Right. The EPA laws are, after all, the golf course members telling the lower classes that they will need to lower their expectations again.

Reminds me of a reporter having a conversation with a 99%er at Occupy Wall Street. She was pushing for everyone to abandon technology (apparently this didn't include ipods) and go back to a strictly agrarian society. The reporter commented something to the effect that this would probably lead to mass urban starvation. Her retort was "well, people die".

I guess that's true. Personally I wondered whether she and her friends even knew anything about proper crop rotation, but then I realized that it really wouldn't matter, because someone better armed would come along and take everything from her little commune anyway. Well, you know, people die.

> "Give me your money or spend all eternity suffering in a (literal!) lake of fire."

But... isn't that also what the climate doomsayers are saying?

The next Jurassic Park could be a lot more interesting.

But probably won't be.

...but having the T-Rexes looking like chickens, and changing their roar to something less intimidating would fit well with changing all the guns to flashlights.

I think he already did. People just aren't paying attention.

But that method is so passe... Now it's "your miserable existence is ruining the earth. Give me your money so I can fix it." Now that I write that, I realize that it's a very similar mechanism to that used by the megachurches.

The flaw in this reasoning is contained in the answer "cool. More for us."

I think it's the act of becoming a human politician that starts the transformation to giant rat.

> If the problem is caused by people, then the solution is less people.

I agree. You first.

I suspect that giant urban rats are starting to fill that niche.

"The world is coming to an end! Pay me money to find out how!"

Humans are bad. You should feel bad. And give me money so you can feel less bad. I promise I'll use whatever is left over after the upkeep of my seven mansions to save the earth. Mostly by preventing your employer from doing business.

Good point, but I seem to remember hearing that people aren't buying new machines at the rate they used to. The two factors seem to be (a) their current machines are fast enough for casual use, so there's no overriding reason to replace them, and (b) for content consumption, tablets and smart phones (areas where Microsoft doesn't play well) have become far more popular.

About the ECM, the story is that the F35 only has effective ECM in the same frequency range that it's own radar uses -- effectively limiting it to C band. It has stealth features, but they are largely negated by the heat put out by that huge engine. These two weaknesses sum up the "can't hide" part of the F35's deficiencies.

Mind you, I've been out of the war toys business for many years. I only know what I've read. But it's not promising.

I am out of my element a bit here, but my understanding is that the F22 is an air superiority fighter only, whereas the F35 was supposed to be a multirole aircraft (air-to-air and air-to-ground) with (optional) VTOL features, (which no version of the F22 has) all in the same airframe. It was supposed to be the Windows 8 of fighter aircraft, a single airframe to take the place of a bunch of other craft.

...and apparently, it works about as well as you would expect of those types of solutions...

And, it was (giggle) supposed to (snerk) be (Bwaaaa haa haaa) affordable. Sorry, I can't say that with a straight face.