Yes, I can come up with a thousand free market answers. And yes, that pretty much answers your question.

Would you buy a vehicle from any company whatsoever if you knew that parts were difficult to acquire? A manufacturer can play a game with parts availability only if they don't plan to stay in business.

Maybe we should go back to renting our phones from ATT as well.

Highway robbery!

I'll get me coat.

No chance I'd go for this, not in a pig's eye. When will they talk about rolling out reasonably priced plans?

A fascinating study I read revealed hand-outs to the poorest people put that money into motion in the economy fastest - the poor don't save, they are usually living hand to mouth and can think of things they need to spend the money on.

Giving it to the rich doesn't result in quick infusions into the economy because they tend to sit on it, squirrel it away, not so much save or invest.

Yet we often hear how cutting taxes on the rich will boost the economy - nothing could be worse, to be frank.

They both love to spend money, just on different priorities.

Then you just switch to internal navigation and let the drone go fully autonomous. A smuggler could launch the drone anywhere within the drone's flight range, from a moving vehicle, whatever.

This is a race that the guards aren't going to win. Of course, it's not like anyone's ever been able to stop contraband getting into a prison anyway.

-jcr

If you read the article (I know, I know) you'll learn that he uses industrial grit, also known as glass beads, which are tiny bits of glass that are reasonably spherical and ridiculously cheap. The quoted lens cost in the article is $0.17, but unless I'm misunderstanding something, like how special the grit is that he's using, or what kind of secondary selection process is required to pick out beads that will make good lenses, that should be closer to 0.17 cents, not 0.17 dollars.

You are far too alert and informed. This has been noted.

Ideally the people of Ukraine. It really should be for foreign powers to say. I mean you realize many government have provisions to handle ousting members and reforming, right? Particularly many parliamentary systems, but others as well. Even the US has something via the 25th amendment. The vice president and either a majority of the cabinet or congress can declare the president unable to discharge his duties and oust him (go read it if you want more specifics). It isn't a situation of "Well they were elected, now they are there and there's nothing you can do until the next election!" There are processes for removal/recall in pretty much all political systems.

I don't know anything about Ukrainian law, but really, it is for them to decide internally. Their courts need to rule on their law. It is really up to the US or Russia to come and say "No we don't think you should have done it that way, you do it our way instead."

And not shilling, go educate yourself. Vice News has some good coverage, split in 5 pieces, on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

The most important things to note:

1) The Russian forces are not wearing insignias, or identifying themselves as Russian military. They either refuse to identify themselves at all, or identify themselves as being from the non-existent "Ukrainian Self Defense Force."

2) They Russian units are surrounding and/or capturing Ukrainian military installations. They are not moving to their bases, they are taking over Ukrainian bases. The Ukrainian commanders have been keeping things very cool, to avoid Russia being able to say they were provoked, so there hasn't been any violence, but it is a military attack on military targets, make no mistake.

3) Speaking of provocation, the Russian military has been trying it. They've been moving in and taking over Ukrainian bases, then withdrawing, only to do it again later. They are trying to goad the Ukrainian military in to firing on them.

4) Russia has been importing other non-governmental groups like Serbian Paramilitary forces to do, well who knows, but it isn't likely anything good.

So no, it is nothing like the US in Japan. Now if suddenly troops showed up in Maizuru and blocked off the military port there, troops wearing American uniforms, speaking English, armed with American weapons but wearing no insignias, no identifiers, and refusing to answer questions. If they blockaded the base, and then later went in and took it over, well ya, I'd be saying that the US was invading Japan and that it was clearly underhanded and illegit.

Having bases in a country doesn't mean free run to do as you please.

But then you can't really complain about their goal to have more powerful weapons.

The thing is we come back to the question of what really is a country, what makes a nation a nation? Well there can be two situations:

The first and oldest is just the ability to act as one, the strength such that nobody can realistically question your status. This is what you see with something like the US. Even if another nation doesn't like the US, or doesn't think it should be valid, they can't question that it is because they can't do anything about it. They can't attack or threaten the US's status in any way, the US is in control of its territory because nobody can say otherwise. Obviously this is the kind of thing that changes sometimes, and countries have indeed been conquered, reformed, etc, etc.

The other is international recognition and protection. There are a number of countries with little to no military, they couldn't hold off an attack from even a fairly small force, yet they are secure as countries. The reason is that they are recognized by international treaties, and thus the big boys, as being countries. They agree they are sovereign and won't interfere, and further often agree to defend them if someone does. Iceland is like that. They have no real military, but they are a NATO member, due to their strategic location. So they have some NATO bases, and the commitment of all NATO members to defend them if they are attacked.

Now, as this applies to Ukraine. They've been invaded by Russia. Russia has sent in troops, who are not wearing any identification, to take over Ukrainian military bases in Crimea. They really can't do much about it. If they fire on the Russian soldiers. Russia will just use that as an excuse to go all out on an invasion (Russian soldiers have been trying to provoke them in to firing) and Ukraine lacks the troops to push that back.

So they have two choices for independence: Either the international community steps in and helps, or they get more powerful weapons, the kind Russia doesn't want to fuck with.

Thus regardless of if you think the US or other countries have any specific obligation to them, that is the general state of things.

Just keep in mind these departments and heads are generally chock full of people who do know their arse from a hole in the ground and they generally are the ones who actually meet with as-aware counter parts for the actual details. Mucky-mucks just zero in on the microphone, for a speech or two and then the bar for after the worker bees have been lined up to get the fiddly bits all right.

Publicly they come across as all inept and easily baffled by the vast volumes of data they have. That's the cover I'd assume if I wanted to convince you not to be too worried.

But if you came from the distant future, like Mr Scott, you might be utterly baffled by what cantankerous garbage we have to put up with, despite our smug feeling our $800 smart phone is the latest and greatest - looks like a glorified paperweight to them.

One of the first Oxymorons I'd ever heard mention of.