Slashdot Mirror

"Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent."

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_...

This method for counting civilian casualties was probably not Obama's idea to begin with, but he has adopted it. So now, as Davester666 said, "gov't defines anybody they kill as "the bad guy". You can quibble about women and children, but the point largely remains. Davester666 was referencing a govenment definition, not what any individual (including Mr. Obama) actually thinks. There is a difference. Treating the government as though it were just a very big individual leads to serious miscalculations. The government does not behave like a person.

Maybe because not everything is black and white?

Quite right. The Russian special forces deployed to invade Crimea were referred to as "little green men." Putin eventually admitted who they were - members of Russia's armed forces.

Maybe because asking intelligent, objective questions doesn't mean you are an "apologist"?

You apparently know nothing of his views (with which I am well acquainted) , and you should reread that post of his above. It is hardly even handed let alone objective.

Maybe because intelligent people usually know when they are being bullshitted...

That assertion leaves me with a dilemma - how is it that you don't know?

... and when a conversation goes like "Well, that is an interesting perspective, but what about...APOLOGIST!!

That isn't how the conversation went, and apparently you've read nothing of his views on Crimea. You're interjecting your ignorance into the conversation.

WHY DO YOU QUESTION THAT WHICH IS OBVIOUSLY RIGHT!!" this just serves to ring more alarm bells?

What do your "alarm bells" signal about this?

Putin Admits Russian Soldiers Were In Crimea, Slams West For Role In Ukraine Crisis
Russian Tanks Move Across Ukraine Border: NATO Chief Breedlove

I cannot speak for the guy you are insidiously claiming is on "the wrong side of the debate" but that is how your comments come across to me.

Maybe you "cannot speak for" him, but you seem to have given a real go at defending him. Why? Do you think he can't defend himself? He has regularly challenged my views. Will you defend me the next time you see me attacked? Somehow I doubt it.

"IBM corp's cybersecurity research team discovered the bug in May, describing it as a 'significant vulnerability' in the operating system.

"'The buggy code is at least 19 years old and has been remotely exploitable for the last 18 years,' IBM X-Force research team said in its blog on Tuesday."

http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/se...

I know you guys recently made a big deal out of attacking free software projects, and tried to exploit a couple of recent bugs in them to evangelize for paid development, so this reminder of how bad bugs frequently are in paid development software is pretty embarrassing. But in context, pretending this somehow demonstrates how good paid development models are just looks silly.

Yes, the most important racism out there is affirmative action.

I was scanning for this argument because I am prepared to set your ass straight on some points:

Your interpretation that the 2nd amendment was intended, in part, to help citizens defend itself against the government is whack.

For one, you are supporting the folks who are of the opinion that:

1.) the government (whether police officer or federal agent, soldier or sailor [who have died protecting your gun rights]) have to be killed ...

2.) to the point that something must be done, so they get their guns and then YOU are disgusted when they kill someone of authority. Do you support those killings, like goddam Westboro church?

Who, precisely, gets to decide when it's time to take the government out and who, precisely, gets to decide how much force is necessary?

For another, look at what's happened since the amendment was written:

The US government has enjoyed exponential growth in weaponry sophistication what with smart bombs, night vision, drones, attack ships, fighter jets, napalm, and a holy host of others.

If you seriously entertain killing our armed forces, why in God's name aren't you bitching about, "weapon parity?"

You have to be out of your goddam mind if you think your piddly-ass pea shooters are going to take out a goddam United States Navy aircraft carrier.

Why are you not campaigning for citizens' rights to own grenades, rocket launchers, tanks and fighter jets?

You are not doing that and you are not going to.

And the reason is simply that you are a simple-minded non-fucking thinker who will come up with any excuse to own a fucking gun that you have never used in self-defense, anyway, and would do you zero, zip, nada fucking good in killing off the public's defenders of the goddam Constitution of the United States.

It doesn't have to be that the satellite fails for it to look like or be called debris. The US has done similar things before; some people think that the Misty program (which is positively known to have included satellite camouflage research) involved faking a satellite explosion and cutting the radar cross-section of the actual satellite with sleight of hand so that it seemed to be part of a "debris" field from the explosion. See http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3077830/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/spy-satellites-rise-faked-fall/ for details.

The Misty program shows that radar cross section can be misleading, and that's the only real data suggesting that this is cube-sat sized. This could be an experimental stealth satellite, a Russian Misty, or, given its apparent intercept course with the rest of the original craft, an experimental satellite-killer, proving concepts of stealth and asat warfare.

One of the nurse's is supposed to be quaratined and instead is out for a bike ride http://www.nbcnews.com/storyli...

So what? She has no symptoms so she can't be contagious right now.

Or It is extremely unlikely that these mechanisms evolved in parallel, so *it's extremely likely that* all lifeforms were created using the same Biological programming language: i.e. DNA.

And there might be other biological programming languages. Would it not be possible for us to detect that instead of DNA, a similar bio-technology would work on a planet with different temperatures and atmosphere.

Our programming language, DNA, works on this planet, but a separate language works on other planets.

Recently the number of earth like palnets was estimated to be 8.8 billion. http://www.nbcnews.com/science...

If different bio-programming languages allow life on other planet types than earth, then the number of possibly inhabited planets becomes nearly infinite.

One of the nurse's is supposed to be quaratined and instead is out for a bike ride http://www.nbcnews.com/storyli...

Do you mean the person who doesn't have any symptoms and has tested negative to ebola at least once? That person?

Are you suggesting that people should be quarantined regardless of the science? If so that sounds awfully like a knee-jerk reaction with echoes of police state detainment for no reason at all.

One of the nurse's is supposed to be quaratined and instead is out for a bike ride http://www.nbcnews.com/storyli...

Which is why most companies won't sign-off on it (and I'm not inspecting pipelines with mine). Though farmers (even incorporated ones) probably have a better chance of this playing out in court in their favor than any other venture.

Still haven't heard if the FAA's appeal was ever in court.

FAA Fine Dismissed

No, crime did not go down.

Not to mention places being specifically targeted.

I believe you are wrong. Molten salt reactors are so safe it will take a comet / asteroid / military precision strike to cause a significant radioactivity release, and there is no water pressure on the inside to spit stuff out.
If you want to make the reactor 99.999999999999999% safe just bury it deeper. conventional reactors are too big to be buried, molten salts are compact enough you could install them 10 feet underground (with 10ft of reinforced concrete above it), and have all of its connections first go sideways before go up.
All three significant nuclear accidents (TMI, Chernobyl, Fukushima) wouldn't have happened with a molten salt reactor.
Coal kills. Natural gas kills. Oil kills. Coal kills 200k yearly worldwide. Natural gas and oil kills 10k yearly worldwide. When will we understand that fukushima radiation killed nobody and the real reason the quarantine is still going on is the result of unscientific fear of cancers that never materialized with any nuclear accident ?
Three Mile Island killed zero people, caused zero detectable deviation from cancer rates (specially no thryreoid or leukemia cancer rate deviations, main cancer types from radiation).
Chernobyl killed less than 200 people from radiation sickness and might eventually kill a whopping 6000 people from cancer compared to those that swear it kill one million, but can't list the names of even a couple thousand cancer cases (with names and diagnosis).
If people would be allowed back into Fukushima one year after the accident, cancer rates from that population would be smaller than those of people living in downtown Tokyo.
http://bravenewclimate.com/201...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/ot...
The problem isn't the disaster but rather Linear no threshold radiation cancer models which were created by deeply anti nuclear weapon scientists desperate to instill fear on governments undergoing nuclear weapons tests.
If LNT were true, cancer rates for people living above 10000ft / 3Km would be horrendous.

Just sell the power

In which jurisdiction can you "just sell power"? I dare you, try generate and sell electricity and see how long it takes before you're locked in a cell or buried under it.

I used to live in a little Missouri town that generated its own municipal electricity, economically and without any fuss, since the end of WWII. The energy companies spent the equivalent of 25 years worth of the revenue they would receive from taking over that franchise to get town officers elected who would eventually shut down the facility and contract with them. Eventually, when enough of these captive town officials had been elected, there was a controversial vote to stop self-generating. There was good evidence that the mayor and several town council members had been directly paid by energy PACs. Within 8 months, electricity costs in this town doubled. This was 7 years ago, and it's gone up and up since then. The new electric company uses the same generating facility that the town used to use. Every single town official who had voted to stop self-generating was eventually thrown out of office, but now there are contractual arrangements which prevent them from self-generating again for half a century.

Energy is one of those things that you are not allowed to produce. Look at the money the Kochs are spending to try to get localities to put taxes and surcharges on the sun, in order to kill solar energy initiatives by individuals. I'm convinced that energy is a major method of controlling people lives. It's economic control, and it's political control, and it's environmental control and it's control over how you live. And by the way,

http://www.nationaljournal.com...

and

http://www.nbcnews.com/busines...

Ah, but it is spread through casual contact. Someone cough near you? Droplets are evil little creatures. Handshake with someone who coughed on their hands?

If you've not had the flu ever in your life, then you can feel safe. Ebola spreads at least as easily as the flu, likely much easier.

What I really worry about is the non-human vectors. Imagine one dog (1) in the park, finding the vomit of an infected human (2), and this becoming a new, very hard to track infection source. "Our family isn't feeling so good - can you watch Fido while we go to the doctor?" Repeat.

(1) - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
(2) - http://www.nbcnews.com/storyli...

I think it's actually Obama who's done the most on climate change concretely. He signed into law new fuel economy standards that will double the fuel called me a new vehicles. Elon musk is selling a couple thousand cars a year, well Obama standards will affect millions of cars every year.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/2232...

When posed with the question: Would I prefer 50 politicians like X or businessmen/inventor's like Musk, my answer would be more Musks in the world.

Politicians should be lauded for doing the right thing for PR purposes, but their importance to the overall scheme should not be overhyped in history. Their minds are not the ones that shape the future. They can mandate anything they like, but it's up to engineers and others to actually implement it.

(Also, fuel economy standards are notorious for the loopholes and crooked accounting.)

My submission of a couple of days ago.

"The EM2 corportation has submitted a paper to axiv.org http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.0133 describing their $10 million US Navy project to investigate Bussards Polywell fusion device. NBC has a report on the development http://www.nbcnews.com/science... . Quoting Nicholas Krall, a plasma physicist who has been working in the fusion field for more than a half-century and has been an adviser to EMC2 Fusion, "I think this is the most exciting experimental advance that I've been involved in," he told NBC News. 'I'm stoked.""

Plus there are 2-3 other concepts that gave got Venture Capital funding. Fusion is looking more interesting.

Because you pay for it whether they die in the streets, default on treatment they can't afford, or get free healthcare.

Disposing of a corpse found on a street would cost less than a thousand dollars — even with a modicum of dignity due a total stranger. Curing him is likely to cost tens, if not hundreds of thousands.

It's cheaper for everyone to pay a little bit of money to get healthcare and ensure everyone's covered.

That's a rather questionable assertion. The second a consumer of services becomes distinct from the payer, costs rise and fraud flourishes.

Imagine government deciding, having a cell phone is "a basic human right" (hardly far-fetched — some counties have already declared Internet access to be such a right, to loud approvals by your kind). With tax-payers paying for new phones, would anyone eligible for such subsidy settle for less than the latest and most loaded model? Would the manufacturers even make the lower-speced devices without having to compete (for some buyers) on the price?

But stipulating for a second, that you are right and it is cheaper, that is not what I asked about. I didn't ask, whether or not it is economically beneficial — the conversation was about such forced charity being a marking of a "civil society". Or not...

The original EPA guidelines were worse than what is listed now, but the new revised ones that are currently listed appear to have changed over the course of the last couple years, I don't know why they have revised it, as it's not like the contents of a CFL have changed since then.

I've seen the original guidelines, but since they were revised, I can only find the newer ones, which you still have to admit, are a bigger pain than cleaning up the normal bulbs.

here is proof, that the guidelines were revised at some point, but the link to the original guidelines in this article no longer takes you to them (curiously). http://www.elightbulbs.com/lig...

Here is a Nbc article from prior to the change, about a lady who got quoted $2000 to "properly" clean up a broken CFL bulb. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/2369... (I know, anectdotal evidence)...

So a married man with kids is getting full pay because it's expected that they will put their career above their family? But a woman in the same situation is paid less because she's expected to put her kids first? And not because of actual actions that lead to this conclusion?

Yes, and?

Prices and wages can be, and often are, set by actions AND/OR expectations.

Insurance companies work this way. Young single men tend to pay more, because statistically they are riskier.

I'm not saying it's right, but that's how things work in the real world. We are not efficient enough to measure each individual, so we use statistics and study demographics. Legislation won't magically make us more efficient and change all that.

Maybe one day technology will be so advanced we can monitor each individual and accurately measure their worth to determine what their pay should be, but that sounds like a total surveillance state.

Food allergies, food-borne illness, etc.
Also If you are morbidly obese, a bucket of fried chicken probably isn't benefiting you.
I got sick in peru drinking local water.
You can actually die from ingesting too much water.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/1661...

The Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), which strives to represent all women in the armed forces, believes such a change is simply the logical next step to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s decision last week to erase the long prohibition on females in combat.

“SWAN advocates for the inclusion of women into Selective Service,” said Anu Bhagwati, executive director of SWAN and a former Marine Corps captain. “Lifting the ban on women officially serving in combat is about giving qualified women the opportunity to serve and making our military stronger, and that would include having women register for Selective Service."

“If you are going to say ‘total equality’ in the military, that has to include Selective Service registration,” agreed Cassaundra StJohn, founder and CEO of F7 Group, which provides resources, training and mentoring to female veterans. StJohn served in the Air Force and Air Force Reserve between 1985 and 1998, reaching the rank of staff sergeant.

(Source)

What's that? Where's the women's groups clamoring for inclusion in the draft? Oh, there they are. Your arguments seem curiously ignorant of the actual facts of the situation.

Not to mention there are purely biological and existential reasons for keeping women out of the line of fire: for reproduction, women are more crucial to the production of future generations of soldiers. One man can have 100 children by 100 women in 9 months. One woman can only have 1 child by 1 man in 9 months.

Fair enough. But there are a few issues with this idyllic view.

I agree--I like warm weather which is why I live where the weather is warm year-round. The problem is that I get my water from a place where it isn't warm year-round. It comes down from the mountains which usually are cold in the winter and all that water that falls during the winter months gets stored up there as snow. It then melts in the springtime, trickling down the mountain and restoring wells and things like that so that people can grow food for me and provide me with water to drink, wash my car, grow my roses, tend my lawn, and all those nice things.

Now a four degree difference where I live is barely noticeable. But up there in those mountains, there's a big difference between 29 degrees fahrenheit and 33 degrees fahrenheit, in regards to water. That snow is now rain and rather than trickling down the mountain in the springtime, it careens down the mountain in the winter and is long gone by the summertime. So the people who grow food for me have no water. There's no water for me to drink, wash my car, grow my roses, etc.

So what's the big deal? Build some dams and we'll have all the damn water we need! Fair enough--who pays for those dams to be built? Didn't you hear? The US Government is broke. We don't have the money to go around building dams--not and assist the poor, fight for freedom, and provide tax breaks to the rich and powerful "job creators."

Add another angle--so we lose California and gain Alaska. How do we get the food that was grown in California and is now grown in Alaska down here to the continental US? After all, we've been growing food here in California for awhile and an infrastructure has built up to handle it over the last 100 or so years. Are we going to start building highways and railroads across Alaska? And who pays for those?

If you want to get nationalistically paranoid, consider that global warming may turn the midwest--"America's Breadbasket"--into a dustbowl. But it may turn Siberia into a nice place to grow grain and wheat. Imagine the prices to import wheat from Russia. Hope you like an "Atkins Diet"...

So, yeah, having grown up in Vermont, there are plenty of times that I'd've loved a warmer winter. But giving everybody a warmer winter is going to cause problems...

"His [Schulte's] prior experience as Chief-of-Staff at Priorities USA, the Super PAC supporting President Obama's re-election," assured Zuckerberg in a letter to FWD.us contributors, "will ensure FWD.us continues its momentum for reform."

But, how is this possible? I thought Obama banned his team from becoming lobbyists after they left him???

I guess that rule doesn't apply to everyone. Good thing we have the most transparent administration ever and these lobbying efforts won't influence anyone...

Super PACs are run independent from individual campaigns and are not allowed to coordinate with candidates. So he wasn't part of Obama's staff, in theory...

"His [Schulte's] prior experience as Chief-of-Staff at Priorities USA, the Super PAC supporting President Obama's re-election," assured Zuckerberg in a letter to FWD.us contributors, "will ensure FWD.us continues its momentum for reform."

But, how is this possible? I thought Obama banned his team from becoming lobbyists after they left him???

I guess that rule doesn't apply to everyone. Good thing we have the most transparent administration ever and these lobbying efforts won't influence anyone...

Umm.. The numbers are not even close to 12 million.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/th...

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/...

Obamacare seems to have only helped a little under 3% of the people who did not have coverage previously. Even now, there are still problems with it as one of the largest insurance companies in Minnesota is pulling out of the exchange.

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/...

Now before you get all pissy, this isn't a swipe at obamacare, it's the facts surrounding it that you seem to have missed and evidence of the GP's statement that "they simply do not have any clue to anything that they are involved with". Evidently, neither do you unless you were listening to them.

Umm.. The numbers are not even close to 12 million.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/th...

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/...

Obamacare seems to have only helped a little under 3% of the people who did not have coverage previously. Even now, there are still problems with it as one of the largest insurance companies in Minnesota is pulling out of the exchange.

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/...

Now before you get all pissy, this isn't a swipe at obamacare, it's the facts surrounding it that you seem to have missed and evidence of the GP's statement that "they simply do not have any clue to anything that they are involved with". Evidently, neither do you unless you were listening to them.

enter as a tourist while (not so) secretly being an american agent [Status as an American Agent is determined by the American government, and is therefore something "the US decided to do"]

No, it isn't, unless your claim is that Gross was a slave of the US government. He had a choice. He chose to accept several millions in exchange for the risk. And now he is paying for his choice.

So your argument is that Cuba can make it illegal for the US Government to hire people?

He chose to do things while in the US that are completely legal under US Law. In fact most of them are actually required by US Law.

If your conclusion that Cuba clearly had jurisdiction for every charge you mention was in any way valid, don't you think you could come up with a single example of a non-citizen being sent to prison for years for being a foreign agent?

How other countries choose to deal with the threats is irrelevant to what makes sense for Cuba to do, and ignoring the particular context of Cuba's actions is naive at best. Most, if not all of those you claim to have been released, have been released after negotiations have taken place, not unconditionally. Every single case that ended with an agent swap necessarily serves as the example you ask for (the agents arrested by the first country are held until the second country has something to offer in return). So far, that's also the case with Gross, only that, because the US refuses to negotiate, the negotiations have not yet taken place.

And again, you're bringing up the strawman of unconditional release. I have never argued that Cuba's only choice was unconditional release. As I said before, if they wanted to release him the time for negotiations would have been back in early 2010.

In international relations pretty much the only thing that matters is what other countries in similar situations have done because these relationships are complex, and iterative. ie: if Canada and Denmark have a spat on Hans Island that has to affect their next set of interactions, and everyone else has to judge their actions by some objective standard. Since the actual international legal system allows you to nuke their capital when one of their planes gets lost and flies into your air-space (both are technically Acts of War), the objective standard used is "what did those other guys do when they had a similar spat four years ago?"

Also, Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher, russian agent captured by the US, tried, convicted, sentenced to 30 years, served several years in prison before he was exchanged. Yu Xin Kang, Chinese, convicted by the US to 18 months. I suppose that now you are going to move the goalposts and demand some other conditions. It will be very easy to demand a condition that I cannot satisfy, after all, non-citizens don't make very good spies, and it is even rarer for a country to outright refuse to negotiate for the release of their agents. I'm curious to see what new demands you come up with.

Read the charges against him. He got 30 years for transmitting classified information, and five for failing to register as a foreign agent.

Given that I've already admitted the US Foreign Agent laws are

RE: older scientists

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/4519...

the catch is, they started when they were young

enter as a tourist while (not so) secretly being an american agent [Status as an American Agent is determined by the American government, and is therefore something "the US decided to do"]

No, it isn't, unless your claim is that Gross was a slave of the US government. He had a choice. He chose to accept several millions in exchange for the risk. And now he is paying for his choice.

If your conclusion that Cuba clearly had jurisdiction for every charge you mention was in any way valid, don't you think you could come up with a single example of a non-citizen being sent to prison for years for being a foreign agent?

How other countries choose to deal with the threats is irrelevant to what makes sense for Cuba to do, and ignoring the particular context of Cuba's actions is naive at best. Most, if not all of those you claim to have been released, have been released after negotiations have taken place, not unconditionally. Every single case that ended with an agent swap necessarily serves as the example you ask for (the agents arrested by the first country are held until the second country has something to offer in return). So far, that's also the case with Gross, only that, because the US refuses to negotiate, the negotiations have not yet taken place.

Also, Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher, russian agent captured by the US, tried, convicted, sentenced to 30 years, served several years in prison before he was exchanged. Yu Xin Kang, Chinese, convicted by the US to 18 months. I suppose that now you are going to move the goalposts and demand some other conditions. It will be very easy to demand a condition that I cannot satisfy, after all, non-citizens don't make very good spies, and it is even rarer for a country to outright refuse to negotiate for the release of their agents. I'm curious to see what new demands you come up with.

while 95% of the population still live in extreme poverty and could make more use of the billions wasted on this project

Nah, sorry, this argument doesn't work. Far more billions are wasted on completely useless military activity than the relatively miniscule space program of all nations put together - and the space programme at least has a use ...

As 'The Hawk' says, we urgently need to set up an off-world colony before the next asteroid strike wipes our species out. We had an unexpected visit from such an asteroid whizzing past inside the orbit of our geostationary satellites just a couple of days ago - this house-sized lump of rock was only detected for the first time about a week before it arrived. Who knows how long we've got before one of these things actually collides with us. Apparently such an event is now overdue in geological timescale terms.

More space programme please.

The Western side of Antarctica has gained some mass but not enough to counteract the much more massive amount the Eastern side has lost. So, a much larger net negative.

What I find most amazing is this: 97% of the best climate scientists we have on earth have concluded that we have a problem. The insurance companies ["How The Insurance Industry Sees Climate Change", "For Insurers, No Doubts on Climate Change", "Rift Widening Between Energy and Insurance on Climate Change", "Insurer's Message: Prepare for Climate Change or Get Sued", "On Climate Change: Get Ready or Get Sued" have concluded we have a problem. But, in the interest of sticking with their political druthers, a significant fraction of the American population has decided that 97% of the climate scientists and the insurance companies must be wrong. These people--Conservatives, essentially--are willing to take a risk that 3% of climate scientists are correct and that the insurance companies and 97% of climate scientists are wrong--merely because it serves their political persuasion.

Do you think that Liberals would be successful at convincing 97% of climate scientists to take our point of view and the insurance companies too if this were bullshit? Yet, all these wiseass Conservatives are willing to take a risk with our frickin' planet just so they can jam a finger in the eye of their political rivals--ignoring the reality that has the potential to end life on the damned planet. In short, WTF is going on in the mind of Conservatives? How do you look at all these insurance companies and think: "It's a Liberal plot!" Can you be so stupid?

It doesn't make sense unless your theory is that Evil President Obama is intentionally dismantling any programs we may have had in order to make terrorist domination of the world easy, twirling his mustache all the way. . . .

You seem to be speculating that Obama is doing things to actively undermine any defenses we have based on... I'm not sure what exactly. This seems to be part of the "bizarro world" theory that people have about political opponents. They think, "I'm against policy X and they're for policy X" means that the other guy is their exact mirror image and end up with, "I'm for fighting terrorism, so he must be for enabling it." No actual evidence of policy disagreement or bad policy is necessary. It's just reasonable to assume that the other guy is making a hash of it because he's your opposite and you'd be doing everything right.

Apparently you believe that all well intentioned actions regardless of how different they are have the same result in the end. Cut 100,000 troops to the Army and slash its budget by $50 billion is the same as adding 100,000 troops to the Army and adding $50 billion to its budget. Refusing to capture and interrogate terrorists provides just as much information as capturing and interrogating them. Is there any chance that you can spot the nonsense there? Can you make an allowance for well intentioned but flawed, counterproductive actions resulting from decision making based on ideology divorced from the facts? Is that a possibility? Or does it all devolve to "mustache twirling"? That is just so tedious. Do you pay any attention to the news?

Pentagon Set to Slash Military to Pre-World War II Levels

...so it would be kind of surprising if the DOD ignored the whole thing for all those years and should start scrambling now that some guys playing solider in homebrew camps are thinking about it.

DOD is great for the 1% of Americans involved with the military. Unfortunately that doesn't do much for the other 99%.

My understanding is that it's a "treat with antibiotics after exposure" type of thing. And we have and produce lots of antibiotics, many of which I remember us ramping up production on post 9/11.

There are vaccines for plague, but other than the military or some travelers not many people get them. Even with treatment the plague still kill around 10% of its victims. When untreated it kill a far higher percentage. About 100 years ago it kill about 2/3 of its victims in the US.

I suspect not, given that they appear to be trying to get it from dead animals at the moment.

There are plenty of groups associated with al Qaida and ISIS. The fact that one is doing that says nothing about what another has been able to do.

Because, the yellow cake thing was a lie,

Those gullible Canadians, buying 550 metric tons of non-existant yellow cake.

there were no WMDs,

Ok.

and the country you did invade is falling into civil war.

That's what happens when you announce to the world the date that you're going to pull your troops out of a country where you're trying to help the government restore some semblance of order. All the opponents have to do is go into hiding, planning for the day when you leave. They have no reason to surrender if they know they're going to win on a certain preset day.

US military spending remains outrageous, at about the level of the rest of the world put together.

That is irrelevant to the question regarding the US defense budget rising or falling.

I assume you mean the 2013 cuts -- those have been matched, basically dollar for dollar, by increasing the "temporary" budget for Afghanistan.

Sorry, but no. US defense spending has been falling since 2010. For 2015 it will probably end up being about $120 billion less than 2010.

Major personnel cuts are happening too.

Pentagon Set to Slash Military to Pre-World War II Levels

Fundamentalism is a part of it, yes, but would never amount to anything like what we've seen were it not for widespread anti-US sentiments stemming from more pragmatic reasons

Islamist insurrections have been on-going since at least the 1950s (ignoring the earlier ones) and have been aimed at taking control of the local nation. They have nothing to do with the US. You don't know what you are talking about.

Coming from someone who apparently still believes the Iraq war had anything to do with 911 ...

Please provide some evidence for this. You are simply engaging in cheap, misleading rhetoric.

somehow still manages to delude himself that anti-American sentiment somehow thrives in complete isolation of its international posturing

Enjoy your illusions while you still can.

Intelligence Report: Number of Islamists in Germany Grows
Germany: Islamists Infiltrating Schools in Hamburg

German interior minister warns of threat of lethal attacks by Islamists

On Wednesday, German interior minister Thomas de Maizière (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) warned of an imminent threat of terrorist attacks by Islamist “religious warriors” in Germany and throughout Europe.

“An abstract danger has become a concrete, lethal threat in Europe, with an impact on Germany,” the interior minister said at the presentation of the domestic intelligence agency’s 2013 report in Berlin. The attack at the Jewish museum in Brussels, where four people were killed by a jihadi at the end of May, had “made clear that the possibility of an attack by such forces returning from Syria has become a deadly reality,” de Maizière explained.

Domestic intelligence chief Hans-Georg Maaßen added, “Islamist terrorism represents the greatest threat to society. Germany is not far from terrorism. We continue to be a target for the planning of attacks.”

Officials Say Islamic Terrorism Is Germany's Big Domestic Security Risk

Yep.
Read about it here

Because Muslim is a synonym of terrorist, right? Congratulations, your brainwash is finished, just don't read the wrong news http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us....

Reminds me of reports from Gaza when the Israelis pulled out and left Greenhouse industries behind.

Heck, jews around the world even put up money to rebuild them so Gaza could have a healthy start at an independent economy ...
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/9331863/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/looters-strip-gaza-greenhouses/#.U-O2WVZEcmU

There is ZERO evidence that a trial would not be fair. Like it or not, our criminal legal system works just fine and generally produces the right results. If anything, our system favors the accused and we let a lot more people walk who did it than punish those who didn't. Snowden would be fairly tried.

There cannot be "evidence" of something that hasn't happened yet.

There are hints though, and opinions from knowledgeable people, that he wouldn't have a fair trial, for he'd be tried using a law intended to deal with spies, not whistlebowers.

See Venezuela.

If you can catch a flight (kinda tough at the moment because the Government has effectively nationalized airline ticket revenue so the airlines have canceled most regular service) you might take a trip and stay if you like it so much.

Bring extra toilet paper.

energy, water, medical

All of the above has either been or is under imminent threat of nationalization. Lets look at the results;

Energy: Venezuelan president’s live speech about blackouts interrupted by blackouts
Water: Caracas Goes Thirsty as Taps Run Dry and Bottles Vanish
Medicine: Patients urged to show up at hospitals with their own disinfectant, gauze and pain killers

Of-course I completely forgot to mention all of the service prices that are rising, from accounting, to lawyers, to court fees, to mailing, to education, to car repair, etc.

Did I forget to mention coffee and coffee shops?

Obviously water

They will talk about drought and bandits and weather and climate and every single excuse under the Sun except for the actual real cause of this nonsense: inflation.

During WW2, multiple nations and groups were savagely "victimized" (that's an understatement but we'll go with that as an euphemism): Jews, Gypsies, Poles, homosexuals, etc. It is clear that the most affected were the Jews.
WW2 ended, the deeds were documented, everybody eventually moved on. Everybody but Jews.

Two years after the end of World War 2 in Europe the Jewish people were again threatened with genocide.

Azzam's Genocidal Threat

Of the countless threats of violence, made by Arab and Palestinian leaders in the run up to and in the wake of the November 29, 1947 partition resolution, none has resonated more widely than the warning by Abdul Rahman Azzam, the Arab League's first secretary-general, that the establishment of a Jewish state would lead to "a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades."

That threat hasn't really gone away, and if anything it is expanding.

UN chief denounces Iran to its face over calls to destroy Israel

So my advice to Jews and anyone else who acts like that: stop blowing things out of proportion!

Perhaps you can forgive their concern about being the victim of real genocide given that they have both experienced it within living memory, and have been realistically threatened with it repeatedly since then.

You mean like these?
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyli...

The big one is Carlsbad, near San Diego, but towns all the way up the coast are installing plants:
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyli...

And these are all using reverse-osmosis tech, which costs about twice the market groundwater rate. THey represent hedges against the total disappearance of groundwater.

Actually the group worst hit WAS in an area where they weren't supposed to be, but they had the attitude of damn gubmint can't tell me what to do. source (among many). If you think these folks would have been worried about higher insurance rates you're almost as loony as they are =)

The NSA and GCHQ have always wanted more info on China.

Isn't turnabout is fair play?.

China's Growing Spy Threat

But according to analysts and officials, the communist-controlled People’s Republic of China operates the single largest intelligence-gathering apparatus in the world—and its growing appetite for secrets has apparently become insatiable.

From economic and military espionage to keeping tabs on exiled dissidents, China’s global spying operations are rapidly expanding. And, therefore, so is the threat. Some analysts even argue the regime—which is also gobbling up such key natural resources as farmland, energy, and minerals—has an eye on dominating the world.

Estimates on the number of spies and agents employed by the communist state vary widely. According to public statements by French author and investigative journalist Roger Faligot, who has written several books about the regime’s security services, there are around two million Chinese working directly or indirectly for China’s intelligence apparatus.

Other analysts say it would be impossible to count the exact number. ‘I doubt they know themselves,’ says Richard Fisher, a senior fellow on Asian military affairs at the Washington-based International Assessment and Strategy Center. Regardless, the number is undoubtedly extraordinary. ‘China can rightly claim to have the world’s largest, most amorphous, but also most active intelligence sector,’ he says.

Russia, China engaging in industrial espionage

Germany is full of Russian and Chinese spies working to get information about top business and technology developments, according to the country’s domestic intelligence service.

Studies show that the German economy loses around €50 billion a year as a consequence, Burkhard Even, head of the counterintelligence section of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, told the audience at a recent security forum in Bonn. . . .

There are around 80,000 Chinese people living in Germany, Even said, many of whom are commercial spies. China is also buying into, or taking over companies completely, in order to get access to new technological developments. . . . . . the Chinese were mostly active in the electronic sector. Some reports suggest the Chinese intelligence services have up to a million agents across the world collecting technical and business data to support their industries.

"It is estimated that at least 20 Foreign intelligence services are operating to some degree against UK interests. Of greatest concern are the Russians and Chinese. The number of Russian intelligence officers in London has not fallen since the Soviet times."
 

Britain Warned Businesses of Threat of Chinese Spying

Canada a target-rich environment for Chinese spies

Officials say Chinese spies have targeted every sector of the U.S. economy

There's nothing "traditional" about the depth, pervasiveness, or reach of the USG's spying. If it's anything like military spending, the U.S. spends more than the rest of the planet combined.

Maybe you can use this to start bridging your information gap.

Russia, China engaging in industrial espionage

Germany is full of Russian and Chinese spies working to get information about top business and technology developments, according to the country’s domestic intelligence service.

Studies show that the German economy loses around €50 billion a year as a consequence, Burkhard Even, head of the counterintelligence section of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, told the audience at a recent security forum in Bonn.

The spying is a mix of official, intelligence service agents, and unofficial business spooks, he said.

Even estimated that of the 500 registered staff of the Russian embassy in Berlin, at least 150 were working as intelligence agents, disguised as diplomats or journalists.

He said that more than four million Russians live in the country as a whole, leaving him unable to guess at how many agents might be hidden amongst them.
 

China's Growing Spy Threat

But according to analysts and officials, the communist-controlled People’s Republic of China operates the single largest intelligence-gathering apparatus in the world—and its growing appetite for secrets has apparently become insatiable.

From economic and military espionage to keeping tabs on exiled dissidents, China’s global spying operations are rapidly expanding. And, therefore, so is the threat. Some analysts even argue the regime—which is also gobbling up such key natural resources as farmland, energy, and minerals—has an eye on dominating the world.

Estimates on the number of spies and agents employed by the communist state vary widely. According to public statements by French author and investigative journalist Roger Faligot, who has written several books about the regime’s security services, there are around two million Chinese working directly or indirectly for China’s intelligence apparatus.

Putin's Secret Weapon

Britain under attack from 20 foreign spy agencies including France and Germany

"It is estimated that at least 20 Foreign intelligence services are operating to some degree against UK interests. Of greatest concern are the Russians and Chinese. The number of Russian intelligence officers in London has not fallen since the Soviet times."

A Whitehall source told The Sunday Telegraph that Russia uses its massive spy network as an "extension of state power" in an attempt to "further its own military and economic base".

The source said: "If a country, such as Russia or Iran, can steal a piece of software which will save it seven years in research and development then it will do so without any hesitation. Russian agents will target anybody that they believe could be useful to them. Spying is hard-wired into the country's DNA. They have been at it for centuries and they are simply not going to stop because the Cold War has ended."

Officials say Chinese spies have targeted every sector of the U.S. economy

sounds like a republican capitalist paradise. we should import a couple of the Dubai leaders to put the US poor to work. finally.

Right ... because it's Republicans who want to concentrate people in cities. Got it.

No...it must be because the poor in Dubai get paid well and have good lives compared to the poor Americans.
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/2480... /ironyoff

Of course if you are entering a password whilst using an augmented reality device only you can see what you are doing and why you are doing it. So only way to defeat all those countless surveillance cameras http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tec... , http://www.nbcnews.com/id/4416.... Perhaps google glass isn't the problem perhaps the problem already exists.

"has a camera that can recognize faces,"

Which is also quite a stretch, given how often it 'recognises' patches of lichen on a wall as a face.

Because it's not like humans make these types of mistakes.

"Oh, and your cellphone can also beat any grandmaster in the world at chess."

As above. And anyway, if the grandmaster followed the same instructions as the computer, it would win right back. Does that mean anything though?

By this logic, if a computer followed the same instructions as a human (that is, the laws of physics acting on a particular collection of massive particles), it too would be sentient. Worded differently, if a computer could run a sufficiently accurate simulation of a human brain in realtime, it would behave the same way as a human brain. Does that mean anything though? Well, it means that indistinguishable-from-humans AI is inevitable, but apparently the implication is meaningless?