Heinlein was…rather directionless on his politics. I think it was Clarke that once remarked that Heinlein’s politics depended on who he was sleeping with - which is why you get weird whiplash from the anti-governance free-love (and incest and racism) in Methuselah’s Children and Farnham’s Freehold to a full throated defense of utopian fascism in Starship Troopers.

The truth is those “career experts” are now long gone. The ones who needed to continue working have either gone into industry or left for greener shores. The ones who could retire, did (a good chunk of them also having left the country). It’s a billion times easier to stop doing science and turn off all the equipment, than it is to turn it back on. Even the agencies that are hiring again, are having trouble - my friend is a PhD physicist interviewing for Los Alamos right now, and normally, there would be HUNDREDS of applicants for these government positions.

They got 60 applications for two jobs, total.

Nobody wants to work for the government when we’ve just learned some billionaire friend of the President can fire you just because Grok told him you were worthless.

Nah, I almost guarantee these kids are being trafficked. There’s no way at least a good chunk of them aren’t - the potential for abuse is way too high, and we’re all aware of the type of people DHS is hiring right now.

Hegseth sent a couple thousand Marines to the Med, and he apparently thinks a ground invasion is at least ONE plan on the table. I do truly think Hegseth thinks that it’s just like Iraq in a video game, where it’s all flat, featureless desert.

Or, more likely, Hegseth doesn’t care about the lives lost, and thinks that we can just throw bodies and missiles at Iran to cow then into submission. That seems in line with his stupid “warrior ethos” shit.

Engineering too. A huge chunk of my company’s design engineering staff are H-1B because you can get away with paying a lot less.

I however, give you Genesis 1:28: ‘And God blessed them, and God said unto them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”’

Combine this with the Revelation, wherein Jesus shall return and build the perfect Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, and you can see where a lot of more apocalyptic, “what does it matter” Christianity comes from really easily.

Nah, that’s a little too savvy for Trump directly. We can infer, from stories given to us, that he literally just sold secrets over the dinner table at Mar-A-Lago in his first term.

Be very careful with “free” furniture. Easy way to get bedbugs, at least in my area in the US.

Not always farms, sometimes they’ll partner with local businesses too. My local CSA offers coffee from local roasters.

This is my thought. The admin (not Trump because I don’t think he can plan more than five minutes ahead right now) is either going to launch a false-flag, or deploy a nuke. Maybe both, so we can say “look, we SAID Iran had nukes!”