1. The pro-choice crowd is always quick to say the government should keep it’s laws off of their bodies. Good idea. I feel the same way, the government should keep it’s laws off of peoples bodies. Yet mandating everyone buy insurance for their bodies seems to run afoul of that idea. If you accept the idea that the government can force people to buy insurance because of the commerce clause, than I have to ask the question of why the government can’t force women to participate in commerce in a similar way, byrequiring some get abortions. On the flip side, if the power of the commerce clause is indeed that extensive, why can the government not prohibit abortion? Either decision made by a pregnant woman does have an effect on commerce.

2. There is also the issue of minimum wage. I think the minimum wage is detrimental because it sets a lower limit on what the cost of buying an hour of someone’s labor is. That means a person willing to work for 6 dollars an hour and the business who places only $6 value on that labor, cannot make a deal. This mandate tosses another huge fixed cost per employee onto employers, therefore further artificially increasing the cost of an hours work. That will almost certainly result in layoffs, the elimination of certain jobs that aren’t worth paying someone to do when that expense is counted, and finally scores of companies are, or will be, dropping coverage they have been voluntarily been including in compensation packages. It’s simply cheaper to pay the fine and says you are on your own.

3. Unlike taxes, there is no way to avoid the mandate as a resident of the US. If I don’t wish to pay income taxes, I don’t have to do so, I just need to stop earning income. Those who would say “sure you can avoid it, you just have to leave!1!!!!111!!” are being intentionally ignorant. I assume the people who make that claim don’t extend it to much else or they would see the stupidity of their argument. Lets say you think firearms should be more tightly controlled, why don’t you just leave? Think there is too much religion seeping into government? Just leave! Think the rich should pay more in taxes? Leave! Like I said, it’s a stupid and lazy argument.

Why not extend this to other things as well. If the government has this power of mandate, why not also require people to buy gym memberships or buy more vegetables? Both of those things would go a little way toward shedding pounds from tubby people. Why not mandate that everyone own a dog or cat? Why not mandate membership in a church or a secular organization that fosters a strong sense of community? There are after all, a huge number of both to choose from.

You see, I’ve seen multiple studies showing all of those things extend life span and quality of life, I’m not even going to bother searching out any of them, they are well known and easy to find (and I’m in a hurry). The argument that the mandate is constitutionally regulating interstate commerce could easily be applied to the other things I mentioned, as could the argument that the mandate benefits the “public good”. You might be thinking I’m making the slippery slope argument, and I can see how you would think that, but it isn’t the case. If we are going to believe the healthcare mandate is within the boundaries of what the government can do, it seems stupid to not also mandate the purchase other things beneficial to life span and the quality thereof. So I’m not making the slippery slope argument, that the mandate will open up a pandora’s box of abuses and/or intrusions into peoples private lives, I’m merely asking the question of why there aren’t mandates on other things as well if this is permissible.

I’m a little torn on this issue and as a result don’t have a solid opinion on whether or not this is a positive or negative, regardless of whether or not the law can be justified as a legitimate interference of the government in the inner workings of the private sector.

The first issue I have is that we must have a body of reservists that may be called up in emergencies, such as war or a disaster of some kind. If this protection was done away with, military spending would have to be increased to cover the cost of having less reservists and so paying to have more active duty personnel. That means hirer taxes, or higher borrowing levels, and the better outcome may indeed be this law.

On the other hand, if a business wishes to discriminate I don’t have a problem with that. If I had been fired for any of the times I was called up, I would be happy to leave such a detestable workplace. It’s also likely that the public would be a little angry about this and I think a lot of companies would be destroyed by public sentiment. Which I suspect these days would be the result of the majority of businesses clearly guilty of discrimination of almost any kind if widespread. If a business owner is racist against blacks, I would frankly say a black person would be better off for not being hired into that environment, and again, it would very likely be the ruin of many companies.

Forcing a racist, or someone who is full of dislike or hate for service members, to hire or rehire them doesn’t do much to get rid of those feelings, on the contrary, I would expect it to strengthen them.

The one thing I do know is that there are certainly some employers who should be required by law to hire or rehire those who have missed work because of being called up.

The goddamn government! Consider how stupid this is for a moment. Let’s say I work for the Dept. of Agriculture and I get called up to be deployed overseas or to respond to a major flood or something. When I get back, I find that my job is no longer there for me and they have decided to keep the temp who was replacing me. So the government has involuntarily taken me from my job, deployed me to a war or disaster zone, then told me to pound sand when I get back. We obviously should not allow that to happen, it would be like me hiring someone to clean one room in my house, demand they clean another, then firing them because they have stopped cleaning one the first one.**

I’m sure this law passes constitutional muster, because Congress has the express power to raise and support armies as they see fit. The same reason I feel Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was constitutional. The question I’m wrestling with here is whether this is a protection, or a restriction, of the freedom I think people should have. Strangely, I feel it might be both. If we allow private employers to fire people who are called up, we would certainly have a less able reserve force than we do now. Many would not join the reserves if they were likely to lose their job because of it in the future. As I mentioned, it is very likely employers would keep this practice because of strong public sentiment, if nothing else. For example, many employers actually continue to pay their employees (at least for a time) who are deployed, even though they have no obligation to do so.

This isn’t an easy topic to think about, I still don’t know how I feel, because I can’t figure out which option is the least intrusive and most positive from the standpoint of maximum freedom. As it stands now, a reduction in reserve component strength would be a huge blow to state and federal disaster plans, and very likely to critically damage our defensive and offensive military capabilities. All the while costing more money, and taking more people out of the productive sector of the economy to be full time soldiers, airman and sailors, rather than economically productive part-time ones.

**This seems to be a rather common occurrence in the various government organs. Being fired by your employer because you are working for the same employer is just stupid to the point of being almost unbelievable.

Aside from all the save the earth crap, because even if one were to accept that human activity is the sole destroyer of the world and/or that we can or could do anything about it, all most people really care about is not having to buy batteries and/or not having their cell phone shit the bed.

It was $1.3 trillion. This year it’s projected to be 1.3 trillion.

So he didn’t divide the deficit by two, but he did divide it by one. That’s halfway there.

I’d also like to point out to those who feel taxes are too low, in any bracket or on anything, that the taxes that go uncollected each year, if collected, would have resulted in surpluses for several years during the Bush regime and lowered the overall debt incurred by 3 trillion dollars and change. Instead of trying to fix that issue, an alarming number of liberals, and some conservatives, feel the way forward is to increase taxes on the people who actually follow the law, instead of going after those who are breaking it.**

That’s not to say I wouldn’t still like to cut taxes, but if you feel that some people aren’t “paying their fair share”, I would hope you would consider all these owed, and unpaid, taxes.

**Don’t forget that there are tens of thousands of pages of US tax law, and tens of thousands of pages more of judicial decisions and IRS opinions regarding all that law. Considering all of that, it is very likely a significant portion of people who have under paid have no idea they are not complying with the law. Obviously the solution is to add more to the tax code and make it more complex.

*** I should make it clear that I think Bush and his Congress spent way to much also, and on much of the same stupid shit this tag team of economic destruction is currently spending on. However, I have always thought the best combo for reducing federal spending is a republican congress, and a democrat in the White House. Clinton didn’t address the deficit alone, he had a republican congress and both should get equal credit. Jimmy Carter never had a surplus, although people try and say he did, so don’t start. What did happen was GDP grew in relation to the deficit.

1. It is already illegal for persons subject to the UCMJ to do this. This includes current service members and certain former ones. (article 92 UCMJ)

2. It is already illegal for civilians to do this in certain circumstances. I am no longer subject to the UMCJ, but if I were to make such a false claim on an employment application or to receive benefits of some kind, etc, that my friends is simply fraud.

3. The law criminalizes simple speech. While it might be disgusting for a person to claim they were awarded the Medal of Honor when that isn’t true (extra stupid because of how few recipients are alive, it’s most often awarded posthumously) I find it hard to call it criminal.

4. Impersonating a member of the military is also illegal in many circumstances, and rightfully so. Just as it is unlawful to impersonate a police officer, judge or other government officials, maintaining the integrity of those institutions is important. However, impersonating a former member of the military, regardless  of what other accolades one might be lying about, is no worse or more dangerous to our basic security than impersonating a former police officer is. Essentially no danger at all.If you disagree with me on this, look at here at this example of the dangers of illegal impersonation. Keep in mind also that military members are required to obey the lawful orders of their superiors, a fake “superior” could in theory snatch up some actual soldiers to do their possibly malevolent, or at least nefarious, bidding, at least for a while.

(even that law goes a bit too far, but it’s really not a bad balance between freedom issues, again, as with police, judges, etc. Title 18, USC, Section 702)

The military can criminalize the speech of it’s members, few dispute that. The Constitution gives Congress the power to raise and support Army’s and Navy’s and that has been interpreted as raising them how they see fit with only some regard to the Bill of Rights. I think that is a huge plate full of authority, I think it is appropriate. The business of war, or even natural disasters where the military is used, are not places where the rights of one should be put over the welfare of others. That is kind of the whole point of a standing, “new model” army, the populace hires a few, to defend the many and fight on their behalf if need be.

When it comes to civilians, the stolen valor act would be fine if it weren’t for one thing… We are not under martial law, and so we retain all rights we were given by our divine or figurative creator, according to which flavor you prefer.

(as far as the suspension of Habeas Corpus goes, I would amend the Constitution to require the consent of the State in question unless it is a federal enclave or dependency. That is really one of only two parts of the Constitution I despise, the other being the direct election of senators, that is another subject.)

If this disgusting beast wishes to claim he has been awarded medals and honors he has not been, I don’t see any reason he should be stopped from doing so. That doesn’t mean I would be against a national registry of military awards to permit easy checking of credentials for employers, but on the other hand, if an employer doesn’t demand discharge paperwork (DD 214 or NGB 22) than it is their own damn fault. Businesses or agencies that don’t require such proof are being just as dishonorable and detestable as the false claimant is, if not even more so.

But being a asshole isn’t illegal (good news for me), or at least it shouldn’t be, even in these cases. I would like to also mention that Bush signed this into law, but it it was introduced by democrats in both houses. The Senate unanimously signed off and the house passed it by voice vote, which means there was such a high level of support, it would be a waste of time to carry out a roll call vote. Both parties do stupid things, but neither party is as effective at stupid than when they get together.

As they say, “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the Legislature is in session”.

In case I wasn’t clear enough in the first part, I am using what a layman would consider a castle. This is different from what most in the academic world would use for a definition. A castle is supposed to be a fortified private residence of someone, a king, the nobility, bishops, or other principle officers inhabiting the structure on their behalf. This is distinct from a fortress, which is often indistinguishable from a castle in appearance, but these would, by definition, not have as one of their primary functions residential accommodations. The word citadel refers to either a castle, a fortress or a fortress that includes a castle, meant to defend a town or city, often in congress with city walls.

I am counting all of those things as castles, just so we are clear. The distinctions are kind of watery and really don’t have much meaning outside of academia. At any rate…

The first “castles” in Europe were really built by the Romans. I mentioned the roman fortress in Jerusalem as an example before. In reality most of these structures were meant to house and supply soldiers rather than provide any major offensive or defensive support, which is exceedingly similar to military forts today. The last place you would want to try and defend would be Fort Benning or any other modern forts, at least in any serious way.

Motte with a single bailey

Within the ruins of many of these roman forts, after the fall of the Western Empire, we start to see keeps built. Keeps being a castle within a castle, a fortified structure inside a fortified structure, with independent defenses of it’s own. A new type of structure was being invented though, the first purpose built castles, of the Motte and Bailey type. You couldn’t get any simpler than this. You can in the picture the lower fortified bailey, overlooked by a motte, or raised earthwork, with it’s keep atop of it. As I mentioned, the keep has it’s own independent defenses, again shown in the picture to the left. You can see the separate wooden palisades around both. It was also possible for there to be more than one Bailey. Windsor Castle is an excellent example of a later, masonry motte and bailey structure, with two, rather than one, bailey. The Wiki page has an okay picture if you are interested, but I can’t find any better ones.

From the 10th century on, this was the best game in town. When the Normans invaded and conquered England in 1066, William the Conqueror and his Norman Lords, built scores of these across the country, and used them to great effect to bring the populace under submission and also to defend strategic locations and resources, such as London, which may have had as many as 12 of these motte and bailey structures encircling it.

This design was an elegant solution to a great many military problems, but it wasn’t perfect. You will recall these things are just made out of wood, which makes them so easy to burn down, that even a child could do it, and I’m sure some did. Furthermore, while the motte provides a sort of tower from which to defend, other such locations are found severely wanting. Any towers that were built aside from the typical gatehouse and motte were low constructions suffering the same limitations of the wooden keep and palisades, fire sucks. While a near universal feature was also a ditch and/or berm outside the palisade, somewhat analogous to the tank traps of WW1 and 2, they are still easy to overcome.

Most had moats, and a moat is not always water filled. The ditches and berms mentioned above were indeed moats, albeit dry ones. Water filled moats, oddly enough, require a source of water, but are remarkably effective if one can be had. Its hard to walk or swim with weapons, to say nothing about the difficulties of using siege engines in later centuries or even ladders in contemporary ones. There were, for lack of a better term, “artificial” mottes built. Now mottes were almost always artificial, but I mean a tall structure by virtue of building design, rather than a squat one on top of a mound of earth. The Tower of London is a great example of this concept. As far as I am aware, no period examples exist of an original wooden Motte and Bailey castle. Wood doesn’t last forever you know (for that matter neither does stone), so in time, many would be constructed from wood then converted to masonry as time passed.

(It bears mention that castle waste of all kinds was often… uh… “deposited” in the castles moat, making it even more unlikely for attackers to venture into it.)

These upgrades led to the construction of a “new” sort of castle, sometimes known as a “stone keep castle”. The only major differences were their construction out of stone and as a result, the keep itself became fortified, as opposed to surrounding the keep with a separate wall, palisade or stockade.

Motte and Bailey type castles started to die out in the 11th and 12th centuries, and were generally not constructed at all by the 13th century. Men had returned from the Holy Land with new ideas about castle building, concentric fortification being perhaps the biggest game changer.

Concentric castle with a barbican and inner curtain wall

Note the taller inner curtain wall and the lower outer one (called a barbican). This design allows defenders to man two or more layers and avoid hitting men with arrows or what-have-you stationed at or on other walls further out. Those laying siege or simply attacking the castle have to overcome two or more walls, whether by direct assault and scaling of them, or by undermining. Concentric castles that also have a water filled moat were immune in any practical sense to undermining, what with saturated soil not supporting tunnels well and even the castles without wet moats are likely to foil mining attempts by the weight of the barbican collapsing the tunnel beneath. Also common, more so with a dry moat, was a significant foundation of stone beneath walls, making mining even harder to pull off. The advent of concentric walls effectively ended any army having the ability to take a castle by force, leaving only deception, bribery and starvation as means of taking a castle.

Murder holes, arrow slits, bent entrances, caltrops, and lots of other innovations, whether recycled from antiquity or not, also led to castles becoming invincible (until cannon were invented) to most everything. The exceptions I mentioned were all results of human weakness rather than faults in castle design or strategic or tactical errors made by the defenders. There were exceptions, many of them, castles could still be taken, but it had become such a difficult feat, that it was safer to simply go around the castle or lay siege. As besiegers often discovered, they would lose more men to sickness, than to military action. Cholera, infuenza, typhoid, smallpox, etc, all were as hazardous or more so to both the besieged and the besiegers than pitched battle would be.

Considering modern humans** had been around for 15,000 years, there was an astounding flaw in practically all castles, citadels, and so on. This flaw was because of towers being round. The problem with round, square amd most other shaped towers, is that they create “dead zones”, where little or no fire can be concentrated and so giving an attacker a safe place to breach the walls by means of ladders, siege engines, pick axes, and whatever else you can think of.

This incredible flaw, while usually fairly difficult to exploit for any great effect, wasn’t corrected until the late 15th or 16th centuries. Castles were becoming burdensome toward the end of the 15th century. Many, if not most, nobles, kings, queens, bishops, etc, had started building unfortified manor houses, which were much cheaper and far more comfortable to reside in. Gunpowder was rapidly making traditional castles obsolete, and so lacking much effectiveness, many were sold, “mined” for their stone (ala the roman colosseum), or just re-purposed to be solely administrative structures.

Basic star fort

Gun powder did resolve this flaw. Star forts were designed to somewhat counter the destructive power of cannon and to an extent, they were effective at doing so. Unfortunately, it was cutting off your nose to spite your face, because some of the characteristics a star fort had to counter artillery, made these forts more vulnerable to infantry, even with the advent of the pointed towers with overlapping fields of fire.

6 of one, half a dozen of the other. Gunpowder had effectively killed castles. It was thus made economically unfeasible for anyone to build a defensive structure that conferred any significant defensive benefits. Indeed, with the advent of the “New Model Army” in 17th century Britain and elsewhere, warfare changed forever. Castles were relegated to the pages of history, becoming a novelty at worst and a fixture in “fairy tales” at best.

Stay tuned for part 3.

** Modern humans meaning we had established settlements, not that we are of a species that arose only since that time. I stick it at 15,000 years ago, others may disagree, but it doesn’t really matter. The way I see it is that we became a different “cultural species” when we started forming settlements of a given size. So I suppose I am saying we are a different “species”.

If I hear one more person say that this budget won’t pass the Senate because of republicans obstructing it…

You need to do a little more research if you think that the 47 republican senators could force this budget to die.

With politics, there are two ends to the spectrum (bear with me, for simplicities sake) you have total control at one end of the spectrum and you have anarchy at the other end. There are really no big movements stationed at either of these places. Whether libertarian or a diehard socialist, both parties think some regulation is needed and that some freedoms are sacred. So just because you can regulate everything, or regulate nothing, doesn’t mean you should.

The other big application is science, usually with regard to genetic engineering, but in years past nuclear weapons were the big no-no. Since genetics are the big one today, that is the one I’m going to talk about briefly. Most people are against human cloning I think, at least at the moment (if anyone knows of a study/poll about that I would like to see it, my brief google search didn’t turn anything up). The aversion here seems to be about property rights, if I build something, than I have a claim of ownership to it (even true in private enterprise, a worker making cars has a right to those cars, which they relinquish for a wage, excepting of course that they are using someone else’s tools and such). So if you create a human, do you own them? Assuming it was a custom DNA job, you can patent the DNA sequence, what does that mean? Would that person be the property of the creator for 18 years, as the case is with parents and their children (loose definition of ownership there, the intricacies are not important)? A whole host of other issues come up as well. Just because we “can” build custom humans in the lab, wouldn’t mean that we should.

People sometimes frame the issue in a religious cloak, saying creating people in the lab is stepping on God’s toes, but like the Declaration of Independence mentions, some rights come from God and not man. “God given” rights are an important concept even for atheists (for atheists I just mean the source of rights is not man, but from something of a higher order. In heathens case, the substance of humanity). So the argument that it steps on God’s toes is one used even by some irreligious people, just God as a concept rather than a reality. The bigger issue maybe a social one, since a “mono-genetic clone” would be a genetic twin of a woman or man, rather than their offspring.

A few years back I bought a Toughbook on EBay for just under 250 dollars. I was going off to basic training and I didn’t care to move some things out of my apartment to my mothers basement for safe keeping while I was gone. So I had a few hundred dollars in my paypal account and figured I would treat my self to something neat. While military pay isn’t that great, 4 months of infantry school with no opportunity to spend any of your pay means the most effective savings account ever devised, so my usually cheap self was not distressed by guying the thing. I haven’t used it much, but I’m looking forward to using it this summer when I’m out on the property I bought last year, my library of 25,000 songs can finally travel with me!

It will of course beg the question of whether or not I should drag a computer with me into the woods. I know there are some purists out there who would balk at the idea of having a computer while hiking or camping. I’m not that much of an extreme purist, but it does make me cringe a little.

With that said, if you have never held a Toughbook, you are missing out, they have one of those well-built feelings to them, something increasingly lacking in electronics these days. These things are fantastic. You can drop them, run them over, leave them in the rain, drop them in a pond, or any of 1000 other abusive things, and they keep on working. I had my first exposure to them in the Army, it was so weird to be in the middle of nowhere and have someone drag out a computer to do something like call for fire or have the mission objectives change by email, rather than radio or courier.

Just because I can take my computer kayaking, doesn’t mean I should.

This post is a little tongue in cheek, with regard to having a computer here or there, but my intention is to illustrate one of the consequences of technological progress, not pontificate whether it is moral to check your email from the top of a mountain. In 2004, I made my first summit of Mount Katahdin. The first thing I did was check out the view for about 3 seconds, the second thing I did was pull my cell phone out and started calling random people until I finally got my father, just so I could have a somewhat giddy feeling of doing something absurd, make a phone call from 5000 feet up, miles from the nearest electricity.

8 years ago, cellphones were still a bit of a novelty, in my opinion that was about the time that phones started doing more than just making calls, in some cases even having most of their time spent doing things that weren’t phone calls. People were just beginning to be able to check their email, and browse the web and so on. Today of course I wouldn’t even think of trying to call from the top of a mountain, it’s just not very extraordinary anymore. So Here is a quick list of some of the neat gadgets that are being toughened to the point you can take them anywhere.

1. Panasonic Toughbooks – Been around for a while, but still so expensive that unless you find an incredible deal like I did, they are out of the reach of most people. Mostly waterproof, shockproof to 10+ feet (not rated for more than a 3 foot drop, but it has been established they can withstand considerably more), long battery life, touch screens on most and all with a case made from a magnesium/aluminum alloy, practically indestructible.

2. Super Tough Cell Phones - Again, they have had tough cell’s for a while now, but in recent years the cost has dropped to the point where they are within reach of the average guy.

3. Dragontrail Glass – The new Gorilla Glass (a different maker, not a new iteration of it). While this isn’t exactly a gadget, it is a piece of technology that will make other electronics survive extremes we could only dream about just a few years ago.

4.  IoSafe Hard Drives – Water, dust, crush, AND fireproof (some models), almost limitless amounts of data can travel anywhere you want, or survive disasters like structure fires or flooding. Still expensive for the average joe, but dirt cheap if you have data you can’t afford to lose. (I have my Army and VA medical records all scanned as well as years of tax returns, countless photos and backups of all the software I own.)

5. Indestructible SD Cards – Once again, not really a gadget, but if you are traveling with a camera, this would be a good hedge against the camera being destroyed by fire, water or a crack squad of TSA gropers. The other thing is these aren’t very expensive, sure they are much more costly than a regular SD card, but a 4GB model starting at $49 is a small price to pay for making sure your photos from a trip to Africa, a combat tour or a bunch of other things known to kill lesser cards.

6. Olympus Tough 8010 Camera - That SD card is only so useful if your camera get wrecked, but at least you could retain the stuff you had gotten up to that point. For more cash, you could get a matching camera designed to last until the second coming.

7. LaCie Xtreme Key – More data storage, but this thumb drive would make a fine companion to the other rugged portable hard drives this company makes.

8. IPad Super Duper Cover – Another non-gadget, but one that allowed an IPad survive a fall, literally from heaven (100,000 feet) from a weather balloon. Video is here.

9.  BlendTec Blenders – Not a gadget for the outdoors, but just simply awesome. My understanding is that they build these things for labs, and the YouTube video series is worth a gander. I know this doesn’t really fit in with the other stuff, but it’s too hilarious to leave off.

10. SPOT Messengers - A few years ago I was on my way to a search near Katahdin Iron Works (3.5 miles from where you can walk off the edge of the Earth, fact). The culprits lost were two hunters who had been missing for more than 2 days (most of the time, the lives of searchers are not risked immediately if the subject(s) is known to have outdoor skills, barring other evidence indicating distress). These two were almost definitely idiots, because it was over 48 hours from when they went missing until the time they remembered they had a SPOT, either that or they waited because of their pride. Once they pushed the “911″ button, they were rescued in just under 1,5 hours. Without regard to that specific case, these devices are excellent tools to have if you spend time in the outdoors, and at $170 as well as about $120 for a years service, they really are a small investment for the avid hiker, kayaker or hunter.

11. GPS ‘s- Everyone knows the GPS’s made for the outdoors are rugged, and that isn’t a new thing, What is fairly recent is the addition of other features packed into the formerly rugged, but with exceedingly limited feature wise GPS’s. My first GPS was a Garmin 12XL, a waterproof black device with no map capabilities that would show your position relative to way-points you had previously set. Still useful, but limited. The GPS I have today is the Garmin Etrex 30. Super rugged, battery life of up to 36 hours, mapping abilities, altimeter and compass, wireless capabilities to exchange data with other GPS’s and at a pretty reasonable price for the avid outdoors-man. The time operating these two devices is only a few years, yet ruggedness and features have been enormously bolstered over that time, while the price has remained relatively static.

There are lot’s more devices built to outlive us out there, these are just the few I have seen lately. Some of this stuff, such as Toughbooks, are designed to military specifications. While everyone knows war is destructive, this is one of those devices that was researched for military usage that has benefited industries where there wasn’t enough demand to justify production. Of course, these days, Toughbooks are a staple of people in every kind of extreme job, the military, police and fire departments, riggers, rescue personnel, tradesmen of all sorts, and on and on.

The only political point I want to make in this post is regarding the much needed Defense Department cuts. You can say that buying a bunch of equipment that is likely to be outdated and scraped, perhaps without ever being used, is a waste of money, but it isn’t. Materiels can take years to research and make it into production, to maintain any kind of military readiness, we have to have modern equipment laying in wait and we must design new equipment as well, even if we never use it. Since this stuff takes so long to design and produce, it isn’t feasible that we can slow technological progress until we have a need for it. Men, however can be trained in as little as 11 weeks to be basically effective warfighters, and it is here where we should begin Defense cuts. Only after that should cuts be made to weapons programs, and there are much needed cuts here as well, projects which truely are a waste of money. Tanks, planes, ships and other war materiel’s must be stock piled to offset the disastrous possibilities that could befall us if we need to attend to a conflict of any kind. All these devices above reflect years of research, research that can’t be forced or hurried.

So I advocate caution when dabbling with military equipment and weapons developments, because if that wheel stops turning, its difficult and time consuming to start it spinning again.

As usual, a few auto posts are prepared and I may or may not dabble in the comments with my cell phone.