COOL TOYS: The Financial Times runs a pretty funny piece about a reporter who travelled with the U.S. military during a 5-day live fire exercise in Kuwait. The money quote:

"Some people look natural in a tank helmet, some look ridiculous. I belong in the latter category. But that doesn't matter: I don't feel ridiculous in a tank helmet, I feel like a WAR GOD."

Some will dismiss this as "boys with toys," but it's not just boys. A few years ago I was part of a group of postdocs that the Navy flew out to an aircraft carrier -- the USS John C. Stennis -- to observe carrier flight qualifications in the Atlantic. We got the full tour, which was just goddamn cool. Towards the end of the tour, one of my colleagues, who is a pretty hard-core peacenik, turned to me and said, "We only have fifteen of these carriers? We need twenty! No, thirty!"