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Comment Re:Spruce Goose (Score 1) 85

Different requirements drive different designs. Before WW2 seaplanes were common because of the lack of runways. After WW2 airports proliferated, and seaplanes couldn't keep up with technical advances due to the compromises involved in allowing them to land and take off from water. But that doesn't mean there aren't applications for aircraft with a flying boat's capabilities, it just means there isn't enough of a market in places like the US to support an industry. Even so, here in North America there are some 70 year-old WW2 Catalinas being used in aerial firefighting. China is a vast country which is prone to many kinds of natural disasters that could make airlifting in supplies difficult, so they may see potential applications we don't.

It's also interesting to note that seaplanes were highly useful in the pacific theater of WW2, and there hasn't been a protracted struggle for sea control *since* WW2. Also, China is a country with no operational aircraft carriers; aside from its training ship the Liaoning, it has a handful of amphibious assault ships that can carry a few helicopters. The US by contrast has ten supercarriers and nine amphibious assault ships that dwarf the aircraft carriers of WW2. The technology and expertise to run a carrier fleet like America's would take many years for China to develop. It's conceivable that the manufacturers imagine a military market for aircraft like this in the interim.

Comment This explains a lot (Score 5, Insightful) 511

No wonder there's so much shitty software being thrown out. People are too stoned or drugged up to have any idea of what they're doing and as a result we get crap such as Windows 8 or the near-monthly Facebook "updates".

But hey, drugs are cool and in no way should the deaths of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Peaches Geldoff, Cory Monteith, Heath Ledger, Dee Dee Ramone and a whole slew of other folks who felt being high was so great that they didn't care if they killed themselves in the process.

Unfortunately we'll have to keep hearing about how poor [insert name] died, how they were a good person and blah, blah, blah.

Fuck that. You think drugs are cool and being high is the thing to do, go for it. Just don't expect the rest of us to give a shit when you're found face down in your home.

Comment Re:Barely credible (Score 0) 582

Russia is certainly a bit authoritarian, but they dont tolerate outright neo-nazis.

Whereas the Ukrainian putsch relies heavily on two overtly neo-nazi parties. Their members hold several cabinet posts including security and defense. Their names are Svoboda and Right Sector, you can look them up yourself.

Comment Re:Slippery Slope (Score 1) 186

"The choices are unelected leaders, elected leaders or no leaders. "

That's not actually an exhaustive list to start with, and even if it were it still conceals differences. Perhaps it does not matter so much exactly how the 'leaders' are chosen, but instead their competence, loyalty, and relationship with the law? Perhaps even more important than their personal properties are the properties of the office itself, as Lord Acton observed?

The kings were filthy thugs, but they never dreamed of being able to visit the sort of horror on their 'subjects' that modern states have visited on their supposed citizens, in e.g. Nazi Germany, the USSR, Turkey, and many other places over the last 200 years. They simply did not have that kind of power.

Comment Re:What's your point? (Score 1) 29

"By bulk are you referring to the number of people in the political system, or something else? "

The number of people whose livelihoods depend on taxation, if that is what you mean by 'in the political system,' would be one good proxy for bulk. Another would be the percentage of GDP spent by government, either directly or indirectly (through mandates for example.)

"If instead the argument is that government is trying to help too many people (ie the country is so large that government from a federal level is impossible and should be abandoned), I don't necessarily disagree."

That's a whole different barrel of worms, and not what I was saying at all. Power is the problem, power itself. It's essentially the same creature whether it is the local strongman and busybody or the national ones, except that the national level can obviously arrange for larger disasters. Devolving power from the national to the local level may be worthwhile, but it's not an end-all. Local tyrannies are still tyrannies.

A subsidiary problem is government trying to follow heart-wrenching but utterly inchoate missions like 'help people' btw. Government programs are easy to institute but damn near impossible to shut down, so if you have any interest at all in stopping it somewhere short of complete totalitarianism you really must come up with much more specific, well-defined, and suitable missions. Like 'provide a court and law enforcement system of last resort' or 'prevent Mexico from reclaiming her northwestern states' for example.

"I do think it is likely time to split our country up into 2 (or more) independent nations. Frankly I don't expect that our country will survive more than another 10-20 years without that happening anyways"

You know, when other countries have problems with different groups not seeing eye to eye on everything, one common remedy suggested by Merikans has been something called federalism. It allows the country to keep the benefits of union, while avoiding much of the squabbling, by keeping the central government relatively weak and small so that it doesnt matter so much which region controls it. Perhaps we should investigate that before splitting up?

I seem to recall some old white dudes named Jefferson and Madison and that whole generation even talked about it a bit. Nah, couldnt be. If they had, we would have a federal system here already, and we wouldnt be talking about breakup, right?

"Is regressive taxation not state action? "

Taxation *is* state action. It is the primordial state action, because it is the see of all other state actions which require funds.

"How about restrictions on health care for certain parts of the population?"

Restrictions on health care, like all restrictions on peaceful honest business, should be repealed.

Comment Re:What's your point? (Score 1) 29

What that suggests to me is rather that the specific shape of the political system matters less than its bulk, which in turn suggests that any ideology that advocates state action (regardless of the high minded goal which that ideology expects it to serve) should be viewed very critically.

Comment Don't get too happy (Score 1) 77

This bill actually does very little. The DMCA is written very broadly, and has been commonly interpreted as to prohibit cell phone unlocking. Because Congress, in the 90s, when they enacted the stupid thing, was aware that the DMCA could go too far, but didn't want to be cautious or have to keep reexamining the law itself, they gave authority to the Library of Congress to add exceptions to it in specific cases. The process for these exceptions is that every three years, anyone who wants an exception has to plead their case. If found worthy, they get an exception. But the exception only lasts until the next rule making session, three years hence. Then it has to be reargued from scratch or lost.

Two rule making sessions ago, the Library of Congress found that cellphone unlocking was worthy of an exception. But in the most recent rule making session, they did not find it worthy, and the exception was lost; it went back to its default state of being illegal.

This law could have amended the DMCA to permanently allow cellphone unlocking. Or it could've directed the Library of Congress to always find that cellphone unlocking is allowed. But it does neither of these.

Instead it only reinstates the rule from two sessions ago for the remainder of the current session. Next year it will have to be argued again, from scratch, to the Library of Congress, or lost, again. And even if argued, it can be rejected, again.

This is less than useless. It's only a temporary patch, it doesn't even have an iota of long term effect (the rules don't take precedent into account, and this doesn't change it), and we've wasted all this effort getting it instead of something worthwhile.

Comment Re:There would have been one nice side effect (Score 1) 212

Maybe, maybe not. We know that companies, such as electrical suppliers, have extra equipment lying around for general maintenance and upgrade. Also, the people who manufacture these products have supplies on hand.

While it would be tedious, you would use this spare equipment to repair the most critical connections (from power plant to factories), thus enabling you to begin resupplying everyone else.

I'm not trying to minimize the nightmare scenario of getting things back up and running, only pointing out the path to get us there.

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