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The argument being made by pro-choice groups is perfectly logical: If you standardize health insurance through federal subsidies and coverage requirements, people might lose benefits they used to enjoy in the private sector. But that's more than an argument against excluding abortion. It's an argument against health-care reform altogether. The left's argument against abortion exclusion is the right's argument against socialization.
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This week, the U.S. Army announced its "Top Ten Greatest Inventions of 2008." It's pretty clear what the Army is most excited about: the ability to see and kill the enemy from where you aren't.
Guerrillas and terrorists already have this ability, in the form of improvised explosive devices. They also have two other advantages: the element of surprise (through indigenous deployment) and fewer compunctions about collateral fatalities. To counteract these advantages, the Army needs the ability to scout and fire from places where soldiers aren't vulnerable to attack. That's what this year's celebrated innovations deliver.
First on the Army's list is the XM153 Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station:
Capable of being mounted on a variety of vehicles, this system provides the capability to remotely aim and fire a suite of crew-served weapons from either a stationary platform or while on the move, using the system power of the host vehicle. The system affords increased Soldier protection since the gunner is not exposed. It enhances target acquisition, identification, and engagement capabilities for non-turreted light armored vehicles; and also situational awareness during both day and night conditions using day and thermal cameras.
As you can see from these photos (PDF), the system turns a nonturreted vehicle into a turreted vehicle, except that the gunner doesn't have to be near the turret. He can "remotely aim and fire" any of its weapons. And he doesn't need night-vision equipment; the gun's thermal camera does that for him.
Next on the list:
The Projectile Detection Cueing 4-Corner System is a low cost acoustic gunfire detection system capable of detecting and locating the origin of incoming gunfire events. The Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station Lightning is a lightweight common remotely operated weapon station capable of supporting small arms weapons. ... The operator can monitor, control, and command both PDCue and CROWS Lightning from a single user interface. The integrated system increases Soldier effectiveness in detecting and locating enemy sniper positions, and provides the Soldier the ability to automatically move remote weapon stations to the detected sniper threat.
This works with the CROWS system above: From wherever you hunker down with the user interface, you can acoustically trace the location (PDF) of anyone firing nearby and send your "remote weapon station" to take him out.
Further down:
The Enhanced Mobile Rapid Aerostat Initial Deployment Vehicle system combines multiple intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities onto a single, integrated platform. ... The system gives remote operating units the ability to quickly employ the system's combined capabilities to detect imminent attacks and take the appropriate actions to defeat enemy forces.
An aerostat is a buoyant aircraft. You can get a pretty good idea of the concept from these Raytheon photos (PDF): You float artificial eyes up into the sky, locate the enemy from there, and kill him.
And finally:
The One System Remote Video Terminal A-kit is an innovative modular video and data system that enables Soldiers to remotely receive near-real-time surveillance image and geospatial data directly from tactical unmanned aerial vehicles and manned platforms.
This AAI brochure (PDF) illustrates the basic technology: From wherever you are with your portable screen, you tap into a nearby drone and scout the whole area without poking your head out.
The overall pattern of these innovations is a gradual correction of guerrilla and terrorist advantages. We can't ambush, fire, and bomb as freely as the enemy can. We're much more vulnerable, emotionally and politically, to casualties among our fighters. We need the ability to hunt bombers and snipers patiently and precisely, without killing civilians or exposing our soldiers to easy attack. Step by step, technology is making that fantasy real.
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It's the left that's turning conservative. Well, not conservative, but pushy. Weisberg put his finger on the underlying trend: "Because Democrats hold power at the moment, they face the greater peril of paternalistic overreaching." Today's morality cops are less interested in your bedroom than your refrigerator. They're more likely to berate you for outdoor smoking than for outdoor necking. It isn't God who hates fags. It's Michael Bloomberg.
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If you want to argue for parkwide smoking bans based on asthma or on an analogy to noise pollution, go ahead and make that case. But let's not cloud that debate by invoking the general harm of secondhand smoke. Studies of secondhand smoke have indeed moved outdoors. Their findings support restrictions on lighting up within a few feet of other people. But they don't warrant more than that.
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Here's an idea for saving our planet: make people smaller.
Sounds crazy, right? Nobody wants to be small. Everybody wants to be big. How would you make people smaller, anyway? Genetic modification? Wouldn't it be horribly risky? Even if it worked, wouldn't it be embarrassing and dangerous to be smaller than other people? I can already hear you snickering, "You first."
You're right. It's dangerous and crazy. But it might be less dangerous and crazy than the alternatives.
Our planet is in trouble. We're overheating its atmosphere. We're exhausting its resources. Just about every analysis suggests that we have no hope of averting disaster using known technologies. Solar power, wind, carbon caps—we should do all of that. But it won't come close to being enough. And even if we invent some brilliant solution to climate change, the next environmental crisis is just around the corner. There are simply too many people using too many resources. We're overtaxing our planet.
Could we get more resources from other planets? Theoretically, sure. But right now, we can't even afford to go back to the moon.
This is where contrarian thinking comes in handy. Maybe we don't have to find more resources. Maybe we can reduce the number of people.
That's the agenda of the Optimum Population Trust, which has just released an analysis of the environmental costs of bringing new children into the world. "Contraception is almost five times cheaper than conventional green technologies as a means of combating climate change," says the trust's press release. Likewise, other environmental challenges—soil erosion, water shortage, deforestation, fish depletion, starvation—"would be easier to solve with fewer people."
The argument is totally, screamingly, urgently correct. Yet, as David Fahrenthold reported in yesterday's Washington Post, the Obama administration won't touch it, and a U.N. official calls it "an insult to developing countries." Why the resistance? Because everyone fears coercive population control. The only thing more hard-wired than our desire to procreate is our desire to fornicate.
So: If we're devouring our planet, and we can't find more resources, and we refuse to have fewer children, where does that leave us?
Hence my proposal: Shrinking our numbers isn't the only way to reduce our environmental impact. Another way is to shrink our size. Don't tell me it's impossible. Look what we've done to dogs.
If you come up with a less crazy solution, let me know.
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When tobacco fighters began to outlaw smoking in elevators, buses, restaurants, bars, and public buildings, their stated rationale was to protect nonsmokers trapped inside. Then the crusade moved on to apartment buildings, extending the same theory: You can't smoke in your apartment, because the smoke seeps under your door into hallways and other people's apartments.
Now this rationale has moved outdoors. Way outdoors.
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