Why Don't They Just Watch The Jetsons?

When I first descried this article the other day, I thought, "Oh my, someone at the Pentagon has some unhealthy childhood baggage", perhaps, more depressing, with possible Oedipal strings, related to the horrible program, 'My Mother The Car'.



Pentagon’s Flying Car Program Takes Off

The Pentagon’s far-out research agency has unveiled more details of their plan to create a shape-shifting, multi-purpose car.

Flying cars have been tried before, dozens of times. And a few of the efforts have even succeeded. But the Pentagon concept is several steps ahead existing vehicles, like the Terrafugia Transition, which is more like a light-weight plane that can, by folding up its wings, operate on land. The Transition also needs runways for takeoff and landing, and can’t fly in harsh weather.

And, in what could either mean revolutionary progress or massive failure, this initiative has out-there military agency Darpa behind it. In January, the agency, who’ve been toying with the flying car idea since at least 2008, hosted a proposal’s day workshop for their new Transformer (TX) project. At the time, details were sketchy: Darpa wanted a “morphing vehicle body” that could operate largely autonomously, reducing the chance of human piloting error in high-risk war-zones. Plus, the agency’s initial documents noted, a hovering car would be able to cruise over obstacles and avoid areas rife with IEDs.

[snip]

It’s a lofty plan, albeit one with a relatively small budget: Darpa’s allotting around $55 million to the development and testing of prototypes.

Holy Cow!

They got "around $55-million to play with?

This has to go down as another classic, over-spending, fraud waste by the Pentagon.

Just show'em an episode, or two, of 'The Jetsons'!

They can't back-engineer this?

The Jetsons Tv Intro




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Hey, You Iowans, Read This Before Pulling The Levers!

Since we brought up "bipartisanship" yesterday, here's a post we were remiss including in it.

Glenn Greenwald, in Salon yesterday, has a sobering and staggering post, that, as he argues, should be discussed and debated, but surely, as the sun rises over a corrupt and morally bankrupt White House every day, it won't be.

Here's some caveats to cringe over;

"Our military spending exceeds the rest of the world's spending combined, and we spend almost 10 times what the second-place country, China, spends."

"The US military budget was almost 29 times as large as the combined spending of the six "rogue" states (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) who spent $14.65 billion."

"In indisputable sum, we are the world's empire, in a state of permanent war readiness. In American politics and policy, there is no distinction between "peacetime" and "war." We're the most militarized country in the world by far, on permanent war footing, far beyond what anyone could ever remotely argue is necessary for "defense" or a "strong defense," no matter how broad a definition one wants to adopt for those terms."

"Nonetheless, it's still worth noting (as Matt Stoller recently documented) that despite all the incessant chatter about "change" and the intensity of election conflicts, our most significant, dubious policies -- the ones that actually shape what kind of country we are and how we are perceived around the world -- don't really get debated at all. Those who try to are quickly and widely dismissed as fringe, insane, angry, deranged "crazies.""

There's links, charts, graphs and pie charts to go with it.

Read The bipartisan consensus on U.S. military spending

It's likely to define the country you live in for the rest of your life.