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Even if that ... "news" .... were available from a reputable source, George Soros isn't an arm of the US government.

Did you note above what I said about cherry picking? Instead of cherry picking a fragment of the statement why not do the work and find out which groups were funding the Euromaidens and how many were US Agencies? You want me to treat you as a person that is not a shill, do the work. All you have to do is follow the instruction and read the returns. Make sure you review the results fairly, and don't cherry pick only pieces of what's return to back your belief.

What do you think the Constitution has to say about any of that? You dislike assisting other countries in building democratic institutions?

First, the Constitution defines declarations of war clearly, Congress must declare war. This new phenomenon of "executive order" wars are not defined in the Constitution. In fact every President that has done so has been threatened with impeachment, including LBJ and both of the Bush presidents.

Second, there are no Constitutional provisions claiming we must help (fund, arm, train, etc..) [insert country] build a democracy in any way shape or form.

Nonsense. What country has IBM or General Motors conquered and ruled? None.

The Dole Pineapple Wars, etc.. etc...

Some background.. around the Clinton era thingy... I think it was three plane crashes that convinced President Clinton to remove SA.

I wrote an E-mail to President Clinton(1997) pointing out, that three recent crashes had a common factor, which was Controlled flight into terrain because the pilots did not know their position. CFiT crashes were "1995, American Airlines Flight 965", "1996, Ron Brown, US commerce secretary", "1997, Guam".

I pointed in my emails that SA induced errors had prevented the Airline industry from widely adopting GPS as a navigation aid. And that a Cd-rom sized database, coupled with accurate unscrambled GPS signals could have prevent these crashes. I also pointed out that non-SA'd GPS signals had many other useful civilian purposes. (car nav, marine nav, etc.)

Imagine to my surprise, when I received a written reply letter (Sept, 1997), from the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense(Space). Outlining DOD and FAA plans to integrate GPS into the aviation industry and President Clinton's pending consideration, (starting in 2000), to remove SA scrambling from the GPS signal. The rest is history

See what you just did? You went from comparing apples to oranges to comparing apples to apples. Tax percentage per year vs GDP (a yearly measurement) is better than the meaningless mufti-century debt to yearly GDP. Add up the GDP in the history of America and compare that to the debt and you would be comparing apples to apples again. Or, compare the debt incurred this year to GDP and again be in balance. Either way, I disagree with your conclusion since the government "staying out" of the economy lead to the great depression being far deeper than it needed to be under Herbert Hoover.

http://www.history.com/topics/...

Hoover undertook various measures designed to stimulate the economy, and a few of the programs he introduced became key components of later relief efforts. However, Hoover's response to the crisis was constrained by his conservative political philosophy. He believed in a limited role for government and worried that excessive federal intervention posed a threat to capitalism and individualism. He felt that assistance should be handled on a local, voluntary basis. Accordingly, Hoover vetoed several bills that would have provided direct relief to struggling Americans. "Prosperity cannot be restored by raids upon the public Treasury," he explained in his 1930 State of the Union address.

What? "never pointed out major inventions like paper" - he pointed out specifically and meticulously the use of paper money and salt. http://www.history.com/news/ma...

"Historians before him have touched on these issues while defending Marco Polo’s honor, but Vogel also relies on another compelling body of evidence: the explorer’s meticulous descriptions of currency and salt production in the Yuan era. According to Vogel, Polo documents these aspects of Mongol Chinese civilization in greater detail than any of his Western, Arab or Persian contemporaries, a hint that the Venetian relied on his own powers of observation. Polo’s claims about the size of paper money and the value of salt, among other aspects, check out against archaeological evidence and Chinese documents maintained by Yuan officials, Vogel concluded."

One thing I find interesting - is that they teach Chinese students of Marco Polo in China. I would imagine that, if presented with "Hey, look, this dude from Europe visited you guys hundreds of years ago and did trade with the Mongols!" the first to refute and expose that would be the Chinese, as it would seem that their history would more likely be the source of truth (or closer to the source) rather than simply speculating on the contents of his verbal transcript.

first artificial satellite, USSR: http://www.space.com/17852-spu...

Sputnik wasn't a satellite, it was a beeping metal ball. Putting a rock into space isn't impressive, putting an actual probe in space is and NASA did that first.

first human in space, USSR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y...

I'll give you that, however I will say it was much easier for the Russians to do this since they don't care about safety like NASA does. Gagarin almost didn't make it back and who knows how many other cosmonauts they killed before him in their attempts.

first woman in space, USSR: http://www.history.com/this-da...

Irrelevant which sex the person was. I could just as easily say NASA put the first black person in space.

first unmanned landing on the moon, USSR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

The Russians crashed an impactor on the moon, not a real probe. NASA put _men_ on the moon.

first mission to Venus, USSR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

NASA was first to flyby Venus. The Russian missions failed.

first mission to Mars, USSR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

NASA was first to flyby, orbit and land on Mars. All of the Russian missions failed.

Now how about all of the other stuff like sending probes to Mercury and the outer planets? NASA did all of that first. NASA was also the first to send a probe out of the solar system.

I'm norwegian

So you're basically saying that you're like the French?

P.S., You're welcome.

What is the time now that a nation has to decide if incoming ICBMs are real or a computer or sensor glitch? Because you have to launch before the other guy's warheads go off among your silos or make an EMP over your head - use them or lose them.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/near-launching-of-russian-nukes

Now what if everyone has the new fast weapons which cut your decision time from minutes to seconds?

Sorry, but putting Japanese people in internment camps is not the same, nor 'worse' than government agencies oppressing everyone without exception.

Bullshit. I'd feel less bad if we had interned all German and Italian Americans along with the Japanese Americans, but we didn't. Why? Because we were racist fucks and it's time to accept that about ourselves. We deprived multi-generational Americans of life, liberty, and property without apology and later tried to self-justify that shit with statements like "those little, sneaky, yellow bastards might be spies. Can't trust'em." And yet, what ethnic background were the ONLY fucking tried WW2 CONUS espionage cases? HINT: Those crafty NAZIS, both before we entered the war and after See this.

The Japanese Internment Camps were nothing less than us extending state sanctioned racism from the black man to the yellow and was probably AT LEAST as fucked up as fucking the entire population over equally. We've allowed state sanctioned and implemented racism and oppression in the past and we are accepting it again. Until we stand up, we are all losers. Saying that an incredible travesty was "no worse" is bullshit. We accepted it then and we are accepting it now. BAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Or do we need to find middle american civilization references to spacemen ?

Would You Like To Know More?

All of this will happen again.

I guess most of you weren't around when Skylab fell back to Earth. Skylab was a much bigger satellite, but its equatorial orbit somewhat narrowed down the possible landing site locations. Everyone said it would probably fall into the sea. When pressed why, they'd admit they had no idea where it would come down. It was just that the majority of the surface area of the swath of the earth covered by Skylab's orbital inclination was ocean.

Nowadays they try to maintain enough propellant to steer the satellite into a forced re-entry over the ocean. From what I gather, GOCE only had an ion engine so this wasn't an option.

People are dumb. The amount of dumbth is directly proportional to the crowd size.

Some of us are old enough to remember the Rolling Stones concert with the Hell's Angels drunken "security" detail and the Who concert with "festival" seating.

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

I was a wee tyke when this happened, but I remember the news story.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/eleven-people-killed-in-a-stampede-outside-who-concert-in-cincinnati-ohio

--
BMO - "You'll put your eye out!" /christmas_story

The Life After People series covers this in detail. They use Battleship Island in one episode as an example and reference point.

Bullshit. Whether or not you're unionized, you can thank unions for the 40 hour workweek (which is dying with the unions), weekends off, lunch breaks, coffee breaks, vacations... any working stiff who is against unions is an idiot that has fallen for the right wing's bullshit.

Because Henry Ford was a well known organizer of unions, and all...

...no police force would accept a description of someone as "aged between 45 and 75 — that's the gap between Daniel Craig and Jack Nicholson."

It's easy enough to program the wall to tell the difference between them. Daniel Craig is the one who is perpetually adjacent to a 20-something female who has an elevated heart rate and increased respiration. Jack Nicholson is the one beating the glass wall with a golf club.

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

As per usual the Slashdot socialist class gets everything wrong.

Excerpts from the "commie" past of US (i.e a more sane US):

Brooklyn Bridge

Route 66

Golden Gate Bridge

Hoover dam

Moon landing

Yes, but it was the rule changes instituted between 1905 and 1909 that brought down the injuries and deaths, not the introduction of modern padding. It used to really be trench warfare with gang tackling, no distance between the players at the start of each play, eye gouging, etc... I will grant that the number of injuries will not decline, but I would argue that the type of injuries will be different and easier to treat.

By the civil war, technology had almost made (agricultural) slavery barely a breakeven (and more popular in the South largely because they had slow-moving swamps rather than the North's swiftly flowing rivers).

None of this makes historical or geographic sense.

Cotton was famously resistant to mechanization. There is no such thing as a commercially viable mechanical cotton picker until 1943. Cotton picker

. The crop comprised more than half the total value of domestic exports in the period 1815-1860, and in 1860, earnings from cotton paid for 60 percent of all imports.

Cotton

The South had as prosperous and extensive a riverine and coastal trade as existed anywhere on earth. Before the Erie Canal and the railroad almost all commercial traffic in the US states and territories moved north to south by water.

The pull would later threaten the foundations of Canadian nationalism.

Good answer:

That's a bullshit propaganda talking point that contradicts pretty much everything known about USSR GDP, defense, or economic significance (or, to be precisely, lack of one) of USSR dissolution.

I'd like to add that even if we egged them on, we did not "force" them to outspend their GDP in making military gear. They chose to do that.

Further, from what I saw, the USSR was massively unstable in every other way possible. Vast corruption, couldn't produce enough food, total lack of consumer goods, technologically backward, politically unstable and unresponsive chain of command.

I think when they shot down a civilian airliner and then claimed it was spying, while importing American wheat to avoid starving themselves, we should have known the USSR was circling the bowl.

Hurricane Hazel, the fourth major hurricane of 1954, hammers southern Ontario, Canada, on this day in 1954. Hazel hit hard from Jamaica to Canada, killing more than 400 people and causing over $1 billion in damages.

On October 5 hurricane hunters spotted Hurricane Hazel about 50 miles east of the island of Grenada. The storm gathered strength as it moved west across the Atlantic Ocean and then began to turn north. First in its line of fire was Jamaica. Then, with winds reaching 140 miles per hour, Hazel struck Haiti on October 12. The towns of Cayes, Marfranc and Moton were demolished. Hundreds of families lost their homes and nearly half of the island's coffee and cacao crop was destroyed. Moving northeast, the Category 4 storm rocked the edge of Puerto Rico, where eight people lost their lives.

Early on the morning of October 15, the storm made landfall at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and then moved along the U.S. coast to North Carolina and Virginia. Though coastal towns suffered the worst damage, even cities far from the ocean were affected. In Raleigh, North Carolina, winds were recorded at over 100 miles per hour. In Wilmington, Delaware, a woman was killed when winds picked her up and slammed her into a trolley car.

As Hazel slowed, even inland areas experienced excessive rain. The Ohio River flooded in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Thousands had to be evacuated from their homes and four people died in Pittsburgh. Moving north on the night of October 15, Hazel caught the Toronto area relatively unaware. When the Humber River flooded, entire neighborhoods were washed away and 81 people were killed. The storm finally dissipated the following day. Oct 15, 1954: Hurricane Hazel hits the Carolinas and Ontario

It sure as hell didn't do Toronto any good!

In America, we too have VERY few massacres.

How do you define "VERY few"?

July 2012 - 12 dead, 50 wounded - Aurora, CO
May 2012 - 6 dead, 1 wounded; Seattle, WA -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Seattle_cafe_shooting_spree
April 2012 - 7 dead, 3 injured - Oikos University, Oakland, CA
Feb 2012 - 3 dead, 2 wounded - Chardon, OH
Aug 2011 - 8 dead, 1 wounded; Copley Township, OH -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Copley_Township,_Ohio_shooting
July 2011 - 8 dead, 2 wounded; Grand Rapids, MI -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Grand_Rapids,_Michigan_shooting
Jan 2011 - 6 dead; 13 wounded - Tucson, AZ -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tucson_shooting
Jan 2010 - 8 dead; Appomattox, VA -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Appomattox_shootings
Nov 2009 - 13 dead, 30 wounded; Ft. Hood, TX -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_Shooting
April 2009 - 14 dead; 4 wounded - Binghamton, NY -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binghamton_shootings
Mar 2009 - 11 dead 6 wounded, Samson, AL -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_County_massacre
Feb 2009 - 4 dead, 1 wounded; University of AZ -- http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-527308.html
Dec 2008 - 9 dead, 3+ injured; Covina, CA
Sept 2008 - 6 dead, 2 injured; Alger, WA -- http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008153942_webshooting02m.html
Dec 2007 - 8 dead, 5 wounded; Omaha, NE
April 2007 - 32 dead; Virginia Tech
Oct 2006 - 6 dead, 5 injured; Nickel Mines, PA -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_school_shooting
Jan 2006 - 7 dead; Goleta, CA -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_San_Marco
March 2005 - 7 dead, 4 wounded; Brooksfield, WI -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Ratzmann
March 2005 - 10 dead, 12 injured; Red Lake HS, Minnesota
October 2002 - 10 dead, 3 injured; Washington DC (sniper attacks over 3 week period) -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks
July 1999 - 9 dead 13 wounded; Atlanta, GA -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_O._Barton
April 1999 - 12 dead; Columbine HS
Dec 1993 - 6 dead, 19 wounded; Long Island Railroad -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Island_Rail_Road_Massacre
May 1993 - 2 dead, 3 wounded; Dearborn, MI --
May 1993 - 3 dead; Dana Point, CA
July 1993 - 9 dead, 6 wounded; San Francisco, CA -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/101_California_Street_shootings
Nov 1991 - 4 dead, 6 wounded; Royal Oak, MI -- http://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/15/us/ex-postal-worker-kills-3-and-wounds-6-in-michigan.html
Oct 1991 - 4 dead (1 by samurai sword); Ridgewood, NJ -- http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/a-former-postal-worker-commits-mass-murder
Oct 1991

Get a clue.

"Temperatures will rise by an average of 1 degree" does not imply that temperatures will be ~1 degree higher each and every day. Quite the contrary, climatologists predict that the weather (including temperature) will be MUCH more volatile.

Oh, you get a clue and stop acting like a know-it-all. The idea that weather will be more volatile is a hypothesis, pushed (not exclusively, of course) by people who wish to demonize CO2 as much as possible.

In reality weather is extremely complex, and we are still unable to predict the effect of global warming on things like ENSO and NAO, which makes it very hard to predict what will happen with weather. There is some evidence that colder weather causes more volatile weather (See this for an idea).

Needless to say, the science is not settled. From an intuitive standpoint, it would be temperature differentials that cause extreme weather, not a general warming or cooling; although that's too broad a generalization to conclude anything useful.

A bit off-topic, I apologize, but this is one of my main triggers.

I also remember when The Learning Channel had learning shows, instead of reality TV, and when the History Channel had history shows, instead of reality TV(I'm too lazy to find more), and when Animal Planet had animal shows, instead of reality TV, and so on, and so forth, I don't want to get more depressed than I currently am, so I'm not looking anymore up.

It's a sign of the times that we must rely almost solely on PBS for actual, substantial lessons (I do love local PBS, though - they have an awesome local history show every week). It's a sign of the times that we focus more on the people that hunt alligators, or shoot historical weapons, or have family members with odd diseases, instead of the alligators, time period the guns were used, and symptoms/physiology behind the odd diseases. Why? Because we're all precious little snow-flakes, we all have interesting stories, and we all deserve our own television show.

Thoughts?

In Canada and Alaska ice roads are very real in the winter. I have learned quite a lot about them from the History Channel's Ice Road Truckers over the past several seasons. It's amazing to me that in some places the ice can hold over 2 tons.

Reality check, and it doesn't have a damn thing to do with European politics. Europe was forced into peace by the constant threat of the soviets and their occupation of the entire eastern half of the continent. One of the earliest treaties that helped establish peace in Europe was the one that founded NATO in 1949.

Swamp people?

Original search that sparked off the research described in the two links below:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/204499

The followup:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/17/black-death-rats-off-hook
http://www.history.com/news/2011/08/18/can-we-stop-blaming-rats-for-the-black-death/

Related:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/oct/12/black-death-genome-sequenced-dna?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

The assassination started a chain of events, and then people knew that war was a real possibility. Once war was a real possibility, everything was driven by railroad timetables--the complex movement of troops to the front was something that had been worked out very precisely and was very difficult, and once war became likely, every leader of every country was told "every day you don't order our troops to the front for war, we lose X miles of our country." Railroad timetables was a big driver that made it hard for people to step back.

As to the telegram exchange with the Czar, a better account of it is here:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/kaiser-wilhelm-of-germany-and-czar-nicholas-of-russia-exchange-telegrams

(I am not an expert.)

I wonder where they get their funding from? Too bad John's not around to provide "out-of-the-box" strategic fundraising ideas.

Interesting. I just looked for information on a patent on the hula hoop and found this article with this paragraph in it:

Melina and Knerr were inspired to develop the Hula-Hoop after they saw a wooden hoop that Australian children twirled around their waists during gym class. Wham-O began producing a plastic version of the hoop, dubbed "Hula" after the hip-gyrating Hawaiian dance of the same name, and demonstrating it on Southern California playgrounds. Hula-Hoop mania took off from there.

Hurray for patents then. Hurray for intellectual property in general. Stealing ideas from the public domain, staking an unfair claim on them, and profiting from day one.

We've not had wealth since the Clinton administration.

I think you mean "...since the Roosevelt administration".

...or maybe you meant "...since the Wilson administration".

No kidding. Hell, I just watched a TV game show where they held a sniper contest to see how quickly they could place a round on a target at 1000 yards. *spoiler* The winner sighted in using a couple of shots and hit the target in 31 seconds. The military sniper hit it in one shot, but took 33 seconds. Kind of an unfair outcome, but it's a TV show, not combat.

i'm confused

this is either a whoosh on my part or people don't know about eisenhower's famous speech

everyone should read eisenhower's farewell speech

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/dwightdeisenhowerfarewell.html

here's an excerpt, but the whole thing is extraordinary and prescient and should be mandatory slashdot nerd reading

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States cooperations -- corporations.

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.

eisenhower, on the flip side, was the guy who put "in god we trust" as the motto of the usa and "under god" into the pledge. boooooo. i understand he was a religious guy, but he completely screwed up the whole separation of church and state. like any man, brilliant and some respects, moron in others

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/president-eisenhower-signs-in-god-we-trust-into-law

I thought it was just part of the Hoth back lot, where they filmed Ice Road Truckers and stuff.

Yes because Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. Or was it Eurasia? So many enemies...

Allow me to alleviate your (feigned) bafflement. (For those who like to cut to the chase.)

Previously unseen tape shows bin Laden's declaration of war

Previously unseen tape shows bin Laden's declaration of war

A never-before-seen al Qaeda video obtained by CNN shows Osama bin Laden declaring war against the United States and the West.

The tape of a May 26, 1998, news conference is among 64 obtained in Afghanistan from a source, who said the tapes were found in an Afghan house where bin Laden had stayed. Experts say the collection of tapes sheds new light on al Qaeda's training, capabilities and mindset.

"By God's grace," bin Laden says on the tape, "we have formed with many other Islamic groups and organizations in the Islamic world a front called the International Islamic Front to do jihad against the crusaders and Jews."

"And by God's grace," he says at another point in the tape, "the men ... are going to have a successful result in killing Americans and getting rid of them."

CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen, who interviewed bin Laden a year earlier, believes the tape depicts a key moment for al Qaeda.

"They're going public," Bergen said. "They're saying, 'We're having this war against the United States.'"

Accompanying bin Laden on the video are Ayman Al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's right-hand man and inspirational ally, and military adviser Mohammad Atef, who died last November in coalition bombing.

Although a select group of Pakistani journalists and one Chinese writer were invited to witness as al Qaeda launched its jihad on the West, the event never got wide exposure because no independent videotaping was allowed.

Ismail Khan was one of the journalists there that day.

"We were given a few instructions, you know, on how to photograph and only take a picture of Osama and the two leaders who were going to sit close by him. Nobody else," Khan said.

Rohan Gunaratna, an international terrorism expert and author of "Inside Al Qaeda," suggests security was a key reason for keeping the video under wraps.

"Making that tape public would compromise the security of al Qaeda and of Osama bin Laden," he said. "They did not release that tape."

Among those who appear with bin Laden are the two sons of Sheik Abdul Rahman, the spiritual leader of those convicted of blowing up the World Trade Center in 1993. He is now in a U.S. prison for planning other attacks on New York.

Bergen says the significance of the sons' presence at the press conference "can't be underestimated." They distribute what they claim is the will of their father, which calls for attacks on Americans.

"The purported will states, 'Attack them on the sea. Attack them on the land. Attack them everywhere. Attack their economy,'" Bergen said.

The connection to Rahman, Bergen said, is key for bin Laden, who uses the sheik's spiritual guidance as a religious fig leaf from behind which bin Laden broadens his terror groups' appeal to radicals.

With hindsight, the important moments on the video are easy to pick out, including bin Laden hinting at an attack on U.S. targets.

Within 11 weeks of the declaration, al Qaeda attacked U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in bombings that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.

And perhaps almost as chilling, because it didn't happen, al-Zawahiri appears to justify an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt.

Bin Laden gave his peace terms in is letter to America. In short: covert to Islam as a nation, give up the US constitution and implement strict Sharia la

Give me one instance when a Church (place denomination here) sued someone for libel

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/galileo-is-convicted-of-heresy

made their former members vanish

Can't be arsed trying to find a reference to generally making people disappear, so I'll settle for "disappear in a cloud of smoke" :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Wightman

History is full of such examples, what the fuck is the issue with your defence of these archaic superstitious practices?

Scientology is merely younger than other religions, in every other regard it shares their lies, abuses and greed.

We don't really. We have a tiny percentage of some species that happened to be in the right place at the right time, which would itself be only a tiny percentage of all species which ever existed. Funerary rites would most certainly interfere with fossilisation, and if you wouldn't even want to credit them with that, you can at least envision that they would have an orderly process to dispose of the remains of their dead and not just leave them where they drop.

The aliens of Moses' time had a practice of shooting their dead into the sun. That's why you won't find their skeletons intermingled with human skeletons.

No, I think you don't. Take a look at these: http://www.history.com/shows/life-after-people/videos/#air-force-one About the only thing that might remain would be stores of gold, and even those could come a cropper or be rendered indistinguishable as artifacts, assuming you had the billion to one good fortune of digging hundreds of meters down in the right spot.

Yes, the same with the aliens. Their technology is designed to degrade quickly upon the signal from the mothership to leave. That's why you won't find stable elements surviving this long in the weather, or even unstable elements surviving in accidental perfect conditions.

The underlying assumption that we know all there is to know about everything? Bottom line is, we know very little about anything.

Yes, the aliens were here to teach us all of the things we didn't already know. Why don't those teachings persist? Well, it turns out that there was a undefined catastrophe which caused them to leave, and their abort signal took care of the rest.

And we're off. The extreme example I used was intended to prove a point about the use of imagination in the scientific method and the way that the dogmatic herd thinking which is becoming prevalent runs the risk of damaging creativity in science. I often find this in engineers particularly who are labouring under the mistaken belief that they are scientists. Rigid and conservative thinking is a benefit in engineering, in science it is a detriment.

What? You are not immediately seeing the wisdom of alien Moses? How rigid and dogmatic of you not to see the brilliant insight I am bringing to archeology!

The scorn which is being heaped upon even admitting the possibility that such a killing evolutionary advantage as intelligence might have previously appeared before mankind is evidence of a problem. I don't expect you to solve the problem, just pointing out that it exists.

You don't get it at all. Is it in the realm of possibility? Maybe. Is there any evidence for it? No. So, there is no reason to give it any more credit than my postulation of an alien Moses. Do you accept my theory of alien Moses? Granted, I'm not bringing a single piece of evidence to the table in support of it, but I can defend my theory every bit as well as yours. What's the difference?

No other species relied on that, and we have their remains to poke at.

We don't really. We have a tiny percentage of some species that happened to be in the right place at the right time, which would itself be only a tiny percentage of all species which ever existed. Funerary rites would most certainly interfere with fossilisation, and if you wouldn't even want to credit them with that, you can at least envision that they would have an orderly process to dispose of the remains of their dead and not just leave them where they drop.

I think I do. I'm not sure that you are following the scope of the disappearing act that you postulate, again, on no evidence whatsoever.

No, I think you don't. Take a look at these: http://www.history.com/shows/life-after-people/videos/#air-force-one About the only thing that might remain would be stores of gold, and even those could come a cropper or be rendered indistinguishable as artifacts, assuming you had the billion to one good fortune of digging hundreds of meters down in the right spot.

The number of extinctions changes what in my argument?

The underlying assumption that we know all there is to know about everything? Bottom line is, we know very little about anything.

Here, let me make one last attempt to garner your understanding: Moses was an alien. Can you disprove it? After all, an alien capable of making the trip would also be capable of perfect deception. I could spend the next year giving you ad hoc reasoning as to why your objections don't mean anything. But I just pulled it out of my ass. It's a completely unfounded assertion. But I could defend it in exactly the same way you are defending your statements. The point is that without a shred of empirical evidence to base your claim on, you, too, are just talking out of your ass. And that, not some dogmatism, is what makes it nothing more than an amusing story.

And we're off. The extreme example I used was intended to prove a point about the use of imagination in the scientific method and the way that the dogmatic herd thinking which is becoming prevalent runs the risk of damaging creativity in science. I often find this in engineers particularly who are labouring under the mistaken belief that they are scientists. Rigid and conservative thinking is a benefit in engineering, in science it is a detriment.

The scorn which is being heaped upon even admitting the possibility that such a killing evolutionary advantage as intelligence might have previously appeared before mankind is evidence of a problem. I don't expect you to solve the problem, just pointing out that it exists.

The History Channel aired "Saddam and the Third Reich" which is now in DVD format. Quite a fascinating perspective of how much Nazi Germany influenced Saddam in his youth.

Here's the posted excerpt.

Few people realize that the Baath party was actually formed upon the principles and organizational structure of the Nazi party. Iraq, because of its oil and hatred of Jews, was an important battleground between the Axis and Allied powers in World War II. Nazi propaganda was broadcast throughout Baghdad, and Iraqis often went on rampages against Jews throughout the war. One of the most ardent Nazi supporters during WWII was named Khairallah Talfah. Talfah was Saddam's uncle. After the war, many of the key Iraqi Nazi supporters, all of whom evaded prosecution, wound up involved in Saddam's rise to power. This special examines the key individuals of the Iraqi-Nazi connection, the little-known battle for Iraq in WWII, and the strange link to Saddam Hussein."

http://shop.history.com/detail.php?p=69306#tabs

Shouldn't the blame be placed on the Governor?

After all he's the one who, when Bush called to send troops to help, refused to allow them entrance: "It's okay. Louisiana can handle this alone." A president is powerful, but per the constitution still not allowed to overrule a Governor during peacetime. I think we sometimes forget the US is a lot like the EU..... the EU president would not be able to send help either if, for example, Greece's PM refused entrance.

Nope, the President has the power to send troops (obviously on with consent of Congress, who have passed various limitations such as Posse Comitatus and others, but I digress) whenever he pleases. In fact, the normal method is for the President to Federalize the National Guard (despite it's usually being commanded by the State governor) instead of actually sending the US Army. The NG is likely to be closer and already organized for disaster relief and riot suppression anyway. The Constitution expressly provides the power to do this (Art 1, Section 8) and it's codified in law as well.

LBJ did this in Alabama (see, e.g. here) when Gov Wallace refused to allow MLK to march and insinuated that the Guard would resist desegregation.

Just send these guys in. You might need an English-to-Cajun dictionary, though.

You obviously have never seen Swamp People on The History Channel.

http://www.history.com/shows/ufo-hunters/videos/soviet-archives#soviet-archives

here. a hoax straight from soviet secret archives, with OFFICIAL, and GENUINE ufo video that was shot by soviet military. ussr mig 21s chase a ufo, and film it, and this film has been kept in soviet ufo files for 40 years, and released recently.

and yea. tens of thousand of people witnessing ufos while commuting in mexico were all hallucinating. yea. fuck that.

hoax my butt.

http://www.history.com/shows/ufo-hunters/videos/soviet-archives#soviet-archives

http://www.history.com/shows/ufo-hunters/videos/soviet-archives#soviet-archives

there. enjoy. some narration is there but after you will see the video itself.

that video of the mig 21s chasing ufos is out of official soviet archives. its not 'cgi', its not manufactured, its not anything. it was a video kept as secret in ufo files, only to be released from the archives after fall of ussr.

It's not that we have more people, it's that we have a large amount of people (3rd most populated country in the world, behind China and India) spread across a large area (3rd largest country in the world, behind Russia and Canada).

Americans also have the problem where, although we have money, we don't like to spend it. Especially not to give it to the government for such minor things as infrastructure. A documentary was made a few years ago about the US's infrastructure, named The Crumbling of America.

In addition, this particular part of Infrastrusture, Internet service, was given to private corporations to administer in 1995 by the US's National Science Foundation. This has been shown to be a huge mistake, as these corporations are the reason why Internet service in the US is as slow as it is and costs as much as it does.

Then you need to explain which channel it was:

http://www.history.com/content/ufohunters/
http://www.bautforum.com/small-media-large/85688-history-channel-program-ancient-aliens.html

a return to subsistence-style living and community-driven societies

We have over 6bn people on this planet. If we all went back to subsistence farming, 3/4 or the world will begin to starve in very short order. Starving people tend to do weird things, like start wars, skirmishes, riots and things like that - over suddenly scarce resources (oh like, I dunno... food supplies , arable land, things like that?)

...with countries like Poland, who have just absolutely amazing self-reliant and vibrant communities...

...and a low enough population density to pull it off. I'm not seeing how Mumbai, Los Angeles or Tokyo can do this with any success, unless we offload the extra people - who still have to live somewhere. I also suspect that a suddenly starving German population would happily 'liberate' Poland's food production for their own use - and guess who would have the bigger guns and more desperate incentive with which to do it?

It's not a question of being lazy - it's a simple question of logistics that don't fit the paradigm, no matter how utopian and pretty it seems on the surface. There's also the the fact that a subsistence population tends to have astronomically higher birthrates, which tends to increase the pressures instead of alleviating them (but then with the return of disease and a higher child mortality rate, coupled with a lower life expectancy, who knows?)

...are you ready for that change...

I suggest extra ammunition and a rather large stockpile of MRE's until the excess population either dies of starvation or kills each other off. Defensible modifications to your house would help as well. May want to move to a sparsely-populated area as well and ride it out there.

-OR-

I suggest that you've spent way too many evenings watching Life After People re-runs, and fantasizing about some sort of post-armageddon future where you get to re-populate a shattered Earth with a gaggle of cute chicks who look to you as some sort of leader... or similar. May not want to close on that farmhouse in Idaho just yet, though.

It is my contention that:

1) The whole "Peak Oil" thing is somewhat of a sham, given that technology is emerging beyond a dependence on petroleum (we should be there completely within a couple of decades under normal market conditions, and if oil does start to become scarce, I'm certain that we'll get there even sooner due to simple market pressures). That said, it does have its uses in getting people to move to cleaner tech sooner (and no, you don't necessarily need Chinese rare earth metals to do it - see also hydroelectricity, monocrystal photovoltaics, etc).

2) China isn't the one and only repository of rare earth metals on this planet - if sufficiently motivated, I suspect that other sources will be found and/or synthesized if need be. Also, there are alternate means of creating clean tech w/o using rare metals to do it - it's all a question of economics and need.

3) People have been constructing and selling apocalyptic vision ever since St. John wrote his version on the Isle of Patmos. May not want to hold your breath just yet.

It's funny to think that USA should be the best nation with technology and infrastructure

Technology maybe, but infrastructure? The History Channel has a documentary called The Crumbling of America about the US infrastructure and how it's doing now.

Hint: The "Crumbling" in the title should clue you in on the current state of things.

Ever since I have seen the History channel episode I found the idea quite fascinating.
Always wondered who and how they plan out which direction they use to cut new rooms.

Odds are your father or grand father are smarter than their partners. Sure you mom may have a vast wealth of knowledge about shoes or Oprah but that's not of any real use.

I'll have you know that maybe wars are won and lost based upon shoes!