They are even "Contracting Out" the Active Duty job.

The National Guard is supposed to be a Civilian force to be utilized by State Governors and as a ready backup source of emergency troop reinforcements. It's designed to harbor a large number of trained individuals who can back up the Active Duty force which is tasked with performing the operational mission.

As it stands now, the Pentagon calls more and more upon National Guard forces for deployment into combat zones. That has the advantage of reducing the number of Active Duty military, and that makes the politicos happy. "See, we've reduced the size of the military!" Nada. You have reduced the size of the workload by sharing it with people that are engaged with private industry, to the detriment of the industries/businesses who must do without a trained and productive leader for gigantic spans of time (90-180 days+). Could this possibly contribute to a business problem that expands the recessionary tendencies? Do we need some kind of "study" to reinforce the common sense on that?

We need to "right size" the mission to the Active Duty force that we have, or "right size" the Active Duty force to the mission at hand and leave the National Guard forces as a reserve force to deal with the inevitable coming day when the defecation hits the rotary oscillator.

Oh... and BTW.... The proper mission of our military is to kill people and blow things up. It needs to be an awesome and deadly force to be unleashed upon our enemies with fearsome and deadly precision and effect. If people anywhere near our sworn enemies move quickly away from them because death is likely to reign down from the sky at any moment, then we will have achieved the intended life-saving effect.

What of Publius?

Just the opposite. The President appears to be following the "Cloward and Piven" strategy for fundamental "change".
Tea Party members are not members of the John Birch Society. That small group of loonies has nothing to do with the grass roots organization that asks for the audacious move of "living within our means".
The fact is that the common sense approach which is to stop running up debt, and pay down our bills before we get to the point where we cannot, is being attacked as some kind of fringe position.
The trumpeted balanced approach is to continue to spend more than we take in, continue to borrow more and more, don't worry about the future of our kids: That is the prescription that simply does not make sense.
As for militias and civil war, there is no need for that. People are starting to wake up to the indefensible position that we keep going the way we have, we will lose our position in the world. That appears to be the goal, as I can see no rationality in the argument to continue borrowing.

BTW... The Tea Party is independent of Republicans. Many of them are just as complicit in the debt run-up as the rest of the politicos that have lead us into this mess.

This is the market at work. The effect of this activity is to lower prices to all. Movement of books from a less expensive channel to a more expensive channel equalizes the prices. The supply will be increased in the more expensive channel, tending to reduce the price. The essence of commerce is to find, obtain, or produce a good at a lower price than the market will bear.
When you think about the time that it takes to perform this function, the "value" of the time is determined by the person who expends the time. It was once famously remarked for Bill Gates at one point in his career, that if he dropped a $100 bill, it would not be worth his time to pick it up. Value is a function of supply, demand and desire. Water here in Indiana has a limited value. If I were in Death Valley, it would have a considerably larger value to me. Since folks are making money at this endeavor, they are making the personal determination that they can derive more value from the time used than spending it another way.
The intangibles are also a factor. I don't do this, but I like the smell of old books. I also love finding a gem such as a 1946 physics book on optical phenomenon. The hobby effect also cannot be discounted.
The bottom line is that the value determination is so complicated that it boils down to the question: "Does this have value to you?". As you have one life, and a limited number of hours (80x((365.25x24)-(365.25x8)) the only one who can make that choice is you.
(The above is a suggested calculation. You may not have 80 years, nor may you need 8 hours of sleep a night. Mileage may vary.)

"take the risk of trusting the student" and the whole "flavor" of your message describe someone that is just bumping along, doing "their job". We can't afford that type of administrator in our schools any more. Did this Vice know the student in question? Did he know of his reputation? Was he aware of his grades? Had he talked to his teachers about him? Here he was, in a situation that called for a quick decision, and he had failed to do his homework!
The question facing this vice went well beyond his "trust" of the student. A vice at a technical school should be conversant with science and technology. They could have had an interesting discussion of the device, the principles behind it's operation, any testing that the lad had done, etc. The vice could have easily obtained sufficient information to make an informed decision about hitting the panic button. That is, unless, again, he had failed to do his homework.

We have far too many adults in our schools today who have no drive to fill the calling, rather than performing the tasks. There are many who are not interested in "intellectual curiosity", but want a checklist for learning. Since there is no competition, there is safety and tenure. I'm sure that these kinds of folks laugh over their cuppa, checking their watch to find that they have two minutes left before they have to go back and deal with the monsters.

Don't take me wrong. There are many who care, but my point is that there are many who don't. This vice might be OK. I can't stereotype based on the limited info in the article. I just know that based on what I see (on one end), and the dwindling supply of parts at the local Radio Shack, it does not bode well for the technological future for lads like this who have not yet experienced the snuffing of the spark.

My hope and prayer is that this lad will rise above the insult and embarrassment. And that somebody will evaluate this vice to see if he's a help or a hindrance where he's chosen to reside.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CW0hGhINjc

While it might not be difficult to do the task, when's the last time you thought about squeezing a spleen like an orange and thought "I wonder what would happen if I squirted this juice thru my $150000 cell counter....?"

I did not really dig too deep into it, but I remember that the process of quantifying populations of cells using laser light scatter is the integral process of Flow Cytometry. You can get fancy with antibodies and tagging, but that technology is sometimes imbedded in some of the simpler cell counters like the CellDyn. (I know, I'm dating myself.)

The process that you are speaking of is called Flow Cytometry.
It's used often on peripheral blood.

I think that the monsters are the ones from Monsters Inc, Public Scrutiny is represented by the children being scared, and guess who the spider is? I can't believe that y'all were thinking that you were getting rid of the bad guy!!!!!!

As a common utility, they have an implied obligation to deal openly and fairly. After all, we are talking about computer security here.
Transparency is a requirement here. If you won't buy that, at the least it is a customer expectation.
I myself gave up on Symantec a long time ago, but this just confirms my awesome foresight. ;-)

That they are there but that they're avoiding us

Speaking as a blood banker involved with the Military Frozen Blood Program 10 years ago, Units are now 30 years old and still viable. I believe that there are official requests into the FDA to approve longer storage based on work with units that are that old. Theoretically, there is no reason why they would not last indefinitely.
Of course, this is speaking of the Red Blood Cells (RBCs). Because RBCs are simpler than stem cells, there might be a difference in viability in long term storage. Your mileage may vary.