Um. Dude? We have an American political spectrum, okay? It's a subset of the whole spectrum. American liberals are not anti-capitalists. Anti-capitalists lie outside the American mainstream. So comments like yours are essentially meaningless.
4K isn't really the standard for digital post. It's the "standard" for digital mastering, if something as new and rare as digital mastering can be said to have any standard anythings.
For digital post, it's 2K --2048x1556.
Re:The logistics of building the Death Star
on
Star Wars Minutiae
·
· Score: 0
I'm sorry, were you there when this happened, or are you recycling something you heard from the News just as much as any radical liberal would?
Neither. You hear enough first-hand accounts, you end up with a pretty good idea of the things that went on.
Besides, if you're arguing that inaction constitutes justification I suppose it's your contention that organized rape, and systematic murders of black Sudanese is a good thing?
What? That doesn't make any sense at all. Of course what's going on in Darfur isn't a good thing. I want the 101st Fucking Airborne in there today. But too many Americans have drunk the Democratic kool-aid regarding military missions overseas. We don't have anywhere near the support in Congress to authorize an invasion and peacekeeping, even though that's exactly what we need to do.
Re:The logistics of building the Death Star
on
Star Wars Minutiae
·
· Score: -1, Flamebait
Let another call for a clarification that will undoubtedly go unanswered: "radcon" is a slur like "nigger" or "kike," right? It's a hate word? Because I just want to be perfectly clear on what exactly you mean by that.
Re:The logistics of building the Death Star
on
Star Wars Minutiae
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
I'm sure you'd defend the actions of President Reagan when he trained death squads in Central America
Sigh. You just love to connect Ronald Reagan to Honduran "death squads," don't you? The fact that Reagan ordered only the training of Honduran police forces and the Honduran police committed atrocities on their own doesn't even slow you down.
Whatever, dude. If you want to be a radical leftist spouting anti-American propaganda, knock yourself out.
Re:The logistics of building the Death Star
on
Star Wars Minutiae
·
· Score: 1
Only deranged psycopaths kill for absolutely no reason.
Exactly. I'm glad you understand.
Re:The logistics of building the Death Star
on
Star Wars Minutiae
·
· Score: 1
I for one do not consider the police force to be noncombatants.
You for one don't get to make those decisions. The Iraqi police are a civilian agency. They are part of the Iraqi civilian interim government. They are not combatants.
I don't know much about the civilian hostages you're talking about but I know that some of them were security for the U.S.
Not correct. Besides, it doesn't really matter one way or the other. Brutal public executions are terrorism no matter who the victim is.
I'm also not condoning the violence that the rebels (freedom fighters/terrorist/whatever) are perpetrating.
Seriously: stop it. These people are not rebels. They are not freedom fighters. They don't get to be called those names any more because they are terrorists. They use terrorist tactics. They are terrorists. Okay? Clear now?
Wouldn't really be a problem, though, if we had just minded our own damn business and not gone over there in the first place.
Ah, yes, how we all long for the days of secret police, midnight disappearances, rape rooms and wood chippers. Let's all get together and fucking reminisce about it.
what bothers me is that the city, as you pointed out, taxed the people to get the thing built to the tune of $191 million dollars
Right, which is common practice.
and George and Co. had it negotiated so they could then buy it back for $60 million.
Also common practice. The city, as I pointed out, paid off the bond in five years. Everybody's square.
If that isn't welfare for the rich I don't know what is.
Then you don't know what is. Cool. We've established a baseline.
Re:The logistics of building the Death Star
on
Star Wars Minutiae
·
· Score: 1
LOL! That's right, boys and girls. Because EVIL NASTY CIA MEN trained Honduran security forces, and those forces subsequently went on to do bad things, the USA IS A TERRORIST NATION.
Give a nutcase a microphone and sooner or later he will say something to reveal his agenda. Every single time.
LOL! I guess we really do live in the Internet age now.
Wrong, I quoted CNN, which reported that the information came from the NYPD.
Yes, information that was later reported as grossly exaggerated --for the first 24 hours NYPD press relations just passed on Answer's number instead of giving their own estimate.
Back it up with corroborating information or STFU.
Translation: "I like my head right where it is, thank you very much. I prefer to leave it crammed up my ass, and I will thank you to quit expecting me to pay attention to the world around me."
Eminent domain is a HUGE problem. I don't know why you dug all the way back into the dusty past to dredge up the story of the Ballpark in Arlington. (Beautiful park, by the way. The Rangers break my heart every time, but they sure do play in a gorgeous stadium.)
It's way more topical to discuss the ongoing controversy that's happening in New London. There's a big fight going on over eminent domain in that town. If we're lucky, the Supreme Court will announce as early as the first week in October that it will hear the case.
and getting the state to tax the people in order to fund a private venture?
I don't know what you're objecting to here. Are you upset that the city --not the state, incidentally, just the city of Arlington --raised sales taxes by a quarter of a percent to pay for a bond that helped to fund the building of the Ballpark? Or are you pissed that the Rangers are privately owned and not a public utility?
The Ballpark in Arlington, incidentally, is one of the most successful sporting arena projects in history. Because of increased sales tax revenues generated by the Ballpark, the city of Arlington was able to pay off the bond completely in only five years. After those five years the increased sales tax was repealed and today Arlington is back to 7.25%. The project didn't go off without any hitches, but it was a smashing success compared to most similar ventures.
I don't want to hurt your feelings, but the neocon experiment has been a total bust.
Again, just for the record, the word "neocon" is the 21st-century equivalent of "nigger" or "kike." It means "A person that I hated." I just want to make that clear for anybody who happens to wander by.
All reputable experts have said that we need to at least double our force in Iraq
Except, you know, the ones that work in big buildings in Washington. But they're not reputable, right? Because they say things that you don't agree with.
Besides, you didn't answer my question. If we were to double the head count in Iraq from 138,000 to 276,000, what would you suggest those troops do?
Your suggestion that most Iraqis live in freedom and safety has to rank as one of the most stupid and inane statements I have witnessed.
Your opinion notwithstanding, it remains true that most Iraqis live in freedom and safety. I'm sorry to be the bearer of such wonderful news.
Re:The logistics of building the Death Star
on
Star Wars Minutiae
·
· Score: 5, Informative
One person's "terrorist" is another's "freedom fighter".
No, that's precisely where you're wrong. Some folks love to quote that old cliche, but it's simply not true. The difference between a terrorist and a non-terrorist is in the methodology. The minute a freedom fighter --or whatever term you want to apply to a non-terrorist --attacks civilians in a way that's intended to inspire widespread terror, that person becomes a terrorist.
E.G., the Mujahadin were "Afghani Freedom Fighters" when they were fighting the "Evil Soviet Empire". Now they're "terrorists" or "illegal combatants".
You do see the difference, do you not? When the Afghan mujahedeen were fighting Soviet troops who had invaded their country, they were not terrorists. The "mujahedeen" in Iraq, as they sometimes call themselves, are trying to fight the same basic fight, but they're using terrorist tactics to do it. Instead of attacking Coalition troops, they're publicly executing civilian hostages and detonating bombs outside police stations. That's not a war of resistance. It's not a war at all. It's terrorism, and it's unacceptable. No set of circumstances can justify, excuse or mitigate terrorism. It's off limits to civilized human conduct.
See the difference?
Had I spent my life in Northern Ireland, the Basque region, or the Gaza strip such distinctions might prove to be naive at best.
I reject the idea of situational morality. I think that the civilized world as a whole does as well.
The whole concept of "terrorism" is being used now a magical incantation invoked against convenient targets.
I really don't know where you get that idea. It's simply not true. I quote from the State Department's annual "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report:
The term terrorism means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.
The term international terrorism means terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than one country.
The term terrorist group means any group practicing, or that has significant subgroups that practice, international terrorism.
The US Government has employed this definition of terrorism for statistical and analytical purposes since 1983.
Emphasis mine. The definition of terrorism didn't change between 1983 and 2002. In 2002, for obvious reasons, the president in his National Security Strategy directive expanded the definition slightly to include any individual, group or nation that provides financial or material support or safe harbor to terrorists. This is not the legal definition nor the one that State uses though; it's just the definition that the executive branch uses to set national security policy with respect to nations or groups that sponsor or willfully turn a blind eye to terrorism.
Re:The logistics of building the Death Star
on
Star Wars Minutiae
·
· Score: 1
You seem to be getting a bit worked up if you think that anyone (except the occasional serial killer or vampire) engages in that sort of activity for absolutely no reason.
What reason could possibly justify terrorism? More importantly, do we want for there to be acceptable justifications for terrorism?
The entity generates some net-income that results in increased owner's equity.
It's not personal wealth, though, which was my point. It's equity in a business venture. Different. Different how, you ask? Gross revenue generated by a business is a sign of economic activity, whereas personal income is usually not.
If the small business owners really are being taxed so much that it would be cheaper to convert to a subchapter C corporation, they would
There are lots of excellent reasons not to incorporate as a C-corp. My lawyer walked me through them the last time I started a business, about ten years ago. I won't pretend to remember exactly what they were. Liability was involved.
Re:Where is American Society going
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 0
The poverty rate is higher in the United States than in any other first-world nation.
That's because our definition of "poor" is higher than any other "first-world" nation. (Given that there is no longer any "second world," the whole "first," "second," "third world" thing is antiquated and kinda silly, in my opinion.)
Did you know that 71% of America's poor have cable or satellite TV?
We can't just rest on our heels and pretend that current market regulations, taxes, and social programs are working according to plan.
Depends on your definition of "plan." If your idea of "plan" is "widespread prosperity," then yeah, we're right on plan. If your idea of "plan" is "collectivist utopia," you're going to be disappointed.
We need someone with the vision to either try something innovative and new or someone who can learn from the nations that have had more success.
Actually, what we need is somebody with the courage to say that equality of opportunity is more important than equality of outcome.
Hey, whaddya know. That's exactly what we've got. And according to the polls, that's exactly what we're going to have through January of 2009.
I think we need the system to be much simpler than it is, yet a lot of people should still be able to get out of paying a lot of tax (low income families and small businesses exclusively).
That's what the flat tax + personal exemption (also known in some circles as a "fair tax," but that name has also been adopted for a specific national sales tax plan) is intended to do. The idea is that you pay no taxes at all on your first $X of income; in the old Armey proposal, for instance, that number was about $11,000. If you earn less than $11,000 in wages and pension benefits in a year, you owe no taxes at all for that year.
Other proposals are more complex, involving ramping the tax rate up between about $7,000 a year and about $15,000 a year. The idea is that people who earn $11,001 are kinda taking it in the shorts under an Armey-style plan.
Some plans that have been floated have included things like additional exemptions for each child in the family, blanket cost-of-living exemptions that increase each year with inflation, special exemptions for certain types of expenses like food or housing, that kind of thing. In general, the more complex the plan, the less popular it's been among those who support tax reform.
For example the amount that Americans pay for health care right now is enough for everyone to get everything they want or need from the industry-- so how come most people can't afford it?
Exactly. The solution is not some kind of single-payer pyramid scheme. The solution is to find ways to reduce the costs of medical care. For example, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) looked good on paper, but it included measures that drastically increased the cost of doing business for health-care providers, which in turn drastically increased the cost of health care for Americans. Protecting patient privacy is a laudable goal, but doing so in a way that involves mountains of red tape and off-the-charts compliance costs does more harm than good. Rolling back a few of the most burdensome aspects of HIPAA is a key part of the president's second-term agenda.
The unconventional weapon production (including our WMD) should be scaled back significantly as well as our outlandish air force purchases.
Well, "outlandish" is in the eye of the beholder. Because we have a wing of JDAM-equipped stealth bombers based in Missouri and on Diego Garcia, should the need ever arise we have the ability to put ordinance on any given square meter of the earth's surface in a matter of a few hours. If --worst-case scenario time here --if we detect an Iranian ballistic missile being fueled, we can destroy that missile before it can get off the ground, saving Tel Aviv or Kabul or Baghdad from annihilation. I personally consider that to be an important ability to have.
Our enduring nuclear arsenal, likewise, is something that we need to keep our hands on for the time being, as a deterrent force. Will we ever need it? God, I hope not. But if we dismantle it, we'll have a hard time discouraging Kim Jong-Il from pointing his rockets at San Diego or Seattle.
Incidentally, did you know that most of the money we're spending at our national weapons laboratories now goes toward new technologies for detection and defense? The guys at Oak Ridge and Livermore are working on new ways to defend us from the bad guys more than they are looking for ways for us to attack them. The world has changed. And I think that that money is money we need to spend right now.
Because we all know how quickly prices drop when outsouring is unfettered
Have you priced call-center services lately? They've plumeted in the last four years or so.
Another important effect of decreased labor costs: many hospitals are starting to outsource their radiology services. Technology makes it possible today to do CT scans, store them as encrypted DICOM files and transmit them relatively quickly over the Internet to a DICOM viewer on a home computer. The radiologist looks at the scans, writes up his analysis and sends it back.
Now put the radiologist in Singapore. He's awake and alert during the middle of the night in North America, which makes it possible for hospitals here to get radiology services more quickly and with greater quality of service than if they had to get a radiologist out of bed and have him come into the hospital. Net result? Higher standard of care, reduced cost to the patient's insurance company, correspondingly lower insurance premiums the next year.
I know you really, REALLY want everything that for-profit businesses do to be evil, bad and wrong. I'm sorry that that's not always --or even occasionally-- the case. I know you're all broke up about it, but trust me. You'll get over it.
Slashdot Mirror
Um. Dude? We have an American political spectrum, okay? It's a subset of the whole spectrum. American liberals are not anti-capitalists. Anti-capitalists lie outside the American mainstream. So comments like yours are essentially meaningless.
If you think the editor was apolitical, you're out of your freakin' mind.
Snort. Whatever you say, Mr. ...um ...Hamster. Heh.
Wow. You're a crazy person.
...
Back away, not today, disco lady
4K isn't really the standard for digital post. It's the "standard" for digital mastering, if something as new and rare as digital mastering can be said to have any standard anythings.
For digital post, it's 2K --2048x1556.
I'm sorry, were you there when this happened, or are you recycling something you heard from the News just as much as any radical liberal would?
Neither. You hear enough first-hand accounts, you end up with a pretty good idea of the things that went on.
Besides, if you're arguing that inaction constitutes justification I suppose it's your contention that organized rape, and systematic murders of black Sudanese is a good thing?
What? That doesn't make any sense at all. Of course what's going on in Darfur isn't a good thing. I want the 101st Fucking Airborne in there today. But too many Americans have drunk the Democratic kool-aid regarding military missions overseas. We don't have anywhere near the support in Congress to authorize an invasion and peacekeeping, even though that's exactly what we need to do.
Let another call for a clarification that will undoubtedly go unanswered: "radcon" is a slur like "nigger" or "kike," right? It's a hate word? Because I just want to be perfectly clear on what exactly you mean by that.
I'm sure you'd defend the actions of President Reagan when he trained death squads in Central America
Sigh. You just love to connect Ronald Reagan to Honduran "death squads," don't you? The fact that Reagan ordered only the training of Honduran police forces and the Honduran police committed atrocities on their own doesn't even slow you down.
Whatever, dude. If you want to be a radical leftist spouting anti-American propaganda, knock yourself out.
Only deranged psycopaths kill for absolutely no reason.
Exactly. I'm glad you understand.
I for one do not consider the police force to be noncombatants.
You for one don't get to make those decisions. The Iraqi police are a civilian agency. They are part of the Iraqi civilian interim government. They are not combatants.
I don't know much about the civilian hostages you're talking about but I know that some of them were security for the U.S.
Not correct. Besides, it doesn't really matter one way or the other. Brutal public executions are terrorism no matter who the victim is.
I'm also not condoning the violence that the rebels (freedom fighters/terrorist/whatever) are perpetrating.
Seriously: stop it. These people are not rebels. They are not freedom fighters. They don't get to be called those names any more because they are terrorists. They use terrorist tactics. They are terrorists. Okay? Clear now?
Wouldn't really be a problem, though, if we had just minded our own damn business and not gone over there in the first place.
Ah, yes, how we all long for the days of secret police, midnight disappearances, rape rooms and wood chippers. Let's all get together and fucking reminisce about it.
And your solution to that is what, exactly? To tax business activity? Brakes on the economy. Let's hear solutions, not problems.
Private property rights to an extent are granted by the state, not by natural law.
Oooh, man. You lost me at hello. We will agree to disagree.
Typical Radcon reply.
You never answered my question. Is "radcon" just a slur like "nigger" or "kike?"
The tables are slowly turning, and the liberals will soon be playing by the same rules. You'd better think of a new tack.
Christ almighty. Mix your metaphors much?
what bothers me is that the city, as you pointed out, taxed the people to get the thing built to the tune of $191 million dollars
Right, which is common practice.
and George and Co. had it negotiated so they could then buy it back for $60 million.
Also common practice. The city, as I pointed out, paid off the bond in five years. Everybody's square.
If that isn't welfare for the rich I don't know what is.
Then you don't know what is. Cool. We've established a baseline.
LOL! That's right, boys and girls. Because EVIL NASTY CIA MEN trained Honduran security forces, and those forces subsequently went on to do bad things, the USA IS A TERRORIST NATION.
Give a nutcase a microphone and sooner or later he will say something to reveal his agenda. Every single time.
No link = no credibility.
LOL! I guess we really do live in the Internet age now.
Wrong, I quoted CNN, which reported that the information came from the NYPD.
Yes, information that was later reported as grossly exaggerated --for the first 24 hours NYPD press relations just passed on Answer's number instead of giving their own estimate.
Back it up with corroborating information or STFU.
Translation: "I like my head right where it is, thank you very much. I prefer to leave it crammed up my ass, and I will thank you to quit expecting me to pay attention to the world around me."
Whatever you say, man. Whatever you say.
Do you mean, for instance, using eminent domain
Eminent domain is a HUGE problem. I don't know why you dug all the way back into the dusty past to dredge up the story of the Ballpark in Arlington. (Beautiful park, by the way. The Rangers break my heart every time, but they sure do play in a gorgeous stadium.)
It's way more topical to discuss the ongoing controversy that's happening in New London. There's a big fight going on over eminent domain in that town. If we're lucky, the Supreme Court will announce as early as the first week in October that it will hear the case.
and getting the state to tax the people in order to fund a private venture?
I don't know what you're objecting to here. Are you upset that the city --not the state, incidentally, just the city of Arlington --raised sales taxes by a quarter of a percent to pay for a bond that helped to fund the building of the Ballpark? Or are you pissed that the Rangers are privately owned and not a public utility?
The Ballpark in Arlington, incidentally, is one of the most successful sporting arena projects in history. Because of increased sales tax revenues generated by the Ballpark, the city of Arlington was able to pay off the bond completely in only five years. After those five years the increased sales tax was repealed and today Arlington is back to 7.25%. The project didn't go off without any hitches, but it was a smashing success compared to most similar ventures.
I don't want to hurt your feelings, but the neocon experiment has been a total bust.
Again, just for the record, the word "neocon" is the 21st-century equivalent of "nigger" or "kike." It means "A person that I hated." I just want to make that clear for anybody who happens to wander by.
All reputable experts have said that we need to at least double our force in Iraq
Except, you know, the ones that work in big buildings in Washington. But they're not reputable, right? Because they say things that you don't agree with.
Besides, you didn't answer my question. If we were to double the head count in Iraq from 138,000 to 276,000, what would you suggest those troops do?
Your suggestion that most Iraqis live in freedom and safety has to rank as one of the most stupid and inane statements I have witnessed.
Your opinion notwithstanding, it remains true that most Iraqis live in freedom and safety. I'm sorry to be the bearer of such wonderful news.
No, that's precisely where you're wrong. Some folks love to quote that old cliche, but it's simply not true. The difference between a terrorist and a non-terrorist is in the methodology. The minute a freedom fighter --or whatever term you want to apply to a non-terrorist --attacks civilians in a way that's intended to inspire widespread terror, that person becomes a terrorist.
E.G., the Mujahadin were "Afghani Freedom Fighters" when they were fighting the "Evil Soviet Empire". Now they're "terrorists" or "illegal combatants".
You do see the difference, do you not? When the Afghan mujahedeen were fighting Soviet troops who had invaded their country, they were not terrorists. The "mujahedeen" in Iraq, as they sometimes call themselves, are trying to fight the same basic fight, but they're using terrorist tactics to do it. Instead of attacking Coalition troops, they're publicly executing civilian hostages and detonating bombs outside police stations. That's not a war of resistance. It's not a war at all. It's terrorism, and it's unacceptable. No set of circumstances can justify, excuse or mitigate terrorism. It's off limits to civilized human conduct.
See the difference?
Had I spent my life in Northern Ireland, the Basque region, or the Gaza strip such distinctions might prove to be naive at best.
I reject the idea of situational morality. I think that the civilized world as a whole does as well.
The whole concept of "terrorism" is being used now a magical incantation invoked against convenient targets.
I really don't know where you get that idea. It's simply not true. I quote from the State Department's annual "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report:Emphasis mine. The definition of terrorism didn't change between 1983 and 2002. In 2002, for obvious reasons, the president in his National Security Strategy directive expanded the definition slightly to include any individual, group or nation that provides financial or material support or safe harbor to terrorists. This is not the legal definition nor the one that State uses though; it's just the definition that the executive branch uses to set national security policy with respect to nations or groups that sponsor or willfully turn a blind eye to terrorism.
You seem to be getting a bit worked up if you think that anyone (except the occasional serial killer or vampire) engages in that sort of activity for absolutely no reason.
What reason could possibly justify terrorism? More importantly, do we want for there to be acceptable justifications for terrorism?
The entity generates some net-income that results in increased owner's equity.
It's not personal wealth, though, which was my point. It's equity in a business venture. Different. Different how, you ask? Gross revenue generated by a business is a sign of economic activity, whereas personal income is usually not.
If the small business owners really are being taxed so much that it would be cheaper to convert to a subchapter C corporation, they would
There are lots of excellent reasons not to incorporate as a C-corp. My lawyer walked me through them the last time I started a business, about ten years ago. I won't pretend to remember exactly what they were. Liability was involved.
The poverty rate is higher in the United States than in any other first-world nation.
That's because our definition of "poor" is higher than any other "first-world" nation. (Given that there is no longer any "second world," the whole "first," "second," "third world" thing is antiquated and kinda silly, in my opinion.)
Did you know that 71% of America's poor have cable or satellite TV?
We can't just rest on our heels and pretend that current market regulations, taxes, and social programs are working according to plan.
Depends on your definition of "plan." If your idea of "plan" is "widespread prosperity," then yeah, we're right on plan. If your idea of "plan" is "collectivist utopia," you're going to be disappointed.
We need someone with the vision to either try something innovative and new or someone who can learn from the nations that have had more success.
Actually, what we need is somebody with the courage to say that equality of opportunity is more important than equality of outcome.
Hey, whaddya know. That's exactly what we've got. And according to the polls, that's exactly what we're going to have through January of 2009.
I think we need the system to be much simpler than it is, yet a lot of people should still be able to get out of paying a lot of tax (low income families and small businesses exclusively).
That's what the flat tax + personal exemption (also known in some circles as a "fair tax," but that name has also been adopted for a specific national sales tax plan) is intended to do. The idea is that you pay no taxes at all on your first $X of income; in the old Armey proposal, for instance, that number was about $11,000. If you earn less than $11,000 in wages and pension benefits in a year, you owe no taxes at all for that year.
Other proposals are more complex, involving ramping the tax rate up between about $7,000 a year and about $15,000 a year. The idea is that people who earn $11,001 are kinda taking it in the shorts under an Armey-style plan.
Some plans that have been floated have included things like additional exemptions for each child in the family, blanket cost-of-living exemptions that increase each year with inflation, special exemptions for certain types of expenses like food or housing, that kind of thing. In general, the more complex the plan, the less popular it's been among those who support tax reform.
For example the amount that Americans pay for health care right now is enough for everyone to get everything they want or need from the industry-- so how come most people can't afford it?
Exactly. The solution is not some kind of single-payer pyramid scheme. The solution is to find ways to reduce the costs of medical care. For example, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) looked good on paper, but it included measures that drastically increased the cost of doing business for health-care providers, which in turn drastically increased the cost of health care for Americans. Protecting patient privacy is a laudable goal, but doing so in a way that involves mountains of red tape and off-the-charts compliance costs does more harm than good. Rolling back a few of the most burdensome aspects of HIPAA is a key part of the president's second-term agenda.
The unconventional weapon production (including our WMD) should be scaled back significantly as well as our outlandish air force purchases.
Well, "outlandish" is in the eye of the beholder. Because we have a wing of JDAM-equipped stealth bombers based in Missouri and on Diego Garcia, should the need ever arise we have the ability to put ordinance on any given square meter of the earth's surface in a matter of a few hours. If --worst-case scenario time here --if we detect an Iranian ballistic missile being fueled, we can destroy that missile before it can get off the ground, saving Tel Aviv or Kabul or Baghdad from annihilation. I personally consider that to be an important ability to have.
Our enduring nuclear arsenal, likewise, is something that we need to keep our hands on for the time being, as a deterrent force. Will we ever need it? God, I hope not. But if we dismantle it, we'll have a hard time discouraging Kim Jong-Il from pointing his rockets at San Diego or Seattle.
Incidentally, did you know that most of the money we're spending at our national weapons laboratories now goes toward new technologies for detection and defense? The guys at Oak Ridge and Livermore are working on new ways to defend us from the bad guys more than they are looking for ways for us to attack them. The world has changed. And I think that that money is money we need to spend right now.
Because we all know how quickly prices drop when outsouring is unfettered
Have you priced call-center services lately? They've plumeted in the last four years or so.
Another important effect of decreased labor costs: many hospitals are starting to outsource their radiology services. Technology makes it possible today to do CT scans, store them as encrypted DICOM files and transmit them relatively quickly over the Internet to a DICOM viewer on a home computer. The radiologist looks at the scans, writes up his analysis and sends it back.
Now put the radiologist in Singapore. He's awake and alert during the middle of the night in North America, which makes it possible for hospitals here to get radiology services more quickly and with greater quality of service than if they had to get a radiologist out of bed and have him come into the hospital. Net result? Higher standard of care, reduced cost to the patient's insurance company, correspondingly lower insurance premiums the next year.
I know you really, REALLY want everything that for-profit businesses do to be evil, bad and wrong. I'm sorry that that's not always --or even occasionally-- the case. I know you're all broke up about it, but trust me. You'll get over it.