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Sure, the number one thing scientist will is make 'helpful' viruses.. Maybe YOU should review the US annual expenditures in the areas of research..

• Residential Schools
• The Taliban, Iran, and Saudi Arabia
• The Sudanese civil war
• Kashmir (both sides)
• The Raid on the Golden Temple at Amritsar
• Air India Flight 182
• Aum Shinrikyo
• "Honour Killings"
• The Inquisition
• Pedophile Priests
• the Church of Scientology, Applied Scholastics, NarcoNon, et al

So tell me now how Ethics comes from religion? Ethics does not mean blindly following your leaders. You must examine the issues for yourself. A secular ethics curriculum gives you the tools to do that. It does not require you to give up your faith.

The following file contains a register that describes the weapons on order or under delivery, or for which the licence was bought and production was under way or completed during the period 1982 to 2001. This register also provides comments and some additional information on each deal.

As well as

The SIPRI Arms Transfers Project

only reports transfers of complete major conventional weapon systems. Thus, reports that indicate Iraq has obtained parts of a given weapon system, even if confirmed, would not be registered as a transfer.

I recommend reading "Body of Secrets" for an example just how usually "undercover" weapon shipments are made. A hint: It isn't a complete system.

Here, is another nice link that might entertain you.

Some quotes:

Iraq's generals hit back at the Russians by requesting that their government purchase an Anglo-French fighter, then one of the most advanced aircraft in the world. In my London office I received the call to begin unofficial negotiations with a British aircraft manufacturer. My exact mission was to determine this company's possible interest in supplying Iraq and to secure a six-per-cent commission agreement for my Iraqi associates.

Whatever contacts I had with intelligence establishments wanted more in return for their help than I was willing to offer. A CIA chum, however, recommended I tap the Peace Institute in Stockholm. They kept thorough files, he advised. To get at them I bribed the correspondent of an American weekly. This young man went to Stockholm and came back with the prize; he had copied all the price data they had on Mirage Fl sales. The Institute files were complete.

So yes, the French sold Iraq airplanes but it seems the CIA was very well aware of what was going on.

Here is another link from the BBC this time, again an interresting quote:

In fact, the UK arms trade has been mired in controversy since the 1980s, when British firms joined the scramble to supply Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

In the early 1990s, Coventry-based engineering firm Matrix Churchill hit the headlines when it breached an arms export ban by providing Iraq with equipment used by the military to build a "supergun" capable of striking Israel.

Following the arrest of Matrix Churchill's directors, it emerged that Conservative ministers had signed the export certificates.

They had also signed Public Interest Immunity (PII) certificates to try to stop the disclosure of documents which showed that the defendants had been working for British secret services.

The judge in the case refused to accept the certificates and the prosecution collapsed in 1992.

So the UK was activly involved as well. I guess they all did this on their own, not while Saddam was a Protege of the Reagan Administration?

And where exatcly is the US selling all these weapons to if they only sell to "friendly" countries as was claimed?

BTW, let's not stop at the BBC with the whole armstrade thing from back in the '80s. Here is a nice report from the Guardian about Saddam trying to

I've done hobbiest-class research into the topic of oil substitutes and here are two oft-neglected issues to keep in mind:

1) Energy density. It's hard to improve upon oil/gasoline's energy-per-unit-volume with economical substitutes. Hydrogen fuel cells don't have nearly the energy density of gasoline. (Fuel cells tend to be far bulkier for this reason, or you can't travel as many miles with equivalent space.) I suspect consumers would accept a car with a smaller range; I dunno about other applications though. Technology and mass-production may drop fuel cell costs, but improving energy density takes some serious physics/chemistry.

2) Saudi Arabia (and other low-cost oil producers) have plenty of room to drop the price. Sure, it's not hard to see plenty of economical substitutes showing up at $30/barrel (today's price, historically well above average.) And even matching the long-term average price of oil at $15/barrel is conceivable. But the Saudis can produce oil at costs of $1-$2/barrel. Now I'm comparing end-prices to costs here which is a bit unfair (so add a 50% margin to $1-$2), but even if a energy substitute could produce power matching today's oil prices, it'd have to reduce in cost 30-fold in order for us to long-term wean ourselves completely off oil. And that's assuming the Saudi's don't get more efficient in the meantime. At least from an economic standpoint, ignoring costs of externalities like security/pollution.

So I see alternative fuel use increasing, but I don't see oil vanishing from the picture in my lifetime (or my kids'). Heck, I'd be delighted if we just cut our oil usage in half in my lifetime; that'd be a stunning success in my book.

I suspect the Saudi's are just talking down their influence for current political reasons.

--LP, probably posting a bit too late to get mod points

AND... China spent this money even though large numbers of people in their own country struggle in abject poverty.

This is true. Sadly.

AND ...China spends a larger percentage of their GDP on the military than the US. According to the US government docs I could find, the US spends 4% of their GDP on their military. China spends 68-80 billion a year, which, although less money than spent by the US, is a significantly larger percentage of their GDP than US spending is.

Your figure is quite wrong. According to People Daily. The military budget for 2002 is around 166.2 billion yuan, while their estimated GDP for 2002 is around 10.217 trillion yuan. Therefore China only spends around 1.62% GDP on military.

While US spent US$343.2 billion on military out of US$10.4 GDP, which is 3.3% GDP on military - more than a double whereas in China.

What planet are you from?

I can tell from you nearly fictional facts and figures we are definitely not living in the same planet or dimension. :)

by the fact that your tax dollars (if you live in the US) are going to create a game which simulates basic training? it's one thing if a private company wants to do it, but don't do it with my money!

And what dent would not spending money on this have on the 399.1 billion dollar military budget?

The NYT isn't what it used to be. Which is good because they used to screw up much bigger stories than this one.

I know it's nitpicking, but I would take issue with this comment. Of course Brazil doesn't spend "hundreds of billions" on military - they don't HAVE hundreds of billions to spend (or the capability to generate that income by issuing bonds and expanding their debt). However, Brazil has in the very recent past actually spent more on their military than, for example, Israel.

This is the only chart I could find on short notice, and despite Brazil's figure being taken from 2001 while others were taken from 2002 they still managed to come in right behind South Korea (where there is a far more immediate military concern) and ahead of Israel (wow) in military spending.

Again, I know it doesn't approach US spending but the military is still quite clearly a significant drain on their budget...

Incidentally, we spend about $400 billion on defence, according to the Center for Defense Information, who appear at a cursory glance to be leftists of some sort (and thus biased in your favour). Assuming 260 million people in the US (that's low, I believe--we may be as high as 300 million now), that works out to less than $1,600 per person--quite affordable, and well within tax revenues.

I cannot find a record of the amount spent on Medicare and Social Security, but note that neither of these is in any way an appropriate use of tax dollars. The sooner they are thrown on the ash-heap of history the better for us all.

The US spends more than thirty three times as much on defense as its top seven potential enemies combined.

Not that I support the patriot act...

You might want to read up a little on the success rate. Here it says in Desert Storm they had a 70% success in Saudi Arabia and 40% in Isreal.

Here the us army seems to think that the new version seems to work. They also seem to think it works well here too.

The patriot missile is not some pie in the sky dream. It does work. It may not necessarily be 100%, but 40-70% is better and 0%.

I don't know the tech that goes into something like this for sure, but I'd imagine that it could also be used for something like meteors.

Can we believe the reports that tell us the next gen patriot is a great success?

During the first gulf conflict the U.S. Army which was in charge of the Patriots claimed an initial success rate of 80%.

"The results of these studies are disturbing. They suggest that the Patriot's intercept rate during the Gulf War was very low. The evidence from these preliminary studies indicates that Patriot's intercept rate could be much lower than ten percent, possibly even zero." (Statement of Theodore A. Postol before the U.S. House Of Representatives Committee on Government Operations, April 7, 1992)

Wait. You are talking about history here. Two things:
1) To know about this would require education. This is not something that Americans hold as a high priority. They would rather spend money on more important things like tanks, bombs and planes.
2) It's history. No one ever learns from history. No one.

Of course the support of those countries has nothing to do with this.

OK, here's a topic: Is the Patriot missile system actually working during Gulf War 2, unlike last time.

Rattlesnake poison is one thing... Aflatoxins are another. Aflatoxins are produced naturally by certain species of the Fungus Aspergillus, and have LD50s on the scale (around 100 mcg/kg) of Sarin, VX, and other related organophosphates.

Then there is also Ricin, commonly available in Castor beans, which grow wild in many places. When injected, Ricin has an LD50 at around 3 micrograms/kg. Plus you get the bonus of going through several days of high fever, organ necrosis, and gastrointestinal hemorrhage, before you die. Fun!

Then there's nicotine, easily available by doing an extraction on tobacco. When injected, Nicotine has an LD50 of around 1-5 mg/kg. So I guess that's a lot safer...

Lt Col Virgil Grissom USAF, Lt Col Edward White USAF and Lt Cdr Roger Chaffee USN. All died, as a previous poster stated, in the Apollo 1 fire in 1967. Apollo 1

On the friendly fire issue - no, not yet. The Canadian casualties (Canada's first combat losses since Korea) were in Afghanistan. Friendly Fire in the Afgan Campaign

In Iraq the US has only yet managed to kill American, French, British and Turkish personnel. Operation Provide Comfort

Well, the information on this site is just HOT. So the russians made their TU95 look like a F16 to confuse the american air defence. Cool. I didn't know that.

FACT: During the weapons inspections iin the mid 90s enough Antrax and chemical weapons were found to kill the worlds population 3 times over.

FACT: At the time this was found, Iraq said that it had NONE.

FACT: Iraq is the only country to have used Nerve agents/gas in combat. (vs Iran) The effects are still being seen today.

FACT: Saddam ordered the gassing of his own citizens in Northern Iraq.

FACT: Iraq consisently denied a Nuclear weapons program throughout the 90s until the former head of said program defected and laid the evidence before the world.

FACT: During the inspections in the mid 90s, inspectors caught Iraqi officials in the act of driving parts of a Calutron out the back entrance of a facility as the inspectors came in the front. Calutrons are used to refine materials for nuclear reactions.

Also, see the following link Cdi.org for more information.

If you have information that contradicts that posted above then please provide it. If not, then please accept the fact that Saddam is not the cuddly teddy bear some would make him out to be.

WoodSmoke

I seem to remember reading about a Soviet 50 megaton nuke. A warhead of that size wouldn't be usable against ground targets, as the force of the blast would cause it to bury itself and reduce the actual damage--or something. I'm no physicist.

Anyway, the upshot was that these things would be far less economical in terms of distributed damage than lots of small MIRV'ed warheads.

Instead, supposedly, a Soviet nuclear attack would have been designed to blanket the US with a nationwide series of mega-EMP pulses prior to actual ground target attacks.

I couldn't find a good link, but a description of some Russian/Soviet delivery vehicles is here

The official number for the Department of Defense for 2003 is $380 billion dollars. (As with all that follows, this number is based on the president's proposed budget for the year. Congress wouldn't dare cut it significantly, though they often add some pork.)

Now that's ridiculous enough. It's a good deal more than we spent during the Cold War, more than any other country on the face of the earth, and several times that of all of our potential enemies combined. Meanwhile, we're slashing funding for social services.

Then there's another $17 billion for nuclear weapons, that politicians have thoughtfully placed under the Department of Energy budget, for a total of $396 billion. (Both of those figures, incidentally, are also from the CDI's website, only for FY 2003).

My suspicion is that the original poster probably got his numbers from the War Resisters League, which puts out a great little flyer called Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes. Their purpose is not so much to discuss year-to-year policy decisions as to emphasize the degree of the tax burden that is the fault of military spending.

They come up with a total figure of $776 billion for 2003. $437 billion is current military spending, which is the DoD budget, plus DoE nuke programs, plus portions of the budgets for other federal programs which are used in large part for military purposes (CIA, Coast Guard, NASA, FEMA, etc.). Then there's $339 billion in military spending: $57 billion in veterans' benefits and $282 billion in interest on the national debt (80% estimated created by military spending). Neither of those are discretionary from the point of view of the annual budget process, but they are definitely indicative of how runaway military spending increases our tax burden.

None of this, however, is particularly relevant for the original context of this discussion, because sales taxes are state and local, not federal. My personal opinion is that we can solve the whole problem by doing away with most sales taxes, which are regressive, and funding government primarily through a steeply progressive income tax (both personal and corporate).

chrisseaton wrote:

This is certainly a radical approach, and if it was some kind of research project I would love to have a look at it.

The research project was Millennium , from the late 1990's. What, you think Microsoft came up with "trustworthy computing" when they did that memo? Or that they started on Longhorn the day XP was released? They have been working on this scheme for a looong time. They had to build .Net just to have a distributed platform-independent development tool they controlled. They are literally betting the company on this.

If you ignore that it's Microsoft it seems to be a really good idea - all programs would be able to access all data from all sources if everything was in this kind of database they are talkking about - today we worry about copy and paste, drag and drop working correctly.

Yes, but unfortunately it is Microsoft. That means bugs, like the flaw in SQL Server (on which Yukon is based) that may well have eaten some of our nuclear materials.

Even if Microsoft made it bug free for once, they are the last people on the planet I'd put in charge of a world-wide distributed network. I don't know who would be safe to have administrate the thing.

To Microsoft:
The crown is not yours.
Footsteps drum a dirge of doom
By nuclear rage!

The world's great hero,
Dreaded God and Monster King,
Millennium ends.

The US already spends more on defence than the next 26 countries combined. With the Bush administration saying that they will not allow any country to challenge that superiority things could get VERY expensive VERY fast.

But then I'm talking from a country which is unlikely to be able to work on laser weapons or threaten anyone. The British military can't even stop combat boots melting.

Still, one ray of hope. We can hope that Saddam Hussein is using lots of British military equipment; that'll stop his armies - largely because their boots have become welded to the desert.

Best wishes,
Mike.

• does anyone actually believe the Russian promise to fund 30% (6 billion +) of the mission? Given their record with the ISS and the sorry state of their economy, I highly doubt it.

Does anyone believe the US promise to fund $14.5 billion of the ISS? Given their record with the UN and the sorry state of their economy, I highly doubt it.

Oh, plus Bush has already reneged. Perhaps if we renamed it the "US Anti Terrorist Orbitting Death Platform" it could get funding under the current climate.

Enough with the petty bitterness. Instead of casting stones at Russia for doing what we won't, why not spend some energy exhorting your elected representative to support, or if you prefer, to compete with them. If you're looking for suggestions as to where we could get the money from, how about a reform of tort law that cost $82 billion a year. Back in 1990, that is. Want to bet that it isn't $100 billion a year now? We could fund a Mars mission easily if we just stopped parasiting off of ourselves and start looking outwards instead of inwards.

Seems to me that the Air Force should have bid on the item like everyone else.

I know things are tight at the defense defense department these days, what with only billions of dollars to waste instead of billions and billions and billions ... but I'm sure they could have scrounged up the money for a winning bid. :)

Actually, I wonder if the reason the DoD can't seem to pass an independent audit, and in fact can only account for about a third of their budget, is that they're already blowing all their dough buying antique lamp shades on eBay.

There are always people who admire strength. Today in Russia there are still people who admire Stalin. In a recent opinion poll (try google cache) 9 percent of Russians list Stalin as their favorite politition. And 28 percent think he was useful for Russia.

-Bruce

Maybe I should have read a bit more on that site.

I hate being skewered, so I'll attempt to show why it's a bad thing.

To you and me, 2,000 US$ may be a somewhat trivial amount of money, but not everybody is that lucky. I'm from a country, with free public health care (it's alot better than the US version, but then again, that's not a difficult accomplishment), so if my doctor wanted to test me for that gene, it wouldn't cost me a dime (other than the taxes I pay anyway).

Now, what about the person in some poverished nation, to whom 2,000 US$ is more than a years salary? Should we just ignore his/her troubles, because (s)he is born in another country and is less wealthy than you and I? Hell, what about people from low income families in the US, who can't afford such tests and whos HMO doesn't cover gene-testing?

Do we have a moral obligation to help the people less fortunate than ourselves, or are we only supposed to care for ourselves, our friends and family?

What price do you want to put on a human life? 500$? 2,000$? What is a reasonable price to demand for preventing a persons death, which is basically what it comes down to? Should Joe Suit at ACME INC decide if you live or die tomorrow on a cost/benefit decision?

These questions don't just apply to the patent on the breast cancer gene, but to virtually all patents on medicine and tests used for diagnosing and treating debillitating and/or life threatening diseases. The drugs against HIV and AIDS are very good examples of this; yes - it costs a bundle to develop these drugs, but why should the price for this development be paid for by the countries who can afford it, so the price of the medicines are kept at production cost only? Maybe even dispenced for free?

In 2000, the US poured a lot of money into the federal support for education, job training, crime prevention and environmental protection. Around 97 billion dollars. 97,000,000,000 dollars*. Of course it spent 292 billion dollars on the military that very same year. It will be spending almost 400 billion dollars on the military in 2003.

Now maybe, just maybe, some of that money could be used to help mankind, instead of oppressing it? Yes, I know, "we're not an oppressive regime", but if that was the case, then why on earth would someone want to smash a couple of airliners into some "symbolic" buildings in the US? It would appear to me, that not everyone has the same idea as to what makes an oppressive regime as you

Maybe if the US spent some money on doing good for all of mankind, those wingnuts, of whom the US have its own share, wouldn't be as interested in blowing your stuff up.

I have failed to show, "that the information would get into the public domain sooner by your alternative method of spurring research", but then again, as things are right now, the information for detecting the breast cancer gene isn't in public domain, 'cause last I checked, I had to pay royalties to the company - that's not public domain - that's called taxing and highway robbery.

No, I cannot show, that my ideas are better than the current ones, but that wasn't my point; my point was and still is to spurr a debate about the current patent situation, and at that I have failed (even though my original post was modded up to 5).

Some say, that you can't just bring out the bad examples and debate on those, but I think you can. Raise the lowest common denominator, and everybody gains from it. Debating the well being of a populations income by ignoring the people living below the "poverty border" (as the UN so aptly calls it) does noone any good (except the people who have no interest in helping anyone but themselves), and as such we need to have a debate on the merrits of not the patents themselves, but on which things should be patentable and which things should be funded by nations as a whole and owned by everyone.

*Damnit - I can't find the figures to support that claim.

Oh gosh no. It makes perfect sense. We all know that the war against Afghanistan is to provide American Oil Companies with a pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan". The photo is just one reporter behind enemy lines at Disney trying to get the truth out.

There will be a lot more oil on the market soon, because the Russian market is opening up (now that they can make a profit). Russia will be a significant threat to OPEC production limits.

Well I was talking about the us. (think I mentioned that in my post, maybe not obvious enough). But actually, I have read the same for europe, in that most R&D spending goes mostly to military. Do you have reference links for your claims?

This article (page 4, sorry, its a pdf) shows clearly that the US spend way more money than anyone else on defense, which supports your case. From this article:

Currently, the EU pumps about 2% of its gross domestic product, or some $205 billion, into the military, vs. the U.S.'s $343 billion, or some 3% of GDP.

A one percent difference does not seem that big. I am not sure how to take these figures. I mean the almost 1.5 billion difference is significant . .. but, in terms of percentages it seems that there is not a huge difference in effort being spent on military. Dunno, do you have more info? or a better analysis of these statistics?

1. "Stealth ships" are a blue-water navy idea.
   
   • Here, you're half right. But the technologies that arose from the development of Lockheed's Sea Shadow are being implemented into current designs, such as the DD-21 Land Attack Destroyer and the LPD-17 San Antonio Class Amphibious Ship, as seen by their sloping sides and angled exhaust stacks.
     
   
   
2. Armor matters more.
   
   • Interesting you say this, since most modern ships are lightly armored. (Not armed - note the distinction.) Witness the gaping hole in the side of the USS Cole from a small boat of explosives. And many people would say that stealth matters immensely as more and more rogue states acquire castoffs from the former Soviet Union.
     
   
   
3. There's a good argument for heavily armored battleships for shore bombardment...
   
   • The ERGM (scroll down for a description of it) has a range far greater than any 16-inch gun ever did. In addition, guided munitions such as the Tomahawk and the ERGM are much more accurate and precise than 16-inch gunfire is, allowing for fewer shells fired and less chance of friendly fire casualties.
     
   
   
4. The U.S. Navy had an "arsenal ship" concept in the early 1990s, but never built any.
   
   • The Navy is still reviewing this design, actually - you can see an overviews, histories and diagrams of it here, here, and here. One of the many, many reasons that it is currently in limbo has to do with a proposed plan to retrofit some of the oldest Ohio-class submarines to carry 154 Tomahawks and a SEAL team, which would duplicate the effort being expended to design an arsenal ship. The DD-21 is another duplication of effort issue further muddying the outlook for the arsenal ship, as its explicit job is land attack.
     
   
   

It is not necessary to go abroad to make something useful for the world.

As you live in a democracy, you can encourage the people you voted for to change some politics that the USA have and that are the source of a lot of pain in the poor countries.

The first things that come to my mind are the number of international treaties that the USA have not signed :

1. the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)

2. the Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC). All countries except for the United States and Somalia have ratified it.

3. the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

4. the ban on antipersonnel landmines (the Ottawa Treaty)

5. the Kyoto Protocol

6. the Law of the Sea Treaty

All those treaties, if signed and applied, can make the world a better place for poor citizens of poor countries.

There are also a number of treaties thatthe US has stripped to signe them.

NOTE : Don't get me wrong, I am not your basic anti-US socialist european. In the numerous talks I had with people after the 11th september, I was always blaming those who said "It's their fault ! Good for them". I was (am) also defending the action against the taliban (except for the use of some nasty bombs).
But, being a supporter of the US must not hide that it's a BIG SHAME to have not signed, ratified and applied those treaties at least !

PS : sorry if some info is outdated, do not hesitate to notify me.

Having said that, the current thought in naval design is a balance between low manpower automation USS Yorktown Smart Ship and the arsenal ship and manpower for flexibility and most importantly, damage control

The USA killed ~7000 innocent Somalian civilians in -93 while failing to kill one single warlord.

Stop showing your ignorance. You may not have liked the Somalian mission, but lets be honest about what the mission was. Killing Somalian warlords was *not* the mission.

Originally the mission was humanitarian, under Bush the elder- "open supply routes, get food moving, prepare the way for a UN peacekeeping force."
Under Clinton, in part due to the deliberate killing of 24 UN peacekeepers, the mission changed somewhat to capturing (that's right, *capturing*, not killing) one warlord, Gen. Mohamed Farrah Aidid, as well as commanders under him. If you find the deaths of 7,000 civilians deeply troubling, as I do, you might try reading BlackHawk Down to get some perspective on how such things occur.

You might pause to consider how (and if, of course) the USA should use its power when attempting to prevent a million starving people from dying due to the fact that food supplies can't get into a country during yet another civil war. Keep in perspective that while the US did sacrifice 34 of its own lives (and a billion or so in cash) and 7000 Somalis died, we were trying to prevent the starvation deaths which had already killed 300,000 Somalis, with the International Red Cross warning at the time of a potential 1.5 million deaths without greater food distribution. (I don't hear you trying to hold any warlords responsible for those 300,000 deaths now, do I? Why didn't the person who handed you that one-liner set of facts bother to mention them?)

Being concerned about the safety of food distribution (having watched rival Somali clans attempt to use food as a weapon by stealing, hoarding, and denying it to particular people), the UN first sent 50 unarmed monitors, then 500 security guards, then 5000, then ultimately 25000 US troops to insure that food aid could get through without being intercepted by warring local warlords. Yeah, USA- those bastards!

After it was clear to the US that its presence wasn't being effective (and the conflict was getting personal), it left, arranged for 25,000 UN troops from scattered countries to replace it, and after 8 more years, the UN has finally helped install Somalia's first government in a decade, the Transitional National Government (interview here). Meanwhile US food aid continues to stream into the country. Man, the USA really sucks, doesn't it!

--LP

Cost of about 75 cruise missiles fired on two targets in Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998: ~$75 million

Death toll: about 21 (source, source, source)

Cost per casualty (apologies): $3.6 million

Targets (you guess the cost): "suspected chemical weapons plant in Khartoum, Sudan, and a terrorist training complex in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border. "

-

Dirty deeds done dirt cheap:

Cost of full-fare airline ticket purchased by one of the hijackers (this is from memory): $2,499

Implied rough maximum cost for 18 hijackers: $44,982

Death toll: more than 6,000

Cost per casualty (apologies): less than $7.50

Estimated cost to U.S. economy, according to Economy.com: about $70 billion

-

They just need to get us to keep firing cruise missiles ($1m), dropping JDAM smart bombs (~$17k - src: WSJ last Fri.) and firing Maverick air to surface missiles (~$120K, ibid).

Wow, I'm glad to hear that the only real problem Microsoft is having is a hemorrhage of version numbers :)

As far as nuclear material goes, I quote from the horse's mouth:

More sophisticated tests conducted by KI RRC did confirm that execution of ?SELECT? with ?ORDER BY? statements by SQL Server v.6.5 ?randomly? fails depending upon format of data used in both SELECT and WHERE parts of statements, number of records in resulting data sets, and type of hardware used - CPU frequency, RAM volume and type of HDD used. Minimal size of data set with detected problems in execution of such statements was 5 records. Maximal size of data set achieved in a course of tests for detection these problems was about 100 ths. records. This flaw was detected with the highest frequency on PC with CPU 100-200 Mh and 400-500 Mh with RAM 32-64 Mb.

So, please let me know how the customer's poor query design is causing random failures that vary based on the amount of data and even the hardware used? Microsoft even admitted that this was a bug in their software which they didn't know about until it was discovered in this manner. To somehow blame the victim for this problem is utterly amazing - you must work somewhere in Redmond.... The workaround mentioned was to reformat the data involved (a huge application rewrite), or to upgrade to SQL server 7.0 which had some security problems that were unknown to Microsoft until the Russians figured them out.

I believe the story is coming to the 'Happy End'. But I have no idea that 'Happy End' means except restoration of KI-MACS functionality and operating status we are doing. No additional discoveries of flaws and gaps in Microsoft SQL Server to be expected every day, can change the picture - selection of the Microsoft SQL Server as a backbone for computerized nuclear material accounting systems was a big error for both sides.

SELECT @X = id FROM sysobjects
WHERE id > 0 AND type = 'P'
ORDER BY id DESC

select @X = 0
SELECT @X = id FROM sysobjects
WHERE id > @X AND type = 'P'
ORDER BY id DESC

A complete synopsis of the email exchange released by the Center for Defense Information reveals that the flaws in Microsoft's SQL server were serious, and seriously affected both the American and Russian systems for tracking nuclear materials.

Nuclear material may or may not have been misplaced or diverted. What is certain, however, is that currently neither country has complete track of its materials as a direct result of the aforementioned software bugs in Microsoft's SQL server, and the cost of reinventorying the materials will cost on the order of one billion US dollars for the United States alone. Furthermore, if materials have been diverted from within the US inventory, the diversion will not be identified by the reinventorying methods available. This situation is unambiguously a result of the problems both teams have had with Microsoft's SQL server, coupled with the fact that the bugs weren't identified until the project was well underway.

You may deny, deny, deny as much as you like, but the public record is clear and unambiguous, and, once again, the fault lies squarely on Microsoft's incompetent shoulders.

I'm all for M$ bashing - when they deserved to be bashed (and there are plenty of areas where they deserve this). But in this case, the article is nothing more than anti-M$ propoganda.

No. The article is either pro-Microsoft spin couched as innefectual criticism or profoundly incompetently written. If you check the referenced source material you'll find that, in fact, there were severe bugs related solely to Microsoft's SQL Server which have not only compromised the Russian nuclear tracking system, but even more severely compromised the American nuclear tracking system. What is worse, the Russians were wise enough to keep their manual system intact as a check, despite ridecule from their American colleagues. The United States, on the other hand, has had no manual system or check of any kind in place. Verifying the American stockpiles will cost on the order of a Billion US Dollars and will not detect any material which has already been diverted.

Los Alamos has verified the bugs, both in the version of SQL server the Russians were using and in the version Microsoft recommended they upgrade to.

Microsoft spin and apologist propoganda aside, this fiasco is real, has truly shocking and horrifying security implications for the entire planet, and is absolutely inexcusable. Of course, inexcusable lapses on the part of Microsoft and the quality of their proprietary products is hardly new or surprising, but it remains news so long as their shoddy products continue to dominate the market through marketing misrepresentation and public ignorance of the facts.

Read the e-mail exchange between Blair and the Russians here. Plenty of details on the problems with MS SQL server, and apparently both sides agree that this is pretty low quality software.

Further, Microsoft didn't offer a fix, as far as the document goes, they offered a workaround, that the russians rejected because it would mean changing about 5MB of source code.

Check the document, it's a long read, but it certainly looks like Microsoft is lyin^H^H^H incorrect.

In addition to supposed lost Russian nuclear material, actual lost US nuclear weapons and accidents are equally worrisome and more common than anybody realizes, with over a dozen VERY major incidents detailed here. There's even a monument to the 1957 Broken Arrow incident in New Mexico. If you've got $20 to blow, you can even get a nostalgic guided tour of all these Broken Arrow events narrated by Batman himself, Adam West.

Lost US nuclear weapons and accidents are a lot more common than anybody realizes, with over a dozen VERY major incidents detailed here. There's even a monument to the 1957 Broken Arrow incident in New Mexico. If you've got $20 to blow, you can even get a nostalgic guided tour of all these Broken Arrow events narrated by Batman himself, Adam West. Just for grins, the official US Government document for how a nuclear weapons loss is to be handled may be read here.

QUANTICO, Va., April 19 (UPI) -- The Marines are developing small robotic flying machines that can fit into a soldier's backpack and, when called on, fly across battlefields, sending back to him or her video images of enemy positions.

"UAVs have typically provided the upper echelon of military commanders with sensitive reconnaissance but Dragon Eye is intended to empower the foot soldier," said Jim McMains of the Office of Naval Research in Arlington, VA.

We don't want another cold war, DO WE?

Why not? War (or the threat of) brings out the innovation, creativity and effort that gives us technological achievement and economic prosperity.

I mean, we've got a freakin madman at the head of the US (let's not get into China here...), don't you see we'll be going into another near-to-apocalypse situation all over again?

You must not live in the US if you actually think Dubya is in control. And btw, historically, the only way to deal with communism is through strength and resolve. Don't forget, for all the "free market" reforms that exist in China today, that they're still ruled by octogenarian commie bastards in both the civilian and military leadership.

Let's see a true embargo. Our economy's already in the shitter, a little more pain won't really kill us, while it could quite possibly throw China's burgeoning (yet immature) economy into chaos.

China's the last of the important dictatorial superpowers. Better to confront them now while we still have overwhelming military and economic superiority and bring them into the light of democracy than later when they become an unstoppable force.

And before you fret about atomic holocaust, most figures place the Chinese nuclear warhead count at about 400, while we still have way over 10000. We can, if necessary, kill every single man, woman, child, animal and plant in the PRC in less than 1 hour. Check this table or do your own research.

Your Working Boy,
- Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)

But the really interesting report is the Postol/Lewis analysis, including detailed analysis of video evidence, is here

In the interests of balance, This is a response to it.

http://www.cdi.org/Issues/Nuk eAccidents/accidents.htm

Q: Why didn't you tell us about these problems last fall after the first test? I mean, why are we hearing about this now?

SR. DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Honestly?

Q: Sure.

SR. DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Didn't see then as problems.

Q: What? SR. DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Didn't see them as a problem. I mean, and maybe it's because we're lowly material developers -- you know, all we do is test. But, yeah, there's anomalies that happen on every test. And in fact, I would be concerned when we start doing tests if we don't have anomalies.

Q: The question is why you didn't tell us about the anomaly?

SR. DEFENSE OFFICIAL: My answer? Didn't think it was that important, to be honest with you.

Q: We were told last fall it was a successful test, things went well.

SR. DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Yes. Yes. And it did. And I will say the same thing. It was a successful test; went well. Were there anomalies? Sure.

Q: Well why weren't we told about them?

SR. DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Didn't think it was that big of a deal. To be honest, I --

I have to say that your argument is unconvincing. Even the link that you provided is a little sketchy. Many of the "incidents" described by this link involved nuclear weapons not containing fissile material. Nuclear weapons that do not contain fissile material are not nuclear weapons. They are only bombs.

This is not to say that any of the accidents involving fissile material are not serious. Contamination is very serious, and plutonium is one of the most deadly substances known to man. But we are not yet approaching the seriousness of a nuclear detonation.

The reason that I say that rising fuel prices would have more of an effect on undeveloped countries is because they do not have the resources to do research into alternative fuels. High oil prices would only speed the research that is already being done in the west to eliminate dependency on oil.

As for New Zealand. I did not intend to infer that New Zealand is an insignificant nation. My point was to say that New Zealand, unlike Iraq, North Korea and to a MUCH LESSER extent, China, is not about to have a war with the United States or one of its allies. New Zealand is not threating to invade its neighbors and is not threatening world peace. Nor is it ever likely to want to. That is why any statements that New Zealand makes regarding the politics of the United States are not going to cause much concern in the U.S.

Ha! Ha! Hahaha.. [wipe tears from eyes].. Sorry, at $500m they'd be flying off the shelf (excuse the pun). Lookey here.