Instead we should tax corporate earnings and financial transactions.
Which sounds great until you recognize that corporations and financial institutions don't pay taxes. People pay taxes. So any taxes you levy on said corps or banks will just be passed along to customers in the form of higher prices and/or service fees. I find it remarkable that most people don't realize this, but I guess it's just too easy to beat the "rich corps are EEEVVVIILLLL!" drum.
The reality is you should tax *spending*, not *income*. If you spend less, you pay less in taxes. If you spend more, you pay more in taxes. It neatly gets around the idea that you can hide income because, unless you want to live in a shack off the grid in the middle of nowhere, you're *going* to spend money sooner or later. A 23% National Retail Sales Tax would and could replace our byzantine, impenetrable, lopsided income tax code with a system that is both workable and revenue neutral.
No, but you could make a killing as a designer, maintainer, or programmer of robots. The same hue and cry was raised back during the Industrial Revolution, that machines were displacing humans and everyone would suffer for it. Look around you. Not a helluva lot of suffering due to automated production, is there? Indeed, Foxconn workers might argue the most suffering is with human-based production in iPhone plants without machines, but I digress.
The point is, economies evolve just like organisms. There isn't a much demand for horse and buggy repairmen anymore for a damned good reason. People who's livelihood was based on an obsolete technology either (a) learned a new trade and prospered from it or (b) sat on their ass and got swept under the rug of history. Only the fool attempts to deny progress because it will cause change. Change is inevitable. Look for it. Plan for it. Take advantage of it. But don't fear it.
Really? You're arguing that parting with $5 billion that you didn't have to give up in the first place is the more *ethical* path to be taken? It's not like Schmidt is pocketing all that money himself. It goes back into Google where we get things like Google Maps (free), Google Fiber (faster and cheaper broadband), and myriad other projects that wouldn't exist without Google funding. It goes to hire hundreds, perhaps thousands, of employees for Google. That in turn produces thousands, perhaps millions, of jobs globally for people who service and supply Google's infrastructure (hardware makers) and provide for the employees (cooks, janitors, dry cleaners, etc.). Other bits of it go back to Google sharesholders who use the capital gains to fund other startups (more jobs, more opportunities, better products and choices for all of us) or produce other goods and services jobs (rich folks buy stuff, after all, and somebody has to make the stuff).
In short, you can stop with the wealth envy line. I'd much rather Google have the $5 billion than the U.S. government. Google is much more likely to spend it doing useful, productive, innovative things than the government -- *any* government -- ever would. The ancillary effects of Google *not* having paid that $5 billion in taxes are far more beneficial to you, me, and everyone else if it stays in the private sector, not in some politician's pork barrel fund for inefficient, unwanted, or outmoded government programs oriented more towards buying votes and propping up cronies than ever "serving the public."
putting the car in neutral will slow you down in not so long of a distance.
Leaving the car in gear will result in a shorter stopping distance due to engine braking, moreso for manuals than automatics but either is preferable to coasting in neutral.
If you are really worried for your life or others, and don't care about the transmission, you can throw the car into park if you want to.
Every automatic transmission made in the last 40+ years is designed such that shifting into park while moving results in the transmission actually going into neutral. Mythbusters tested this premise in Episode 84. They also tried shifting into reverse using a manual transmission and found it's impossible to do; the reverse will not engage while moving forward. It just grinds and whines but will not engage catastrophically or otherwise, even if you disable the various mechanical, electrical, and hydraulic safeties designed to stop you from throwing it into reverse in the first place.
And maybe an automatic door-open rule for motorcyclists who are splitting lanes because the speed limit isn't fast enough for them?
Speaking as a motorcyclist, perhaps you are unaware that lane splitting is legal in many jurisdictions (or, at the very least, *not* illegal, as the law does not say you can't do it). If you're riding like an asshat doing 100mph in 70mph traffic then that's one thing; between karma and statistics you're likely going to get a violent comeuppance sooner or later all on your own. If you're lane splitting because of heavy afternoon traffic (i.e. you're doing 30mph while everyone else is sitting still) that's something else entirely. If you purposefully open your door to try and interfere with a rider, that's pretty much premeditated attempted murder.
And when a known, verified, confirmed, visually-identified terrorist leader/bomb maker/etc. surrounds himself with his various wives and children with the express purpose of using them as human shields, what do you do then?
The real solution is to build a proper high-speed rail network throughout North America. We aren't talking about mere 300 km/h trains like are commonly found in Europe. We need to be talking about trains going just under the speed of sound. 1200 km/h trains, if you will. A solid network connecting the major cities of America would render many cars useless.
And this is a real solution to the wrong problem. Most cars aren't used to get from city to city; they're used to get from home to work. So you'd be constructing an ultra-expensive rail system to transport...well, practically nobody. We have something similar to that now. It's called Amtrak, and ridership is so pathetic it can only survive with hefty government subsidies fleeced from overburdened taxpayers. But I hear it makes a nice jobs program with great benefits.
Then it is possible to address the next problems: suburban sprawl. Cities should be highly centralized, and built upwards. It is absolutely stupid to build suburbs. Those who want to live in a rural area should be doing so because they farm. Those who aren't farming should be living in dense cities, where public transit can be effectively used. Once that is achieved, cars will not be necessary for the vast majority of people.
So, at a stroke, you simply think people shouldn't be allowed to live outside a city unless they are farming. Heaven forbid that they might just not want to live cheek-by-jowl with seething masses of humanity in studio apartments. What a pity we have these things called "liberty" and "choice" which allow us to live where we choose regardless of whether it meets your authoritarian approval or not. Wouldn't the world just be a much nicer place if people would just do as they're told instead of, you know, exercising free will and stuff?
Not sure where TFA gets the idea this will double the battery life on my phone since the "power usage" page shows the vast bulk (70% or more) goes to powering the display, with low double digits (or even single digits) powering the various radios.
Corporations see dollarsigns, and are addicted to essentially slave labor wages.
You act as if consumers are oblivious to those same dollar signs. They are not. Most people who buy Apple products know they're somewhat overpriced to begin with and they're OK with that so long as it's only mildly above the price of competing products. Run the price of that iPhone up a bit and Apple will sell fewer of them or take a smaller profit margin (or both). People vote with their wallets, and Apple is in the business of making phones and making money, not a jobs program and not a welfare program.
And my comments on your rebuttal below using the same numbering system:
1. It does explain the rest, or at least the majority of them. There are almost as many gas formulations as there are states, and while the EPA may have jurisdiction over the states, they only enforce the *minimum* standards. States are free to make stricter formulations and many do for reasons that make little environmental sense (but look attractive politically). The lack of a single standard defeats economies of scale for refinery production, increasing costs for everyone (although some, like CA, more than others).
2. I think you understate the impact of this and dismiss the ancillary effects of an overly-regulatory business climate. It simply costs more to do business in states like CA than it does in, say, GA, where gas prices are among the lowest in the nation.
3. See #2.
4. The prevalence of ports doesn't necessarily correlate with refinery availability in all cases, and even the presence of a refinery doesn't necessarily correlate with available capacity for gasoline production. Refineries can't just crank.custom blends on a moment's notice, nor do they typically have excess capacity laying around for instant use. These facilities schedule production well in advance based on predictions and historical trends, thus anything messing with that schedule almost guarantees higher costs. The fix would be to have more -- or perhaps more *modern* -- refineries, but environmentalists have pretty much blocked the construction of such plants for the last several decades.
Consider for a moment that, instead of some vast right-wing conspiracy, the rise in gas prices in these areas are more likely caused by:
1. The states in question have some of the toughest environmental laws, making gasoline production for these areas disproportionately expensive (i.e special gas formulations).
2. The states in question have some of the highest taxes on fuel in the nation. Some of these taxes are pegged proportionately to the cost of gasoline, so as gas gets more expensive, the tax percentage goes up as well, compounding the problem.
3. The states in question have some of the highest sales taxes in the nation.
4. The states in question are far from the refineries or have no in-state refineries at all, thus transportation costs are disproportionately high.
But I bet the whole it's-the-neocons-trying-to-undermine-dems conspiracy theory sounds much nicer than reality.
Speaking as a former U.S. Marine *and* as a current contractor working in and around nuclear power facilities, I sincerely hope you're just joking. The idea that you consider Marines "trigger happy" is highly offensive. We're trained very rigorously to *not* be trigger happy in the first place. We're not some bloodthirsty gang out to slaughter women and babies for the fun of it. If you've never served then I suppose it seems funny as hell to pretend that we are, but any professional Marine, soldier, sailor, or airman will tell you we do our damndest not to hurt innocents, even the point of getting maimed for life or killed in the process. Please try to show a little respect for that. And no, we're not victims looking for pity. Every one of us volunteered knowing what we were getting into.
Regarding the security at a nuclear facility, I've seen Y-12. The guards are armed but the rules are pretty strict about shooting at stuff. You can be quick to shoot and more likely than not you'll make the evening news killing some teens playing a prank. Cue the pacifists, the anti-nuke protesters, the anti-military groups, and every other bleeding heart group out there for a PR debacle in progress. Or you don't shoot on sight and you end up with nuns, gardeners, and what-have-you painting bible verses on your walls. Personally, I'd rather have a red face for the activists showing off than have to live with killing civilians by mistake.
Yes, the cameras being down is pretty pathetic. However, cutting through a few fences and banging on walls is a *LONG* way from stealing something like highly-enriched uranium. Last week I was walking 20 feet away from a nuclear reactor containment building, but there's no way in hell I could've gotten into it and I'm *authorized* to be on the site in the first place. Any bomb that's man-portable would have a hard time breaching any of these structures containing nuclear material. And if the goal was to steal a usable amount of nuclear material, any terrorist would have a helluva time getting away with stuff because it's heavy, dangerous, and stored in some pretty amazing containers.
If you want to throw stones, find out who is responsible for the security equipment budget at these sites and why those cameras were down for six months. Of course, what you might find is the cameras were down because getting a *permit* to get work done at a nuclear site is beyond ridiculous. I'm being quoted a 6-12 month permitting period just to get a breaker panel put in for network expansion. That's 6-12 months of waiting on paperwork so a job that will take 1-2 days can get done. Yes, it's that bad, so maybe the cameras being down wasn't really the fault of the security group.
Let's see what kind of materials are available on the moon before we send the robotic rocket factory there.
Perhaps you've been living under a rock since the 1960's, but this has already been done:
The outermost layer of the Moon is called the crust, which extends down to a depth of 50 km. This is the layer of the Moon that scientists have gathered the most information about. The crust of the Moon is composed mostly of oxygen, silicon, magnesium, iron, calcium, and aluminum. There are also trace elements like titanium, uranium, thorium, potassium and hydrogen.
You can't build rockets on the moon. There are no sources of refined metals, or plastics, or electronics. There are no machine shops, nor tool and die fabricators. There are no people to operate anything either. There are no launch facilities, no way to fuel the rocket, even if you managed to get it built.
I think you kind of missed the point of his post. Your first sentence should read "You can't build rockets on the moon right now." The GP assumes all of the stuff you mention is constructed and/or available as a necessary pre-requisite for building and launching rockets from the moon.
Personally I wish we'd investigate a space elevator from the moon. Much easier gravity well to get out of, no atmosphere to deal with, and abundant solar power. And there's the added perk of not needing super-exotic materials to build one like you do from Earth.
While I admire your vision, it lacks one very crucial thing: a good reason to do it that will offset the (appropriately) astronomical costs associated with doing it. Basically you want to fund the building of a moon base, orbital assembly complex, asteroid capture mechanisms, asteroid *terraforming* technology, and asteroid mining capability. And the return on investment? You get a huge hunk of nickel-iron. Have you looked at the prices for nickel-iron lately? Last I checked, the stuff is pretty inexpensive. Hell, even a solid rhodium asteroid would still have a difficult time funding all of the above. In short, it will never happen.
Now I fully realize there are extremely valuable intangibles associated with doing what you're talking about (i.e. spinoff tech, "final frontier" exploration stuff, providing a backup for humanity should Earth meet disaster, etc.) but that requires national will, pride, ambition, and a risk-taking attitude that America simply lacks these days. We're too fat, dumb, and happy. The scrappy, can-do Americans from the 60's aren't around anymore.
it's practically deserted because the locals, who refused to fund it with taxes
Two observations:
1. Road maintenance is paid for with taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel, not income or sales taxes. Ergo, residents don't have the option to refuse to fund it unless they don't drive. 2. If the road is so deserted, why fund it in the first place? Just to have something for DOT crews to work on? Sounds like the highway equivalent of a "bridge to nowhere."
But hey! Don't let that stop you from taking a myopic and totally unfounded swipe at those knuckle-dragging Red State residents! Gotta show 'em that liberal elite Blue State residents are not just superior, but arrogant and condescending as well!
Speed limits also are well thought out as the average driver does not possess the skills of Mario Andretti, they're more along the lines of Ma and Pa Kettle. If your reaction time is poor at 65 MPH, going faster isn't going to help anything.
And so we dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator, thus inconveniencing and annoying 95% of the motoring public to accommodate the 5% that are idiots. God forbid we actually make driving tests somewhat challenging and thus weed out the fucktards clogging up an otherwise excellent highway system where we could *legally* go the speeds most people are already driving anyways.
Please explain how any "sort of body regulating taxis" is going to prevent a taxi driver from raping you, murdering you, and dumping your body in a ditch if said taxi driver suddenly develops the desire to do so? You can't regulate free will. Screening potential psychopaths is not a perfect science. At some point you have to take responsibility for your own skin and quit delegating it to some bureaucratic entity that is more interested in getting forms stamped in triplicate than preserving your life.
More often than not, regulations are there because "free enterprise" misbehaved, not because the big bad government is out to stop free enterprises from making money.
More often than not, these well-meaning regulations are twisted to serve special interests once the regulations have outlived their useful purpose. Then the misbehaving party *becomes* the government. The difference is, with free enterprise, you can opt out of a corrupt or discriminatory business or even create your own competing one. There is no such option when government gets involved, which is why you should *always* be wary of government assuming such powers, no matter how trivial.
At 30,000 feet, your cell phone will attempt to connect to 100's of cells at once.
Uh...nope. Cell towers don't have omnidirectional antennae, mindlessly broadcasting signal in all directions. They have sector antennae and are usually aimed slightly downards or, at best, level with the horizon. Your phone can't reach them at 30,000 feet and neither can they reach you.
That's a new thing. The defense industry has been buying favors for decades.
A small "donation" buys them a real good ROI. Paid for by your tax dollars.
And while everyone is happy to call out the "defense industry" for buying these favors, nobody seems to care one bit about the senators and congressmen who have created a system where that same industry pretty much has to buy said favors in order to do business with the Federal Government. If you don't grease the palm of certain powerful politicians, you can forget about getting the contract; that will go to the company that did pay off the politician, usually regardless of whether that company had the best bid or not.
You are woefully ignorant of what makes RADAR interceptions possible. If the "old" RADAR (which in a stealth context means "long wavelength" RADAR) was so good, why did anyone bother upgrading? The answer is because the old long wavelength stuff was too inaccurate to use for reliable missile intercepts. They lacked the resolution. They might be good for steering an interceptor jet into the general vicinity of the target, but useless for guiding a missile into a tailpipe. And the interceptor would have a very hard time finding a stealth jet or bomber visually during night ops -- which is precisely the kind of ops the US stealth inventory practices.
Personally, I do agree with some of the admiral's precepts. Principally, I believe we should maintain a very small force of F-22's, F-35's, and B-2's, backed up by a medium-sized force of conventional weapons like F-16's, F-18's, and B-52's. But our principle weapons should be a very large force of recon and strike drones piloted by remote control. In a conflict you would:
1. Use the small, elite force of stealth weapons to destroy enemy ground defenses (SEAD) 2. Follow up with the medium-sized force of conventional weaponry to pound the now-defenseless enemy ground forces 3. Once all the high-value military, industrial, economic, and political targets are destroyed, maintain cover and pressure with a cost-effective and risk-averse drone force.
Or, if you're going to engage in a low-intensity conflict a la Afghanistan, lead with the drones and stick with them. No pilots to risk, much lower price tag to operate, and the added psychological benefit of the "bolt from the blue" Hellfire missile taking out your local Taliban warlord when he steps out of his cave to take a piss, all without anyone ever seeing or hearing the launching aircraft. Much like a sniper, the intimidation factor of a silent, never-seen killer cannot be underestimated.
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Instead we should tax corporate earnings and financial transactions.
Which sounds great until you recognize that corporations and financial institutions don't pay taxes. People pay taxes. So any taxes you levy on said corps or banks will just be passed along to customers in the form of higher prices and/or service fees. I find it remarkable that most people don't realize this, but I guess it's just too easy to beat the "rich corps are EEEVVVIILLLL!" drum.
The reality is you should tax *spending*, not *income*. If you spend less, you pay less in taxes. If you spend more, you pay more in taxes. It neatly gets around the idea that you can hide income because, unless you want to live in a shack off the grid in the middle of nowhere, you're *going* to spend money sooner or later. A 23% National Retail Sales Tax would and could replace our byzantine, impenetrable, lopsided income tax code with a system that is both workable and revenue neutral.
No, but you could make a killing as a designer, maintainer, or programmer of robots. The same hue and cry was raised back during the Industrial Revolution, that machines were displacing humans and everyone would suffer for it. Look around you. Not a helluva lot of suffering due to automated production, is there? Indeed, Foxconn workers might argue the most suffering is with human-based production in iPhone plants without machines, but I digress.
The point is, economies evolve just like organisms. There isn't a much demand for horse and buggy repairmen anymore for a damned good reason. People who's livelihood was based on an obsolete technology either (a) learned a new trade and prospered from it or (b) sat on their ass and got swept under the rug of history. Only the fool attempts to deny progress because it will cause change. Change is inevitable. Look for it. Plan for it. Take advantage of it. But don't fear it.
Really? You're arguing that parting with $5 billion that you didn't have to give up in the first place is the more *ethical* path to be taken? It's not like Schmidt is pocketing all that money himself. It goes back into Google where we get things like Google Maps (free), Google Fiber (faster and cheaper broadband), and myriad other projects that wouldn't exist without Google funding. It goes to hire hundreds, perhaps thousands, of employees for Google. That in turn produces thousands, perhaps millions, of jobs globally for people who service and supply Google's infrastructure (hardware makers) and provide for the employees (cooks, janitors, dry cleaners, etc.). Other bits of it go back to Google sharesholders who use the capital gains to fund other startups (more jobs, more opportunities, better products and choices for all of us) or produce other goods and services jobs (rich folks buy stuff, after all, and somebody has to make the stuff).
In short, you can stop with the wealth envy line. I'd much rather Google have the $5 billion than the U.S. government. Google is much more likely to spend it doing useful, productive, innovative things than the government -- *any* government -- ever would. The ancillary effects of Google *not* having paid that $5 billion in taxes are far more beneficial to you, me, and everyone else if it stays in the private sector, not in some politician's pork barrel fund for inefficient, unwanted, or outmoded government programs oriented more towards buying votes and propping up cronies than ever "serving the public."
But completely useless of your target decides to go indoors for a bit after being ID'd.
putting the car in neutral will slow you down in not so long of a distance.
Leaving the car in gear will result in a shorter stopping distance due to engine braking, moreso for manuals than automatics but either is preferable to coasting in neutral.
If you are really worried for your life or others, and don't care about the transmission, you can throw the car into park if you want to.
Every automatic transmission made in the last 40+ years is designed such that shifting into park while moving results in the transmission actually going into neutral. Mythbusters tested this premise in Episode 84. They also tried shifting into reverse using a manual transmission and found it's impossible to do; the reverse will not engage while moving forward. It just grinds and whines but will not engage catastrophically or otherwise, even if you disable the various mechanical, electrical, and hydraulic safeties designed to stop you from throwing it into reverse in the first place.
And maybe an automatic door-open rule for motorcyclists who are splitting lanes because the speed limit isn't fast enough for them?
Speaking as a motorcyclist, perhaps you are unaware that lane splitting is legal in many jurisdictions (or, at the very least, *not* illegal, as the law does not say you can't do it). If you're riding like an asshat doing 100mph in 70mph traffic then that's one thing; between karma and statistics you're likely going to get a violent comeuppance sooner or later all on your own. If you're lane splitting because of heavy afternoon traffic (i.e. you're doing 30mph while everyone else is sitting still) that's something else entirely. If you purposefully open your door to try and interfere with a rider, that's pretty much premeditated attempted murder.
And when a known, verified, confirmed, visually-identified terrorist leader/bomb maker/etc. surrounds himself with his various wives and children with the express purpose of using them as human shields, what do you do then?
The real solution is to build a proper high-speed rail network throughout North America. We aren't talking about mere 300 km/h trains like are commonly found in Europe. We need to be talking about trains going just under the speed of sound. 1200 km/h trains, if you will. A solid network connecting the major cities of America would render many cars useless.
And this is a real solution to the wrong problem. Most cars aren't used to get from city to city; they're used to get from home to work. So you'd be constructing an ultra-expensive rail system to transport...well, practically nobody. We have something similar to that now. It's called Amtrak, and ridership is so pathetic it can only survive with hefty government subsidies fleeced from overburdened taxpayers. But I hear it makes a nice jobs program with great benefits.
Then it is possible to address the next problems: suburban sprawl. Cities should be highly centralized, and built upwards. It is absolutely stupid to build suburbs. Those who want to live in a rural area should be doing so because they farm. Those who aren't farming should be living in dense cities, where public transit can be effectively used. Once that is achieved, cars will not be necessary for the vast majority of people.
So, at a stroke, you simply think people shouldn't be allowed to live outside a city unless they are farming. Heaven forbid that they might just not want to live cheek-by-jowl with seething masses of humanity in studio apartments. What a pity we have these things called "liberty" and "choice" which allow us to live where we choose regardless of whether it meets your authoritarian approval or not. Wouldn't the world just be a much nicer place if people would just do as they're told instead of, you know, exercising free will and stuff?
Not sure where TFA gets the idea this will double the battery life on my phone since the "power usage" page shows the vast bulk (70% or more) goes to powering the display, with low double digits (or even single digits) powering the various radios.
The, ethically, you'd be fine if your salary were immediately slashed by 35%, right?
Corporations see dollarsigns, and are addicted to essentially slave labor wages.
You act as if consumers are oblivious to those same dollar signs. They are not. Most people who buy Apple products know they're somewhat overpriced to begin with and they're OK with that so long as it's only mildly above the price of competing products. Run the price of that iPhone up a bit and Apple will sell fewer of them or take a smaller profit margin (or both). People vote with their wallets, and Apple is in the business of making phones and making money, not a jobs program and not a welfare program.
Get a house. Or two.
Get a kid. Or two.
That'll cut your taxes in half.
These usually come along with a spouse (or two) which will effectively reduce your disposable income to zero.
And my comments on your rebuttal below using the same numbering system:
1. It does explain the rest, or at least the majority of them. There are almost as many gas formulations as there are states, and while the EPA may have jurisdiction over the states, they only enforce the *minimum* standards. States are free to make stricter formulations and many do for reasons that make little environmental sense (but look attractive politically). The lack of a single standard defeats economies of scale for refinery production, increasing costs for everyone (although some, like CA, more than others).
2. I think you understate the impact of this and dismiss the ancillary effects of an overly-regulatory business climate. It simply costs more to do business in states like CA than it does in, say, GA, where gas prices are among the lowest in the nation.
3. See #2.
4. The prevalence of ports doesn't necessarily correlate with refinery availability in all cases, and even the presence of a refinery doesn't necessarily correlate with available capacity for gasoline production. Refineries can't just crank.custom blends on a moment's notice, nor do they typically have excess capacity laying around for instant use. These facilities schedule production well in advance based on predictions and historical trends, thus anything messing with that schedule almost guarantees higher costs. The fix would be to have more -- or perhaps more *modern* -- refineries, but environmentalists have pretty much blocked the construction of such plants for the last several decades.
Consider for a moment that, instead of some vast right-wing conspiracy, the rise in gas prices in these areas are more likely caused by:
1. The states in question have some of the toughest environmental laws, making gasoline production for these areas disproportionately expensive (i.e special gas formulations).
2. The states in question have some of the highest taxes on fuel in the nation. Some of these taxes are pegged proportionately to the cost of gasoline, so as gas gets more expensive, the tax percentage goes up as well, compounding the problem.
3. The states in question have some of the highest sales taxes in the nation.
4. The states in question are far from the refineries or have no in-state refineries at all, thus transportation costs are disproportionately high.
But I bet the whole it's-the-neocons-trying-to-undermine-dems conspiracy theory sounds much nicer than reality.
Speaking as a former U.S. Marine *and* as a current contractor working in and around nuclear power facilities, I sincerely hope you're just joking. The idea that you consider Marines "trigger happy" is highly offensive. We're trained very rigorously to *not* be trigger happy in the first place. We're not some bloodthirsty gang out to slaughter women and babies for the fun of it. If you've never served then I suppose it seems funny as hell to pretend that we are, but any professional Marine, soldier, sailor, or airman will tell you we do our damndest not to hurt innocents, even the point of getting maimed for life or killed in the process. Please try to show a little respect for that. And no, we're not victims looking for pity. Every one of us volunteered knowing what we were getting into.
Regarding the security at a nuclear facility, I've seen Y-12. The guards are armed but the rules are pretty strict about shooting at stuff. You can be quick to shoot and more likely than not you'll make the evening news killing some teens playing a prank. Cue the pacifists, the anti-nuke protesters, the anti-military groups, and every other bleeding heart group out there for a PR debacle in progress. Or you don't shoot on sight and you end up with nuns, gardeners, and what-have-you painting bible verses on your walls. Personally, I'd rather have a red face for the activists showing off than have to live with killing civilians by mistake.
Yes, the cameras being down is pretty pathetic. However, cutting through a few fences and banging on walls is a *LONG* way from stealing something like highly-enriched uranium. Last week I was walking 20 feet away from a nuclear reactor containment building, but there's no way in hell I could've gotten into it and I'm *authorized* to be on the site in the first place. Any bomb that's man-portable would have a hard time breaching any of these structures containing nuclear material. And if the goal was to steal a usable amount of nuclear material, any terrorist would have a helluva time getting away with stuff because it's heavy, dangerous, and stored in some pretty amazing containers.
If you want to throw stones, find out who is responsible for the security equipment budget at these sites and why those cameras were down for six months. Of course, what you might find is the cameras were down because getting a *permit* to get work done at a nuclear site is beyond ridiculous. I'm being quoted a 6-12 month permitting period just to get a breaker panel put in for network expansion. That's 6-12 months of waiting on paperwork so a job that will take 1-2 days can get done. Yes, it's that bad, so maybe the cameras being down wasn't really the fault of the security group.
Let's see what kind of materials are available on the moon before we send the robotic rocket factory there.
Perhaps you've been living under a rock since the 1960's, but this has already been done:
The outermost layer of the Moon is called the crust, which extends down to a depth of 50 km. This is the layer of the Moon that scientists have gathered the most information about. The crust of the Moon is composed mostly of oxygen, silicon, magnesium, iron, calcium, and aluminum. There are also trace elements like titanium, uranium, thorium, potassium and hydrogen.
Ref: http://www.universetoday.com/20583/what-is-the-moon-made-of/
You can't build rockets on the moon. There are no sources of refined metals, or plastics, or electronics. There are no machine shops, nor tool and die fabricators. There are no people to operate anything either. There are no launch facilities, no way to fuel the rocket, even if you managed to get it built.
I think you kind of missed the point of his post. Your first sentence should read "You can't build rockets on the moon right now." The GP assumes all of the stuff you mention is constructed and/or available as a necessary pre-requisite for building and launching rockets from the moon.
Personally I wish we'd investigate a space elevator from the moon. Much easier gravity well to get out of, no atmosphere to deal with, and abundant solar power. And there's the added perk of not needing super-exotic materials to build one like you do from Earth.
While I admire your vision, it lacks one very crucial thing: a good reason to do it that will offset the (appropriately) astronomical costs associated with doing it. Basically you want to fund the building of a moon base, orbital assembly complex, asteroid capture mechanisms, asteroid *terraforming* technology, and asteroid mining capability. And the return on investment? You get a huge hunk of nickel-iron. Have you looked at the prices for nickel-iron lately? Last I checked, the stuff is pretty inexpensive. Hell, even a solid rhodium asteroid would still have a difficult time funding all of the above. In short, it will never happen.
Now I fully realize there are extremely valuable intangibles associated with doing what you're talking about (i.e. spinoff tech, "final frontier" exploration stuff, providing a backup for humanity should Earth meet disaster, etc.) but that requires national will, pride, ambition, and a risk-taking attitude that America simply lacks these days. We're too fat, dumb, and happy. The scrappy, can-do Americans from the 60's aren't around anymore.
it's practically deserted because the locals, who refused to fund it with taxes
Two observations:
1. Road maintenance is paid for with taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel, not income or sales taxes. Ergo, residents don't have the option to refuse to fund it unless they don't drive.
2. If the road is so deserted, why fund it in the first place? Just to have something for DOT crews to work on? Sounds like the highway equivalent of a "bridge to nowhere."
But hey! Don't let that stop you from taking a myopic and totally unfounded swipe at those knuckle-dragging Red State residents! Gotta show 'em that liberal elite Blue State residents are not just superior, but arrogant and condescending as well!
Speed limits also are well thought out as the average driver does not possess the skills of Mario Andretti, they're more along the lines of Ma and Pa Kettle. If your reaction time is poor at 65 MPH, going faster isn't going to help anything.
And so we dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator, thus inconveniencing and annoying 95% of the motoring public to accommodate the 5% that are idiots. God forbid we actually make driving tests somewhat challenging and thus weed out the fucktards clogging up an otherwise excellent highway system where we could *legally* go the speeds most people are already driving anyways.
Please explain how any "sort of body regulating taxis" is going to prevent a taxi driver from raping you, murdering you, and dumping your body in a ditch if said taxi driver suddenly develops the desire to do so? You can't regulate free will. Screening potential psychopaths is not a perfect science. At some point you have to take responsibility for your own skin and quit delegating it to some bureaucratic entity that is more interested in getting forms stamped in triplicate than preserving your life.
More often than not, regulations are there because "free enterprise" misbehaved,
not because the big bad government is out to stop free enterprises from making money.
More often than not, these well-meaning regulations are twisted to serve special interests once the regulations have outlived their useful purpose. Then the misbehaving party *becomes* the government. The difference is, with free enterprise, you can opt out of a corrupt or discriminatory business or even create your own competing one. There is no such option when government gets involved, which is why you should *always* be wary of government assuming such powers, no matter how trivial.
At 30,000 feet, your cell phone will attempt to connect to 100's of cells at once.
Uh...nope. Cell towers don't have omnidirectional antennae, mindlessly broadcasting signal in all directions. They have sector antennae and are usually aimed slightly downards or, at best, level with the horizon. Your phone can't reach them at 30,000 feet and neither can they reach you.
That's a new thing. The defense industry has been buying favors for decades.
A small "donation" buys them a real good ROI. Paid for by your tax dollars.
And while everyone is happy to call out the "defense industry" for buying these favors, nobody seems to care one bit about the senators and congressmen who have created a system where that same industry pretty much has to buy said favors in order to do business with the Federal Government. If you don't grease the palm of certain powerful politicians, you can forget about getting the contract; that will go to the company that did pay off the politician, usually regardless of whether that company had the best bid or not.
You are woefully ignorant of what makes RADAR interceptions possible. If the "old" RADAR (which in a stealth context means "long wavelength" RADAR) was so good, why did anyone bother upgrading? The answer is because the old long wavelength stuff was too inaccurate to use for reliable missile intercepts. They lacked the resolution. They might be good for steering an interceptor jet into the general vicinity of the target, but useless for guiding a missile into a tailpipe. And the interceptor would have a very hard time finding a stealth jet or bomber visually during night ops -- which is precisely the kind of ops the US stealth inventory practices.
Personally, I do agree with some of the admiral's precepts. Principally, I believe we should maintain a very small force of F-22's, F-35's, and B-2's, backed up by a medium-sized force of conventional weapons like F-16's, F-18's, and B-52's. But our principle weapons should be a very large force of recon and strike drones piloted by remote control. In a conflict you would:
1. Use the small, elite force of stealth weapons to destroy enemy ground defenses (SEAD)
2. Follow up with the medium-sized force of conventional weaponry to pound the now-defenseless enemy ground forces
3. Once all the high-value military, industrial, economic, and political targets are destroyed, maintain cover and pressure with a cost-effective and risk-averse drone force.
Or, if you're going to engage in a low-intensity conflict a la Afghanistan, lead with the drones and stick with them. No pilots to risk, much lower price tag to operate, and the added psychological benefit of the "bolt from the blue" Hellfire missile taking out your local Taliban warlord when he steps out of his cave to take a piss, all without anyone ever seeing or hearing the launching aircraft. Much like a sniper, the intimidation factor of a silent, never-seen killer cannot be underestimated.