Links of the Day

Today's Link of the Day roundup:

• From Gizmodo: Liveblogging Couple May Have Been Captured By Somalian Pirates. (Somalian pirates, we!)
• What could be more eagerly anticipated than the revised DOD policy regarding social media? How about a revised policy regarding USB drives? Seriously, I hate burning CD-ROMs five to ten times a day. What is this, 1999? (H/T Karaka Pend)
• Congratulations to Pat O, an ROTC cadet in his last year of college at Georgetown University, who just discovered that he was branched infantry, which was his first choice. Pat, you are far braver than I!
• The Onion exclusive: US Continues Quagmire-Building Mission in Afghanistan. Pure genius (H/T Abu Muqawama)
• Spencer Ackerman reports that Nuristan province is almost completely under the control of the Taliban. Worse news, Taliban 2.0 has much stronger ties to al Qaeda than Taliban 1.0, which is one reason I oppose complete abandonment of Afghanistan.
• Finally, you may remember a quick article I wrote while I was hung over on R and R leave in Australia about the BigDog, a walker-like robot suited for the terrain in Afghanistan. (The article got picked up by the Early Bird--the Pentagon's official news wire. God, their standards must be low). Well, look out BigDog, here comes a two-legged walker variant called "Petman". While the technology probably isn't workable for an actual battle droid just yet, I think that in the next thirty or forty years, we might see robotics technology like this really take off. (I eagerly await my Cylon Model Six).