F-22: For Whom The Bell Tolls

Senate killed the F-22 yesterday. The pricey boondoggle built in the image of a former age now frees up billions of dollars. Some of that money is already saved for the next boondoggle which gets it start in 2010. I'm happy that we're savin the dollars but as I personally not enthused about the F-35's prospects related to our government spending in the future.

Though I do like the way Robert Gates thinks:

to design and buy—as we have the last 60 years—only the most technologically advanced versions of weapons to keep up with or stay ahead of another superpower adversary, especially one that imploded nearly a generation ago. … We must break the old habit of adding layer upon layer of cost,complexity, and delay to systems that are so expensive and so elaborate that only a small number can be built, and that are then usable only in a narrow range of low-probability scenarios.