The Seals are part of the Navy. And due to Sequestration, the Army will lose about 70,000 shortly.

The problem with accounting is indeed a problem. One doesn't not wave a magic wand and declare there to be accounting. DoD is vast, and they've never had a real audit. Their first real audit is coming due shortly, it took them years to prepare for it because new accounting systems had to be built to handle it.

And when it comes to money wasted, the biggest problem is Congress. DoD figures it has about 25% more physical plant than it needs, but it cannot cut it because it requires closing bases in congressional districts and Congress won't let them do that. They do go though a BRAC process about every 5 years and whack what they can, but Congress won't let them whack enough.

That said, the Air Force is easily the most stuck in the past. Their whizzy new planes are more or less overkill for Daesh. The A-10 is perfect for that, but the Air Force is tasked with countering China and Russia which have been putting money into advanced airplanes. Both have been putting new money into just about everything. This bodes trouble for the U.S. and the Biden Doctrine of bending over first, thinking if they see our a-holes, they'll realize we mean then no harm. So we get the Ukraine problem and China building a new island and new airstrip in the S. China Sea 1000 miles from any Chinese territory. The U.S. does nothing because the Biden Doctrine declares that if we smile a lot, the rest of the world will like U.S....unfortunately for the U.S., its allies that rely on it won't. So they too are starting to spend more on defense. The end result will be a lot of powder kegs splattered across the world that could go off for stupid reasons because men do stupid things. And that will force the U.S. defense budget higher in the long run, presuming the U.S. doesn't take one in the neck because it ignored an existential threat (N. Korea nuking LA, Iran nuking Washington (they are able to put satellites in space which you need to send one to Washington, etc.).

Really? How about they start by not doing anything, i.e., give up the patent nonsense on Android.

MS is nothing more than a snake waxing all indignant while the family dog is now a lump sliding down its body.

That's not sophisticated enough. The problem is we're taking eons of sequestered carbon and dumping it into the atmosphere all at once. Trees only sequester carbon for about 100 before they're broken down into CO2 and other stuff again. Think of it as time dilated burning. And planting the world over with trees cannot possibly capture all the sequestered CO2 we're dumping.

You don't understand the new libertarian ethos in Congress. Rules and regs stifle creativity. Oversight can be safely left in industry hands. Rand Paul and his fellow travelers are honored to be associated with lax oversight.

No, Scientology should not have tax exempt status because they produce no charity benefits to balance what some of their followers produce. The same cannot be said for the other religions. If it were up to me, you only get tax exemption based on the level of your charitable work, quantifiable charitable work that is. Getting tax exemption just because you have a religion is plain silly.

Because to physicists who spend their time working this problem seem to agree that 1 is most likely. 3 is being attacked all the time with new theories but it is sort of an unlimited well of human imagination.

In my opinion, it is like the WTC "theories". They get started because some yokel cannot understand the official explanations when others seem as likely. However, if you pick up Popular Mechanics book "Debunking 9/11 Myths" (especially the newer addition), they pretty much destroy the reigning alternative alleged theories. Why should I accept the book's version? Because they worked with scientists, engineers, and demolition experts who concur on the official explanation. Why do I not accept the alternative theories? Because they have little scientific analysis backing them. So I bow to the physicists who work the dark matter issue as being the experts and in a much better position to judge because, as intelligent and wonderful as I believe myself to be, I don't have their expertise.

TSA agents are mirroring society. Does your workplace only hire saints:

Hiring Supervisor: We like your credentials, are you certified as being a saint?

Prospective Employee: Yep, see these affidavits, I'm considered quite holy.

HS: So you wouldn't do anything untoward toward customers?

PS: Of course not, I'd jeopardize my saint status, I like being holy.

HS: Okay, you are hired, but be good!!

I agree. It sounds like the moral of the story is not to get in bed with Microsoft. It is well known mission creep kills budgets.

If poking at bush babies with a broken stick to hurt them enough to come out to be eaten constitutes a tool, then Fongoli chimpanzees of Senegal (NYT article) use tools. At least the females do, the males do he-male things like chase down their prey. It is thought the females do this because they are not big and brawny like the males. Actually, the males just feel like they are losing their testosterone if they stoop to using tools...or asking the females which direction their prey went.

Women thrive on social skills, it is impossible to encourage them to to have rubbish social skills. It is precisely because science and engineering do not foster social interaction that women find them, frankly, boring. So they eschew these careers.

Academic is a special case. They will accommodate oddballs more readily than business. You can be terrible socially in the business world, but that doesn't make you an oddball. It doesn't surprise me that academics misread the lack of women in science and engineering, they are quick to blame everything of social constructs because that is how they view the world. Thus academics see themselves as fixing the problems "created" by the business world, and tend to hire oddballs and women.

Why stop there? We must consider the Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians, Genghis Khan, etc. Let's regurgitate all the past sins from 1000s of years ago and bring them front and center so we can have new culture wars over them. Let's consider the murders Mohammed committed because the twit heard voices and presumed they were Gabriel.

And turning a blind eye to Daesh is not helping the world view Turkey in a favorable light. Erdogan has no problems with Daesh killing all non-Sunnis.

Don't give Marsha Blackburn any new ideas. She has none of her own and is just about the most vapid puff of pastry ever elected to the House.

Yes, but if they flip 1 million watches, Apple has still sold 1 million watches.

Please step away from the 50's and 60's, the "military-industrial" complex is way to small to effect the economy. DoD spend about $600 billion a year (of which about $300 Billion is spent on salaries, benefits, etc.) and that pales in comparison to the rest of the nearly $4 Trillion federal budget and won't budget the $17 Trillion U.S. economy. In fact, even large companies are doing all they can to get away from reliance on DoD because of uncertain funding and small ball funding.