Aileron

Actually, Finland, I think the UAE is higher than the US in per capita energy consumption. So, you essentially claim that the entire field of economics is wrong and that raising prices can't lower demand. Wow, your wisdom must shine like a beacon in these dark times, or atleast like a night light. Well, depends on the locale. The two big energy suckers are refrigerators and air conditioners. If we are talking Arizona, household energy consumption can add up enough to be significant. If we are talking Ontario, not so much. The big consumers of electricity are the large industrial machines.

As I was saying, supply. Medical schools are the supplier of trained doctors. Well, the ability difference will be negligible. However, the rub is that the 1001st candidate in line will always be slightly less qualified than the 1000th. It will still be enough for some lawyers to go on a lawsuit though, because they target perceived incompetence.

Well, I'm supporting McCain, so I'll admit I don't know much about his policies since he clinched the nomination before I could vote and has been tight lipped since then. 1) Probably nothing. The presidency doesn't run the economy, so there isn't much he can do. The one thing I do know about McCain is he'll be pro-nuclear and probably will support funding for hydrogen. He's also not an environmentalist nut, so if a practical solution comes up, he won't p!@#$%^&* it up for hope they can build an efficient solar cell for the 50th time. My guess is coal-to-oil plants. 2) I wouldn't quite say 'status quo' here. As a military man, McCain can offer better tactical plans than Bush. For example, McCain will know exactly what air-bombing can do and what it can't do, so he won't hold any delusions about an air-only war. 3) Haven't heard a policy on this yet. 4) He probably will be careful about making radical changes, but ultimately Congress will hand him a health care plan, and he can either sign it or veto it. 5) Nothing. McCain's pretty much been standing back watching the other two debate. The closest thing to crazy was when he did an impersonation of Barbara Streisand on Saturday Night Live. Pretty funny. Overall, there's things a president can do and there are things a president can't do but get blamed for anyway. Foreign policy is something the president can fix; economics is something that can be fixed by Congress. I think the point S!@#$%^&* is trying to make is that people here are more fueled by emotion, particularly arrogance, hatred, and despair, rather than pragmatism. While it certainly feels good, such emotion will always betray you. The purpose of the exercise is to see who can set those feelings aside. I'll admit, I don't really support McCain as much as oppose the Democrats, who in general are proposing sweeping changes to our whole way of life just because we happen to be in a war right now. Also, I'll also point out that during the six years of Bush in office with a Republican congress, the economy wasn't great but it was mostly fine. All of the current problems have developed in the past two years with a Democratic congress with a lame duck president. My conjecture is that the Democrats have been so polarized that in the past few years they have refused to do anything positive with any Republican, and have created the current crises because they care more about their party than they do this country. For example, while these problems were developing, congress was busy working on a non-binding statement to essentially whine about the troop surge in Iraq.

The problem with national health care is simple. The supply of medical personnel is low. Currently most non-outpatient doctors work 16 hour shifts. The simple solution would be to increase the number of doctors, but due to the Law of Diminishing returns, if we try to increase the number of doctors in the country, we get lower quality out of those additional doctors, causing an emotional response to 'the poor don't get as good a doctor as a rich person would'. This emotional statement is a rallying cry for lawyers/insurance companies to meddle, and those groups continually cut into the supply of doctors by lawsuits which decrease the profitability of the profession. Essentially, the problem is emotional lawyers. Hillary Clinton can't solve it, because she is an emotional lawyer herself and thus is part of the problem. Obama can't solve it either. McCain has a shot, but his track record is strong with compromising with the emotional lawyers, so I'd doubt it from him too.

???? I think you misunderstand me. Supply was one of the control variables. I'm not stating an opinion on the overall health care system. All I am stating is an economic fact of the differences between wants and needs. Everything else constant, making a want into a need will change how the Law of Supply and Demand affects the price of that item in a manner which in layman's terms means higher prices. Hypothetically, if the government passed a law requiring everyone to buy a new baseball hat every week, the price of baseball hats would go up. Eventually new suppliers would show up and bring the cost back down, but as long as the law would be in place, the Demand vs Price curve for that supply will always be higher than the Demand vs Price curve for the same supply had baseball hats not been a requirement. The effect is greater when supply is low, but the price for a need is always higher than the price for a want.

No. It means the opposite according to the Law of Supply and Demand. For fixed supply, the Price vs. Demand curve is different for a 'want' than it is a 'need'. Generally, the curve for a 'need' will be a less steep function, because demand won't lower much with the raising of prices. For example, gas. Demand isn't inversely proportional to price because gas is a need. When a law requires the purchasing of insurance, what it does is change the status of that insurance from a 'want' to a 'need', which would allow insurance companies to charge more. Essentially it would allow the bare-bones HMOs to charge whatever they want. (Not literally, even for a need the Demand vs. Price curve will eventually reach zero demand, but it takes very high prices for that to happen.) Usually when a government does this with something, they are smart enough to enact price regulations with the same bill. Thus, the sum total effect can be lower prices. However, by itself such regulations will increase prices.

Ace, you overextend what I said. There are certain values necessary for Democracy. For instance, the notion that all men are created equal. If democracy is attempted in a region where that at!@#$%^&*ude isn't present, it will fail. If the at!@#$%^&*ude is present, then a system will be set up where social inequalities are eventually dealt with and diminished. Those values by coincidence are held by Christianity, though that is certainly not a unique trait. Many religions hold that to be true. Also note that the presence of those values don't automatically topple non-democracies. It would be more accurate to say that true, fair, decent religion is a prerequisite for democracy The problem here is that that is not the case with Islam. They have mortals, and then they have people who have some sort of hereditary link to Mohammad. The latter won't get off of their high horse. Oddly, the concept of Freedom of Religion is in and of itself a religious concept, though the argument is dependent upon being able to distinguish between the faithful and those who lie in order to provide excuses for violence; a distinction that many here simply don't recognize. Astro, in that case I'd then say Ethiopia's borders were drawn wrong in the first place. One of the keys of peace is to have borders along nationalistic boundaries.

The people who vote for Clinton are Democratic conservatives. Generally, people who would vote Republican if they voted by political stance rather than party name. They want to believe that the Democrats hold conservative values, and are all to willing to accept a liberal who will lie to them. I don't like those people. If they would only wake up the Republicans would win more elections. That would be good for the Democrats too, because they would have to put forward better candidates.

This is how I think this election is going to turn out. If we pretend my ms paint drawing is a bell curve, this chart represents the political opinions of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans in the country. I then marked the approximate political stance of all the candidates. On a simple level, the turnout between two candidates would be that if you could 'average' their political stances, and drew a line at that position, that line would show how the votes are divided. However, a candidate's popularity would increase their 'reach' and push the line over on to their opponent's territory. Without the popularity factor, or should I say the lack of popularity for Clinton, this campaign would have been decided in Clinton's favor easy. However, due to it, the line is pretty much where I drew it, divvying up the democratic party. In the general election, Obama is going to have problems. Yes, he is popular, but he has to reach accrossed the entire Democratic party to reach the Independents, while McCain is practically an independent already. Meanwhile, Clinton though less popular has a better shot at the center. In hindsight, I'd say I put Clinton and the Clinton vs. McCain line too far right. She'd get trounced as well really, but she does have a better shot at McCain than Obama does. Also, the reason why Obama is so popular here is because the internet generally represents the left-most sixth of that chart there. Heck, if I recall some of you people tested more left-wing than Stalin. End of the day, with Obama or Clinton the Democrats are gonna lose either way, so I'd say vote Obama because as long as the Clintons are around, the Democratic leadership is never going to put forth a decent centrist. Axing Joe Lieberman was the worst thing that party has done.

Look, as a Republican, I think I can safely say that I had an impartial !@#$%^&*essment going in to this campaign, because I hate both of them equally. What's going on is that as this race started, Obama was nobody. This lead to a background of no positives and no negatives. I am suddenly reminded of a children's book I read long ago about a boy who wished to become 'perfect' by making no mistakes, so he picked up a self-help book on how to become perfect. The book (within a book) eventually directed him to do nothing sit in his room 24/7, thus eliminating any possibility of making mistakes. The downside of that is that such a person is marginally more useful than a rock. Obama is that type of perfect person. His campaign has been so successful because, Republicans notwithstanding, the Democrats have adopted a pure negative campaigning strategy. They don't run for office, they run against the other candidate. That is why they lost 2004, because they never boosted up John Kerry. All they could do is attack Bush. The voting public had to decide between a 'poor' president and a non-presidential candidate. Really, everything going on as it is, the Democrats will probably lose the election, because the only thing they can do is attack Bush, and he isn't even running. Thus, when Hillary Clinton was faced with Obama, her campaign couldn't handle him. The only page in their book is attack. With no past, Clinton couldn't find anything to pin on him, until recently. If Clinton had done some positive campaigning, she might have been more successful, though as a product of the current Democratic regime, the Clintons are just not the type of candidates who can campaign defensively. Only recently have things about Obama's past reached the public, and Clinton is trying to win. She and Wright are in fact doing their party a service. As bad as this is, McCain's campaign isn't going to pull any punches. The worst thing that could have happened to the Democrats would have been if Obama got easy-street nomination and McCain's campaign started publishing this stuff afterwards. As for the 'bitter' comment, the fact of the matter is that wasn't candor. Obama is a lawyer. Lawyers pander. At the moment he was pandering to a bunch of people who would call themselves communists if they were more honest. The fact that he was pandering to Californians in the middle of a campaign over Pennsylvania makes him an idiot. And Hillary has a point. Obama is literally the most liberal senator. No matter what, the Democrats are going to get California, and that the elections are decided by relatively swing states like Pennsylvania. If Obama alienates the swing states, he's going to lose. Lets take stock of his secondary campaign options, after McCain attacks every flaw with Obama as much as possible, which he is going to do. Obama has already alienated all of the non-atheists in the country with his 'bitter' comment. Obama's buddy Heirs has alienated anybody who has a positive opinion of our armed forces. Probably, after McCain is done with Wright, most white people won't vote Obama either, and possibly McCain can get the not-so-fanatical blacks as well. Keep in mind, that Obama would also have to deal with his natural weakness, an opponent who can positively campaign. Clinton isn't out by the numbers, so she should still be campaigning. Also, there is no easy street to the presidency, so she shouldn't shy away from attacking Obama, because whatever she doesn't throw at him will be used by McCain.

Two rational adversaries will always form a truce after rattling the sabers a bit, unless in a situation of dire need. It is true that very few wars in history ended by treaty. However, that is because very few wars had rational leadership on both sides. Note, the condition is 'both'. If either of the two parties are irrational, then the rationality of the other one isn't enough.

I'm not saying similarities don't exist. I'm stating that you are exaggerating the similarities while diminishing the differences. Well, if Al Sadr isn't a nut, then Iraq can't unravel. If so, Sadr and Maliki would eventually form a working relationship.

Back to Somalia, I think Bin Laden actually had a house there one time, but in any case they have been moving in after losing Afghanistan. Generally Sunni groups like Al Queda stay west of Iraq while Shi'ite groups are located east of it. Ofcourse, terrorist groups are so mobile that there are always exceptions, like Afghanistan. Iran never had any love for Al Queda. Iraq had a distant connection with Al Queda, not enough of one to go to war over, though enough of one that it was fair to tack it on to the list of justifications. Look, you really need to get over the Crusades. Heck, a little over a decade ago the term 'crusader' was complimentary. I've already stated several times the positive effects of those wars, let alone the potential positive effects that would have happened had they had been more successful. The fact of the matter is that Christianity is so ingrained into western society that it may not be entirely possible to determine all of the places it has contributed. For instance, the Bill of Rights, which was built to in reference to the 'self-evident inalienable rights endowed by one's creator' referred to by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, which was based upon the Christian concept that we are equal brothers in Christ rather than servants of some profit. I'm beginning to think that's the recurring problem. Without that fundamental culture, a population would never embrace democracy, and the problem is that Islam just isn't that kind of religion. To clarify, it isn't always Muslim vs. Christian. Remember the big war a few decades back between Pakistan and India? That was Muslim vs. Hindu. Let's not forget the Muslim vs. Jew war over Israel. There were also plenty of Muslim vs. Atheist wars when communism was spreading. My !@#$%^&*essment is that it is only the Muslims who can't stand anyone else while the Christians, Jews, Hindus, and even the Atheists can get along without killing each other. Sure, we have our differences, but we find ways other than bloodshed to settle them when we can.

I realize that 'terrorist' has become a buzz-word, but Al Queda has spent plenty of time in Somalia. It isn't Morocco or Egypt you are talking about. Somalia has been a dangerous place for a long time. These people aren't called 'terrorist' merely because they oppose the US' political views. Beyond the media negativity, they are still murderous thugs. The other supported group of African Christians are those pesky evil imperialistic expansionist one's in Darfur who viscously want to live their lives in peace without being the victims of genocide. However, the 'liberating' Islamic group is handling that by slaughtering the evil Christians by the millions. Both sides are equally at fault though. As for capability, Ethiopia did the whole thing without our help a while back. Giving a little support can't hurt, but I think they'd be fine on their own. Infact, I suspect that they would do a better job than we would, because the Ethiopian domestic political scene will be much more supportive given how the threat is at their back door. Ethiopia's motivation is simple: They have a chaotic neighbor run by various tribal leaders who are constantly fighting. Ethiopia is tired of those wars spilling over the border and is in it for self-preservation.

Look, there's no way a gram of Depleted Uranium is going to have enough radiation to do much of anything. It's like asking if someone could die of alcohol poisoning after drinking half a can of Bud Light. The scientific response is: NO FRIGGIN' WAY!!!

Well, to answer the question of why DU is used, ammunition must be made of a dense material. Pretty much, our options are lead, uranium, plutonium, and gold. Bullets used to be made of lead, but they switched to DU because of lead poisoning. Gold is obviously too expensive, and plutonium isn't any improvement on Uranium. I'll admit I don't get the switch away from lead either. I've been to Gettysburg, the site of a huge battle where a lot of lead was sent flying, and the environment there appears fine to me. As for the hazards of DU, it never ceases to amaze me how many people are paranoid about anything radiation related. It annoyed me like heck every time I have had to say, "No ma'am, one x-ray isn't going to give you cancer." The reason the adjective 'depleted' is used is because the material is no longer radioactive. I mean, sure, there's going to be one or two atoms out of millions that missed the fission process, as well as some neutrons flying around which would be present in any material that was that close to a nuclear reactor, but all and all Depleted Uranium is a nearly inert material. It largely consists of the stable nuclide of Uranium that will no longer experience radioactive decay. Generally, DU isn't radioactive enough to penetrate the steel which they are encased in. That, and keep in mind bullets are relatively small things, and they are spread over a wide area. Again, lead couldn't cause large disasters, and it causes cancer a lot more than DU does. If a pregnant woman decided to eat the contents of a 50 round Carbine clip of ammunition, there maybe could be enough radiation to give her child a birth defect. Even then it would be unlikely. No, there isn't some big conspiracy to use radioactive weapons, and no, getting bit by a radioactive spider will not give you super powers. Trust me, I know. Both my parents have worked in nuclear power plants, Three Mile Island is involved in my dad's "How I met your mother" speech, there was radon in my basement growing up, I actually live in the county where Depleted Uranium ammunition is made, and I spent a few years working x-rays in a hospital. Believe it or not, after all that exposure I haven't mutated. That is, unless you count my ability to read minds. BTW, your mind says: "Wha? Oh...this arrogant !@#$%^&*hole is being sarcastic."

I thought I addressed that argument before you wrote it, but you didn't pick up those details. Yes, Jesus is a figure believed to return, but he also has accomplished things in the past. The nearest Islamic equivalent to Jesus would be Muhammad, and there is no Christian equivalent to the Mahdi. Also, the conditions for Jesus to return are not man-made. Also, to my knowledge there is no military organization which has killed people, which is named 'Jesus' army'. If there were, you would have no problem accepting the analysis that said group would be fanatical, but when a Shi'ite group is named after the Mahdi, you question it. I know there is a common similarity of a king returning to Earth, but other than that the Christian version and the Shi'ite version are different. One intends to rule the world in peace, while the other intends to rule by conquest. One has a resume of doing the impossible, the other was last a teenager with a powerful dad. One will keep the nations as they are, the other will form an empire. One will be God viewing us as equals, the other would be a man viewing us as subjugates. This is not just me being propagandistic. The Islamic world never developed an idea of separation of church and state, nor democracy, nor any idea of harmony in foreign affairs. Their notion of paradise is to literally follow some prince with no claim to fame other than heredity in some great war to create a world-wide theocratic dictatorship. Thus, their idea of a perfect world is entirely different than ours. Yes, there is one similarity, both religions involve the return of a king. Beyond that one detail there are no additional similarities in neither the doctrines nor in the behavior of the participants of the doctrines. I know in your 'apple is orange' mindset you can't see the difference, but to the rest of us, its there. Also, I wasn't accusing you of leaving that info out. I meant to point out that most people don't know of its significance and you probably overlooked it. I myself overlooked it twice over before catching that. I didn't mention the radicals' ties to the Khomeini revolutionaries as a criticism. I was trying to point out that these particular nuts are close to Iran's base of power. Plenty of countries have nuts. The point is that these nuts actually have ears who listen to them in the Iranian government.

Well, I learned something relevant that you didn't seem fit to mention. The name of Al Sadr's militia is "the Mahdi Army". That might not sound like much, but there are certain names which brazenly highlights a group's intentions. For instance if a group were named "Hitler's Soup Kitchen", it would be clear the goal of that group would be something nazi-related. The Mahdi is one of those type of names. The Mahdi was the twelfth imam, commonly referred to as the "hidden imam". The Mahdi has no past accomplishments, and is only respected out of things he is prophesied to do in the future. The Mahdi was a prince who would have inherited total authority over the Muslim people, except that he fell into a well when he was twelve years old. Now, according to some Shi'ites, the Mahdi isn't dead, but rather hidden, and will return to rule over the Muslim people, and then subsequently conquer the world and force all to accept Islam. There are a lot of kings who are supposed to return, but the difference here is that the condition for that return in this case is that the Mahdi is supposed to show up after a period of hardship caused by war. Note that apparently World War II didn't cause enough hardship for this to happen, so we are talking about a BIG war. The fact that they name themselves after a future and not a past figure, makes it entirely different than if it were named "Muhammad's Army". If so, the name would be such to respect that person's past accomplishments. Instead it is based upon a futuristic person with no past accomplishments, implying that they named their army because they have an intention for it. For them to name themselves after this particular figure implies that they plan that if and when the Mahdi is resurrected, that they intend to be the army waiting for him to command in his post-apocalyptic world conquest. That in turn implies that they are expecting said apocalypse to occur some time in the near future. Now, either they've fallen for that Mayan calendar bs, or they think they have inside information that the apocalypse is to occur soon. Also note that the catalyst in this particular prophecy is war, an entirely human-made event. Also note that the prophesy doesn't specify by whom the war is caused. There are some Shi'ites who honestly have the plan to get nukes, use the nukes, the resulting suffering causing the resurrection of the Mahdi, and then follow the Mahdi in some great globe conquering Jihad. These people are radicals who as far as I know don't have posts in any current Shi'ite government, but they do have their ties to the insiders of the Khomeini revolutionaries who made modern Iran. May the atheists here also note that none of the prophesy has to be true for these people to be dangerous. The very fact that they believe they can make the world a better place by dropping nukes is dangerous in and of itself. I know the fact that Al-Sadr named his militia in such a way implies a lot but factually proves little. We shouldn't be paranoid. One the other hand, we shouldn't be trying to become buddy-buddy with those people. Just because they may hate Al Queda today doesn't mean they can't be our enemies tomorrow.

The Nobel Peace Prize system became a liberal self love fest decades ago. Carter winning a Nobel Prize actually serves as an example of what I mean. Regardless of the consequences of his actions, they love him. They made his idiot policy the standard by which other liberals follow. And hey, if you want to go back in time enough, the reason why we thought they had WMDs is because they used them in the Iran-Iraq war. The reason that war started is because Iraq tried to invade Iran, but the reason that the war continued after that invasion was repelled, causing escalation to the point of chemical weapons being used, was because Iran was run by imperialistic radicals. The reason they were in power was because Carter stopped supporting an allied regime. (Not a nice regime, but one that was less despotic than the one which replaced it.) Asking for proof before a war is a good thing. However, after the proof is given, we shouldn't need to tag on other proofs. We could have simply not mentioned WMDs and taken Saddam Hussein out for being genocidal.

Well, if this were a formal blog, that would be a good rule. Since it isn't I'd say it would have to be not widely known, and would have to be inflammatory. I don't want this rule being used to annoy people by those who won't accept minor points. Your example would be widely know enough to not require citation though.

They get to pin a war on the Republicans. I mean, the only thing McCain has going against him right now is being in the party credited with going into the war. If back in 2002 Bush had opposition from the Democratic congress and decided not to bite, this election would be over by now. With regards to Iran, I do think a diplomatic solution is possible, but not as rosy of one as Astro is thinking. First off, keep in mind that as long as Iran's theocracy is in place, their country will be moving backward socially. It would be inevitable for them to eventually become hostile to somebody. Also, while Astro considers joining civilization as being a 'puppet of the US', the fact is that their lack of a democracy will severely limit their ability to deal with democratic countries in a peaceful manner. Non-democracies have historically proven to be pre-disposed to war whenever they can get away with it. They only remain peaceful if a proper balance of fear is maintained. Too much fear and they become feral, too little fear and they become aggressive. Overall, I say peace with Iran is possible, though the nature and price of that peace would make war preferable !@#$%^&*uming we would have enough popular support to back it.

That's talk. In the mind of a Clinton, "obliterate" means 'bomb them for a week, but don't commit anything else'.

I'm focusing on the reaction to Carter and Nixon. I mean, when Nixon got caught the Republicans felt betrayed and got rid of him. When Carter was proven incompetent, rather than admit that one of their number might have had a flaw, the Democrats use his incompetent example as the centerpiece to their foreign policies. I mean, the reason that Iraq wasn't taken care of after the first Gulf War is because the Democrats couldn't admit that Saddam Hussein was evil, and wanted to give him another chance. The reason the current was in Iraq was initially mismanaged is because the Democrats never gave any constructive criticism of the strategy, but rather whined about the whole campaign. They didn't offer alternative targets. They didn't offer alternative strategies. They didn't say that we needed more soldiers. They just came up with bland excuses criticizing the whole war. Why? Because of the Carter foreign policy model which states that before any war you must give five-thousand separate proofs that its to the betterment of mankind, get 2/3rds of the UN to agree with you, and maintain the utmost cultural sensitivity political correctness bull!@#$%^&*. It also states that it is better to stand by while somebody kills ten innocent people than it is for you to accidentally kill one innocent person in the process of taking out the guy who's killing ten. According to the Carter model, if any segment of the population of the country you are at war with protests your actions, it isn't because that segment was benefiting from the dictator's policies, its something we should feel guilty about. Overall, its so idealistic that it makes it impossible to be idealistic. For the sake of keeping this post short, I'll not prove the fact that it is actually impossible to fight any war like that, and that the whole model functions as one-sided pacifism. It just doesn't work - even the most evil of dictatorships will gather allies which will oppose you in the UN, will get domestic supporters necessary to keep the thing running, and its impossible to fight a war without casualties. And guess what? Its okay for Carter to have a messed up foreign policy! Nobody is perfect. The reason you have sub-leaders, as well as Congress, is so that other people's strengths can overcome the leader's failings. He could only do so much damage in 4 years anyway. The problem is that the Democrats couldn't admit that his policy was a problem, and instead considered it innovative. Every democrat since then has blindly supported that policy. What this causes is more bloodshed. Under a more 'hawkish' model, we could identify small problems quickly and deal with them before they grew to much larger problems. Had we finished Iraq in the 90s, the current President Bush would have been able to go into Darfur. Overall, it is better to think about how to obtain peace than to follow the blind pacifist policy currently used by Democrats. Based on the actions of her husband, I'd suspect that Hillary Clinton would be a big champion of the idiot blind policy developed by Carter.

Veg, I have Democratic relatives. Simply put, they hate Richard Nixon. Because they hate Richard Nixon, they vote Democratic. Doesn't matter who's running. That I think sums up the two parties. The Republicans had Richard Nixon, and the Democrats had Jimmy Carter. One was corrupt, the other grossly incompetent. The difference is the Republicans had the class to axe Nixon, while the Democrats give Carter medals.

I agree the Bill of Rights can change once in a while, but this isn't the time for it. The First Amendment should certainly not be messed with. Changes in the Cons!@#$%^&*ution should be reserved for dire, serious problems. The disaster involving prohibition was an example of this. Some people got it in their heads to do a cons!@#$%^&*utional change when a mere legislative change was more appropriate. Also, changes by no means should be done by the Supreme Court. It wasn't a mistake on her part. That was a deliberate power play by the democratic party. Convince Bush they are behind him, then turn around and reverse opinion the minute boots hit the ground.