Lucky...

Really?? Have you ever been through an engineering program? I doubt it because if you had you would know how absolutely stupid that remark is. Yep, engineers know how to perform stress analysis on a given structure/part, trade school attendees know how to assemble said structures - only engineers pretend they can do both, usually out of ego. Damn, lucky, you and I actually agree on something. I haven't read a post of yours in this thread that I disagree with. Don't forget...some of us engineers were doing the hands-on part for years before we ever went to college. True, but I've watched engineers *TRY* to hands-on, it's between funny and pathetic. Don't take that the wrong way, it's just true. I imagine a mech trying to work a CG, stress or other issue would look pretty bad too.

Big guys at teh gym can be smug, they can press 4 plates. Sharp-shooters might be smug - they can hit a target the size of a dime from 100 yards away, the size of a football from 500 yards. I can go on, but just because a person is good at something, there will be the smug types emerge. This does not mean they are bad at it, but that they are maybe a bit too proud of it and it has envelope their identity. Now, ok, they're smug assholes, but still they are way smarter than those who don't attend college/univ; that's teh point being discussed, not if they're smug. This explains why regressives, in this case conservatives, dislike academia. Education is progressive, right now liberals are pro-education progressives.

there was a guy in his basement who would coat your F-111 canopy with something to make it ZP (or close). I think his name was Fred. I don't recall exactly. I almost had him coat my wildfire168. Instead I bought a Sabre. OK, but that doesn't mean he invented/discovered it. I didn't mean to imply that he did. Though it was a viable (though not as durable) alternative. The point I was making was that it is most likely that the zero-P coating was developed in a lab by those with degrees.

The same naivety was stated about the GD, saying that FDR's prorams porlonged the GD. A little actual knowledge would tell you that Hoover signed the largest tax increase of the GD recovery and of all time for that matter. A little unbiased insight would also tell you that GWB signed and implemented 1/2 of 700B TARP, so these 2 recoveries, altjho Republcian caused, were EVENTUALLY repaired in a bipartisan sense after they saw the wheels coming off. The diff is that Dems don't need to see massive despair before acting and Dems don't run the country into the ground like Repubs will do to benefit the rich. Do you really want us to believe that letting banks fail would have been the answer? Don't you realize the gov did nothing in 1929, 1930, 1931 etc and the GD deepened? Insanity tells us that doing the same thing and expecting a diff result defines us as such. So in addition to letting banks fail we should have let our #4 or 5 product fail too? Do you have an anarchist tattoo covering your entire back? IS that what this is all about? Can you show me other hard economic times where major industries were failing and the gov did nothing and all was well? We did that, of course he couldn't run again. Your arguments make sense in a vacuum, in reality, consulting history, they are ridiculous.

Of course you won't mention under Obama, who told recipients of TARP they couldn't call their own shots if they had loan money, that > 250B had been repaid. No, you just want rain and gloom; it makes your arguments so much more valid. I don't care how many rounds it takes, this last dip was caused externally and we;ve recovered that too. If you want to celebrate losses, affirming your errant position that Obamanomics are bad for the US, have a good time, I'm going to look for + signs so we can get back to business. BTW, the market, even with Europe tanking, is still doing well.

That rate is still below what it was pre-Reagan for income tax, quit acting as if that tax is high.

Sure, go ask your dad, the one who ran this fucker into the ground. And a fiscal mess inherited this way, the worst since the Great Depression. Of course if we can just ignire that massive fact, we can glaot that Obama is supposedly bad for the country. If Bundy wasn't a killer, he would be a quality person..... Kinda sounds tarded to post data and then ignore data that preceeded like: - 3.4% raise in unemp from Feb 08 to Feb 09 - Banks / Wall Street had already failed and GWB had to allocate 700B to save them - The seed was laid for massive forclosures / BK's - The largest annual deficit was handed off to an incoming president - GWB had just doubled the inherited 5.5T debt - GDP was negative 4 of the last 5 Q's. - The stock market lost 33% under GWB; when was teh last time the market lost under a president's term(s)? So just keep cherry-picking and gloating when the economy has troubles and the rest of us will hope for +++ times.

Really?? Have you ever been through an engineering program? I doubt it because if you had you would know how absolutely stupid that remark is. Yep, engineers know how to perform stress analysis on a given structure/part, trade school attendees know how to assemble said structures - only engineers pretend they can do both, usually out of ego.

I guess if ya have nothing, load it up with emoticons. Did ya learn that in teh college you didn't attend? See, if you had gone to college/univ you would have read me talking about lawyers and law school. Oh, Iget it, you're up on murdr charges and you want to guy who just uses hunches instead of all that reading stuff about case law and procedure. So you're justifying dropping out. Ok. Attending college creates intelligence to the point of your genetic potential; finishing college shows the ability to complete things. It's not for everyone, only for people who want to compete in today's society in most occupations. People with degrees have better understandings and the ability to grasp things regardless of the issue, over those without.

there was a guy in his basement who would coat your F-111 canopy with something to make it ZP (or close). I think his name was Fred. I don't recall exactly. I almost had him coat my wildfire168. Instead I bought a Sabre. OK, but that doesn't mean he invented/discovered it.

To even say all mods are liberal is tarded. I know of 2 I would cal conservative, Bill is Libertarian. Not the Coca-cola Libertarian who has no opinion about moral issues, a true libertarian who proactively wants gay marriage, etc.

These are such moot points I can't believe we even argue them. Do people think stress analysis isn't absolutley needed? How about wind tunnels? And I'm not just talking acft, cars are as important, esp for cooling, drag, fuel efficiency, etc. Even bike helmets benefit from wind tunnels. How was zero-P developed; by a guy in his backyard? I don't know the answer, but I bet it was in a lab. I read it's silicone coated F-111, I'm sure more can shed light on that. This is what happens when morons don't use the scientific method: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BepyTSzueno You don't have to have a degree to use the scientific method, but people who do have one are far more likely to use the scientific method.

No I don't you are skewing the facts. This is a slanted opinion pole nothing more. You can think all of those countries are better but I bet my bank account that if you needed heart surgery you would be working with a US doctor and not only bc you live here bc a hell of a lot of people from those countries that are so "great" come here for treatment. Overall medical procedure immigration vs emigration renders the US at a 10:1 deficit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism Although much attention has been given to the growing trend of uninsured Americans traveling to foreign countries, a McKinsey and Co. report from 2008 found that a plurality of an estimated 60,000 to 85,000 medical tourists were traveling to the United States for the purpose of receiving in-patient medical care;[61] the same McKinsey study estimated that 750,000 American medical tourists traveled from the United States to other countries in 2007 (up from 500,000 in 2006). India looks as the #1 spot for heart surgery: Most estimates claim treatment costs in India start at around a tenth of the price of comparable treatment in America or Britain.[7][75] The most popular treatments sought in India by medical tourists are alternative medicine, bone-marrow transplant, cardiac bypass surgery, eye surgery and orthopedic surgery. India is known in particular for heart surgery, hip resurfacing and other areas of advanced medicine. Any more guesses to garner?

I agree; HC is not for everyone.

hey... a thread in SC turns into meaningless drivel... who'd have thought... Certainly formalized education isn't meaningless. However to insist that implies anything beyond a certain level of training and the ability to successfully complete that training is to assume quite a bit. Also to assume that formalized education is required before one has the knowledge (not necessarily a certification) to complete a job is to make a whole different set of assumptions. Formalized education teaches, at its very root, critical thinking, or at least points that way for cheaters. Hell, even people who cheat in college, which is most peopel to some degree, learn how to cheat which is still a skill. You have to learn the system and lean what the criteria is and then adapt to that. Most classes start that way; you look to the teacher to see what he/she is looking for, grading scheme's, etc.

Who says that? Intelligence is influenced by 2 elements: - Genetic - Environmental Most studies I've read point a little more to genetics, but of course both are needed. Unfortunately a very large fractiion of so-called IQ tests implicitly assume a large body of knowledge. t That isnt really what IQ is all about. Apologies if my speling is a litle off, I'm on vacation on Hawaii and have just consumed a large fraction of a bottle of something very alcoholic while watching "pipeline" waves breaking on the beacjh outside our rented beach house at Poipu.

You do realize this guy is a total lunatic; right? Are you talking about skyrider?

I'd suggest they pass the professional engineer's certification for their state just like they do now. Not needed for aerospace engineers. Do you know the process for getting a PE? First, graduate with a degree from an accredited engineering program. didn't know it wasn't needed for aerospace engineers... interesting. yes. I know the process. The question seemed to imply to me an alternate mode of certification. I was in the civil engineering school and transferred to computer science about the time they were discussing changing the CS degree to software engineering, and all the PE implications that went with that. I followed that pretty closely. (though it had nothing to do with those silly rocket scientists.) The fact is that the engineering profession (all disciplines) has collectively decided that the appropriate gateway to becoming an engineer is to start with an engineering degree from an accredited program. What a silly notion. I guess lawyers should have a JD too; wow, we've really redirected academia here! This thread has become a joke, who can think that formalized education is meaningless?

Who says that? Intelligence is influenced by 2 elements: - Genetic - Environmental Most studies I've read point a little more to genetics, but of course both are needed.

I'd suggest they pass the professional engineer's certification for their state just like they do now. You can cram for a quiz, even cram for the State Bar, that doesn't mean you will have 3 years of intense legal studies.

Yea, no shit. What kind of fucked up conversation is this where we debate the merits of education vs no education? Science, learning, research is about trial and error, how can someone say they're as intelligent if they have never observed, researched and the sort in a scientific fashion, led by people with decades of controlled scientific learning?

You can always work harder and learn more and get cheated too. It's bizzare to think that a person with college is no smarter than a person with no college. Probably most people w/o degrees feel the same way. Of course many skydivers who have never competed on a 4-way team may feel they are as good as those on teams and winning. Ego is a tough thing; those w/o college/univ should face it.

Look around, esp here, the so-called self-labeling Libertarians are quiet on social issues yet LOUDLY BOISTEROUS on tax cuts. Keep living in your dream world where people live by definitions. I don't consider the self-annointed Libertarians to be such, they can call themselves that if they wish and I'm ok with it. Obviosly I'm making the assertion that most people who call themselves Libertarians are really just pissed Republicans who awkwardly slide over as Libertarians, they really are not.

And if Obama did nothing, the break repeated, you would be crucifying Obama to the end of time. Nice to be able to jump back and forth across the fence, huh?

Can you say a judge who is bought and paid for by BIG OIL.. and is HEAVILY invested in oil stocks made the decision.... MMMMKKKK Amazing who is doing all the bending over for OIL and other big corporations around here You think it could possibly be due to all the coastal employees out of work for 6 months? So quick to judge. The current mess we have coild ruin the ecology and 10's of thousads of jobs for > a decade. If drilling continues b4 we get a handle on what happened and it repeats, this could virtually last a century and be so catastrophic that it alters mankind as we know it, not to mention the marine life.