He's trying to force Iraq and its local allies to deal with the problem rather than inserting American troops into combat situations in an area where they're largely unwanted or even hated. (The forces on the ground are largely there for training, not combat.) Part of dealing with the problem was getting the extremely anti-Sunni al-Maliki out and bringing in al-Abadi, who has promised to work with the Sunnis and has reportedly done so well enough to start changing the minds of some of the Sunni tribal leaders.

By conducting airstrikes, the US and participating allies are filling in a gap in Iraq's military capabilities. They have a few strike aircraft, but they're old and not built to handle the weapons that Iraq is buying from the West. The first F-16s in the Iraqi Air Force were delivered to Iraq itself (rather than being used for training Iraqi pilots in Arizona) just three weeks ago. Delivery was delayed over security concerns at Balad Air Base, which isn't far from ISIS territory.

I don't know if it will work, but it's probably the best option from a list of pretty much only bad options right now. The air mission may be expanding, though, as the US has said it is willing, together with Turkey, to protect civilian populations in at least part of Syria from Syrian bombing runs. That suggests a no-fly zone for those parts, and that can result in a serious escalation. (Turkey wants a no-fly zone over all of Syria and has called for it for years.) All it takes is for one Syrian aircraft to be knocked down and Syria to respond by even targeting US or allied planes with surface-to-air radar, and the US will have reason to respond by taking out at least part of Syria's air defense network and possibly its air force. That could turn the controlled chaos barely held together by Syrian forces into complete anarchy if the government forces are denied air cover. It could be what actually breaks the back of the government, and then it will be a race between ISIS, al-Nusra, and the Free Syrian Army coalition to get to Damascus. At least if ISIS gets knocked down or out, there's a slim chance of a negotiated collapse.

So far, Syria has been tolerant of Turkey shooting down a couple of its aircraft that strayed too close to or over the border with Turkey, but it may not be so willing to tolerate its aircraft being shot down well inside its own territory. If it escalates, we might see just what the actual effectiveness of the Russian S300 SAM system actually is.

I'm not ascribing special status. I'm explaining how they think and how they view outsiders. Russia has been a fairly xenophobic society for a very long time.

Whether they were successful in repelling the invaders isn't really a factor, either. It's that they're constantly concerned about being invaded. Check with the Poles and you'll find that they, too, are wary of it for precisely the reason that you mention. They're constantly looking over their shoulder at Russia, and don't fully trust Germany, either.

If benefits are what makes it morally right to use taxis over Uber/Lyft, then doesn't that make buying from large chain stores morally better than buying from mom-and-pop stores, since those are often so small that they don't have to provide benefits to their employees?

Wrong. You only have a natural right to control whether or not you create it at all.

A third party certainly doesn't have a right to compel you to reveal your work to them. But if you do deliberately or inadvertently reveal it, they do have a natural free speech right to copy it and to distribute those copies as they see fit.

I agree. What's your point?

All you've identified there is a gap between what copyright policy requires and what we actually have implemented. I'd be the last person to say that our copyright laws, as enacted, have lived up to our proper policy goals. But that doesn't change what the correct policy is.

Copyright doesn't exist absent affirmative action by the government, and it is wholly utilitarian in nature. This means that there is no policy of balancing interests. Rather, it is a question of how it can best serve the public interest; if giving something to authors may accomplish that, then we should do it to an appropriate extent, and if not, we shouldn't do it.

It's little different than the farmer who wants to haul his carrot harvest to market in a wagon pulled by a mule. He might have to feed the mule some of the carrots to get it to pull the wagon, but there's no balancing act between the farmer and the mule. (Indeed, as soon as it's more cost-effective for the farmer to just get a gas-powered truck, the mule gets sent to the glue factory)

That's not true. You're arguing in favor of monopolies controlling commodity goods, which is an odd stance to take. Society benefits tremendously from works being in the public domain, and available for the economic exploitation of any and every party that cares to give it a go. So long as anyone is free to make copies of Shakespeare, it doesn't hurt society if some publishers charge for copies of it. Given that competition is possible for copies of the same public domain work, all that will happen if one publisher tries to charge too much is that someone else will step in and sell it for less. This all works to bring the price of copies down, which in turn increases the public's access to the work, which is necessary for the work to be of use.

The widows and orphans argument has always been unmitigated bullshit. Works usually have zero copyright-related economic value; of the few that do have such value, they usually burn through the vast majority of it within a short time after the first publication in a given medium. Only the tiniest fraction of works have long-lasting copyright related economic value.

Suggesting that the survivors of a deceased author need longer terms in order to live off the value of a copyright requires that it be a copyright of this sort. Given the rarity of such works, it's as stupid a suggestion as saying that you might as well leave them a shoebox full of lottery tickets.

If you actually care about providing for your family, you need to take out a life insurance policy, and you need to save and invest your money wisely in a diverse portfolio. And just to be safe, you'd better vote for politicians who will enact government programs to provide actual, useful assistance to poor people.

The reality behind the widows and orphans argument is that a handful of authors and publishers who already won the lottery, as it were, by holding the copyrights on works with long-lasting copyright related economic value, wanted to preserve their gravy train. It's as if the winner of a $100 million dollar jackpot used some of that money to successfully lobby for a retroactive increase to a $200 million dollar jackpot.

I'm not arguing in favor of extremism in any direction. I don't think that copyrights should be short, I think that they should be no longer than absolutely necessary. An overly-long copyright is harmful to the public because it is waste. An overly-short copyright is harmful to the public because it doesn't incentivize authors as much as is appropriate. What we need are copyright terms (and scope) that hit the sweet spot where we get the most efficiency: the most works created and published yet for the least restrictions on the public.

But this also means that your disrespect for 'moochers' is totally inappropriate. Ideally we could grant copyright terms (we'll set aside scope for now) on a case-by-case basis. If the minimum copyright incentive that author Smith needs to write and publish his book is 3 years, then we grant him 3 years. If the minimum copyright incentive that filmmaker Jones needs to film and distribute his movie is 10 years, then we grant him 10 years. If the minimum copyright incentive that painter Brown needs to paint and sell copies of his painting is 0 years, we don't grant him a copyright at all. Does this allow for third parties to compete against Smith in 3 years, Jones in 10 years, and Brown from day one? Sure. But who cares? Granting one day's worth of a longer term to any of them is pointless, because they've already got the minimum amount they needed to do what we want them to do: create and publish works. It's as wasteful to grant them more as it would be to offer a construction project to the lowest bidder, yet to then double the payment to the winner just for the hell of it.

In practice, we can't fine tune copyright grants that well; we'd need to staff the Copyright Office with a legion of psychics. But we can still try to make it work efficiently. For example, requiring registration helps us weed out authors like Brown who have so little reason to care about copyright that they wouldn't bother to register. Offering short terms and renewals helps us weed out authors like Smith, who only care about copyright for a little while, and then stop because it's no longer valuable enough to them to merit filing the renewal. (We know that few works were ever renewed historically, so that's a real thing) And for authors like Jones, longer maximum term lengths -- up to a point -- could still be available. They just wouldn't be automatic, so that we don't inadvertently grant such long terms to Smith and Brown, who don't need them.

And as for authors like Black, who create a work but insist on a copyright that lasts forever, or at least for an immensely long time, even if that really is the necessary term in order to incentivize the creation and publication of the work, we can say fuck it; Black wants more than the work is worth to the public. It might be nice to have that work created and published, but a sane copyright system is more valuable than that particular work, so we'll just all have to live without, and Black can get a job doing something else.

At no point however, is the idea that we should discourage third parties from being able to compete freely ever considered, because it's dumb, basically. The copyright monopoly should not last any longer than it needs to to get works created and published. If this allows for third parties to step in while a work is commercially viable (and given that people still reprint works from antiquity, that can be a very long length of time indeed!) then so be it. There's nothing at all wrong with it. In fact, it's great, because it drives down prices and increases access to works.

I don't understand your comment. I'm saying that whatever Disney's trademark rights in the Mickey Mouse character are, once the first work in which the character appears enters the public domain, that opens the door for third parties -- that is, parties other than Disney -- to use the character, at least in some ways, and it limits the scope of Disney's trademark.

How the hell did you get from that to shilling in favor of Disney? I think perhaps you should read posts more carefully before replying.

You've changed your claim. You're now discussing not the majority of people but the majority of people who name their cars which as far as I can tell is a very, very small percentage of automobile owners. I find it believable that people who name their cars wouldn't like to rent one. Note that that's not the same as saying I believe it.

Your claim about ages rings hollow to me, though. I don't know anyone over the age of 25 who has named their car. Of course, I only know two people who have named their cars, period (one is 21 and one is 19).

However, my experience doesn't really matter. You're the one making the claim that no one will be willing to buy a car that doesn't perfectly fit all of their needs, so it's on you to support it, not on me to refute it.

Speak for yourself. I refuse to use Facebook, but quite like Google+. I also have a Twitter account, which I never use. But I dumped Facebook the second or third time they changed my privacy settings without asking me, and have no intention of every going back.

Assuming anyone even cares about minutes any more, Google Voice does the same. When GV answers your phone and takes voicemail it doesn't use your cell minutes. And users of GV rarely dial in to listen to their voicemails either; the transcription is so good they just glance at the e-mail/SMS/Hangout message and get what they need to from it.

Apple may indeed be able to find some way to innovate in this space, but simply transcribing voicemails isn't going to do it.

Well, my experience with my kids is that we stop every two hours. Not necessarily to eat. Granted that it's often for 15-20 minutes rather than 30, but it wouldn't be difficult to wait a few minutes more before heading out.

Cite? From what I see that ceases being true by about age 30 for the vast majority of people.

LEAF batteries are $6K.

There is no "refueling time" issue to "give up". Refueling time is a major advantage of EVs for everyday use... refueling my EV takes ten seconds. Five when I get out of the car and plug it in at night, and five more when I unplug it in the morning. I find my ICEV much, much more of a bother to keep fueled.

This is only true in the exceptional case of long-distance, non-stop travel. And even there, all it takes is enough range and fast-enough recharging to ensure that the car doens't need to spend any more time refueling than the people do.

Right, because what Microsoft and Facebook are looking for is entry-level coders for jobs that don't require much more than an if-then-else statement. I suppose it's remotely possible that flooding the entry-level market could reduce pressure on the higher end, but I highly doubt that the effect would be noticeable. The skills gap is just too large and the productivity difference between the top and bottom ends too large.

What's more likely is that they realize that good programmers are as much born as made, and that there is a percentage of the population who could be good but currently are never even exposed to it enough to find out how much they would like it. In other words, they aren't looking to pull in lots of little fish, they're looking to trawl a bigger part of the ocean for the big fish that they're trying to find.

I suspect there's also an element of "mainstreaming" involved. The programming culture can be offputting to many people, so by making it more normal they hope to interest more of the potentially-great software engineers who currently look at the culture and stay far away. Like women.