Under which country's law?

In most places, I'd expect promissory estoppel to apply.

So all the people who paid out the ass to do it right now are figments of the imagination? And so all the people planning to do it upon release?

Grow up. The world is not a scaled up monolith of 'you'.

Who said anything about limiting things to the US? Most of the world is neither wealthy enough nor empowered by their government to carry guns.

Cross reference that population number with percentage of average income and you'll get your answer.

DG

ISAF ROE was warning shots unless you needed to engage for immediate self defense.

Theatre wide.

DG

Good luck remotely erasing the hard drive sitting near (but not presently connected to) my PC... I'll make it easier for you, it's not even in a vault or faraday cage!

Why bother? I'll just wait out the MTBTF; enjoy your head crash (or house fire, or whatever else eventually happens).

Part of what you're paying for with a cloud service (whether in cash or ad-viewing) is geographically distributed redundancy.

You are a fool. The majority of murders are carried out with hands and feet. And the people with any sense in their skulls are not going to wait and see how things go before they defend themselves, because at that point, they're either dead or dying. A teenage kid can kill a grown man with one punch. I for one will never underestimate somebody who has chosen to become violent. They might actually be emboldened to make such a choice because they are good at it, and anybody who lets them gain the upper hand deserves what follows. For my part I'm not going to wait for my own funeral.

"...that my country has ceased to be the land of the free, the home of the braves *..."

* Offer valid untill Sept, 11, 2001

A lot of inference from not much data. Aren't you just a bit overinterpreting? Maybe missing a variable here and there? Just asking....

Summarizing, rather, work which is published in more detail elsewhere. (Admittedly, none of it my own).

You can build things without degrees. I'm pretty sure that the Greeks who built the 2800+ year old caravan bridge didn't have engineering degrees, and that has survived continuous use from the time of Homer to commuter buses.

Except that the Canadian experience refutes this.

We don't "up or out" - and we also have fairly stringent gateways and goalposts for promotion (specifically, courses that must be taken prior to moving up - courses that are ranked and merited, with only so many serials running each year)

We have plenty of Captains who will never make Major, Majors who will never make LCol, etc. Some of these guys are dead wood, but the majority of them are solid officers who perform productive work and who retain vast stores of corporate knowledge. They may not be rock stars, but they (mostly) aren't idiots - and they never get Peter Principled (where a solid Captain becomes a shitty Major).

It makes for a much more effective - and happier - organization.

1. The UAV feed can be relayed to a room full of targeting analysts, legal advisors, and the highest level of command you need to have the authority to make the shoot - none of whom are in danger - which gives you the best possible chance of making the right "shoot/don't shoot" decision;

2. The UAV pilot isn't hopped up on amphetamines;

3. The UAV pilot isn't part of a culture that degenerates pilots who return home from missions without shooting, thus motivating human pilots to shoot at *something* before they go home; and

4. The UAV pilot cannot make a bullshit claim of "self-defence" before rolling in on an unauthorized target - like, say, a Canadian target range.

DG

That "up or out" policy has always struck me as being bizarre.

Sure, not everybody has the chops to go on to be a senior officer. Sometimes, a guy is going to top out at Captain. But he could be a very *good* (or at least acceptable) Captain, and there's no shortage of jobs that profit from having a senior Captain in that slot. Why get rid of those guys?

The BoxeeBox is a neat little device, with a few flaws that could easily be remedied in software (like a better music player)

I love that it can Samba in to my main server and play .isos

Because people won't mangle the pronunciation of "Germany" as often or as badly as the might mangle "Deutschland" for instance. This is why I still say "Burma" instead of "Myanmar". As far as I'm concerned, it's the English word for Myanmar. And if you disagree, I expect you to start calling Sweden "Sverige" immediately.