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Where's the liberal indignation to outlaw knives after 14 were stabbed at a Texas college campus today?: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/09/at-least-5-reportedly-stabbed-on-lone-star-college-campus/ Maybe because there is no Constitutional amendment to stomp all over?

What, this wasn't legit enough for you...? [skip to 2:02 for some really legit racing footage!]

No way, they always have the best class patches.

Sure, there is some legitimacy to it - depending on which point you want to prove and which idiots you want to fool. Like I ranted about in other posts, I can debunk, plant enough doubt to the veracity of, or greatly alter nearly every statistic that anyone can put out. It's just a fools game. This study, for example, basically puts out "operational costs" as listed in that spreadhseet and divides that number by the number of hours and the number of planes, to come up with a "cost to keep this plane airborne per hour." Where the fuck do the "operational costs" come from, and what do they include? Like I said, depends on which idiot I want to pull the wool over on. In attempting to rally up the liberal freaks who think we should spend more money on California pensions than the military, here is what I would say: Operational costs have to take into account everything it takes to fly and maintain a plane like the C-130E, of which there are only about 15 left in the inventory. The total operational costs include the cost of all of the crewmembers, MX folks, ATC folks, and scores of other support people who simply would not be employed by the government if these C-130Es were not flying. One must take into account annual salaries, benefits, medical costs, family support, and retirement costs of these thousands of personnel ($50M). Furthermore, the cost to build and maintain the runways, hangars, and hundreds of buildings to support this fleet must also be taken into account ($100M), because without these planes, there would be no need for those facilities. Finally, the cost of training, fuel, modifications, and MX are also counted ($100M). This makes the total cost of operating the fleet nearly $250M per year. Given that these 15 planes flew only 2500 hours last year, it thus takes $100,000 per flight hour to maintain a "typical" cargo plane like this for the DoD. Here is what I would say at a VFW meeting: We do more with less in the Air Force. Take the 15 remaining C-130Es. All of the acquisition, modification, R&D, and infrastructure costs are already sunk costs that have already been paid - we can't change that. All of the personnel who support these planes get paid no matter what, and they will support multiple missions and multiple aircraft over their careers. In other words, the salaries and benefits of the personnel involved are also costs that would be incurred whether or not these 15 C-130Es flew. So in summary, it only takes the cost of fuel to get the C-130E airborne, because all of the other costs have already been paid for. This plane burns about 1000 gallons per hour, or about $4000 per hour in DoD fuel rates, and this is the total operational rate per hour of this old workhorse. That's great value for your money!