Yep, there was an Air Force requirement to make a single polar orbit (over Russia, of course), drop a present, and land in one pass. That required steep descent, 1000 mile crossrange (because the Earth turns 1000 miles in one orbit), and a lot of associated headaches.
Scramjets have the problem of not existing. That said, it is not 100% sure that they are the best way to go. (Of course, a lot of this is determined by your definition of the word "best"). For example, you absolutely need rockets once you leave the atmosphere (all sub-escape trajectories that leave the atmosphere re-enter it). So if you have to use rockets anyway, at what point is it better to go straight from mildy supersonic to rocket, skipping the scramjet stage? If you include development costs over the current flight rate, you definately choose rockets. If you amortize the development across launches every few hours, the balance may change...
Sharp egdes on hypersonic vehicles are being looked at again, because of new advanced materials. Personaly, I don't think they will happen - there are cheaper ways to do things like that.
Unfortunately, most of my information comes from the web (Google Groups is a good place to start - although for space in particular I would read http://yarchive.net/space - it is better organized), so I can't really recommend a good book. A Googgle groups search can probably give you one, though.
The parachute trip takes about an hour, as I recall - I think recently someone was seriously considering that as a business angle at one point.
A better question: What if Europe was going to be bankrupted while being forced to send $100 Billion a year to the US? What if instead of determining the pollution level by carbon dioxide, what if it was by population density? (As in, Europe has to buy "population density credits" from the US)
I would bet $millions that Europe wouldn't sign that, regardless of the US signing, Iran signing, etc.
Those tsunami victims wouldn't have received one cent.
And yet, the tsunami victims got hundreds of millions from the US. Perhaps the US still does things for the right reasons? Perhaps it just disagrees with you on what is right?
Presonally, I think this was a scam the EU tried to pull on the US - "Hey, let's pass a treaty that says the US has to pay us $100 Billion a year, we'll make it an environmental thing so that they will be forced to ratify it!"
I'm afraid my opinion of European governments is pretty low...
All I can say is that I disagree with you. I have never even had to ask for a job - I got job offers throughout the economic downturn, and I still get job offers all the time. For my skillset at least, there is a seller's market.
I think that the key is that there are always going to be more unskilled people than unskilled jobs - and the primary problem people have is that they think of a job as "doing what they tell you" in exchange for "pay". Really, everyone's job (except for the government and non-profit) is to make the company they work for X dollars, of which you will get a percentage. If you set your goal as making your company as much money as possible, you will quickly find that your pay goes up as your contributions do. If not, you will easily be able to find another job. (Yes, a few companies I worked for didn't advance me and took advantage of me - but only early on, and I left and started working a new job immediately.)
Too many people think that companies are evil, that you shouldn't try to make them money - you should just try to take as much of their money as possible while doing as little as possible. If you are taking a companies money - the money which is owned by the shareholders - and you do not operate in the shareholders interests, you are stealing!
I you want to get money while not making others rich, start your own company - and you will quickly find why most people just settle for making others rich (as well as themselves).
The goal for all rockets (except ICBMs!) is to slow down as high as possible, to avoid high peak temperatures. The upside to high alititudes is that the energy absorbtion rate is low (you take a long time to slow down), lowering your temperature. The downside is that you have no air buffer (there is basically no air up there!) so one half of all energy lost goes into your ship. So you get more energy you need to get rid of, but your have much longer to get rid of it - for most cases this is a net win.
However, the Space Shuttle has a requirement of landing in the continental US after a single pass. That meant that they could not stay up in the light stuff as long as they wanted to, so they had to use a very hot re-entry. Also, the shuttle is very dense (its specs also required it to land carrying cargo), so it would be very difficult to slow down in the upper atmosphere.
As for other options, there are almost an infinite number. The water cooling you mentioned has been proposed, though not for high altitude orbital reentry. Since the water you need to take with you is proportional to the energy you need to get rid of, a very steep reentry - where most of the energy goes into the air, not the vehicle - makes better use of the water's cooling properties. A shallow re-entry would require too much water.
Interestingly enough, although lift is nice it is not necessary for a gentle re-entry. Serious work was done on parachutes capable of landing a person from orbit - the Gemini spacesuit was strong enough to survive a high-altitude re-entry with no additional sheilding... so they had designed an inflateable parachute that would provide a gentle reentry. It still required a de-orbit burn, though.
Achieving reasonable L/D ratios at hypersonic speeds is a lot more difficult than it seems. But if you can get a L/D ratio of 4 you can land anywhere on the planet from anywhere in orbit just by gliding!
Sadly, the pure cold logical response is for the US to secretly ship small nukes in to North Korea, space evenly across the countryside - and simultaneously dentonate them. Kill 22 million people to defend North Korea's 10 million in Seoul, and the millions more in Tokyo.
If the US did this, they could disclaim any knowledge. There would be no one to retaliate against - and the world would beg the US to disarm all remaining countries, assuming that terrorist had done it.
This would be logical, would forward US interests, and would be a relatively easy operation. But even the staunchest US hater does not believe it would happen.
On the other hand, North Korea currently sells missiles to terrorist nations. They would definately sell nukes to terrorists. I don't think anyone disagrees with that statement... so that is why North Korea "poses a threat."
I agree with what you said, and I agree with what I said - the difference is in the interpretation. You talked about blood pooling, for example. Blood pools because if your body is being accelerated and your blood isn't, it "resists" the change in velocity. However if your blood is accelerated also there is no problem.
As an example, place an unlucky astronaut in space a few parsecs from an ultramassive black hole, such that he is accelerating at 10000 m/ss. He will experience weightlessness - and be fine (until tidal forces tear him apart, that is).
Yup, that is what I remember too. If you have employees that do the same job as you, it is easy - but be carefull! The IRS may take the position that you are the CEO, CEOs make $250K, so anything under $250K is income.
Of course, if the amount is small you probably won't throw up any flags in the system anyway. But having income reclassified and owing tons of taxes and penalties is nasty stuff!
Good luck, BTW - I think building your own business is the best - it helps you and the economy!
Be very carefull with dividends - IANAL, IANATA, but I am someone who deals with this a lot. The IRS has some pretty complex rules about what constitutes dividends and what is income. The main one is that you cannot perform material work for the company and claim dividend income, though if you make more than about $250K you can claim anything over that is dividends. (That is my biggest beef with tax laws - this is how the rich [see John Kerry] avoid paying taxes. If you work in the business you are taxed, if you invest but do nothing, you are practically not taxed!)
If you do this, make sure you have an accountant doing it...
That applies only if clib patches are 1) numerous, and 2) apply to a function that every program uses.
I bet that the clib patches released now are changes in little used functions - otherwise the bugs would have been found by now. I still think it is better for at least userland programs (as in anything that is installed after the base OS) to be statically linked.
Maybe use dynamic libraries for the OS, but anything user-installed should be static!
Except that you cannot change the DLL without breaking a bunch of programs that rely on that "feature". So you really aren't any better off...
Library bugs are bad, but they are also somewhat rare. I would bet that replacing applications would be easier. One way to measure this might be to look at Microsoft's recent jpeg library problem - they used a static library that had a security bug. Thing is - it only really mattered in IE, so that was fixed immediately. The other fixes happen later.
Really, the alternative is that every few years all your programs stop working. Why is that more acceptable?
Why do we still use dynamically linked libraries? OK, let's face it - their usefullness is diminished. On today's multi-gig systems, having the library statically linked is not going to impose a performance penalty. And the idea of being able to upgrade a library just doesn't work - we end up having to fork the library half the time!
Let's stop using dynamic libraries, and use static ones. All software will just work - it won't matter which version of clib is installed. We have the disk space, let's use it!
Seriously, why are we still using dynamic libraries?
Well, if you look at how it really seems to work it makes sense. Windows 3.1 is compatible with DOS. Windows 95 is compatible with Windows 3.1, but not DOS. Windows 98 is compatible with Windows 95, but not Windows 3.1. Windows 2000 is compatible with Windows 98, but not Windows 95. Windows XP is compatible with Windows 2000, but not Windows 98.
Longhorn will be compatible with Windows XP, but not with Windows 2000. That way the buyers that upgrade every year anyway don't see any compatibility problems, only the buyers that don't upgrade see them - and Microsoft wouldn't get money from them anyway...
I wonder if this could be caused by the density change associated with higher temperatures, mixed with the planets rotation? Maybe the planet is acting as a centrifuge, forcing warm air to stay in the poles...
These are very good points. I guess my response would be to say that hospitals should be more understanding (because if all I had was a girlfriend, I'd prefer they let her in). If I were a homosexual and wanted to be married, I would probably have a ceremony with my intented - and get my name changed. That would take care of most of these problems. I'm not sure a governmental change would actually get rid of this local prejudice anyway.
As for the second argument, I think a very strong case can be made against this type of martial discrimination - but the solution is not to call everything under the sun a marriage. In this particular case, any dependant should be able to sue for wrongfull death - spouse, brother, sister, live-in friend, etc. Why shouldn't they be eligible?
Well, you and I may agree - but the law does not (as I have said, polygamy gets you arrested in all 50 states, homosexuality doesn't), and most people do not (you and I are probably included to a certain extent - ask yourself why you argue for homosexual rights but not for polygamous rights).
Personally, I don't agree with either lifestyle - but I think the choice is left to the individual. I don't like the government dictating anything in this instance - I don't want the government defining two men living together as a marriage (though if the two men want to describe it as such, I don't care) - but I also do not want the government to play favorites.
I think we should drop the preferential treatment for marriage, and instead do something for families. I don't think marriage really shouldn't get you something legally - although perhaps a case could be made along the lines of the personal growth and stability marriage typically provides.
I would just like to extend this thought a little:
What business does the government have concerning itself with your marriage at all? Why are there legal benefits to marriage?
The original reason for those legal benefits was to compensate couples for the added hardships involved in raising a family. So if we are really talking about that, only couples that have children should get the legal benefits - married, unmarried, pink, blue, homo, hetro, bi, whatever.
Or has the reason changed? Is it now just an entitlement?
Basically, I'm saying that the oposition to the gay marriage proposals have for the most part agreed that what should happen is that the words "civil unions" should replace "marriage" in all laws, and that civil unions should include homosexual couples. This is Bush's proposal, for example. If the gay activists are after equality, that should suffice - but they actively fight against it.
What they seem to want is for the government to say "the word marriage must now be recognized by everyone to include gay couples". That causes problems, because as you have mentioned marriage means different things to different people - some people think it is OK to have extramartial sex, some think that violates the marriage convenants, etc.
My comment on polygamy was meant to put the homosexual marriage debate in perspective - as in out of the sound bite arena. Why is polygamy illegal? You can be arrested for polygamy in all fifty states - homosexuality does not carry a sentence (outside of Texas). Why is that different? Would civil unions include polygamous marriages?
As to the "evilness" of polygamy - as long as the relationship is honest, I really can't see why that would be "more evil" than a homosexual marriage. Why do most people think that it is more evil?
Short term, yes. But longer term, the economy takes the money and redirects it - because someone will use the money on business costs, and that person will take business away from those that don't.
According to your logic, why don't they just lower your wages? Why don't they just raise their price to the customer?
They don't do that because they do not set prices, they do not set wages, and therefore they do not set profits. The markets do that! Inefficiencies exist (Monopolies, borders, regulations), but in general it works.
I believe that what you are saying is correct, but it does not lead to what gay rights activists are demanding. Most people now want the government out of marriage altogether. The legal benefits should be based on something else, such as a legal contract, legal partnership, whatever.
What makes the "christian right" upset is not that gays are getting together and calling that a marriage - it is that the government is forcing the "christian right" to also call that a marriage.
BTW, why is this acceptable but polygamy is not? (Not that I could handle more than the one wife I have, but what is the logical reason?)
Re:If politicians really wanted to fix SS
on
State of the Union
·
· Score: 1
Actually, what they do is more subtle than that. They taken in $50 in taxes. They taken in $25 in social security. They then spend $15 on social security. Then they "loan" $10 to themselves and spend $60 on government stuff. They write it up and pay interest on the loan.
The problem: When social security asks for the load to be repaid (happens very soon), where does that money come from? The government, of course. But wait - they don't have any money, do they? That's why they needed those loans in the first place...
Best outcome - investors buy up all the debt notes at the current price. No real change (but probably very optimistic).
Worst result - the market for US treasury notes is flooded. They drop in value, so the interest rates on new notes skyrocket. The US goes bankrupt, unable to pay the interest (or the US goes to 60% taxes, then goes bankrupt).
We will probably end up somewhere in between. Either way though - we should look into easing the transition.
If you are having trouble following this, think about this - How much is Bill Gates worth? (Current value of stock*shares owned.) If he sold all his stock on the market tommorrow morning, how much would he get? (Stock would drop near zero as the market is flooded, he gets pennies on the dollar). The same thing happens with notes - it just hasn't happened before the T-bills, to my knowlege.
My marriage is sacred to me. I don't abuse my wife or children. Hopefully I will not get a divorce (the odds are in my favor now).
Many people think as you do. Many more do not. Why do you think your viewpoint is more valid than theirs? It is an emotional decision, not a rational one. Rationally, noone should get married.
While this would be nice, I don't think it is a good idea in the real world. The problem with current disability is that it allows the government to play favorites - I was disabled, unable to walk (or even sit for long periods) for about 3 years. The government said I was inelligible for disability, probably because I am a white male.
Of course, knowing what I know now I should have taken this to the media, gotten a pro-bono legal representative, etc. But as a college student, I didn't really even know my options - and I didn't know that I should have fought for it.
By making it uniformly available, such situations are avoided. And since this is the ultimate safety net, perhaps that is worht the risk.
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Yep, there was an Air Force requirement to make a single polar orbit (over Russia, of course), drop a present, and land in one pass. That required steep descent, 1000 mile crossrange (because the Earth turns 1000 miles in one orbit), and a lot of associated headaches.
Scramjets have the problem of not existing. That said, it is not 100% sure that they are the best way to go. (Of course, a lot of this is determined by your definition of the word "best"). For example, you absolutely need rockets once you leave the atmosphere (all sub-escape trajectories that leave the atmosphere re-enter it). So if you have to use rockets anyway, at what point is it better to go straight from mildy supersonic to rocket, skipping the scramjet stage? If you include development costs over the current flight rate, you definately choose rockets. If you amortize the development across launches every few hours, the balance may change...
Sharp egdes on hypersonic vehicles are being looked at again, because of new advanced materials. Personaly, I don't think they will happen - there are cheaper ways to do things like that.
Unfortunately, most of my information comes from the web (Google Groups is a good place to start - although for space in particular I would read http://yarchive.net/space - it is better organized), so I can't really recommend a good book. A Googgle groups search can probably give you one, though.
The parachute trip takes about an hour, as I recall - I think recently someone was seriously considering that as a business angle at one point.
Do you ever wonder WHY Canada and the US use so much more energy per capita than Europe?
I'll give you a hint: Its FREEZING over here! Europe is nice and warm...
A better question: What if Europe was going to be bankrupted while being forced to send $100 Billion a year to the US? What if instead of determining the pollution level by carbon dioxide, what if it was by population density? (As in, Europe has to buy "population density credits" from the US)
I would bet $millions that Europe wouldn't sign that, regardless of the US signing, Iran signing, etc.
Those tsunami victims wouldn't have received one cent.
And yet, the tsunami victims got hundreds of millions from the US. Perhaps the US still does things for the right reasons? Perhaps it just disagrees with you on what is right?
Presonally, I think this was a scam the EU tried to pull on the US - "Hey, let's pass a treaty that says the US has to pay us $100 Billion a year, we'll make it an environmental thing so that they will be forced to ratify it!"
I'm afraid my opinion of European governments is pretty low...
All I can say is that I disagree with you. I have never even had to ask for a job - I got job offers throughout the economic downturn, and I still get job offers all the time. For my skillset at least, there is a seller's market.
I think that the key is that there are always going to be more unskilled people than unskilled jobs - and the primary problem people have is that they think of a job as "doing what they tell you" in exchange for "pay". Really, everyone's job (except for the government and non-profit) is to make the company they work for X dollars, of which you will get a percentage. If you set your goal as making your company as much money as possible, you will quickly find that your pay goes up as your contributions do. If not, you will easily be able to find another job. (Yes, a few companies I worked for didn't advance me and took advantage of me - but only early on, and I left and started working a new job immediately.)
Too many people think that companies are evil, that you shouldn't try to make them money - you should just try to take as much of their money as possible while doing as little as possible. If you are taking a companies money - the money which is owned by the shareholders - and you do not operate in the shareholders interests, you are stealing!
I you want to get money while not making others rich, start your own company - and you will quickly find why most people just settle for making others rich (as well as themselves).
The goal for all rockets (except ICBMs!) is to slow down as high as possible, to avoid high peak temperatures. The upside to high alititudes is that the energy absorbtion rate is low (you take a long time to slow down), lowering your temperature. The downside is that you have no air buffer (there is basically no air up there!) so one half of all energy lost goes into your ship. So you get more energy you need to get rid of, but your have much longer to get rid of it - for most cases this is a net win.
However, the Space Shuttle has a requirement of landing in the continental US after a single pass. That meant that they could not stay up in the light stuff as long as they wanted to, so they had to use a very hot re-entry. Also, the shuttle is very dense (its specs also required it to land carrying cargo), so it would be very difficult to slow down in the upper atmosphere.
As for other options, there are almost an infinite number. The water cooling you mentioned has been proposed, though not for high altitude orbital reentry. Since the water you need to take with you is proportional to the energy you need to get rid of, a very steep reentry - where most of the energy goes into the air, not the vehicle - makes better use of the water's cooling properties. A shallow re-entry would require too much water.
Interestingly enough, although lift is nice it is not necessary for a gentle re-entry. Serious work was done on parachutes capable of landing a person from orbit - the Gemini spacesuit was strong enough to survive a high-altitude re-entry with no additional sheilding... so they had designed an inflateable parachute that would provide a gentle reentry. It still required a de-orbit burn, though.
Achieving reasonable L/D ratios at hypersonic speeds is a lot more difficult than it seems. But if you can get a L/D ratio of 4 you can land anywhere on the planet from anywhere in orbit just by gliding!
Sadly, the pure cold logical response is for the US to secretly ship small nukes in to North Korea, space evenly across the countryside - and simultaneously dentonate them. Kill 22 million people to defend North Korea's 10 million in Seoul, and the millions more in Tokyo.
If the US did this, they could disclaim any knowledge. There would be no one to retaliate against - and the world would beg the US to disarm all remaining countries, assuming that terrorist had done it.
This would be logical, would forward US interests, and would be a relatively easy operation. But even the staunchest US hater does not believe it would happen.
On the other hand, North Korea currently sells missiles to terrorist nations. They would definately sell nukes to terrorists. I don't think anyone disagrees with that statement... so that is why North Korea "poses a threat."
MAD doesn't work against terrorists.
I agree with what you said, and I agree with what I said - the difference is in the interpretation. You talked about blood pooling, for example. Blood pools because if your body is being accelerated and your blood isn't, it "resists" the change in velocity. However if your blood is accelerated also there is no problem.
As an example, place an unlucky astronaut in space a few parsecs from an ultramassive black hole, such that he is accelerating at 10000 m/ss. He will experience weightlessness - and be fine (until tidal forces tear him apart, that is).
Yes, but that would make you a jerk, so the poster is correct!
Seriously though, what kills you is the difference in acceleration of the top and bottom - which is what the previous person said.
Yup, that is what I remember too. If you have employees that do the same job as you, it is easy - but be carefull! The IRS may take the position that you are the CEO, CEOs make $250K, so anything under $250K is income.
Of course, if the amount is small you probably won't throw up any flags in the system anyway. But having income reclassified and owing tons of taxes and penalties is nasty stuff!
Good luck, BTW - I think building your own business is the best - it helps you and the economy!
Be very carefull with dividends - IANAL, IANATA, but I am someone who deals with this a lot. The IRS has some pretty complex rules about what constitutes dividends and what is income. The main one is that you cannot perform material work for the company and claim dividend income, though if you make more than about $250K you can claim anything over that is dividends. (That is my biggest beef with tax laws - this is how the rich [see John Kerry] avoid paying taxes. If you work in the business you are taxed, if you invest but do nothing, you are practically not taxed!)
If you do this, make sure you have an accountant doing it...
That applies only if clib patches are 1) numerous, and 2) apply to a function that every program uses.
I bet that the clib patches released now are changes in little used functions - otherwise the bugs would have been found by now. I still think it is better for at least userland programs (as in anything that is installed after the base OS) to be statically linked.
Maybe use dynamic libraries for the OS, but anything user-installed should be static!
Except that you cannot change the DLL without breaking a bunch of programs that rely on that "feature". So you really aren't any better off...
Library bugs are bad, but they are also somewhat rare. I would bet that replacing applications would be easier. One way to measure this might be to look at Microsoft's recent jpeg library problem - they used a static library that had a security bug. Thing is - it only really mattered in IE, so that was fixed immediately. The other fixes happen later.
Really, the alternative is that every few years all your programs stop working. Why is that more acceptable?
Why do we still use dynamically linked libraries? OK, let's face it - their usefullness is diminished. On today's multi-gig systems, having the library statically linked is not going to impose a performance penalty. And the idea of being able to upgrade a library just doesn't work - we end up having to fork the library half the time!
Let's stop using dynamic libraries, and use static ones. All software will just work - it won't matter which version of clib is installed. We have the disk space, let's use it!
Seriously, why are we still using dynamic libraries?
Well, if you look at how it really seems to work it makes sense. Windows 3.1 is compatible with DOS. Windows 95 is compatible with Windows 3.1, but not DOS. Windows 98 is compatible with Windows 95, but not Windows 3.1. Windows 2000 is compatible with Windows 98, but not Windows 95. Windows XP is compatible with Windows 2000, but not Windows 98.
Longhorn will be compatible with Windows XP, but not with Windows 2000. That way the buyers that upgrade every year anyway don't see any compatibility problems, only the buyers that don't upgrade see them - and Microsoft wouldn't get money from them anyway...
I wonder if this could be caused by the density change associated with higher temperatures, mixed with the planets rotation? Maybe the planet is acting as a centrifuge, forcing warm air to stay in the poles...
Come on everybody, what's your theory?
These are very good points. I guess my response would be to say that hospitals should be more understanding (because if all I had was a girlfriend, I'd prefer they let her in). If I were a homosexual and wanted to be married, I would probably have a ceremony with my intented - and get my name changed. That would take care of most of these problems. I'm not sure a governmental change would actually get rid of this local prejudice anyway.
As for the second argument, I think a very strong case can be made against this type of martial discrimination - but the solution is not to call everything under the sun a marriage. In this particular case, any dependant should be able to sue for wrongfull death - spouse, brother, sister, live-in friend, etc. Why shouldn't they be eligible?
I don't know that they do.
Well, you and I may agree - but the law does not (as I have said, polygamy gets you arrested in all 50 states, homosexuality doesn't), and most people do not (you and I are probably included to a certain extent - ask yourself why you argue for homosexual rights but not for polygamous rights).
Personally, I don't agree with either lifestyle - but I think the choice is left to the individual. I don't like the government dictating anything in this instance - I don't want the government defining two men living together as a marriage (though if the two men want to describe it as such, I don't care) - but I also do not want the government to play favorites.
I think we should drop the preferential treatment for marriage, and instead do something for families. I don't think marriage really shouldn't get you something legally - although perhaps a case could be made along the lines of the personal growth and stability marriage typically provides.
I would just like to extend this thought a little:
What business does the government have concerning itself with your marriage at all? Why are there legal benefits to marriage?
The original reason for those legal benefits was to compensate couples for the added hardships involved in raising a family. So if we are really talking about that, only couples that have children should get the legal benefits - married, unmarried, pink, blue, homo, hetro, bi, whatever.
Or has the reason changed? Is it now just an entitlement?
Basically, I'm saying that the oposition to the gay marriage proposals have for the most part agreed that what should happen is that the words "civil unions" should replace "marriage" in all laws, and that civil unions should include homosexual couples. This is Bush's proposal, for example. If the gay activists are after equality, that should suffice - but they actively fight against it.
What they seem to want is for the government to say "the word marriage must now be recognized by everyone to include gay couples". That causes problems, because as you have mentioned marriage means different things to different people - some people think it is OK to have extramartial sex, some think that violates the marriage convenants, etc.
My comment on polygamy was meant to put the homosexual marriage debate in perspective - as in out of the sound bite arena. Why is polygamy illegal? You can be arrested for polygamy in all fifty states - homosexuality does not carry a sentence (outside of Texas). Why is that different? Would civil unions include polygamous marriages?
As to the "evilness" of polygamy - as long as the relationship is honest, I really can't see why that would be "more evil" than a homosexual marriage. Why do most people think that it is more evil?
Short term, yes. But longer term, the economy takes the money and redirects it - because someone will use the money on business costs, and that person will take business away from those that don't.
According to your logic, why don't they just lower your wages? Why don't they just raise their price to the customer?
They don't do that because they do not set prices, they do not set wages, and therefore they do not set profits. The markets do that! Inefficiencies exist (Monopolies, borders, regulations), but in general it works.
I believe that what you are saying is correct, but it does not lead to what gay rights activists are demanding. Most people now want the government out of marriage altogether. The legal benefits should be based on something else, such as a legal contract, legal partnership, whatever.
What makes the "christian right" upset is not that gays are getting together and calling that a marriage - it is that the government is forcing the "christian right" to also call that a marriage.
BTW, why is this acceptable but polygamy is not? (Not that I could handle more than the one wife I have, but what is the logical reason?)
Actually, what they do is more subtle than that. They taken in $50 in taxes. They taken in $25 in social security. They then spend $15 on social security. Then they "loan" $10 to themselves and spend $60 on government stuff. They write it up and pay interest on the loan.
The problem: When social security asks for the load to be repaid (happens very soon), where does that money come from? The government, of course. But wait - they don't have any money, do they? That's why they needed those loans in the first place...
Best outcome - investors buy up all the debt notes at the current price. No real change (but probably very optimistic).
Worst result - the market for US treasury notes is flooded. They drop in value, so the interest rates on new notes skyrocket. The US goes bankrupt, unable to pay the interest (or the US goes to 60% taxes, then goes bankrupt).
We will probably end up somewhere in between. Either way though - we should look into easing the transition.
If you are having trouble following this, think about this - How much is Bill Gates worth? (Current value of stock*shares owned.) If he sold all his stock on the market tommorrow morning, how much would he get? (Stock would drop near zero as the market is flooded, he gets pennies on the dollar). The same thing happens with notes - it just hasn't happened before the T-bills, to my knowlege.
My marriage is sacred to me. I don't abuse my wife or children. Hopefully I will not get a divorce (the odds are in my favor now).
Many people think as you do. Many more do not. Why do you think your viewpoint is more valid than theirs? It is an emotional decision, not a rational one. Rationally, noone should get married.
While this would be nice, I don't think it is a good idea in the real world. The problem with current disability is that it allows the government to play favorites - I was disabled, unable to walk (or even sit for long periods) for about 3 years. The government said I was inelligible for disability, probably because I am a white male.
Of course, knowing what I know now I should have taken this to the media, gotten a pro-bono legal representative, etc. But as a college student, I didn't really even know my options - and I didn't know that I should have fought for it.
By making it uniformly available, such situations are avoided. And since this is the ultimate safety net, perhaps that is worht the risk.