Tuesday, February 12, 2013

It Is Just A Tuesday



  • I'm worried about this country- not in a middle aged, lived long enough to think things were better when I was young so they must be bad today kind of way. I'm worried about this country in a way that I think we may not overcome kind of way.
  • We are spending money like a crackhead whose just won the lottery and we are broke- not in a kind of sideways in our finances kind of way- we are broke and politicians and citizens alike feel because we are so broke we should be spending more money in the same irresponsible ways.
  • Odd.
  • Right now the President is saying to the effect,"Shave off 1% and that is our education budget."
  • Cool- shave off 2% of what we call entitlements and call it double good.
  • Insanity: DARPA has only recently killed a program where 50 million dollars was wasted determining the feasibility of a military truck that could convert to a vertical take off vehicle to fly over IED infested areas (yes, the idea was for fold out rotors from a truck that could then fly and to top it off requirements called for it to autopilot if the driver was incapacitated). At a glance any scientist would know this is essentially impossible to do in a cost effective manner. Interestingly, a car that converts into a plane has been in the collective conscious of every science buff for oh, about the last 70 years. The reason it has not happened is because it's impossible for two such highly specialised things to do the other well.
  • PS to the above thought which was written weeks/months ago: Yes,  that program was since killed but then recently brought it back from the dead. It won't work. It can't work and our government will waste billions of dollars to prove that when all they would have to do is ask me.

2 comments:

RPM said...

Think about the pricetag of F-22's and F-35's. Do we really need them right now? I'm all for a strong military, but are they the right tool for the threat we face? How many A-10's, Blackhawks and Apaches can you get for the price of 1 Raptor?

I'm in favor of a welfare/food stamps/ Medicaid overhaul, too. There is nowhere near enough oversight in that department. If we are going to spend on a tight budget we should spend smart.

Yes, I did sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

an Donalbane said...

The fate of the F-22 is already fait accompli inasmuch as its production run, just shy of 200 units, is completed. Outside of the pilot oxygen issue, it's a way nifty neato aircraft, but your point's well taken - to use against what?

Putin's not building cutting-edge fighters - he's buying up gold. The Chinese may be close to launching some decent jets - but to what purpose? Sino-American conflict, if it occurs, seems more economic than military, and as long as the CIC and USAG keep their mitts off our personal firearms, I don't see much point in any foreign attack on US soil.

I don't think we had vast supplies of fighters and bombers in December 1941, but we seem to have ramped up to meet the demand.