editorial page every day, because years ago, you could trust them to get their facts right (or more impressively, to apologize when they got it wrong). They used to be the best news source in the world. Now they've turned into a Pravda for the right wing of the Republican Party.

I think Obamacare was a disaster. It's a conservative plan, based on a Heritage Foundation model, run through the private insurance companies, which are the most inefficient part of the system. We should have had single payer, which would have solved all those problems Sundby was complaining about, at half the cost. But Obamacare is better than what we had before.

You're neglecting to take into account the monetary value of being able to suspend your disbelief and imagine for a little while that your entire life won't be a miserable living hell of poverty. That's true for far more people in the United States than anyone is comfortable admitting. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/11/05/2890091/wage-income-data/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

Added later not even as an afterthought and with much struggle against it.
AND only for a small section of the population.

Also, emphasis on MOST in "built to accommodate most".

You all stupid? Where do you think the money comes from to treat the poor in ERs? The poor? They have no money, so you still pay for them!

Except you pay in very inefficient and expensive ways - the poor queuing at ERs till they get sick enough to treat, or committing crimes to get into prison to get healthcare ( http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/02/on-purposely-getting-arrested-to-get-life-saving-surgery/273282/ http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/08/27/2535201/sick-oregon-man-robs-bank-dollar-health-care-jail/ ). You also pay if one day you need ER treatment and don't get it because too many ERs have closed down: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/health/18hospital.html

So unless you are willing to euthanize the poor and sick, "single payer public health care" is the rational self-serving route for at least the "middle/upper class". It's still expensive but it provably costs less (just look at other countries). The elite class of course live in a different world - they may have their own doctors and pay proportionately less in taxes.

It should be frigging obvious taxes and other public money are ALREADY paying for the poor. But because of the many stupid AND selfish AND greedy people in the USA, you get some monstrosity of Obamacare. No poor sick person needs 1000 different health plans to choose from. You should automatically be covered by one public plan. If you don't want the public plan (or it doesn't cover your needs) you can go with whatever private plan you can afford.

9% profit margin is hand over fist?

Sure, 9% doesn't sound like a lot, but that was $118 billion this year and $137 billion last year. From Happy 100th Birthday, Big Oil Tax Breaks

Last year, the five largest oil companies — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil — earned $118 billion profit at a time when consumers paid record-high gas prices. This haul follows after a year the companies earned a record $137 billion profit.

Here, let me Google that for you:

http://ecowatch.com/2013/06/12/coal-companies-receive-taxpayer-subsidies/
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/13/463874/top-three-ways-that-american-taxpayers-subsidize-dirty-coal-development/
http://www.cato.org/blog/clean-coal-subsidies
http://illinoistimes.com/article-permalink-12589.html

Their argument, as laid out by House Republicans and libertarian organs like the Cato Institute and Reason magazine, is that the federal government shouldn't 'pick winners and losers' in the energy markets ...

Okay. Step 1: Cancel all subsidies / tax breaks and tax loopholes for the Oil Companies. Sure they're *only* about $2-4 billion / year, but it's a start. (Note: Reason.com - slogan "Free Minds and Free Markets - thinks these are okay).

Just noting from the Think Progress article:

Last year, the five largest oil companies — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil — earned $118 billion profit at a time when consumers paid record-high gas prices. This haul follows after a year the companies earned a record $137 billion profit.

There's a great book covering some of the science on this topic; reviewed here on NewScientist; very much worth the read. Actually what happens is that the crust "rebounds" in two phases. You can use the first phase to weigh the ice sheet as they are doing in Greenland. Then, the athenosphere (the molten layer, 15-150km deep which the crust/lithosphere sits atop) slowly slops in there and supplies extra heat and magma; generally quite a slow process, with some rebound from the last ice age still occurring.

Upshot: it's certainly possible that the events are related.

Our Sun was dimmer back in the past. And mankind is ramping up greenhouse gas concentrations and ocean acidification faster than has happened at any time during geologic times.

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/03/02/436193/science-ocean-acidifying-so-fast-it-threatens-humanity-ability-to-feed-itself/?mobile=nc

"⦠the current rate of (mainly fossil fuel) CO2 release stands out as capable of driving a combination and magnitude of ocean geochemical changes potentially unparalleled in at least the last ~300 My of Earth history, raising the possibility that we are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change."

The original poster said "The Olympics".

Cites for Sochi:

Billions stolen in Sochi Olympics preparations. The opposition alleges that Putin's buddies have stolen US$30b from the Sochi preparations (over half the $54b budget.)

"Corruption and censorship cast shadow over Russia's Games". Corruption, censorship and human rights violations.

Russia Cracks Down On Journalists, Activists Exposing Corruption Ahead Of Sochi Olympics. Putin's response to corruption claims, shoot the messengers.

And more generally:

Wrestling with corruption at the Olympics. Gives a more general overview of the long history of Olympic corruption. Put simply, it's baked into the DNA of the entire organisation.

Maybe they should start by requiring the military to demonstrate how everything it spends is in the 'National Interest'.

I think you'd lose a lot of pork.

The military has been doing that for years. These days, the primary skill needed by general officers is planning equipment and staff reductions while keeping some ability to fight. It's quite eye-opening to watch the talks by senior military staff that make their way to YouTube, and see e.g. an admiral talking about how the Navy plans to lose a carrier battle group - not in war, but to congress.

It's true that congress holds the purse strings for the military, but when over 60% of non-discretionary spending goes towards military spending, they're not going to suffer like paying down the national debt or stabilizing SS/Medicare. Their biggest problem are the spending cuts via sequester, but congress can always allocate emergency funds for anything they want and already have for some military spending.

Regarding the military demonstrate that they need something in 'national interest' to get funding is ludicrous. Just look at the F-35 Lightning II. That plane's construction has roots in almost every state (read section 7 Political Engineering). That's why you're not going to get rid of that pork so easily --even the Pentagon doesn't want F-35 features that the House is trying to force spending on.