The Iraq war has killed an estimated 300,000, and we have spent about $500 BILLION to do it. That comes out to about $1.7 million per kill, and MANY of them were kids. $250, or even $5000, is an infinitesimal sliver of a rounding error when it comes to the cost of a war.

An obvious solution would be to consolidate all federal education spending in a single department (maybe this would be a good job for The Department of Education). Then all the other departments can go back to doing their jobs. Why the hell is the FCC sticking its nose into school spending? Nonsense like this is why we have a $17 trillion national debt.

Follow the money. Selling taxi medallions is a huge source of revenue and graft.

An obvious countermeasure would be to have the laser turn on only when the trigger is pulled. With a velocity of about a km per sec, the bullet won't give you much time to "remove yourself from the area".

But all these silly scenarios about "always on" spoofing, and arrays of cameras, are not realistic. Most of America's likely adversaries are not sophisticated. The likely target of this weapon is going to be some impoverished kid wiring up a dud mortar round as an IED by the side of the road.

China only does assembly. They do not design the chips, and they do not write the software.

What if they don't need any technology, but instead need a new set of monkey bars for the playground?

Then target the "dummy" lasers with an area weapon, such as a cluster bomb.

"Always on" jammers tend to have very short lifetimes on the modern battlefield.

In practice, by the time you realize that a sniper was targeting you, it is too late to start spoofing.

Alternatively (or in addition), we could increase the penalties for those caught cheating.

He is from Taiwan, not China.

Because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The best way to promote network neutrality is to keep monopolies from forming in the first place.

This polling data is after the war was already started, so it doesn't count. It is much harder to get out of a war than it is to avoid it in the first place. So it is only effective to oppose starting the war. In later years there were hundreds (eventually over a thousand) of Americans in North Vietnamese prison camps. Thousands more were missing in action. Tens of thousands were dead, and their deaths would be "in vain" if we pulled out (there are no "sunk costs" in politics). North Vietnam was completely intransigent on all these issues. It was called a "quagmire" for a reason.

This is revisionist nonsense. Vietnam was the most popular war in US history. At the time of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, 90% of American's supported deeper involvement. No other war has ever had so much support. For instance, only 70% of Americans thought the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a good idea. Of course, support for any war declines as it drags on, especially if we appear to be losing. But it is a lot easier to get into a war than out, so it is only the support at the beginning that matters.

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed the Senate with 98 votes. The two senators that opposed it were both voted out of office at the next election. It is silly to say that this war was forced on the American people by the politicians, when the truth is that it was fear of the voters that pushed the politicians into supporting the war.

I live in California, and I can assure you that competence is not a requirement here.

People don't get driver's licenses when they are born. Thousands of people born in the 1890s were still driving in the 1990s, and a few were still driving in the 2000s.