The nice thing about professional paranoia is that you can worry about everything. Global warming (err, climate change), Ebola, vaccines, Republicans and Zombies. Even UFOs. There are one hell of a lot of three ringed binders in the Pentagon.

Core / corps - although either one sort of works. Grrr.

There is a tad bit of difference between mass executions and accelerated retirements. The US officer core is very top heavy. How many generals do you need, anyway? There is a clear plan to thin those ranks over the next decade or so. It's slow enough that the largest military in the world (TM) can handle it. Not to worry. Colonels and majors can push paper quite well, thankyouverymuch.

So we need a few more aircraft carriers. Never let a crisis go to waste.

Just try to be part of the Coast Guard in any state on the northern border of the Mediterranean. It's not going to get better.

Fortunately (?) these changes happen fairly slowly. A few more refugee boat sinkings get wrapped up in Kim Kardishain's latest divorce or another Ebola scare. The US is largely immune from this - I'd worry if I were Canadian, however.

I suppose we could give the refugees an old aircraft carrier ....

We have met the enemy and he is us?

Been there. Done that.

Photoshop.

Even an amateur radio operator mesh network (which exists in places at the moment) would be subject to interference at practical levels. Just because a packet can go somewhere doesn't mean it's a useful communication system. You want it to go where you want it to go. If Nasty Government blocks a mesh network via jamming in a few key cities, then it makes little difference to those in the cities if those packets are visible in Peoria.

The exception, I suppose, would be Netflix. However, if and when the shit hits the fan, reruns of World War Z won't have the same cachet.

Iridium had the foresight or luck to get the US Military addicted to it. They have essentially floated it along until it has (sort of) become a viable proposition. Furthermore, the original debt incurred by Iridium has been retired in at least two bankruptcies. The new Iridium managed to get a nice bargain.

Not a very straightforward business model....

Cool story, bro.

Now, repeat this with your 14 year old sister as the person buying the phone.

Next time try a front wheel drive with decent tires. Safer and better than a 4wd in anything other than steep / deep (ie, on roads).

4WD vehicles have this funny habit of breaking all four tires loose at the same time. Front wheel drive vehicles tend to break the rear tires first, allowing you to control the vehicle with the fronts. Anyhow, it's mostly tires and driver.

4WD SUVs are fun to watch flip over. The combination of an icy road, a 4WD, a bad driver, some speed and the laws of physics can be pretty entertaining.

No, type I, ONE you damned keyboard. ONE. 1.

Oh, that kind of moderation.

Would never occur to me to use the work in that particular context.

Type II.

I dunno about this who thing. Verpamil is a common drug. Diabetes is a common problem. There exists data sets from the big insurers, systems like Kaiser and those nasty socialists, the Scandinavians, who have had computerized medical records for decades. It would seem easy to ask the question 'Are the glucose (or better yet Hemoglobin A1c) levels) among patients taking verapamil and different from similar patients not taking the drug.

You could get some pretty good data pretty quick. You would still need to do the prospective study, but you could get an idea if it made sense to go further.

Of course, they could have done such a study - these puff piece articles aren't of the highest caliber.