I remember in being in (a US) college near the Canadian border, and since the drinking age in Canada was lower than in the US, a lot of times students would take road trips to Canada. When asked why you were going up to Canada, the *wrong* answer was "Oh, we're just going up for tourism/to drive around." Better was "We are going to the bars to get drunk!" But you would get waved right on through if you said "We're going to Rafferty's/Black Bear/Mintz." Specifics (and honesty) were definitely best.

n.b. This was even before 9/11

It's not about conformity. It's about wearing an article of clothing whose very name is now used to describe the action to hide; conceal. Maybe he was just trying to figure out what was being cloaked.

Note that forcing them to do that would be a violation of their 8th amendment rights (if they were protected by the US Constitution).

Nighttime strategic bombing of German targets was widely used during the war regardless of the quality of German fighters; to the extent that it was ineffective (and that is a debatable premise) is mostly because of the inaccuracy of hitting individual factories or power plants at night (which needless to say would have been less of an issue with nuclear weapons). And something like MAD theory has been discussed just about every time a new "superweapon" has been developed (in fact, some "superweapons" were developed for the express purpose of making war so horrible that it would never be waged in the first place), and yet the weapon gets used anyways. There is little reason to believe that in the middle of a hot war, the first combatant to develop a nuclear weapon would have been swayed by these arguments any more than combatants with earlier technological advancements had been in previous conflicts.

Yes you are correct and I don't want to overstate the quality of GM management in the 70's; I was just refuting ggp post "Hardly, you were never number 1 in anything" by pointing out that at least American education was world class. It's a win-win!

Another commenter makes an excellent point about the Soviets, but I have to take issue with your statement

from another angle. There is almost no way that a virulently anti-Semitic culture was going to win WWII. One of the effects of having a "bat-shit crazy" leader is to drive out scientists (and the parents and spouses of scientists) who were capable of developing a superweapon that could destroy every city in Europe. And while you are correct that scientific and engineering prowess existed on all sides (particularly the underappreciated Russians, whose T-34s were arguably the finest armored unit in the war, all things considered), WWII occurred at a time in the history of physics and engineering such that whoever developed the first nuclear bombs was going to win that war.

And a product of the American education system

Did it ever occur to you why American rockets were built by Nazis? It's because of the scientific and industrial might of the USA that defeated those Nazis during WWII. And why are German and Japanese cars so good? Might have something to do with the billions that America spent on those countries after their well-deserved butt-kicking. I doubt there is anyone who wouldn't prefer to be an average citizen in a Germany or Japan defeated by the US, than an average citizen in a Russia, the UK, or China defeated by the Germans or Japanese?

But go ahead an complain. Complaining about America is one of the first freedoms guaranteed in America, and how we keep getting better. Someone points out a problem and we fix it (although, to paraphrase Churchill, not until after we've tried everything else).

New York also received a threat but didn't deem it "credible" and therefore didn't act on it. My guess is that on any given day, any or all of New York, LA, and Chicago schools probably deal with some kind of threat.

So for LA to close the schools there is likely some other intelligence that they are acting on. Considering that authorities in that area are still getting information about recent terrorist activity in the area, I think the first knee jerk reaction to closing the schools should be "Hmm I wonder what they found out," not "Why are they overreacting?" (Of course, we should avoid knee-jerk reactions altogether, but then there would be nothing to talk about)

No he was the thing that caused The Great Dying about 250 million years ago.

Or maybe that just means that sex is a better topic to joke about than Alzheimer's disease?

Of course, most slashdotters don't have any experience with either *rim shot*! Thank you, I'll be here all week.

True, but I am assuming that somehow we are restricted to a conventional war. Otherwise, this whole debate about the quality of your bomber force versus air defenses is made moot by ICBM's.

Germany was already on the kind of "full mobilization for war" footing that I am talking about in the mid 30's, in violation of the treaty of Versailles. They were sending plenty of materiel to fight in the Spanish Civil War, and were taking over territory by 1938. So while America entered the war in 1941, Germany had already been going through a military buildup for about 5 years, and advances like the Tiger tank were designed and produced while the German economy was fully mobilized for war.

Interestingly, even though the P51 is seen as a piece of quintessentially American tech of WWII, its initial development was done at the impetus of the British with British funding. So even though it was developed while America was still at peace (and technically neutral), the resources that produced it came from Britain, which because of its proximity to Germany, had established a war footing much earlier than the US did.

Your entire post is spot on, but I would add that if we ever did have to fight a war against "remotely competent air defenses," we are probably talking about a major war. In that case, it is not unreasonable to expect a major mobilization of huge parts of the economy, including, say, reallocating nearly all civilian engineers to work on military projects, as was done during WWII. In that case, it is acceptable that we didn't invest in more modern technology before such a war, because the B-52 replacement will be designed to deal with a specific threat in mind, instead of trying to worry about the Chinese, and the Russians, and the Indians, and the Germans, and the British, and the French, and whoever else could field serious air defenses in the near future. Sometimes, it is better *for the military* to leave resources under civilian control unless and until it is absolutely necessary.

Why not Mark Zuckerberg? No one has more experience in successfully closing up the internet except (maybe) the architects of the Great Firewall.