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It seems safe to assume that your do not live upstate.

The NEXUSborder ID card costs $50 and is acceptable at only about sixteen border crossings nation-wide. NEXUS

Now on to those civilized Indian quotes about Pakistan...

You mean like this:

http://www.subodhatal.org/articles/symptom.html

We shall have India divided or destroyed

Muhammad Ali Jinnah ("founder" of "Pakistan")

We are a Martial race ,ordained by the holy Quran to bring our sword down upon the kaffirs of India and murtadd (apostates) in East Pakistan

Yahya Khan, Islamist dictator of West Pakistan, 1971

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/indo-pak_1965.htm

one Pakistani soldier was equal to four to ten Hindus/Indian soldiers

popular Islamist hype in Pakistan.

Which are "less civilized again"?

DARPA had a project going on for awhile called UCAR, which was an unmanned autonomous combat helicopter. Unfortunately the war took all the money and DARPA had to cancel the competitions between Lockheed and Northrop.

Northrop currently has an unmanned helicopter called Firescout that has autonomously landed on a Navy ship while the ship was moving.

My point is that this type of work is nothing new.

Katrina was hardly the first big hurricane to hit New Orleans. Seriously, you know where New Orleans is, right? The city gets hit by a hurricane with fair regularity. This graphic shows you the tracks and strengths of a few major ones. Katrina was not even particularly strong by comparison. It was much weaker and passed much farther away than, for example, Camille, which was a category 5 when it hit and was very nearly a direct hit. The only thing that made Katrina special was that the city's flood control measures completely failed. But this failure says a lot more about the flood control measures that were in place at the time than it says about the suitability of the location or the size of the storm.

And I remember thinking that the U.S. was going to isolate itself from the world economically. The U.S. has been focusing on "removing a dependence on foreign oil" and finally starting to force importers to accept our exports (mainly thanks to a weaker dollar I'm told). International economic inter-dependency is part of what keeps countries from going to war, as long as there is balance.

But to read this article, China will be secluding itself more and more in the name of censorship. Thankfully, the only kind of war that will spark is civil. Fortunately, they have already been through a civil war in the last hundred years, so maybe, just maybe, they won't let it go that far. We all know that people don't like being oppressed. And if the billion or so people in China decided that they didn't like the state anymore, there are enough ants in that population to take over the grasshoppers.

This is very true, the corporate types call it market saturation.

You only need so many plumbers, electricians, etc etc etc.

At some tipping point it just drives wages down
as the larger supply competes for smaller demand.

Production lines world wide will continue to be made more robotic,
and scaled down on workers, Wal-mart should be renamed China-mart.

The population keeps going up, Less jobs, but more ppl.

Ppl who have a house and kids cannot venture out boldy and
start a company unless they have a product that some other
company will not jump on and leverage them out of business.

Some get bought, but most just get beat into submission
by the big Corporates who don't always play fair.

As bad as things are, they are poised to get a lot worse.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article4563171.ece

The war with Iran/Russia is coming, and we race head long like
a bunch of nationalistic monkeys who think its a sport event.

It will not be as cheap as Iraq was at 3+ trillion dollars
on projected cost, sooooo cccchhheeeeaaaappppp.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030702846.html

That is some real Mc Lovin right there.

Hold onto your hat Dorothy we are in for a bumpy ride in Oz.

The russians have an opinion on how this is going to go too:

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

They don't carry bombs on those old bombers:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/kh-101.htm

They carry KH-555's, upgraded stealth cruise missiles with
200 - 500 kilo-ton warheads.

They have made visits to Cuba to check the Infrastructure,
and have plans for a back up base with Chavez.

http://www.india-defence.com/reports/3929

What a load of crap. There are many multilevel systems that hook to multiple classification networks at the same time. One box, connected to both SIPR, and NIPR, for example.

Here's one of them, Radiant Mercury: http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/radiant_mercury.htm

Here's another. DTW, the DoDIIS Trusted Workstation. It has the capabilty to hook up to many networks at the same time, from NIPR to SCI: http://www.sun.com/solutions/documents/business-cases/go_DTW_cc.pdf

But, hey. Truth doesn't sell magazines, does it? Ironically, the technology that allows more than one classified network to hook to another is pretty freaking awesome. PopMech should take a look at that, instead.

The goal is different too [...]

Thank you very much for (implicitly) accepting my argument regarding the differences in methods.

On the other hand, if you think Russia is going to war with Georgia in order to increase it's territory by 0.001% you are very naive.

Yes, they do — they fought a far bloodier war to keep a much smaller Chechnya within Russia — out of principle. The aim is to get the entire Georgia back into the fold and thus regain a piece of the former USSR, the dissolution of which most Russians continue to sincerely regret. Although only the hot-headed Georgians have given them the justification for an full-blown (pun intended) invasion, Russia is using similar methods and rhetorics to get back other bits and pieces:

• Moldova, where large piece of the country is under Russia's military control much like South Osetia, and where — like in South Osetia and Abkhazia — Russian citizenship can be had just for asking, as it bolsters Russia's claims of "the need to defend Russian citizens".
• Ukraine, where Russia's propaganda constantly pits Russian-minded East against Ukrainian-speaking West, and where they tried to help poison the pro-Western presidential candidate in 2004.
• Armenia and Azerbajdzhan — bitter enemies, both helped by Russia in order to tie them ever closer back to "mother Russia", which appears as a patron to both.
• Baltic republics — these are the only pieces, which broke away from Russia for good, insh'allah. Members of both EU and NATO they will be protected until those organizations wane for some reason. That's where Russia has already lost (for the foreseeable future), but not for lack of trying — the same crap about "protecting Russian citizens" was tried there, as all three little Republics have sizable Russian-speaking populations, who were "cruelly" forced to learn the local languages before getting citizenship.

All of these regions combined represent a small fraction of the former USSR and are dwarfed even by the present Russia's territory. You are right, that Russia don't rationally need the land — their own population is shrinking and they can't develop their own vast lands (watch those ceded to China in a few decades). But the re-establishment of the empire is an appealing concept to almost every Russian, and it the best means for any Russian government to stay in power — far more important than quality of life, for example. This may sound racist and unbelievable, but it is true...

The issue is again control of a strategic region

No. Both US and Russia already had "control of" the respected "strategic regions" — countries of "Warsaw Pact" are largely NATO members now, and Russia's town of Sochi (used to be part of Georgian kingdom, it where the next Winter Olympics are set to happen in Russia, BTW) is only 20 or so miles away from Georgia. So gaining this "control" you are talking about is of no importance to either. And if it were the secret goal of Clinton's bombing of Serbia into submission, he would not have waited to join the fray — NATO's campaing only started after giving the Europeans several years to demonstrate their impotence. It was built in 1999 for short-range forces in support of KFOR — the helicopters and other equipment stationed there can't reach Russia directly — Poland or Bolgaria are much better "launch-pads".

No. The issue is regaining a "breakaway" little country ba

How about cutting wellfare in half and have ten times the money.

Eh? Spending on welfare (TANF) is a very small part of the budget, $16.5 billion. At a population of 301 million, that's $54.80/year/person, fifteen cents a day per person. The base defense budget - not including war funding - is more than $481 billion, $1598/person/year, $4.38 per day per person. U.S. military spending makes up the bulk of world military spending. We could cut ours in half and still enormously outspend all potential adversaries.

Conservative politicians like to conflate "entitlements" all together, which includes not just welfare but medical spending (prices for which are driven up by the for-profit model and by drug patents, both of which are made possible by government action), veterans affairs and military retirement payments (which should be properly counted under defense), and Social Security spending.

The NSF's budget is $6.065 billion, $20.15/year/person, about five and a half cents a day per person.

Courtesy a few minutes of googling "Raytheon +"non lethal". I'm really surprised this wasn't on /. last year. It was on Fark and my other regular sites, and I have lousy memory. Anyway here are some links to the "non lethal" techno in the parent:

link to Raytheon's article
best title for an article so far
article about why not to be in a riot when this is used I will keep this in mind next time I'm downtown in Denver and one of the teams wins or loses...CO people like to riot?!?
a fairly descriptive article that sounds more like it should be on the food network
a tiny article about how it affected stock
this site/article is definitely not biased or anything

similar to how in English you would say "this building" but "that bug" even if both of them are right next to you

Then there is the case where the building was the bug.

Yes, I am trying to be a smart ass.

Isn't that stuff radioactive, curious as to how it took them till July 2008 to find it. And lets not mention the DU (Depleted Uranium) that was rained down on the country by its liberators. And the US and it's best buddy EnglandLand was supplying arms related technology to Iraq, right up to the invasion of Kuwait. That included nuclear detonators supplied by Matrix Churchill.

PROTHERO

Do you believe this crap, Dascombe?

DASCOMBE

It's not our job to believe it,
Lewis. Our job is to tell the people --

Sorry, but are you mentally retarded? http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm The US outspends the rest of the world combined militarily.

Funny... nobody from North Korea downloaded Firefox 3.

You mean THAT country? Yeah, really, how surprising. Last time I saw them on TV, they hardly had any teeth, let alone electricity.

Pointless. Some genius w/a camera takes pics of satellite tracks. Living in a semi-rural area, I can track eye visible satellites w/a bit of patience. I was hoping for something along the lines of a 16" (or larger) telescope getting pics like are seen often on http://www.spaceweather.com/ they even have a "simple" tracking program. http://www.heavens-above.com/ is a neat tool/toy as well. And if you REALLY wanted to know wtf that codename for that blob of light stood for , hit http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/index.html there's a search function. At one point, there was even one of the UFO "tracking sites" that had some interesting blurry shots of what were prob someone's elint arrays.

As an engineer I am appealed at the desperation of the Israeli engineers who now make and modify weapons that serve no purpose other than to inflict massive civilian causalities and create psychological terror. Those engineers need to be held to account same as those who make the bomb vests for suicide bombers.

In many parts of the world this would be cover for a new passive radar system :-)
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2001/e20010619stealths.htm

"The W54 is small enough to be deployed as a SADM (Special Atomic Demolition Munition) or so called "Backpack Nuke". It was the closest thing the U.S. is ..."

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/w54.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/w56.htm

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

http://www.sftt.org/dw07102002.html

When the US government tried to infer that Taliban and other suicide bombers were cowards, IT was the coward for failing to recall that, like the miserable failure the Japanese Kamikazes were, the US W54 program would have made suicide bombers out of the troops carrying these backpack bombs and who thought they were going to parachute in, covertly plant one on a bridge or some vital infrastructure, and then "run a few hundred yards to safety"... Hell, even the Enola Gay and other nuclear bombers were expected to be non-returns, basically on a one-way suicide mission, considering the blast effects and the attendant radiation...

"The W54 is small enough to be deployed as a SADM (Special Atomic Demolition Munition) or so called "Backpack Nuke". It was the closest thing the U.S. is ..."

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/w54.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/w56.htm

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

http://www.sftt.org/dw07102002.html

When the US government tried to infer that Taliban and other suicide bombers were cowards, IT was the coward for failing to recall that, like the miserable failure the Japanese Kamikazes were, the US W54 program would have made suicide bombers out of the troops carrying these backpack bombs and who thought they were going to parachute in, covertly plant one on a bridge or some vital infrastructure, and then "run a few hundred yards to safety"... Hell, even the Enola Gay and other nuclear bombers were expected to be non-returns, basically on a one-way suicide mission, considering the blast effects and the attendant radiation...

Camp rules are posted in four languages -- Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, and Pashto -- in the exercise yards in each of the camps. Recently, the enclosed bulletin boards have also featured posters with information about the Afghan elections. "It talks about the fact that 10 million Afghanis freely elected their own government," Rundle said. "So it's a bit of news from home ... for a chunk of the detainee population here."

Cultural sensitivity is consistently practiced in each of the camps. Respect for Islam is evident in many of the policies. For instance, in each cell in Camp 1, a Koran is stored hanging in a surgical mask from the cell wall. The purpose of the surgical mask is to hold the Muslim holy book "in a place of reverence," Padmore said.

In each cell block a painted arrow points toward Mecca, Saudi Arabia, so the detainees know which way to face during their daily prayers. During Ramadan, detainees were allowed to break their daily fast with water and dates at the appropriate time, and prayer calls are broadcast over loudspeakers five times a day.

Navy Muslim Chaplain to Help Lead White House Iftar Dinner

A native of Bangladesh, Saifulislam had a lot of firsts in his 15-year Navy career, the last eight years served as a Muslim chaplain. He was the first Muslim chaplain to be assigned to the Marine Corps, at Camp Pendleton, Calif. He helped organize the Marines' first iftar, in 2005. He was the first Muslim chaplain to be sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to administer to detainees there.

Joint Task Force Respects Detainees' Religious Practices

WASHINGTON, June 29, 2005 - Members of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, Cuba, go to great lengths to respect the religious practices and beliefs of an estimated 520 enemy combatants being detained there, senior task force leaders told Congress today.
Officials described a sweeping program that ranges from educating servicemembers about Muslim beliefs and sensitivities to incorporating those religious practices into nearly every aspect of camp life....

A loudspeaker at the camp signals the Muslim "call to prayer" five times a day - generally at 5:30 in the morning, 1 and 2:30 in the afternoon, and 7:30 and 9:30 at night, Mendez said.

Once the prayer call sounds, detainees get 20 minutes of uninterrupted time to practice their faith, he said. Those who choose to can take advantage of the prayer caps, beads and oil given to them as part of their basic-issue items and pray toward the Muslim holy city of Mecca, in the direction designated by arrows painted in each detainee cell and all common areas. Detainees who display good behavior and abide by camp rules receive traditional Islam prayer rugs as well, Mendez said.

The Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay staff strives to ensure detainees aren't interrupted during the 20 minutes following the prayer call, even if they're not involved in religious activity, Mendez said.

Staff members schedule detainee medical appointments, interrogations and other activities in accordance with the prayer call schedule. They also post traffic triangles throughout Camp Delta to remind task force members not to disrupt the 20-minute observation period, Mendez explained.

Strict measures in place throughout the facility ensure appropriate treatment of the Koran, the Muslim holy book.

Every detainee at the facility is issued a personal copy of the Koran, and it is displayed in detainee cells "in plain view and above eye level," Mendez said. This serves two purposes, he said, discouraging detainees from hiding contraband inside its pages

Did you notice my 'McCain Detainee Amendment' link? That is "real anti-torture legislation" which was supported by Democrats and Republicans alike.

What you linked to was an attempted kludge that would restrict torture by requiring the CIA to follow only the Army Field Manual, which is a how-to text for soldiers serving in the field. You can see the chapter on intelligence here.

The Army Field Manual is wholly unsuited for many important CIA situations not because it forbids torture, but because it is far too limited in the scope of what it does cover. The CIA has to deal with matters (interviewing friendly & unfriendly foreign intelligence sources, potential defectors, etc) that the Army is not normally intended to handle. There is certainly a significant overlap, but the many important differences are the reason that we have a CIA in the first place!

Here's the thing - tax receipts have increased 26.8% from 2000 to 2007.

Since the "Bush Tax Cuts" were passed in 2003, let's look at the numbers from 2004-2007. Tax receipts grew 36.6% over this time.

Now, people can scream and argue until they're blue in the face about whether the war in Iraq is good/bad/ugly/Cowboy Neal, but the tax cuts decreased the deficit, not increased it.

Now, as far as I know, McCain doesn't "back" Bush - he's been trying to very careful distance himself from the least popular president in recent history. That "unprovoked preemptive war" - whether that assertion or the war itself is right or not - has decimated Al-Qaeda leadership. More have been killed in Pakistan and Afghanistan in related skirmishes.

So, one could argue that we fail at "nation building", although there's been a lot of progress with schools, electricity, roads, running water, and hospitals. Definitely not much in the WMD department, but we've been doing a pretty good job of gutting Al-Qaeda.

As for "torture", I assume you're talking about Guantanamo Bay. We're not using torture racks, electricity, acid baths, or wood chippers like Saddam Hussein - most of it is humiliation, like forcing the 20th hijacker to wear panties on his head. Now, that's morally reprehensible, and to my limited knowledge a questionable interrogation technique, but if that's torture there are a lot of college fraternities who need to be closed down, too.

So we haze^w "torture" prisoners we've captured shooting at us. John McCain's plane was shot down, crushing his legs and causing him to nearly drown when he parachuted into a lake. When he regained consciousness, a crowd crushed his shoulder with a the butt of a rifle and stabbed him with a bayonet. He was refused medical treatment for weeks, until they learned that his father was connected.

He spent two years in solitary confinement. His hair turned white. Then, they tied him up and repeatedly beat him until he "confessed." They offered to release McCain early because his father was a big-wig, but McCain refused repatriation unless everyone else was also released. While he suffered from dysentery, the beatings declined to only three times a week.

After five and a half years, we was released. Because of his injuries, he can't lift his arms above his head. He lost 50 pounds after his capture, yet the average Guantanamo detainee has gained 30. (Evidently they like Captain Crunch with sugar and honey.) We provide them with medical care and religious items - Qurans and prayer mats. We even released a lot with comparably minor offenses, who returned to bombing markets and shooting at soldiers.

There's a large difference between the torture inflicted upon John McCain and the prisoners at Guantanamo.

Here's the thing - tax receipts have increased 26.8% from 2000 to 2007.

Since the "Bush Tax Cuts" were passed in 2003, let's look at the numbers from 2004-2007. Tax receipts grew 36.6% over this time.

Now, people can scream and argue until they're blue in the face about whether the war in Iraq is good/bad/ugly/Cowboy Neal, but the tax cuts decreased the deficit, not increased it.

Now, as far as I know, McCain doesn't "back" Bush - he's been trying to very careful distance himself from the least popular president in recent history. That "unprovoked preemptive war" - whether that assertion or the war itself is right or not - has decimated Al-Qaeda leadership. More have been killed in Pakistan and Afghanistan in related skirmishes.

So, one could argue that we fail at "nation building", although there's been a lot of progress with schools, electricity, roads, running water, and hospitals. Definitely not much in the WMD department, but we've been doing a pretty good job of gutting Al-Qaeda.

As for "torture", I assume you're talking about Guantanamo Bay. We're not using torture racks, electricity, acid baths, or wood chippers like Saddam Hussein - most of it is humiliation, like forcing the 20th hijacker to wear panties on his head. Now, that's morally reprehensible, and to my limited knowledge a questionable interrogation technique, but if that's torture there are a lot of college fraternities who need to be closed down, too.

So we haze^w "torture" prisoners we've captured shooting at us. John McCain's plane was shot down, crushing his legs and causing him to nearly drown when he parachuted into a lake. When he regained consciousness, a crowd crushed his shoulder with a the butt of a rifle and stabbed him with a bayonet. He was refused medical treatment for weeks, until they learned that his father was connected.

He spent two years in solitary confinement. His hair turned white. Then, they tied him up and repeatedly beat him until he "confessed." They offered to release McCain early because his father was a big-wig, but McCain refused repatriation unless everyone else was also released. While he suffered from dysentery, the beatings declined to only three times a week.

After five and a half years, we was released. Because of his injuries, he can't lift his arms above his head. He lost 50 pounds after his capture, yet the average Guantanamo detainee has gained 30. (Evidently they like Captain Crunch with sugar and honey.) We provide them with medical care and religious items - Qurans and prayer mats. We even released a lot with comparably minor offenses, who returned to bombing markets and shooting at soldiers.

There's a large difference between the torture inflicted upon John McCain and the prisoners at Guantanamo.

You're right - I provided a bad link.

Here's a better one: Iraq

It doesn't help their "organization" any that Osama bin Laden is hiding in a cave, or that we keep killing all their officers in that silly, unjustifiable war in Iraq...

"im in ur base, killin ur doodz", as it were.

It doesn't help their "organization" any that Osama bin Laden is hiding in a cave, or that we keep killing all their officers in that silly, unjustifiable war in Iraq...

"im in ur base, killin ur doodz", as it were.

"Oh yes, a war for oil. And how great has that worked out?"

Badly.

"Considering that oil is at record highs, I don't think that it was a "war for oil" because had it been a "war for oil" we would have more oil."

You can't use the outcome as evidence, because it is flagrantly obvious that the planning for the aftermath of the Iraq invasion was inadequate and the expectations quite different. There weren't enough troops to properly secure the country. Some military people said so before the invasion, but it's taken years for others to admit they were right. I'm sure Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld expected the oil to be flowing copiously from a mostly peaceful and democratic Iraq by now -- a demonstration for the whole Middle East of how it should be done. That's what they said, anyway.

You've really got to go back and read the bold speeches from the time before or very shortly after the invasion.

"As for it being a war on oil, give your baseless theories a rest and take off the tin-foil hat."

Baseless? Speculative, maybe, but not baseless.

Here's the thing: what were the first things secured in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion? Was it the museum full of priceless artifacts? No. But those could hardly be considered military priorities, so I can kind of understand it, even if it was entirely predictable and unnecessary.

Was it the Iraqi army weapons dumps that would later be raided to make IEDs? No. A big strategic mistake.

Even stranger in light of the concern about WMDs: was it the well-known nuclear facility on the outskirts of Baghdad where the locals were rolling out drums of uranium oxide in the days after the invasion? No.

No, it was the oil wells -- many secured within DAYS of the invasion. Pretty impressive, really, but there was plenty of planning beforehand, and resources devoted to the task.

By what they did and did not promptly secure in Iraq the US made its priorities VERY clear in the days and weeks following the invasion. Actions speak louder than words. You are confusing the FAILURE of US planning for evidence that there wasn't a plan and expectation of how Iraq would work out eventually.

Iraq has the second-biggest conventional oil reserves in the world. It's hard to imagine that is unimportant to the equation. I'm certain the US did not plan to take Iraq's oil overtly. That's too cynical and it's unnecessary. But I'm as certain they were indeed hoping to get it flowing to the world markets after many years of embargo, which would increase competition with other suppliers and allow the US to buy it at a fair price.

In fact, the plan might even work out in the long run, at which point I'm sure Bush and his cronies will take credit, unless the whole thing collapses in on itself in civil war instead.

I work in the defense industry which uses exactly the model you describe - pay private industry to develop products for the government. I can tell you the bureaucratic overhead is enormous, and the Money Spent to Products Produced ratio is extremely poor. My favorite example is the Comanche helicopter program. Again, I strongly suspect that textbooks funded by the government would not be low-cost alternatives at all. I also strongly suspect that they will end up being inferior to privately funded textbooks. If the adoption of the government texts were optional, no school in their right mind would buy these expensive, inferior products -- which is not to say that no school would buy them. Your other argument, that biasing would only a real problem in history / civics books seems to imply that this would be no big deal. I beg to differ. I think it is only through knowledge of our past mistakes that we can grow as a society. Using government funds to write textbooks would open them even further than they already are to every piss ant congressman and shady special interest group obscuring the past mistakes that reflect poorly on them. Legislators from Georgia would try to minimize the amount of space given to the black lynchings that occurred in their state after the Civil War. The NRA and the gun control lobbyists would squabble over the interpretation and presentation of the Second Amendment. Over time, our textbooks would minimize more and more of our past questionable behavior, like the textbooks in Japan.

For years I was rooting for the country as a rising Democracy and a counter-balance to the rising Communist dictatorship of China.

And then, boom-boom-boom came the disappointments of their refusal to join us in Iraq, to support Tibetans, to censure Iran, and now this...

Maybe, the USSR-created Communist infestation has something to do with it...

"You should be rated Troll :)"

Because anyone who doesn't agree with you must be a troll by definition.

"Sure, some things comes over very long distances, but you completely bypass that the stuff those animals eat could be used in other things as well than feeding animals :)"

Such as?

"http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/11/food.climatechange"

The last paragraph says:

"For a well-off professional with above average disposable income, no amount of vegetarian or vegan eating, recycling, organic local produce or packaging avoidance will make any shrinkage of our shadow. Flying time, petrol spend and energy bills will predominate."

"http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianvegan101/f/fossilfuels.htm"

There is a world outside the US which doesn't use 25% of global energy production for 3% of the planet's population.

"http://environment.newscientist.com/article/mg19526134.500"

"The calculations, which are based on standard industrial methods of meat production in Japan..."

Japanese meat production is, and always has been extremely inefficient because they don't have much land that's suitable for natural animal grazing and fodder production.

"You also bypass completely the fact that vegans do not eat exotic foods only, yes they are part as some things are simply not grown locally even if the climate would suit."

1. Not mentioning something isn't "bypassing" it. I'm not writing a book, but refuting a brief post with another brief post.

2. They don't have to eat exotic foods to incur transport costs -- a truck with 20 tons of carrots in it uses the same amount of fuel as a truck with 20 tons of meat to cover the same distance. Anything not grown locally (and I don't mean in the same country, but within a few miles of where the consumer lives) incurs a significant transport overhead, irrespective of what it is.

"You also completely bypass that vegans are not the only ones who eat stuff which comes over long distances, like bananas, rice, quite often soy"

While you bypass the fact than non-vegans don't need to eat as much of them, so they incur less transport overhead.

"Furthermore, freighters quite often, or rarely are high-speed, more like tuned for fuel economy"

Balderdash:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/break-bulk-reefer.htm

"alcohol is good for what else than drinking and disinfectant? Yes, that's right, as a fuel. Atleast where i live was it 5% of all gas sold has to be alcohol, mixed into your normal DIN 95 octane or DIN 98 octane."

While you, who accuse me of bypassing things, neatly bypass the fact that producing bioethanol from corn has a slightly worse carbon footprint than fossil fuels:

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/2007/01/complete-carbon-footprint-of-biofuel.html

"Which of these are more environmentally friendly:
- Meat produced locally
- Vegetary foods produced locally
- Regular vegan diet which combines local & foreign foods
"

It depends where you live. In my part of the world for example;

- Meat, dairy products, leather, wool, and poultry come from local free range animals that graze land which isn't well suited to other types of agriculture. They produce natural fertiliser that's collected and used by farmers and gardeners, thus reducing dependance on industrial fertilisers.

- Locally produced crops include (but aren't restricted to) rice, citrus fruits, some tropical fruits, tomatoes, melons of several types, lettuce, spinach, and artichokes. A balanced diet is not possible with local crops alone, none of which contains enough protein, and rice is the only one with a significant level of carbohydrate

though Indirect succession. Singapore also supports regime in Myanmar (Burma). They usually site racial tensions between Malay, Indian and ruling Chinese class as reason for continuing the dictatorship. "Elections" are held for appearances sake, but while I was living there they seized assets of any opposition politician that looked like they would come close to winning a seat, usually on phony charges like "libel" or such. If some area did manage to elect a representative not approved by the state, then that neighborhood basically kisses goodbye to certain public services, infrastructure upgrades (like MRT tube stations etc). Like withholding rice in neighbouring Indonesia, but for a modern country.

But don't worry, like many others around the world it is a US approved dictatorship.

According to the Iranian Constitution, adopted in 1979 and amended in 1989, the president nomimates members of the Cabinet or Council of Minister, ambassadors, and governors of the provinces, but the Supreme Guide holds control over foreign policy, the armed forces, nuclear policy, and the main economic policies of the Iranian state. Ayatollah Khamenei took office as Supreme Guide on 4 June 1989.

I'm supposed to believe that I can get any honest assessment from a site that is as rabidly Zionist as this? How about citing a source that is a bit more honest? I suggest mosaic:

http://www.linktv.org/mosaic/streamsArchive/

And by the way, since you are an insider and all, maybe you can give us the inside scoop on Dimona. Like how much weapons-grade plutonium it produces yearly? Or how many nukes Israel already possesses? Something like 100 - 200 warheads?

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/dimona.htm

And while you're at it, maybe you can explain why Israel refuses to sign on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Non-Proliferation_Treaty

I'm supposed to get excited about Iran making *one* nuke, when Israel has hundreds?

And the last time that I checked, Iran wasn't attacking its neighbors, stealing their land, and ethnic cleansing. In fact, some would even call it holocaust...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3459144.ece

Shame on Israel, and shame on the USA (my country).

Currently the GPS system is being upgraded to offer increased accuracy and additional features. This is known as GPS III and is scheduled to be fully operational by 2011 to 2013 (or roughly the same time as Galileo is supposed to be). According to some sources, it will enable accuracies down to 1m un-augmented.

"I still think Napalm (or Mark 77 Firebombs if you want to avoid the Geneva Convention); rules the day when it comes to inhuman active weapon"

Napalm is not, repeat NOT, illegal under the Geneva Convention! Certain uses of "incendiary weapons" are prohibited:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/int/convention_conventional-wpns_prot-iii.htm

Nape is also an outstanding way to stop enemy troops from overrunning your position, and to destroy troops without blowing up things like the bridgehead they are sitting on.

"If you're only judging by the inhumanity of it, then you can't beat a knife."

I'd take bleeding out over a fatal or severe dose of Blister Agent!

The key attraction of LOSAT is the tremendous overmatch lethality of the KEM that defeats all future predicted armored combat vehicles.

Granted, MAHEM would be a bit more compact, but the more complicated something is, the more likely it is to fail. Not only is the development of LOSAT completed, but the missile itself is so fast there's really nothing the target can do to intercept or evade.

A few more words about the F-177A http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-117.htm and the F-22 http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-22.htm both good planes with differing jobs.

A few more words about the F-177A http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-117.htm and the F-22 http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-22.htm both good planes with differing jobs.

Come to think of it, there is an organization that would do just that. Maybe we should hear them out.

The US has produced over 8,000 of them, with over 5,000 still in active US military service. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m1-specs.htm

What is that supposed to prove?

You realize that if you are trying to fire an AT-4 you're probably being attacked by a tank or something? Don't you think you might have a hard time concentrating on difficult instructions? The simple instructions are meant to help a person operate something like a rocket launcher while under severe pressure. You can't compare this to anything that doesn't involve the direct possibility of death. It's not like office phones in the army have a "pick up receiver and talk into this end" sticker.

What a terrible analogy.

The Army has its share of jackasses (not too many anymore, but you can't get rid of them all). But for the most part, soldiers are capable of handling complicated stuff. For example, here's their walkie talkie: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/11-32/fig5-92.gif

How simple is that for the average mcdonald's employee to operate? It's not that bad, but it's not labeled for use by a 4th grader (that's an ancient canard and it's bullshit).

I prefer the boat analogy, personally, from April Fool's:

RIAA Yacht Copied in Daring Act of Piracy

In a what the Coast Guard is calling a 'daring act of nautical infringement,' pirates have copied RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol's personal yacht. After attacking with high speed inner tubes, they quickly made off with the data necessary to exactly duplicate the ship and vanished, but not before leaving behind an NFO with a pirate flag and a threat to 'rip' former RIAA chief Hillary Rosen's ship next. The RIAA is now demanding that the US Government issue Letters of Marquee and Reprisal so that they can prosecute these pirates under a little-known provision of copyright law governing ship designs as well as Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the US Constitution.

The other story was about ways to DoS the Great Firewall of China from outside. You can, in theory, overload the content filter parts. If they're too busy to forge RST packets (or they don't forge them in time), that part of the Great Firewall won't work. You can also create false positives. So you can send packets containing banned content into China to create false positives (and tell that it's working by watching for forged RSTs). And you can reflect it by using OS bugs that sometimes reply with parts of the original packet (e.g. pings), which could allow you to create millions of false positives for them to investigate. Unlike most things, those allow outsiders to interfere, who have no worry about being arrested by the Chinese government. Of course, they would adapt things to filter them out, but hopefully that would accidentally create more openings in it by filtering out too much, creating new opportunities.

Those might even work, so I hope someone follows up on them :) Note that I wrote them all as I Believe in Irrational Property instead of I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property. Here they are:

RIAA Yacht Copied in Daring Act of Piracy

In a what the Coast Guard is calling a 'daring act of nautical infringement,' pirates have copied RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol's personal yacht. After attacking with high speed inner tubes, they quickly made off with the data necessary to exactly duplicate the ship and vanished, but not before leaving behind an NFO with a pirate flag and a threat to 'rip' former RIAA chief Hillary Rosen's ship next. The RIAA is now demanding that the US Government issue Letters of Marquee and Reprisal so that they can prosecute these pirates under a little-known provision of copyright law governing ship designs as well as Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the US Constitution.

Microsoft Seeks Partnership With IKEA

After being spurned by Yahoo, Microsoft is seeking to acquire the furniture maker IKEA. Microsoft's Ballmer was quoted as saying, 'They have many assets I can use for leverage in pursuit of future acquisitions.' The deal appeared to get off to a bit of a rough start when Ballmer's tour of one of their factories was cut short after what authorities are describing as a 'bizarre furniture-related mishap,' in which three VPs who opposed to the deal were hospitalized. Authorities are not releasing many details, but one officer made the cryptic comment that, 'I didn't think even Bob Goatse could do that with a chair.' Even so, inside reports indicate that the remaining company officers are now 'very eager' to finalize the deal.

SCO Lawsuit Was Really "Performance Art"

SCO's D

Someone get this guy a cookie! Additionally, NO wasn't the only Katrina victim, but only conspiracy theories make the news.

I'm in Taiwan at the moment.

Taiwan has just had an election and Chen Shui Bian who was basically in favour of formal independence (which would cause China to attack) has been replaced with Ma Ying Jeou who's policy is "no independence, no unification and no war" and trying to increase economic ties with China and possibly sign some sort of peace treaty. The US strongly supports this since they don't want a war between large but totalitarian China and small but democratic Taiwan which they might get dragged into. Taiwan elects its own leaders, has its own army and so on anyway, and is a rich free country, quite unlike China. Formal independence wouldn't actually do any good, but it might do a lot of bad by triggering a full on war.

No I've no idea what the story behind all this, but I guess the US and/or Taiwan have decided to disclose this rather than risk China finding out about it later. Taiwan having nuclear weapons is one of the things that would cause the China to attack. Since China is in scheming mode rather than bullying mode because of the Taiwanese election result, maybe now is as good a time to make the announcement as any.

Even when the US still had diplomatic relations with Taiwan instead of China, they forced Taiwan to dismantle some nuclear facilities to reduce the risk that they provoke a war with China. Despite the change in diplomatic recognition, which was forced on them by a vote in the UN General Assembly, the US still views Taiwan as a protege and would defend them if China attacked, unless they provoked that attack by declaring formal independence.

The CBU-97 is basically what you describe. Instead of being deployed in orbit, it is a cluster munition delivered by an aircraft. It is quite effective at taking out large groups of tanks without the pilot having to target an individual vehicle. The weapon is simply aimed at a cluster of tanks and each individual submunition seeks out the vehicles based on their IR signature.

Tom Clancy readers may recognize this description from The Bear and the Dragon. This weapon was used in his account to take out large Chinese tank forces in eastern Russia.

You apparently don't appreciate the payload differences.

Soyuz = VW Beetle
Shuttle = tractor trailer

Perhaps a better comparison would be the Proton heavy, which can push 44,100 lb to LEO, 12,100 lb to GTO, 4,850 lb to GEO. The Soyuz is 15,400 lb to LEO. Not all cargo needs to go up on a heavy, however, as the (relatively) cheap Soyuz do the job.

The shuttle, payload to 53,700 lb to LEO, 8,390 lb to GTO. It also goes EOL in two years, with optimistic hopes that the US heavy will actually fly in 2014.

You apparently don't appreciate the payload differences.

Soyuz = VW Beetle
Shuttle = tractor trailer

Perhaps a better comparison would be the Proton heavy, which can push 44,100 lb to LEO, 12,100 lb to GTO, 4,850 lb to GEO. The Soyuz is 15,400 lb to LEO. Not all cargo needs to go up on a heavy, however, as the (relatively) cheap Soyuz do the job.

The shuttle, payload to 53,700 lb to LEO, 8,390 lb to GTO. It also goes EOL in two years, with optimistic hopes that the US heavy will actually fly in 2014.

No "state secrets" were lost. If something is "secret", then it's "classified". If it's classified, then it isn't being stored on a system that has access to the internet, directly or indirectly. According to the article, (yes, I read it...) there was some sensative information lost. This is not going to be launch codes or anything that's even remotely that valuable. I'm not saying it's no big deal, I'm saying that it's not nearly as big a deal as you're trying to make it out to be.

Hate to break it to you, but there are a ton of connections between classified networks and the Internet. The connections are generally made via high assurance gateway devices (usually a few systems that work together to protect the connection). Wikipedia has a general article here. There are some of these things actually in use, and their use is a lot wider than you would expect.

In my previous life, I worked for the DoD's head of cross-domain solutions as a research weenie and pen-tester. I'm quite the skeptic about the way the cross-domain world is run: the solutions are all based on super-old and kludgey software, and DoD has been too terrified of risk to admit that it needs to come up with higher-assurance solutions.

Also, there's too much data on DoD's networks to be accurately classified these days. Classification levels are supposed to determine how detrimental a leak would be to national security, but typically a few unclassified documents are assembled into one place and the result is classified. It's also worth noting that in an ideal case, only unclassified material will be on the unclassified network, but security violations happen all the time. At one of my previous employs, a contractor was caught taking a USB hard drive home (as in, to his house) from a classified lab. He got a slap on the wrist. Later, he got a job working for Defense Intelligence. I can only presume that his clearance was not affected.

I was a big proponent of "disinformation" while I was a research weenie: seeding bogus reports, making up totally insane presentations for research projects that weren't real, etc. I think it's a good area for DoD to invest in the idea, as in creating a 'disinformation czar' (or preferably one or two of them per research lab). Let the Chinese steal fake documents and let them waste their money reacting accordingly, I say...

No "state secrets" were lost. If something is "secret", then it's "classified". If it's classified, then it isn't being stored on a system that has access to the internet, directly or indirectly. According to the article, (yes, I read it...) there was some sensative information lost. This is not going to be launch codes or anything that's even remotely that valuable. I'm not saying it's no big deal, I'm saying that it's not nearly as big a deal as you're trying to make it out to be.

Hate to break it to you, but there are a ton of connections between classified networks and the Internet. The connections are generally made via high assurance gateway devices (usually a few systems that work together to protect the connection). Wikipedia has a general article here. There are some of these things actually in use, and their use is a lot wider than you would expect.

In my previous life, I worked for the DoD's head of cross-domain solutions as a research weenie and pen-tester. I'm quite the skeptic about the way the cross-domain world is run: the solutions are all based on super-old and kludgey software, and DoD has been too terrified of risk to admit that it needs to come up with higher-assurance solutions.

Also, there's too much data on DoD's networks to be accurately classified these days. Classification levels are supposed to determine how detrimental a leak would be to national security, but typically a few unclassified documents are assembled into one place and the result is classified. It's also worth noting that in an ideal case, only unclassified material will be on the unclassified network, but security violations happen all the time. At one of my previous employs, a contractor was caught taking a USB hard drive home (as in, to his house) from a classified lab. He got a slap on the wrist. Later, he got a job working for Defense Intelligence. I can only presume that his clearance was not affected.

I was a big proponent of "disinformation" while I was a research weenie: seeding bogus reports, making up totally insane presentations for research projects that weren't real, etc. I think it's a good area for DoD to invest in the idea, as in creating a 'disinformation czar' (or preferably one or two of them per research lab). Let the Chinese steal fake documents and let them waste their money reacting accordingly, I say...