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army men

" A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction...

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together."
Dwight D. Eisenhower

army men

""We want to give our troops at least a two-horsepower augmentation of strength and endurance," says Ephrahim Garcia, who directed the exoskeleton program at DARPA and is now a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor at Cornell University. The agency gave $50 million in grants to Sarcos, a Salt Lake City engineering firm; Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn.; and the Human Engineering Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley to create a legs-only exoskeleton ready for trials by 2003. A whole-body version could be ready by 2005.

Garcia says versions of the suit could be created for different missions. "Now the soldier can carry 120 pounds and move 2 kilometers an hour," he explains. But, with a suit designed for deep reconnaissance, "he will be able to carry 200 to 300 pounds, which will feel like 5 to 10 pounds, and he'll be able to go as fast as 8 kilometers an hour."

army men

army men

"I refute every moral lesson my parents ever taught me about how I
somehow "owe" the world something simply for not being a complete
fucking retard. The only thing I owe is to myself- because our entire
country is going down hill fast- to accumulate as much fucking cash as
I can in my life and build up walls both literal and figurative to
protect myself from the violent and simpleminded. I don't have the
energy anymore to keep feeling bad for, or empathizing with, people
who are this. freakin'. idiotic. South Dakota is running itself into
the pits, and the worse they get the more any remaining intelligent
people will leave, which will further run that wintry cesspool into
the ground. And fuckin' good riddance, I say, in all the blood and
pain and anguish that will mean to personal lives as that state is in
its death throes."

hincandenza, from the metafilter comments page