E.U. Agrees To Launch Galileo Satellite Location System

waimate writes "The European Union today decided to go ahead with Galileo, the constellation of 30 satellites which will compete with the U.S. GPS system. The U.S. abolished selective availability three years ago partly to make GPS more useful for all mankind, but also to dissuade other countries from developing their own navigational satellite system, and thus be dependant on the U.S. for both peaceful and military purposes. Since the demise of the Russian GLONASS system, GPS is the only game in town. Evidently recent events make Europe feel less comfortable about such things, and so they're building their own. Good thing for commercialization of space, or bad thing for world peace?"

Comments

Re:It serves us right

[curious.corn]

UBL was a lavishly funded friendly when he was 'freedom fighting' with the mujaheddin... too bad he turned out to be a terrorist like the other lot; but then it was the reds to play the role of the bad dudes.
You'll certainly recall that most of the civilian deaths and miseries in South America have some serious connections with US administration efforts in 'protecting national interests' by funding and training liberticide regimes.
BTW... when Saddam was fighting iranians he was US's best freind; do you beleive the asshole fought them with slingshots? I even have a nice jpg documenting Rumsfeld shaking hands with the bastard (this is strictly speaking a private enterprise initiative but undoubtedly some state support & evaluation was provided).
Next time you want to comment on something try to avoid bitchy fox-addict texan redneck comments unless you don't want to sound ridiculous and pointless

Re:I think it's a good thing

[fname]

Hey, this is not a knock on the way GWB was elected, but do not mistake the actions of this administration for the intent of our nation as a whole.

First, we more people voted for Al Gore than GWB. GWB is president not b/c of a corrupt Supreme Court and absentee ballot shenanigans, but rather b/c 1) the Palm Beach County butterfly ballot, and 2) Al lost his home state voting. Yikes.

Second, the GWB we elected is not the GWB now in office. I really don't think he wanted to project American power; I don't think he was lying when he derided Clinton for using the military for "nation building." Rather, Cheney, a neo-con, ran the transition team, put many of his like-minded allies in key posts (Wolfowitz & Rumsfeld are only the most obvious) and heavily influenced the foreign policy. After 9/11, GWB really did change, and I think he believes it's his duty to use American power to defend americans. Now, many think this is a bass-ackward approrach.

So, I ask the rest of the world, wait until November 2004 to judge how American policy has changed. If we re-elect GWB, all is fair; if we kick him out, give it a couple years and we'll return to the Nixon/Ford/Carter/Bush I/Clinton moderate foreign policy that has ruled America for most of the last 35 years.

Re:THC and Cancer

[corebreech]

If the US Government funds a study it's automagically a lie. If someone else funds it is automagically the truth.

Don't believe me. Read what Johns Hopkins had to say about it. No, screw that, read the UCLA study yourself. Don't accept the spin given it by the media, actually read it for yourself. You'll see that what I am saying is correct.

BTW, the US Government's veracity here is compromised by the fact that they won't permit public institutions to conduct research on marijuana unless that research seeks to discover how marijuana causes harm *and* that study is carefully controlled to preclude the possibility that any benefits are uncovered in the process. This is how they got into trouble in the first place... that first research in 1973 by the Medical College of Virginia was supposed to be about how marijuana suppresses the immune system.

But it's not a magic bullet. There is no magic bullet for cancer, even then best treatments will never save everyone.

Tell me, how do you know this? Will you at least acknowledge that the federal government has banned public research into marijuana, until very recently, in carefully controlled circumstances using marijuana provided by the federal government itself?

Does that seem fair to you?

Does it seem reasonable to say that marijuana is not a cure for cancer when the government virtually prohibits all research to demonstrate otherwise?

And yet I can show you four studies that suggest that it may be a cure, despite the fact that the government has tried its best to suppress this knowledge.

I'm sure in your mind, someone that dies from skin cancer from staying out in the sun too much in Hong Kong died because of US drug policy.

If he could have been treated using a medicine that was known to exist but that was suppressed by the government because it would compromise their ability to control what I put into my body? Absolutely.

Let's take a look at the death tolls you listed here earlier. Using the same logic you just used with the man from Hong Kong, are you then going to say that all those who died from starvation in Russia were killed by Stalin's hand?

Can you understand that while it is very possible that a person could die from starvation under Stalin, it may have been through no overt action on Stalin's part? And that that is completely different from the man in Hong Kong who dies from a cancer for which there may have been a medicine but which was deliberately blocked by the US?

There are crimes of omission, and there are crimes of commission. No doubt Stalin directly caused many of the deaths you attributed to him, but surely there are many he had no role in, because he did not deliberately act to cause them.

Quite unlike here in the good ole U.S. of A., where our government deliberately acted to suppress, ban and destroy evidence of research they knew could save lives.

Marginalizing blacks and hippies was too important to let a few hundred million deaths from cancer get in the way.

Whatever. I have good reason to call this country barbaric. If you want to keep your head in the sand that's fine. Just don't tell me this country is all apple pie and red, white & blue, because that's a huge steaming pile of shit.

America *is* barbaric, and I will continue calling it that until my dying day, or until we stop the madness and end this goddamned war on drugs.

Re:And the last 50 years of keeping COMINTERN at b

[bofkentucky]

Ever watch Patton, he wanted to arm every able bodied German in 6/45 to go kill as many Russians as they could. Ike, and the civilian leadership wanted no such thing and so we had the Cold War.

There were plenty of factions that wanted to kill every last commie on the planet in 1945, but Ike listened to the communists/socialists that FDR had installed during his reign of terror. They are the reason that Eastern Europe and the people of Red China, Vietnam, and Cuba have had to suffer communist dictators.