---

The Army has been looking for a new troop carrier for a while and came up with a specific set of requirements for the vehicle. They wanted something fast with good range, that could be loaded into a C-130 and rolled off ready to fight.

They selected the Stryker light armored vehicle and the fun began. It was too wide to permit the space needed on both sides for the crew chief to walk around it and was at the upper limit of weight. It had to have waivers to be flown.

You couldn’t mount the guns on the vehicle and get it on and off the loading ramp of a C-130, so it wasn’t ready for combat for a half hour after being unloaded as weapons were installed.

The armor wasn’t adequate and had to be upgraded which made it too heavy to be flown on a C-130, etc.

Rumsfeld has based his New Model Army on this failed vehicle. His small mobile brigade force is supposed to move around in these things. Just another failure on the part of the Faith-based and their corporate sponsors.

For more on the Stryker: Global Security’s page, official Army site, and a Washington Post article on the problems.

If they had designed these things to be carried in Ospreys it couldn’t have gotten worse.

---

---

I don’t hide the fact that I’m a capitalist, and that I believe in the free market. Some people who hear me rant about corporations miss the point I keep making that corporations violate, by design, the underlying principles of capitalism and the free market.

Because of my belief in the value of free enterprise I have no problem with people refusing to sell some things. Don’t go into a Kosher deli and expect to buy a ham and Swiss on rye, it isn’t going to happen.

The important point is that by designating itself as a “Kosher” deli, the business is informing the customer that there are restrictions. In the debate over pharmacies, the owner of the business is not required to carry all of the drugs that a doctor may prescribe. Frankly there are too many drugs, and some of them are very expensive with a short shelf life.

All that is necessary is to advertise the fact that you don’t carry certain drugs, if you, as the owner, object to the drugs on moral grounds. I’m not talking about anything large and expensive, perhaps just a recognizable symbol or sign at the desk to tell customers that you do not carry certain products. There is no need for a customer to get into a confrontation, and the doctors will soon know better than to use certain pharmacies for certain prescriptions and inform their patients.

The problem is that some people want to make a Federal case, literally, about what they perceive is their persecution by society. If a pharmacist doesn’t want to dispense certain drugs, don’t work for a pharmacy that sells them. There is no right for an employee to determine what the owner of the store sells. If you don’t like the way a store does business, you have the right to resign. If this was really important to you, you should have brought it up before you were hired. If you think that targets you because of your religious beliefs, consider that many of the women who were executed for witchcraft were essentially pharmacists dispensing natural medicines. They were usually executed by people holding your beliefs.

It’s a terrible thing that Orthodox Jews can’t work in McDonalds, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices for your religion.

---

---

CBS News reports on the idiots who have decided to be vigilantes on the Arizona-Mexico border.

These people don’t have the first clue as to what they are getting themselves into moving along the 370-mile border. They may have the camo clothing, but it is the wrong version for the most part [forest pattern] and just makes them more obvious. They have guns, which doesn’t mean they know how or when to use them. They have vehicles, but probably haven’t made the modifications necessary for use in the desert. They have communications, but they haven’t been tested under the conditions in which they are going to be used.

I see a lot of amateurs wandering out into an environment that can and does kill people every year, without the training to survive. They are going to meet drug smugglers, people smugglers, annoyed locals, and assorted other people who do not want them there. Many of these people have no moral problem with killing the outsiders and leaving the bodies for the buzzards.

---

Steve Gilliard quotes a certain professor of law, on why, for the Republicans, the Woodside Hospice was a “bridge too far”.

The election in 2006 will be the best indicator of how much damage has been done to the GOP, but the professor isn’t happy about the actions of people he helped get elected.

On the other side, people need to store up these golden moments and bring them out in the Fall of 2006 to remind voters what’s at stake. The Republican primaries may be the most fun you can have without buying a ticket. It is possible that several incumbents will face challenges in their primaries.

---

Back to CBS for a thought provoking report: Medicaid Could Cost You Your IRA.

“The truth is out there”, and it tells us that the crisis is medical care in the United States. You can’t afford to get sick in this country, no matter how well you have planned your life.

All of the safe-guards that once were in place to help people with disasters have been dismantled. The state has the power to strip you of everything you own before they’ll consider helping you, and then you have to sweat out every legislative session to find out if your state will continue to support the medical care your family needs.

---