ranran876

Which means somewhere the Israelis have a priority map with which areas are more or less important to defend.

Can you imagine the shitstorm that would come out of something like that leaking?

Another aspect of the corporate tax is that it in-effect is a secret tax. You see how much the gov't takes from you on your pay stubs, or your receipts at the store. But you don't see the effects of the corporate tax.

I'd think it would be healthy too move to a model of looking at corporations are simply intermediaries for organizing people. Ultimately the money that flows into the corporation has to flow out either through salaries, dividens or sales - and the money should be taxed at those points. If you tax it in the middle people just end up thinking "oh, well they're taxing the evil corporates, so that's good!" without seeing the dampening effect on salaries and their investments.

I understand that it's a bit simplistic, but I think the current model of hidding taxes is parasitic. You look at the insane sales taxes they have in Europe. They keep going up and the citizens don't really perceive it and so there is no push-back. Here in the US, when the sales tax goes up by half a percent people are up in arms.

Aviation Week had a pretty good article about this plane

http://aviationweek.com/awin/textron-unveils-scorpion-light-...

Outside of the politics, the bigger issue is that it lies in a kinda idiotic middle ground. It's not good enough to go against more advanced fighter jets (so you can't use it to ensure air superiority) and it's not as cheap as "weaponized" trainer aircraft - which is what most governments need (to bomb rebels or whatever)

You can buy a L-39 for ~$200K, retrofit it with modern weapon systems (easier said than done, but still) and you won't be that much worse off than a guy with a $20m Scorpion.

Just a cost comparison from wikipedia

Aero L-159 Alca - $13-17 million Northrop T-38 Talon - $5.9 million Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano - $9–14 million

If we have a war with China, the type of planes we've been building will be the last of our concern.

It integrates with windows and other microsoft services a lot more closely than thunderbird.

Just because something has happened before, doesn't mean it's bound to happen again. All those countries have also had slavery and monarchies, but we don't worry about that happening again b/c humanity moves forward and certain things simply become impossible - this includes things like the return of nazism, communism, evil tyrants, emperors, juntas and whatever other anachronism you can think of

"nearly all the autocracies in the world with a higher [than $6000 ] per capita income are petro-states" http://thediplomat.com/2012/10/is-chinas-communist-party-doo...

While I'm not for or against the second amendment, do you honestly think it's a realistic scenario that the government gets oppressive to the point where people will pick up arms? Do you really honestly believe that? Do you think other developed nations like the UK, France, or Japan are at a higher risk of turning to tyranny b.c they do not have guns widely available?

It's not an entirely fair comparison b/c in animation there are only a few options, while in software there are tons of midsized companies to choose from. If Apple, Google, M$ and Amazon decided they will all cap salaries at 90K, people would just go elsewhere b/c they have that option.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's happening for the $250K+ jobs though

It reminds me of photos I've seen of Latin American farmers. Leathery skin due to excessive sun exposure. Seems strange, but maybe he doesn't use sunscreen?

I never said it was good or bad...

The difference is that the gov't is a bureaucracy and there is a diffusion of responsibility. They make sure no one person is responsible for any financial decisions. So that if the funding doesn't pay off or bring the results they want, they can blame the process/procedures

Oh the irony. Your emoji comes out as a blank square for me (Windows 7 - Opera 12)

My impression (and I may be wrong) is that you need to be pretty connected or have some a very niche skill-set to be able to freelance for a living.

I'm a full-time C++ programmer and I'd love to freelance, but I wouldn't know where to even start.

Maybe this makes more sense for web developers