You know something - I just tried to load this website as the article looks interesting. But it was taking forever to load. So I downloaded YSlow to find out what on earth was causing the problem, and the site has:

* 41 external javascript files

* 22 external CSS files

* Totals to 2106.9K of files, of which 1151.4K are javascript files, and 598.9K in images. It took 204 HTTP requests to get this page to load.

* has about 37 different DNS lookups to get access to all the files

One of the websites that host external javascript files took over 9 seconds to load approximately 350K.

On top of this, I've never seen so much analytics and tracking on any website - ever!

Seriously, someone needs to have a good look at the way that this site is constructed. Such a massive bandwidth hog - and noticably slow!

Visiting Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) for the first time, their Vietnam War museums reminded me of the consequence of a tactical advantage (like air superiority) in the context of a failed strategy (like invading without a good reason).

You lose wars.

The life and business on the streets there reminded me what happens when you don't invade for no reasons.

Capitalism flourishes.

At least from what you see on the street level, capitalism is doing better there than in the bailout-laden U.S.

Did I oversimplify? Of course. But until the U.S. shows some strategic intelligence like "don't invade countries without a reason" its tactical choices will always fail too.

By the way, they call it the American War there.

  F-35 lacks the F-16's agility in the air-to-air mode and
  the F-15E's range and payload in the bombing mode, and it
  can't even begin to compare to the A-10 at low-altitude
  close air support for troops engaged in combat.

I just assume they're funneling huge portions of that money into secret projects. How else do they get their hands on a spare $100 billion without anyone noticing?

Better to seem incompetent than reveal you've got a warp drive/time machine/transporter project.

I know it's kind of an optimistic view, but it does make me feel better.

Have a look at all the bells and whistles that pop out for vertical take off: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm7_PPE-8nk

Those are all intricate mechanisms that need to withstand severe levels of stress.

The clusterfuck of competing requirements reminds me almost exactly of the space shuttle, a similar disaster that barely worked.

The shuttle could have been really awesome had its requirements only been set by NASA. Instead they had the NRO and other agencies jumping in there with space-irrelevant stuff that never even got used.

This is kind of an unfortunate title for those of us that still remember 9/11.

Software isn't the only thing that suffers from feature creep (or bloat). The V-22 Osprey has similar problems, driven by their attempt to meet the requirements of all the branches of service.

I really like the F-22 - they should've kept building it and maybe modified it for different purposes. The F16 are also pretty capable.

The only way the F35 will pay for itself is if it can turn into a space fighter :-D - otherwise, with all those components onboard, it will cost even more to maintain it over the next several decades.

Heck, in a real war, I'd rather take something simpler that is easy to build and cheaper to repair - Russia seems to have it right with the SU/MIG 3X, which are just perfected 2X designs...

This story will also have strong significance for Canadians, whose government is currently in the throes of a controversy over how much we're planning to spend to buy a fleet of F35s.

They'll never admit that war is an outdated business model.

But the military industrial complex needs to be slowly starved to death.