Megyn Kelly interview could be Trump’s greatest media triumph

Megyn Kelly versus Donald Trump. It’s been the biggest media story of the 2016 GOP presidential race. And yesterday’s news that Trump has agreed to sit for a one-on-one interview with Kelly in May not only ushers in a new chapter in a months-long saga, it could also represent a triumph for Kelly and Fox News, but also for Trump’s designs on the White House.

It began in the opening minutes of the very first debate when Kelly challenged Trump on his past statements to women:

“Mr. Trump, one of the things people love about you is you speak your mind and you don’t use a politician’s filter. However, that is not without its downsides, in particular, when it comes to women. You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs’ and ‘disgusting animals.’ …
Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks. You once told a contestant on ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees.
Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president, and how will you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton, who was likely to be the Democratic nominee, that you are part of the war on women?”

Trump’s reaction after the debate was to accuse Kelly of journalistic bias and to attack her integrity and credibility. Legions of Trump supporters hurling misogynistic and vitriolic venom at Kelly via social media, some of the attacks enjoying the imprimatur of Trump himself via a re-tweet from his powerful Twitter account.
Trump personally went after Kelly in a vicious, personal way:

“Certainly, I don’t have a lot of respect for Megyn Kelly. She’s a lightweight and y’know, she came out there reading her little script and trying to be tough and be sharp. And when you meet her you realize she’s not very tough and she’s not very sharp.” Then, came the kicker: “She gets out there and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions, and you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her … wherever.”

And it just got worse from there. Trump boycotted the Fox News debate in Iowa after a hot exchange of tweets and press releases. They met in a debate setting once more in March but most of the fireworks that night came from Marco Rubio and Trump’s hand size.
Now, as the primary season winds down and Trump begins to focus on his potential nomination in Cleveland and the general election showdown with Hillary Clinton, he’s decided it’s time to put the feud behind him. The announcement of the exclusive, in-depth interview scheduled for May 17th could very well be the turning point of Trump’s negative numbers with women voters (which Politico reports are hovering around 70%.)
To see this interview with Kelly as a media triumph, we have to make a couple of reasonable assumptions. First, let’s assume Kelly conducts the interview in the same way she does every night on The Kelly File, with tough, relevant and respectful questions meant to illuminate an issue and not alienate her guest. Let’s also assume that Trump, knowing all eyes are on him, will conduct himself in a respectful and restrained way including a legitimate walk-back from some of the more over-the-top comments he’s made about the Fox News superstar.
I’ll even predict that Trump offers a statement of regret (if not an actual apology) over how the feud spun out of control and how Kelly was negatively impacted by the vitriol from Internet trolls. I suspect Trump takes the opportunity to state that although he’s had differences with her, he admires the classy way Kelly has conducted herself and they let bygones be bygones from this point forward.
I think it’s also a fair assumption that Kelly accepts the apology. Why wouldn’t she? Not only has she expressed that she dislikes being “part of the story” but it positions her as a major media player in the run up to the general election. It also puts pressure on Hillary Clinton to sit with her for a similar interview. After all, Clinton recently praised Kelly as a “superb journalist” who didn’t deserve the rough treatment doled out by Trump. Well Mrs. Clinton, if Trump scould face Kelly, the “superb journalist,” why can’t you? Or, is she just a “superb journalist” when she serves your purposes as a “victim” of Trump’s misogyny? If you really respect Kelly as a journalist, grant her the ultimate respect and sit with her, one-on-one, like Donald did.
Kelly has already laid the groundwork for a “Kumbaya” moment with this quote from the Fox News statement announcing the interview:

“Mr. Trump and I sat down together for a meeting earlier this month at my request. He was gracious with his time and I asked him to consider an interview. I am happy to announce he has agreed, and I look forward to a fascinating exchange — our first sit-down interview together in nearly a year.”

If this interview goes the way I’ve laid it out, and both parties walk away with mutual respect and a “contrition sound-byte” that plays all over social media and the media for multiple news cycles, it’s a win for Kelly, a win for Fox News, and it reverses one of the most unfortunate and ugly narratives of the Trump presidential campaign.
If he can do that, it may be one of the greatest media triumphs of modern presidential politics.
Big “ifs,” I know, but not implausible at all.

Brave new world: A majority of millennials reject capitalism

I hate to sound too much like the old man standing on his lawn yelling at clouds, but perhaps we have something of a parallel here in the United States in terms of rejecting sanity. Most of our millennials apparently have rejected capitalism, seeing it as the cause of all their woes, and they may be turning their eyes wistfully toward a more socialist style of living as the answer to their problems. (Washington Post)

In an apparent rejection of the basic principles of the U.S. economy, a new poll shows that most young people do not support capitalism.
The Harvard University survey, which polled young adults between ages 18 and 29, found that 51 percent of respondents do not support capitalism. Just 42 percent said they support it.
It isn’t clear that the young people in the poll would prefer some alternative system, though. Just 33 percent said they supported socialism. The survey had a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points.

Is this something real or is it just some sort of offshoot of the Bernie effect? 33% of the entire nation doesn’t sound like much but it probably works out to a fair portion of the supporters that Sanders is pulling in from the Democratic base. If that’s the case then it may tone back down once the primary ends and Bernie sails off toward retirement. They clearly won’t be getting a lot of support from the smaller percentage of young people supporting Hillary since her associations with the gold mine of Wall Street are well known.
But a more disturbing possibility is that we’ve entered a period where the population begins to fall victim to the old maxim of forgetting history and being doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. The truth is that socialism has gotten something of a makeover in the modern era, with people frequently looking to places like Switzerland as a model. (Never mind the fact that Switzerland is actually one of the more capitalist places on Earth.) Further to the north, Sanders and his followers also like to point to the Scandinavian nations as the socialist paradise of their dreams. But as an excellent article in the Federalist pointed out recently, it’s really no paradise at all.
In the modern era, if our unhappy millennials really want to learn something about the true face of socialism they should look to places like Venezuela. Under the control of Hugo Chavez, the people of that nation didn’t actually experience any sort of boom times and are now facing the implosion of their society, as Kevin Williamson recently pointed out.

If you consider the most meaningful measure of a country’s economic output — GDP per capita over time — you’ll see that the fat years under Chávez did not actually happen. In fact, if you chart that real (inflation-adjusted) GDP per capita by year, you’ll see that Venezuela is significantly poorer today than it was in the 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s. In fact, Venezuela’s per capita GDP reached its all-time low in 2003, under Chávez. This is no surprise: Making well-off countries poor and poor countries starving is what socialists do.

Things are bad in Venezuela to be sure and the citizens there are under constant threat from their own government as well as economic collapse. But if these unhappy millennials truly want a lesson on social experimentation they should look at the Russian socialist revolution of 1917 and the ensuing virtual enslavement of the citizens who surrendered all their property and rights to the government. These are the wages of socialism and it always ends badly. In case you missed that… It Always Ends Badly.
There is no good outcome from socialism in the long run and those who have lived too long in a prosperous nation like America need to crack open their history books before signing on for a new revolution. Democratic capitalism has its own warts and flaws to be sure and not every outcome is a happy one for every citizen, but it’s also a self-correcting system. Gross imbalances tend to be ironed out through the political force and will of those for whom it fails to deliver. So be careful what you wish for, millennials. You might just get it good and hard.

Donald Trump purposely not presidental

What’s weirder? That Trump would hand over his campaign to Manafort without vetting him and his vision for winning the race first? (Draw your own conclusion about Trump’s managerial ability from that.) Or that he’d punish Manafort this way amid a landslide win in New York last week and another round of landslides to come tonight? You don’t typically fire your manager when the team’s in the middle of a winning streak, right?
In fairness to Trump, it’s hard to understand why Manafort thought he could turn him into a more disciplined candidate. He’s an extreme narcissist; telling him to be something other than himself is the most vicious thing you can say to him. I don’t think his fans even want him to be more “presidential.” If you like Al Czervik, the last thing you’d want is for him to become Judge Smails. It reeks of “traditional” politics. The whole point of Trumpism is that it’s not politics as usual.

Trump became upset late last week when he learned from media reports that Manafort privately told Republican leaders that the billionaire reality TV star was “projecting an image” for voters and would begin toning down his rhetoric, according to the sources. They said that Trump also expressed concern about Manafort bringing several former lobbying colleagues into the campaign, as first reported by POLITICO…
In particular, multiple sources said Trump was bothered by news stories about Manafort’s representation of Saudi Arabia and for a group accused of being a front for Pakistani intelligence.
“I don’t think he was aware of the extent of the work that Paul has done in foreign countries that have not always been friendly to the United States,” said a Washington operative with close relationships to the campaign…
Multiple sources said that Trump in recent days has re-empowered Lewandowski to handle the campaign’s finances and make some hiring decisions, partially reversing changes Manafort laid out this month when seizing some decision-making authority from Lewandowski.

Trump reportedly didn’t like Manafort’s habit of keeping him off the Sunday shows (where he’d be more likely to be quizzed on policy) while choosing to appear on those shows himself. He also rejected a more “presidential” draft speech that Manafort wanted him to deliver last Tuesday night after his win in New York, although he did tone down his own rhetoric that evening before shifting back this week to talking about how disgusting Kasich is when he eats. A more substantive failing of Manafort’s was Team Trump getting lapped again in the delegate battle last weekend, but I think his excuse for that is sound: You can’t expect him to work miracles immediately when he’s been with the team just a few weeks and Trump is badly understaffed on the ground at state conventions. Manafort will become more useful in persuading delegates in May, June, and especially before the convention in July. But oh well — combative Corey Lewandowski, whose philosophy has always been to “let Trump be Trump,” is back in favor while Manafort, who’s been with the campaign less than a month, is now suddenly on the outs. It reminds me of George Steinbrenner hiring, firing, and re-hiring Billy Martin repeatedly in the 70s and 80s, overreacting to every setback despite the team’s overall success. Trump’s building himself his very own “Bronx Zoo.”

Is Information technology destroying the middle class?

The Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank's symposium in Jackson Hole, WY, is one of the world's most watched economic events. Focusing on important economic issues that face the global economy, the symposium brings together most of the world's central bankers. The symposium attracts significant media attention and has been known for its ability to move markets.
While the most anticipated speakers at the 2014 meeting were Janet Yellen, chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, it was a talk by David Autor, an MIT labor economist that attracted a significant level of attention. Autor presented his paper, "Polanyi's Paradox and the Shape of Employment Growth." The background for the paper was the question discussed in the July 2013 Communications editorial: Does automation destroy more jobs than it creates? While the optimists argue that though technology always destroy jobs, it also creates new jobs, the pessimists argue that the speed in which information technology is currently destroying jobs is unparalleled.
Based on his analysis of recent labor trends as well as recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), Autor concluded, "Journalists and expert commentators overstate the extent of machine substitution for human labor. The challenges to substituting machines for workers in tasks requiring adaptability, common sense, and creativity remain immense," he argued. The general media welcomed Autor's talk with a palpable sense of relief and headlines such as "Everybody Relax: An MIT Economist Explains Why Robots Won't Steal Our Jobs." But a careful reading of Autor's paper suggests that such optimism may be premature.
Autor's main point in the paper is that "our tacit knowledge of how the world works often exceeds our explicit understanding," which poses a significant barrier to automation. This barrier, known as "Polanyi's Paradox," is well recognized as the major barrier for AI. It is unlikely, therefore, that in the near term, say, the next 10 years, we will see a major displacement of human labor by machines. But Autor himself points out that contemporary computer science seeks to overcome the barrier by "building machines that learn from human examples, thus inferring the rules we tacitly apply but do not explicitly understand." It is risky, therefore, to bet we will not make major advances against Polanyi's Paradox, say, in the next 50 years.
But another main point of Autor's paper, affirming a decade-old line of research in labor economics, is that while automation may not lead to broad destruction of jobs, at least not in the near term, automation is having a major impact on the economy by creating polarization of the labor market. Information technology, argues Autor, is destroying wide swaths of routine office and manufacturing jobs. At the same time, we are far from being able to automate low-skill jobs, often requiring both human interaction and unstructured physical movement. Furthermore, information technology creates new high-skill jobs, which require cognitive skills that computers cannot match. Projections by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show continued significant demand for information-technology workers for years to come.
The result of this polarization is a shrinking middle class. In the U.S., middle-income jobs in sales, office work, and the like used to account for the majority of jobs. But that share of the labor market has shrunk over the past 20 years, while the share of high-end and low-end work expanded. Autor's data shows this pattern—shrinkage in the middle and growth at the high and low ends—occurred also in 16 EU countries.
The immediate outcome of this polarization is growing income and wealth disparity. "From 1979 through 2007, wages rose consistently across all three abstract task-intensive categories of professional, technical, and managerial occupations," noted Autor. Their work tends to be complemented by machines, he argued, making their services more valuable. In contrast, wages have stagnated for middle-income workers, and the destruction of middle-income jobs created downward pressure on low-income jobs. Indeed, growing inequality of income and wealth has recently emerged as a major political issue in the developed world.
Autor is a long-term optimist, arguing that in the long run the economy and workforce will adjust. But AI's progress over the past 50 years has been nothing short of dramatic. It is reasonable to predict that its progress over the next 50 years would be equally impressive. My own bet is on disruption rather than on equilibrium and adjustment.

US needs a Canadian border fence.

Canada's sloppy, rushed and reckless Syrian refugee resettlement program is America's looming national security nightmare.
Donald Trump shouldn't just be promising to build a Mexican border wall. He (and any other sovereignty-minded presidential candidate) should be vowing to rebuild the decimated "wall" of first-line watchdogs, field enforcement and patrol officers on our northern border.
The urgency could not be greater.
The Canadian liberal government has fast-tracked tens of thousands of Syrian Muslims into its country over the past five months and now plans to double its interim 25,000 goal by 2019. The bleeding-heart Canucks are forging ahead despite reports this week of the country's failed $16 million screening program to stop Islamic terrorists from slipping through the cracks.
Multiple databases are not interoperable. Information is outdated or useless. Canadian agents are delivering incomplete background checks too late to matter, anyway. Result: Garbage in, garbage out, and untold numbers of unvetted refugees from jihad hotbeds on the loose at our doorstep. (As if the 1,500 Syrian refugees a month that the U.S. State Department is directly importing here through November aren't enough of a security headache!)
Instead of moving to fortify our northern border, Washington is diverting our boots on the ground and downsizing our fleet of surveillance pilots in the skies. Turnover is high, morale is low, and the jihadists' path to illegal entry has never been smoother.

CARTOONS | Gary Varvel

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In Plattsburgh, New York, 45 miles from Syrian refugee dumping ground Montreal, the Customs and Border Patrol's air branch has been slashed from 25 pilots down to a shocking six in the last three years. Shifts have been reduced to bankers' hours, while terror plotters and smugglers never rest. Members of Congress have been alerted to the perilous impact of downsizing, but have done nothing (except, that is, to fully fund the White House refugee resettlement racket).
In Montana, Reuters reported earlier this year, our federal enforcement force is still so understaffed that the Border Patrol depends on 100 private citizen ranchers along the northern border to police the U.S.-Canada boundaries.
Of 21,000 total Border Patrol agents, only 2,100 are assigned to the northern border. There are only about 300 agents guarding the entire northern border at any one time. That's less than the number of Capitol police on duty to protect the Capitol complex in D.C. alone, Buffalo, New York, sector Border Patrol agent Dean Mandel of the National Border Patrol Council pointed out to Congress.
Little has changed since Border Patrol agents in Washington state first told me 15 years ago of vast, abandoned sectors protected by nothing but orange rubber cones -- even in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Little has changed since the 9/11 Commission spotlighted multiple al-Qaida operatives involved in cross-border traffic and incursions (both legal and illegal) from Canada.
Little has changed since the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported in 2011 that a measly 32 miles out of the 4,000-mile border was deemed secure by Border Patrol agents heavily dependent on non-DHS personnel for support.
A U.S. source who works for the Department of Homeland Security on the northern border told me last week that there remain vast "no-go zones" in his upstate New York sector that stretch for miles unpoliced -- such as the smuggler-friendly Akwesasne reservation, where Mohawks are notoriously hostile to our Border Patrol, Air and Marine operations, and field operations agents.
"There's a gigantic hole on our northern border," my source described, where "people from countries of interest are crossing" into America. "Special interest countries," as the U.S. Army War College Guide to National Security defines it, are those "designated by the intelligence community as countries that could export individuals that could bring harm to our country in the way of terrorism."

"Yes, I've personally seen them. Every day. We call them 'gotaways,'" my source sighed. These newest border-jumpers are detected (by high-tech cameras and motion sensors), but neglected because the core national security mission is not a priority and no one's around to act on the alerts.
On the southern border, "gotaways" spiked 100 percent between 2011 and 2013. This year, as illegal trespassers from dangerous special interest countries have increased through Mexico, a Border Patrol whistleblower told Congress two months ago that his supervisors ordered agents to fudge data on "gotaways" by omitting them from data reports.
Think the same whitewashing is going on up north? You betcha.
As the disgusted northern border CBP official told me: "The attitude is no paperwork, no problems." No problems, of course, until that one ISIS operative toting a dirty bomb in his bag rolls right across the wide open U.S.-Canadian border -- detected, but neglected -- and our government's malign neglect blows up in our faces.

What if the World’s Most Expensive Fighter Planes Can’t Defeat Our Enemies?

On April 15, 1953, North Korean Po-2 biplanes strafed a U.S. Army tent on Chodo Island, off the Korean mainland. The attack killed two U.S. servicemen. Remarkably, that night, more than 60 years ago, was the last time a U.S. soldier lost his life to fire from enemy aircraft. Since the Korean War, U.S. air power has played a critical role in virtually every conflict, and the U.S. has enjoyed near-total air supremacy in every battle it’s fought. But that streak isn’t going to continue automatically. Despite lavish spending on our air forces; flawed procurement priorities and strategic doctrine, driven by contractors, has put the future of U.S. air power at risk. Take the new F-22 fighter. It’s the most expensive fighter in the air today, but as a recent story in The National Interest by long-time United States Naval Institute writer Dave Majumdar points out, even its missiles will have a hard time getting past the ability of Russia’s truly fearsome Su-35S Flanker E to jam radars and other sensors. The F-22 is very stealthy while the Su-35S is not, but a senior U.S. Air Force official tells Majumdar that the F-22 will have a hard time killing the Su-35Ss. These new Flankers are already in service with the Russian Air Force, and independent air analysts see this same plane achieving lopsided kill ratios against the U.S.’s other next-generation fighter, the F-35. Russian Su-35 FlankerRussian Su-35 Flanker A FLAWED AIR-POWER STRATEGY How did we end up with such pricey, brand-new fighters being unable to decisively defeat their opponents? United States air-power doctrine after the Korean War has emphasized “beyond visual range” (BVR) engagements. The idea: With sufficiently sophisticated missile technology, we can destroy enemy fighters from more than five miles away, long before the enemy can engage our aircraft. The cornerstone of BVR technology, large complex radars, required much bigger fighters to handle the aerodynamic challenges that bulky BVR radars present, as well as huge increases in power and cooling requirements. These larger fighters led to skyrocketing acquisition and maintenance costs. With the advent of stealth, the vision was expanded to include destroying enemy planes from behind a cloak, and costs skyrocketed again. Visions are not always realized, and recent advances in countermeasures, like the capabilities in the Su-35S, are just another chapter in a long history of BVR missiles not living up to the hype. Expecting BVR capabilities to deliver lopsided results against peer competitors now looks more like wishful thinking than a sound strategy. So why have billions of dollars of investments into BVR capabilities delivered such disappointing results? There are two main causes: FEAR OF FRIENDLY FIRE First, identify-friend-or-foe (IFF) technology — systems that enable forces to identify friendly platforms among potential targets — has not been reliable enough to allow our pilots to fire at blips on their radar screen without fear of committing fratricide. In other words, no matter how good our BVR technology, pilots still needed to get within visual distance before taking a shot. Progress has been made in IFF technology, in part because of better capabilities on our support aircraft, but it remains a problem. CONTRACTORS OVERPROMISE, UNDERDELIVER The second issue is that BVR missile technology has consistently failed to live up to the promises made by vendors and senior military leadership. On entering Vietnam, military leaders assured Congress that the radar-guided AIM-7 Sparrow carried by the complex and costly F-4 Phantom would give our pilots a 70 percent probability of a kill per missile fired. Instead, the much hyped Raytheon missile ended up with a BVR kill rate of less than 1 percent. Somewhat chastened, senior military leaders were forced to retrofit guns to the F-4 Phantom. Our cutting-edge missile technology has consistently failed to live up to the promises made by vendors and senior military leadership. The problems continued after Vietnam. In “Promise and Reality: Beyond Visual Range (BVR) Air-To-Air Combat” a 2005 paper done for the Air War College, Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Higby (now General Higby) shows in great detail that from Vietnam up to Desert Storm the billions invested BVR missile technology contributed almost nothing to the United States’ domination of the skies. Combining data from Israeli and American missions, he finds that out of 632 shots taken with BVR-capable missiles, only four resulted in kills from beyond visual range — a scant 0.6 percent. During this same period, 528 air-to-air kills were made at closer range — 144 with guns and 384 with missiles fired at opponents within visual range. BVR HAS ALMOST NEVER WORKED Starting with Desert Storm, there was an uptick in the number of kills achieved using the newer AMRAAM missiles, which are designed for relatively long range kills, but because neither the number of missiles used nor the range at which the BVR-capable missiles notched kills was recorded, it’s hard to reach any firm conclusions. We do have anecdotal evidence: In 1999, when two MiG-25s violated the no-fly zone over southern Iraq, U.S. fighters fired six of our most sophisticated BVR missiles at them. All six missiles missed and the MiG-25s escaped to fight another day. While pervasive coverage by AWACS surveillance and control planes has given our pilots much better friend-or-foe recognition, allowing more BVR shots to be taken, true BVR kills against competent opponents are rare. Future battles will continue to involve close-range dogfights — where superior numbers of smaller affordable fighters are better than inferior numbers of heavier, less agile, less reliable BVR-focused fighters. A 2011 RAND report noted that enemies successfully engaged beyond visible range after 1991 “were fleeing, non-maneuvering, and did not employ countermeasures.” “In Operation Allied Force,” the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, RAND notes, “the Serbian MiG-29s that were shot down did not even have functioning radars.” In other words, we might now be achieving BVR kills against third-rate vastly outnumbered opponents while enjoying pervasive AWACS coverage. But that is a far cry from getting kills against equally skilled peer competitors in contested air space where we may be outnumbered in terms of both planes and missiles. Historically, our pilots’ superior skills have allowed our big BVR fighters to dominate dogfights despite their large size, but those same pilots flying smaller, less-expensive fighters would still have dominated. In other words, the billions invested in large expensive BVR-focused planes and missiles, while highly correlated with U.S air dominance, was not the cause of that dominance. Going forward, assuming huge kill ratios predicated on BVR missile technology looks even less wise: We have no record of successfully using such technology against peer competitors with the training and technology to dramatically reduce BVR missile effectiveness (like, say, the Russians’ Su-35S). Both the United States and its competitors will continue to make large investments to improve BVR missiles and BVR-missile countermeasures. Since neither effort is likely to gain a decisive advantage, future battles will continue to involve close-range dogfights — where superior numbers of smaller affordable fighters are better than inferior numbers of heavier, less agile, less reliable BVR-focused fighters. F-15 EaglesF-15 Eagles QUANTITY OVER QUALITY It’s unrealistic to expect heavily outnumbered U.S. planes to consistently take down large numbers of enemy fighters at long ranges. The large technology lead the United States once held over other major air powers has nearly evaporated, and regaining our post-WWII lead is well-nigh impossible. Moreover, other air powers have studied and adopted U.S pilot-training methods, and that gap, once large, has narrowed as well. In 2004, for instance, U.S. F-15 pilots were unpleasantly surprised to find themselves on the wrong side of a 9-to-1 loss ratio in exercises with Indian Air Force pilots flying Russian-designed planes, including small but formidable MiG-21s. We should plan on Chinese and Russian pilots being equally competent. There are other major problems with large BVR fighters. One such problem is that the cost per hour to fly them is now so great that some of our pilots are only getting about ten hours per month of actual flight time — not nearly enough to maintain superior skills. Further, these fighters’ huge maintenance requirements mean they spend less time in the air than other aircraft. The F-22 and F-15 can fly far fewer sorties per day than smaller, more reliable fighters such as the F-16. In other words: Large, higher priced, maintenance-intensive BVR-focused planes will often end up delivering less sustained combat power. F-35A at Eglin Air Force BaseF-35A at Eglin Air Force Base STEALTH: ANOTHER PRICEY, UNPROVEN INVESTMENT BVR’s kissing cousin, stealth, is also not the silver bullet it was portrayed to be 20-plus years ago, when development began on the Joint Strike Fighter (the F-35). In fact, counter-stealth technology is advancing and proliferating much more quickly than stealth technology. Recognizing this, the U.S. Navy is wisely hedging its bets by not being too reliant on stealth. Earlier this year, chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert noted the inevitable limits of stealth: “Let’s face it, if something moves fast through the air, disrupts molecules, and puts out heat — I don’t care how cool the engine can be, it’s going to be detectable.” More Defense The Politically Correct Integration of the Marine Infantry Is a Mistake Should We Give ISIS What it Wants -- A Decisive Battle in the Middle East? Doing Stupid Stuff in the South China Sea With the rapid proliferation of integrated air defenses capable of seeing and targeting stealthy airplanes, the decades-old vision of flying into the teeth of the integrated air defenses of our top competitors and attacking them with impunity is a fast-fading fantasy. A modest premium for cost-effective stealth probably makes sense, but a huge premium for maintenance-intensive stealth doesn’t. Mathematical battle models, such as the Lanchester-square model, show numerical superiority rapidly swamps quality, meaning larger forces of less-capable planes can sweep opposing forces from the sky while suffering surprisingly small losses. And there’s certainly a good chance we’ll be facing more-numerous forces: Scenarios for defending Taiwan, for instance, have our pilots going up against Chinese pilots that could outnumber us by three to ten times. The RAND Corporation has done an instructive analysis: Even assuming we have unhittable planes with perfectly accurate missiles and opponents lining up to be shot down like sitting ducks, our forces cede airspace control over Taiwan to China while taking crippling losses in terms of support aircraft. More realistic assumptions have us losing many of our F-22s as well. Being on the wrong side of projections for these kind of scenarios is a bad place to be for our pilots. Getting to the right side of the equation will not be achieved by the fielding small numbers of $200-million-plus fighters whose core capabilities are inferior to most advanced fighters. The Air Force wants to retire the A-10 ThunderboltThe Air Force wants to retire the A-10 Thunderbolt FANCIER TECH DOESN’T ALWAYS WIN Advanced technology will always play a critical role in ensuring the success of our fighter aircraft, but we should also remember that quantity, tactics, and training can overcome technology. Ultimately, trying to maintain air-power dominance built on bleeding-edge technology that busts the budget, takes forever to develop, and delivers severely diminishing returns is a losing strategy in a world where technology rapidly diffuses. Better reliability, while not sexy, facilitates more sorties, puts more planes in the air, and enables better pilot training. In a world where firing up powerful active sensors makes you a target, it might make sense to field smaller fighters that rely more on networked, passive sensors. Traditional fighter performance metrics such as instantaneous turn rate, sustained turn rate, and thrust-to-weight ratio still matter. Our air-superiority fighters need to deliver unparalleled performance in the air, and they’re not. The USAF even acknowledges that the backbone of our future fighter corps, the F-35, isn’t designed to be an air-superiority fighter. Yet, along with air-superiority missions, the Air Force is counting on this strike fighter to perform close air-support missions that the inexpensive A-10 already does so much better. These compromises aren’t necessary. For the cost of one F-35, we can buy several air-superiority and close–air-support planes that will deliver far more bang for the buck. Sadly, contractors and top military brass gravitate to the fanciest, most expensive fighters possible with little regard for affordability and maintainability. It’s time to bring back the procurement discipline necessary to buy fighters with the right mix of capabilities and cost. That kind of strategy will allow us to field them in the numbers needed to maintain the air dominance our armed forces have been able to count on for the past 60 years.\

Top 100 movies

1.

	99%	The Wizard of Oz (1939)	109
2.	100%	The Third Man (1949)	76
3.	100%	Citizen Kane (1941)	71
4.	100%	All About Eve (1950)	64
5.	100%	Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) (1920)	48
6.	99%	The Godfather (1972)	84
7.	100%	Modern Times (1936)	53
8.	98%	Inside Out (2015)	317
9.	99%	Metropolis (1927)	115
10.	98%	E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)	112
11.	98%	It Happened One Night (1934)	52
12.	100%	Singin' in the Rain (1952)	48
13.	98%	A Hard Day's Night (1964)	102
14.	98%	Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)	47
15.	100%	Laura (1944)	59
16.	98%	Boyhood (2014)	274
17.	100%	North by Northwest (1959)	64
18.	100%	Repulsion (1965)	60
19.	98%	King Kong (1933)	54
20.	100%	The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)	45
21.	100%	Rear Window (1954)	63
22.	100%	The Maltese Falcon (1941)	48
23.	100%	Rashômon (1951)	49
24.	99%	La Battaglia di Algeri (The Battle of Algiers) (1967)	76
25.	100%	Toy Story 2 (1999)	163
26.	99%	Toy Story 3 (2010)	290
27.	98%	Sunset Boulevard (1950)	59
28.	100%	The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)	41
29.	100%	The Philadelphia Story (1940)	54
30.	99%	Selma (2015)	229
31.	100%	M (1931)	51
32.	98%	The Bicycle Thief (1949)	56
33.	100%	The 400 Blows (Les Quatre cents coups) (1959)	54
34.	98%	Up (2009)	285
35.	100%	Seven Samurai (Shichinin no Samurai) (1956)	57
36.	100%	The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)	44
37.	99%	Taxi Driver (1976)	69
38.	100%	12 Angry Men (Twelve Angry Men) (1957)	48
39.	99%	Dr. Strangelove Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)	73
40.	98%	Zootopia (2016)	220
41.	98%	A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)	53
42.	100%	Rebecca (1940)	48
43.	100%	The Conformist (1970)	50
44.	98%	The Night of the Hunter (1955)	62
45.	99%	Rosemary's Baby (1968)	69
46.	99%	Finding Nemo (2003)	255
47.	100%	Frankenstein (1931)	44
48.	98%	The Wrestler (2008)	220
49.	99%	L.A. Confidential (1997)	108
50.	98%	The 39 Steps (1935)	44
51.	98%	The Hurt Locker (2009)	255
52.	100%	Tokyo Story (Tôkyô monogatari) (1953)	41
53.	100%	The Grapes of Wrath (1940)	43
54.	100%	The Last Picture Show (1971)	51
55.	100%	The Wages of Fear (1953)	40
56.	100%	Pinocchio (1940)	42
57.	98%	Roman Holiday (1953)	52
58.	98%	On the Waterfront (1954)	60
59.	100%	Man on Wire (2008)	154
60.	100%	Toy Story (1995)	78
61.	100%	Anatomy of a Murder (1959)	42
62.	98%	Annie Hall (1977)	66
63.	100%	The Leopard (1963)	45
64.	100%	Cool Hand Luke (1967)	47
65.	98%	Chinatown (1974)	62
66.	100%	Battleship Potemkin (1925)	45
67.	98%	The Babadook (2014)	183
68.	98%	Mr. Turner (2014)	183
69.	100%	The Searchers (1956)	41
70.	98%	Before Midnight (2013)	182
71.	100%	The Gold Rush (1925)	42
72.	100%	The Terminator (1984)	56
73.	98%	Sweet Smell of Success (1957)	47
74.	99%	Short Term 12 (2013)	153
75.	100%	Mary Poppins (1964)	46
76.	98%	Let the Right One In (2008)	177
77.	98%	The Wild Bunch (1969)	49
78.	98%	Hell or High Water (2016)	167
79.	99%	Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)	152
80.	98%	The French Connection (1971)	55
81.	98%	Mud (2013)	171
82.	98%	City Lights (1931)	44
83.	100%	Playtime (1973)	41
84.	98%	Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)	49
85.	98%	The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie (Le Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie) (1972)	47
86.	98%	Love & Friendship (2016)	154
87.	98%	How to Train Your Dragon (2010)	202
88.	98%	Aliens (1986)	62
89.	98%	Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)	55
90.	99%	Leviathan (2014)	130
91.	99%	Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)	128
92.	98%	Badlands (1974)	50
93.	99%	Gloria (2014)	125
94.	98%	The Manchurian Candidate (1962)	53
95.	98%	Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes) (1972)	44
96.	98%	Mean Streets (1973)	51
97.	98%	Eyes Without a Face (1962)	52
98.	98%	8 1/2 (1963)	46
99.	99%	A Separation (2011)	153
100.	98%	The Conversation (1974)	47

Top 100 Star Trek episodes

100) Bride of Chaotica! (Star Trek: Voyager) - A hilarious pastiche of old-school science fiction serials, this story puts the Voyager crew in the middle of a space-opera fantasy gone very, very wrong.

99) Day of the Dove (Star Trek) - An alien entity wants the Enterprise crew and some Klingons to slaughter each other, and Kirk has nearly as much trouble with his own crew as with the "enemy."

98) Paradise (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - Sisko and O'Brien find themselves in a "perfect" society where no technology functions, and the society's matriarch tests Sisko's will with some pretty brutal treatment.

97) Borderland/Cold Station 12/The Augments (Enterprise) - In this three-part episode, we delve into the past of Khan Noonien Singh's genetically augmented crew, and also meet the ancestor of Data's creator. And connecting those two dots allows the story to get into some weird questions about the nature of "superior" people.

96) Lineage (Star Trek: Voyager) - B'Elanna and Tom are expecting a baby... but maybe they can genetically engineer it to be more human and less Klingon? More than any episode about Khan's people, this episode digs into the thorny ethics of eugenics.

95) The Most Toys (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Data is taken prisoner by an unscrupulous collector, and the android finds out just how far he's willing to go to win his freedom.

94) Disaster (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - A calamity cuts off the different sections of the ship from each other, leaving Deanna Troi in charge, and Worf having to deliver a baby.

93) Future's End (Star Trek: Voyager) - An evil Bill Gates-type in the 1990s has gotten hold of a 29th century ship, and even the Voyager crew might not be able to keep him from changing history.

92) The Magnificent Ferengi (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - Of all DS9's "Ferengi comedy" episodes, this is one of the funniest — Quark has to rescue his mother from the Dominion, but everything goes absolutely pear-shaped and Quark has to improvise.

91) The Killing Game (Star Trek: Voyager) - The Hirogen love to hunt, so what could be better than turning Voyager into a recreation of World War II? (Lots of things. But that's what they do, anyway.)

90) Booby Trap (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - The Enterprise is trapped in a weird space trap, and Geordi can't find a solution until he makes himself a new colleague... who's the woman of Geordi's dreams.

89) Court Martial (Star Trek) - Kirk is put on trial, and along the way he shows what it really takes to command a starship.

88) Favor the Bold/Sacrifice of Angels (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - This episode is a turning point in the "Dominion War" arc. But more to the point, it features a ginormous, amazing space battle, featuring hundreds of starships.

87) Déjà Q (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Q has lost his powers, and now he's learning to cope with being human. If he can survive the wrath of Guinan, that is.

86) Memorial (Star Trek: Voyager) - Voyager was at its best when coping with strange thought experiments, and here's a doozy: a memorial forces you to experience a terrible war first-hand. Should it be allowed to remain operational?

85) Little Green Men (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - Quark gets stranded on mid-20th century Earth, and for once even he can't figure out how to profit from this, in a hilariously weird episode.

84) Parallels (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Worf keeps jumping to various (and highly entertaining) alternate realities, showing how different his life could be with just a few changes.

83) Timeless (Star Trek: Voyager) - One of the many "alternate future crewmembers averting a past tragedy" storylines, this one features the beautiful image of Voyager crashed into an ice planet, and Chakotay going to extremes to save his friends.

82) Conundrum (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - The entire crew of the Enterprise suffers memory loss, but luckily First Officer MacDuff is here to help. When their identities are stripped away, will the Starfleet officers still do the right thing?

81) The Enemy Within (Star Trek) - The one where Kirk gets split into good and evil versions by a transporter accident — Richard Matheson's script manages to get into some thorny questions about the nature of evil.

80) The Wounded (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - The Federation is trying really hard to have peace with the Cardassians, but some people in Starfleet aren't quite so ready to forgive and forget... and it's up to Picard to help out his enemies.

79) I, Mudd (Star Trek) - The most famous rogue in Star Trek has landed in a great spot — surrounded by beautiful androids who cater to his every whim. Except that he can't leave.

78) Remember Me (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Dr. Crusher is faced with a mystery that gets at her fear of abandonment, but also questions of existence, when people start vanishing around her.

77) Our Man Bashir (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - The goofiest of DS9 episodes (well, one of the goofiest) sees Bashir stuck in a holosuite program where he's a James Bond-style spy.

76) Wolf in the Fold (Star Trek) - Mr. Scott is accused of being a serial killer... but the truth is a lot more bizarre.

75) The Raven (Star Trek: Voyager) - One of the best "Seven of Nine tries to become more human" episodes actually sees her coping with her memories of being part of the Borg.

74) Living Witness (Star Trek: Voyager) - Hundreds of years after Voyager visit a planet, its crew are remembered as war criminals, as shown in a historical reenactment.

73) Family (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - This episode is revolutionary, purely because it shows the consequences of a big "event" episode — Picard is still shaken by his experiences with the Borg, when he goes home to visit his family.

72) Who Mourns For Morn (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - The barfly who hangs out in Quark's bar has apparently died, but will Quark really inherit all his worldly goods?

71) A Piece of the Action (Star Trek) - One of many "visiting Earth's past on another planet" episodes, this is the funniest and also the most trenchant. Kirk and friends have to outwit a whole planet of gangsters, while teaching them the arcane game of Fizzbin.

70) Sarek (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Peter S. Beagle wrote this episode where Spock's father reappears, and he's not the Vulcan he used to be — a bittersweet exploration of aging and loss.

69) What You Leave Behind (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - The DS9 finale packs a lot of punches, including the final showdown with the Dominion, and Sisko embracing his destiny.

68) Tin Man (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - a powerful Betazoid telepath is obsessed with a giant sentient spaceship, but also develops a friendship with Data, the only person whose thoughts he can't read.

67) Errand of Mercy (Star Trek) - The first Klingon episode is also the most daring, as Kirk is portrayed as being nearly as warlike as his foes, in the face of godlike pacifist aliens.

66) Dark Frontier (Star Trek: Voyager) - Seven of Nine starts to remember her past before she became a Borg drone, as Janeway schemes to steal from the Borg.

65) In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - One of the most shocking of the "Dominion War" storylines, this two-parter reveals a terrible secret about Bashir, and changes the balance of power in the Alpha Quadrant.

64) The Slaver Weapon (Star Trek: The Animated Series) - Written by Larry Niven, this episode sees the Enterprise crew meeting the Kzinti... and dealing with a self-aware ultimate weapon.

63) Assignment: Earth (Star Trek) - Kirk and Spock go back to the 1960s, but they're not the only interloper. This was the "backdoor pilot" for a spin-off show that never happened, but it's still bizarrely entertaining in its own right.

62) Cause and Effect (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - The one where the Enterprise keeps blowing up over and over. The most explosive, bewildering time loop ever.

61) Course: Oblivion (Star Trek: Voyager) - These alternate versions of a starship crew aren't evil — just very, very fragile. This is one of those episodes whose nihilism makes it almost like a weird dream.

60) Shore Leave (Star Trek) - One of the goofiest original-series episodes also has a major dark side, as the crew arrives on a planet where anything they imagine can become real. Anything.

59) The Quickening (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - Dr. Bashir's miracle-worker image faces an extra challenge when he faces a genetically-engineered plague.

58) Dagger of the Mind (Star Trek) - In the Federation's utopian future, the rehabilitation of criminals is much more humane. Much, much more humane. The psychological cruelty in this one is actually pretty intense.

57) The Sound of Her Voice (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - Everybody falls in love with a stranded Starfleet captain who's sent out a distress call. But can she be saved?

56) Tuvix (Star Trek: Voyager) - The Voyager crew face another huge ethical conundrum... and arguably, this time they choose wrong.

55) The Pegasus (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Riker's long-buried secret comes to light, and he's forced to lie to Captain Picard.

54) Caretaker (Star Trek: Voyager) - Greg Cox argued (in our comments) this is the best first episode of any Trek, and he has a point: it shows Captain Janeway making two tough choices: stranding her crew, and adopting a crew of rebels.

53) The Conscience of the King (Star Trek) - This episode about a Shakespearean actor who may be a legendary mass murderer is also our first glimpse of the flaws in Trek's perfect future.

52) Relics (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Old Starfleet engineers never die — they just come back decades later, eager to tinker with another warp engine.

51) Necessary Evil (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - The best of the episodes about the shapeshifting Odo doing detective work, because his digging turns out to reveal some dark secrets.

50) I Borg (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Another episode with a guest star who poses a huge ethical question — the Enterprise finds a disconnected Borg drone, and tries to turn him into a weapon.

49) The Wire (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - The mysterious Garak finally has to reveal a little bit about his past to his friend Dr. Bashir, to save his life — but which stories are lies, and which ones are true? Or is there really any difference?

48) The Enterprise Incident (Star Trek) - Kirk and Spock pull an elaborate hustle on the Romulans, in an episode that shows just how unethical our heroes are prepared to be.

47) Perfect Mate (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Picard falls for a woman (Famke Janssen!) who is destined to marry a warlord in an arranged marriage, and he has to put his feelings aside for the sake of peace.

46) Blink of an Eye (Star Trek: Voyager) - In yet another high-concept Voyager outing, the starship appears in the sky over a planet for a relatively brief time, but that's long enough for it to loom over the life and death of an entire civilization.

45) Dear Doctor (Enterprise) - Doctor Phlox relates his experience dealing with a plague affecting a relatively primitive planet, which turns out to pose an impossible dilemma.

44) It's Only a Paper Moon (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - Like "Family," this is an episode that takes a hard look at the process of recovering from trauma... and doesn't sugar-coat the truth.

43) Obsession (Star Trek) - Kirk's judgment is called into question when he becomes fixated on revenge, showing once again just how dangerous an out-of-control captain can be.

42) Hard Time (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - The best of the many "Let's torture O'Brien" episodes, in which he receives false memories of 20 years of imprisonment.

41) Rocks and Shoals (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - Sisko's crew are stranded on a planet with some of the enemy Jem'Hadar... and the Jem'Hadar's unquestioning drug-induced loyalty is put to the test, horribly.

40) In A Mirror Darkly, Parts 1 & 2 (Enterprise) - The best of the "Mirror Universe" sequels, this episode shows us a more unscrupulous version of Jonathan Archer... who's just inherited a Federation ship from the future.

39) Journey to Babel (Star Trek) - Most notable for introducing us to Spock's parents, this episode also shows a Federation diplomatic mission gone horribly wrong.

38) The Way of the Warrior (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - With the Federation facing war with the Dominion, it's a good thing the Klingons are here to help. Except sometimes your allies can be more dangerous than your enemies.

37) Lower Decks (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - This episode follows four junior officers aboard the Enterprise, and lets us see the command staff through the eyes of their underlings.

36) Galileo Seven (Star Trek) - A shuttlecraft full of people is stranded on a planet, and it appears that not all of them can survive. Good thing Spock is in charge, and he has zero hesitation about making the tough call... Right?

35) Inter Arma Silent Leges (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - Bashir has always wanted to play at being a spy... so how does he like doing it in real life? One of the episodes that exposes the terrible underbelly of the Federation.

34) The Drumhead (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - An Admiral subjects the Enterprise to an inquisition, and starts finding conspiracies behind every bulkhead, providing an object lesson in the dangers of paranoia.

33) Twilight (Enterprise) - In the future, Archer has dementia, and the human race has lost a devastating war. And both things are equally terrible to behold.

32) Trials and Tribble-ations (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - One of several time-travel episodes, this one sends Sisko's officers back to the original series episode "The Trouble With Tribbles," and provides a great love letter to Trek's history.

31) Call to Arms (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - This is the one where Sisko makes the tough choices, and a highly symbolic baseball is the only hint of Sisko's endgame.

30) Yesteryear (Star Trek: The Animated Series) - Spock travels back in time and saves himself as a young boy on Vulcan, in an episode that reveals a lot about Spock's life.

29) The Void (Star Trek: Voyager) - When Voyager gets trapped in a pocket space with a bunch of other ships that prey on each other, Janeway has to convince everybody to work together to escape. Janeway's finest hour.

28) Homefront/Paradise Lost (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - Nowadays, everybody trots out the "security versus freedom" question, but DS9 asked it first, and best, with this story of paranoia about shapeshifters in Starfleet.

27) Where No Man Has Gone Before (Star Trek) - The second Star Trek pilot is the best, facing Kirk with an impossible choice: condemn his friend to death, or risk his entire ship.

26) The Year of Hell Parts 1 &2 (Star Trek: Voyager) - The luckiest ship in the Delta Quadrant finally has really, really bad luck.

25) The Offspring (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Data creates an android daughter for himself, but some miracles are too great to last.

24) Duet (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - Kira suspects that a visiting Cardassian is actually a notorious war criminal, and she's willing to go to insane lengths to prove it.

23) The Equinox (Star Trek: Voyager) - Captain Janeway's determination to uphold Federation principles far from home looks a lot more impressive when you meet another Starfleet crew that compromised, really badly.

22) Tapestry (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Picard is dying of an old wound caused by his recklessness, so Q shows him what his life would be like if he'd played it safe.

21) Arena (Star Trek) - Kirk faces two impossible challenges: making a weapon from scratch, and upholding his values in the face of a murderous Gorn.

20) Measure of a Man (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Putting Data on "trial" to see if he's a person raises fascinating questions, but the best part is Riker's total ruthlessness as prosecutor.

19) Yesterday's Enterprise (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - The Enterprise finds itself in an alternate universe, and restoring the original timeline will come at a high cost.

18) The Doomsday Machine (Star Trek) - Kirk faces the ultimate weapon, but his real nightmare is an unhinged superior officer taking command of the Enterprise.

17) The Siege of AR-558 (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - Lots of DS9 episodes explored the notion that war is Hell, but this one made it visceral and unforgettable.

16) Devil in the Dark (Star Trek) - The classic Star Trek scenario: a story in which the "monster" is misunderstood, and ignorant humans are the real danger.

15) Space Seed (Star Trek) - The only Trek episode to get a movie sequel, this story introduces a suave former dictator who's a perfect foil for Kirk.

14) The Corbomite Maneuver (Star Trek) - This episode isn't named after the villain or the McGuffin, but after Kirk's cunning gambit — with good reason. Never play poker with Kirk.

13) Far Beyond The Stars (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - Sisko hallucinates he's a pulp science fiction author writing about the impossible: a black captain named Ben Sisko.

12) Amok Time (Star Trek) - Our first visit to Spock's homeworld also shows how friendship and cunning are more powerful than mating rituals and ancient traditions.

11) Chain of Command (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Picard is captured by a ruthless Cardassian torturer — and gets pushed to his limits.

10) Mirror, Mirror (Star Trek) - Meeting alternate crewmembers, including Bearded Spock, is cool — but the fascinating part is seeing our heroes try to pretend to be barbarians.

9) All Good Things (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - The best Q story sees Picard tested at three points in his life, with the whole universe in the balance.

8) The Inner Light (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Picard lives a whole life on a doomed planet, and becomes a living memorial, with just a flute as souvenir.

7) In the Pale Moonlight (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - How far will Sisko go to get the Romulans to join the war? All the way.

6) The Trouble with Tribbles (Star Trek) - The funniest Trek, it also faces Kirk with the most insidious threat: an organism that's born pregnant.

5) Darmok (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Quibble about the alien language all you want, this parable of learning to communicate remains powerful.

4) The Visitor (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - Jake Sisko has grown old as a famous writer, but he's willing to give it all up to save his father in the past. Absolutely beautiful.

3) City on the Edge of Forever (Star Trek) - Kirk, Spock and McCoy visit the 1930s, and Kirk faces an impossible choice that proves time travel is heart-breaking.

2) The Best of Both Worlds (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - The Borg turn Picard into their mouthpiece, and our heroes nearly lose.

1) Balance of Terror (Star Trek) - Kirk's battle of wits with a Romulan is spellbinding, but so is the exploration of prejudice, and the idea that noble people fight on both sides.