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True, which is why most of the new hydro projects aren't "build more dams" but "make them more efficient". The generators can be significantly more efficient.

This is true, but it is a case of diminishing returns. Winn friction, not heat is the biggest loss in some hydro plants. When Ice Harbor dam was built, they had some Westinghouse and some General Electric generators. Using the same water turbins, it was easy to compare the output capacity of each. One was conservatively rated and easily met performance standards. The other barely met spec. Two generators with the same specifications can be as much as 10% different in performance.

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:OrJTCRPTx2cJ:www.nww.usace.army.mil/html/offices/pa/FactSheets/ICH2005.pdf+Ice+Harbor+dam+generators&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us

Most of this type info is not public. Expansion by replacing generators is possible in some cases, but often the improvement margin is under 10%.

Also, did you know it takes petroleum to run a hydroelectric dam? With all the turbines, you need some pretty serious lubrication, which means you also need a bunch of huge pumps to push that oil around, and so you tend to have big ICEs running pumps. I know of projects attacking this problem, too -- one dam (I forget where) is apparently petroleum-neutral.

Reference please..

My dad was a power house operator on McNary dam and moved to Ice Harbor dam. When the powerhouse noise became a problem with his hearing and he moved to BPA as a substation operator. This big gas engine needed to pump tons of oil is news to me. I've never seen it even though I have had the cooks tour of the generator deck. They do have a gas back-up generator, but that is to provide control power to bring up the dam from a standstill. All the water gates are electric. Once the dam is operational, it isn't used. I've never seen it operate.

http://www.nww.usace.army.mil/html/pub/pertdata/ihpert.htm
http://www.ee.washington.edu/energy/apt/nsf/previous/powimage.htm

I've been on this deck and the one below.
http://www.ee.washington.edu/energy/apt/nsf/previous/mcnary2.jpg

For all you back to the future fans, take note.. McNary dam produces 1,200 Megawatts of power. (Hint, convert to GigaWatts)

You'll occasionally do a stealth-style mission aided by nightvision (obviously absent from WWII)

The best method available (without special equipment) is the ratio of waist size to height.

The Army has a somewhat better method that is fairly straightforward in that all you need is a good scale and a tape measure. Aside from height, weight and age, it takes waist and neck for males and waist, hips and neck for females. The reasoning is that the neck is a muscly part of the body and that gives a clearer picture of body composition. I still don't think it's terribly accurate, but it's at least quick to do.

AR 600-9, see Appendix B.

PDF version

The best method available (without special equipment) is the ratio of waist size to height.

The Army has a somewhat better method that is fairly straightforward in that all you need is a good scale and a tape measure. Aside from height, weight and age, it takes waist and neck for males and waist, hips and neck for females. The reasoning is that the neck is a muscly part of the body and that gives a clearer picture of body composition. I still don't think it's terribly accurate, but it's at least quick to do.

AR 600-9, see Appendix B.

PDF version

Interestingly, the US Army expressly prohibits the use of torture in interrogations. From the US Army Manual for Human Intelligence Collectors:

"Acts of violence or intimidation, including physical or mental torture, or exposure to inhumane treatment as a means of or aid to interrogation are expressly prohibited." - page 5-26

This is because, as the GP, the linked post, and the continued existence of ObL demonstrate, torture is a bad way of getting information, and a good way of pushing a lot of fence-sitters the wrong way.

"... but we are still the home of many inventions..."

Actually, Americans seem terribly insecure about themselves, and regularly produce long lists of why they are better than anyone else in the world.

Their lists of inventions are a case in point. They are cherry-picked and hung about with caveats to make America sound first. For instance, you'd think Americans flew the first aircraft, and were the first to fly across the Atlantic, but both these statements are not true.

Here is a classic - http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/documents/WWII/g4-OL/g4-ol.htm

It shows a US official military history document, which claims that the Mulbury harbors that the British made for the D-Day invasions were in fact an "American Project".

"Land Bridge" as well - ship to US West coast, put containers on trains to US East cost, put containers on ships bound for Europe.

This is old news for the real Army and other branches of the service as well.

Actually, we already have that. When you drive over the top of San Augustine pass and look down on the White Sands Missile Range HQ area, it looks remarkably like Mos Eisely as seen in Episode IV. Maybe if I have time someday, I'll take a picture and post it along with a screen capture side-by-side on Google Earth.

Skip the ad-trolling blogodreck, and go to the U.S. Army Future Combat Systems page, which has better info. Video, even. Very dramatic.

And if you'd bothered to read the article, you'd know that they are developing eight variants of a single chassis. Given that the image shown is of a tracked vehicle, it's a safe assumption that the remaining seven variants are also going to be tracked. If you actually bother to Google "Future Combat Systems Brigade Combat Team" you get this page http://www.army.mil/fcs/ , which clearly shows eight tracked vehicles.

That doesn't seem like it would be very useful. How far can someone throw a backpack sized object, and how do they control the orientation of the cameras? Seems like you'd get a 3 second view of your immediate surroundings followed by a picture of the ground.

The backpack-sized UAVs don't actually fly by being thrown into the air (you could do that just tossing a camcorder up), they have a diesel engine and can hover around for about 15 minutes, sending footage back to the guy controlling it. See here and here for more info.

Redstone was the rocket that was used to launch mercury. The first flight was 1953. By 1957, it was our core missle launcher.
The titans started development in 56, with a maiden flight in 58. The Titan II had a maiden flight in 1962, and was designed for ICBM service. In fact, it was THE backbone of the airforce until 1982, with the last one decommisioned in 87. One of the old silos complexes is 10 miles from where I currently live (just 2 miles from my old home).



THe saturn I started in the US army's missle ballistic research as a way to launch space weapons AND BIG F****** nukes in 1957. The first flight was in oct. 27 1961. The saturn V was actually a derivitive of it, unlike the other 2 which used the one of the production line models. This was a 3 stager designed by von braun (as was redstone).

BTW, Until early 60's, Von Braun worked for the military designing rockets for us. In early 60's, he was converted MOSTLY to NASA, but continued to help the mlitary. It was part of the deal for his staying out of jail (or being executed, since he designed the V2). I am not denying NASA anything (esp. since I have worked for them as well as taught for NASA). But credit needs to go where due. Germany and The US Military is responsible for the early rocket tech that got us to the moon. Now, the capsules that NASA used was MOSTLY NASA, but even there, the military had done some early work that went into Mercury.

Another BTW is that most of the tech that is seen going into all the new indi's rockets come from NASA. Basically, they are standing on the shoulders of Giants such as NASA. But even Von Braun would also tell you that he stood on the shoulders of other giants, such as Newton and the Chinese.

"We are not trained to get municipal sewer system running."

I've had this document linked at my site for a long time:
http://www.usace.army.mil/publications/eng-manuals /em1110-1-4008/c-3.pdf

I think the US Army had something to do with its creation, and I don't expect you to read or understand it.

If they wanted you to kill somene as "part of the job"... would you?

Depends on the job, doesn't it?

It still ultimately comes down to your moral and legal responsibility. But for most people, it doesn't take that much rationalizing to find a set of circumstances to justify any "obviously immoral" action.

The point isn't that OPSEC is necessary, as many are simplistically framing this argument. This issue -- which isn't really denied -- is largely tangental to the new regulation changes. Rather, it's the fact that soldiers, contractors, their families, friends, etc. are no longer trusted to apply what they already know about OPSEC. Rather, they are being compelled into draconian security measures which do little to increase OPSEC, and much to increase censorship.

Every soldier knows that OPSEC is necessary and has been trained thoroughly on how to comply with OPSEC regulations. Soldiers in a combat zone know very well what they can and cannot say to people back home, and are professionals about it. Whenever there's even a smidgen of a potential OPSEC issue on a military forum, I have seen other soldiers chime in "OPSEC!" quite loudly, usually resulting in a thoughtful explanation of why the issue in question wasn't an OPSEC violation, or, in rare cases, an editing of the original post. Oftentimes the reason is that the media has already disclosed the information in question, which is, therefore, a matter of public record.

I run an online weblogging community for soldiers, and have interacted with hundreds of soldiers over the past few years. During that time period, not a single soldier has said anything so glaringly in violation of OPSEC. They don't telegraph their actions in such a detailed, explicit manner. Frankly, they rarely talk about where they are going until after they've arrived.

The wording of this new policy makes little to no difference in the level of OPSEC for soldiers who are currently deployed overseas, as compared to the previous policies. Rather, it specifically expands the level of OPSEC for soldiers and civilians who are at home. Under these new regulations, returned soldiers, contractors, families, and friends (i.e. me) of soldiers are all required to have everything they say pre-screened.

Well, as a civilian with free speech rights and a friend of many soldiers, I have to say no. Not just no, but hell no.

I have been maintaining a blog for over seven years now, and because of my unique situation, I have been in touch with numerous soldiers. I have also had the priviledge of making blog posts which matter, such as this one, where a friend of mine in the military specifically told me about this issue of Field Artillery Magazine, where it specifically says that white phosphorus was used in Fallujah for lethal "shake and bake" missions.

Prior to my "discovery" of this article, the U.S. State Department loudly proclaimed from their website that claims of WP attacks on Fallujah were merely enemy propaganda, and that it had been used for illumination purposes only. Afterwards -- and after I commented / spread the news to every blog on Technorati I could find that was discussing Fallujah -- the media picked up the story and the State Department corrected their statement.

In other words, your government lied to you, and it took an honest soldier citing public -- yet not widely known -- information to correct that lie.

This, by the way, is usually the way most of us get access to the truth. It took soldiers coming forward to bring out the truth of Abu Ghraib. It took soldiers and their families coming forward to expose the fact that they were being sent into harm's way without proper body armor. It took a soldier coming forward in a speech by Donald Rumsfeld to put an end to improvised "hillbilly armor" on Humvees.

So, if you want to defend proactively requiring them -- and I, as a friend of such soldiers -- from posting anything without prior approval from the powers that be, fine. Just expect to be kept in the dark and lied to a *LOT* more than you already are, and expect the negative, scandalously dangerous, unsafe, and irresponsible effects of poor government policies to get swept unde

Your comment is an overstated generalization that isn't particularly relevant to the issue at hand.

The point isn't that OPSEC is necessary. Every soldier knows that OPSEC is necessary and has been trained thoroughly on how to comply with OPSEC regulations. Soldiers in a combat zone know very well what they can and cannot say to people back home, and are professionals about it. Whenever there's even a smidgen of a potential OPSEC issue on a military forum, I have seen other soldiers chime in "OPSEC!" quite loudly, usually resulting in a thoughtful explanation of why the issue in question wasn't an OPSEC violation, or, in rare cases, an editing of the original post. Oftentimes the reason is that the media has already disclosed the information in question, which is, therefore, a matter of public record.

I run an online weblogging community for soldiers, and have interacted with hundreds of soldiers over the past few years. During that time period, not a single soldier has said anything so glaringly in violation of OPSEC. They don't telegraph their actions in such a detailed, explicit manner. Frankly, they rarely talk about where they are going until after they've arrived.

The wording of this new policy makes little to no difference in the level of OPSEC for soldiers who are currently deployed overseas, as compared to the previous policies. Rather, it specifically expands the level of OPSEC for soldiers and civilians who are at home. Under these new regulations, returned soldiers, contractors, families, and friends (i.e. me) of soldiers are all required to have everything they say pre-screened.

Well, as a civilian with free speech rights and a friend of many soldiers, I have to say no. Not just no, but hell no.

I have been maintaining a blog for over seven years now, and because of my unique situation, I have been in touch with numerous soldiers. I have also had the priviledge of making blog posts which matter, such as this one, where a friend of mine in the military specifically told me about this issue of Field Artillery Magazine, where it specifically says that white phosphorus was used in Fallujah for lethal "shake and bake" missions.

Prior to my "discovery" of this article, the U.S. State Department loudly proclaimed from their website that claims of WP attacks on Fallujah were merely enemy propaganda, and that it had been used for illumination purposes only. Afterwards -- and after I commented / spread the news to every blog on Technorati I could find that was discussing Fallujah -- the media picked up the story and the State Department corrected their statement.

In other words, your government lied to you, and it took an honest soldier citing public -- yet not widely known -- information to correct that lie.

This, by the way, is usually the way most of us get access to the truth. It took soldiers coming forward to bring out the truth of Abu Ghraib. It took soldiers and their families coming forward to expose the fact that they were being sent into harm's way without proper body armor. It took a soldier coming forward in a speech by Donald Rumsfeld to put an end to improvised "hillbilly armor" on Humvees.

So, if you want to defend proactively requiring them -- and I, as a friend of such soldiers -- from posting anything without prior approval from the powers that be, fine. Just expect to be kept in the dark and lied to a *LOT* more than you already are, and expect the negative, scandalously dangerous, unsafe, and irresponsible effects of poor government policies to get swept under the rug.

So yes, go ahead and argue for censorship. You might as well be arguing for security through obscurity, however, and we all know how well that argument holds up around here.

Yes, there is a place for secrecy regarding security matters, but that place is limited. You don't announce the gaping hole in

This is on the Army's network. Youre only on the Army's network when youre at work or when youre on TDY.
If your spouse is using a workstation connected to the army network, then they would obviously fall under the same rules.

Did you know that if you plug personal hardware into an Army workstation (mp3 player, usb flash, keyboard, whatever) then the army takes ownership of it?
[sarcasm]THE ARMY IS STEALING EVERYTHING YOU OWN!![/sarcasm]

These are old regs that have been slightly modified and affect no one outside of work. Slow news day + popular distrust of the government = this article. The its a shock-piece and little more.

By the way, you can get the document that wired "obtained" from this public website:
http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/
because the Army is trying to secretly stifle the rights of its workers.

The biggest problem I had with it is they did the test on a boat trailer and not actually in the water. They assumed that a moving boat in water performs the same as a moving boat on a boat trailer and my novice understanding of hydraulics would tell me that the test would have been vastly different if they had actually recreated the test in the water with a boat being propelled by an engine/propeller. A moving boat in water behaves more like something on rails. That is while moving through the water it would be hard to be pushed sideways even when bumping into an object. Air on the other hand (the trailer method) provides very little resistance to sideways movement.

Also, if you look at pictures of the actual boat from different angles it is apparent that it actually hit the channel marker on the nose of the boat and not on the side. It also appears that the boat was making a right turn and the angle of the boat was tilted right. There is no doubt that the boat actually hit the channel marker and cuased the damage in the picture. There is no disputing this even by the police/patrol. The question was how fast the boat was going to cause that damage. It was claimed that the boat was going 25 mph and the Mythbusters just magically said it must have been going faster than that because they didn't get the same damage in the experiment that in no way recreated the conditions of the original accident.

I believe 25 mph would have been close to accurate if you throw a couple of big block Chevys in the boat, set it at 25 mph and hit the channel marker head on while in a slight turn. Anything faster than that and I would expect more than a broken arm and a couple of other miner injuries by the people who were in the boat.

I just did a little google searching and it appears I am not alone in thinking this was bogus:
http://community.discovery.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/ 9401967776/m/7701992688

Original images:
http://www.cockpitgps.com/bgpsnavweb/basicGPSnavig ation_files/image008.jpg
http://www.apg.army.mil/sibo/fountain.htm

Extremely poor episode in my opinion.

(I'm the cowtard stanwoman)

Yes indeed, we have to thank Suez for that. UN started trying to do peacekeeping instead of actively intervening in wars. You are correct - this is the first piecekeeping mandate.

Before that UN tried to actively get involved in war on the ground in Korea: http://korea50.army.mil/history/factsheets/allied. shtml. 15 countries under UN mandate to be more exact with the UN secretary general at the time actively involved in lobbying for troops.

I seriously doubt that. That would then mean that most people you know in that age group are already serving, veterans, or are in law enforcement/protection. I don't know about you, but out of all the people I know I would say that less than 10%, more likely less than 5%, fall into those categories.

Now for some numbers!
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos /us.html
Manpower available for military service: males age 18-49: 67,742,879 (Fit: males age 18-49: 54,609,050)

http://www.armyg1.army.mil/hr/demographics/FY05%20 Army%20Profile.pdf
Total Army Strength: About 1 million

So even if you increase that 10 fold, that's nowhere near 'most' of that age group. I can very well say that 'most' of that age group can be concerned about a draft.

The Armys FBCB2 and, by extension, Blue Force Tracking systems are all Linux-based. Although I haven't heard an official engineering justification for using Linux in favor of a homegrown embedded OS or mobile Windows OS, but I can tell you that the computers that run FBCB2 are slow as hell these days. The Army had the technology developed years ago and used the best technology available at the time. The computers involved in that technology are outdated, but there is no real need to upgrade a working system and incremental performance boosts do not justify the cost, labor, and troubleshooting upgrades in processors, memory, and software.
Additionally, providing power to a computer in the field is a real problem. While bringing generators, spare batteries, and solar panels is the only solution to the problem itself, we can reduce downtime and maintenance time by keeping processor speed at a minimum. The same logic applies to portable gaming consoles and laptops; while it's possible to build a 3 GHz Game Boy, you wouldn't be able to power it for long enough to be portable or playable.
Yet another problem frequently encountered by is the heat. We're not talking your overclocked gaming rig with two video cards, we're talking Iraq, where summer temperatures can exceed 140 degrees Fahrenheit and even hotter inside vehicles once the air conditioning fails (and sadly, it does fail in the HMMWV sometimes). I surprised FBCB2 hasn't made it into LinuxDevices.
Here's a video of FBCB2/Blue Force Tracking in action.
Me personally, I wish my brigade got all that high speed equipment, but given I'll probably be sitting in front of a radio playing Quake on my laptop when I go to Iraq for 12 hours a day I guess that equipment won't help.

The Armys FBCB2 and, by extension, Blue Force Tracking systems are all Linux-based. Although I haven't heard an official engineering justification for using Linux in favor of a homegrown embedded OS or mobile Windows OS, but I can tell you that the computers that run FBCB2 are slow as hell these days. The Army had the technology developed years ago and used the best technology available at the time. The computers involved in that technology are outdated, but there is no real need to upgrade a working system and incremental performance boosts do not justify the cost, labor, and troubleshooting upgrades in processors, memory, and software.
Additionally, providing power to a computer in the field is a real problem. While bringing generators, spare batteries, and solar panels is the only solution to the problem itself, we can reduce downtime and maintenance time by keeping processor speed at a minimum. The same logic applies to portable gaming consoles and laptops; while it's possible to build a 3 GHz Game Boy, you wouldn't be able to power it for long enough to be portable or playable.
Yet another problem frequently encountered by is the heat. We're not talking your overclocked gaming rig with two video cards, we're talking Iraq, where summer temperatures can exceed 140 degrees Fahrenheit and even hotter inside vehicles once the air conditioning fails (and sadly, it does fail in the HMMWV sometimes). I surprised FBCB2 hasn't made it into LinuxDevices.
Here's a video of FBCB2/Blue Force Tracking in action.
Me personally, I wish my brigade got all that high speed equipment, but given I'll probably be sitting in front of a radio playing Quake on my laptop when I go to Iraq for 12 hours a day I guess that equipment won't help.

The Armys FBCB2 and, by extension, Blue Force Tracking systems are all Linux-based. Although I haven't heard an official engineering justification for using Linux in favor of a homegrown embedded OS or mobile Windows OS, but I can tell you that the computers that run FBCB2 are slow as hell these days. The Army had the technology developed years ago and used the best technology available at the time. The computers involved in that technology are outdated, but there is no real need to upgrade a working system and incremental performance boosts do not justify the cost, labor, and troubleshooting upgrades in processors, memory, and software.
Additionally, providing power to a computer in the field is a real problem. While bringing generators, spare batteries, and solar panels is the only solution to the problem itself, we can reduce downtime and maintenance time by keeping processor speed at a minimum. The same logic applies to portable gaming consoles and laptops; while it's possible to build a 3 GHz Game Boy, you wouldn't be able to power it for long enough to be portable or playable.
Yet another problem frequently encountered by is the heat. We're not talking your overclocked gaming rig with two video cards, we're talking Iraq, where summer temperatures can exceed 140 degrees Fahrenheit and even hotter inside vehicles once the air conditioning fails (and sadly, it does fail in the HMMWV sometimes). I surprised FBCB2 hasn't made it into LinuxDevices.
Here's a video of FBCB2/Blue Force Tracking in action.
Me personally, I wish my brigade got all that high speed equipment, but given I'll probably be sitting in front of a radio playing Quake on my laptop when I go to Iraq for 12 hours a day I guess that equipment won't help.

RADAR is extremely powerful transmission, requiring large, specialized vacuum tubes to create the necessary high frequency/high power transmission.

By way of example, OHSA requirements backed by law prohibit any civilian or military from being within the beam area dozens to hundreds of meters from certain RADAR transmitters operating in certain modes (eg aircraft landing assistance in low visibility conditions). Those same rules, on the other hand, allows humans to be within a few feet of the beam of a cell tower operating with all channels transmitting at maximum allowable power, an extremely unlikely extreme case operating condition according to the FCC (the beam will be narrow and parallel to the ground; you would have to be hovering above the ground. Yet military personnel get burns from RADAR while in tents 50 meters away when a sweep of a fraction of a second goes across their backsides). I think you're reaching here.

An excellent overview of the health effects of RF transmission can be found in the paper cited below.

For reference (pdf, 680 pages):
http://www.bordeninstitute.army.mil/published_volu mes/occ_health/OHch15.pdf

FCC:
http://www.fcc.gov/oet/rfsafety/cellpcs.html

well i don't know about civilian traffic but im sure that any provider that doesn't roll over would just get a simple visit from OH http://www.1id.army.mil/ these guys or related folks that can explain "MATTER OF NATIONAL SECURITY" to anybody that needs a lesson with a set of very high caliber "Power Points"

Really, what do you expect someone in that position to want?

I expect them to uphold their oath of office, "do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic." OK, that's not really his oath, it's for an officer and does not mention obeying the president. The president himself is bound by a similar oath. Violating the Bill of Rights is not expected behavior, it's disgraceful behavior and borders on treason.

Once upon an time, Republicans did not act this way.

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism. .... Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice ... moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

However, the combined cumulative effects of incestuous polygamy and living downwind from Dugway Proving Ground are beginning to exhibit themselves with a vengeance.

Aren't there already laws against unfair use of someone else's trademark? It strikes me that what this law may end up doing is making it illegal to say "My patented widget will turn your XBOX into a 100% effective chick magnet", even if that statement is 100% factual. There's got to be some existing legal argument why advertisers all over Known Space are not allowed to place the word "super" next to the word "bowl", even if the use of those two words is not even remotely infringing.

this.

Using http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=use%20possess ive%20with%20verb&btnG=Google+Search you find http://usawocc.army.mil/IMI/wg6.htm to be the first result. At the very end of the page, what's that say? Oh yeah, hmm. You CAN do that.

In this case it's not only wrong, but the s doesn't belong there at all. If you're going to grammar-nazi, at least do it well.

The highest point in Florida according to this page is Britton Hill, at 345 Ft. According to this page the highest city is 500 feet. The average elevation of the entire state is 100 feet.

From the Army Corps of Engineers: hot topic

The Herbert Hoover Dike was built in the 1930s to hold back water draining from lands within the watershed. The dike was built in accordance with the accepted engineering standards of the day. Today we have an improved understanding of how the materials with which the dike was built react to changing environmental conditions and water levels. Accepted construction standards for today are more stringent than those of 70 years ago. Recent analysis shows that if water levels in Lake Okeechobee fluctuate to very high and/or very low levels, the integrity of the dike may be compromised. Integrity is reduced as water seeps under the earthen sides of the dam.

Today the lake is at 10.166 Feet above NGVD29. Historically, the elevation of this fourth largest lake inside the US has been as little as 10 feet above NGVD29 (mean sea level as measured in 1929). Review the part above about "very low levels" again.

From Wikipedia:

Okeechobee is said to have been formed out of the ocean about 6,000 years ago when the waters receded.

The greatest potential for loss of life related to a hurricane is from the storm surge, which historically has claimed nine of ten victims. Storm surge is simply water that is pushed toward the shore by the force of the winds swirling around the storm. This advancing surge combines with the normal tides to create the hurricane storm tide, which can increase the mean water level 15 feet or more.

Now do the math. Even if your "one foot in the next 50 years" is accurate, one foot is very significant when high tide and storm surge is already enough to put a 150 mile wide swath of your home state under seven feet of seawater. The numbers I've been reading are not one foot. I'm hearing a meter or two. At that rate one good hurricane could remove the part of southern florida that survives from the mainland entirely. None of this considers an Atlantic Tsunami, which has happened and is predicted to happen again and would just wash right over central florida barely slowing down.

If you're reading this from south Florida, you should consider carefully your choice to stay where you are.

T.I.A. is also composed of over 57 commercial data bases under contract to the federal government, including OnStar, the company with surveillance cameras at tollbooths, that company (whose name escapes me at the moment) owned by the European subsidiary of Reed-Elsevier, LexisNexis, First Data (they have ownership of most financial transactions throughout America), along with far too many others.....PLUS inputs from NSA and NGA.....

Saddam gassing Kurds doesn't have much to do with defending the constitution.

In order for the populace to defend them from a tyranny of the federal government, I believe the ACLU is right, you would have to give people access to tanks, missiles, etc AND provide them with a reasonable means of obtaining said weapons, otherwise one could make the argument that the government is not giving people the means to exercise their rights.

At the risk of going wildly off the story's topic, I have to disagree. Look at the situation in Iraq. The terrorists (resistance fighters, whatever you want to call them) don't have tanks. They don't have missiles (unless you call the RPG a missile). They don't have body armor. But they seem to be holding their own. One might say they have a good chance of "winning".

Given a strong will to not be over-run, and the support of the population at large (go ahead and try to tell me that these people are able to acquire and plant explosives without being noticed) you don't need fancy weapons to hold back a vastly superior armed force, as long as that armed force cares about image.

Even that condition is debatable. Witness the Chechens. Their Russian adversaries don't seem to be nearly as squeamish to civilian losses as the Americans are (see Wikipedia's entry on the Battle of Grozny for a taste), but still the Chechens resist (3 Soldiers Die in Chechen Rebel Ambush). Granted in that battle (click here for one account and some lessons that should have been carried into Iraq), both sides had heavy arms. But here are some good quotes that help make my point:

One experienced sniper is capable of doing what will prove to be beyond the capability of a tank, gun, or entire infantry subunit: disable a commander, destroy a gun or mortar crew, control one or two streets . . . and, most important, instill in the enemy a feeling of constant danger, nervousness, and expectation of a sudden shot. Everyone fears the Chechen snipers in Grozny. . . . There are many cases where a sniper wounds a serviceman, and then kills the wounded person and those who come to his aid.[20]

The sniper could also use an RPG in conjunction with a sniper rifle. A real problem for Russian troops was identifying snipers who shot at them and then donned a Red Cross armband and mingled with the local populace and the Russian soldiers he was killing. To counteract this, Russian checkpoints began forcing the Chechen men to take off their shirts. Soldiers would look for bruises on the shoulder from weapon recoil, for powder burns on forearms, or for a silver lining around cuffs (from mortar or artillery propellant bags). They also smelled clothing for gunpowder and looked for traces of it under fingernails or on arms or legs. Russian forces also employed snipers, but not with the same degree of success as the Chechens. A March 1995 article decrying the neglect of sniper training attests to this fact.[21]

The correct mix and employment of weapons in the city were also important. Grozny was a three-tiered fight (upper floors of buildings, street level, and subterranean or basement), and the weapons had to fit. Russian tanks could not lower their main gun tubes and coaxial machine guns low enough to shoot into basements harboring Chechen fighters. To correct this problem, the Russians put ZSU-23-4 self-propelled, multi-barreled, antiaircraft machine guns forward with columns to fire at heights and into basements.

The use of artillery and air power in the city was counterproductive in many instances. Indiscriminate bombing and shelling turned the local population against the Russians. The locals included some Russian citizens who were inhabitants of Grozny (and who found it incomprehensible that their

Funny, my AKO account (which is provided by the US Army, a branch of the US Government) has the most ridiculous password policy I've ever seen. It has to be 10 characters long, expires every 150 days, and must contain at least two lower case letters, uppercase letters, numbers, AND symbols. I guess they don't realize that be mandating what 8 of the 10 characters have to be they've actually reduced the number of possible combinations.

Oh, and it gets better. In order to change this password, you have to log in with a special access card. The card itself is not hard to obtain (at least I'm pretty sure it's just the Military ID)... trouble is, being a reservist I don't exactly have a CAC reader setting at home. So now that my absolutely ridiculous password has expired, I just can't access the mandatory system. Absolutely brilliant.

Reference: Page 2 of this PDF

So they're over the schedule and over their budget, but at least they got the pc game out in time. Beat that, Duke Nukem Forever!

Well google building here. https://www.nwp.usace.army.mil/op/d/thedalles.asp
Now that the smelters are all shutdown there is a lot of excess power here. And it's cheap, clean and a damn nice place to live.
http://utterlyboring.com/archives/2005/03/20/why_i s_google_building_in_the_dalles.php

For what it's worth, The maker of the Silly String brand, Just for Kicks Inc. is in Watertown, N.Y., about a 10 minute drive from Fort Drum, home of the 10th Mountain Division. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army /10mtn.htm http://www.drum.army.mil/sites/about/hist-10mtn.as p And, no, we should not have invaded Iraq. We knew it then, we know it now.

In engineering, a useful aproximation for pi is 3.

Ah! That explains a lot of the USACE budget process.

FYI your insurance company didn't play a "card" and the judge had no choice in the matter (except to agree to delay without forcing you to actually go through the simple steps of forcing the judge to agree to delay). Servicemembers Civil Relief Act of 2003 aka The Act formally known as Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act of 1940. Check it out. Some very valuable information in there in regards to many things even beyond civil court proceedings.

See...everyone now n then those worthless congress critters do something good for us...granted it was mostly done in 1940 and only updated in 2003. And now they are back to stripping our benefits, taking our pay, cutting back the force while increasing the force commitments abroad... I find it entertaining that they pander to so many lobbyists and special interests to get voted in while totally forgetting the fact that the job only exists so long as the military is there to protect it.

There's good hardware out there. You can buy more rugged phones, especially for Nextel's network. The Motorola i530 meets the MIL-STD-810F ruggedness specification. It has all the usual stuff (camera, Bluetooth, web browser, etc.), it's much tougher than most phones, it's about the same price as most phones, and it's not much thicker. Available in black or bright yellow.

Shuttle PCs, the little breadbox units, are very well made mechanically, with good internal rigidity, support for cards on multiple sides, and a liquid cooling heat pipe system that really works in high ambient temperature environments.

You don't have to buy the crap.

The way that Iraq has been handled has turned it into a disastrous failure, with no apparent path out. Two years into the occupation of Germany, German police had taken over general policing and border control duties. The occupying force in Germany was under 20,000 men within two years of V-E, while three and a half years into Iraq the 140,000+ American troops in Iraq continue to be pulled back into fortified megabases as the rest of the country slips toward anarchy.

Total postwar combat casualties in the American occupations of Germany, Japan, Haiti, former Yugoslavia: Zero

On the domestic side, I continue to be shocked by the inaction of our elected officials as major elements of the Federal Government continue to do everything they can to remove transparency and accountability from the political process. I was brought up to believe that Republicans supported limited government, but I haven't seen much evidence of that since before 1996. Secret laws, intimidation of critics, ballooning federal deficits, blinding and willful incompetence at all levels of the governent... it's like a nightmare. All of the people who stand to benefit from a corrupt government are silent-- media, government contractors, officials, large corporations. The people who are afraid to lose their reputation and livelihood are silent. The media are fractured, manipulated, and have their own concepts of fairness and balance used against them to weaken their message. ...and the people who refuse to see what is being done in their names continue to raise a hue and cry about issues that don't matter while corrupt men continue to pervert the ideals that America stands for.

The Bush Administration has been a disastrous failure for America, and for the world we should be an example to. I wish I could trust that the Democratic victories in this election will produce a change, but I don't have a lot of hope for improvement in the near future unless we all work together to demand it.

>> Mexico is not and never was part of the U.S.A.

Parts of what are now the USA were a part of Mexico. For example..
1786-1821: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/atlas_mexico/new_sp ain_viceroyalty.jpg
1824: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/atlas_mexico/politi cal_div_1824.jpg
1835: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/atlas_mexico/war_wi th_texas_1835.jpg
And then there was that small matter of 1846-1848:
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/mexico/topo/Ch3.h tm

http://www.hannibal.net/twain/works/person_in_dark ness_1901/

http://www.hannibal.net/twain/works/missionary_cri tic_1901/appendixa.shtml

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/Kipling.html

http://www.hannibal.net/twain/works/disgraceful_pe rsectution_1807/disgraceperseofaboy.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tigers

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/brochures/72-38/72-38.h tm

http://www.tribo.org/nanking/

KFG

http://www.usajobs.com/
http://cpol.army.mil/
http://www.federaljobs.net/

There are more than a few army/navy/air force posts (and consulates) on the main island. They're mostly around Tokyo, to boot (usually across the bay). I would prefer not to be in Okinawa either (too many white people for me to be special), but at least it would be a foot in the door over there.
Most posts have enlisted personnel working overseas rotations, so after two years they cycle people out. They're almost always looking for new blood to bring into the federal system (as DoD civilians), so that is always a good time to go into overdrive when youre searching. It just so happens that there will be a large rotation this coming May, so set up some bots on the above sites to email you when a relevant job gets posted, kick back, and keep your eyes open ^_^

http://www.answers.com/topic/international-respons e-to-hurricane-katrina

http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/PAO/releases/15SeptC orpsMarksHalfwayPoint.pdf

http://www.luxner.com/cgi-bin/view_article.cgi?art icleID=1405

So now do your reading and shut up till you've apologised.

http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/PAO/releases/15SeptC orpsMarksHalfwayPoint.pdf

"Sadly, Mike Muuss was killed in an automobile accident on November 20, 2000. His work lives on in testament to his intellect and indomitable spirit."

Your comment is why I wade through the detritus of slashdot - thanks for bringing up a fascinating piece of history I'd never heard of.

I found a rather interesting ethical essay that argues (very convincingly) *against* using this data, even now.

http://www.bordeninstitute.army.mil/ethicsbook_fil es/Ethics2/Ethics-ch-15.pdf

This is government work. Nothing's being produced, only consumed.