It's still gambling, and the prices do not necessarily track "value" all that well. Stock prices can rise or fall with the slightest twitch of irrationality -- and IPOs, in particular, tend to be a fairly extreme expression of that. Quite a few "techie" IPOs have opened up abnormally high, often to collapse once sanity returns.
Even w/o an IPO, the markets still track anticipation, beliefs and so forth. Look at AOL. Look at AMZN. Is AOL's *value* really so unstable? AMZN, perhaps; I can see AMZN's value decreasing dramatically at any time, given that their business model is based upon assets that are fairly common (a web commerce site, and agreements with distributors) in constrast to that required to be a nationwide ISP w/ numerous local dial-ups, and so forth. Did Compaq's troubles *really* signal danger for an entire industry and warrant lowering all their prices? That's risk.
You can fully understand the products involved, but its questionable whether anybody can *really* understand the masses. Hence all the disclaimers from funds and so forth...
Anybody have figures on how much mass Titan has? And, say, the propulsion one could get from atomics? You'd have to overcome the gravity of Saturn, as well... Sounds darn tricky.
I used to have a pair of waterguns with electric pumps -- full autos. Eeeeeeevil. They were still pretty accurate out to 20-30' or so... it's a darn shame that the corrosion got to 'em.
I've also played paintball a couple of times. If I really, really wanted to indulge myself, and didn't mind paying through the nose, I'd probably look for a fine paintball gun.
* Semi-auto, at least. The ultimate would be switch-selectable (semi/fully), but dunno if those even exist for PB. Figure it'd play the role of an SMG. If the thing could take a clip or some other kind of quick loading mechanism, so much the better.
* Preferably "stealthy". That is, quiet as possible, minimal reflectivity (especially specular), meaning as much black matte finish as possible I guess... {evil grin}
* Not too heavy, or alternately, perhaps a lightweight folding stock.
Dunno if that's all possible at a remotely nice price, 'tho. That, and I don't play nearly enough to justify a purchase... heh.
I agree that it would have been nicer and far more diplomatic -- and probably easier. However, I'm not sure that it'd be effective in the long run.
* You've got people who will automatically dismiss the corporate response as lying propaganda, either because they dislike Lilly, or because they disbelieve *all* corporate messages and prefer to think the worst of them.
* By taking the time to respond publicly, there's a bit of legitimacy conferred upon the attack. This is very dangerous, because 1) now you *should* respond to all such posts, or people might wonder if some are true, and 2) it might simply be a public stalemate, whereas a successful lawsuit can be a victory.
What's there? The 1st. It doesn't extend to slander/libel, perhaps because it's judged necessary and proper that people not be permitted to spread misinformation presented as fact. It also doesn't extend to harrassment, for reasons that are less clear to me in their current implementation {as such is explicitly considered harrassment based upon the judgement of the alleged victim. Such laws tend to lead towards extremely strange suits; I'd prefer a "reasonable person" principle, as still vague but perhaps less arbitrary.}
You also are strongly discouraged from joking about carrying explosives in airports, or threatening the life of the chief exec, or certain other cases (the classic example of yelling fire in a crowded theatre, say). You also are bound by contractual agreements (non-disclosure, Offical Secrets Act, and so forth) although that's all a little bit confused perhaps (or maybe I'm the only one confused by the "Pentagon Papers" ruling?).
There was an attempt to ban seditious talk; see the "Alien and Sedition Acts", which got struck down quite rapidly by the US Supreme Court if memory serves. So you're allowed to speak out against the government -- and many do, as long as you avoid certain things like directly threatening the Prez. After all, that's deep within the very heart of the first: the ability to speak out against the State. The Bill of Rights is clearly aimed at restricting the Federal Gov't in how it may deal with the pople, and generally the higher courts recognize that.
Er, they still have the right to nail people for libel or slander, just like an individual would. It'll hold if the accusation is something that clearly meant to be interpreted as a statement of fact...
* If the _Weekly World News_ were to claim that IBM was the creation of an evil three-headed alien from Alpha Centauri, and a female Elvis clone, there'd probably be no case because clearly, nobody's expected to believe that. Tabloids tend to use the defense, that people tend to read their more outrageous stories for the laughs, anyway. News 'bout celebs that *could* feasibly be true is a different matter.
* If I were to post, claiming that "4ppl3 SuCkS EgGs", that's not libel; it's an opinion, and makes no specific accusations whatsoever.
* If I were to claim that "Macintoshes drive monitors to emanate higher levels of radiation and dramatically increase brain cancer risks", or "Even Steve Jobs is down on Apple, and he's secretly been selling it short", or whatever -- now *that* would be actionable. I'm not making those claims, btw. If I were an (ex-?) employee, and violating the very probable non-disclosure agreements, ditto -- breach of contract.
So you're allowed to say, "Unix sucks". You can probably say that "Unix turned my hair into radioactive glowing snakes", as long as you're obviously joking. You can even say that "Unix can be quite a perplexing, complicated operating system from the point of view of a former Wintel user with little or no administration experience, and therefore I cannot recommend buying a Sparc for somebody whose main interests are booting up and running an office productivity suite, but has no desire to dive through documentation."
You probably shouldn't claim, "Solaris cannot handle SMP", or "WinNT Server has deliberate back-doors that let B1ll G4t3$'s employees read all my files."
:-) The PC version is one of the oldest relics in my collection. Think I've even got the PAX code wheel intact, and my notes and all. They're at (my permanent) home, 'tho, and my PII doesn't have a 5.25" drive. {sniff}
The skill chip is randomly selected from the AI-fighting skills.
Then, you face Neuromancer, and must beat him like you would a normal AI, but first you have to figure out his vulnerability (which you get from the next-most-powerful AI).
Then game over, and you can't continue exploring the world (so save before you enter Allard Tech.)
If memory serves, to post on Yahoo!'s message boards, you need to register. Never having done so, I'm not aware of exactly what they ask -- can anybody fill in the details, so that the rest of us have an idea of exactly how anonymous it is? (e.g. do they require a real e-mail address? contact info? and so forth.)
{chuckle} Ahhhhh, fun. If memory serves, SJG even advertised that very same RPG as the only one investigated by the Feds (apparently who'd been a little sensitive, even at that time, to suggestions regarding cracking)...
Huh? NOT all communications are monitored. That's patently impossible, or are you claiming that, say, the NSA can monitor what happens on a private network behind a firewall that aggressively obliterates packets going in either direction? That, say, half the world's net traffic goes to specific sites? I don't think so, due to limitations on hardware, software and people. Aside from communications on certain important cables, and so forth, there's not that much monitoring capacity. Period.
Really? I've seen probably more references to the Brookings people than, say, their opposite numbers at Cato. At least in print...
It's arguable whether the Dem's serve business as much as the GOP, given their traditional pro-labor stance and their general opposition to lowering capital-gains taxes and so forth. Still, a smart businessman will give to both major parties...
Anti-war arguments? Well, yes. Historically, at least -- look at 'Nam, for instance, in which the Tet Offensive was portrayed almost as a VC victory. 'course, all sides warped the truth horribly in regards to that conflict. There was some coverage of your "no-blood-for-oil" protesters regarding the Desert Storm. I did see occasional coverage of pro-Serb/anti-Nato protests in the US and elsewhere, so it wasn't completely lopsided...
You're talking about traditional codes, the kind that used to take books to encode/decode.
Well, it's still vulnerable.
* All parties must be fully informed about how to either encode or decode such messages; possibly not both, but at some point this information must be passed. Generally, this sort of substitution is not exactly as strong as public-key in this regard; more like private, in that interception costs secrecy.
* It's still possible to monitor traffic, and to make educated guesses (if you're under surveillance) about what you might be up to. That can provide a starting point.
* Depending upon the host government, they may be able to compel you to decoding it, or alternately trick you into providing access to the decoding. This is particularly true if your machine is not completely physically secure.
I'd say they're going after industry sysadmins, by planning to install monitoring software on non-governmental systems. Either they'll be required to hire government spooks who'll use those systems on-site, or far more likely, the monitoring system will either report electronically, perhaps with remote access, or it'll do something like log to CD-R's which are then shipped off to a gov't warehouse. In any event, I'm just as concerned with *how* and why they're "going after" a group as with whom.
* If there are *any* vulnerabilities in the monitoring software, and I'm a sysadmin, you've now weakened my network. Thanks a lot.
* How can I trust the monitoring software to know that that's *all* it's doing -- monitoring? And that none of the information, such as traffic analysis, could leak out to a competitor who happens to be a larger campaign contributor? For instance, if somebody's suddenly engaging in SMTP traffic with somebody at a competitor, and the traffic coincides with that to a recruitment firm or so forth.
* Wouldn't this cause some to fall prey to false confidence? Given that the Gov't hasn't shown itself to be the most clueful 'bout computer security in the past, what makes them think that they can catch up?
I believe that at the very least, while the FBI's worldwide jurisdiction might legally be a fiction, in practice they do investigate and seize people outside of the country. In particular, it's historically had a significant counterespionage roll versus the (former...) KGB and satellite services.
Ditto for the US Marshals, who have been known to forcibly extract people when the host nation is either unable or unwilling to cooperate via apprehension and extradition.
Well, I do have to worry when the Gov't appears willing to say to the administrators of a non-government network that they must install specific monitoring systems of the Government's choice. How do we know that such information won't be misused, and that monitoring is *all* the system does? Also, if it becomes the "official" or trusted system in any way, then it might be made more difficult to investigate occurences undetected by the system.
Well, how does one enforce this? Government employees may be provided with two machines (one that may hold classified information, but has no physical connection to public networks, nor any unapproved software or hardware; and one that's just the opposite), but in practice people will migrate information from machine to machine. They have yet to crack down on this, despite such issues as apparent transfers of information from Los Alamos to public networks. Short of not providing the connected machines (or completely isolating the "black" machines, via prohibiting *any* means of data transfer except through the network connection to the classified network, which may not be accessed by "white" machines. This policy makes sense, actually.), how?
Keep in mind that this is the same administration such that (former, IIRC) DoE head O'Leary ended the policy of easily-discernable security classification via boldly-colored ID badges, and ruled that the classification had to come through small-size text that's not easily read at a distance. And with an Attorney General who refused to allow inspections/monitoring of Wen Ho Lee's computer, even when he was suspected of espionage *and* he had signed a consent form explicitly allowing such monitoring. And so forth.
Well, there are at least a few angles where they might make money.
* Advertising, as others have duly noted. Although, not owning any form of PDA, I've no idea how much ad space there actually is on one...
* Possibly, getting a cut from 3Com, if it increases their sales.
* Perhaps the most intriguing/scary thing is, they'd have contact information and transaction information about everybody using the system, which could be useful to anybody interested in targeted marketing. Unless they're contractually bound to have as strong a privacy policy as both the credit card company and the vendors involved, or they make those guarantees... {shrug}
True 'nuff. That surplus doesn't even exist yet, and may never depending upon accuracies.
I'm vaguely concerned about any privatization of NASA. Let's call such a new body, hmmm, "Ground-to-Space" (G2S) in homage to a particular Brunner novel I'm sure many of you know...
My primary objection is that G2S would potentially come with far less public oversight than NASA. Given that the Gov't (especially DoD and NRO) would probably be a *major* customer, this would open the door towards "black" programs and so forth, and various forms of skullduggery. It might even be tempting to violate the treaty against militarizing space...
Are either of the other two aircraft you mentioned (the F-18E and the Joint Strike Fighter) meant to be air supremacy aircraft? My memory's quite vague on details 'bout those two. {shrug} It's not like Russia stopped exporting arms, either; they've actually increased sales and shipments recently, because it's one of their major surviving industries that can bring in the hard cash.
Most of the Federal budget *does* go domestically, you realize -- entitlements and all. DoD is a significantly lower fraction of the budget than most Peaceniks seem to think, 'specially compared to SSA/Medicare, and interest payments.
As for the B-2, would you rather use B-52's? The current plan is to retain these aging planes for many years to come, because of development time for replacements... and, as long as we have Presidents that, for some strange reason, believe that dictators will collapse if you just nudge 'em, we'll need bombers.
The probability of getting that tax cut proposal passed is *0*, and both sides know it: there aren't enough votes for an override. That's probably true for $500 billion, either.
For now, it's not about returning the money, at least partly because there are enough Congressmen who oppose that (either due to a) liberalism, in wanting more/larger programs, or b) conservatism, in realizing that long-term committments for money that doesn't even exist, and may never exist, might just possibly be stupid) for it to happen. Assuming that the Congressmen just aren't doing this out of boredom (or to prevent another issue from popping up), the reason is to have a campaign issue.
The GOP gets to argue, with reason, that the Democrats want to expand social spending and refuse to cut taxes that are arguably too high; the Democrats get to argue that the GOP is reckless and heartless. As Leno joked, switching from the GOP to the Dems means you trade in your brain for a heart...;-) There's truth in both halves. The Dems still demonstrate significant pseudo-Marxist views and are superb in exploiting emotive arguments, knowing full well that the GOP doesn't really dare to counter with studies (e.g. citing studies that show "Head Start" is ineffective), and that it's hard to bring out salient-but-dry facts and make people *care*. The GOP is being rather cynical here, and gaining a campaign issue that'll probably be used to hit Gore. At least that's my take on it.
Slashdot Mirror
It's still gambling, and the prices do not necessarily track "value" all that well. Stock prices can rise or fall with the slightest twitch of irrationality -- and IPOs, in particular, tend to be a fairly extreme expression of that. Quite a few "techie" IPOs have opened up abnormally high, often to collapse once sanity returns.
Even w/o an IPO, the markets still track anticipation, beliefs and so forth. Look at AOL. Look at AMZN. Is AOL's *value* really so unstable? AMZN, perhaps; I can see AMZN's value decreasing dramatically at any time, given that their business model is based upon assets that are fairly common (a web commerce site, and agreements with distributors) in constrast to that required to be a nationwide ISP w/ numerous local dial-ups, and so forth. Did Compaq's troubles *really* signal danger for an entire industry and warrant lowering all their prices? That's risk.
You can fully understand the products involved, but its questionable whether anybody can *really* understand the masses. Hence all the disclaimers from funds and so forth...
Anybody have figures on how much mass Titan has? And, say, the propulsion one could get from atomics? You'd have to overcome the gravity of Saturn, as well... Sounds darn tricky.
Mine-shafts! There must not be a mine-shaft gap! Darn Russkies!
;-)
Yeah. I'm not about to toss that kind of cash at a merely occasional diversion. But maybe eventually. Heh.
YES! That's the company that made my pair of automatics, me think! Hehehehehehehehehehehe.
{recalls evil^H^H^H^Hfun memories}
:-)
I used to have a pair of waterguns with electric pumps -- full autos. Eeeeeeevil. They were still pretty accurate out to 20-30' or so... it's a darn shame that the corrosion got to 'em.
I've also played paintball a couple of times. If I really, really wanted to indulge myself, and didn't mind paying through the nose, I'd probably look for a fine paintball gun.
* Semi-auto, at least. The ultimate would be switch-selectable (semi/fully), but dunno if those even exist for PB. Figure it'd play the role of an SMG. If the thing could take a clip or some other kind of quick loading mechanism, so much the better.
* Preferably "stealthy". That is, quiet as possible, minimal reflectivity (especially specular), meaning as much black matte finish as possible I guess... {evil grin}
* Not too heavy, or alternately, perhaps a lightweight folding stock.
Dunno if that's all possible at a remotely nice price, 'tho. That, and I don't play nearly enough to justify a purchase... heh.
I agree that it would have been nicer and far more diplomatic -- and probably easier. However, I'm not sure that it'd be effective in the long run.
* You've got people who will automatically dismiss the corporate response as lying propaganda, either because they dislike Lilly, or because they disbelieve *all* corporate messages and prefer to think the worst of them.
* By taking the time to respond publicly, there's a bit of legitimacy conferred upon the attack. This is very dangerous, because 1) now you *should* respond to all such posts, or people might wonder if some are true, and 2) it might simply be a public stalemate, whereas a successful lawsuit can be a victory.
What's there? The 1st. It doesn't extend to slander/libel, perhaps because it's judged necessary and proper that people not be permitted to spread misinformation presented as fact. It also doesn't extend to harrassment, for reasons that are less clear to me in their current implementation {as such is explicitly considered harrassment based upon the judgement of the alleged victim. Such laws tend to lead towards extremely strange suits; I'd prefer a "reasonable person" principle, as still vague but perhaps less arbitrary.}
You also are strongly discouraged from joking about carrying explosives in airports, or threatening the life of the chief exec, or certain other cases (the classic example of yelling fire in a crowded theatre, say). You also are bound by contractual agreements (non-disclosure, Offical Secrets Act, and so forth) although that's all a little bit confused perhaps (or maybe I'm the only one confused by the "Pentagon Papers" ruling?).
There was an attempt to ban seditious talk; see the "Alien and Sedition Acts", which got struck down quite rapidly by the US Supreme Court if memory serves. So you're allowed to speak out against the government -- and many do, as long as you avoid certain things like directly threatening the Prez. After all, that's deep within the very heart of the first: the ability to speak out against the State. The Bill of Rights is clearly aimed at restricting the Federal Gov't in how it may deal with the pople, and generally the higher courts recognize that.
Er, they still have the right to nail people for libel or slander, just like an individual would. It'll hold if the accusation is something that clearly meant to be interpreted as a statement of fact...
* If the _Weekly World News_ were to claim that IBM was the creation of an evil three-headed alien from Alpha Centauri, and a female Elvis clone, there'd probably be no case because clearly, nobody's expected to believe that. Tabloids tend to use the defense, that people tend to read their more outrageous stories for the laughs, anyway. News 'bout celebs that *could* feasibly be true is a different matter.
* If I were to post, claiming that "4ppl3 SuCkS EgGs", that's not libel; it's an opinion, and makes no specific accusations whatsoever.
* If I were to claim that "Macintoshes drive monitors to emanate higher levels of radiation and dramatically increase brain cancer risks", or "Even Steve Jobs is down on Apple, and he's secretly been selling it short", or whatever -- now *that* would be actionable. I'm not making those claims, btw. If I were an (ex-?) employee, and violating the very probable non-disclosure agreements, ditto -- breach of contract.
So you're allowed to say, "Unix sucks". You can probably say that "Unix turned my hair into radioactive glowing snakes", as long as you're obviously joking. You can even say that "Unix can be quite a perplexing, complicated operating system from the point of view of a former Wintel user with little or no administration experience, and therefore I cannot recommend buying a Sparc for somebody whose main interests are booting up and running an office productivity suite, but has no desire to dive through documentation."
You probably shouldn't claim, "Solaris cannot handle SMP", or "WinNT Server has deliberate back-doors that let B1ll G4t3$'s employees read all my files."
:-) The PC version is one of the oldest relics in my collection. Think I've even got the PAX code wheel intact, and my notes and all. They're at (my permanent) home, 'tho, and my PII doesn't have a 5.25" drive. {sniff}
The skill chip is randomly selected from the AI-fighting skills.
Then, you face Neuromancer, and must beat him like you would a normal AI, but first you have to figure out his vulnerability (which you get from the next-most-powerful AI).
Then game over, and you can't continue exploring the world (so save before you enter Allard Tech.)
If memory serves, to post on Yahoo!'s message boards, you need to register. Never having done so, I'm not aware of exactly what they ask -- can anybody fill in the details, so that the rest of us have an idea of exactly how anonymous it is? (e.g. do they require a real e-mail address? contact info? and so forth.)
{chuckle} Ahhhhh, fun. If memory serves, SJG even advertised that very same RPG as the only one investigated by the Feds (apparently who'd been a little sensitive, even at that time, to suggestions regarding cracking)...
Huh? NOT all communications are monitored. That's patently impossible, or are you claiming that, say, the NSA can monitor what happens on a private network behind a firewall that aggressively obliterates packets going in either direction? That, say, half the world's net traffic goes to specific sites? I don't think so, due to limitations on hardware, software and people. Aside from communications on certain important cables, and so forth, there's not that much monitoring capacity. Period.
Really? I've seen probably more references to the Brookings people than, say, their opposite numbers at Cato. At least in print...
It's arguable whether the Dem's serve business as much as the GOP, given their traditional pro-labor stance and their general opposition to lowering capital-gains taxes and so forth. Still, a smart businessman will give to both major parties...
Anti-war arguments? Well, yes. Historically, at least -- look at 'Nam, for instance, in which the Tet Offensive was portrayed almost as a VC victory. 'course, all sides warped the truth horribly in regards to that conflict. There was some coverage of your "no-blood-for-oil" protesters regarding the Desert Storm. I did see occasional coverage of pro-Serb/anti-Nato protests in the US and elsewhere, so it wasn't completely lopsided...
You're talking about traditional codes, the kind that used to take books to encode/decode.
Well, it's still vulnerable.
* All parties must be fully informed about how to either encode or decode such messages; possibly not both, but at some point this information must be passed. Generally, this sort of substitution is not exactly as strong as public-key in this regard; more like private, in that interception costs secrecy.
* It's still possible to monitor traffic, and to make educated guesses (if you're under surveillance) about what you might be up to. That can provide a starting point.
* Depending upon the host government, they may be able to compel you to decoding it, or alternately trick you into providing access to the decoding. This is particularly true if your machine is not completely physically secure.
Sounds vaguely like the rantings of a certain Francis E. Dec, judging from AltaVista. {shrug} 'tho it bears passing similarities to "They Live" :-) ...
I'd say they're going after industry sysadmins, by planning to install monitoring software on non-governmental systems. Either they'll be required to hire government spooks who'll use those systems on-site, or far more likely, the monitoring system will either report electronically, perhaps with remote access, or it'll do something like log to CD-R's which are then shipped off to a gov't warehouse. In any event, I'm just as concerned with *how* and why they're "going after" a group as with whom.
* If there are *any* vulnerabilities in the monitoring software, and I'm a sysadmin, you've now weakened my network. Thanks a lot.
* How can I trust the monitoring software to know that that's *all* it's doing -- monitoring? And that none of the information, such as traffic analysis, could leak out to a competitor who happens to be a larger campaign contributor? For instance, if somebody's suddenly engaging in SMTP traffic with somebody at a competitor, and the traffic coincides with that to a recruitment firm or so forth.
* Wouldn't this cause some to fall prey to false confidence? Given that the Gov't hasn't shown itself to be the most clueful 'bout computer security in the past, what makes them think that they can catch up?
I believe that at the very least, while the FBI's worldwide jurisdiction might legally be a fiction, in practice they do investigate and seize people outside of the country. In particular, it's historically had a significant counterespionage roll versus the (former...) KGB and satellite services.
Ditto for the US Marshals, who have been known to forcibly extract people when the host nation is either unable or unwilling to cooperate via apprehension and extradition.
Well, I do have to worry when the Gov't appears willing to say to the administrators of a non-government network that they must install specific monitoring systems of the Government's choice. How do we know that such information won't be misused, and that monitoring is *all* the system does? Also, if it becomes the "official" or trusted system in any way, then it might be made more difficult to investigate occurences undetected by the system.
Well, how does one enforce this? Government employees may be provided with two machines (one that may hold classified information, but has no physical connection to public networks, nor any unapproved software or hardware; and one that's just the opposite), but in practice people will migrate information from machine to machine. They have yet to crack down on this, despite such issues as apparent transfers of information from Los Alamos to public networks. Short of not providing the connected machines (or completely isolating the "black" machines, via prohibiting *any* means of data transfer except through the network connection to the classified network, which may not be accessed by "white" machines. This policy makes sense, actually.), how?
Keep in mind that this is the same administration such that (former, IIRC) DoE head O'Leary ended the policy of easily-discernable security classification via boldly-colored ID badges, and ruled that the classification had to come through small-size text that's not easily read at a distance. And with an Attorney General who refused to allow inspections/monitoring of Wen Ho Lee's computer, even when he was suspected of espionage *and* he had signed a consent form explicitly allowing such monitoring. And so forth.
Well, there are at least a few angles where they might make money.
* Advertising, as others have duly noted. Although, not owning any form of PDA, I've no idea how much ad space there actually is on one...
* Possibly, getting a cut from 3Com, if it increases their sales.
* Perhaps the most intriguing/scary thing is, they'd have contact information and transaction information about everybody using the system, which could be useful to anybody interested in targeted marketing. Unless they're contractually bound to have as strong a privacy policy as both the credit card company and the vendors involved, or they make those guarantees... {shrug}
True 'nuff. That surplus doesn't even exist yet, and may never depending upon accuracies.
I'm vaguely concerned about any privatization of NASA. Let's call such a new body, hmmm, "Ground-to-Space" (G2S) in homage to a particular Brunner novel I'm sure many of you know...
My primary objection is that G2S would potentially come with far less public oversight than NASA. Given that the Gov't (especially DoD and NRO) would probably be a *major* customer, this would open the door towards "black" programs and so forth, and various forms of skullduggery. It might even be tempting to violate the treaty against militarizing space...
Are either of the other two aircraft you mentioned (the F-18E and the Joint Strike Fighter) meant to be air supremacy aircraft? My memory's quite vague on details 'bout those two. {shrug} It's not like Russia stopped exporting arms, either; they've actually increased sales and shipments recently, because it's one of their major surviving industries that can bring in the hard cash.
Most of the Federal budget *does* go domestically, you realize -- entitlements and all. DoD is a significantly lower fraction of the budget than most Peaceniks seem to think, 'specially compared to SSA/Medicare, and interest payments.
As for the B-2, would you rather use B-52's? The current plan is to retain these aging planes for many years to come, because of development time for replacements... and, as long as we have Presidents that, for some strange reason, believe that dictators will collapse if you just nudge 'em, we'll need bombers.
The probability of getting that tax cut proposal passed is *0*, and both sides know it: there aren't enough votes for an override. That's probably true for $500 billion, either.
;-) There's truth in both halves. The Dems still demonstrate significant pseudo-Marxist views and are superb in exploiting emotive arguments, knowing full well that the GOP doesn't really dare to counter with studies (e.g. citing studies that show "Head Start" is ineffective), and that it's hard to bring out salient-but-dry facts and make people *care*. The GOP is being rather cynical here, and gaining a campaign issue that'll probably be used to hit Gore. At least that's my take on it.
For now, it's not about returning the money, at least partly because there are enough Congressmen who oppose that (either due to a) liberalism, in wanting more/larger programs, or b) conservatism, in realizing that long-term committments for money that doesn't even exist, and may never exist, might just possibly be stupid) for it to happen. Assuming that the Congressmen just aren't doing this out of boredom (or to prevent another issue from popping up), the reason is to have a campaign issue.
The GOP gets to argue, with reason, that the Democrats want to expand social spending and refuse to cut taxes that are arguably too high; the Democrats get to argue that the GOP is reckless and heartless. As Leno joked, switching from the GOP to the Dems means you trade in your brain for a heart...