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A senior US general once criticised for saying it was "fun to shoot some people" has been picked to take over US Central Command, leading the military command running the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

From Reason Magazine: Meet Your New Commander-in-Geek - U.S. Cyber Command has no idea why it exists.... "It's not clear that anyone, even four-star general and National Security Agency head Keith Alexander, knows what U.S. Cyber Command is supposed to do now that it exists."

Instead of prosecuting elite computer hackers, the US government should recruit them to launch cyber-attacks against Islamist terrorists and other foes, according to a leading military thinker and government adviser. The brilliance of hacking experts could be put to use on behalf of the US in the same way as German rocket scientists were enlisted after the second world war, said John Arquilla, a professor of defence analysis at the US Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, in an interview with the Guardian.

"An Army reservist who took the stage at a political event for Ron Paul and expressed his support for the Republican presidential candidate could face legal troubles, the military said Thursday."

I'm not sure how to find the videos and pictures now, but I recall seeing in-uniform military members on the stage with John McCain in 2007 and various military members peppering political news coverage since, endorsing various candidates other than Ron Paul.

t’s too late to stop WikiLeaks from publishing thousands more classified documents, nabbed from the Pentagon’s secret network. But the U.S. military is telling its troops to stop using CDs, DVDs, thumb drives and every other form of removable media — or risk a court martial.

"Perhaps the idea of spy drones already makes your nervous. Maybe you’re uncomfortable with the notion of an unblinking, robotic eye in the sky that can watch your every move. If so, you may want to click away now. Because if the Army has its way, drones won’t just be able to look at what you do. They’ll be able to recognize your face — and track you, based on how you look. If the military machines assemble enough information, they might just be able to peer into your heart."

Military planners see a future of endless small-scale interventions in which a large, geographically dispersed collection of bases will always be primed for instant operational access. With bases in as many places as possible, military planners want to be able to turn to another conveniently close country if the United States is ever prevented from using a base.... Pentagon officials dream of nearly limitless flexibility, the ability to react with remarkable rapidity to developments anywhere on Earth, and thus, something approaching total military control over the planet.

Military service is mandatory for all Turkish men - they can only escape it if they are ill, disabled or homosexual. But proving homosexuality is a humiliating ordeal. Ahmet Gokhan had gone prepared with explicit photographs of himself having sex with another man, having heard that it would be impossible to get out of military service without them. "The face must be visible," says Gokhan. "And the photos must show you as the passive partner."

Seattle police worked with Army officials Monday to track down the history of a nonfunctional missile launcher that showed up at a weapons buyback program and determine whether it was legal or possibly stolen from the military. A man standing outside the event Saturday bought the military weapon for $100 from another person there, according to Detective Mark Jamieson.