Globalists - who are of course out of their GDed minds.

That is who let this happen. It all stems from the same anti-nationalist mentality that emerged after the second world war and was allowed to take over western academia.

The thinking goes if everyone depends on everyone else nobody will fight any more. Of course reality is not all dependence is created equal. Leaders like Xi understand depending on a consumer market is different then depending on supplier. Sure if they decided to start WWIII we'd quit buying, all those factors can focus on making weapons until the smoke clears, on the other hand no matter how much you want to use the defense production act, you are not getting any shells or aircraft produced in those Glodman Sachs office, McDonalds restaurants, or CVS pharmacies.

National security is a game to these people. Oh the US governemnt contract says everyone has to be a citizen with a clearance or directly supervised by one. Never mind why the rule exists or what it was supposed to accomplish, Microsoft upper management knows perfectly well in this case the latter practice can't be very effective, they just don't give a F*** they can win the bid, that is all they care about.

Congress made the internet commercial in 1992.

Well what should he do?

Sure you'd love it if Mark could have some great flash of insight and invent something or significantly enhance a concept like taking MySpace to early facebook, but playing catch up and 'us too' is surely better than sitting around doing nothing right?

Microsoft more or less ignored the Internet from 1992-1994 and that was an expensive lesson. The were comparatively quick to replicate what Amazon was doing with AWS and while only someone who has made a career of papering the cube walls with MCSE certificates would say its been especially innovative, Azure has been a success for them.

They tried to get into the smartphone game, that did not work but if they'd they just deiced well trying new markets did not work let's go back to selling Windows CALS, and Exchange/Office volume license agreements, along with some mixture of SQL and Business Analytical tools would that have been a wise course?

Reality of tech is the market does change (or at least cycle) and if you don't diversify or at least seugway your product into buzzy space du jour, you can get left behind and your business can vanish astonishingly quickly. Meta can't afford to do nothing, but being number two, especially if primarily by virtue of being second to the party when you have a first rate offering can still be fantastically profitable. The investors know that, and they rather Meta gable their money trying to catch the next wave the stand around hoping people never get tired of facebook-insta.

People forget but there was a time around 2003 or so when the investor class was seriously pushing for Microsoft to became and investment bank because they did not know where else the growth could come from now that the world ran Windows and Office.

Obviously giving away that kind of service to some 'deserving' clients is a pure marketing move. Its not like they are keeping it a secret they did that. In fact it would not surprise me if some agent of theirs put the idea for the article in the reporters ear and said and you know such and such would have good anecdote to fit into it. That is how the sausage is made in the hospitality industry.

You might get away with scamming them but, it would also be nice click bait story for some dining rag to bust you for it. Is your personal reputation so little you'd trade it for $500 plate?

Exactly America has no problem electing women. There are plenty of Federal legislators, and plenty of State Governors that prove it isn't a sex thing. Its a Hillary is insufferable and Kamala is a vapid whore thing.

It is not the same at all. There are no practical reasons to cut up the Mona Lisa and it is obviously best enjoyed as single piece.

The Shuttle is entirely different. First transporting as smaller components solves a lot practical problems, so there is justification.

Second it isn't one monolith to start with like a single sheet of canvas, its thing already made up of thousands, maybe 100s of thousands of components. So you're integrity argument is nonsense. I am not about breaking it up selling it off bolt by bolt or something at the souvenir stand, I am talking about a cohesive presentation of the whole thing.

Third it would be better enjoyed if you could see more of it. Ever been to railway museum, when we are talking about an old steam engine or something that can't run anyway what is more interesting to look at, what can learn more from? A long steel tube, or one where a section has been taken out so you can actually see inner plumbing of the boiler etc? We do this with other stuff like ships and aircraft as well. The Shuttle isn't "art work", it is a product of science and industry and it should be presented as such.

Well because it is actually hard.

Case in point. I arrive at our county transfer station.
There are two bins, one labeled cardboard and on labeled paper board. What is paper board? I did not know, honestly still don't looking on line lots of different products ranging from corrugated materials to construction paper. Also a sign that says no glossy print.

So I asked the attendant. Where should this serial box go is it cardboard or paperboard, is just trash because it has glossy coating? They could not tell me.

Ultimately I tossed it into the cardboard recycle. Figuring certainly if common grocery store cereal boxes (with the inner plastic bag removed) can't be recycled someone would have asked "why are we bothering with any of this" by now.

But honestly I am not 100% sure county waste can recycle anything but bog standard cardboard shipping carton with minimal printing and plain copy paper. In the way of paper products. Based on looking at what others throw into the bins this isn't the case but even if you go on the county waste site and read thru all the rules seemingly everything else is excluded in one way or another.

Plastic is even more complicated. You have the soda companies attaching the caps to bottles now so they don't get separated but I am not sure they are even the same type of plastic and don't need to be binned separately...

The whole system is really unusable

It is not like these things ever need to fly again. There really isn't a reason why it can't be cut apart and crudely welded back together at the destination site.

Can you do it for 2 million, hell no. Can you get it done for the 83 million in the bill, yes I think damn well can if you take a rational approach.

Heck you maybe don't even need to put it back together. mount the parts on polls arranged like they'd go back together but with space between them, slap some clear acrylic sheets on the sides to keep the weather out and build some stairs and platforms so people can walk between them and look in. Probably make a lot better exhibit anyway.

No Washington is mostly an ugly shit hole on swamp land. The National Mall is beautiful out side of that it really is just barely navigable often decaying urban landscape.

Now there are lots place in Northern Virginia and Maryland that are also beautiful and nearby but they are also not Washington.

So wait which is it?

Do we have the "capital, brain power and legislative frameworks to solve" this problem, or do we have "incapacity to deal with it at scale"?

I am going to go with the latter. We absolutely can't solve the micro-plastics problem. At least now without plunging a billion people back into the grips poverty, disease and death. There simply are not chemical and materiel analogs known that can replace plastics. Not without blowing a hole thru every other environmental remediation objective we have.

Umm it is before...

Big Beautiful Act, was for 'mandatory spending'; Congress will now pass several appropriations bills between now middle September for 'discretionary' spending.

Some of the negative covfefe around the BBA is fair but a lot of it is just negative partisan propaganda that only works because they convinced a huge portion of their base that just because the had a degree, or whatever that must mean they also know someone about the federal budget and political process that generates it. When the reality most people ..don't.. and can't grasp there was never going to be better bill that was getting passed. The Inflation Reduction Act was also mostly garbage, just the other side of the same broken coin.

Could be.

He did not say he won't burn it.

Plastic pollution is shaping up to be a far more pervasive and serious problem than I think most people are appreciating. The effects though so far unconfirmed are probably being felt a lot more acutely than anything "climate related"

Its almost like climate and green energy are getting paid a bunch of lip service for the sake of using up all the oxygen around environmental protection, so the industry isnt forced to try and solve the real crisis they don't want to address.

What are you the rep for some federal employees union or something?

Sure there is some increase in activity due to low fricition. It strains credibility to believe however the expanded support hours required are not more than offset by things that can happen as purely electronic transactions that formerly required someone to answer and phone or open an letter, and go hunt thru some file drawers, and then respond.

"requiring more services" - nope that is a purely a policy choice. It isn't as if we were a failed state or something in 1965.

What kind of classic car parts if I may ask?

I find ebay almost impossible to use for that. Generally speaking anything OEM by the manufacturer is in far far worse condition than represented or have starting prices something like 10X what they'll go for at the Owners club swap meet if you wait for summer, or catch a classified listing in the club mag.

As example, you'll see things like steering wheel assemblies that look great on the outside but an ebay seller won't tell you the plastic switches inside for the horn rim have turned to confetti. If you contact them they'll play dumb, as if they did not hear all the rattling debris inside when they were photoing the thing. Granted it still a usable part if you have CAD skills, a 3d printer or lathe, and are okay with having to 'fix it again' every few years but..

When it comes to adjacent stuff like brake parts, carb parts, etc, I find half the time they are Chinese knock-offs being sold as OEM for darn near OEM prices. They may look and work fine but often there are subtle things, that master cylinder sure its got a slightly shorter rod, fits works fine, but you can't replicate the original pedal travel exactly etc. Oh and you could have ordered from Rock Auto for 1/3 of what you paid.

I pretty much have given up on Ebay entirely for parts.