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Can you back that up with numbers? 'cuz I think you just pulled that "fact" out of your ass. Here are my numbers:

DC (2006): population 581,530; 169 murders => probability of death: 0.0003.

Iraq (2006): troops 168,530; 791 deaths => probability of death 0.0047.

In other words you would be 16 times more likely to be killed in Iraq than in DC. The data I used came from here, here and here.

Why? Either they acted correctly, in which case nothing should happen to them, not even a fine, or they used excessive force in which case negligent manslaughter charges and jail time would be in order.

Don't be so quick to think that an active AN/APG-77 automatically opens up the F-22 to detection. The AN/APG-77 is a statically mounted phased array radar, with electronic beam stearing capability. This coupled with the fact that it has the ability to frequency hop about a 1000 times a second gives it a very low probability of intercept. Short pulses at varying frequencies and (probably) varying pulse duration, timing ,power, etc., keep it from being detected by the enemy's RWR.

I have been told that F-15C pilots at Red Flag could not detect the F-22's scanning them at beyond visual range (BVR). Nor could the F-15C's APG-63 radar detect the F-22 at BVR. They kill numbers would confirm this, but I have no official links to back it up (other than message board postings).

[Granted the F-15C and it's avionics don't represent the top of the line in modern technology anymore, so it's a grain of salt example. But I'll also point out that the F-15 has never been beaten in an actual air to air engagement to date.]

See, North Korea has no problem with light pollution during the night... http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/dprk/images/dprk-dmsp-dark-old.jpg

You're not going to get a better buy than the Falcons, so better hope that they work and SpaceX doesn't go belly-up ;)

Although it's possible SpaceX will go belly up, I seriously doubt it will, the only way I can this happening is if they can't deliver. If it were then Richard Branson wouldn't be investing or putting in orders for any SpaceShipOnes so he could offer flights to space tourists. His Virgin Galactic has sold tickets to its first 150 passengers for $200,000 each. They have collected more than $15 million in deposits.

The MOAB is not a conventional high explosive, it is a Thermobaric weapon, or in other words, a Fuel Air Bomb. [Hell, even the name itself spells it out for you: Massive Ordnance Air Blast]

The Russians seem to think so.

In 1999, the Russian Army evacuated the city of Grozny of civilians, leaving (obstensibly) only the dug-in insurgents in the city. Russian forces then cordoned the city and laid waste to it with massive barrages of fuel-air munitions, delivered via TOS-1. The city was totally destroyed.

That was using Fuel-Air Explosives (FAE's), which use aerosolized hydrocarbon-based fuel. Judging from the mass-to-yeild ratio reported for this new bomb (~5.5x that of TNT), it's an aluminum-based thermobaric munition. Thermobarics use aluminum (or less commonly boron) based fuel, distributed and usually detonated by high explosive charge. Compared to fuel-air bombs this results in greater reliability, more energy released per unit mass, and much more energy released per unit volume (since 75% aluminum + 25% composition-B HE is about 2.5x denser than hydrocarbon-based fuels).

For what it's worth: (1) the old-generation american fuel-air explosives used ethylene oxide as their fuel, which increased reliability but at the expense of energy density. (2) the american armed forces have aluminum-based thermobaric munitions in their inventories, too.

And yeah, comparing FAE's and thermobarics to nukes is misleading. Thermobarics can offer up to ~8x the energy density of conventional high explosives, but even small nukes generate thousands times more boom per unit weight. Nukes are the cheap and easy way to destroy a city, but the Russians decided the political price would be too high, and used FAE's instead (which are much cheaper than equivalent-yield high explosives, but nowhere nearly as cheap per unit yield as nukes).

-- TTK

Oh, so here you go and another.
This one does not talk about the design, but it is still the same.
The TU-160 was NOT designed for attacking our ships. It was designed for long range bombing missions, but capable of multi-missions. It was capable of attacking our ships by launching cruise missles, which could also be launched via the Mig 25, 29 or 31, at a fraction of the costs and risk. The tu-160 even to this day, is expected to be used for a nuclear run into America, though it normally loaded with regular ordnance.

Your previous posting shows that you have no clue about the timelines. You mixed up the fact that the F14 and aim-54 came along LONG before the tu-160. For that matter, when the tu-160 was designed the arctic was rarely open, so we had a minimal group up there. It was far cheaper to have planes and missles do the work. That will most likely change in the future. We will probably post a small group off Alaska as it can make it a fast run for China.

My suggestion; you should take your expertise elsewhere.

Twelve. Probably "occupying" you from a nice comfy embassy.

That is quite an impressive list, although I found a few of the countries on there surprising and had never heard about US forces currently in residence. I checked the source to see how many are listed for countries like Fiji, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Lebanon, and Venezuela. Here's those troop counts
Fiji: 2
Ethiopia: 30
Eritrea: 4
Lebanon: 6
Venezuela 32

Most of the countries on that list have less than 50 American "occupiers"

The countries that have more than 100 US military personnel are:
Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, UK, Australia, China and HK, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Diego Garcia, Egypt, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Djibouti, Canada, Colombia, Cuba (Guantanamo), and Honduras.

These are 2006 figures taken from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2006/hst0606.pdf

If it's that much of a problem for you, move to North Korea!

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/ dprk-dark.htm

I don't know what will have happened but I saw a TV-show about the clean up work at Tjernobyl a few days ago.

For instance I think they mentioned that there where 1 tone of plutonium and that since 1 mcg could kill a human that would be sufficient to kill 100 million people (thought that would never work since not only humans would get it into their bodies), thought that doesn't measure up so I guess it might had been 100 kg instead. (Anyone please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm to lazy to google for details. I guess it wasn't 1mg to kill a human and 1000 tone?)
That was a problem since the half time where 245.000 years ...

Anyway, that wasn't my point, the point was that they said that Russias SS-18 would be as devastating/dangerous/.. as 100 tjernobyls, and that russia had 2700 of them.
Swedish wikipedia mentions that 308 of these where still there during the cold wars end, 80 is still there today and soon there will only be 40 remaining until 2020.
(Numbers like those makes me wonder how much war and protection against it actually cost globaly, what a waste.)

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/r-3 6m.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-18

What nation are we engaged in a war with? The nation of iraq is our ally. Are we also at war with Afghanistan? Kosovo? Bosnia?
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/global- deployments.htm
We're fighting some terrorists who are attempting to overthrow the government of our ally iraq. It's a police action at best, but "we're at police action, pick a side" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

How does this idiocy get modded up, when even a cursory examination (warning: .pdf) shows that China has a GDP of 2.6B, compared to 2.9 for Germany, 4.3 for Japan, and 13 for the U.S.

With a larger GDP, they will be able to outspend us militarily, without causing any strain on their economy.

We spend about $466B, the rest of the world combined spends about $500B, and China $65B. Granted, China's PPP means they get more stuff for their $65B, but they still spend far, far less than we do.

The parent post is so wrong that it should be modded down.

"Ducted propulsion" on a navy demonstrator vehicle...

...is this a secret?

As you say, not exactly. Depends on your definition of 'domestic spying', I suppose:

Deaths from WTC: 2,726 See http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm51SPa6. htm

US deaths in Iraq, to date: 3,774 See http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_ca sualties.htm

Could better 'domestic spying' have prevented the WTC atrocities, well, maybe.

See http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,333 835,00.html

From that last article,
"Could al-Qaeda's plot have been foiled if the U.S. had taken the fight to the terrorists in January 2001? Perhaps not. The thrust of the winter plan was to attack al-Qaeda outside the U.S. Yet by the beginning of that year, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, two Arabs who had been leaders of a terrorist cell in Hamburg, Germany, were already living in Florida, honing their skills in flight schools. Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar had been doing the same in Southern California. The hijackers maintained tight security, generally avoided cell phones, rented apartments under false names and used cash-not wire transfers-wherever possible. If every plan to attack al-Qaeda had been executed, and every lead explored, Atta's team might still never have been caught.

But there's another possibility. An aggressive campaign to degrade the terrorist network worldwide-to shut down the conveyor belt of recruits coming out of the Afghan camps, to attack the financial and logistical support on which the hijackers depended-just might have rendered it incapable of carrying out the Sept. 11 attacks. Perhaps some of those who had to approve the operation might have been killed, or the money trail to Florida disrupted. We will never know, because we never tried."

I'm very concerned about my civil liberties, but I'm even more concerned that the the next time I take the 'plane, the bus, the subway - or I'm just sitting at my desk, or on holiday with my family - I might get wiped out by some terrorist.

Where you have a point is that intelligent, positive options to resolve the inhuman mess in the Middle East probably did not include invading Iraq.

If you have the money, you can buy anything.

That's kinda my point.

Not many folks can afford their own tank, but it's a long way from "nobody".

I submit that the intersection of 'who can afford' and 'who wants to spend money on a tank' is small.

Hey, it's even within reach of ordinary working folks if they get a few friends to chip in.

The cost of a new M1A2 tank is approximately $4.3 million.

I want your friends. Mine will barely chip in for beer.

If someone is determined enough, legality doesn't matter. Should we do away with all laws?

Yes. Well, the VAST majority of them, anyhow. We currently have over 21million pages of laws in America. That's far too many. Especially considering that it's the civic duty of each citizen to know all these laws. I sincerely doubt that ANY U.S. citizen knows all the laws, including the judges who rule that ignorance of the law is no defense. I think we could pare it down to about, oh, 10 or so good laws.

But like I said, you got me wrong. I'm tired of the government telling me what to do. No laws, and a private army on every block! No more boring weekends! Paradise!

Except that it doesn't usually work that way. The 'Wild West', for example, really wasn't very wild.

They will likely toss the prototypes on an EMP fixture similar to that used to test aircraft.
Only the control circuits might be vulnerable, and keep in mind that these vehicles wouldn't be normally be connected to long conductors as would systems hooked to the civilian power grid.

Older overview piece on EMP:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/1 988/CM2.htm

Yes, of course because all series hybrid vehicles are similar. (omg)

And by the way the US Army is not the first with that idea:
http://www.army-technology.com/projects/sep/
http://www.defense-update.com/products/s/sep.htm
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/hybriddrive-se p-vehicles-receive-votes-of-confidence-from-sweden -bae-02446/ The Swedish SEP ran for the British FRES program:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europ e/fres.htm
Unfortunately, recently it was excluded due to (perceived?) lower maturity of the technology than the competitions offers.

It probably is a "pull string go boom" situation for the launch.

HOWEVER... when something goes wrong and manual intervention is required (such as a breakaway), then there are provisions to have the shuttle land at emergency designated airfields. If you are three-sheets to the wind, and you are now forced to execute a procedure that you've never done before, under high stress conditions, then there is going to be a problem.

If you look at all the different emergency landing sites below, you'll see there is a lot of work and split second decisions to be made during launch:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/facility/sts-e ls.htm

C-130? Can you say Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL)? It's real. I have seen it.

In government contracts to write software, it is usually a lot worse. All too frequently, especially on time-and-materials contracts, the man with the money has friends that are likely to loose a job if they don't get some work to do. The money man invents a project (this is nothing new) for the contractor to do (the lead contractor is an old friend or former government from way back when). The contractor silently develops this product. Eventually, they finish phases of it and the money man has to show the money providers what the money got them, so they do a review. No one ever writes a bad review of software they paid good money to have custom written. It always slices bread too. Money man believes this software is so good, he convinces the local chief scientist or CIO-rep that this software should be mandated by the enterprise. Other departments hear about this project and cry foul because this software only (poorly) solved problems A and C. In fact, this contractor did it so poor, that outsiders recognize why the contractor was in fear of losing their job: they suck at what they do, they charge too much, and everyone had moved on to having their problems solved by other means or software developers. But, this contractor is a "big industry player" and shouldn't be embarassed, and the political structure won't tolerate embarassing either the contractor who mostly did what was asked, even if poorly, nor the money man who did it only to see that a friend didn't lose his job. Eventually, they get it talked up nice and good and the project couldn't die if you tried.

An indirect reference to the project name: Congressional Hearing, look for the phrase "multilevel access". A paper on the software has been written, all glossed up to make a one-trick piece of software, doing a half-assed job at multilevel access (NOT ACCREDITED BY ANYBODY), and is available as a PDF.

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

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

No, they don't.

The laser pointers probably do not use a lot of power. Even big, clumsy stuff like
    http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/gro und/an-peq1.htm
But not every soldier carries this type of equipment with them. These days, the army doesn't even use laser markers that much anymore so this is a bad example (most is GPS stuff, right?)

Radios do not use a lot of power either, unless the Army uses WWII stuff. Even satellite stuff doesn't use a lot of power.

Night vision goggles do not use a lot of power either. I'm not an expert on these, but looking at specs of one like,
    http://www.nightvisionbinoculars.com/rigel2300.htm l
The power source is 3V CR123A lithium battery.

And the battery is,
    http://www.batterystation.com/cr123a.htm
1300mAh

I know you can run these things off of a AAA batteries.

A Wii has more power consumption than any of the above devices (except, maybe the first one). The "little Wii" has more computing power in it than probably any of the military stuff the Army carries around short of cruise missiles, but I doubt a cruise missile has more computing power than a PPro anyway. No offense or anything though..

You need to open your eyes and realize that we are in an ideological world war and the other side doesn't give a crap if you want to fight or not. Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Philippines, Chad, Bali, Spain, Russia, Denmark..on and on and on it spreads and you stuff your head down a hole in the sand.

That article's headline is "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In a major victory for the White House, the Senate early Friday voted 77-23 to authorize President Bush to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein refuses to give up weapons of mass destruction as required by U.N. resolutions." Bush's actions were limited by that qualifier. Hussein was complying and had given up the WMD as required by the UN resolutions (primarily resolution 687 see:http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news /iraq/un/index.html). So far 500 munitions of degraded sarin has been found (http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Natio n/archive/200606/NAT20060621e.html)(Personal, this doesn't seem like a stock pile). So technically, the war is illegal as it fails the qualifier that congress stipulated.

Most people feel that Congress wouldn't even have passed that resolution had Bush et al not been fabricating the intelegence (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3 87374.ece)

You mean like being able to legislate by decree

  * You mean like using a power that every other president in Venezuela has used?
  * You mean where "decree" is in an incredibly limited scope, a fact rarely reported by the media?
  * You mean where any act he legislates, no matter the method, can be rescinded by the popular vote?
  * You mean where normal laws take 10% of the population to rescind, decree laws take only 5%?
  * You mean where the legislature can rescind or modify said decrees -- quite unlike the US "Fast Track" legislation?"\

Nah, let's demonize Chavez and distort the facts!

shutting down opposition TV stations

  * You mean TV stations that helped organize a bloody coup against him?
  * You mean TV stations that even most of their backers admit broke the law?

Nah, let's just demonize Chavez and distort the facts!

unchecked inflation

  * You mean an inflation rate that was 31.2% in '03, 31.1% in '04, 22.4% in '05, 16% in '06, and 15.8% in '07?

It's high, but it's dropping, not rising. Despite the best efforts of the opposition to destroy the economy.

But nah, let's demonize Chavez!

or doubling the murder rate?

  * With 11,000 murders in 2003 and a population of 26.2 million, that's 42 per 100,000, compared to their US-loving neighbor Colombia's 63-84 per 100k and Washington DC's ~50 per 100k.

Bad numbers, and certainly worse than it was before. But, sadly, that's Latin America for you.

They are certainly achievements. But if I were him, I would rather be remembered as a Bush basher than the rest.

I'll note what you *didn't* mention, like the percentage of those without healthcare, or the illiteracy rate. Or like having to do this stuff with an opposition that wants to wreck the economy and once overthrew him in a coup, and the US who would like to do both of those as well.

Please cite references for your assertions. IF you read the real ISG report you will see that until 1995 there is substantial evidence thet until 1995 they had continued development (expanding the facility including extensive anti-air installations) at the Al-Hakam facility. Sometime in 1995 Hussain had an "Oh Shit" moment and was about to get caught with his pants down and decided to stop working at that facility. If you recall there are a lot of odd incidents between the UNSCOM folks and the Iraqi military whenever they tried to inspect the facility. All that came about, then suspect because of the defection of the scientist/general and Hussain's worry about what he might say. Even though the defector, Hussein Kamal, never admitted to anything that would have incriminated Iraq (really himself), Hussain didn't know what he said. Put Bush's statement in perspective and it make sense.

The AC reply to this is perfect, it had been proven wrong on mythbusters. Explosive decompression in an aircraft is impossible with a handgun. And besides, that's why they make frangible ammo.

How is it not dark that some teachers CHOOSE to not teach this aspect of history. Why should it have to be made COMPULSORY for
history teachers to actually, you know, teach important history?

There's a whole lot of history, y'know. Even if you just count relatively modern (for the sake of argument, let's say industrial revolution and beyond) history, you've got to decide what you teach and inevitably bits will be left out.

Historically, UK school qualifications have had a curriculum containing a bunch of stuff they have to teach and some which is optional (as in: you've got a choice of 5 major topics within the subject, teach any 3 of those). Which "optional" bits to teach is usually at the discretion of the school.

The "news" here is "some schools have decided to choose a more politically correct selection from the list of optional parts for fear of offending some pupils". This is something they're perfectly free to do - if you don't like the idea that schools might exercise this freedom, you shouldn't give it to them.

It seems the government has decided that perhaps the Holocaust should be compulsory and is proposing moving it from the "optional" to the "compulsory" section. The only amazing thing about that is that they thought that one of the most important events in the last 100 years, an event which has already been repeated in the late 20th century in the former Yugoslavia (free clue: "ethnic cleansing" is a euphemism), should be optional.

Well, there is one game that does realistically simulate firing a weapon. Unfortunately it is so exclusive it makes halo 3 alpha testing pale in comparison. It would be the M.A.C.S. or the Multipurpose Arcade Combat Simulator, a marksmanship training aid developed for the Super Nintendo for use by the US Army. It is part of the M16 marksmanship training program and is specifically used for proper sighting and target acquisition (more info). Personally I didn't find it as useful as the dime and washer exercise, but then again my problem was trigger squeeze not sighting.

Here's the document the excerpt came from:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/ira q/2004/02/administrators_weekly_economic_report_fe bruary_15_2004.doc

It's no big deal. Everyone has their panties in a wad over nothing.

Here's the whole debunking:

http://lamplighternews.blogspot.com/2007/05/poor-r esearch-often-results-in-poor.html

Yeah, it sucks for those people in NK. However, this isn't the fault of one man; it's the fault of the entire nation. If they don't like their government, it's their responsibility to change it. This isn't like Darfur or Iraq or Turkey or other places, where one group of people is oppressing a different group of people. The North Koreans are all one people living in the same place.

What can other countries do? Any invasion to "liberate" these people will just result in enormous bloodshed. NK, after all, has a huge standing army and is extremely well-armed for a ground war. The army seems to be extremely loyal to the government as well. So how do you propose disarming over a million soldiers, not to mention preventing them from firing their 11,200 pieces of artillery on South Korea or invading with their 3,800 tanks? Here's a page detailing their military strength. The threat that the DPRK presents to their peaceful neighbor to the south cannot be overstated.

Apparently, there's enough people in DPRK who are quite happy with the way things are there, otherwise things wouldn't be that bad. The only sane solution to this problem is containment. If the NK people aren't going to fix their government, then they just need to be allowed to destroy themselves from within. Eventually, with insufficient food and horrific living conditions, something will change; either the people will revolt, or they'll die out. They might go so far as to provoke a war, but if war happens, it should be their doing, not anyone else's. Plus, it's a lot easier just fighting a defensive war (repelling an invasion), rather than trying to invade and then deal with the humanitarian problems afterwards like we're seeing in Iraq.

Sorry if this sounds cold, but these people put themselves in that situation and continue to keep themselves there. I just don't have much sympathy, when they do this to themselves, and even worse, threaten their peaceful neighbors to the south with bloodshed for no good reason.

And yes the war with NK is over. Making faces at each other over the DMZ is no real state of "war".

to be fair, the ak is 9.5lb to the m16's 7.8lb. not a massive difference

I agree it may seem like there is not much difference. However, having carried both weapons for extended periods of time, I can say that the weight makes a difference. Also, if you keep your M16 clean as a whistle it is a superior weapon. If you compare this with the conflict in Iraq, I would assume that the average insurgent (or whatever you want to call them) does not spend too much time cleaning their weapon, whereas a professional soldier does. That being said, it sounds like both sides picked the appropriate weapon for their METL.

You might try actually fact-checking those numbers. The actual number of US casualties in Iraq is almost 3,300, with another 23,000 wounded.

And yes, "wounded" includes losing limbs, eyes, and all sorts of other body parts that don't, on average, sustain major damage when you're out and about in Washington DC.

Might be that the Coanda effect direct the air-stream directly downwards, but yes, the design seems rather inefficient. It appears that the only reason it is stable is because the plastic skirt-thing simply weights enough to keep the whole thing aligned.

What makes it better, or more news-worthy, than for example this design;
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/image s/cypher-pic2.jpg ...is beyond me.

Could be the whole point of the article is the humane angle; that an old guy built it in his shed. However, taking into account that the guy has been doing this professionally for what appears to be quite a while, it doesn't seem special at all.

I think this is what you are looking for:

Mobile Subscriber Equipment - its a military communications system. That uses digital links to provide data/voice. The signal is actually digitized in the phone (MSRT) however but travels over an IP network. For further reference: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/pol icy/army/fm/11-43/index.html
If it's applicable, the dates of its creations certainly would place it in the realm of prior art.

The Mobile Subscriber Equipment (MSE) forms a network that covers an area occupied by unit subscribers. A typical grid is made up of four to six centralized Node centers which make up the hub or backbone of the network. Throughout the maneuver area, subscribers connect to local call switching centers by radio or wire. These switches, or extension nodes provide access to the network by connecting to the Node centers.

The MSE system provides communications in an area of up to 15,000 square miles. The system is digital, secure, highly flexible, and contains features that deal with link outages, traffic overload, and rapid movement of users. ...

Oct 79 Joint Operational Requirement approved. ...
Dec 85 Contract award (basic); Contract award (1st option). ...
Aug 90 MSE support of Operation Desert Shield began.

If I lived in Minot, ND (God Forbid), I'd be worried about those hundreds of pint sized nukular reactors that the US government so thoughtfully buried around your town. So, I don't think I can accuse you of nuclear powered NIMBYism at all. You get a pass on that one. Sorry about the coal plant though. Perhaps if you put up some big signs proclaiming it's an ethanol plant, you can get somebody in Ohio to buy it.

Why would you bother about air superiority, when the right tactic would be to make/let the US come in on the ground, and then fight in the cities?

The US has air superiority over Iraq, but it doesn't help in urban warfare. It didn't help in Vietnam either. Air superiority is great for conventional warfare, but it doesn't help against a distributed, loosely linked opposition.

Partisian tactics can work quite well, particularly when the partisians can use the global news media as a propaganda machine.

The other way is to simply overwhelm the US with nukes in an orgy of mutually assured destruction. Or fly Boeings into a few buildings.

It is what open source does to closed source vendors like Microsoft. They can't find a single enemy to fight, but they do have to fight.

On the other hand, I wonder if the F22s are stealthed against cellular networks as well.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2001/e20010 619stealths.htm

Is there reason? Perhaps you are unfamiliar with Israel, and their well-documented history of killing Palestianian, Iranian, Syrian, Iraqi, and Lebanese civilians unprovoked. And using torture. And using terrorism. And using assassination. Yeah, _that_ Israel!

They have an illegal WMD stockpile (Yes, 650,000 Iraqis have been killed for the seemingly-ficticious reason of 'WMD related programs', a far minor crime compared to building an estimated 200 nukes that Israel is to date unpunished for), is it so implausible that they will strike first to prevent nuclear parity, and a policy of MAD and deterrence? Sure it kept the USSR and the US away from each others throats during the cold war, but Israel is accustomed to being able to murder with impunity (as they have done for decades), the idea of having to restrain themselves (or face annihilation) will be a bitter pill.

I assume you were trolling giving your hopelessly ignorant comment (and great work with the 'how fucking predicable', clearly we are all anti-semites for daring to discuss such an issue!!), but in the event you were not, try reading up on the policies of an ultra-violent nation you rush to the knee-jerk defense of.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/doc trine.htm

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=vie wArticle&code=CAR20070115&articleId=4477

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/doctrine/inde x.html

According to this article the timing couldn't be better if we assume that China is actually a world power with the capability of projecting force. Politically they are quite happy with their relationship to the U.S. Militarily there isn't much of a chance that we'll be playing in the sandbox nicely together.

It's news that a small group of committed individuals moves faster than Department of Defense procurement? Continental drift moves faster than Department of Defense procurement.

It can take decades for a new weapons system to go from concept to prototype to deployment. Look how long systems like the F-22 fighter were in the procurement pipe. The DoD procurement process is so lengthy that by the time the system is deployed, the threat it was designed to counter has often disappeared.

They probably spend at the absolute most a month outside of human contact at sea.

Not in the U. S. Navy's submarine service. The operating cycle of an Ohio-class ballistic missile sub appears to be 112 days, of which 74 are at sea and 38 days are in-port refit (see http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/rep ort/1999/newssbn.htm). On that 2 1/2 month deterrent patrol, a Trident boomer won't surface, let alone put into port.

So at least in the boomer service, submarine crews spend a looong time away from anyone but each other.

The system works on short and intermediate range missiles - the kind presumably launched from submarines.

Short and intermediate range ballistic missiles are not typically launched from submarines. The only ballistic missiles launched from US subs are no-kidding ICBMs - Trident II's. With a few exceptions (the Brits, Russians, maybe a few others), no one else has a subsurface ballistic missile capability at all. And the THAAD system would not be capable of intercepting that kind of missile (if I understand it correctly).

Actually, short and intermediate range ballistic missiles are pretty much always land-based. Think Pershing II in the US, or SCUD overseas. These are the kinds of systems THAAD is meant to counter.

Sean

The system works on short and intermediate range missiles - the kind presumably launched from submarines.

Short and intermediate range ballistic missiles are not typically launched from submarines. The only ballistic missiles launched from US subs are no-kidding ICBMs - Trident II's. With a few exceptions (the Brits, Russians, maybe a few others), no one else has a subsurface ballistic missile capability at all. And the THAAD system would not be capable of intercepting that kind of missile (if I understand it correctly).

Actually, short and intermediate range ballistic missiles are pretty much always land-based. Think Pershing II in the US, or SCUD overseas. These are the kinds of systems THAAD is meant to counter.

Sean

The system works on short and intermediate range missiles - the kind presumably launched from submarines.

Short and intermediate range ballistic missiles are not typically launched from submarines. The only ballistic missiles launched from US subs are no-kidding ICBMs - Trident II's. With a few exceptions (the Brits, Russians, maybe a few others), no one else has a subsurface ballistic missile capability at all. And the THAAD system would not be capable of intercepting that kind of missile (if I understand it correctly).

Actually, short and intermediate range ballistic missiles are pretty much always land-based. Think Pershing II in the US, or SCUD overseas. These are the kinds of systems THAAD is meant to counter.

Sean

It's not only google. Both the US and Russian governments will also gladly sell out to the highest bidder. And for the right price, they won't just reduce the resolution on the sensitive areas (equivalent to painting a bullseye on the target, or as someone else said, writing the root password on a post-it note on the server while updating the firewall) but they reduce resolution on the whole damn country.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/dim ona_kyl-bingaman.htm

or google:

The Kyl-Bingaman Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 1997