I have.

Me.

Mind you, this was 20 years ago, but I had made a remark that my previous employer must be having a paperwork problem with their Employee Stock Ownership Program, because it was June, and the plan required annual reports by the end of April, and I had still not received one.

TWO days later, a registered letter arrives from a Law Firm, warning me of the consequences of slandering my previous employer. . . .

I shut up. The Annual Report (and my final ESOP certificate) arrived in September. Needless to say, I liquidated immediately and rolled it to an IRA. . .

Mind you, that was over a CASUAL COMMENT on compliance with a filed financial plan.

Except that train has ALREADY left town. Foreign Banks are submitting, well, being FORCED to submit to FATCA or face seizure of 30% of assets transferred to and from the US.

So, as a result, foreign banks are generally shedding American depositors.

Because Washington thinks it IS WorldCop. . . .

Oh, indeed they do. But I have a few buddies who worked there. They tell of engineering decisions over-ridden by .gov policy weenies, a specification that changed so much it was effectively liquid, and minor, unimportant things like NOT EVEN STARTING WORK on the code until late February or so of 2013. . . .

And just got an email from the people running the "free" course. You get an "Honor Certificate" for taking the course. BUT. . . . for the low, low fee of $250.00, you can get a "Verified Completion Certificate". . .

And yet EVERYTHING is now caused by AGW. Heat Waves. Cold Spells, Floods. Droughts. Today, I saw a report linking Crime to Global Warming. Last year, it caused prostitution for impoverished women. About the ONLY thing not linked to AGW is the Heartbreak of Psoriasis and Waxy Yellow Buildup. But hey, it's only February. . . .

. . . . .Tech CEOs actually have to produce something that sells, whereas bankers merely move around other people's money, and take a percentage for the privilege of doing so ???

Think of it as Mutual Assured Destruction meets Darwin in Action. It will be painful, brief, and then over. . .

But it WOULD rid us of Miley and Justin. Sometimes, you have to break a few eggs. . . . (evil grin)

. . . and if that doesn't work. . . .send Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber. . .

And yet people don't see the same problem with subsidized healthcare. Subsidization inevitably leads to rationing, no matter what you apply it to. . .

OK, we've seen this countless times today. You've made your point. At this point, the "Fuck Beta/Kill Beta" is SPAM. . .

That depends on the beam density. Concentrate a powerful-enough beam on a narrow-enough spot, and you get burnthrough, after which atmospheric dynamics should do the rest. I leave the problems of power and focus as things that research will eventually solve.

Actually, you are PROHIBITED from memorizing a checklist, and on a checkride, if you are deviating from the checklist, you have to announce that you ARE deviating, what you're deviating from, why, and when you intend to complete the deviated portion OF that checklist.

It's a QA measure, supposedly. . .

I cannot speak to what MISSILE crews had to pass, but I was a SAC B-52 Crewdawg in the 1980s. We were CONSTANTLY getting tested on aircraft knowledge (i.e. how well we knew our equipment, and what the appropriate "dash" volume said about it), emergency procedures (which had to test 100% correct or you were pulled from flight duty), and what we called "command and control procedures" (i.e. how to properly authenticate and decode Action Messages and Emergency Action Messages).

ANY failure: classroom test, simulator ride, or inflight evaluation was devastating to the career, at least back in the days of Strategic Air Command. . .