Population growth is outstripping the growth of active doctors in the US. There are only so many physician training programs available, and they can train only so many new doctors without a significant infusion of money to expand the programs. Even if this money comes along, the time it will take to bring the programs together will be on the order of a couple of years, and then it's another decade before those first students in the expanded program are able to start making a dent in the backlog.
I can't find it now, but I saw numbers from a group that represents medical schools suggesting that the shortage of doctors in the US will reach 40,000 sometime in the middle of this decade and exceed 100,000 in the mid-2020s. If I do run back across them, I'll post the link. One can take the numbers from what is basically a trade group with a grain of salt, but I've heard similar claims from other sources as well.
The reply above yours from fyngyrz suggested a 20% increase in the wait times and used 10-day appointment delays and 48-minute office waits as examples. These may well be the case where he lives, but my doctor in a suburban area, who is a bit more selective about taking new patients, still has at best a three-week wait, and my doctor before him had close to a month's wait for anything non-emergency. Showing up at the office wasn't an hour's wait -- it was often 3-4 hours' delay until even the nurse practitioner could see a walk-in. This doesn't factor in the ongoing decrease in doctors per capita.
It is a very complex question. I was just attempting to highlight one aspect of the list of factors, not claim that this was the only or even a main reason against universal healthcare. I'm not opposed to it in principal, but it's very easy to break the system worse than it already is if it's badly implemented. Should the Supreme Court rule against it, I don't know how it could be done.
The presence of national healthcare doesn't necessarily solve the issues. Doctors in the US often become doctors for the pay. A significant proportion become specialists because they can command even higher pay. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2008, the average pay for family and general physicians was $186,000, while the average pay for specialists was nearly double at $340,000. Specialists often go that route to help pay off student loans, which can reach more than $200,000.
The US is also not coming up with enough doctors, with about 70% of doctors working as specialists, and existing shortages are going to become much bigger problems down the line. Of course, as it takes years to train a doctor, whatever solutions are brought up now are going to take a decade -- at least -- to bear fruit.
Whether it's the right path or not, universal healthcare will exacerbate the effects of that shortage.
Insurance will generally cover you if you travel and a medical emergency comes up, though they may pressure you to transfer to a local, in-network hospital as soon as you're able. This is preferable anyway, as your own doctor is more available and your friends and family can visit and support you. Coverage is sometimes less, but that can be appealed and is often overturned depending on the circumstances. Going to an out-of-network doctor for a cold you have in another state isn't likely to be well-covered, while having a heart attack is going to be pretty much fully-covered.
Breaking house arrest doesn't necessarily mean prison. It may just mean county jail.
Had he shown up with an unloaded firearm or a small, dull knife, he would have gone to prison but probably would have tacked five years onto the sentence.
Those are accepted for a value that is relatively fixed, or at least doesn't fluctuate all that much. The value of Bitcoins can and do fluctuate a great deal. It's sort of like the difference between a donation of IBM stock and a donation of a random penny stock.
I don't think they were foolish to accept Bitcoins. Even selling them at a low rate gets them more money than they had before the donation (presuming that it covers costs). But setting a preference for something of more stable value is also within their rights.
What is the other war that was started? Bush authorized strikes in Yemen with the consultation of the Yemeni government, and there's some evidence that at least one was performed by manned aircraft. An AC-130 was used in several strikes in Somalia under Bush and I think also under Obama. The US armed forces have been engaged in several countries, but since we find out after the fact (if we find out) and it's usually somewhere between days and months between activities, most people don't stress much over it.
He's not going to Congress because the majority of Congress won't support it. It seems also that the majority of Congress won't come out and oppose it, as they know that it basically condemns the Libyan rebels to stalemate at best and death at worst; they're generally more upset that Obama is skipping past them. Obama's position is little different from every president since Nixon vetoed the measure, though they have provided reports "consistent with" as opposed to "as required by" the War Powers Resolution. Obama is trying to work with a technicality of language and the separation of powers, whereas previous presidents have tried to be a little more friendly.
I agree with the action in Libya. We can't help everywhere, but we can help here. I'm not sure how I feel about deliberately targeting Qaddafi as the head of another sovereign nation, but he has few friends anymore aside from perhaps Hugo Chavez (numerous countries have already recognized the National Transition Council as the legitimate government and expelled diplomats who continue to back Qaddafi), and not many people will shed a tear over his death, whenever and however it comes. If he's still in power when NATO ceases operations, odds are that a huge swath of the Libyan people will bear the brunt of his anger. Without ground forces, which no one wants to send in, it's only going to be a lucky bomb or someone in his inner circle that takes him out. Otherwise, the rebels remain a poorly-trained force with little discipline whose front-line members think that simply grabbing a gun and shooting in the direction of highly-disciplined, well-trained, pro-Qaddafi forces is sufficient.
It may go a bit better. The rebels have made a few gains recently in western Libya, with pro-Qaddafi forces pulling back rapidly enough that they've left behind clothing and ammo. The major problem now is money and lack of arms flow, something that Tripoli has less of an issue handling.
I work as a non-union contractor in an otherwise largely-union environment. The general workers have one union and the managers have another union. Most of the people just want to get their work done and go home. I don't see too many differences between my contracting colleagues and the employees. The union is vocal, but has understood that not everyone can keep their jobs in the current environment. They accepted unpaid furloughs in lieu of actual pay rate cuts, and when the numbers clearly showed that wasn't working, they accepted that a lot of people had to be laid off. While I disagree with some of their stances, they're a reasonable union in my books.
OTOH, my dad worked in aerospace for the better part of two decades. Union actions were fairly common. He took part in them for a while until he saw union reps being driven up in towncars and limousines, wearing expensive clothes, and generally doing a lot better than he did. Eventually, he lost faith in them and started crossing the picket lines. He had an advantage that others did not, though. At more than six feet in height, looking every bit the biker that he was, and with most people knowing that he had plenty of other biker friends at the plant who had his back, no one messed with him or his truck or motorcycle. Other people who crossed the lines weren't so lucky.
Incidentally, his willingness to cross the lines and keep working got him transferred to working on military aircraft (tankers and cargo planes). He still says, many years after that company ceased to exist, that he was happier seeing through his work ethic and getting something done than being on the picket lines, losing money while union leaders haggled for weeks over a few cents an hour worth of pay or benefits.
A few hundred pounds absolutely is taken into consideration on a 300,000-pound plane. The very article to which you linked includes a note on a table saying, "Less paint reduces takeoff weight and fuel consumption considerably."
A standard layer of paint is not going to destablize a plane, but lead protections along wiring conduits is going to impact payload and fuel consumption. If a 747 gets a new radio that weighs a half-pound more, its weight and balance charts have to get updated.
The risk is very small. But I can tell you that a cell phone left on can be a communications problem at least. I fly small planes, and my instructor had an iPhone and often forgot to turn off the radio before he tucked his bag in the back. On occasion when in flight, there would be the tick-tick-tick-tick of it trying to connect to a tower. This would sometimes happen when communicating with air traffic control, and we'd get a very firm request to disable all cell phones in the aircraft.
An airliner should be better shielded than a Cessna, but I don't know how much better, and the connections to the antennae may well run within a few feet of the passengers. Given my experience, I am generally extra-careful to switch my phone into airplane mode, though I rarely shut it down completely.
The fastest way to get from LA to DC via train is via Chicago. Most of the major western and Midwest stops run their traffic from DC through Boston via Chicago. From LA to DC, it's the Southwest Chief into Chicago (43 hours) and then the Capitol Limited (17.5 hours) with a few hours in between, for a total of 63 hours of travel. LA to New York is actually worse, with the second leg, the Lake Shore Limited, taking 20 hours. Basically, it's three days of travel in each direction.
An alternate is to go from LA to DC via the Sunset Limited into New Orleans and then the Crescent into DC via Atlanta, but that takes 83 hours and involves an overnight stay, which for comfort's sake probably means a hotel room.
Ticket prices for that are expensive, too. Looking at leaving on Tuesday, 31 Sept 2011, for LA-DC via Chicago, a basic coach seat is $203 each way if you buy well enough ahead of time, plus meals. One could bring one's own food and drink, but that may get bulky and/or bland. Changing it to a Superliner Roomette (3.5 feet by 6.5 feet) boosts the price to $701, though that includes dining. The Roomette has a second bunk for someone else to join (must add the $203 base ticket for a total of $904). A family of four can go in a 5'2"x9'5" Family Bedroom for $2522 (4 tickets at $203 plus SWC room at $1184 and CapLtd room at $526); two of the bunks are under five feet in length and intended for children. All of the listed options use shared showers and toilets. An option for private shower/toilet is available with the Superliner Bedroom. This sleeps two (three if two are willing to share the bottom bunk), is 6.5 feet by 7.5 feet, has a recliner and the bottom bed is converted from a sofa. This costs $2253 for two people or $2456 for three people.
Summary:
- $203 per person for coach (plus food, which ranges from $6 to $23 depending on which meal, not including beverage, based on the Capitol Limited menu)
- $452 per person for Superliner Roomette
- $631 per person for Family Bedroom
- $819 to $1127 per person for Superliner Bedroom
This is for each direction of travel, and is the lowest price I could find (the prices can be different on other days). This is, based on 2.5 days of travel, about $100 per day at coach (presuming $30 per day in food) to $180 per day with the Roomette to $252 per day with the Family Bedroom to up to $450 per day with the Superliner bedroom. Coach makes economic sense, but I don't know how comfortable those seats are going to be for overnight sleeping. The rooms start making little sense, as I can get a room for five days with a friend in DC plus airfare for a lot less than the $900 round-trip cost, even factoring in some nice food. As things move up from there, it makes even less sense.
Sure, there's something romantic about taking a train across the country. I'd probably even like to do it one day. But there's just nothing there that makes economic sense for regular travel.
That may be. But it doesn't change the fact that the electorate is fickle, and is not easily penned into the conventional Democrat/Republican (or even liberal/conservative) camps.
California Republicans elected to office are not the same as Republicans in most of the rest of the country. They tend to be much more moderate, just as Schwarzeneggar was. For that matter, most of the Democrats tend to be more moderate, backing the death penalty because that's what gets people elected for the most part.
I don't know about the rest of the world, but it is long-established precedence in the US that a court can order a party to fulfill its contractual obligations. I suspect this goes back to pre-US British common law, and that Britain and the British Commonwealth have similar tendencies. This doesn't remove the possibility of the court ordering financial remuneration in addition.
Most of them already do that. I've even seen TSA refuse to review bags that are too big for the overhead compartments, directing the passenger to check the bag. The gate agents have likewise required certain people to gate-check bags that are unlikely to fit in overhead compartments.
That doesn't seem to help the prices much for many of the places I fly. Southwest occasionally comes in $20 or so under the others, but often is as or more expensive than the majors. Even flying from Los Angeles into Dallas, Southwest's hometown, it's often more expensive than American and sometimes even United and Continental -- even when Continental is flying into Love Field.
When moving into some states that ban assault rifles, you may not bring rifles into the state that are currently banned, even if they were purchased before the ban date and hence would be grandfathered in had you lived in the state. If you try to register them, they'll be confiscated, and if you don't register them, you run the risk of being charged with felony possession of a firearm.
Unions aren't as prevalent in California as you might think. The ones that get all the news are the public employee unions, and they are problematic, but the overwhelming majority of the rest of us neither are union members nor want to be part of a union. California's overall union level is 17.5% of all wage and salary employees.
California does have a balanced budget provision in its constitution, and has for many years now, with long-term debt for general use prohibited except by voter approval, which isn't a strong likelihood. The deficits are usually handled by borrowing from various accounts or using accounting tricks, but over the last couple of years, even those who have fought cuts the hardest have realized that they cannot avoid cuts, and the actual outlays have been dropping rapidly. It's going to drop even more rapidly if the governor can't get a few Republicans to vote to put his tax extensions on the ballot, and even if he can, I don't think the people will approve them.
It did pass through the Texas House, and did so without a Nay vote. It was the Texas Senate that changed things up at the last minute when the federal DOJ began issuing memos about the consequences.
This would have been almost instantly stayed by the courts had it been signed into law. It would be on hold until it made its way to the Supreme Court which would, I suspect, overturn it on about a 7-2 basis, if there was any dissent.
Ctrl-Down Arrow works in at least some Windows applications to skip paragraphs. I think that's common as long as the common Windows text controls are used. Not sure if it works under Linux or Mac.
Isn't there an option to cash them in early for less than the face amount? It would lose money for the Chinese, but it might also create a cash problem for the US.
While I agree with you on the economic front, China would have difficulties if they tried something like getting Kim to invade the South. North Korea's military is something of a joke technologically speaking, relying on numbers. Their most advanced aircraft are a few dozen MiG-29s, and the remainder are 1970s and older aircraft. Their armor is even older than what the allied forces faced in Desert Storm. Besides, it's not in China's economic interest. Remember that message that was released by Wikileaks about China's thoughts on North Korea? While they see an advantage in having North Korea as a barrier between China and US forces, they're OK with South Korea running the entire peninsula, too, provided it comes about by peaceful means in large part because they don't want to deal with the refugee influx.
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be similarly disastrous. China does not have the landing capacity required to perform an invasion of the island. About eight or nine years ago, there was a paper published in China talking about how it could commandeer fishing boats, ferries, and other civilian vessels to cross enough soldiers for an invasion. The losses, however, would be extraordinarily high, and it's not at all certain that China could obtain air superiority over the island, or if it did, that it could retain it, particularly once US forces get involved. Maybe in 15 years they could (and that may be what the slow build-up of a blue-water navy is about), but not right in the immediate future.
No one has been convicted of, let alone executed for, treason in decades. Aldrich Ames provided enough information to Russia to almost reset the CIA's HUMINT operations and he just got life in prison after pleading guilty to espionage.
Getting a clearance involves no threat of execution. For most people, the threat of having the clearance yanked is plenty to keep their mouths shut. If you think that it's just the threat of punishment that changes one's world, consider the different views that have come about due to what Wikileaks has published. Sure, much of it was pedestrian, but there are those which switch up how countries were believed to be acting, and the information is even more detailed in the world of the TLA.
I'm not sure how many people get this kind of talk, but I recently spoke with someone regarding possible work at a TLA. I asked about a number of things that could not be answered for reasons of operational security, but I also asked about the clearances and what they bring. I was told quite clearly that the information one gets to see after the clearance is granted is enough to change one's world-view rapidly, drastically, and irrevocably. I was also told that I would almost certainly be disturbed by a number of things that I would learn. The upshot is that I would have a better idea of what is going on in the world; the downside is that I would not be able to discuss it with anyone without a clearance, and because Top Secret/SCI is involved for almost everyone, that would make it a little trickier to find someone who is briefed in on whatever it is that's on my mind.
I don't think I'm ready for it yet (and I'm not really near any of the locations anyway), but it's something that I may pursue in a few years. If I do, I will not be going in completely blind.
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Population growth is outstripping the growth of active doctors in the US. There are only so many physician training programs available, and they can train only so many new doctors without a significant infusion of money to expand the programs. Even if this money comes along, the time it will take to bring the programs together will be on the order of a couple of years, and then it's another decade before those first students in the expanded program are able to start making a dent in the backlog.
I can't find it now, but I saw numbers from a group that represents medical schools suggesting that the shortage of doctors in the US will reach 40,000 sometime in the middle of this decade and exceed 100,000 in the mid-2020s. If I do run back across them, I'll post the link. One can take the numbers from what is basically a trade group with a grain of salt, but I've heard similar claims from other sources as well.
The reply above yours from fyngyrz suggested a 20% increase in the wait times and used 10-day appointment delays and 48-minute office waits as examples. These may well be the case where he lives, but my doctor in a suburban area, who is a bit more selective about taking new patients, still has at best a three-week wait, and my doctor before him had close to a month's wait for anything non-emergency. Showing up at the office wasn't an hour's wait -- it was often 3-4 hours' delay until even the nurse practitioner could see a walk-in. This doesn't factor in the ongoing decrease in doctors per capita.
It is a very complex question. I was just attempting to highlight one aspect of the list of factors, not claim that this was the only or even a main reason against universal healthcare. I'm not opposed to it in principal, but it's very easy to break the system worse than it already is if it's badly implemented. Should the Supreme Court rule against it, I don't know how it could be done.
The presence of national healthcare doesn't necessarily solve the issues. Doctors in the US often become doctors for the pay. A significant proportion become specialists because they can command even higher pay. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2008, the average pay for family and general physicians was $186,000, while the average pay for specialists was nearly double at $340,000. Specialists often go that route to help pay off student loans, which can reach more than $200,000.
The US is also not coming up with enough doctors, with about 70% of doctors working as specialists, and existing shortages are going to become much bigger problems down the line. Of course, as it takes years to train a doctor, whatever solutions are brought up now are going to take a decade -- at least -- to bear fruit.
Whether it's the right path or not, universal healthcare will exacerbate the effects of that shortage.
Insurance will generally cover you if you travel and a medical emergency comes up, though they may pressure you to transfer to a local, in-network hospital as soon as you're able. This is preferable anyway, as your own doctor is more available and your friends and family can visit and support you. Coverage is sometimes less, but that can be appealed and is often overturned depending on the circumstances. Going to an out-of-network doctor for a cold you have in another state isn't likely to be well-covered, while having a heart attack is going to be pretty much fully-covered.
Breaking house arrest doesn't necessarily mean prison. It may just mean county jail.
Had he shown up with an unloaded firearm or a small, dull knife, he would have gone to prison but probably would have tacked five years onto the sentence.
Those are accepted for a value that is relatively fixed, or at least doesn't fluctuate all that much. The value of Bitcoins can and do fluctuate a great deal. It's sort of like the difference between a donation of IBM stock and a donation of a random penny stock.
I don't think they were foolish to accept Bitcoins. Even selling them at a low rate gets them more money than they had before the donation (presuming that it covers costs). But setting a preference for something of more stable value is also within their rights.
What is the other war that was started? Bush authorized strikes in Yemen with the consultation of the Yemeni government, and there's some evidence that at least one was performed by manned aircraft. An AC-130 was used in several strikes in Somalia under Bush and I think also under Obama. The US armed forces have been engaged in several countries, but since we find out after the fact (if we find out) and it's usually somewhere between days and months between activities, most people don't stress much over it.
He's not going to Congress because the majority of Congress won't support it. It seems also that the majority of Congress won't come out and oppose it, as they know that it basically condemns the Libyan rebels to stalemate at best and death at worst; they're generally more upset that Obama is skipping past them. Obama's position is little different from every president since Nixon vetoed the measure, though they have provided reports "consistent with" as opposed to "as required by" the War Powers Resolution. Obama is trying to work with a technicality of language and the separation of powers, whereas previous presidents have tried to be a little more friendly.
I agree with the action in Libya. We can't help everywhere, but we can help here. I'm not sure how I feel about deliberately targeting Qaddafi as the head of another sovereign nation, but he has few friends anymore aside from perhaps Hugo Chavez (numerous countries have already recognized the National Transition Council as the legitimate government and expelled diplomats who continue to back Qaddafi), and not many people will shed a tear over his death, whenever and however it comes. If he's still in power when NATO ceases operations, odds are that a huge swath of the Libyan people will bear the brunt of his anger. Without ground forces, which no one wants to send in, it's only going to be a lucky bomb or someone in his inner circle that takes him out. Otherwise, the rebels remain a poorly-trained force with little discipline whose front-line members think that simply grabbing a gun and shooting in the direction of highly-disciplined, well-trained, pro-Qaddafi forces is sufficient.
It may go a bit better. The rebels have made a few gains recently in western Libya, with pro-Qaddafi forces pulling back rapidly enough that they've left behind clothing and ammo. The major problem now is money and lack of arms flow, something that Tripoli has less of an issue handling.
I work as a non-union contractor in an otherwise largely-union environment. The general workers have one union and the managers have another union. Most of the people just want to get their work done and go home. I don't see too many differences between my contracting colleagues and the employees. The union is vocal, but has understood that not everyone can keep their jobs in the current environment. They accepted unpaid furloughs in lieu of actual pay rate cuts, and when the numbers clearly showed that wasn't working, they accepted that a lot of people had to be laid off. While I disagree with some of their stances, they're a reasonable union in my books.
OTOH, my dad worked in aerospace for the better part of two decades. Union actions were fairly common. He took part in them for a while until he saw union reps being driven up in towncars and limousines, wearing expensive clothes, and generally doing a lot better than he did. Eventually, he lost faith in them and started crossing the picket lines. He had an advantage that others did not, though. At more than six feet in height, looking every bit the biker that he was, and with most people knowing that he had plenty of other biker friends at the plant who had his back, no one messed with him or his truck or motorcycle. Other people who crossed the lines weren't so lucky.
Incidentally, his willingness to cross the lines and keep working got him transferred to working on military aircraft (tankers and cargo planes). He still says, many years after that company ceased to exist, that he was happier seeing through his work ethic and getting something done than being on the picket lines, losing money while union leaders haggled for weeks over a few cents an hour worth of pay or benefits.
A few hundred pounds absolutely is taken into consideration on a 300,000-pound plane. The very article to which you linked includes a note on a table saying, "Less paint reduces takeoff weight and fuel consumption considerably."
A standard layer of paint is not going to destablize a plane, but lead protections along wiring conduits is going to impact payload and fuel consumption. If a 747 gets a new radio that weighs a half-pound more, its weight and balance charts have to get updated.
The risk is very small. But I can tell you that a cell phone left on can be a communications problem at least. I fly small planes, and my instructor had an iPhone and often forgot to turn off the radio before he tucked his bag in the back. On occasion when in flight, there would be the tick-tick-tick-tick of it trying to connect to a tower. This would sometimes happen when communicating with air traffic control, and we'd get a very firm request to disable all cell phones in the aircraft.
An airliner should be better shielded than a Cessna, but I don't know how much better, and the connections to the antennae may well run within a few feet of the passengers. Given my experience, I am generally extra-careful to switch my phone into airplane mode, though I rarely shut it down completely.
The fastest way to get from LA to DC via train is via Chicago. Most of the major western and Midwest stops run their traffic from DC through Boston via Chicago. From LA to DC, it's the Southwest Chief into Chicago (43 hours) and then the Capitol Limited (17.5 hours) with a few hours in between, for a total of 63 hours of travel. LA to New York is actually worse, with the second leg, the Lake Shore Limited, taking 20 hours. Basically, it's three days of travel in each direction.
An alternate is to go from LA to DC via the Sunset Limited into New Orleans and then the Crescent into DC via Atlanta, but that takes 83 hours and involves an overnight stay, which for comfort's sake probably means a hotel room.
Ticket prices for that are expensive, too. Looking at leaving on Tuesday, 31 Sept 2011, for LA-DC via Chicago, a basic coach seat is $203 each way if you buy well enough ahead of time, plus meals. One could bring one's own food and drink, but that may get bulky and/or bland. Changing it to a Superliner Roomette (3.5 feet by 6.5 feet) boosts the price to $701, though that includes dining. The Roomette has a second bunk for someone else to join (must add the $203 base ticket for a total of $904). A family of four can go in a 5'2"x9'5" Family Bedroom for $2522 (4 tickets at $203 plus SWC room at $1184 and CapLtd room at $526); two of the bunks are under five feet in length and intended for children. All of the listed options use shared showers and toilets. An option for private shower/toilet is available with the Superliner Bedroom. This sleeps two (three if two are willing to share the bottom bunk), is 6.5 feet by 7.5 feet, has a recliner and the bottom bed is converted from a sofa. This costs $2253 for two people or $2456 for three people.
Summary:
- $203 per person for coach (plus food, which ranges from $6 to $23 depending on which meal, not including beverage, based on the Capitol Limited menu)
- $452 per person for Superliner Roomette
- $631 per person for Family Bedroom
- $819 to $1127 per person for Superliner Bedroom
This is for each direction of travel, and is the lowest price I could find (the prices can be different on other days). This is, based on 2.5 days of travel, about $100 per day at coach (presuming $30 per day in food) to $180 per day with the Roomette to $252 per day with the Family Bedroom to up to $450 per day with the Superliner bedroom. Coach makes economic sense, but I don't know how comfortable those seats are going to be for overnight sleeping. The rooms start making little sense, as I can get a room for five days with a friend in DC plus airfare for a lot less than the $900 round-trip cost, even factoring in some nice food. As things move up from there, it makes even less sense.
Sure, there's something romantic about taking a train across the country. I'd probably even like to do it one day. But there's just nothing there that makes economic sense for regular travel.
That may be. But it doesn't change the fact that the electorate is fickle, and is not easily penned into the conventional Democrat/Republican (or even liberal/conservative) camps.
California Republicans elected to office are not the same as Republicans in most of the rest of the country. They tend to be much more moderate, just as Schwarzeneggar was. For that matter, most of the Democrats tend to be more moderate, backing the death penalty because that's what gets people elected for the most part.
I don't know about the rest of the world, but it is long-established precedence in the US that a court can order a party to fulfill its contractual obligations. I suspect this goes back to pre-US British common law, and that Britain and the British Commonwealth have similar tendencies. This doesn't remove the possibility of the court ordering financial remuneration in addition.
Most of them already do that. I've even seen TSA refuse to review bags that are too big for the overhead compartments, directing the passenger to check the bag. The gate agents have likewise required certain people to gate-check bags that are unlikely to fit in overhead compartments.
That doesn't seem to help the prices much for many of the places I fly. Southwest occasionally comes in $20 or so under the others, but often is as or more expensive than the majors. Even flying from Los Angeles into Dallas, Southwest's hometown, it's often more expensive than American and sometimes even United and Continental -- even when Continental is flying into Love Field.
When moving into some states that ban assault rifles, you may not bring rifles into the state that are currently banned, even if they were purchased before the ban date and hence would be grandfathered in had you lived in the state. If you try to register them, they'll be confiscated, and if you don't register them, you run the risk of being charged with felony possession of a firearm.
Unions aren't as prevalent in California as you might think. The ones that get all the news are the public employee unions, and they are problematic, but the overwhelming majority of the rest of us neither are union members nor want to be part of a union. California's overall union level is 17.5% of all wage and salary employees.
California does have a balanced budget provision in its constitution, and has for many years now, with long-term debt for general use prohibited except by voter approval, which isn't a strong likelihood. The deficits are usually handled by borrowing from various accounts or using accounting tricks, but over the last couple of years, even those who have fought cuts the hardest have realized that they cannot avoid cuts, and the actual outlays have been dropping rapidly. It's going to drop even more rapidly if the governor can't get a few Republicans to vote to put his tax extensions on the ballot, and even if he can, I don't think the people will approve them.
It did pass through the Texas House, and did so without a Nay vote. It was the Texas Senate that changed things up at the last minute when the federal DOJ began issuing memos about the consequences.
This would have been almost instantly stayed by the courts had it been signed into law. It would be on hold until it made its way to the Supreme Court which would, I suspect, overturn it on about a 7-2 basis, if there was any dissent.
You are required to adhere to TSA regulations. Statutory law authorizes and empowers regulatory law.
That you don't get to see TSA's regulations is another topic.
Ctrl-Down Arrow works in at least some Windows applications to skip paragraphs. I think that's common as long as the common Windows text controls are used. Not sure if it works under Linux or Mac.
Isn't there an option to cash them in early for less than the face amount? It would lose money for the Chinese, but it might also create a cash problem for the US.
While I agree with you on the economic front, China would have difficulties if they tried something like getting Kim to invade the South. North Korea's military is something of a joke technologically speaking, relying on numbers. Their most advanced aircraft are a few dozen MiG-29s, and the remainder are 1970s and older aircraft. Their armor is even older than what the allied forces faced in Desert Storm. Besides, it's not in China's economic interest. Remember that message that was released by Wikileaks about China's thoughts on North Korea? While they see an advantage in having North Korea as a barrier between China and US forces, they're OK with South Korea running the entire peninsula, too, provided it comes about by peaceful means in large part because they don't want to deal with the refugee influx.
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be similarly disastrous. China does not have the landing capacity required to perform an invasion of the island. About eight or nine years ago, there was a paper published in China talking about how it could commandeer fishing boats, ferries, and other civilian vessels to cross enough soldiers for an invasion. The losses, however, would be extraordinarily high, and it's not at all certain that China could obtain air superiority over the island, or if it did, that it could retain it, particularly once US forces get involved. Maybe in 15 years they could (and that may be what the slow build-up of a blue-water navy is about), but not right in the immediate future.
No one has been convicted of, let alone executed for, treason in decades. Aldrich Ames provided enough information to Russia to almost reset the CIA's HUMINT operations and he just got life in prison after pleading guilty to espionage.
Getting a clearance involves no threat of execution. For most people, the threat of having the clearance yanked is plenty to keep their mouths shut. If you think that it's just the threat of punishment that changes one's world, consider the different views that have come about due to what Wikileaks has published. Sure, much of it was pedestrian, but there are those which switch up how countries were believed to be acting, and the information is even more detailed in the world of the TLA.
I'm not sure how many people get this kind of talk, but I recently spoke with someone regarding possible work at a TLA. I asked about a number of things that could not be answered for reasons of operational security, but I also asked about the clearances and what they bring. I was told quite clearly that the information one gets to see after the clearance is granted is enough to change one's world-view rapidly, drastically, and irrevocably. I was also told that I would almost certainly be disturbed by a number of things that I would learn. The upshot is that I would have a better idea of what is going on in the world; the downside is that I would not be able to discuss it with anyone without a clearance, and because Top Secret/SCI is involved for almost everyone, that would make it a little trickier to find someone who is briefed in on whatever it is that's on my mind.
I don't think I'm ready for it yet (and I'm not really near any of the locations anyway), but it's something that I may pursue in a few years. If I do, I will not be going in completely blind.