To put this idiotic issue to bed, here is the basic problem with pegging money to gold:
Gold supply fluctions cause money supply fluctuations.
What that means is that Evil Foriegnors(TM) can go into your country, and redeem for a largish portion of the gold. You now have less gold, so you have less money. You can't get more gold, so you just have to make do with less money. In other words, deflation happens - there is less money, but the same amount of "stuff" (except for gold), so the stuff is worth more. The problem is that this crashes the economy, just like too much inflation does (see Japan).
So what you end up with is this: Evil Foriegnors(TM) now have the power to crash your economy at will.
In addition, if anyone at all counterfiets the currency (including the government, as in printing too much money) the economy can be exploited - just like one of those fake economies in an online game. Here is the scenario: I am smart, so I assume that someone, somewhere has counterfieted US money. That means that while the government says that 1 dollar equals 1 gram of gold, it actually only equals 0.99999 grams of gold. So I take a trillion dollars, and ask the government for my gold. There are two possible outcomes:
1) It becomes obvious that I was right, and that someone somewhere printed some extra dollars. The US government now has to re-base the currency to 1 dollar equals 0.99998 gold (remember, I took most of their gold, so it is no longer just 0.99999). I can now trade back, and make a couple hundred million dollars. 2) It becomes obvious that I was wrong, and I just cause a recession through my monetary influence (or possibly not), but the key fact is that I still have the gold, and can easily reverse my position.
This means that any country that has a currency backed by gold can be exploited. Get their currency, and convert it to gold. Keep doing that until you crash the economy, and they have to repeg. Profit!
And how do we know about this, you ask? Why do you think we went off the gold standard in the first place? Europe did this to us multiple times, and then we finally realized what the problem was... this is the base cause of "runs on currency".
(And you thought exploits only worked on servers - bah, in my day we would crack entire economies!)
If you did that they would ask why your acceleration was off... these things are not just guessed at or something, the specs are extremely well known.
More to the point, they would be idiots to attempt this. By certifying the aircraft, they are receiving a "get out of jail free" card from the government. If they pass the tests, then if there is a crash they can show that they had no way to know it might happen - and the government will provide witnesses to that effect. If they fake the test in any way (and no, they can't keep anything a secret - there is always some way to tell), the opposing lawyers will jump all over it (and rightly so) and Boeing will pay 10x damages.
Aircraft manufacturers like certification - it reduces liability insurance premiums. That's why Rutan wants it applied to spacecraft. I think he's misguided, personally, but I can see his point.
You do realize that this system overproduces and wastes resources on a staggering scale?
I do not believe in such a thing as overproduction in the context of free exchange. Someone wants it or it wouldn't be exchanged, and if someone wants it more than whatever they exchange it should be produced.
Not everybody can be an entrepreneur or manager.
Sadly true - but this is more due to choices and training than anything else. When everyone goes around saying that the man is evil, few people emulate them. Thats a pitty, because of course those that do emulate them tend to succeed - which self selects people that don't mind being called evil, possibly because they are evil...
It takes capital to get started
Not true - I have built 8 companies, with no capital beyond normal credit cards. True, I am now starting more expensive ones - but you can start them on a shoestring. Personally, I think that shoestring companies are more likely to survive because they teach the most important lessons (cash flow management) quickly. I have never used venture capital - I may eventually, but it is not something I would do lightly.
we have no choice but to sell our labor for less than it is worth
Not true - you are either selling it for its worth (it's not worth very much, we have billions of people willing to work, but only thousands really willing to lead - and sacrifice what it takes to lead effectively). You can increase the value of your labor by training, though - simple supply and demand.
Now, one thing I will grant you is this: managers are by training good at negotiating. Most people never learn that technique, which causes them to accept less than they should. To me, this is the most important disparity in labor - and no one seems to address it. In fact, the reason I believe (even as an avowed economist) that minimum wage is reasonable is that I think it is best viewed as the government negotiating on behalf of the lowest payed workers. Unfortunately, like all government intervention, it is not very efficient - probably it destroys about the same value as it creates. What I would really like to see is instead of unions or minimum wage, have a group of people that negotiate salaries/working conditions on behalf of the workers. Interestingly enough, management tends to use people like that - but I think they should be used to improve worker's outcomes.
push people to buy things they don't need.
This is a strange thing - marketing really can create needs. To me, that is simply bizzare - but then I am quite happy with my minivan, and have no need for a sports car.
Are people happier with those things? Presumably, they thought the things would make them happier. Probably a flaw in us humans - like drug addiction, etc. Not sure what to make about that, but prevention would likely be more painful than dealing with it.
if by "do the right stuff" you mean "exploit the labor of hundreds of other people."
Interestingly enough, the world would be a far better place if those hundreds of people would stop letting themselves be exploited and instead become managers (starting their own companies where necessary). We suffer from a labor surplus, and a management shortage. That is why the income disparity exists - noone is forcing people to work for the man.
You are given a choice very early in life: Do you want to be the man, or do you want to work for the man? (Though if caught quickly you can change your answer.) Being the man is dangerous, you work without a net. Working for the man is easy, and is what everyone you know does. People being people, 99% choose to be sheep, 0.5% choose to be a shepherd, and 0.5% choose to be a wolf.
BS - the FAA does not examine the plane and "decide" if it is airworthy.
The FAA has set some tests that must be completed by all aircraft manufacturers - and the tests have extremely simple, impossible to fake criteria. For example, the fully loaded plane must go at full throttle on the runway up to the no return line, and slam on the brakes. The plane must stop before the end of the runway, sit for 5 minutes (worst case overheating of the brakes), and then taxi to the terminal. The tires are expected to blow, and the brakes may catch on fire, but other than that no damage is allowed.
There are many tests like this. They have to pass them all. If you build a plane from glass and it passes these tests, it is just as safe as a solid steel one - it would just be a lot harder to design.
Materials do not give a plane safety. Engineering is what gives a plane safety.
Of course, they also tested it in many other ways - the drop test is simply one of the many tests the FAA requires. They have even done testing not really required by the FAA - for example, they bent the wings back to see how strong they were until they touched over the cabin!
The standard conservative line is that your reward should be proportionate to the value of your contributions to society. I believe this is about 41% true and 73% crock*.
A better way to put this is conservatives believe that society works better when your reward is proportinoal to contribution. The conservative way seems to be working better than every other method tried in the last 10,000 years...
They also believe that capitalism is a fair judge of the value of contributions (which I think is 20% true and 92% crock).
No one I know believes that - they just believe that capitalism is a better judge than anything else we've come up with.
Especially sanctimonious people like liberal politicians, who want to dictate values to the rest of us cause we are too dumb to understand...
Have you ever been an American in France? At least many years ago, the French were all SO stuck up about how much better they were than the Americans - they wouldn't even speak to an American. I find that attitude all over Europe (outside of Britian and Scandinavia) - it is no surprise that Americans took offense to that when bloodied.
In fact, the real reason the French got upset was that we had always just ignored thier rantings before - but that time we were already pissed off and they were foolish enough to try to push us further, and we smacked them.
Sorry. We shouldn't have done that - but neither should you. Get over it.
Did they disprove that the claim of "second-hand smoke is anoying in the extreme"? My problem is not only the health risk, but my restaraunt experience going from good to bad based on a smoker who came in after I did - so I had no choice involved.
Let's think for a moment. Let's say that you are the super-mega brilliant race, billions of years more advanced than humans. You can reorganize matter with a thought - but your bored, and want to meet other races.
The problem is that all the other races are billions of light years away. You know that faster than light travel is possible, but you don't want to have to search the entire galaxy for them. So what to do?
Make a sign! Well, what kind of sign - we're talking billions of light years, the only thing visible will be entire galaxies. OK then, take all the "nearby" galaxies, and point them at us - that should draw attention!
And of course, since they have such an advanced culture their galaxies are entirely composed of Dyson's spheres. You know, dark... they even absorb all the microwave radiation and gavity waves and convert them to power!
This is mainly determined by the field you are in. In most large corps, as you say, they want to have you work every second of every day. Because of that, when emergencies happen or a market oportunity presents itself, they cannot take advantage of it.
Unless they outsource to me, the little guy. I spend maybe 25% of my time working like mad, and the rest of the time waiting for work - and because of our reputation and because our jobs are all emergencies, we charge quite a bit more... so I work less and get paid more for it!
A way out of this quagmire (I love that word!) might be this:
The initial primaries are done by randomly selecting 1,000 registered voters from across the entire US. These people come to a central location, meet, talk to, and grill the candidates. They then cast their votes and perhaps right up what they thought of each candidate. Two weeks later, everyone in the country votes.
This way, you get people that have seriously considered and understand the available candidates to make the first votes. You also remove the monetary bias from the campaining, which I think is a real problem for our country.
It isn't a weapon. It may be idiotic, and it may be converted into a weapon, but making a law that says you can't be evil doesn't effect those that are bent on being evil - it only effects those of us that are not evil. Evil people can get around the law now!
Criminal Sanctions: Individual - A fine of up to $1,000,000 or up to ten years in prison, or both, for each violation.
They get to decide who they go after. A quick google does not reveal any individual that appears honest that was hammered (though a few companies got hammered for honest mistakes, in my opinion) - but I know of many people that are harrased by them. ITAR is a very bad thing, and it makes the US less secure because it forces others to catch up technologically.
If you take a russian rocket engine into the US, it then becomes illegal to send it back to Russia or to tell anything technical about it to Russians. The only exception is anything "published", which you can quote (but not embellish - even saying "this looks good" could be construed as an ITAR violation).
I've heard that the best way around it is to patent it. A Patent counts as publishing it, which means that you can then talk about it. If you had published it yourself, they would consider that an ITAR violation - but if the PTO publishes it, you are off the hook.
The most annoying and inane rules anywhere. Seriously, call your senator!
People should not judge a country by the small minority which rules it.
The problem with that statement is that the rulers of Iran:
1) Have said that they want nuclear weapons, and are actively pursuing nuclear technology 2) Have said that they want to wipe Isreal from the map 3) Seem to be spreading fear through their military and covert actions
While that does not make me hate Iranians or anything, that may lead to the US being forced to intervene no matter how we judge the rest of them - which would certainly make most Iranians hate us...
It is a very difficult problem. What do you do when a country is stable, but dangerously aggressive? Is it better to leave it alone, and sometimes get a Pearl Harbor, or kick over the hornets nest and get Iraq? No matter what you do, you have a bad outcome. And of course, the Iranians are not going to rebel against their government - they have the guns.
As technology increases, this problem will get worse - for two reasons. First, the power goverments have over people will increase - think of the progression of knives, guns, tanks, ???. Second, the Pearl Harbor or first strike outcome gets far worse - what if Bin Laden had waited until after they aquired thermonukes? In the next century, a terrorist could conceivably kill every american in the opening shot...
While I do personally agree with your sentiments, that is not really the question being asked. The question being asked is "Is it legal?".
That question is more complex. I am working on a rocket - similar issue arise. ITAR is the governing regulation, and the state department decides what ITAR means. And they are not logical about it.
I want to develop human rocket transports - but anything that goes into space is automatically a weapon, according to the state department. That means that if I talk to a non-US citizen about my improvements to rockets, I go to jail - let alone hiring or working with a non-US citizen.
UAVs seem very likely to fall under ITAR, because the state department will almost certainly say so. Ignorance of the law does not free you from the consequences of it, so I would tread carefully. One of the biggest problems with ITAR is that it is difficult to know exactly what it makes illegal - and so you end up having to consult lawyers every time you want to do anything involving foriengers. Very annoying, and very expensive! But it does lock in big profits for government contractors, of course... (You did know that they get reimbursed for all legal expenses, right?)
My dream is that knowing this will so enrage the Slashdot community that everyone will call their senator and tell them to force the state department to make the ITAR list less inclusive, and only include things that have weaponry as a primary purpose - and get congress to force state to change.
Slashdot Mirror
To put this idiotic issue to bed, here is the basic problem with pegging money to gold:
Gold supply fluctions cause money supply fluctuations.
What that means is that Evil Foriegnors(TM) can go into your country, and redeem for a largish portion of the gold. You now have less gold, so you have less money. You can't get more gold, so you just have to make do with less money. In other words, deflation happens - there is less money, but the same amount of "stuff" (except for gold), so the stuff is worth more. The problem is that this crashes the economy, just like too much inflation does (see Japan).
So what you end up with is this: Evil Foriegnors(TM) now have the power to crash your economy at will.
In addition, if anyone at all counterfiets the currency (including the government, as in printing too much money) the economy can be exploited - just like one of those fake economies in an online game. Here is the scenario: I am smart, so I assume that someone, somewhere has counterfieted US money. That means that while the government says that 1 dollar equals 1 gram of gold, it actually only equals 0.99999 grams of gold. So I take a trillion dollars, and ask the government for my gold. There are two possible outcomes:
1) It becomes obvious that I was right, and that someone somewhere printed some extra dollars. The US government now has to re-base the currency to 1 dollar equals 0.99998 gold (remember, I took most of their gold, so it is no longer just 0.99999). I can now trade back, and make a couple hundred million dollars.
2) It becomes obvious that I was wrong, and I just cause a recession through my monetary influence (or possibly not), but the key fact is that I still have the gold, and can easily reverse my position.
This means that any country that has a currency backed by gold can be exploited. Get their currency, and convert it to gold. Keep doing that until you crash the economy, and they have to repeg. Profit!
And how do we know about this, you ask? Why do you think we went off the gold standard in the first place? Europe did this to us multiple times, and then we finally realized what the problem was... this is the base cause of "runs on currency".
(And you thought exploits only worked on servers - bah, in my day we would crack entire economies!)
If you did that they would ask why your acceleration was off... these things are not just guessed at or something, the specs are extremely well known.
More to the point, they would be idiots to attempt this. By certifying the aircraft, they are receiving a "get out of jail free" card from the government. If they pass the tests, then if there is a crash they can show that they had no way to know it might happen - and the government will provide witnesses to that effect. If they fake the test in any way (and no, they can't keep anything a secret - there is always some way to tell), the opposing lawyers will jump all over it (and rightly so) and Boeing will pay 10x damages.
Aircraft manufacturers like certification - it reduces liability insurance premiums. That's why Rutan wants it applied to spacecraft. I think he's misguided, personally, but I can see his point.
You do realize that this system overproduces and wastes resources on a staggering scale?
I do not believe in such a thing as overproduction in the context of free exchange. Someone wants it or it wouldn't be exchanged, and if someone wants it more than whatever they exchange it should be produced.
Not everybody can be an entrepreneur or manager.
Sadly true - but this is more due to choices and training than anything else. When everyone goes around saying that the man is evil, few people emulate them. Thats a pitty, because of course those that do emulate them tend to succeed - which self selects people that don't mind being called evil, possibly because they are evil...
It takes capital to get started
Not true - I have built 8 companies, with no capital beyond normal credit cards. True, I am now starting more expensive ones - but you can start them on a shoestring. Personally, I think that shoestring companies are more likely to survive because they teach the most important lessons (cash flow management) quickly. I have never used venture capital - I may eventually, but it is not something I would do lightly.
we have no choice but to sell our labor for less than it is worth
Not true - you are either selling it for its worth (it's not worth very much, we have billions of people willing to work, but only thousands really willing to lead - and sacrifice what it takes to lead effectively). You can increase the value of your labor by training, though - simple supply and demand.
Now, one thing I will grant you is this: managers are by training good at negotiating. Most people never learn that technique, which causes them to accept less than they should. To me, this is the most important disparity in labor - and no one seems to address it. In fact, the reason I believe (even as an avowed economist) that minimum wage is reasonable is that I think it is best viewed as the government negotiating on behalf of the lowest payed workers. Unfortunately, like all government intervention, it is not very efficient - probably it destroys about the same value as it creates. What I would really like to see is instead of unions or minimum wage, have a group of people that negotiate salaries/working conditions on behalf of the workers. Interestingly enough, management tends to use people like that - but I think they should be used to improve worker's outcomes.
push people to buy things they don't need.
This is a strange thing - marketing really can create needs. To me, that is simply bizzare - but then I am quite happy with my minivan, and have no need for a sports car.
Are people happier with those things? Presumably, they thought the things would make them happier. Probably a flaw in us humans - like drug addiction, etc. Not sure what to make about that, but prevention would likely be more painful than dealing with it.
if by "do the right stuff" you mean "exploit the labor of hundreds of other people."
Interestingly enough, the world would be a far better place if those hundreds of people would stop letting themselves be exploited and instead become managers (starting their own companies where necessary). We suffer from a labor surplus, and a management shortage. That is why the income disparity exists - noone is forcing people to work for the man.
You are given a choice very early in life: Do you want to be the man, or do you want to work for the man? (Though if caught quickly you can change your answer.) Being the man is dangerous, you work without a net. Working for the man is easy, and is what everyone you know does. People being people, 99% choose to be sheep, 0.5% choose to be a shepherd, and 0.5% choose to be a wolf.
BS - the FAA does not examine the plane and "decide" if it is airworthy.
The FAA has set some tests that must be completed by all aircraft manufacturers - and the tests have extremely simple, impossible to fake criteria. For example, the fully loaded plane must go at full throttle on the runway up to the no return line, and slam on the brakes. The plane must stop before the end of the runway, sit for 5 minutes (worst case overheating of the brakes), and then taxi to the terminal. The tires are expected to blow, and the brakes may catch on fire, but other than that no damage is allowed.
There are many tests like this. They have to pass them all. If you build a plane from glass and it passes these tests, it is just as safe as a solid steel one - it would just be a lot harder to design.
Materials do not give a plane safety. Engineering is what gives a plane safety.
Of course, they also tested it in many other ways - the drop test is simply one of the many tests the FAA requires. They have even done testing not really required by the FAA - for example, they bent the wings back to see how strong they were until they touched over the cabin!
Most of the tests are on youtube, by the way!
This is really idiotic - no one cares how hard you work. ONLY RESULTS MATTER!
Seriously, work less hard - but do the right stuff, and your salary can go up 10,000 times as well.
The standard conservative line is that your reward should be proportionate to the value of your contributions to society. I believe this is about 41% true and 73% crock*.
A better way to put this is conservatives believe that society works better when your reward is proportinoal to contribution. The conservative way seems to be working better than every other method tried in the last 10,000 years...
They also believe that capitalism is a fair judge of the value of contributions (which I think is 20% true and 92% crock).
No one I know believes that - they just believe that capitalism is a better judge than anything else we've come up with.
Especially sanctimonious people like liberal politicians, who want to dictate values to the rest of us cause we are too dumb to understand...
Have you ever been an American in France? At least many years ago, the French were all SO stuck up about how much better they were than the Americans - they wouldn't even speak to an American. I find that attitude all over Europe (outside of Britian and Scandinavia) - it is no surprise that Americans took offense to that when bloodied.
In fact, the real reason the French got upset was that we had always just ignored thier rantings before - but that time we were already pissed off and they were foolish enough to try to push us further, and we smacked them.
Sorry. We shouldn't have done that - but neither should you. Get over it.
Did they disprove that the claim of "second-hand smoke is anoying in the extreme"? My problem is not only the health risk, but my restaraunt experience going from good to bad based on a smoker who came in after I did - so I had no choice involved.
Whoa...
Let's think for a moment. Let's say that you are the super-mega brilliant race, billions of years more advanced than humans. You can reorganize matter with a thought - but your bored, and want to meet other races.
The problem is that all the other races are billions of light years away. You know that faster than light travel is possible, but you don't want to have to search the entire galaxy for them. So what to do?
Make a sign! Well, what kind of sign - we're talking billions of light years, the only thing visible will be entire galaxies. OK then, take all the "nearby" galaxies, and point them at us - that should draw attention!
And of course, since they have such an advanced culture their galaxies are entirely composed of Dyson's spheres. You know, dark... they even absorb all the microwave radiation and gavity waves and convert them to power!
It's so obvious!
This is mainly determined by the field you are in. In most large corps, as you say, they want to have you work every second of every day. Because of that, when emergencies happen or a market oportunity presents itself, they cannot take advantage of it.
Unless they outsource to me, the little guy. I spend maybe 25% of my time working like mad, and the rest of the time waiting for work - and because of our reputation and because our jobs are all emergencies, we charge quite a bit more... so I work less and get paid more for it!
A way out of this quagmire (I love that word!) might be this:
The initial primaries are done by randomly selecting 1,000 registered voters from across the entire US. These people come to a central location, meet, talk to, and grill the candidates. They then cast their votes and perhaps right up what they thought of each candidate. Two weeks later, everyone in the country votes.
This way, you get people that have seriously considered and understand the available candidates to make the first votes. You also remove the monetary bias from the campaining, which I think is a real problem for our country.
Seriously - this is right on. If you are predisposed to not vote, vote anyway - but write in a candidate.
That really sends a message. Imagine if 30% of the vote went to unknowns!
That's why it is such a stupid law. It doesn't prevent the problem, it just prevents the US from being part of the solution.
If you aren't from the US, you should love ITAR - it cripples the US from competing with you.
Honestly, yes.
It isn't a weapon. It may be idiotic, and it may be converted into a weapon, but making a law that says you can't be evil doesn't effect those that are bent on being evil - it only effects those of us that are not evil. Evil people can get around the law now!
Obvious abuses can be tried in a court anyway.
Some quick Googles:
ITT Corporation Announces Plea Agreement in its Night Vision Business
Company agrees to pay $50 million fine and invest $50 million in night vision technology
Some background and a list of companies that have paid millions
More info
The money line:
Criminal Sanctions: Individual - A fine of up to $1,000,000 or up to ten years in prison, or both, for each violation.
They get to decide who they go after. A quick google does not reveal any individual that appears honest that was hammered (though a few companies got hammered for honest mistakes, in my opinion) - but I know of many people that are harrased by them. ITAR is a very bad thing, and it makes the US less secure because it forces others to catch up technologically.
Can you afford a lawsuit?
If you take a russian rocket engine into the US, it then becomes illegal to send it back to Russia or to tell anything technical about it to Russians. The only exception is anything "published", which you can quote (but not embellish - even saying "this looks good" could be construed as an ITAR violation).
I've heard that the best way around it is to patent it. A Patent counts as publishing it, which means that you can then talk about it. If you had published it yourself, they would consider that an ITAR violation - but if the PTO publishes it, you are off the hook.
The most annoying and inane rules anywhere. Seriously, call your senator!
Interestingly enough, I watch no TV at all...
I found that clip distateful. Everyone that disagrees with him is a murderer? How quaint.
How is the US gov't going to "shut down" open discussion
The same way they do it to people building rockets. They use ITAR, and throw you in jail if you don't comply.
We really need to reduce the ITAR regulations - call your congressman!
This would never work in Canada - there is no way you would fit a Canadian flag on a small aircraft...
That has to have been the most non-troll way of putting that.
Sorry that your facts are unpopular here...
People should not judge a country by the small minority which rules it.
The problem with that statement is that the rulers of Iran:
1) Have said that they want nuclear weapons, and are actively pursuing nuclear technology
2) Have said that they want to wipe Isreal from the map
3) Seem to be spreading fear through their military and covert actions
While that does not make me hate Iranians or anything, that may lead to the US being forced to intervene no matter how we judge the rest of them - which would certainly make most Iranians hate us...
It is a very difficult problem. What do you do when a country is stable, but dangerously aggressive? Is it better to leave it alone, and sometimes get a Pearl Harbor, or kick over the hornets nest and get Iraq? No matter what you do, you have a bad outcome. And of course, the Iranians are not going to rebel against their government - they have the guns.
As technology increases, this problem will get worse - for two reasons. First, the power goverments have over people will increase - think of the progression of knives, guns, tanks, ???. Second, the Pearl Harbor or first strike outcome gets far worse - what if Bin Laden had waited until after they aquired thermonukes? In the next century, a terrorist could conceivably kill every american in the opening shot...
I so want off this planet!
My recommendation is to try to avoid the issue. UAV will almost certainly be seen as a military device. (Very) Remote controlled airplane will not...
While I do personally agree with your sentiments, that is not really the question being asked. The question being asked is "Is it legal?".
That question is more complex. I am working on a rocket - similar issue arise. ITAR is the governing regulation, and the state department decides what ITAR means. And they are not logical about it.
I want to develop human rocket transports - but anything that goes into space is automatically a weapon, according to the state department. That means that if I talk to a non-US citizen about my improvements to rockets, I go to jail - let alone hiring or working with a non-US citizen.
UAVs seem very likely to fall under ITAR, because the state department will almost certainly say so. Ignorance of the law does not free you from the consequences of it, so I would tread carefully. One of the biggest problems with ITAR is that it is difficult to know exactly what it makes illegal - and so you end up having to consult lawyers every time you want to do anything involving foriengers. Very annoying, and very expensive! But it does lock in big profits for government contractors, of course... (You did know that they get reimbursed for all legal expenses, right?)
My dream is that knowing this will so enrage the Slashdot community that everyone will call their senator and tell them to force the state department to make the ITAR list less inclusive, and only include things that have weaponry as a primary purpose - and get congress to force state to change.
I'd also like a pony...