Yeah, well we don't have a War Department anymore either.
Note, for those who don't know, that the War Department was the original name for what is now the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force (when there was a War Department, there was no USAF).
Both are, of course, subordinate to the Department of Defense....
Slightly more seriously, how is "heid" pronounced (besides with a Scottish accent)? Like "hide"? "Heed"? I'm assuming "yin" is pronounced the same as it would be in "yin-yang"?
In any case, my thanks for the new bit of slang....
but I would like to point out that when the USA was a new country, having its merchant ships being attacked by the Pirates of Tripoli, it responded and thus formed the Marine Corps.
Well, no.
The Marines (and the Navy) were formed in 1775. Then they were disbanded at the end of the Revolution.
Then they were recreated in 1798 for the Quasi-War with France.
Shortly after that (1801), Marines were sent with Decatur's Squadron to deal with the Barbary Pirates.
And no, the Barbary Pirates had little, if anything, to do with "radical Islam". No more than Edward Teach was a part of "radical Christianity" a century earlier....
2) Unified pushback, in the form of informed voting, on the part of the majority of voters (extremely rare, as the issue has to be very direct and poignant for this to happen).
Meaningless in the USA, at least. An "informed voter" has the same candidate choice as the uninformed voter, and the candidates have been vetted by the Parties.
Or are the rules different in Russia, that you don't have to be a monopoly in order to come under antitrust regulations?
Somehow, I see this as a reaction to the sanctions imposed over the Ukraine mess. I think that someone in Russia is thinking that hitting Google will hurt the US Government in some way....
This is true for Bismarck-class battleships, Tiger Tanks, rail cannons, you name it.
Hmm, from what I've read on the subject, the Bismarck-class was decent by European standards, but couldn't compare to either Yamato-class or Iowa-class. Or even King George V-class.
And the Tiger was about a match for an M26, and outmatched by a JS-II (much JS-III)
In other words, their reputation exceeded their capabilites....
A quibble: The ACA is not about healthcare, it's about health INSURANCE. There is a difference.
A second quibble: it's not about "giving" something that people don't want, it's about forcing them to buy something they don't want.
They should've (not "should of", it should be noted) done it the easy way - expand Medicare to cover everyone, push commercial health insurance into the same slot as auto/home insurance - insurance against catastrophes only, not routine maintenance.
Of course, if they'd done that, the health insurance companies would've (not "would of", it should be noted) stopped giving bucketloads of money to the Dems....
why not prevent advanced drone proliferation as well?
Instead, ask why we should treat drone aircraft any differently than manned aircraft. It's not like a drone is magically more lethal than an F16 or F18....
As to "refined" uranium, that depends on whether "refined" really means "enriched".
U-235 has a much shorter half-life, hence a much higher radioactivity. "Natural" uranium (almost entirely U238) might be radioactive enough to be a problem if you have a few kilos under your bed for twenty years or so. Or not. A similar amount of U235 would be...bad.
For the less-than-alert reader, if you can accelerate to the speed of a passing body... you don't really need that body.
Nonsense!
That body provides a lot of mass and energy, which could seriously improve the survivability of a slowboat full of colonists.
While I'd be willing to travel to another star using Ceres as a spacecraft, I'd much rather have Ceres plus a small star plus the mass of the cometary halo and asteroid belts of the small star....
It's not the refined, ultra-pure stuff, 5 minutes of exposure will kill you type
Since natural uranium has a half life measured in billions of years, the only way it could kill you in five minutes is if a significantly large chunk of it fell on your head from a great height....
Unfortunately there seem to be a lot of people in government who believe that having corporations be allowed to collect, use, share, sell, and otherwise exploit every piece of information about you is somehow a good thing.
Of course there are. It's much easier for the government to spy on you if someone else gathers the data into one convenient place.
Of course, those people in government are on the payroll of industry, so of course they're going to roll over like bitches for the corporations.
Nope. They're just people who find that it makes their job easier to have corporations gather the data that the government wants than to have the government go to the trouble of gathering it themselves.
More things for the private soldier to break. And for those of you with no military experience, your average private can break ANYTHING....
Alternatively, as we found in WW2 and later wars, it means more things to throw away as useless weight that your private is not going to want to lug around on the off chance it might come in useful once a year or so....
If current trends continue, overpopulation is a non-issue. Pop will increase to the 10-12 billion range then begin a decline to a (possibly) lower-than-today level during the rest of this century and first part of the next.
Do remember that China, Europe, and the USA (collectively, about a third the world's population) are already in a state of population decline absent immigration. India is now the only major nation with a positive population growth rate when immigration is ignored....
That's $31.9M per year, spread across four companies.
Or an average of about $8M per year each.
Let's see. Annual revenue for those companies averages in excess of $50B each (two of them managed to make >$210B, so I didn't even bother checking the other two, just used the revenue for those two averaged over four companies).
So, they're spending an average of 0.016% of their income on lobbying.
Frankly, given the power of the federal government, spending that LITTLE to buy favourable legislation is surprising.
Do remember, the more power the government has, the more worthwhile it is to just buy laws that favour you.
When done in other countries, my government calls it corruption.
No, that would be graft, not corruption. There is a difference, though it's pretty much hairsplitting....
We've been there for a long time. Decades. We don't actually need to make our subs quieter, we need to make them a bit noisier to match background levels in oceans....
21" guns??? Where did you get the idea that anyone used 21" guns on any battleships? 18" on Yamato and Musashi, 16" on the last two classes of American BBs, 14-15 inches more other battleships.
Slashdot Mirror
Note, for those who don't know, that the War Department was the original name for what is now the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force (when there was a War Department, there was no USAF).
Both are, of course, subordinate to the Department of Defense....
Is that like a muckety muck?
Slightly more seriously, how is "heid" pronounced (besides with a Scottish accent)? Like "hide"? "Heed"? I'm assuming "yin" is pronounced the same as it would be in "yin-yang"?
In any case, my thanks for the new bit of slang....
Well, no.
The Marines (and the Navy) were formed in 1775. Then they were disbanded at the end of the Revolution.
Then they were recreated in 1798 for the Quasi-War with France.
Shortly after that (1801), Marines were sent with Decatur's Squadron to deal with the Barbary Pirates.
And no, the Barbary Pirates had little, if anything, to do with "radical Islam". No more than Edward Teach was a part of "radical Christianity" a century earlier....
Only if you have read and understood ALL the source code for same.
Good luck with that....
Meaningless in the USA, at least. An "informed voter" has the same candidate choice as the uninformed voter, and the candidates have been vetted by the Parties.
Somehow, I see this as a reaction to the sanctions imposed over the Ukraine mess. I think that someone in Russia is thinking that hitting Google will hurt the US Government in some way....
Hmm, from what I've read on the subject, the Bismarck-class was decent by European standards, but couldn't compare to either Yamato-class or Iowa-class. Or even King George V-class.
And the Tiger was about a match for an M26, and outmatched by a JS-II (much JS-III)
In other words, their reputation exceeded their capabilites....
A quibble: The ACA is not about healthcare, it's about health INSURANCE. There is a difference.
A second quibble: it's not about "giving" something that people don't want, it's about forcing them to buy something they don't want.
They should've (not "should of", it should be noted) done it the easy way - expand Medicare to cover everyone, push commercial health insurance into the same slot as auto/home insurance - insurance against catastrophes only, not routine maintenance.
Of course, if they'd done that, the health insurance companies would've (not "would of", it should be noted) stopped giving bucketloads of money to the Dems....
Instead, ask why we should treat drone aircraft any differently than manned aircraft. It's not like a drone is magically more lethal than an F16 or F18....
And that evidence would be?
"Choosing who to pander to next" doesn't make your hair go grey in six years.
The man is younger than I am, and looks like he's aged 20 years since he got in office.
As to "refined" uranium, that depends on whether "refined" really means "enriched".
U-235 has a much shorter half-life, hence a much higher radioactivity. "Natural" uranium (almost entirely U238) might be radioactive enough to be a problem if you have a few kilos under your bed for twenty years or so. Or not. A similar amount of U235 would be...bad.
Nonsense!
That body provides a lot of mass and energy, which could seriously improve the survivability of a slowboat full of colonists.
While I'd be willing to travel to another star using Ceres as a spacecraft, I'd much rather have Ceres plus a small star plus the mass of the cometary halo and asteroid belts of the small star....
Since natural uranium has a half life measured in billions of years, the only way it could kill you in five minutes is if a significantly large chunk of it fell on your head from a great height....
Of course there are. It's much easier for the government to spy on you if someone else gathers the data into one convenient place.
Nope. They're just people who find that it makes their job easier to have corporations gather the data that the government wants than to have the government go to the trouble of gathering it themselves.
Pastime. Try not to type words you've only heard but never seen in print.
More things for the private soldier to break. And for those of you with no military experience, your average private can break ANYTHING....
Alternatively, as we found in WW2 and later wars, it means more things to throw away as useless weight that your private is not going to want to lug around on the off chance it might come in useful once a year or so....
If current trends continue, overpopulation is a non-issue. Pop will increase to the 10-12 billion range then begin a decline to a (possibly) lower-than-today level during the rest of this century and first part of the next.
Do remember that China, Europe, and the USA (collectively, about a third the world's population) are already in a state of population decline absent immigration. India is now the only major nation with a positive population growth rate when immigration is ignored....
Hmm, $95.6M in lobbying over three years...
That's $31.9M per year, spread across four companies.
Or an average of about $8M per year each.
Let's see. Annual revenue for those companies averages in excess of $50B each (two of them managed to make >$210B, so I didn't even bother checking the other two, just used the revenue for those two averaged over four companies).
So, they're spending an average of 0.016% of their income on lobbying.
Frankly, given the power of the federal government, spending that LITTLE to buy favourable legislation is surprising.
Do remember, the more power the government has, the more worthwhile it is to just buy laws that favour you.
No, that would be graft, not corruption. There is a difference, though it's pretty much hairsplitting....
I find myself curious as to just how "absolute freedom of speech" could possibly trump any other right, much less all of them....
While I can believer your fourth point, maybe, what do these three things have to do with labor supply?
Because you're the biggest idiot in the world?
First Amendment.
You can claim anything you want with no trouble.
You can even take money for it, if you can find someone to pay you.
We've been there for a long time. Decades. We don't actually need to make our subs quieter, we need to make them a bit noisier to match background levels in oceans....
21" guns??? Where did you get the idea that anyone used 21" guns on any battleships? 18" on Yamato and Musashi, 16" on the last two classes of American BBs, 14-15 inches more other battleships.
At the cost of a 10% reduction in effective battery life.