The surface of your "moderately shiny" metal will not stay shiny when subjected to the energy level we are talking about here. Just Google for videos of small-scale cutting lasers. This is FAR from the energy level of sunlight reflecting off a shiny car hood.
Or watch this video of a 500W laser cutting into a sheet "moderately shiny" metal.

More than one small-town police chief explained that a "free" MRAP was taking the place of him buying a $200,000 "bullet-proof" plain-Jane SWAT van, a month or so back during the first newspaper articles that were critical of the DOD equipment program. MRAPS aren't just protected from mines. It would be kind of silly to have a truck protect the soldiers inside from mines but not bullets.
Whether he needed a bullet-proof truck is a question for another forum, but the fact that he just avoided paying $200K for something is actually a "good thing".

I'm sure the $10 light is as resistant to impacts and weather, and has a switch rated for thousands of cycles. Yes, four digit flashlights sound crazy, until you consider the economies of scale for specialized equipment that "needs" to always work. How you define "always" and "needs" is what adds zeros on the right side of the cost. The US military writes crazy tough "requirements" that cost money just to prove how reliable your hardware is.

How did companies do things 20 years ago?
They racked up lots of frequent flyer miles, spent hours on long distance calls, and made FedEx a household name (and very profitable). Did I mention the conference calls where people on the East coast had to stay at work late to talk to people on the West Coast?

Because people have converted tracked vehicles to fight forest fires.
See this for an example: M548/M1015 Full Tracked Vehicle

I was just going to mention the Civilian Marksmanship Program. Please, someone throw some MOD POINTS!

Perhaps the "each" for those items is a CASE. A SMALL case of cups, for example, is often a "gross" of cups. (12 dozen = 144).
Work in food service or a warehouse, you will learn that LOGISTICS is what makes a large organization work.

Air gaps work great and are cheap when they are only 3 feet wide- everywhere along the circumference of the inner "island".
When your "island" has to cover multiple states and time zones at the same time, it becomes very unwieldy to strictly maintain that air-gap. Why do you think the DOD classified networks cost so much and have so many regulations concerning them? Have you ever priced what REAL hardware encryptors cost?

Does the Bible actually say you will be always be rewarded (increased player health) for killing all sinners (NPC prostitutes)?

I suppose it might be somewhere in the Old Testament, but half of the Old Testament is contradicted in the New Testament, so it's a wash. I know it's a game, but try to understand that it is a pervasive part of the game that they are actually complaining about, not "the whole criminal thing". Perhaps if killing male NPCs and prostitutes for health was another game mechanic, the complaints would be the same, but at least things would be more "balanced".

Another point - have you ever READ the original reports and release from the CDC? Pretty dry stuff.
It is THE PRESS that adds the hyperbole.

AAANND, if they said nothing, and some thing horrible happens, some untrained commenter/reporter/radio host would say "the CDC doesn't know anything, they did not warn us this might happen".

Pick what you want, a medical community that tells you what CAN happen, or that tells you what you want to hear. The doctors I deal with (numerous specialties, pediatric and adult, in America), are in the "list everything that CAN happen" mindset. They try to add the probabilities of an outcome, and point out what the most likely outcome is. They have to, or some ambulance chaser lawyer will "help" a patient sue them for "not warning them" of a potential outcome. If you talk with the doctor, and they are candid, they readily admit it can be hard to predict medical outcomes, because human beings and medical facilities have so many variables it is amazing we survive at all.
My wife hates that, because she is a pessimist, and dwells on the low probability "worst case".

Did you read the entire article at consortiumnews.com? It rather effectively calls out the extreme left AND the extreme right for distorting the Constitution, and says that it should be looked at as a whole, not cherry-picked. . Did you just look at the headline as click-bait from some right-wing web site?

direct quote:
"The best path to firmer ground would seem to be, twofold: a serious effort to reclaim the real history of the Constitution from the charlatans on the Right and a recognition that the Constitution, as amended, creates an imperfect but still workable framework for democratic change, a rebuff to some on the Left."

When did you "try" a Chromebook at BestBuy? Was it in the last 3 months? Because the number of models available has changed in the last 3 months. Did it occur to you that the Chromebook sitting in BestBuy for a year or more might be beaten to death by the typical BestBuy knuckle-draggers? Did you notice that BestBuy doesn't routinely changeout their floor display models? Also, BestBuy doesn't sell every model ChromeBook. Give specific models and date ranges to fully qualify your "crap hardware" review. Seriously tired of generalizations based on 2 minutes of playing with something in the store instead of actually logging in and using something.

Nigeria managed to contain it.
Admittedly they have seen Ebola before, but they seem to have a more modernized health care "infrastructure" (facilities) than the regions where Ebola is out of control. I would be willing to bet that the US has a much higher density of health care facilities with supplies and personnel.

Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA)
"In 1986, Congress enacted the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) to ensure public access to emergency services regardless of ability to pay. Section 1867 of the Social Security Act imposes specific obligations on Medicare-participating hospitals that offer emergency services to provide a medical screening examination (MSE) when a request is made for examination or treatment for an emergency medical condition (EMC), including active labor, regardless of an individual's ability to pay. Hospitals are then required to provide STABILIZING [emphasis added] treatment for patients with EMCs. If a hospital is unable to stabilize a patient within its capability, or if the patient requests, an appropriate transfer should be implemented."

Hospitals CAN and DO provide minimal treatment for "non-emergent" cases. Hence, the "take two of these and come back if it gets worse" treatment. Yes, logical forward-thinking people might conclude that "this person came from Africa, could be Ebola". However, this isn't TV, and a plucky nurse isn't going to get her hospital to take a person for an expensive admission "just in case it isn't a bad cold".
MAYBE after the hysteria, that scenario might happen, especially in that city. Maybe not.