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You're all missing the point:

It looks cool and futuristic (despite it's age)

This was my visual idea of 21 century warfare, you insensitive clod.

Yes, that is true. One of the solutions, coaxial rotors, are used in what is possibly the best combat helicopters today: The Ka-50 and the Ka-52 attack helicopters.

The Republicans have never been about keeping government out of your life. Whether the subject is obscenity, abortion, "family values", or smoking pot, the Republicans have been there to offer legislation to regulate the minutia of your behavior. They do claim to be all about reducing government, and they do talk about reducing taxes, but it has been the Republicans that have obscenely increased government spending since Nixon, and it has been the Republicans who have proposed new powers for federal, state, and local law enforcement that infringe upon our first and fourth amendment rights, and it has been the Republicans who have bypassed US laws (proposed by Republicans) to support foreign terrorists and dictators (Including Osama Bin-Laden, Saddam Hussein, Augusto Pinoche, Francios and Jean-Claude Duvalier, Manuel Noriega, Anastasio Samoza, Alfredo Cristiani, Mobuto Sese Seko, Samuel Doe, P.W. Botha, etc, etc, etc,) and murdered democratically elected leaders of other countries (Patrice Lumumba) incited coups against Democratic governments (Chile in 1973, Congo in 1964, Liberia in 1980, and a failed coup attempt in Venezuela this past April).

Many Americans choose to be ignorant this historical record because of the Republicans talk of lowering taxes, in spite of the obvious connection between increased government spending and a need for increased revenues.

Many Americans are aware of the historical record, are aware of the continuing illegal activities of our intelligence agencies (both abroad and at home), yet they choose to act as if blind to these things, will argue in favor of these actions, and will contrive to make life difficult of anyone who dare speak of them (if you do not produce documentation you are "crazy", if you do produce documentation then you are "dangerous").

TIA and ARDA are little more than our intelligence agencies and the current Republican administration conspiring to behave a bit more like the dictators they have traditionally backed. The intelligence agencies and the industries that are supported by them would like to see a return to the more lucrative days of the Cold War. They feel they are under threat as more and more people are scrutinizing their history using collections of documents released by the Freedom of Information Act, like those at the National Security Archive, EPIC.org, the Federation of American Scientists, the EFF, and probably more that I am unaware of.

Read this stuff, it is an amazing way to gain insight into the hidden workings of our government. Read about "the Church Commission to learn how the CIA breaks the law, hires the mob, and manipulates the media while harassing and murdering US citizens that they beleive hold "un-American beleifs". Read about the Iran-Contra affair to learn how little respect for the law our current Administration's Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Poindexter (among others) really have, and read about the cocaine importing that they participated in to fund their pet terrorists.

The current mood seems to support giving our Federal Law Enforcement and Intelligence agencies increased freedoms to invade our privacy while reducing oversight of their actions in hopes that this will increase national security and make our lives a little safer. The problem is that when you look at the record of their history, it appears that the opposite is much more likely to result, and that allowing the FBI and CIA increased freedom and power, might just end the

A really big stretch you're making, but I will ask a very simple question:

Would you rather have the Chinese military building human-tipped space capsules or Nuclear-tipped missiles?

For those interested in what is going on in government behind the scenes, don't always think people who post the kinds of things I post are all conspiratorial stories aimed at bringing down government through chaos. Hell look at sites like FAS, Cryptome, Arms Control, and the multitude of others. Many people point things out but too many are concerned with menial things such as Janet's boobs, Sex and the Shitty, etc., to notice the rug being pulled from under them. Hell most Americans think CNN and Fox are the holy grail of news. Get out there and read, know what's happening in your country. Check out BBC, Observer, Greg Palast, AntiWar, Chomsky. These people aren't being controlled via advertisers, not political pressure. I write sometimes too kooky assed documents, that some might say aren't worth a pot to piss in. Maybe so, but there is a reason for me rambling on like a madman sometimes. I care about my privacy and liberty. I don't want my friends or family growing up in something out of "Escape from Alcatraz"

Your delusional. China and Vietnam were/are sworn enemies. China invaded Vietnam after the Vietnam war. They regarded Vietnam (rightly so) as a Soviet puppet state at a time when Sino-Soviet relations were a disaster.

The VC did use some captured French weaponary but the impact was minual. The NVA regulars were all armed with Russian supplied AK-47s, RPGs, etc etc. The NVA ground forces received Soviet supplied SAMs to shoot at our planes. AK-47s and SA-2 missiles aren't made in France.

This aircraft appears to have the ability needed to do this based on this info found on this website: Rivet-Joint

There are also microwave systems:

AN/TRC-170(V)2 Tropospheric Scatter Microwave Radio Terminal

The heat generated by re-entry is because of the horizontal motion of the craft, but a projectile of this type would only have vertical motion with respect to the atmosphere, and therefore relatively little heat generated.

This is false. The heat is generated by air friction, which is a side-effect of travel through the atmosphere in any direction. The total heat generated between launch and target is minimized if you have a vertical trajectory, but chances are, Professor Richard Garwin crunched a few more numbers than you did. Furthermore, firing directly toward the Earth from geosynchronous orbit will almost guarantee that you miss the planet, because your projectile still has all of the angular momentum associated with the orbit. If you decrease the distance from Earth's center by a factor of 5, you will increase the angular velocity correspondingly.

Given that the military already uses kinetic kill technology (horizontally fired from vehicles, no explosives) that are able to penetrate main battle tank armor, why would dropping a similarly size projectile from orbit (wouldn't the terminal velocity be tremendous) be less than traditional explosives?

Garwin may be ducking the possibility that the rods would be used to penetrate small, hardened targets. However, you can estimate the energy difference yourself: 1 kg of TNT yields 4.184x10^6 Joules (this is a standard unit of explosive power), and higher-quality explosives may do substantially more. To match that energy output, a 1 kg mass needs to strike at about 3 km/s, but it loses some flexibility with respect to how the energy is to be spent on the target. The bottom of this page has an explanation of the structure and function of kinetic anti-tank rounds (section 13.4.5.10). As others mentioned, your use of the term "terminal velocity" is flawed - the speed of the falling projectile is not meant to stabilize.

Why would you loft a laser platform into orbit and fire it through all that atmosphere down to a blimp, when you could just mount it on a large aircraft?

There isn't much atmosphere above the blimp. About half of the atmosphere of the Earth is located below 5000 meters, so unless your ground-based or air-based laser is really close to the blimp, you will be firing through more air molecules than the satellite. You also don't have to spend much fuel keeping a blimp aloft.

Again, from what I've been told, it's not hard to destroy satellites. They are orbiting at ridiculously high speeds. Wouldn't just releasing a cloud of marbles (or even sand!) in their trajectory, orbiting in the opposite direction, easily shred the enemy satellite?

First, it's kind of hard to hit a fast-moving target. That's why our missile defense system doesn't work. Second, there is a lot of space above our heads, and you would have to release your marbles in a very precise trajectory to have any chance of effectiveness - consider the space of all possible orbits, and compare it with the cross-section of your target. The marbles would have no guidance after release, and if you just dump marbles in orbit indiscriminately, the probability that they will wreck your own gear at some point in the future is about as high as that of their taking down your target of choice.

First, I'd note that the other legal signatory to the ABM treaty no longer existed by the time the US pulled out.

And while the ABM treaty was in force it was pretty much ignored by the Soviet Union -- they were building prohibited infrastructure without so much as a slap on the wrist.

During the Review, the United States emphasized the importance of Soviet violations of the ABM Treaty, which are a threat to the viability of the Treaty. Throughout the Review Conference, the Soviet Union gave no indication that it was prepared to correct the violations without linking their agreement to do so to unacceptable demands.

Specifically, the United States discussed with the Soviets its serious concern that the Soviet Union's deployment of a large phased-array radar near Krasnoyarsk constitutes a significant violation of a central element of the ABM Treaty. Such radars take years to build and are a key to providing a nation-wide defense -- which is prohibited by the Treaty. The Treaty's restrictions on the location, orientation, and functions of such radars are, thus, essential provisions of the Treaty. Hence, the Krasnoyarsk violation is very serious, particularly when it is recognized that the radar constitutes one of a network of such radars that have the inherent potential for attack assessment in support of ballistic missile defense.

In order for the Soviet Union to correct this violation, the Krasnoyarsk radar must be dismantled. The United States has been urging the Soviet Union for more than five years, both in the Standing Consultative Commission established by the Treaty and in other diplomatic channels, to correct this clear violation by dismantling the radar. During the Review, the U.S. outlined the specific Soviet actions necessary to correct this violation in a verifiable manner. The United States has also made clear that the continuing existence of the Krasnoyarsk radar makes it impossible to conclude any future arms agreements in the START or Defense and Space areas. The United States has observed a slowdown in construction, but this slowdown, or even a full construction freeze, would not be sufficient either to correct the Treaty violation or to meet U.S. concerns about the significant impact of the violation.
FAS link

Soviet ABM Treaty Violations

The total Soviet violation of the 1972 U.S.-Soviet ABM Treaty by the national deployment of some 10-12,000 SAM/ABM missiles and 19 battle management radars over three decades, the 1960s-1980s, is one of the best kept secrets of the Cold War. Two generations of Soviet NMD were developed and deployed: first, the SA-5 and Hen House battle management radars dating from the mid-1960s; second, the SA-l0 SAMs/ABMs and Large Perimeter Acquisition (phased array) Radars (LPARs), dating from the early 1980s. According to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Western conventional wisdom, the SA-5 and SA-l0 were only anti-aircraft "SAMs" rather than SAM/ABMs, and the huge battle management radars were only for early warning (and space track).

Documentation for the Soviet NMD system has accumulated since 1992 and more has turned up recently. On 14 March 1997, Belarus President A. Lukashenka stated that "the main military installations that protect not only Belarus but the western part of the Russian Federation are located on Belorusian territory. It is in Belarus, above all, that anti-missile defense systems are deployed" (emphasis added). Since none of the Soviet NMD battle management radars were located in Belarus, Lukashenka could only have referred to the numerous SA-5/10 SAM/ABM units located there.
Another link

Actually, we don't know that for a fact. We know that they claim to have them. We also know that they have enough plutonium to build one or two devices, and that they have a program to reprocess more. However, the regime's credibility is suspect, to say the least, and it is very much in their interests that the US and South Korea believe they have the bomb. The CIA has long felt that it is likely they built a couple devices around 1992, but we don't know anything "for a fact." Some analysts doubt their ability to develop a useful trigger. We probably won't know until they test a device.

(I know I'm gonna regret this...) You know, it's not like the Soviet Union, with whom the treaty was signed, ever adhered to the ABM.

You are right, you are going to regret this.
The ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty) limited the number and type (non nationwide) of ABM systems a country could have.
The ABM treat was resigned, in 1992. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) signed the treaty with us, the US. Of course, the US pulled out of the ABM in 2002. But the ABM never had to do with the weapon systems that "evil do-er" ever were after...
You can read all about it Here

Maybe if the Europeans didn't keep selling nuclear technology to nutjobs the US wouldn't feel the need to develop counter measures.

Starting in the late 1950s the Soviets began working on an nuclear orbital bombardment system that would bypass US early warning systems. There was also Salyut 3 in 1975 which carried a 23mm cannon that was used to fire at a target satellite

Indeed correct. A certain amount of...errr..enthusiasm is encouraged in the military, but outright teeth-gnashing fury is frowned upon everywhere except maybe the infantry. Even then, only when appropriate and control is emphasized.

There's a good reason that MREs come with Tobasco sauce

I thought it was because the crap they had in MREs tasted bland as all hell so as not to offend officers delicate palates. Could be multiple motives though... :)

I'd like to have somebody post as AC that has been in a tank for 4 days and taken these drugs. What does meth do for and to you? Exactly?

Never spent four days in a tank but I did spend most of a five-day field exercise in either an EFV or the back of a Hummer while tweaked out on meth. It makes the tedious, repetetive parts (guard duty, radio monitoring, or anything electronic warfare related*) much easier, but it starts to cause problems after a couple days of not drinking enough water or sleeping. The problem is that when you're given time to rest, you can't because you're still wired. The only choice is to not take any speed several hours before a rest break, but then you're tired for those several hours. It's really not a good solution for extended combat. I only did it the once, and swore I never would again. By day 5 I thought I was going to die. I was totally exhausted for three days after. While everyone else was enjoying the time off they gave us afterward, I was sleeping in the barracks. Not very efficient use of chemicals, if you ask me.

* EW is very boring. You have one guy (98J?)trying not to fall asleep while waiting for his radar detector to go bleep. Two or three guys (98G and 05H) listening to static on radios waiting to hear someone say something or use a morse key. Then you have one or two analysts (98C) filling out contact reports and waiting for the Golfs or DitDahs to come to life and start typing so you have something to analyze. I had picked 98C SigInt Analyst because I thought military intelligence would be interesting. Doh.

Your casualty estimate of "millions of Japanese and millions of Americans" needs a bit of refinement.

Let's look at the possible justifications for dropping nuclear devices on mainland Japan:

To win the war? The war was already won strategically, the peace process having already been begun at the time.

To prevent millions of casualties on both sides? Projected casualties for Operation Olympic, as predicted by senior military staff, ranged from 25 000 to 45 000. Subsequent, increased casualty predictions were made by politicians, not Generals.

To show off their shiny new toy to the Reds? Hrm.....

After all, if they hadn't nuked Japan and gotten a 10-minute surrender, Russia might have had time to get its commie paws on Japan, as it had Germany.

Note the phrasing: negotiated peace, not surrender. The Japanese were not offering surrender, just an end to hostilities.

So it's unreasonable to expect the leaders of the Japanese empire to have sought out the best solution for themselves? I don't understand your point here.

Do we have responsibility for what happened to Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Yes. Does Japan have more responsibility? Yes.

You make some good points, and yes, Japan was responsible for its own defeat in WWII because it made a conscious decision to start a fight. But the assertion that the Japanese Empire was responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki is diametrically false. There were numerous, non-criminal ways in which the U.S.A. could have easily won against the Japanese. In fact, the Japanese had already conceded military defeat and were actively negociating for peace when they were nuked. [1]

World War Two was a horrible period of human history, one in which even good nations did terrible things in order to prevent terrible nations from doing things even more atrocious. [...] And note: these were the good guys.

While Germany, Russia and Japan were certainly in the grips of terrible and atrocious regimes during WWII, calling the allies "the good, guys is a bit of a stretch -- even for the more 'virtuous' among them. [2] War is war, and the winners win. As Mae West said, "Goodness had nothing to do with it".

EOF

[1] While the supposed dilemma of "should we bomb or not" is a classic and controversial one as popularly presented, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is/was unambiguously and incontrovertably a war crime according to the terms of the Geneva Convention.

[2] Of course, my metric for judging a nation 'good' is probably overly harsh. I cannot think of a single nation since Magellan's circumnavigation of the Earth that I would qualify as consistently good (except perhaps for the tiny ones like Monaco, Andorra, Biafra, Tibet, East Timor et al, which may only be good because they don't have the longevity/independance required to 'do bad'). The Benelux nations and New Zealand come the closest in recent times, IMHO.

1. 1 @ Lockheed C-130 with T-56A-11 engines, $4,800,000.00 USD
2. Sheet metal to build Big Tank, $5000
3. Industrial grade castors. 50 @ $200/ea = $10,000
4. Welder 10hr @ $50/hr, $500
5. 60,000 Pounds fuel (6.5lbs/gallon) = 9230 gallons. @ $1/gallon: $9230
6. 36,000 lbs gasoline (8.66 lbs/gallon) = 4157 gallons. $1.75/gallon = $7275
7. 1 match. (less then a penny)

Ummm, so the EA-6B Prowler is nuclear capable too?

Wow.

But nice try to stir up fears by mentioning "uranium" How about pointing to a scientific study of DU toxicity (some have been done, by opponents of DU, even, and found what I have said above) instead of pointing to propaganda?

Although any increase in radiation to the human body can be calculated to be harmful from extrapolation from higher levels, there are no peer reviewed published reports of detectable increases of cancer or other negative health effects from radiation exposure to inhaled or ingested natural uranium at levels far exceeding those likely in the Gulf. This is mainly because the body is very effective at eliminating ingested and inhaled natural uranium and because the low radioactivity per unit mass of natural uranium and DU means that the mass of uranium needed for significant internal exposure is virtually impossible to obtain.
DEPLETED URANIUM A Review of the Scientific Literature As It Pertains to Gulf War Illnesses

But nice try to stir up fears by mentioning "uranium" How about pointing to a scientific study of DU toxicity (some have been done, by opponents of DU, even, and found what I have said above) instead of pointing to propaganda?

Although any increase in radiation to the human body can be calculated to be harmful from extrapolation from higher levels, there are no peer reviewed published reports of detectable increases of cancer or other negative health effects from radiation exposure to inhaled or ingested natural uranium at levels far exceeding those likely in the Gulf. This is mainly because the body is very effective at eliminating ingested and inhaled natural uranium and because the low radioactivity per unit mass of natural uranium and DU means that the mass of uranium needed for significant internal exposure is virtually impossible to obtain.
DEPLETED URANIUM A Review of the Scientific Literature As It Pertains to Gulf War Illnesses

But nice try to stir up fears by mentioning "uranium" How about pointing to a scientific study of DU toxicity (some have been done, by opponents of DU, even, and found what I have said above) instead of pointing to propaganda?

Although any increase in radiation to the human body can be calculated to be harmful from extrapolation from higher levels, there are no peer reviewed published reports of detectable increases of cancer or other negative health effects from radiation exposure to inhaled or ingested natural uranium at levels far exceeding those likely in the Gulf. This is mainly because the body is very effective at eliminating ingested and inhaled natural uranium and because the low radioactivity per unit mass of natural uranium and DU means that the mass of uranium needed for significant internal exposure is virtually impossible to obtain.
DEPLETED URANIUM A Review of the Scientific Literature As It Pertains to Gulf War Illnesses

Reminds me of a bunch of Acers that were shipped about a month or two ago to the retail store where I worked. They also had a "smart" system fan. Unfortunately, the "smart" part of the fan got screwed somewhere and the fan revved up to full speed and stayed there, not only making the blasted thing sound like a Chinook helicopter, but also venting out air at ludicrous speeds. It was bad enough that you could feel the air flow even 3 meters ( ~9 feet for the silly people among us ) away from the thing. And hear it too. Some sort of patch was released after we contacted Acer and that calmed the thing down, more or less. I'm still amazed the fan itself didn't shatter into a thousand bits mere seconds after power on.

I post anonymously because this was presented at the SOCOM SBIR conference in St. Petersburg yesterday. The president of Sierra Monolithics, Charles Harper, talked about a JSTAR based transponder (which he did not state was passive; but he didn't say it was active either) that they have designed and is in use in the Iraqi theater currently.

He stated specifically that the U.S. Boeing 707-based Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) working with a RFID transponder system created by Sierra Monolithics has been demonstrated to be readable at a distance of 10 Kilometers (is 10 Megameters ever commonly used?). So technically, this is RFID, similar I believe to the transponders in jet planes that transmit altitude and plane identifier codes in response to radar pings.

It's pretty well known that he had the chemical weapons at this time: the U.S. government admits giving them to him.

But he didn't have the gas that was used in the gassing of the Kurds. However, Iran did.

He attacked many other nations: Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran, and others

Yes, over a decade ago. Since then Iraqis have been starving to death under the burden of sanctions. The American invasion encountered paper-thin resistance from Iraqi troops. Even at its height, Saddam's regime was little more than an annoying ankle-biting terrier, not a real attack dog; and the ankle-biter's teeth fell out a long time ago.

The main thing I'm thinking is that you need to be able to send lots of people at once. What's the crew capabilities on the Seawolf? I didn't check.

(I'm quoting this fact file.)

The Seawolf has a crew complement of 12 officers and 121 enlisted personnel for a total of 133 crew members. She's certainly no slouch. :-)

I suppose if we're just talking about a passenger shuttle craft, it doesn't have to be as big as all that in order to carry lots of people. The reason the shuttle has to carry so much 'dead weight' is because it has to support the crew for awhile when it gets up there, but if it could just go straight to orbit and dump its payload of passengers, it can probably be a bit smaller and still carry plenty of people.

Actually, a large portion of the shuttle's weight is allocated to its cargo. I've been in one of the shuttle mock ups and they have MASSIVE cargo bays (about the size of a school bus). According to one source they can carry up to 8,605 kg (18,970 pounds) of mass to the space station when the bay is pressurized. Assuming an average weight of 200 lbs. per person, plus another 3 tons for a special passenger module for the cargo bay, you could carry about 64 people per flight. Throw in a little extra weight for various incidentals and you could probably arrive at a reasonable figure of 50 passengers per flight.

The Seawolf is actually pretty small compared to a deep-space vehicle, I think, because of that one small thing. Sure, you could stick some ion drive units on there powered by the nuclear plant, but how fast would it go, then? How long would it take to accelerate? That's the real question. :)

Small? At 353x35x40 feet, she'd be plenty large for a space born vehicle. In comparison, a two bedroom camper with kitchen and toliet is 40 feet long and about the width of a conversion van. Since a peaceful space vehicle wouldn't need so many crew (no battlestations), it would be as good as a luxury liner.

As for thrust, the Prometheus for the JIMO mission thrusts about 1 newton per second (one kilogram of acceleration per second) on a 10 megawatt reactor. According to the navy's specs the PWR/S6W reactor on the Seawolf can put out 220 megawatts of power. Assuming a linear increase in power, that would give our fictional Spacewolf a thrust of 22 Newtons.

Of course, I doubt that the military would be happy with 22 newtons of thrust. They'd probably want a more powerful fission drive. Options include NERVA, GCNR (Gas Core Nuclear), Nuclear Salt Water, and Orion drives. All of those have a very high thrust in exchange for a lower Isp than Ion drives. However, their Isp is still significantly higher than today's chemical rockets, and yet they can produce comperable thrust.

I'm curious enough about this that I'd be interested in seeing a breakdown of how much each component and system of the Seawolf-class sub weighs. I don't want anything classified, of course, but if someone can give this information I'd really be interested in seeing it.

I seriously doubt you'd get anywhere near those specs. However, if you strip out the weapons, the ballast tanks, the screws, the reactor rotors, the sonar and reduce the crew, you'll probably be able to save yourself a good fraction of the weight. Space versions of some of the above would have to be installed in orbit, but you're probably still saving yourself a bundle.

Of course, all of this is just facts and figures. None of this means that launching a Seawolf into orbit is a good idea, bu

The U.S. also has one of the most closed aerospace programs, run out of a not-so-secret Air Force base in Nevada that officially does not exist. Personally, I don't believe they retired the SR-71 without a replacement, and what sort of craft would exceed it's specs without venturing into space? When Boeing is looking at aircraft that can take passengers from New York to Tokyo in two hours -- and that happens to leave the atmosphere to do that -- what do you imagine the military is looking at?

They aren't launched on the shuttle anymore, but in the late 80s, the Magnum sigint satellites were. (source)
So was the Lacrosse-1 radar surveillance bird. However, current strategy is based around smaller satellites launched on medium-lift rockets. (source) So there likely won't be any more inelligence satellites carried by the shuttle.

They aren't launched on the shuttle anymore, but in the late 80s, the Magnum sigint satellites were. (source)
So was the Lacrosse-1 radar surveillance bird. However, current strategy is based around smaller satellites launched on medium-lift rockets. (source) So there likely won't be any more inelligence satellites carried by the shuttle.

Uh -

How about:

The B-70 Valkyrie Bomber

Mach 3, at 70,000 feet, for 4288 miles certainly seems like a supersonic bomber to me. I'm not sure what the payload was.

As you can see from the photos - this was more than a drawing-boards project. And I believe that it was in the air long before the Concorde. I believe that it was credited with forcing the Russians to increase spending on fighter aircraft capable of actually intercepting it, although it never went into actual production since it was susceptible to SAMs. Even today it would probably be the fastest bomber around.

I gotta admit though - crusing around at 70,000 feet has to be pretty neat!

What? They had an election 6 months before, which Allende won! And just before the coup, Allende was trying to organise a plebiscite. How were they not democratic? Because Chile refused to compile with the US-styled corporatised model of democracy? For your information, many people don't consider the US system to be particularly democratic. Here's a link by the Federation of American Scientists.

And even if we admit your charge that the government wasn't legitimate, how was the regime (Pinochet) that replaced it any more legitimate? You don't encourage democracy by making a country less democratic.

Would I also conclude by your omission of Iran that you agree that the US has overthrown at least one democracy?

In the Vietnams, the U.S. was not up for election. Ho would have likely lost in the South; to this day Ho is to the Vietnamnese like Hitler is to Jews.

Firstly, bulldust regarding elections. Here's a link regarding comments by Eisenhower stating that the Communists would have won the election fair and square.

WRT Hilter, Godwin's Law. But biting your troll, Ho did not indiscriminately slaughter six million Vietnamese in an attempt at genocide. Don't trivialise the Holocaust, Hilter tried to wipe out an entire race of people! Like China, Vietnam merely wanted to modernise without being taken advantage of colonially. And anyhow, US killed approximately 4 times more than the deaths caused by the Vietnam government after the war (most of which were due to boat people). Here and Here. If Ho was like Hilter, the US was four times worse - is that what you're saying?

The protesters were pro-genocide.

Your point was that the French government should have listened to the protesters because they were in the majority. Were they, if so details please. Secondly, are you saying the protesters were literally saying "Kill the Jews". If so details please. If they weren't literally saying that, please convince me that they weren't simply angry at the Israeli government (something that even Israeli Jews are so-called guilty of).

This is really lame. Everything I wrote two posts ago still holds. Gimme some facts, gimme some decent arguments. Not US good, communism bad. Not US good, France bad. You are allowed to disagree with your government if they do bad things.

As a decent human being, accept that the US has done some really good things and some really evil things in the past 50 years. Supports the institution within the US that do good and campaign against those that do bad.

Try to advocate a more democratic approach to life and consider war as a measure of last resort. Stop supporting governments and companies that abuse human rights, but remember that invasion is rarely the answer. And don't lie or mislead the public (hint Saddam was NOT involved with 11-Sep-2001 attacks on NYC) because beyond that lies chaos. And finally, don't get suckered in by the belief that governments don't lie or cheat. I know Bush says Iraq was invade to liberate its people, but most evidence indicates otherwise.

Note particularly the recon mast carried on the Canadian vehicle I have linked to.

Well aren't you the complete jackass!

Just why do you think the U.S. keeps pushing China to change that?

Do you honestly believe China would be making any efforts at all without U.S. pressure? Do really think the U.S. would just sit back and say "that's just fine and dandy" if they reversed course and decided to abandoned patents completely?

Of course you seem less interested in facts than masturbating your own inflated ego - didn't your mom teach you not to do that kind of stuff in public?

Digex, along with other major hosting and co-lo facilities, has had these kinds of systems in place for their datacenters for many a year. And yeah, most of them look like very non-descript office buildings - a great many I've seen are in warehouse-style industrial complexes, far off the beaten path of regular office space and retail properties.

You have to wonder if they're a little overboard, though; the military doesn't typically have checks that secure to get into specific rooms - not even TS/SCI environments. Though, to be fair, the military certainly has an edge on physical security.

I guess if you're really concerned about your data being physically secure, you could always co-lo out at Sealand, too.

From a vice president who is still being paid by Halliburton who are recieving billions in no-bid contracts (mild) to the politically motivated outing of a CIA agent in breach of Federal Treason laws (wild), and now this.

Hell, it's not my country so I shouldn't have to pay attention to this crap. But seriously guys, what the hell is going on?

Personally I think the Valerie Plume thing is going to kill them. The CIA have the spine to push this thing through.

I was part of a contracted three-man software development team that supported the Marines in Mogadishu, Somalia during Operation Restore Hope in 1993. We were there to make sure that a PC-based software application that provided deployment and redeployment support operated properly.

Our office was out of the US Embassy. Unfortunately the Embassy had been gutted so there was no furniture, no windows, no plumbing, and no air conditioning. There was just concrete walls and ceilings. Our toilet facilities consisted of a public plywood outhouse with half barrels beneath the seats. Once a day, the barrels would be collected and some diesel fuel thrown in. The contents would then be burned, usually upwind. The smoke added to the smell of decomposing flesh since the Somalians buried thier dead under piles of loose rock. Many nights there would be firefights on the other side of the embassy compound wall to add to our joy and excitement. The sand was as fine as talcum powder and blew everywhere. It eroded our keyboard contacts and so we needed to make field repairs to keep up and running. We slept in general purpose tents at the embassy golf course that was nothing but sand since the irrigation system had been looted. We got showers about once a week and laundry even less frequently. We had to deal with dengue fever and quinine resistant malarial mosquitoes. Thank God I was young, then.

All that said, it was an experience of a lifetime. We modified the Marine system to work with all four Services and that application is still around today. (Ported from Clipper to PowerBuilder/Sybase though) Gave me a real appreciation for the work that our Service men and women go through on a daily basis. We were only there for six weeks and it seemed like a lifetime. The Service people were there for months.

As long as US don't deploy strategic weapons on the moon who cares? As long as the moon is open to other countries for harvesting, science and recreation you can build the next Disneyland there if you want. Just stick to the signed and ratified treaties like other civilised countries.

The fact that you didn't post this anonomously would seem to indicate that it's not intended as a troll. That is a shame, really, since it contains so much nonsense.

The US is simply the pinnacle of the world's capitalist empire,

There is no world capitalist empire. (I do have to laught though, this might be the first time I've seen a reference to monolithic world capitalism as opposed to world communism.) A large percentage of the world has a more or less capitalist economic system, but that is a relatively recent development with the collapse of the Communist empire of the USSR, its vassal states in Eastern Europe, and client states in other areas. Capitalism is a popular economic system for a simple reason: it works better than the alternatives. Why do the think the USSR and Warsaw Pact nations collapsed? Communism is untenable in practice no matter how beautiful it seems in theory. As was pointed out in a book by a Soviet refugee, Communism is constantly being described as scientific, but if they had tested it out on dogs before forcing it on people they would never have done it.

the most glarying obvious example of what capitalism is really about: profit at any cost.

More nonsense. There are a great many rules which govern what companies can do in pursuit of profit in the US, Europe, Japan, and in most developed nations. There are more than a few trials going on at this moment of people who broke the rules in the US capitalist system, including for cheating their investors. It would be better if it happened more often, and some of the punishments were harsher, but it does happen. There clearly are rules.

the real agressors come from the country that makes and sells more weapons of mass destruction than all the rest of the countries combined. And for those interested in the competitors, Israel and the UK come a distant 2nd and 3rd.

Until death rays and tidal wave machines are perfected there are three types of weapons of mass destruction: nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, biological weapons. The US banned biological weapons in 1972, is destroying its chemical weapons, and doesn't sell nuclear warheads. We might sell weapons, like missiles, that could be armed with nuclear warheads, but we don't sell those warheads with the possible, and limited, exception of the UK, but thats fair since we worked together to build them in the first place.

As to conventional arms, you don't have that right either.

despite all the scare-mongering over 'Weapons of Mass Destruction'

You do realize that Iraq has both held and used weapons of mass destruction in the Iran-Iraq war (chemical weapons), and in suppressing Khurdish villages (chemical weapons), developed others (biological), and was working on the last type (nuclear)? These is no scare-mongering about it. That is established history, including by the UN. Iraq admitted it had other materials, but they "vanished", or to be more plain, are unaccounted for. Where are they? These are tons and tons of material missing. It is a lot, but it could still be easily hidden. If you are unaware of this, I suggest you catch up on your history. It is readily available to anyone who wants to know, but it would take a bit more work than sitting back and letting other people spoon feed you ideological rubbish.

And that's why the US targets societies with different value systems to it's own for conquering and assimilation

You've managed to get it completely wrong, again. It is the US that has been targeted, by the Islamist extremist known as Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda used Afghanistan for its refuge, and effectively ran it as a "state within a state." The US traced the terrorists back to their layer, and dealt with them there. In the process we liberated Afghanistan from a vile, oppressive regime. If you hav

Military aircraft are not built using standard parts. Everything is custom. So everything is brutally expensive. Cut back on the custom nature of this hardware, and you'd save a lot of money.

done

the joint strike fighter is a new fighter platform that will share a common chassis and subsystems, while allowing for customization for the roles required by the various services (ob google). this will allow the navy version to land on carriers, the marine version to have VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) ability, and the air force version to be maximized for speed/range/maneuverability. and all while maximizing the commonality of the supply chain and support crew

> fscking up the sun...

Feh. If Terra was 100% Plutonium, it could neither make Sol fart in your general direction nor empty either of her nostrils at your hind quarters like a 12th century Frenchman.

> expensive to hoist

Ah! Uh, railguns perhaps? Oh, or what about that laser rocket? Seems to me that sending the payload up and leaving the propulsion on the ground may be a better solution; I mean, we already know how to build sweet-assed nuclear plants. Why take the uranium with you?

/August.

A bomb is not a surface to air missile. A modern SAM ~would~ annihilate a 767 or airbus. All that would hit the ground is millions of flaming plastic chunks.

The SAM missiles that the US has actually don't have very large warheads. The most common deployed missile is the stinger man portable missile, deployed in the US on the Avenger air defense vehicle.

Here are the US SAM missiles with their warhead size:

Stinger unknown, but the whole missile only weight 12 lbs.

Patriot 90 lbs (PAC1), 91 lbs (PAC2), 73 lbs (PAC3)

HAWK 300 lbs

Now a HAWK might be able to "annihilate" a 767 but a stinger wouldn't even come close, and a Patriot would leave big pieces.

A bomb is not a surface to air missile. A modern SAM ~would~ annihilate a 767 or airbus. All that would hit the ground is millions of flaming plastic chunks.

The SAM missiles that the US has actually don't have very large warheads. The most common deployed missile is the stinger man portable missile, deployed in the US on the Avenger air defense vehicle.

Here are the US SAM missiles with their warhead size:

Stinger unknown, but the whole missile only weight 12 lbs.

Patriot 90 lbs (PAC1), 91 lbs (PAC2), 73 lbs (PAC3)

HAWK 300 lbs

Now a HAWK might be able to "annihilate" a 767 but a stinger wouldn't even come close, and a Patriot would leave big pieces.

A bomb is not a surface to air missile. A modern SAM ~would~ annihilate a 767 or airbus. All that would hit the ground is millions of flaming plastic chunks.

The SAM missiles that the US has actually don't have very large warheads. The most common deployed missile is the stinger man portable missile, deployed in the US on the Avenger air defense vehicle.

Here are the US SAM missiles with their warhead size:

Stinger unknown, but the whole missile only weight 12 lbs.

Patriot 90 lbs (PAC1), 91 lbs (PAC2), 73 lbs (PAC3)

HAWK 300 lbs

Now a HAWK might be able to "annihilate" a 767 but a stinger wouldn't even come close, and a Patriot would leave big pieces.

A bomb is not a surface to air missile. A modern SAM ~would~ annihilate a 767 or airbus. All that would hit the ground is millions of flaming plastic chunks.

The SAM missiles that the US has actually don't have very large warheads. The most common deployed missile is the stinger man portable missile, deployed in the US on the Avenger air defense vehicle.

Here are the US SAM missiles with their warhead size:

Stinger unknown, but the whole missile only weight 12 lbs.

Patriot 90 lbs (PAC1), 91 lbs (PAC2), 73 lbs (PAC3)

HAWK 300 lbs

Now a HAWK might be able to "annihilate" a 767 but a stinger wouldn't even come close, and a Patriot would leave big pieces.

Marine report

State Dept report

CIA Report

Lars,

Why don't you try educating yourself with a few pieces of information instead of relying on ideology? You will be less likely to look foolish. If you don't like the sources, the facts are generally available elsewhere.

Here are a few hints for further research:
- Invaded 2 countries
- Attacked 2 other
- Threatened a fifth country
- Killed about a million Muslims
- Filling mass graves at a rate of 10-30,000/year
- Used Weapons of Mass Destruction on own people
- Initiated use of Weapons of Mass Destruction after invading neighbor
- Tried to assassinate former US President
- Tried to shoot down US aircraft hundreds of times
- Supported terrorists in the Middle East and elsewhere
- Defied UN sanctions
- Defied UN Security Council demands
- Fed people into paper shredders
- Tried to restart banned weapons programs
- Tortured, murdered, and raped as part of state policy
- Kept a large prison solely for children
- Tortured children in front of parents to make them talk
- Looted the country of on the order of $40,000,000,000
- Built lavish palaces with money UN permitted for food and medicine
- Violated cease-fire terms
- Committed numerous acts of war
- Committed numerous war crimes

All in all, a regime only the hard left, anti-Semites, or a weird Arabist could defend.

Are you one of them, or simply ignorant?

Cheers

Lars,

Why don't you try educating yourself with a few pieces of information instead of relying on ideology? You will be less likely to look foolish. If you don't like the sources, the facts are generally available elsewhere.

Here are a few hints for further research:
- Invaded 2 countries
- Attacked 2 other
- Threatened a fifth country
- Killed about a million Muslims
- Filling mass graves at a rate of 10-30,000/year
- Used Weapons of Mass Destruction on own people
- Initiated use of Weapons of Mass Destruction after invading neighbor
- Tried to assassinate former US President
- Tried to shoot down US aircraft hundreds of times
- Supported terrorists in the Middle East and elsewhere
- Defied UN sanctions
- Defied UN Security Council demands
- Fed people into paper shredders
- Tried to restart banned weapons programs
- Tortured, murdered, and raped as part of state policy
- Kept a large prison solely for children
- Tortured children in front of parents to make them talk
- Looted the country of on the order of $40,000,000,000
- Built lavish palaces with money UN permitted for food and medicine
- Violated cease-fire terms
- Committed numerous acts of war
- Committed numerous war crimes

All in all, a regime only the hard left, anti-Semites, or a weird Arabist could defend.

Are you one of them, or simply ignorant?

Cheers

I'm not going to choose sides on this debate. I don't have the first hand knowledge and experience to make that judgment.

I don't know who struck first.

Strategically, Israel could have struck first on a religous holiday, to take advantage religous or patriotic sentiment. This has been suggested in James Bamford's book on the NSA, titled "Body of Secrets". It certainly wouldn't be the first time it has happened, or could have possibly happened - he also details how the US governement were planning to down one of their own planes, and blame it on Cuba, so they could then have an excuse to invade that country.

After a quick google search, here are two items worth reading

BAMFORD "LIBERTY" ACCOUNT REPUDIATED

Response to charges made in Secrecy News on July 17, 2001

I don't think this post should have been rated "5" informative, as that implies it is factual. It is probably opinion, with strong racism throughout.

Why did I post ? I FIND THE RACISM OFFENSIVE.

As they say, there are three sides to a story

• Your side.
• Their side.
• The truth.

Of course, there is likely to be a response to this post, consisting of

• Dispute of my suggestion that Israel may have struck first. That's fine, but try to be factual, and avoid the racist sounding spiel
• A personal and offensive attack on me, accusing me of being an Arab sympathiser, which will be further demonstration why the original post shouldn't have been given a 5 - Informative

btw, I'm an Australian, my genetic backround is Anglo-Saxon and Keltic, but who cares ?. I don't give a fuck where you are from, or what religous beliefs you have, as long as you are a decent human being.

Yes, I've met both Jews and Arabs, and as indivuals, they were decent human beings. Neither am I going to blame them as individuals for crimes their cultures, populations or governments may or may not have committed.

Of course, feel free to have a go at me for using obscenities ... my mother would.

I'm not going to choose sides on this debate. I don't have the first hand knowledge and experience to make that judgment.

I don't know who struck first.

Strategically, Israel could have struck first on a religous holiday, to take advantage religous or patriotic sentiment. This has been suggested in James Bamford's book on the NSA, titled "Body of Secrets". It certainly wouldn't be the first time it has happened, or could have possibly happened - he also details how the US governement were planning to down one of their own planes, and blame it on Cuba, so they could then have an excuse to invade that country.

After a quick google search, here are two items worth reading

BAMFORD "LIBERTY" ACCOUNT REPUDIATED

Response to charges made in Secrecy News on July 17, 2001

I don't think this post should have been rated "5" informative, as that implies it is factual. It is probably opinion, with strong racism throughout.

Why did I post ? I FIND THE RACISM OFFENSIVE.

As they say, there are three sides to a story

• Your side.
• Their side.
• The truth.

Of course, there is likely to be a response to this post, consisting of

• Dispute of my suggestion that Israel may have struck first. That's fine, but try to be factual, and avoid the racist sounding spiel
• A personal and offensive attack on me, accusing me of being an Arab sympathiser, which will be further demonstration why the original post shouldn't have been given a 5 - Informative

btw, I'm an Australian, my genetic backround is Anglo-Saxon and Keltic, but who cares ?. I don't give a fuck where you are from, or what religous beliefs you have, as long as you are a decent human being.

Yes, I've met both Jews and Arabs, and as indivuals, they were decent human beings. Neither am I going to blame them as individuals for crimes their cultures, populations or governments may or may not have committed.

Of course, feel free to have a go at me for using obscenities ... my mother would.

Already done.

For instance, check France's ASMP. Mach 2, liquid fuel RAM jet with integrated solid booster, range up to 300 km, inertial guidance system. And it's, pfff, pretty old : work on it started in the mid 70's and it has been in operationnal service since 1988. So everybody says to India :

" Welcome to the 70s, India ! The Wonderful Years of Disco, Hippies and Free Love Communes ! ". (Yeah, it's THAT old).

Right now, ASMPs are fitted with a 300 kt nuclear warhead but they could refitted with conventional warheads if needed. Noises about a long range (~1000 km) version are emitted every now and then and nothing happens.