As reliable a source as wikipedia is, (or to cite the original source: a program report prepared by the US public service for the US Government) - the rest of the world doesn't see the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq as "military aid".

While I am a fan of the concept, it does look like that can will be undrinkable for some time on account of it being seriously shaken up.

Also, dropping a beer from that distance onto someone's head because the `shoot didn't deploy has got to be concern.

I think they would've been better to have the in a promotional beer cooler (stubby holder) on a string which they lowered to ground level (or reaching level for the recipient) then detached.

Meaning the three most effective ways to gain access are:
1. Take high res photos of people's desks as you walk past and read use the passwords that will be written on yellow sticky notes around the place.
2. Steal someone's phone or diary and look for the passwords they've noted in their contacts or notes.
3. When you find the password, which will be something like "skldjfsldfjsklfjsf!@*(#3-Feb13" and it's now 30 days later, try "skldjfsldfjsklfjsf!@*(#3-Mar13" or "skldjfsldfjsklfjsf!@*(#3-Mar14"

Because at the end of the day a human needs to remember these ridiculous passwords, and they will revert to either writing it down or using a pattern.

Yeah, what obama said in so many words.

It's much more important for us to put missiles on geostationary satellites than on the moon.

Why would you travel 300,000km further than you have to.

Couldn't agree more.

Defense is generally when you respond to protect yourself from an attacker.

Defense is not what the USA has done for many years.

More accurate words that describe what the USA taxpayer's 'defense' funding is used for are words like: Invade, attack, assail, assault, occupy, enforcement, pressure, coerce, compel, spy, dominate, afflict, oppress, encumber, harass, plague, torment, torture, trample ... etc.

I'm all for the USA having the biggest, most sophisticated and competent army in the world, it comes in handy when the leaders of TPLAC's (or northern peninsula communist regimes) go off the rails - but if it were for "Defense", you would expect to see a lot more of it inside the states, and not so much of it in places that never posed a real threat to the states.

Places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia & Vietnam.

Sooo,

Surely some boffin should've spent 5 minutes with one of these devices in a munitions locker to test if the damn thing worked?

Here we have stories of the Chinese setting up buildings full of hackers to thwart the western forces, when all they have to do is put 'this is rock repels rockets' stickers on rocks and get this guy to sell them to the UK and US military for $40,000 a pop.

Like lemmings off a freakin cliff.

"They are not very effective at reducing measurable symptoms, and not effective at improving outcomes. "

While we're on the topic why don't we just get it all out:

Mental illness is not a real illness.

People who suffer mental illness should just get the f*ck over it.

Real illness can be seen, touched, measured.

Placebos don't work, subjects just overwhelmingly report that they do.

Absolutely! This is bloody disgraceful!

There are side effects that can be caused by unnecessarily prescribing antibiotics. Furthermore, they're a bloody expensive form of placebo.

Doctors that prescribe placebos should be prescribing actual placebos - pills or injections that are inert (and cheap to by wholesale). This to do otherwise is in violation of the Hippocratic oath.

There's nothing wrong with a doctor prescribing inert placebos though. A doctor is employed to use science to help sick people and there is huge body of evidence that says that prescribing a placebo is more effective in the treatment of almost anything than prescribing nothing at all.

However, we the public shouldn't be paying for it. In fact the worst thing we could do is make placebos NHS/Medicade/Medicare funded. The effectiveness of a placebo has a correlation with the patient's perception of price. It is in the interests of patient care that private clinics charge exorbitant amounts for their placebos, and they force patients to pay the full fee. (evidence here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/99532.php ).

It's called science people.

You don't have a problem telling a dying relative in ICU that "they'll be fine", why do you have a problem if your doctor lies to you to get a better medical outcome? I employ my doctor to fix me, not make me feel good.

"Second, attacks that are meant to go after one thing can inadvertently hit something else (collateral damage)."

So, war was originally fought between kingdoms where the peasants didn't vote their king in. It was generally regarded as poor form to attack peasants because the kingdom relies on them regardless of who the king is. The king had a military, who fought other kings and other kings military.

In western society we evolved some strange rules of war, which evolved to 'civilized' war - when people would stand in lines at opposite ends of a clear paddock and shoot at each other. Snipers, assassins etc. were regarded as poor form.

We have uniforms for skirmishes, it's nice to have a uniform so you can easily tell if someone is on your side or not.

But then we had a couple of world wars and found that these Asians didn't play by 'civilized' rules. They somehow had this strange notion that war was about winning - sniping, torture, kamikaze, assassins, spies - were all valid means to an end. In a rather wicked turn of events, that 'end' was a western attack that resulted in the death of 100,000 to 200,000 Japanese civilians.

" In conventional warfare, attributation is easy: They're wearing distinctive uniforms. "
Veitnam was a further wake-up-call to the west, (that's the war we lost) - It started out with the south Vietnamese fighting the north, then we came in to help, but couldn't tell the difference between an north and south Vietnam combatant, and couldn't tell the difference between a combatant and non-combatant (what?! The CHILDREN are COMBATANTS?!) .

"This document underscores just how little our military and political leaders understand about this new theatre of war."

I couldn't agree more. Now we are fighting via remote control, in a world of mutual assured destruction, where the peasants vote for their kings(presidents) who wage war - so you could say that the civilian population is now at least in part responsible for their warlords.

So you tell me - just what is a "proportional response" to a 'drone' - a flying assassin that is controlled from the other side of the planet, given orders by a warlord who was elected by his peasants; that you can't kill, but it can kill you. It might target an individual, but could take your wife and children in doing so, depending on the orders that it's being given by your enemy, and the value they put on "collateral damage".

The rules of war have changed. The rules of mutually assured destruction and proportionate response are being re-defined.

Geneva never really had a chance of developing a document that would still be relevant in 10 years time.

Mod me up! Mod me up!

So, how much longer until China realizes that all they need to do to fully replicate western society is to give their citizens a right to vote every 4 years between 'thing 1' and 'thing 2'.

It's no real surprise how similar it is to live in an economic society under communist rule as it is to live in an economic society under democratic rule when modern democracy has done everything it can to resist any push to reform into a method of governance that gives people actual choice, rather than the illusion of choice.

Bradley Manning's case is a great example of the difference between pissing off a communist party, and pissing off a military that reports to a democratic government.

In China, you get torture then execution.

In America, you get torture (or is that "subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques"), prison, a theatrical presentation for the benefit of the public called "fair trial", prison, then death.

You say tomato, I say tomato.

So, we have those regulations in Australia too, and the sky didn't fall.

IP Telephony providers have had very little problem complying with this archaic regulation.

The clincher is that it's just as difficult to tell where a call originates when it's on a mobile network. You can, at best, tell what tower it is on. Not much use on a block with a high-rise apartment building.

With IP, the theory goes:
1. If the call originates from an IP Address that is fixed (eg. DSL) in location, give that location.
2. If it's not, but you know the address of the IP, give that location
3. Otherwise, give the billing address of the customer's service.

The problem in Australia is that the database isn't at all dynamic. You put the address in and in a few days it's available to emergency services - so, when someone calls from a mobile phone (that's not on the telstra network) or an IP Phone, emergency services get the billing address.

IMHO - If Skypeout is achieved by making international calls into France, then France can go jump. But if they've got a carrier interface (SS7 gateways and the like) inside the country's borders then they can put up with the same laws that the other Telco's in France (ie. their local competition) do.

Do a quick search online to get hold of some identity theft / credit card harvesting malware and modify it so it sends the capture to you.

Then, setup a transparent linux proxy server that replaces any executable file downloaded with your malware, and put it between your internet connection and an open wireless network.

Let the little turd use your free wifi internet to his heart's content, and wait for him to install the malware when he's trying to install something legitimate. Then, wait for your malware to send you the details of who he is, what his credit card numbers are etc.

Finally, go to the local coffee shop that gives out free wifi with every coffee purchased, and drop all those details you collected on pastebin.

Problem solved.

We should get rid of the whole huge military complex and replace it with drones.

We need flying drones, walking drones, floating drones and rolling drones.

Then we need to replace the current people who are flying this generation of drones with drones.

We can get piloting drones, strategy drones, driving drones, refueling drones and engineering drones.

Once we have that in place, Obama and Panetta can run the entire conflict without the need for any 'military complex'.

FREEDOM!!!!

Which only leaves the question - what does America do to employ it's 3.2 million servicemen and servicewomen who would then be unemployed and unskilled at anything useful?

I live in one of the colonies.

And I'll tell ya - I'd rather be poor in Australia than rich in England.

Actually, Truth be told, I'd rather be rich in England, but like, Robbie Williams rich, not just 'I own a BMW and my house in London' rich.

Because you can be poor in Australia and have a BMW and your own house. But Australia's got two other awesome things that London doesn't got - Sunshine, lots of it, and beaches lots of that too. (oh, and a whole lot of land that we're making a killing digging up and selling to the Chinese)
(and when I say beaches, I mean white or yellow sand and surf. I don't care what you call that place where water meets land in Brighton, but it's not a beach.)

So yeah, I don't mind paying my taxes back to the old country, I just see it as an annuity we're paying back to the people who stole this land from it's traditional owners and gave it to us - the poor sun-tanned over-taxed beach-bums of the colonies.