Is that “viable” as in:

• “most likely to win the GOP primary”
• “most competitive in a general election vs. Obama”
• or “able to function as a minimally acceptable President of the United States without licking the windows of the Oval Office”

I’d say there are different answers for all three.

That’s not really what I had in mind; that seems closer to outright fraud or at least deceptive practice.

What is described here as “cyber squatting” seems more to me like a world where every unoccupied plot of land (unused domain names) were set at a fixed price unrelated to its location, condition, desirability, suitability, etc, etc. Say, $10 per acre. But some people are willing to pay more—much more—for land in certain locations. For example, the developer of a skyscraper on Manhattan Island might be willing to pay $1M per acre, an oil driller in Texas $100,000, and a farmer in Iowa $20 or so (numbers made up for sake of clarity).

Isn’t this just an example of supply and demand forces moving the price of a commodity (domain names) up to their true market value? Clearly, “scripthub.com” is more inherently valuable than “qwi49uz7cm2vgj.com”, but the registrars don’t price the names relative to their actual value, so someone steps in and does it for them.

How is this different from real estate, in which location is a strong determinant of price?

My update was smooth and trouble-free, but my wife had a minor issue with her “camera roll” photo album being emptied — the pics were still on the phone, just not accessible. A few minutes of Google-ing turned up an easy fix that involved downloading iExplorer, deleting a few files, and re-syncing.

It would only play the pre-2009 .m4p’s (i.e., before iTunes went DRM-free)? Strange.

Look, I get it: everything should be on the table, no sacred cows, and all that. So if the military retirement system is “unsustainable” in its current form, go ahead and make changes.

BUT:

There are a number of ways to go about doing so, and each method should be considered in light of its potential side effects (the reduced quality that you mentioned is one example). One admittedly brute-force method would be to simply shrink the force. This is already in the cards to a certain extent, but the logic is simple: if we can’t afford the military we have now, maybe it should be smaller. Of course, that would require some … adjustments … to our foreign policy FIRST, so that may not be viable. The next thing to remember is that maintaining the all-volunteer status of the military requires the provision of benefits. Unless you’re going to bring back the draft, the benefits have to remain competitive. And on that note, the last thing to remember is that “competitive” doesn’t mean “copy whatever the private sector does.” It means that the ratio of benefits offered vs. costs imposed has to be comparable to what can be found elsewhere. Yes, military benefits are substantial—but military service imposes significant costs as well. You can’t just compare one side of the equation and not the other. (and yes, I know the DBB mentions the unique nature of military service in its report. It then proceeds to ignore it.)

I’m sure DoD will release the broad conclusions of the investigation, if not all the intricate details. They’ve already announced who the investigating officer is (some 1-star, I forget his name), so it’s not like they’re keeping it all under wraps.

Even not knowing what the exact circumstances were, there’s no reason to believe there was any “rule breaking” going on. The latest information indicates (again, with the caveat that this could also be mistaken) that the aircraft and SEALs were not going in to rescue pinned-down Rangers, but rather were an airborne QRF for the raid the Rangers were conducting. The Rangers’ target was escaping, so the ground commander called in backup to pursue him/them. That backup force was the Chinook full of SEALs, which was shot down at some point on the way to, from, or at their destination.

Why not? A CH47 with SEALs inside is no harder to shoot down than a CH47 full of cargo pallets. As tragic and devastating as this incident was, it doesn’t mean it had to be an elaborate setup.

I don’t think that the presence of Afghans on the mission is all that unusual (joint operations are standard fare at all levels), and the special operations task forces have averaged 10+ raids like this every night in Afghanistan over the last year, so the presence of SEALs (even Team 6/DEVGRU) doesn’t necessarily mean the target was anything special.

Now? They’ve had them all along. At its peak, the shoulder-fired SAM threat was somewhat more widespread in Iraq than Afghanistan, but the Taliban certainly have them too.

Not if (1) it was from relatively close range, (2) the aircraft was on approach to land or just taking off and therefore moving slowly, and (3) the surrounding terrain was such that the flight path was constrained to a predictable route. From what I have read, all of these may have been true in this case (again, may have been … early reports are always wrong).

Looks like this was a joke.

A joke to raise awareness of how bad IE6-7-8 suck, but still.

In light of the current situation in Washington, and recent discussion on this site about national policy, this paper (.pdf) published by the Wilson Center in April 2011 deserves another look.

Written under the pseudonym “Mr. Y” by two members of JCS Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen’s staff, Navy Captain Wayne Porter and Marine Colonel Mark Mykleby, “A National Strategic Narrative” attempts to describe a long-term vision and defining purpose for the United States, to update and replace the narrative of the last 60 years which was crafted in the context of the Cold War. The thesis is that our national priorities and resources should be committed in accordance with a clear vision of the direction America is headed, to ensure future prosperity and security, bounded by enduring values. Further, that the U.S. should move away from the current threat-based, reactive outlook to a more proactive stance focused on opportunities and interdependence.

A recent decision in an old case has sparked new outrage directed at the Westboro Baptist Church. After Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder was killed in Iraq in 2006, members of the WBC protested at his funeral with their now-familiar “God hates fags” placards, among other such inflammatory rhetoric. His family sued the church (.pdf) for invasion of privacy and infliction of emotional distress, and won $10.9 million in damages in 2007 (later reduced to $5 million). Last September, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision (.pdf), finding that the WBC’s protests constituted speech that was protected by the First Amendment. Last Friday, the 4th Circuit added that Snyder’s family must pay more than $16,000 requested by WBC for court costs.

In 2007, three U.S. Army soldiers in Baghdad captured four Iraqi men they suspected of being insurgents or terrorists. However, they lacked sufficient evidence to convict the men in an Iraqi courtroom—the standard they needed to meet in order to turn the men in to their unit’s detainee holding area. Their leader, First Sgt. John Hatley, believing that releasing the detainees would endanger the lives of his men, ordered the four Iraqis to be killed, then dumped the bodies in a canal.

On Saturday, the Iranian Parliament voted to declare the U.S. Army and Central Intelligence Agency "terrorist groups."

In a statement, the Parliament cited the "[b]ombing [of] Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic weapons and throwing depleted uranium bombs in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan…" as well as "[support of] Israel in its crackdown on Palestinian and Lebanese people" to justify its resolution. This declaration comes just three days after the U.S. Senate passed a similar resolution that urged the State Department to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a "foreign terrorist organization."

On Tuesday, Steve Jobs confirmed months of rumors by introducing the iPhone, Apple’s entry into the smartphone market.

Roughly the same size as a 30GB iPod, the new device will combine the capabilities of an iPod, cell phone, and PDA, and will be powered by Mac OS X. Features include a 3.5-inch widescreen display, a "multi-touch" interface, Safari web browser, and an HTML e-mail client. The iPhone will be available in 4GB and 8GB models for $499 and $599, respectively—but only with a 2-year service contract with Cingular Wireless. Enthusiasts have some time to wait: the iPhone will not be available for sale until June 2007, so it remains to be seen whose predictions—the fans or the skeptics come true.