Recall that even Sauron did not have the power to make the palantiri show false images, but rather could force selective showing of truthful images to lead to deceit. The best lies are based in truth.

One big thing is when a program ends the contractors are no longer on the payroll. The US Government hiring direct, those employees would be assigned some other task and never fired or laid off. It just doesn't happen. We actually need to go in the opposite direction and hire more contractors. It behooves managers in the government to never fire employees. It reflects poorly on them, and possibly reduces their budget the next year. If they keep bad employees and assign them do nothing work, they still get periodic raises.

Consider if you need to hire a database analyst to set up a system that will accept some information from data entry folks, process it and then spit back some results in reports. If you are in the private sector the DBA can be a just OK level in his field and still cost twice or more what a normal programmer costs. A really good DBA can cost 4 to 5 times a normal programmer. If you are a corporation dealing with a few million records in the database the DBA can do things in the clearest most easy to maintain, non-optimal way to get the job done quickly. For dealing with potentially billions of records you need to have the most optimized ability to generate this reports or the next set will be due while you process the current set. So you need to hire the best possible talent. And they still need to test and document things so others can maintain them ... (don't think this is an issue, ask the IRS that has scrapped more than 1 over a billion dollar project to revamp the tax records system). So there is a demonstrated need to hire very qualified talent. Now after the 6 months to a year project is over, put that same guy on payroll forever at his pay scale with increases while he reads Dilbert and writes tech journal articles all day since he has very very little to do. Or as a contractor the job is done, let him go.

Smaller government could use more contractors, and then implement better oversight over their actual use and deployments.

The working fluid is often water. Sometimes ammonia but usually not for electronics. It is under lower pressure so that its boiling point is near the working temperature of the device. Boils off or evaporates, condenses in the cold side of the heat exchanger, then capillary action sucks it back faster than it would otherwise travel to the hot side. My favorite heat pipe was a flat grill ... awesomely uniform temperatures. Not sure what the working fluid was. Other ways besides fans are to immerse the cold side heat exchanger into more water at normal pressures and that can have even more surface area to cool the reservoir making an effective heatsink area that is HUGE...

Just as BurgerKIng uses McDonalds site planning and places stores near them, so Microsoft falls into the same seemingly profitable pattern. Hey! Yes Hey! Microsoft! Isn't McDonalds Bigger than Burger King??? Ever hear of first mover advantage? It applies to real estate too. If they liked your location they'd be there.

You can fly with any amount you care to in the US. You are required to declare it on international flights. And it is always a good idea to have the documentation of the source like a withdrawal record from the bank ... that said ... they may still confiscate it. But if you've shown the documentation you'll eventually get it back and have grounds likely for damages (after all you were likely flying somewhere to buy something ... and missed the opportunity ...) You never want to have large sums undocumented as they will do an interesting thing allowed under the US RICO laws. The local police will confiscate it, then hand it over to the FBI. The FBI gives a 10% "kickback" to the local LEOs. You'll recover the amount given the FBI (90%) but the 10% to the LEOs has bureaucratically been laundered out of existence.

Kids will be asking for hulk hands and tall foam cowboy hats ...

A is a member of B does not make B a member of A ... If one were to own a bank and remove its funds that is embezzlement not a Ponzi Scheme.

Transfer their debt to their own countries to offset the loans the US had made over the years for various wars etc. that have never been repaid... If there are grounds at all since it was stolen property ... not like the police can return your stolen cash when they find your empty wallet.

They just conveniently change the rules and force you to play ... OH and that whole separate accounts thing ... That is a lie. It is in the general fund and we "borrow" against it on paper by the government buying its own t-bills ... Pathetic really.

If they are only reporting actual worked hours then 4 per day makes them as productive as an office bound drone. MSFT has a concept they push called "Core Hours" or did some time back. The core hours that can be scheduled in normal expectation is 20 per week. The rest is taken up by the social miscellany of office life.

Personally I work almost all my contracts from home, lately doing either software forensics or Apple iOS development, and I work a pretty solid 8-10 hours each day, sometimes more. Sometimes a lot more for the lawyers who schedule at the last minute. Sometimes less if demand is low. And occasionally I am forced by a job to fly all over the country and my actual work hours plummet. So for me at least, I am much more productive at my home office, though my social life suffers greatly. Well, more than greatly.

The metric the employers should be using is "Are they getting the job done as expected?" and if not change the situation, either pull them into the office a few days a week, or fire them. Do let them know they are below expectations and allow them to fix the behavior! Also I find a daily scheduled audio chat helps keep expectations aligned. My company has not had an office downtown for several years now and we are pretty much pure cottage industry with an on demand office for clients visiting us. And I dress for work, same as I would for an office, I am pretty casual though, jeans, tee shirts and slip on shoes.

YOU LAZY A$$ BUMS LOAFING OUT THERE, GET TO WORK, YOU'RE SPOILING IT FOR THE OTHERS

Ozone is beneficial in the upper atmosphere, not so much on the ground level. One strata's benign is another's OMG what could you be thinking!

The period after the Dark Ages was the height of productivity in Western Civilization in terms of arable land and agriculture. It was warmer then! If we actually mess with things and cool them down then we are trusting people who's models are vague and imprecise and shown to be filled with errors in the past. If Global arming is as some suspect the approaching of the tipping point for an ice age, do we really want some scientists to push us past the inflection point into a wild ride down the other side. It would eventually solve the Detroit blight problem, but at the expense of all of Canada. If as they have noted a single volcano can have orders of magnitude greater effect than all of humanity under normal circumstances, then why for raving flying pasta would they try to exert a greater influence in a field wrought with contention when the possible outcome is "really really bad"(TM).

At one point in Ukraine I bought what I thought was a DVD of Zorro (The Mask of Zorro, 1998) with a Russian language track. What it turned out to be was a copy of the Legend of Zorro, with a Russian language track. This was a used DVD for sale before the theatrical release of the movie. Professionally created, not a DVD-R but a real DVD, and printed insert, jacket, etc. And a nice Russian tax authority holographic stamp, and a Ukrainian one applied overlapping the Russian one where it was taxed coming into Ukraine. So Russian sanctioned piracy. Appropriately taxed.