We hope this pathetic torpedo test launch isn't necessarily indicative of our armed forces' skills. Otherwise... well, we're screwed.

Raytheon made an iPhone app for mapping units a combat zone, and for new types of communication, like "friending" other tanks. It'll presumably sell for, like, $50,000 in Apple's military app store, and still earn less than iFart. (Pic)

A deranged murderer attacked an Army base packed with combat-ready soldiers trained to kill. The only person who could stop him? A female civilian.

War and profit have long been pals. Governments and corporations make scads of dough on invasions, attacks, contracts and such. So why shouldn't some of that profit help recruit a record amount of new, financially strapped soldiers, right?

After a yearlong Army deployment to Iraq, how does it feel to enter Google's bubble of notoriously cushy working conditions, stateside? It's as disorienting as you might think, reports public affairs specialist Dale Sweetnam, now embedded with Google.

The Marines have banned Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, subject to exceptions for "mission-critical need." Staying in touch with family back home while fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is not mission critical.

There was a time not long ago that the US Army was desperate for any warm bodies with working (for now) limbs. Now they've got plenty of otherwise-unemployable Americans as soldiers, and they need officers. Hello, creative underclass!

Here's a twist on the classic "complain to a reporter's editor" school of aggressive media relations: a male Navy commander has filed a sexual harassment complaint against a female Miami Herald reporter. She called people "bitches!" And much more, allegedly.

The Post reports that 300 old school, "Heil Hitler" Nazis lurk in America, doing monstrosities like retiring in Michigan and tending flowers in Queens. Meanwhile, new school Nazis spread seeds of hate by makin' sweet love to Israeli women.

It's my understanding that if you're in the Army you can't just up and choose to move wherever you like, so one would think that an entire bizarre ad campaign devoted to convincing military people to move to your town would be a waste of time. But maybe "one" is not a patriot! Fayetteville, NC is "The World's First Sanctuary For Soldiers," a title that they clearly just made up. Why move to lovely Fayetteville, NC? Plenty of reasons! Let's examine a few:

Did you know that White Supremacists have their own social networking site? And that 40 of its users claim to be active duty military personnel? Yes, well. Is the rule against fascism enforced as stringently as the one against gays?

The new Harper's has a really scary piece on the evangelical Christian radicalization of the US Military, and to celebrate, here is an ex-Navy chaplain issuing a fatwa against one of its subjects.

What are these Somali pirates, Democrats? The four wretched bandits huddled in a drifting lifeboat surrounded by US Navy gunships are now demanding $2 million, or the knives come out:

Happy (in a somber way) Veteran's Day. If you're a young American aged 17-24, you might consider honoring the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform by joining the United States Army yourself! Sounds good, no? We all know the Army has been having some recruitment problems lately, what with the hopeless wars we're fighting and the psycho Commander in Chief and the excellent chance of being blown up. But the Army has decided to shift its sales pitch in order to lure you youngsters in. By talking more about Iraq!: They're adding a webcast called "Straight from Iraq" to their website, where soldiers will tell you the real deal about life in the desert war zone. Presumably not too real, though. They're also supercharging their marketing plan with the following changes: - More internet, less "sponsorships of professional rodeos." - The voice of Gary Sinise! - New commercial: "young workers in business attire suddenly start climbing walls. 'This company is filled with dreamers,' Mr. Sinise says." You'll have to join the Army to know how it ends! Of course, all of this is very much deck chair/ Titanic. If more people join the Army it will be because they can't get a job anywhere else since our economy collapsed. And if the Army was smart it would have one simple selling point: "Bush is gone." [NYT]

The plan was for Track to be the good kid in the Palin family. The athletically-named son of VP nominee Sarah Palin—who's set to ship out soon for Iraq—was portrayed as a symbol of patriotism on stage at the Republican Convention. But did he only join the Army to escape a life of drugs and crime back in Alaska? The newly famous enlistee gets the full investigative treatment from the Enquirer —which always saves the best stuff for the print version. Which we now have in hand! The young man has partied with some very talkative people. So: while Track was watching his mom enthrall the nation, was he really daydreaming of mainlining sweet, sweet Oxycontin and playing "master" criminal back home? We quote: Track is portrayed as the biggest bad boy in Wasilla. A serious drug problem, vandalism, theft, and partying are his main pastimes, allegedly. Which really wouldn't be that remarkable if the Republican party wasn't holding him up as, you know, a role model. If true, this would make the Palins a caricature: the country family with a pregnant teen, son on OxyContin, and a mom desperately trying to present a respectable face to the world. And failing. And honestly, everyone: the Enquirer does not represent the media elite. So the liberal media should be safely insulated from the backlash on this one. The best quotes from the Enquirer's story:

Outrage: people are making porn films at WWI monuments! At the Canadian National Vimy Memorial (pictured), a couple "stripped naked and performed sex acts beside the soaring stone structure," taped it, and put it on an online pay site. A police spokesman said, "It is a problem which appears to be getting worse -people appear to get a perverse pleasure out of this behaviour." Strange! Only a freak could believe that this noble structure's design connotes sexual organs somehow. But you have to think: if the spirits of all those deceased young guys really do rest in that monument, they wouldn't mind a little action once in a while. [Telegraph UK]

Americans used to covertly sell weapons and technology through Israel to Iranian moderates — sometimes with Ronald Reagan's approval. Today, Iran gets American military technology from companies in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore. Wired military tech writer Noah Shachtman writes: "The U.S. is the biggest arms-dealer in the world; soaring oil prices given Iran the cash to go get those weapons. It's nearly impossible to stop countries from reselling their U.S. weaponry to Iran." He links to a longer Mother Jones report on "transshipment." Got any info on specific made-in-Sunnyvale technologies that have leaked to the other team? Send 'em in. (Photo by Wikimedia)

Left: The head-turning photo that appeared all over the world yesterday. Right, the original photo. The New York Times, which ran the altered version, explains how the photo spread "from the Web site of Sepah News, the media arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards," to "the front pages of The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers as well as on BBC News, MSNBC, Yahoo News, NYTimes.com and many other major news Web sites." We lucked out by running other photos for variety. (Photo by Sepah News via AP)

Skip the politics, let's get to the tech: The Shahab-3 missiles that Iranian solidiers test-fired today — a blatant bring-it to Israel and America — could land a nuke in Tel Aviv. (The city's startup sector was recently dubbed the world's #8 tech hotspot by CNET, less than 240 milliseconds from Sand Hill Road and believe me, no packet loss from those guys.) The missile is based on North Korea's Nodong-1, an Iranian-funded adaptation of the Soviet Scud missiles that Saddam Hussein's troops lobbed at Israel in the first Gulf War. No, it's not true that these missiles are so old they use vacuum tubes instead of silicon chips. It's not true that their guidance systems are built from American GPS gear, as much as the Valley would like to take credit. What is true is that the Shahab-3's biggest vulnerability — a tendency to tumble out of control on the way down to the target — may have been fixed.

Movies about war: even more important than war itself! The Army has never been able to quite get this whole Iraq business to go well, but it's damn sure not going to sit back and allow moviemakers to make their films about this Iraq business without the extensive input and assistance of the US Army. They've always used their leverage-cooperation in filming-to try to influence movie scripts. But they're having a darned hard time with this most recent crop of war movies, which seem to present the Iraq war as big problem. The military's problem with films like In The Valley Of Elah or Redacted? They're just not nuanced enough, you see: