January 2014 - Argghhh!

I was pondering this while out doing errands on Monday. Cheap money (student loans) has vastly distorted the market in education, without improving education, but giving us some pretty spiffy buildings and administrators with fancy titles, nice paychecks, who are mostly just meddlesome tools. It occurs to me we need to fix the market on the student side. A credit hour is a credit hour is a credit hour, when it comes to cost. They ought to be priced at value. Why should an hour of physics cost what...

Easy. You got the Breda armorer's parts chest before you got the Breda. Because you knew, eventually, you'd get the Breda.

...but some people still came to work. Click the link to go to Ms. Markert's Flickr picture box . You'll be glad you did, she did us a service.

So *that's* where my COLA went. Good to know it stayed close to home. President Obama will announce in the State of the Union address Tuesday that he will use his executive power to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour for workers on new government contracts, fulfilling a top demand by liberal lawmakers and groups, according to a White House document. ... “Hardworking Americans — including janitors and construction workers — working on new federal contracts will benefit...

Just saw Sole Survivor. I have thoughts. For my non-military friends who see the movie. 1. Yes, we really do talk like that cornpone sappy dialogue. Even when getting shot at, and shooting back. And mean it. We are not "Coffeehouse Sophisticates" when we are about our business. Don't mistake that for an inability to engage in the coffee house, latte-boy. 2. If you walk out of that movie and don't completely understand why my tribe can get exercised about Stolen Valor - then I can't...

As someone who has spent a decade on the analytical side of the DoD procurement practices, this resonates. It actually reflects some of what I believe the Navy intended with LCS, except that we can't resist the "mission/requirements creep" that culture and massive senior egos, allied with hungry contractors and their allies in Congress, that causes the encrustation of "stuff" and extends development/procurement timelines and expands costs. The reform has to come from the uniformed...