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USS Ronald Reagan Commissioning Tomorrow
wessman writes "Being an employee at Northrop Grumman's Newport News shipyard, I cannot help but be proud to see one of our products commissioned by the U.S. Navy, especially considering how long it takes to build a $5 billion Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. And I'm sure the other 18,000 workers here feel the same way. The ship is being commissioned Saturday, July 12 at the Norfolk naval base. It is obviously the most technically advanced carrier in the fleet, taking the term "hardware" to new levels. Pick a local story. From the Hampton Roads Daily Press: Anchors Aweigh, Changes Abound Aboard Carrier, Some Wanted CVN-76 Named after Daredevil Flier, 20,000 Expected for Reagan's Rite, USS Constellation Retiring Too Soon?. From the Virginia Pilot: The Carrier Reagan - Ahead of Its Class, Carrier Construction is All in the Family, Former President's Son Michael Reagan Excited about Commissioning."
I wonder who is going to be skipper for the USS Gipper.
Some text here. Really.
I suppose that's your opinion. I know plenty of NON-DEMOCRATS that feel that he was one of the best.
Does the ship forget where it is?
I'm not a Democrat, myself. I think both parties need to get with the program.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
There already exist the best defence systems, logistics and hardware all over. With the world already a global village, pretty little can be achieved with great hardware alone.
Will this reduce the threat level colors?
Why are we honoring a man who destroyed America
You mean the U.S.S. Jimmy Carter?
The Navy should remember what happened last time they let a sucky consumer-grade "O"S on board.
For me to read. At any rate, these are some awe-inspiring machines (Nimitz-class ships were #3 (IIRC) on TLC's Top 10 Military Machines of all time earlier this week). This makes 10, right?
I thought trolls were modded down on this site.
Whew, at least it's not the U.S.S. Gerald Ford, or the U.S. Navy would be in big trouble. I mean, Gerald Ford tumbling while getting out of a helicopter is one thing, but I can only imagine what kind of manuever problems the U.S.S. Gerald Ford would have. It could potentially destroy half a sea port while attempting to dock.
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde
So, what's the deal? Why are we honoring a man who destroyed America by naming the most expensive carrier ever built after him?
He was a president, and whatever his domestic failings, he does get the credit for ending the Cold War without WWIII.
Plus, I suspect that the darn things are just named after the president when they were first proposed.
I mean Newport News not Reagan. I have wondered about this for a while
Cue Anti-American debate...
/. there is an inevitable anti-American flamewar?
Here we go again. Why is it that ANY time anything tangentially related to a republican, american, "threat to humanity" or anything else from the USA appears on
It'll just lose all the data stored in its memory systems after every mission. Particularly secret CIA ones.
My journal has hot
Still upset about that defeat of Communism? Time to move on.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Some of the (few) people who benefited from his destruction of the constitution, the defense industry, have decided to honor him. Expect to see his face on the $1,000,000 dollar bill when they make one so his other pals can have a wallet picture.
If they hadn't stolen the debate notes.
Why the heck does Reagen get a Carrier named after him? What's next USS Bill Clinton!??
Why couldn't they just stick to US States.
Who cares?
The United States claims to be a nation of peace lovers
and it has been at peace since the end of the Second World War, except, that is, for their attacks on
China (1945-46);
Korea (1950-53);
Guatemala (1954, 1967-69);
Cuba (1959-60);
Belgian Congo (1964);
Vietnam (1961-73);
Cambodia (1969-70);
Grenada (1983);
Libya (1986);
El Salvador (1980-92);
Nicaragua (1981-90);
Panama (1989);
Iraq (1991);
Bosnia (1995);
Sudan (1998);
Yugoslavia (1999);
Afghanistan (2001-02);
Iraq (2003 - ongoing);
Plus "police action" in Colombia regarding drugs (ongoing),
an insurrection in Chile (1973),
and numerous other covert bombings conducted by, or under the direction of, the CIA.
From 1945 to the end of the 20th century, the U.S. attempted to overthrow more
than 40 foreign governments and to crush more than 30 populist movements
fighting against insufferable regimes.
In the process, they have bombed about 25 countries,
killed several million people, and condemned many millions more to lives of agony, poverty and despair, not bad for a nation of "peace lovers"
Ronald Reagan's pro-spending, pro-big-government, anti-labor policies are undoubtedly going to lead my beloved country to her death. But with our large military, at least we will make a hell of a lot of noise when everything finally collapses.
Considering his current condition, he has no memory of what he ate for breakfast let alone Iran Contra.
18,000 Employees? You guys wouldn't happen to be using Sony Laptops would you? Coincidence... I think not!
Does that make it the U.S.S.R. Regan? :)
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Don;t you find it apropos to build the most expensive aircraft carrier ever, and name it after the man who drove us the furthest into the hole? Although Bush may try and top that.
Ah yes .... in the time you read this posting, a thousand children died from not having clean water. Think about where we are spending our money!
At $5 billion a pop, I can only imagine what a Beowulf cluster of these would be like..
Trolling is a art,
let me guess, Microsoft designed the onboard software, and it lives up to it's namesake :
the GPS forgets where it is, and the sensory equipment goes to sleep during long meetings.
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
Remember when Reagan confused a movie role with real life war experience. Now his name is realling the navy.
Space for rent, inquire within
Ever more expensive ways of
a) Killing people
b) Rewarding the military-industrial complex for their campaign donations.
News for nerds, stuff that matters? I hope not.
I suppose it is of no consolation to point out that new Clinton and Lewinsky Cuban Cigar and Sex Toy Factory Outlet just opened up outside of Havana last month after years of licensing the naming rights...
Now we get to see all the normal slashbots complain that we should be spending money on something else cause war is so 20th century and we now live in an age of peace and love.
Personally, I think its great that we continue to push the edge of technology in warfare. It allows us to keep wars down to as short a time as possible. And, the shorter the duration of wars, the less people killed by them. The better the tech, ideally the fewer civilian deaths also.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
Cripes, my grandchildren will still be paying interest on the man's wastefull stupidity, and probably be wondering why that damn missile defense thing still doesn't work.
I though Bush I took credit for this. How can two men claim it. Ohhh, that right, they are Republicans.
'cause it's much more likely to strike fear into the hearts of America's enemies than the USS Jimmy Carter (motto: Malaise Forever).
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Most technically advanced eh? Do they cheat on performance tests like apple does?
The list from "Changes Abound Aboard Carrier" includes:
* More space for women
* New island house
* Bulbous bow
* New arresting gear
One can't help but think it should have been named the USS Bill Clinton instead....
We all laughed (or cried, depending) upon reading about the Navy vessel that had to be towed back to port when its WindowsNT command system failed. All of the articles mention that parts for this ship were delayed so that they could have the latest and greatest control technology. What is it? Does this thing run XP Service Pack 1? Linux? Something else?
"reagan was a great actor, but one of the lousiest presidents of all time."
this statement is a subjective determination, not a statement of fact. among conservatives, reagan is often lauded as the greatest president the US has ever had. now, whether or not that's T/F is irrelevant. besides, nimitz-class naming conventions dictate that you name the ships after former presidents.
considering the build-up of the military during his 2 administrations--really, a kind of glory day period for the pentagon--naming the newest nimitz after him was inevitable, IMHO.
ed
>So, what's the deal? Why are we honoring a man who destroyed America by naming the most expensive carrier ever built after him?
Probably because he dreamed up "Star Wars," the most expensive missile defense system not-yet-built. What's more appropriate then that?
I thought the military didn't usually name ships after people until they were dead?
t m
Apparently this is a relatively new "tradition".
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/names.h
What we really need is a Submarine - Aircraft Carrier hybrid.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
This is from one of the articles re: the next generation carriers after Nimitz - a new reactor able to power electromagnetic catapults and directed-energy weapons. Fancy ((8^(|)
It may, however, very well send weapons to Iran.
Finding God in a Dog
They installed an eight year old fiber opitical system called ICAN. Hahaha. I bet my works 100 megabit network is more reliable than this shit will be.
So, what's the deal? Why are we honoring a man who destroyed America by naming the most expensive carrier ever built after him?
Wow, the USS Abraham Lincoln was pretty advanced for it's time...
Here is a hell of a lot of images of these things:
Pictures
...made by the dogs of war. I am sad science and engineering has gone so far has it has today. Go on america... beat your chests to the jingoistic rhythm.
How fitting that such a tool of massive destruction is named "Ronald Reagan" Maybe it will forget where it is going and get lost somewhere in the Arctic.
the man who increased our national debt more blah...blah...blah..
Ugh. This stuff drives me crazy.
Crack a book. Congress does the budget. Maybe the phrase "Congressional Budget" rings a bell?
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
What a collossal waste of money. $5 billion? Hello with that amount, there are so many more domestic & social problems that could be solved with that money. Instead they piss it away on something to defend a country that is decaying from the inside out due to things like lack of social funding.
Be Careful Mr.Government, eventually there might not be anything left worth defending.
Funny. I don't see many other countries tackling those either, but I do see many countries depending on the U.S.'s military might for world security for the past half century, including much of Europe.
Honestly, if a country tries to be a jack of all trades, it will eventually spread itself too thin and be good at nothing. For a world community and economy that we're leading to, the world might be better off having nations specializing in one thing or another, and let the U.S. specialize on what it does best... its military. Let other countries handle solving global warming, cancer, AIDS, and what have you. Not to say that other countries can't contribute, but trying to be the best at everything runs the risk of being good at nothing.
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde
In the meantime, his name on the most advanced aircraft carrier on the planet will do nicely.
News for Nerds. Stuff that matters. Buy war bonds.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
First of all, he didn't end the Cold War. Russia defeated themselves with their crappy domestic programs and lacking infastructure. The people had no food, no water, and no heat. It was only a matter of time before they collapsed. All Reagan did was kill MORE civilians by not allowed the Russian government to drop all the military posturing, thus taking even more the little money they had away from the people and putting it into the military (gee, sound a little familiar?). He the the chance to end the war YEARS earlier, without the massive loss of the life that occured because of starvation of freezing, but he had to have his Star Wars program, which the Russian government viewed as a threat (and rightly so). So, in the end, Reagan just prolonged the conflict, caused more civilians to die, and increased our debt. This is why I agree with the parent that he was one of the worst presidents ever. But I'm one of the few INFORMED citizens it seems, so I'm in the minority on that view. Sad this is is that Bush had learned from Reagan, and his daddy, and is trying very hard to repeat the dog and poney show. So far, it's been working since the population doesn't want to be informed for fear of learning that they are wrong.
Space for rent, inquire within
What defeat? Russian "communism" collapsed of its own accord. Reagan was just around when it happened (so was I; should I get some credit too?)
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
It would just sail around for months at a time with no purpose. After it was decomissioned, it would go build houses for the poor.
Why not name this carrier after two-time elected President Ronald Reagan? They have named many Carriers in the past after former US Presidents such as JFK, Roosevelt and so on. I even assume one day they will name some after Carter and Clinton even though they did their best to neuter our military power forever. At least Reagan saw fit for us to have a strong military/technology research throughout the 80's when we needed it the most during the Soviets greatest military build-up. Whether you agree with his political policy or not, you have to agree he was an influential President that accomplished many things in his two terms as President of the United States.
Excellent Reasoning!
Just because something does not work NOW, let's stop the research!
No AIDS vaccine now so let's stop the research
No cure for cancer now, so let's stop the research
you idiot.
How come so many things are being named after this guy when he's not even dead yet? It used to be that you had to be dead to get public objects named after you. But for some odd reason, RWR is getting airports, federal buildings and warships named after him without the traditional respectful pause. This pause was there to prevent overly partisan hysteria from hijacking the public name space. And of course, Conservatives (who ought to know better) are the principal forces behind this flushing of tradition.
In Reagan's case, he is not really a factor, but his partisans (and detractors) are still pretty rabid. If he is really a great as his adherents say he is, why not wait a bit longer until a consensus emerges?
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
They're naming an aircraft carrier after a guy who oversaw one of the largest peacetime military expansions in history. At least that's better than naming an airport after a guy who fired half the nation's air traffic controllers.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
You've obviously haven't kept up with Srebrenica, eh?
From the Pilot Online article Though they tout the Reagan as far more powerful than any threat it might face, Navy leaders insist that the massive cost of an even more powerful ship is easily justified.
They better make sure they commision at least two submarines to escort this thing. The only ship capable of really fighting a submarine is another submarine. The suface ship guys may say they can handle this role, but they can't. If this thing isn't escorted by at least two 688s it will never hear the modern diesel boat running on batteries that launches 4 torpodoes on it.
I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people. - Jack Handey
'cause it's much more likely to strike fear into the hearts of America's enemies than the USS Jimmy Carter (motto: Malaise Forever).
There already is a USS Jimmy Carter. It's a submarine. While many presidents have served in the armed forces, Carter is the only one to have served on a submarine.
The story is that the USS Jimmy Carter is specialized in tapping undersea telecom/fiber optic cables.
You can call him jackass and in turn you may be called oversensistive.
Regardless the tragedy that alzheimers is, and it most definitely is... The joke is still funny.
lighten up.
Directed energy weapons! what does that mean? High powered lasers? Something else that's super-secret?
after reading that I half-expected a description of how the next carriers will transform into a gi-normous humanoid robot.
> Now its time to send the warship I paid for over to kill thousands of Middle Eastern children
Yeah, I realize it has a few long-range weapons, but I don't think this thing would be navigating the desert too well.
An interesting question is whether we can shrink the size of the supporting battlegroup around a carrier in these times of reduced naval competition.
Independant of pointless pissing contests about politics, Reagan was a notable president. I'd fully expect there to be a significant ship named after Clinton some time in the future.
-dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
Just what the world needs, another huge aircraft carrier designed to fight communi- er, drug carte- no wait... Who are the current boogeymen for the US right now? Oh yeah, terrorists! Yep, we need that $5 billion chunk of steel to blow up Kore... No wait, already blown up... Well, apart from North Korea, when is it their turn again, anways? Panama? No wait, also blown to bits already... Same for Iraq...
Ah hell, just wait for the next financial scandal, Bush will then pick a random country, declare them to be part of the axis of evil, demand UN inspections, claim they already got evidence anyways, pull Mr Blair's strings a bit more, send over this new carrier to drop an ammount on ammo worth more then the GNP of the receiving country and feel good about it! Afterwards, let Mr Blair take the heat for false evidence and scare any Americans who dare to raise a voice against the war into submission. Oh and: PROFIT!
Hate me!
It is simply wrong, indeed, dangerous, to name anything after a living personage, especially a politician. And double especially a President.
This is cult-of-personality gone extreme. It's a small step from this to granting titles to retired Presidents, to granting titles to current Presidents. Rather than an occasion for a solemn acknowledgement of a person's contributions -- as validated by the sweep of history -- we get partisanship, triumphialism, and politicking.
It might sound morbid but they should have waited until he was dead.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
I served on the U.S.S. Carl Vinson (CVN-70). I also spent a little time on the Nimitz after I came off active duty and was in the reserves.
What always impressed me about carriers- beyond the obvious, was that all that high tech is backed up by very simple means of getting the job done.
I worked in the V-2 division, arresting gear. We had electric motors that set the weight on an arresting gear engine for each trap. But each of those motors had a crank and they could be set by hand if power was not available.
Sound powered phones are still another slick- no power needed tool that impress the heck out of me.
But what everyone should remember - the single thing that make carriers so effective- are the people that run it.
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Great, just what we need: another big, slow-moving, easy target for a cruise missle with a nuclear warhead...
Congratulations to Newport News' employee's and the US Navy. To the people posting that this is a waste of money and another US agression tool, wake up. Aircraft carriers are one of the most effective pacifiying tools out there. Whenever foreign leaders start to do act out (threatening their neighbours for example) POTUS can simply have one of these bad boys park just outside the radar and vis. horizon, and say "Behave", and generally it works. Cheap and effective.
In the past year or so the fed has been blowing money on blowing up things and intangable programs that never really help people... It's good to se them build something that you can at least see.... Even if it probably cost twice as much as the original bid... If you have never been on one of these ships, you should really take the opertunity the next time one docs near you or near where you are vacationing to see it. I have taken the oportunity to visit a aricraft carier of this class when it was docked here in the bay area and it is truly an amazing peice of engineering. Even if you understand water displacement and physics its still amazing to think these things float.
Obviously nobody else read the article, or was too busy flaming the US for trying to impose a Pax Americana. The new series of ship (after this one) will have a separate reactor for powering electromagnetic catapults and directed energy weapons. Talk about the ultimate missle defense system:
Detect incoming missle with integrated helicopter radar
Point maser at incoming missle
Destroy incoming missle
Profit!
Piloting the planes off the deck via an electromagnetic catapule will give new meaning to the old Quake 2 'so-and-so rides so-and-so's rail'.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
1607
April 26- Captain Christopher Newport and Company arrive
1611
Captain Newport's last voyage to Newport's News bringing Sir Thomas Dale who was responsible for reorganizing the colony
1619
Nov. 11- Records of the Virginia Company of London identify the colonists settlement as Newport's News
Now, where they got the "News" part from I'm not exactly sure.
-- Chris Martin, System Administrator
but again...it did not end in WW3 did it.
the two presidents that should get a lot of credit in keeping out of war during the cold war are Kennedy and Regan.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
The USS Jimmy Carter is a Seawolf-class nuclear attack sub.
Finally, though Microsoft is not mentioned, people might start to understand what a monoculture of poor quality software enables.
There, now it's a real slashdot article.
...perhaps they will name a submarine after Monica Lewinski!
Eschew Obfuscation
How in any way does this relate to the story?????
This is somewhat worth discussing in a different place, but is of no relation to the main topic.
Whoever modded this up deserves to lose their mod privileges for this blatant abuse of power.
> How can two men claim it. Ohhh, that right, they are Republicans.
Ohhhh, that's right, they worked together. Remember who Reagan's vice-President was?
Unfortunatly, none of the lead parties involved agrees with you.
I am sure it is a nice fantasy, not that there is anything wrong with that.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
I hear this often, but I'm too young to know why. Could you enlignten me? Could you give me some examples of the awful things he did?
It'll be a sad day when George AWOL Bush gets a carrier named after him.
is detailed here:
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq63-1.htm
The Nimitz class of vessels are named after figures of national importance - Roosevelt, Washington & *Reagan*. really. Is reagan a republican figure on an historic scale? Up there with Washington? And Roosevelt? WTF?
h.
Siggy played guitar...
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
I'd actually give the credit to Gorbachev...
Apparently, so would the nobel peace price comission!
furthest into the hole?
umm....he doubled revenues in 8 years...and the deficent/debit remained at a normal rate of growth. that means that we had more money comming in that what we owed. infact, we had more money than EVER coming in that what we owed.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
$5 billion for a ship !! That's more than the GDP for many countries !!
GDP List (from CIA Factbook)
now who are they gonna blow up next..
sure, its nice technology, but everytime i see stuff like that... or that starwars sattelite defense thing... i cant help but think about the millions of people starving to death..
See, we have two groups of people in this country. Okay, well, there are lots of groups of people, but for this argument, there are two:
:P
Anti War Stinky Peace Hippies
and
Pro War Gun Toting Rednecks
The AWSPH proclaim that we are a peace loving nation, while the PWGTR go out and beat on other countries because they can. The gov't can point to either group (ignorning the other in the process) and claim that we're "that group".
There was a great documentary on this on Comedy Central one Wednesday night at 10:00. I believe they also air it on Fri/Sat around 2:00 AM, but dont quote me on that.
(and yes,this WAS a reference to South Park)
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
the newest features?
or
what a new class of carriers might have?
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
And who exactly gives a fuck?
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Karma be damned, this can't possibly be mod'd up to a 5, can it? I don't disagree that the dates are factually accurate, but come on!
If you can't see this as inflammatory and meant to instigate people, you must be reading a different post than this one... The last line alone, '...not bad for a nation of "peace lovers"' is enough to mod this as a -1 Troll in my book.
The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. -- Calvin & Hobbes
why? because you commie pinko liberals will finally realize that you've been defeated?! I thought so!
"Thank you all for coming. The bombing begins in five minutes."
God you neocons are stupid fucks (or probably, you're just so arrogant that you think everybody else is.)
*moves to switzerland*
Pushed all the right buttons though.
JFK wouldn't have continued the war, those followed him escalated vietnam.
Photos.
Ronald Reagan may have been a likable guy... but his administration was also flat-out the most anti-democratic, hoodwinking, lying, Constitution-flouting, despot-coddling, rich-enriching, deficit-building, environment-despoiling, health-endangering, paranoid, cynical and fundamentally corrupt one in our nation's history. Name a strip mine for it if you must, but no monuments, please.
"After the next carrier, the George H.W. Bush, the Navy intends to unveil a new design; it will be roughly the size of a Nimitz-class ship but with automated systems that could cut the ship's company of 3,200 by one-third or more and a new reactor able to power electromagnetic catapults and directed-energy weapons.
The first of those carriers, CVN-21, is projected to cost about $12 billion. It should reach the fleet around 2014."
So is this the Navy's veresion of the world's most expensive HERF gun?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Individual systems on Navy vessels run many diferent operating systems. Many systems run NT or Win2k, others run Unixes, and most are firmware driven. So to ask what OS a freakin' aircraft carrier (read: floating city) runs, is just as vauge as asking what OS IBM uses.
-ET2
I wish there was some there was some way that I could be outside playing basketball, in the rain, and not get wet.
Hey, I'm a geek, and I love gadgets and technological gee-gaws, even the military ones. And I love reading history, and wars make for some of the best history. But is anyone else in the US bothered by how we seem absolutely enveloped by The Holiness and Greatness and Glory of Our Military? It's near worshipful (aka Idolatry). And I don't even watch Fox news.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
I'm in favor of the USS Bill Clinton. Much more fearsome. When enemies see it, they know they're going to go down.... not to mention it will be deploying sea men into the enemy ship afterwards
... a way to say that this thing is increasing US debts (like the reaganomics did) ?
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
These honors still should only be accorded to people posthumously. This just looks too much like the USSR Communist Party or Suddam's Baathist Party erecting statues to their leaders to generate support for the leaders and party.
Of course their is also the point that he probably should have been impeached for Iran-Contra but had enough loyal soldiers to fall on their own swords, aka Oliver North.
I don't know why, but he is. Therefore, they're doing lots of stuff not normally done, like naming airports after him. I'll be there will be a stamp out before he's been dead for 10 years.
And us geeks shouldn't forget the whole Inslaw/PROMIS affair took place on his watch!
What about USS Richard Nixon - gets caught spying on the Army, then jumps on a helicopter and is never heard from again...
-- james
As soon as someone other than the U.S. finds out how to put a powerful laser in a plane or satellite the age of aircraft carriers will be completely over. You're not going to get any better bang for your laser buck than slicing through a $5 billion boat (unless you wait for the $14 billion one). A laser cutting through a land battle is ridiculously inefficient, but a fleet is a goldmine.
The submitter certainly will feel proud of their achievement, and we've all been at the point where we pat ourselves on the back for a job well done.
Honestly, don't people think about the things they work on? Is life just a paycheck and fuck whatever someone does with my work? I wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing that potentially hundreds of thousands of people will die using a machine I proudly built and put into the hands of one of the most prolific users of war machinery in the world.
One popular way to rationalize the enablement of murder is by turning things into blacks and whites. This will only be used on the "bad guys", the "evil men" who want to do terrible things to us. These are word games. A vital prerequisite to committing murder is reducing issues to black and white.
Maybe you wash your hands of the moral responsibility by saying "I just built it, it's not my fault if the buyer does something horrible with it". Hey, if that's what it takes to sleep at night, I can't fault you. I'd probably say that too.
To the victims of this machine, however, all of these rationalizations are irrelevant. You worked to cause this effect, whether you supported it, cared about it, whatever. Your name is on it.
Being proud of it speaks volumes about your character.
But it'll be a GREAT day when George W. Bush III puts his foot up your ass. Assuming one of the bush twins keeps her name and has a boy. So in about 20-30 years.... LOOK OUT cuz he's comming for you!
Freakin' Republicans. The Reagan National Airport, the Bush Center for Intelligence (ha!), now the carrier. Yet we don't even have a Clinton bedroom.
Yeah, I was actually in the U.S.S.R several months before it collapsed. I should get bonus tactical Western Presence points, now where did I place my honorary carrier, I seem to have forgotten...
V
... he's not dead, but he's got Alzheimer's real bad. So he either won't have a clue what's going on, or could be considered a near vegetable.
In any case, he's definitely not the same man this ship was named after. Besides, they might have just been counting that he would have died by now... I mean he is like 92...
I think Mr Reagan was a second rate President. He was surrounded by a bunch of shady characters.
But, Mr Reagan was an exceptionally decent human being, who cared deeply about the welfare of his nation, and for 8 years did the best he knew how to make this world a better place. That is more than can be said for many Presidents.
He is also a human being, and deserving of more respect than that.
HenryJamesFeltus.com
I'm willing to bet that the majority of you complaining about this...
A) Don't have the balls to be president
B) Couldn't become president if you TRIED
C) Are just jealous that you will never have something of this magnitude named after you.
Look at this thing. It's huge, it's technologically amazing (OS not withstanding - although I never heard a definitive answer on what it's running), and I'm glad it's on our side. Who gives a rat's ass if the NAME of the ship doesn't strike fear into the hearts of our enemies or awe into our allies. If I saw that thing on TV and it had it's sights on my country, I'd be pissing myself.
Screw politics, this kinda thing is what (I perceive) slashdot is about: The biggest, most expensive, and coolest TOY on the planet. This toy just happens to protect our country and way of life.
I'm waiting for the USS Bill Clinton, with fully retractable onboard ramming penis.
As usual, uninformed morons inhabit /.
The US and Russia were in an arms race, and it looked every bit the possibility that the USSR would use those weapons sooner or later.
The one place they fell behind were in space-based weapons, which would give us a massive first-strike capability *and* detection and destruction of any counter attacks.
Reagan knew this, and that's why he went ahead with this plan. The USSR couldn't keep up the build pace, nor the technological knowhow. They didn't go broke from lack of money (you should learn how their system of money worked, or rather didn't) they collapsed because all their infrastructure was dirvirted to building weapons, land, sea, air and space, rather than tractors, food, etc. and the people had had enough.
President Reagan was a great visionary and not only did he end the threat of WWIII, he removed a major superpower AND brought our economy back on track (or perhaps you were too young to remember the Carter years)
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Blaming Reagan for Soviet starvation is ludicrous. Soviet policy was to blame for that. It's not like the US forced them to have a miserable economy. They did it to themselves. And if the US had been content to let the USSR keep living the lie of communism, the starvation never would have ended.
"You want a toe? I can get you a toe by three o'clock... with nail polish."
Where are my mod points when I need them?
1) This is the worst kind of political flamebait.
2) Nowhere is the post does it say anything about America being a "peace loving" nation or how wonderful it is to be American, or anything like that (because quite frankly, it wouldn't be tolerated on slashdot).
3) This is totally offtopic, because:
Unlike China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, etc... the decision to go to war is not made by the Military, it's made by a civilian. Implying that building a new aircraft carrier promotes war is like saying that putting on a seat belt promotes car accidents.
If you want to have a political discussion about America's foreign policy in the post WWII era, fine. But do it in the comments for an article that is actually relevant to what you want to rant about.
Yeah! He's up there with Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt! I mean look at everything he did! Saved the economy while he was in office only to put the country into a huge debt after he left! What other leader could do a great thing like that???
Oh yeah, forgot the [/sarcasm]
Heh, a coworker once called me a socialist for saying that Reagan wasn't the greatest president that ever lived. So I guess if you don't like Reagan, you must be a socialist! I love the logic of Republicans.
I dunno who it is
but it prolly is fhqwhgads.
i bet somewhere inside the pentagon, guys are throwing dart arrows at a world map, in order to find out which country to declare rogue/terrorist, ask the cia for a forged reason, and start another preemptive war so that they can try out their new toy
Well said.
But to be fair, we can't really expect Americans to put down their weapons and clean up their own backyards. It's far easier and more profitable to continue on the current path of economic supremacy via military supremacy. Not to mention the fact that both major parties are merely slightly different shades of black. The US 'democracy' is a sad joke of an auction. Both parties for example supported the 10-year + trade sanctions on the Iraqi people which prevented them from buying food and basic medial supplies. And I didn't see the opposition questioning Baby Bush's famed evidence of "Weapons of Mass Destruction (tm)' or any other part of the criminal endeavour. The puppets can't take all the blame, though. How about the media? Just heard that your real-life story of 'saving private ryan' had been 'modified' to suit the political aims of the CIA - ie instead of reporting that the girl was injured in a car accident, the story was spread that she was taken by Iraqi soldiers while fighting them off, and had to be rescued. But what good is news without a little stretching of the facts?
So yeah. Go USA! Lead us into yet another slaughter of innocents. And this time with shiny new aircraft carriers. That'll teach 'em to defend their rights, homeland and children!
WTF is this world coming to? No wonder people turn to drugs...
You goddamned sleazy neocons think that the rules you espouse apply to everyone but yourselves!
Before you start drooling over all the awesome technology that this thing possesses, remind yourself that its sole function is to take human life and destroy property, and its sole purpose is to threaten or attack other countries that get in America's way.
An aircraft carrier is the centerpeice of an aircraft carrier battlegroup. This battlegroup contains several ships, of which 2 are nuclear attack submarines. That is in addition to it's fleet of antisubmarine aircraft.
If anyone has ever read and of Iain M Banks' culture novels (fantastic if you love really good sf), you'll know he comes up with some excellent names for ships. A few I remember are "Up Close and Personal", "Not Invented Here", "Shoot Them Later" and "Attitude Adjuster". How does U.S.S Attitude Adjuster sound eh? ;)
The Ronald Regan will forget wehere it is the minute it leaves sight of land .... decide it was really a ficticious WW2 carrier ... then announce that the bombs will start dropping in 10 minutes
Feel free to leave any time. Fact is, I'll help you pack. Even offer to drive you to the airport.
I love you people who have nothing but contempt for this country. Where but you to live anywhere else.
Could you give me some examples of the awful things he did?
;)
He won his elections by a landslide, built up the military (so that we had the capability to kick saddam's butt in 91), cut taxes, and didn't start WWIII with Gorby.
oh there was that Iran thing...
What was this post referring to?
How do I make slashcode show me?
Can you explain then why he got re-elected by a larger margin(popular/Electoral) than any president since Washington?
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Anti War Stinky Peace Hippies
and
Pro War Gun Toting Rednecks
I'm a democrat, a liberal, and a pacifist. It still makes me proud to see a project like this finished. The scale is absolutely astounding. There's no way you could finish a ship like the USS Ronald Reagan without amazing technology, which requires amazing innovation, which is the hallmark of the human spirit. Reading about this reminded me of a television show I had seen about the 900-ton gantry crane they have at the shipyard. It can lift whole segments of an aircraft carrier into place. How cool is that?
I ask all of the 'pro-war gun toting rednecks' out there to realize that a ship like this has the power to end the world with a 30 minute flight and a single bomb drop. On the other side of the coin, I ask the 'Anti-War Stinky Peace Hippies' out there to see this as a monument of engineering, construction, and technology.
So, even as a liberal, I'm proud to be an American.
while (!sleep){
sheep++;
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that since the Republicans are in total control of the World...ehh... America, that talking bad about a former or present American President who is a republican is considered an act of treason, but during the last administration, it was almost an Olympic event to make fun of Clinton.
Listen. I've been seeing a lot of posts to the tone of "Why is the government spending $5 billion when we have a shitty economy" or "$5 billion could have been used to end poverty". These are just not thought out comments listen.
/. article) and those 18,000 families had food on the table and contributed large portions of that $5 billion back into our economy, thus helping it greatly. Do you really think that even half of the $5 billion was on materials as opposed to labor? Labor is nearly _ALWAYS_ the most expensive cost in any production.
A $5 billion aircraft carrier probably took nearly 5 years to build. During that 5 years, 18,000 jobs were created (from the
I don't recall presidents Carl Vinson and John C. Stennis.
I'm not sure if I would have voted for Reagan in 1980 or 1984 (I was born five months into his first term), but I did not vote for Bush in 2000, and I do not intend to vote for him in 2004. That said, you've got SDI totally wrong:
So it looks as though you are not as INFORMED as you believe you are regarding SDI's effect on the Cold War. Perhaps you should read less Noam Chomsky and more books by people who actually know what was going on.
President Reagan shot the big red Russian bear that would have LOVED to take a giant crap on Western Europe, just like it did on the East. Anyone remember the Berlin Wall...? Anyone remember how many people were SLAUGHTERED for trying to escape? Anyone remember, "MR. GORBACHEV, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL." Make your jokes, you ingrates. You're free (thanks to Reagan and many other American you love to hate) to speak your mind...
Because anyone that lived through the late-70's and the total disaster the economy was in would never post anything like this. The current economy and the recession of '91 are insignificant events compared to the late 70's.
Runaway inflation coupled with anemic GDP growth was a disaster. Thank Reagan for allowing Volker to reign in this disaster.
I'm not a Republican, but to live thru this hell is something I wish to revisit. Does anyone wonder why no one cares about Jimmy Carter or the baffoon Ford??
The thing is is that the technology has moved on - the carriers are now the obsolete weapon. One small atomic bomb, whether it's delivered on a ship-to-ship missile or a torpedo will not only wipe out the carrier but take out its support group as well. Inside that column of water is a carrier being lifted like a toy by the rising water. Carriers may be useful in wars against third world countries but they won't fare so well if we ever go up against a country that has the bomb.
For some reason the Navy intentionally blinds itself to this. In his autobiography, Scott Waddle, the former commander of the U.S.S. Greeneville, said that during a carrier's shakedown cruise, he had been tasked to play the role of a Russian sub. He played his role aggressively and managed to hide his sub underneath a noisy support ship which rendered the anti-sub defenses worthless. Had it been a shooting war, the group would have been destroyed with a single torpedo. The incredible thing about the incident was that Waddle was reprimanded for being too aggressive and making the carrier's captain look bad.
It's funny because it's TRUE! (And ironic!)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Can you explain then why he got re-elected by a larger margin(popular/Electoral) than any president since Washington?
;)
he ran against mondale. duh.
Will it be lost at sea or will it simply find small boats to fire on constantly and then declare a great victory.
Do you have any examples? Or are you simply regurgitating what you have heard?
That's a silly and idiotic claim. Personally, I think that the Soviet Union was going to collapse anyway, but Reagan's policies sped up that date - which was a good thing, because the Soviet Union was not a nice country. And a faster collapse probably reduced the misery - it forced decisions that otherwise would have been procrastinated over.
He the the chance to end the war YEARS earlier
You obviously do not understand what the cold war was about.
But I'm one of the few INFORMED citizens it seems
No, you seem to either have forgotten what you should have learned in school, or should consider suing your school for doing such a bad job of educating you.
-asb
I agree with you. I would pitch in for a one way ticket for him to leave the greatest country on the face of the Earth. France is nice this time of year. He could even catch the Tour De France race where US bike rider Lance Armstrong is kicking everyones (including the French) ass again this year.
Why not? Because the President's domestic and international policies were folly. Iran-Contra? Aiding training camps in Afghanistan? Weakening federal oversight on OSHA inspections and anti-trust actions? These aren't just political differences. This was a president that took power from the individual and gave it to a few, underwritten by the taxpayers of Americans. His presidency wasn't about protecting America and Americans, it was about establishing a new era of Robber Barons and a military force to back them up in the international community. Call me a liberal hippy if you want, but if you ignore the mass malaise that has been caused and will be caused by his actions, you are pulling the wool over your own eyes. Would you name a carrier after Nixon? Better to name a carrier after Carter, who did more for the safety of the world, than any aggressive president since WWII.
postmodernsideshow.com
"I love you people who have nothing but contempt for this country. Where but you to live anywhere else."
That's the part that shows how little YOU know about the rest of the world.
To paraphrase Kipling "They that know only America do not know America."
That was classic intercourse!
We are millions of people not understanding the object of your pride. You are devoting your professional lives to design and build war-supporting machines. What are you proud of?
I'm amazed to see that people are working day after day on such project. I'm unable to imagine how you can justify yourself.
what? You don't work on the bullets? ah... well in this case: you're clean!
It's sure is a headline but surely not in the happy-happy-joy-joy category. I'd like to see this 5-billion monster sinking.
All humans are mortal. Socrates is a human. Socrates is dead.
Yes and we all know how viable voting with your feet is these days. You'd trade one set of problems for another.
Contempt for what you percieve as problems is different then contempt for a nation.
People who give the reaction you so graciously and with excellent grammar gave generally are not going to address any of those problems. So who is going to fix them?
Yeah, cause, you know, these ships get contracted and built within days/weeks, not years.
Take your save-the-world-hug-a-tree crap out of here. While you're at it, move out of America if you think it's so bad.
All of the things you listed will always exist, and have existed for a long while now. We will never be able to solve the world's (or our nation's) problems/ailments completely. You cannot make everyone happy. I'd like to think we have made progress in those areas, but keep in mind it will _never_ be perfect. We will never reach some sort of glorious utopia of scientific marvelation.
Besides, the army/navy/air force/defense department is responsible for quite a few things we take for granted today. Not to mention the whole "protecting our country" bit.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
Now I bet finding something named after a libertarian would be tough! ;)
Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison
You've overlooked one fact. The USA is better than your country ever will be. Thanks.
"The better the tech, ideally the fewer civilian deaths also."
. . . an all-out nuclear bombardment that wipes out a country's warfighting capacity in 20 minutes might have NO civilian casualties?
Dang, what are why are we holding back? WE'RE COMING FOR YA KIM JONG IL!
I also work at NG, but doing satellites and stuff. Those ships are damn impressive, makes sending a working piece of sensitive electronics up to space seem like a piece of cake!
:)
Oh and what the fuck is up with this new slashdot commentlimit?? Now every fucking story is broken into 30 pages of comments. I don't want to click all those damn pages, give it to me on one big page I can read over several minutes like it used to be! You're not getting more ad impressions because I use privoxy anyway. Just wasting fucking bandwidth with excessive pageloads. Shit.
But those ships are cool.
I'm sure that the US will start to find someway (oil) to recoup the costs. I can imagine this line of thinking, "Hey, we saved your country from a dictator! You *owe* us free oil for ten years. Don't like it? We can always make another regime change..." Scary!
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
PICTURES of Nimitzes!!!
I hate it when people refer to "pictures" as "screenshots". A SCREENSHOT is an image capture of a COMPUTER DISPLAY (desktop, game, whatever.)
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
So he beat the best the democrats had to offer?? or are you saying that the Commucrats held back?? I understand that Mondale was a moron, I was 8 at the time, and heard the debates on the radio.
Mondale: Taxes are good, Taxes are great, I will raise taxes more than ever.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Carriers are sitting ducks. The navy knows it. Its just a big target out there waiting to have a few dozen of the latest surface to vessel missiles launched at it.
Give me a break, i have NEVER been more ashamed to be an american than i do right now.
That one sentence says everything I need to know about you.
That is, you are an illiterate child who uses his mommy's computer to surf the Interweb.
Now go to your room and think about what you've done.
Carriers may be useful in wars against third world countries.../
That's precisely the kind of war we are planning for for the next few decades. The current plan is to decimate little countries in the name of peace and freedom while simultaneousely plundering their oil and diamonds...
--Richard
Did the thought ever cross your feeble little mind that perhaps some people love the country and its ideals but hate the leaders and their methods? Suddenly if you point out the problems you're un-patriotic, if you call for people to look at the problems in the system you're a commie, and if (God forbid!) you'd actually like to do something about the problems you see in the country you love, you should just shut up and leave.
Yeah, smart thinking. That Jefferson didn't like the British taxes? Then he should have left! The Northern states didn't like the South keeping slaves? They should all have left! Yeah, right on!
No thank you, Its the patriotic duty of every American to stand up and criticize the government when they act in a way that we don't agree with. Otherwise we're not a democratic republic anymore.
It comes from a long history, and a the strong historical bonds that our country has with the French, from whom we have gotten much of our military doctrine, and cultural attitudes in general.
...that the most corrupt administration in this country's history should name the newest part of their war machine after the leader of the second most corrupt administration.
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
This is the logic a real adversary will use. It is cheap to attack, expensive to defend. A carrier will be sunk in our lifetime.
First of all, he didn't end the Cold War. Russia defeated themselves with their crappy domestic programs and lacking infastructure.
No. That's a widely repeated sentiment, but the fact is that it's not true. The thing you need to remember (or possibly learn for the very first time) is that the USSR didn't collapse from within. The government didn't just dissolve. It was overthrown by hard-liners inside the Soviet Communist party in 1991 as a DIRECT RESULT of Gorbachev's failure to reach an agreement with Reagan at Reykjavik. The '91 coup failed, but it was enough to allow the Russian nationalist movement under Yeltsin to reach critical mass.
Reagan won the Cold War at Reykjavik. Read this exceptionally well written discussion on the topic by won of your own slashdotters.
American Politics is like two steaming dog turds on a hot pavement. They're both ugly, they both stink as much as each other, and you're likely to step in at least one of them.
Alternatively, why don't all of the people who feel the way YOU do leave? Then those of us who are left will be more than happy with America.
I'm no lover of Ronald Reagon. In fact I think he was/is a dirty bastard (either intentionally, through stupidity, or through mental disease).
But I hate logical inconsistencies, so to keep us honest I have to comment:
"All Reagan did was kill MORE civilians by not allowed the Russian government to drop all the military posturing, thus taking even more the little money they had away from the people and putting it into the military (gee, sound a little familiar?)."
What makes you think that if the US *didn't* compete with the USSR, that the USSR *wouldn't* just use this "saved" money to further oppress its own people (for the record I think the "Star Wars" program was a complete waste of time and money, and did indeed make things more dangerous)? Do you think that the USSR would just throw up its hands and say "hey, I guess the americans give up, we win, ok, now let's become democratic?". Very naive. Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because the US is/was/can be wrong, doesn't remove all culpability from the USSR. It may very well be that in order to acheive a longer-term good, a more acute short-term bad must be endured. Of course this is a very dangerous slippery slope (who is to say what the long term good is, or the probability of accomplishing it, or the severity of the short term bad?), and therein lies the moral dilemma. But I think it is rather naive to assume that if we simple did the opposite a better result would occur (personally I think the only rational solution is diplomacy...god forbid the USSR didn't actually collapse economically on its own, then what would have happened?). If I were the USSR I would exploit any weakness I could to bring other countries under my umbrella, seeing as I was hemorrhaging money.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
It's already been done.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Next thing you know they are gonig to be naming them after actors!
...that a $5 billion aircraft carrier that we really don't need during this time of budget crunches and economic weakness bears the name of the man who invented modern deficit spending in America.
Actually, that would be 40 years worth of a democrat-controlled congress that created deficit spending as we know it.
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
I was at the shipyard a few years ago and got to see this thing being built. Very impressive.
USS Reagan Carrier Pic 1
USS Reagan Carrier Pic 2
USS Reagan Carrier Pic 3
USS Reagan Carrier Pic 4
USS Reagan Carrier Pic 5
USS Reagan Carrier Pic 6
USS Reagan Carrier Pic 7
USS Reagan Carrier Pic 8
USS Reagan Carrier Pic 9
USS Reagan Carrier Pic 10
USS Reagan Carrier Pic 11
USS Reagan Carrier Pic 12
USS Reagan Carrier Pic 13
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Love him or hate him, any compassionate person would not make fun of Ronald Reagan (or anyone for that matter) for suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Anyone with an ounce of civility would realize that its just crude. Its not funny whatsoever.
Its odd that so many liberals, so eager to tell everyone who compassionate they are, are so quick to make jokes about such topics.
[FromTheMorning]
I mean come on.... HMS Nimrod?
I try to make everyone's day a little more surreal.
Humans have always awarded acolades to their leaders. Well, popular ones, anyway.
USA naming ships after presidents is a national tradition... and as far as cults of personality, we pale even in comparison to the UK. You DO know what "HMS" stands for, right?
Of course their is also the point that he probably should have been impeached for Iran-Contra but had enough loyal soldiers to fall on their own swords, aka Oliver North.
Let's assume that Regan set up Iran-Contra, with full knowledge of his underling's actions and a good warning that he was essentially giving arms for hostages.
What about that is an impeachable offense, exactly? (We've had exactly one president who should have been impeached, and he quit. The two who were impeached beat the rap because Congress was just trying to upset the balance of power.)
This is the logic a real adversary would use. Once sunk, the loss of a carrier would crush American prestige.
Hey Reality Master. We preemptively invaded Iraq, killing thousands of civilians.
We preemptively invaded Afghanistan, killing over 4000 civilians.
But, it makes it easier to watch Fox News, doesn't it.
Whatever makes it easier at night.
There are several reasons to build this, and they apply to the next one, and the one after that ...
... I personally wish we had a much smaller defensive only military. But that's a political decision. The world wants us to be its policeman, their only quibble is where and when. Our political leaders haven't got the guts to tell the rest of the world to police themselves, or to tell Europe and Japan to start carrying their own weight, so for the time being, yes, we are the world's policeman.
Start for now by assuming that we need aircraft carriers. One, ships wear out. This is replacing a slower smaller worn out ship. Two, once you stop building them, the industrial base moves on to other skills, and you can't just pick up where you left off. To use an interesting analogy, we could not now build a battleship -- the technology to build 16 inches of armor does not exist. The tools to build the tools do not exist.
As for whether or not we need carriers
Carriers are pretty useful for that role. The air force has been trying ever since the 1914 war to keep all the airplanes to themselves and get rid of naval airplanes. They constantly claim to have long range bombers which can do the job. But they never have had them, don't have them now, and aren't likely to for a long long time. A carrier 100 miles off a coast can respond faster than a bomber halfway around the world. A carrier can relocate itself pretty quickly. A moving target 1000 feet long is easier to hide than a stationary target 10,000 feet long.
Infuriate left and right
Counterexamples: Spanish American war, Greneda, Panama, Vietnam (no, the French mistakes did not prompt an invasion of that size), Desert Storm, Iraq...etc.
Um, you may be forgetting the warplanes on the, um, carrier.
There is an organization somewhere whose only purpose is to name as much stuff after Ronald Antichrist Reagan.
We have a highway that used to be named "Cross County Highway" that is now the "Ronald Reagan Highway." (Cincinnati)
It's named appropriately because they waited for years to fix the bloody thing, and it ends right before it hits the rich neighborhood. Don't wanna break them zonin' laws there!!
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
Does Bush think Bin Laden and Hussein are hiding under the sea? Instead of wasting billions of dollars on useless relics of the cold war we should be providing quality education, health care and jobs.
Can't we all just get along? Lets face it, both Democrat and Republican presidents are bastards and have screwed various people both inside and outside their own country. They've all sold arms and other nasty stuff to nasty people, and they've all done stuff they shouldn't jave (Clinton got a BJ in the OO, Bush has had alchohol and drug addictions and may have lied about WMD in Iraq[1]). Politicians from both major parties are just as shitty as each other. Who'd have thought it?
[1]: May have. I didn't say he did, I didn't say he didn't. My own personal views on this arn't important, but the fact that the Senate is investigating the claims in the U.S and the House Commitee is investigating in the U.K indicates that there are questions to be answered.
Guess who lifted the grain embargo on the Soviet Union? Reagan.
Regarding infrastructure, the Soviet Union invested a lot in solid infrastructure, in part because it was vital for their massive investments in heavy industries, which depended a lot on solid communications links, electricity and water. Lack of privately owned cars also led to significant investments in building out a large public transport system.
As for Reagans contribution to the end of the cold war, he did certainly have something to do with it. When Gorbachev started opening up the Soviet Union from 85/86 onwards, Reagan did grab the opportunity to start nuclear disarmament. One can discuss whether he could have done more, and he certainly could have done without the massive military expenditure, however trying to pretend he didn't have anything to do with it shows a complete lack of historical perspective.
Could someone else have done better? Possibly, but that would be based purely on speculation
Personally I massively disliked Reagan, but I can still admit that he did take steps towards ending the cold war that were important at the time, even if I see his time as a president mostly as a disaster.
See title
funnier than the reagan jokes at least.
By the way compare America pre Bill to America post Bill - He was a GREAT president. So what if he lied about getting head. The people asking were being paid millions of tax dollars to investigate whitewater and they misuse the funds to depose the president on getting head. What a waste of public funds. But then the current Republican Party will commit any crime to gain power. Perhaps the Ricco act (designed to attack organized crime) should be used against it the next time.
$5billion is the price tag for the technologically most advanced aircraft carrier (read: floating city) on the planet.
$2billion is the price of a B2.
Weird eh?
BTW, mothballing old ships is standard Navy practice, just in case a big war causes them to need more ships. For example, in Gulf War I, many of the transportion ships used to move supplies to the Gulf were pulled out of mothballs.
They didn't go broke from lack of money (you should learn how their system of money worked, or rather didn't) they collapsed because all their infrastructure was dirvirted to building weapons, land, sea, air and space, rather than tractors, food, etc. and the people had had enough.
You're close, but you're not quite right.
It's true that you can basically point to SDI as the primary cause of the fall of the USSR, but it had nothing to do with the Soviet economy. It had to do with internal politics inside the USSR. In 1986, Reagan and Gorbachev met in Reykjavik, Iceland, to discuss Reagan's "zero option," his never-quite-serious proposal that the US and USSR abolish all nuclear weapons. They were right there, they had the deal all done, and then Gorbachev brought up SDI. He insisted that SDI must never leave the lab.
Reagan refused. The Reykjavik talks collapsed.
Hard-liners inside the Politburo were outraged that Gorbachev had failed to get Reagan to back down on SDI. Gorbachev, following his own agenda, agreed in early 1987 to separate intermediate-range force reduction talks from SDI and the "zero option." The result was the INF treaty. Good for everybody, right?
Wrong. The Soviet hard-liners saw Gorbachev's decision to separate INF from SDI as a sign of weakness. They were furious, and they just continued to get madder and madder. Finally, in the spring of 1991, they launched a military coup to try to take over the government of the USSR.
You know the rest, right? Yeltsin rose to the occasion and stopped the coup. The Russian nationalist movement, already strong, reached critical mass. And on Christmas day, 1991, Gorbachev announced his own resignation, and the dissolution of the USSR.
So you see, it had nothing to do with the Soviet economy. It had everything to do with Soviet politics, and with Gorbachev's decision to divorce INF from SDI, and with Reagan's refusal to back down at Reykjavik.
Ronald Reagan was incredibly brave to do what he did. And we're all better off for it.
fuck you
freedom of expression is what made this country. and you're a complacent dipshit if you think otherwise.
They named one after Kennedy to. Kennedy was a well known philanderer and with his initial actions in the early 1960's led us deeper into the Vietnam war. He is however a popular former President for reason unknown to me. But, he was a WWII Decorated US Naval veteran and the former Commander and Chief of our US Armed Forces. In my eyes he deserved to have the ship named after him. All is fair in Love and War. The point of them matter is they name US Navy Aircraft Carriers after former US Presidents. Nixon and Carter's names will soon be drawn from the same hat. Whether you like it or not. As a side note President Carter is a former US Naval Military Captain of a Nuclear Submarine.
Yes, how ironic... shouldn't be for these Americans who saved our big fat European asses from the big red bear, the only thing we would be able to express freely would be our [hypothetical] hatred for Americans...
On the other hand, do not miss the point: if the U.S. "saved poor tiny Europe from the big bad guy", the reason was not solidarity, humanitarian aid or being the Heros of Freedom(tm). The reason was only to protect themselves from an enemy too big to fight if Europe had been part of the Soviet block.
Okay, now that you ask... my feelings about Americans are: they are good people, I have been there (working in temporal assignments from my company in Europe, not as a tourist), I have made friends there, and I believe in Americans' good faith... but they are missing the point in an alarming manner: DMCA, RIAA, the growing monopoly in information handling (M$), the patent frenzy, the Irak war... this began in Vietnam, and it has been becoming worse since then. Be careful, friends! You are being dragged to the Dark Side! 227(?) years ago you proved yourselves capable of a revolution! Where is your spirit?
Strength, balance, courage and reason. If you know what's this about, contact me!
Actually, Ford is the most deserving of
having a carrier named after him.
Reagan was a wimp in comparison.
In April 1942 Ford joined the U.S. Naval Reserve receiving a commission as an ensign. After an orientation program at Annapolis, he became a physical fitness instructor at a pre- flight school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In the spring of 1943 he began service in the light aircraft carrier USS MONTEREY. He was first assigned as athletic director and gunnery division officer, then as assistant navigator, with the MONTEREY which took part in most of the major operations in the South Pacific, including Truk, Saipan, and the Philippines.
The point of a carrier is not necessarily firepower. There's a reason they call it "100,000 tons of diplomacy." True, the Air Force can bomb anywhere in the world with their long-range bombers, but the fear of a plane that could fly over is a lot less than fear of a big ship parked off your coast. I can't believe there is even an argument over whether a new carrier is needed to replace the aging carriers. The USS Constellation is in really terrible shape, USS Kitty Hawk is almost as bad, USS John F Kennedy is worse, and even USS Enterprise, which was the first nuc carrier, is in really bad shape. I should know, I spend all day on one. What the Navy is trying to do with their new, automated systems is reduce the manning required. It costs well over half a billion dollars each year to maintain and operate a nuclear carrier. If they can automate systems, they will reduce the manning required to operate those systems, and their preventive maintenance through use of these systems (ICAN) will save A LOT of money. If it works. The server architecture is archaic, and runs Win2k. I can attest that other ships have had serious problems with the servers running these systems. And still do. They run Windows because the private companies providing a lot of these systems employ software that only runs on Windows. Its not a very good solution, but now that the Navy has started down a path, they are committed. Maybe the CVN-21 will have a chance...
Damn! I thought this was /. Crap! It is slashdot, unless my browser is lying to me.
It sure looks like a Yahoo! message board to me, though.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
It's just a word, you aren't protecting anybody by attempting to disguise it and slashdot doesn't have any language filters.
o therfucker,
now repete after me...
BASTARDS
BASTARDS
BASTARDS
Now doesn't that feel better?
Here are some more:
shit,
piss,
fuck,
cunt,
cocksucker,
m
and tits
edukation
Yeah, but at least I didn't post as an Anonymous Coward.
Go back to school.....and this time, don't skip English.
These honors still should only be accorded to people posthumously.
For all intents and purposes, Ronald Reagan passed away years ago. The man's 92 years old and suffers from late-stage Alzheimer's disease. It is only fitting that we should honor him this way.
So he beat the best the democrats had to offer??
yup.
First off the Navy is the only AF branch that has capability EVERYWHERE: air, land, sea, special forces and even space.
Next: a Nimitz class full air contingent is larger than nearly every national air force on the planet. And we have 8-12 of them.
How the fuck does something like this get labeled 'Insightful'?
I try to make everyone's day a little more surreal.
The Aircraft Carrier is actually one of the MOST survivable ships afloat. Beyond the protection of the Battle Group and its own firepower, it is also designed to survive collisions by its own Aircraft. When you consider how much a F-18 weighs, how much fuel it may carry, as well as its ordnance, Exocets are really "chump change"
That's the problem with nuclear submarines - they're too loud to hear purely electrical ones. I believe it put some impetous into the Seawolf project.
a beowulf cluster of these...
USS Ronald Reagan Commissioning Tomorrow
Posted by michael on Friday July 11, @11:20AM
from the no-memory-of-those-events dept.
Jebus. I know that most of the Slashdot audience probably agrees politically with Michael, but it's pretty clear to me that this whole goddamn story is just an excuse for people to make snide jokes about Ronald Reagan. I don't care whether you like Reagan or not (I didn't particularly), but when did Slashdot get into the business of just posting Republican-baiting stories?
If I wanted political nastiness, I'd go to a political site. I DON'T. I want actual news for nerds and stuff that matters, not Michael Sims making jokes about Reagan's Alzheimer's. HA HA MICHAEL YUO = TEH FUNNEYMAN!!!!!
Go ahead, mod me down. But I hope somebody else stands up and asks the Slashdot editors to get Michael to cut this political flamebait crap. Republican, Democrat, I don't care, I just don't want to hear it anymore.
"95% of all Slashdot
besides, nimitz-class naming conventions dictate that you name the ships after former presidents.
Of course. Like the U.S.S. Nimitz, named after President Chester Nimitz.
Oh, wait.
You would've preferred to name it the USS Nixon, wouldn't you?
The FACT is that the US sells more dollars worth of weapons than anyone else. This year and last. This decade and last.
We're such a bad ass that we make countries buy our stuff, then deliver it or not AS WE PLEASE; example:a fleet of jets paid for by Pakistan, and held up by Congress due to Nuclear non-compliance...
i believe IBM uses AIX, linux and windows :-P
Have you read this? You might enjoy it.
An American aircraft carrier is a grand warrior. It's simply inappropriate to name one after a mere politician or play actor. It's insulting to the ship.
If a one must name a ship of the line after a president, it should at least be a great leader and not a senile gun runner.
Billy Mitchell, Winston Churchill, or even Degaule would all be remarkably more appropriate names for a CVN.
Naming an aircraft carrier after Reagan is simply disgraceful.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
hey, at least mondale never became president:
Homer: Hey, do we get to land on an aircraft carrier?
Pilot: No, Sir, the closest vessel in the USS Walter Mondale. It's a laundry ship. They'll take you the rest of the way.
FUCK YOU
Well Reagan almost assured a military tribute with the sound check ... They asked for a test to make sure the feeds and everything worked 10 min before a presidential address. Reagan agreed, they cued the music anounced him and everything just like it was real. He walked up to the podium looked at his watch and solmnly said "ladies and gentleman we start bombing in ten minuties." than walked off stage, Every leader in the world was jerked out of bed and rushed to a bomb shelter (gorachev to omar quadafie) The guts to pull something that crazy but prove we have the power to do it was something few presidents ever truly showed.
... need I go on?
As for waiting till he's dead - sence he left office he's never been involved in anything- from news to commenting on currant affairs. Yes his wife shows up but never will she talk and push politics she was gracious and caring but never politicaly ambisous.
Even the army is glad for the carriers they give us a mobile base (afganistan, haiti, etc. have need a jumping off point that the carriers provide) as for the british naming well the invinciable was sank, the bountiful crew starved
it's cost effective to park a carrier off a trouble nations coast than to send troops (the carrier is already at sea) the troops have to get thier and be supported anywhere they go.
It should have been named for Presidnet James Monroe, then it would be fitted for its first mission to be to Liberia.
Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Bigger is always better for the Americans. Yet, some airplane hijackers were able to deliver a serious blow to the american societies armed with only knives.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
We haven't blown up Korea since the 50's. Focus numb nuts, we've blown up Afganistan and Iraq, we're still in both.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Anybody serve aboard her? That is a ship named after one of the Navy's formost geeks, way before being geeky was cool. (if it ever is)
Just a small ship in a big navy, but they are important to.
Yep, every boy in the marching band is out of step except my Johnny.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Construction was approved in 1994 ( so it was the Clinton Administration that said they would pay the $5 billion on it ) and construction was started in 1998. So all this money they spent on this was definitly not the Bush administration.
Aircraft carriers are useless against islamic fundementalists or guerilla's using unconventional tactics and that is the only real threat America is going to face until and unless China constitues a military large enough to counter the U.S. its increasingly misguided policies.
Dwight Eisenhower warned against the unchecked power of the defense/industrial complex in the U.S. Somebody should have listened to him.
I was just in Norfolk for the week of the 4th. I went on a tour of the shipyard with the super carriers being the highlight. they are immense. something like 8 nuclear reactors power the 1100 ft. long, 300 ft. wide rr.(approximate size) it can travel at about 65 mph.
if you get a chance to head over there... I saw between 20-30 huge ships that include from super carriers, command ship (w/ quarters for the president), WW2 destroyers with 16 inch guns(9 of them), and various government supply ships operated by civilian owned staffs.
it was awesome.
I agree that it's dangerous to "crown" a living person with such an honor. But honestly (and with respect for Mr. Reagan) he may never become aware of the honor bestowed upon him. There is zero chance that he will ever capitalize on this honor during the remainder of his life for personal, political, or monetary gain.
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
However, we all know that history is often rewritten and views change accordingly.
The thing is is that the technology has moved on - the carriers are now the obsolete weapon. One small atomic bomb, whether it's delivered on a ship-to-ship missile or a torpedo will not only wipe out the carrier but take out its support group as well.
You are echoing a 1950's argument. With nukes [insert technology here] is obsolete. Yet Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Irag again were all conventional and carriers were invaluable. Also consider Cold War and other near-shooting incidents where carriers helped keep things calm, Cuban Missle Crisis for example. One of the various flaws in the argument you echo is that nukes are not like any other weapon. There is an extreme reluctance to use them. Use some conventional weapon on our carrier and we respond with conventional weapons on your military. Use nuclear weapon on our carrier and we respond with nukes on all your industrial and population centers, make an example of you. The preceeding Cold War policy has not been renounced as far as I know.
The US has to be prepared to fight a wide range of wars and carriers are invaluable in many scenarios. Many technologies, some quite ancient, are still valuable in this nuclear age. The spear for example. During the Iraq war I recall Marines clearing some marshy area with dense vegetation, bayonets fixed on their M16s.
Yes, but even if we do stand up, it gets us no where, that's why Microsoft is still a monopoly, the DMCA is in exsistence, and Bush is going to war with every nation on the planet. The only way to do something is to vote these congressmen out and vote in someone who actually know something about technology.
Fuck off and die, cowbird.
Hail Stalin... I wish we lost the Cold War!!!
The thing with politicaly sensitive topics is that there is typically a lot more involved then can be simply expressed. The problem with people expressing political statements is that they follow the modern journalism mantra of trying to over simplify the problems and coming up with keyphrases that are supposed to be the solution to said political topic.
Let's take your "war is not made by the Military"
Sounds like a meaningfull statement, but just think about it for a second longer then you are used to. War is fough by military, so to have a war you need a military (force). To have a military force enables a power to fight a war. America has created a big readily available military force. The complexity of which is not justified by your simple statement. The US Military is complicated on so many levels, of which there are quite a few involved with influences at the highest political circles.
Back to being on topic. I'd say, no whining about people who have figured out that an objective anouncement of a new military toy is fair bait for taking a political stance on what to do with this fancy piece of technology.
No one is saying you are not free to express yourself, your ignorance, or your (maybe not yours but plenty of your continental countrymen hatred of the United States.
We are saying you are flat-out wrong in your opinion.
What is it that Churchhill said? "The United States can always be counted on to do the right thing - after it has exhausted all other options." We eventually get it right. Too bad the world hasn't figured this out yet.
Back in elementary school I was taught that the government can't name things after living people. Maybe the rules have changed since then. We all know how up-to-date public education is. Or maybe Reagan is kind of a grey area. One cannot say with honesty that he is really alive. Anyhow, I really can't see the justification for naming a carrier after Reagan and elevating him to the ranks of Lincoln and Roosevelt. Say what you will about his presidency but I doubt many people would place him on the same level as Lincoln or even Nimitz.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
I can only imagine what kind of manuever problems the U.S.S. Gerald Ford would have. It could potentially destroy half a sea port while attempting to dock.
Ah, but at least it would remember where the seaport was.
Sure would be handy, though. Very plausible deniability, if you ever screwed up. Nobody on board would remember having done anything wrong :-)
Please help metamoderate.
Kids go to school hungry...but now there's a lovely new $5Bn aircraft carrier named after a President who'd forget his on name on occassion!
Never mind, all that free oil that the US just "liberated" in Iraq can help offset the costs.
-psy
Plus, I suspect that the darn things are just named after the president when they were first proposed.
Not quite. Plans for this carrier were finalized under either Bush or Clinton. Warships are almost never named for a living person.
The Ronald Reagan got its name from a group of hardcore reagan fans in our legislature that decided reagan was an ab-so-freakin-lute god, and everything should be named for him. one of Washington DC's airports became Ronald Reagan (inter?)national. The new carrier that had just had her keel laid? The USS Ronald Regan. That persistant and idiotic rumor that Reagan's face was going on Mount Rushmore? That started around this time.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Is it reasonable to have 13 50+ plane carriers when no other country in the world even has one?
We don't need so many war vehicles. And why does it have to be named after the last two republican presidents? What idol worship and it's imbalenced - will there be a USS William J. Clinton?
Thanks,
Travis
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I'm trying to think of any topic that could possibly be more divisive to Slashdot or to the country as a whole. Abortion, Gay Rights, the Iraq War, Reagan...yup, it sure the hell is right up there. Reading the absolute hatred between the opposing sides (and I'm also in there with fangs bared) is quite frightening. This conversation, if conducted in person, could easily end up with people dead or gravely injured.
I LOVE THE INTERNET!!!!
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act!" -- George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
Forget the old bastard, there anit no money in that get McDonalds to sponsor the damm boat, and offset some of the 5.x trillion tax payer dollars that get wasted building these useless toys.
one wonders...
--
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
We'll need a Dubya carrier, too, then. Call it the Dubya-MD.
Just consider the implications of the country becoming a laughing stock; because of that fiasco, the U.S. [President] is caught with its [his] pants down partying. Who would not want to plan to take down a giant who has shown a vulnerability?
No person occupying the position of the President of the United States is perfect, because they all have their flaws as human beings. There has not been a "perfect president" in the past few decades, if ever. I doubt there ever will be any time soon.
But I'd rather have a president that provides guns to foreign countries so those groups can blow their own heads off, than one that worries if he is going to get his blown.
And you are quite happy hiding while trying to label people as extremists because you are quite radical in your assumptions about what they post on a public forum.
All those who are PoliSci Proffessors raise their hands... All those who took PoliSci Classes raise their hands... All those slashdot readers who know more then those stupid PoliSci guys anyway raise thier hands... All those conspiricacy theorists on slashdot who believe that the Reagan administration was nothing but a CIA plot to teach terrorists to blow things up so they could attack U.S. targets and the CIA could then justify taking away civil liberties and clone J Edgar Hoover to become are everliving supreme dictator raise thier hands... Interesting very interesting...
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
Yeah, Kennedy was a moron. So let's get this straight, Mr. President - your strategy is to play "nuclear chicken" with a guy who took off his shoe at the UN, banged it on the table, and screamed "We will bury you!"??? Sheer brilliance there. Thank God someone had the sense to have him shot.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
While I tip my hat to the man who fathered Naval aviation, I think it imprudent to name a ship after him at present. First, Eugene is not the most masculine of names, so the USS Teddy Roosevelt could start picking on it. Then there are the implications that the ship may wrap tape around its radar for cushioning.
Seriously, though, that eight of ten carriers in the class are named after ex-presidents, the trend should remain; the carrier name was signed by Mr. Clinton as well. Perhaps the next generation of Aircraft Carriers could be dubbed the "Ely Class"?
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
Looks like somebody forgot some pretty important history lessons. I guess you can guarantee that no one will try to attack us in the next 100 years??? Try thinking before you hit the "submit" button.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
The USSR was building speed on the downhill by 1980.
I will dance with joy when that bastard dies.
More than that dude. Grover Norquist heads a project to place a memorial to Ronald Reagan IN EVERY COUNTY in the US. Yup, Reagan is the new Lenin, who would've guessed?
I was in G3 and G4 on Enterprise, back in the late 80's. You'd be surprised what's moved by pulleys, steel cables, and compressed air on the same carrier with 4 to 8 nuclear reactors. Ships are a balance of high tech, and simple + reliable, like the sound powered phones. When jets got too heavy to take off of decks under their own power, the Navy started looking for ways to catapult them off. After examining various complicated mechanical measures, the Navy settled on a simple system where steam...that's right, hot water to steam, propels them off the deck.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Reagan an Gorbitchoff (sp?) met in the middle of the 80's, alone, at a summit. At that summit, they basicly got to the point that they were BOTH willing to give up ALL nuclear weapons, on both sides, immediatly. This would have ended the Cold War, right there. But the Russians also wanted the US to scrap Star Wars as they saw it as a very real threat. Reagan said he couldn't do that because he had promised the people he would do Star Wars. That was the only point they disagreed on, and it caused the entire thing to collapse. So, Reagan did have it within his power to end the Cold War with one move, and even turn the Russians into friends, but he instead wanted to keep his image of power and strength in the minds of the people, and so he kept the Cold War going. The moment I learned that, I lost complete respect for the man. His selfrighteousness kept the Cold War going, and led to a nastier collapse of the USSR, which left more people without the resources to survive.
Space for rent, inquire within
Someone observed that it's the nature of every army/navy to prepare to win the last big war they fought. It does seem true...the French Maginot Line of the 1930's would have presented the 1914 German Army with quite a challenge, and the USS Ronald Reagan would surely have kicked Fleet Admiral Yamamoto's butt in 1942 or so. It won't really do much to thwart Bin Laden types in this age of asymmetric warfare, but what the hey...it's only money;)
The problem is that the diesel sub has to recharge its batteries on a regular basis. With modern sonar surveillance networks, running a diesel engine on the surface is like putting up a flashing neon sign saying "sub here, sink me!".
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Looking at the thumbnail for this pic I can't help but think "OMG! It's destroying San Francisco!" :-)
That's nothing. Take a look at the Stealth Fighter materializing from the deck!
--
wassup with all the whining? Its one thing to compulsively read slashdot, its another thing to waste the time to whine about a story that does not please you. I want to share a little secret with the elitist whiner crowd, skip the stories that don't appeal to you! I know it sounds crazy, but you don't have to read them.
On the issue of Reagan convincing Congress to increase spending you are demonstrably mistaken.
From Fiscal Year 1981 through Fiscal Year 1981, only once did the Reagan administration propose more spending than Congress approved; for the other eight years, Congress spent more money than Reagan proposed. Here are the actual figures Reagan proposed, and the actual amount Congress authorized (in billions of dollars):
FY1981 Reagan: $655.2 Congress: $678.2
FY1982 Reagan: $695.3 Congress: $745.8
FY1983 Reagan: $773.3 Congress: $808.4
FY1984 Reagan: $862.5 Congress: $851.8
FY1985 Reagan: $940.3 Congress: $946.4
FY1986 Reagan: $873.7 Congress: $990.3
FY1987 Reagan: $994.0 Congress: $1003.9
FY1988 Reagan: $1024.3 Congress: $1064.1
FY1989 Reagan: $1094.2 Congress: $1144.2
Note that the Democratic party controlled the House all eight years of Reagan's presidency, and the Senate the last two. Had it not been for excessive spending by Congress (which also increased the amount of "locked in" spending for each successive budget), the budget deficit would have disappeared by the end of Reagan's term.
Source: Edwin S. Rubenstein, The Right Data, P. 235.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
The joke was pretty lame, I admit, but I believe that the "no-memory-of-these-events dept." has more to do with Iran-Contra than Reagan's alzheimers. My memory is hazy about the whole affair, but I think that Reagan did his fair share of "selective recall" of events...
Umm, excuse me? "No memory of those events" refers to the Iran-Contra hearings, not to Reagan's Alzheimers. I guess many Republicans have scrubbed their brains of those events.
The whole goddamn story is actually a call for us to lust after spiffy new military hardware. Though the choice in naming is just one of an inordinate number of projects being named after our fortieth president. Some have called it "the Reaganization of America."
If you don't like Michael's stories, Slashdot has made it very easy to block stories on a per-editor basis. This was a great story, and the worst that can be said is that the "from the * department" comment was unnecessarily distracting. It wasn't even in poor taste.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
I agree. This story has nothing to do with Slashdot.
I've seen the plans morph for CVX over the last decade. One thing to keep in mid is that the USS Enterprise was commissioned in the 50's and is still in use. The next generation of carriers will probably have a service length twice that of Nimitz class. Planning for 100+ years of technological improvments is almost impossible. Your grandparents were probably driving an Edsel and hand cranking their phones when the current carriers were being developed.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Yes, we all know that Congress and the President are in no way ever working together toward a common goal. I mean, just look at our current Congress and president. They practically hate each other and are trying to undermine each other at every opportunity. Everytime the president wants to do something, he has to battle a Congress that doesn't want to give him money to do what he wants to do. And everytime Congress send a bill to the president to sign, he vetos it. At this rate the government will never spend a dime since it can't get anything done!
/sarcasm
Let's be realistic here for a moment. The President and Congress can and do work together to get bills passed and funds allocated. If you think that the president doesn't influence how and what Congress does, then you just aren't paying attention. Especially now when both Congress and the Presidency are controlled by the same political group, the checks and balances are removed. The president can ask for more money for the military, and the controlling political group in Congress can get the money allocated either through flat out majority votes or because the committies controling the allocations are control by the same political group as the president. That was how Reagan increased our debt. He said jump and Congress said how high.
Space for rent, inquire within
I went with the Scouts to spend an overnighter on the USS Massachussetts at Fall River, Ma. When the trip was over the thing that impressed me most was that the Battleship was one giant machine, and 2500 of it's moving parts had been men. (25 men to run each 5" 2-gun deck turret, 125 men to run each 16" 3-gun main turret.)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Early thought was, "What if this thing is run by Windows? What will they use to tow it back to port, like the Yorktown?"
Shortly after that, "What if the *did* run this thing on Linux... Imagine a Beowulf cluster of USS Ronald Reagans!"
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The prez sends a budget to Congress. They can trash it entirely or use it as the basis for the usual horsetrading.
Name the year Reagan sent a budget to Congress that contained a lower spending proposal than the budget congress actually passed that year.
Times up!
HE NEVER DID! Thanks for playing.
If I remember correctly, Gorbachev was the one who quite correctly decided that it was better to let go of the reins than to switch to a hot war.
But the other major influences on the end of the Cold War were the Catholic Church [Pope JPII], the Polish unions, and the Baltic separatists.
Reagan simply accelerated things. At that, though, I'm not sure that Russia isn't burying the US, by having let go of the reins for what turns out to have been a very short time. [I consider Putin to be close to a communist dictator. Like, 10%, but on a political scale that's very close indeed.]
That said, I do love America, and I did enjoy living on the James while my wife worked at NNS.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
No, I am not kidding.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
REAGAN ACTUALLY SAYING THAT DURING IRAN-CONTRA.
Honestly, would it hurt to have a passing familiarity with the subject before bitching and moaning about "political flamebait"?
Either way, I agree its in poor taste considering Reagan's affliction."
Maybe it's KARMA.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Talk about stealth. It looks just like a Nimitz-class carrier! Or perhaps it was a landing that went horribly wrong.
So no, I doubt seriously the military will name *anything* after him - except maybe some sexual act performed while kneeling...
Funny you mention the USS Jimmy Carter, people always tell me it would shoot off hammers, nails and leaflets instead of tomahawks and torpedos.
BTW, the USS Jimmy Carter (SSN23) is the last of the Seawolf class submarine. I believe it is to be commissioned later this year.
Thanks for pissing away another huge wad of the taxpayers money on a toy for the navy. I guess we'll finally be able to crush our arch-enemy Grenada once and for all.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my new secret lair...
/me puts pinky to mouth
It's long, hard and full of seamen!
Suddenly if you point out the problems you're un-patriotic
When you call the president a facist, you've pretty much trashed not just the country, not just its leaders, but everything the country is about.
The defining characteristic of this country is the orderly transfer of power. When someone starts calling people "fascists" - intimating that they are dictators -- they are trashing the fundamental principle of this country.
Regardless of how you dislike the embattled outcome of the last election it was *orderely*. There was no military coup, there was no mass unrest. It was orderly. A process was followed.
The main point here is that criticism going on mostly these days is not in good faith. It is made in bad faith to score political or other points. And that does reflect badly on the opposition. It shows that you are not a patriot, but an opportunist. If you have concerns, come out with them and take positive steps to work them out. That's not whats going on. What's going is that a lot of the political opposition in this country is purposely being drastically extreme, seeking to paint various people as fascists, or conspirators, etc. Dissenting in a country where dissent is legal and respected doesn't make you special. You are not patriotic for doing it. We need to get past that. Anyone with concerns should come forward with them. Whats happening now though is artifical concern. We have people using their dissent as a mask.
Let me just present this to you: where was the large anti-war movement in Kosovo. That's a big question. The UN was against it, Europe wasn't against it, and the left-wing of the American politics wasn't against it. The right-wing of American politics was against it. Now, fast forward to the Iraq conflict. Now this time around, things are exactly opposite. The left-wing is freaking out. The right-wing is all for it. Why? Politics. That's all.
Dissent yes, but lets not kid ourselves. 99% of the dissent we see is not principled, but rather, based on politics.
Income to the Federal government actually INCREASED during Reagan's administration. The large debt was caused by the social-democrats in Congress spending more than came in. As usual.
Most of you aren't old enough to remember what it was like working and trying to raise a family during the Carter administration. Double-digit inflation and interest rates, and single-digit raises (I worked for a Democrat). If Carter had been re-elected, I would have been right on the brink of backruptcy. I bought a house in 1979 with an 11 3/4% interest rate!
Yes, thank God Reagan was elected. The economy turned around and the USSR was defeated. What more do you want?
You're just reading the wrong histroy. Try this one.
I love you people who have nothing but contempt for this country.
Hey, asswipe: Bush and his policies != "this country."
I love America and there's no place else that I'd rather live. That does not mean that I blindly support everything that our leaders do. This equivalency between disagreeing with your government's policies and hating your country is an idea straight out of the playbooks of Hitler, Stalin, and Chairman Mao.
Actually, that's a good question: How long does it take to build a Nimitz-class?
I wanted to go to the commissioning ceremony, but it's booked. I wish I'd thought about it sooner... my mother saw part of the construction going on while she was in a meeting down there, and it would've been a treat for her to see the finished product. She mentioned it was very distracting--trying to pay attention to a planning meeting is difficult when you're trying to comprehend the fact that yes, people are building a floating airport out there, yes, it's a thousand times the scale of any individual worker on it, and yes, it will work.
My hat's off to the Newport News shipwrights... in times of technological miracles, you do a job that can still make people stop and say ``whoa.''
Take care,
Mark
There is a solution...
Smaller carriers? Can't do that - the planes need a certain-sized deck to take off from and land on.
For today's warfare airpower is vital. Given the (non-)support the US gets carriers are about the only way to ensure the ability to project power - whether that projection be into Iraq or Bosnia or Liberia.
PS - the Maginot line wouldn't have stopped the Germans in 1914 - nor in 1871. Stupid French never figured out the Germans keep coming through Belgium (1815, 1871, 1914, 1941, 1944, 20??)
So, are we going to give it to Iran?
You are demonstrably mistaken. It was not Ronald Reagan but Congress that was "pro-spending," and "pro-big-government." From Fiscal Year 1981 through Fiscal Year 1981, only once did the Reagan administration propose more spending than Congress approved; for the other years, Congress spent more money than Reagan proposed. Here are the actual figures Reagan proposed, and the actual amount Congress authorized (in billions of dollars, 1981 included as a baseline):
FY1981 Reagan: $655.2 Congress: $678.2
FY1982 Reagan: $695.3 Congress: $745.8
FY1983 Reagan: $773.3 Congress: $808.4
FY1984 Reagan: $862.5 Congress: $851.8
FY1985 Reagan: $940.3 Congress: $946.4
FY1986 Reagan: $873.7 Congress: $990.3
FY1987 Reagan: $994.0 Congress: $1003.9
FY1988 Reagan: $1024.3 Congress: $1064.1
FY1989 Reagan: $1094.2 Congress: $1144.2
Note that the Democratic party controlled the House all eight years of Reagan's presidency, and the Senate the last two. Had it not been for excessive spending by Congress (which also increased the amount of "locked in" spending for each successive budget), the budget deficit would have disappeared by the end of Reagan's term.
Source: Edwin S. Rubenstein, The Right Data, P. 235.
(Posted this before, but evidently no one saw it...)
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Idiot. Why do you think the Russian infrastructure was so crappy? It's because Reagan was FORCING them to spend on military infrastructure. He knew we could out spend them because we are a vastly richer nation.
How clueless can you get? The Soviet Union was a centrally planned economy. Centrally planned economies ALWAYS suck at providing for their people. The Soviet Union was also a brutal dictatorship. It didn't matter one d@mn bit how miserable their people were as long as the army was well-fed.
The only way to destroy the Soviet Union was to bankrupt them, and that was Reagan's strategy. And it worked.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
on selling your soul to a defense contractor for a paycheck.
Someone once said that the role of the aircraft carrier in a modern nuclear war would be to drift slowly to the bottom in small radioactive chunks.
That said, why do we name a ship after someone who didn't serve when it was their time? I bet that the USS John Wayne has supporters, too. A thought experiment: We are picking sides in a war. Who do you take, Ronald Reagan and John Wayne or Jimmy Stewart and George McGovern? The popular answer might be the former pair, but I will kick your ass with the latter.
Oh, and I'll take that little guy over there, Audie Murphy. You can have Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Not to mention that the beleagered Jimmy Carter was an officer in some of the first nuclear subs, you know the ones like the Thresher that could go to bottom in a hurry if the reacter had any kind of glitch. At least the Navy is naming the last of the Seawolf class subs after him.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
The actor?
/Back to the Future
Who's the vice president, Jerry Lewis? Next, you'll tell me the first lady is Jane Wyman.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
The Reagan is the last Nimitz class carrier. The next-gen carrier is called the CVN-21. More info on it can be found here . This includes pictures and specs. for all to ooohh and ahhh at (if it does not get slashdotted).
You know, you really ought to read what Gorbachev had to say about that. He said it gave him immense respect for Reagan, because he knew he was dealing with a man he could trust to stick by his words. Reagan's standing firm at Reyjkavic opened the door to more meaningful talks later on.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Is this really "News for Nerds"? Frankly, it's barely even news ("Navy commissions ship" -- what a headline!), but the simple fact that they're putting in touch screens and fiber optic wiring isn't much of a "for Nerds" angle. So they built the ship using current technology. So what?
--That would be JFK, not Reagan. We can thank JFK for the mess that was the Vietnam conflict, as well as the mess that is NASA. Neither of those endeavors were cheap. What a great leader he was...--
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Vietnam go back to Big Ike. Maybe NASA too. Deficit spending, well, goes way, way back.
No, George Bush III is probably going to be George P. Bush (Jeb's son, GW's nephew.)
"The epitaph of the Reagan presidency will be: 'When Ronald Reagan became President, the United States was the largest creditor nation. When he left the presidency, we were the world's largest debtor nation.'" --Lester Thurow, MIT professor
"[A] lapse into fiscal indiscipline on a scale never before experienced in peacetime." --David Stockman (Reagan's budget director) describing the 1980's, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed
You posted as 'The Dobber'! And you even have a link to your page on Slashdot! Yeah, now I really know who you are!
fscking tard.......
Oh, jeez! I saw this story, and had to post, but every idea I had has already been submitted and rebuffed ad nauseum. Come on, guys! Wait for me next time.
Oh, wait! I got one - will it have an ASW helicopter called 'Bozo'?
No, that's no good. Never mind.
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
I think the purpose of carriers is more a matter of intimidation than actual combat effect.
It's rather like mounted police - archaic in a slightly confusing sense, but still much more effective at dispersing a crowd than an equally heavy line of officers arm in arm - this is simply because it is more visible.
Wars are won by intimidating the enemy to the point that he no longer wishes to fight. Well publicized high visibility carriers are a formidable stick to wave in the face of an enemy. It's sheer size is what makes this psychological impact so deep. If the airforce wants to compete, they should look into somehow adding wings to an entire forward base. It's not about combat efficency, it's about intimidating the ignorant via show of might.
-birke
In the US, we have a rule: In order to be pictured on a postage stamp, you must have been dead for at least 10 years. We should have the same rule for aircraft carriers, $10 dollar bills and everything else they want to plaster Reagan's face on.
I read a lot of comments i.e. "Why do we need this? 5 billion is too much!"
You need to put it into perspective. All told, we have (I think) 13 carriers. Of those, the most expensive to operate are the 5 oldest, with the Kitty Hawk and Enterprise basically being money holes. That 5 billion price tag is nothing. It costs about 3.5 billion a year to run and maintain the Kitty Hawk!
The Navy is looking to decomission about 4 carriers over the next 5 years. Those carriers cost something like 12 billion a year to deploy. The Reagan is estimated to only cost about 2 billion a year to maintain. A significant savings. Once we decomission, the average age of our carrier fleet will decrease from 35 years to about 18. The cost goes down.
Why do we need carriers? Because they are one of the most flexible ways to project military power around the world. Unlike a fixed airbase, they cam be anyware in about a month. Unlike long range bombers, they can divert and change missions in minutes instead of hours. A B2 sent from the US is in the air 33 hours on a round trip. If you decide you suddenly need it to deliver different armaments once it's in the air, you need to fly all the way home to rearm. Being closer to the action, a carrier can recall airborne units or launch additional units and strike with the appropriate munitions within an hour or two. That is impossible with LRBs. One final thought, Turkey. We lost an entire division (Army 4thID) and an entire airwing when starting the Iraq war. This wasn't because they were destroyed, but because Turkey refused airspace and land access. Carriers don't have that restriction. Do we need carriers? Yes, so long as we need a flexibility in our doctrine that other nations may refuse us.
As to the concerns about carriers being built to kill people...that is what armies and warfare are for children. War is about killing people and breaking things. It's a cold reality, but it is true. The person who kills the most people and breaks the most "things" usually wins.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
It would appropriate to put his vacant mug on that giant piece of awful kitsch.
Income to the Federal government actually INCREASED during Reagan's administration. The large debt was caused by the social-democrats in Congress spending more than came in. As usual.
Yeah, and the massive military had absolutely nothing to do with it, right?
Lest we think that only Republicans engage in this, the third boat of the Seawolf class submarine is the USS Jimmy Carter (SSN 23).
I know this because Tyler knows this.
Regardless of how you dislike the embattled outcome of the last election it was *orderely*. There was no military coup, there was no mass unrest. It was orderly. A process was followed.
You mean that the only time one can criticise how things are is when there are riots in the streets? Making extreme statements about our leaders is as American as Apple Pie (is AP really "American" or do they make better pies in Mexico?)
Regardless, calling into question the leadership of a country does not necessary attack the "fundamental principles of the country." Certainly I would argue that satements like those experssed in fact rely on a great respect for those principles for their effect. If people didn't desire some great egalitarian democracy, calling someone a fascist wouldn't have any impact.
While "fascist" probably is over the top, most would agree that recent USA history has a lot of troubling stuff with regards to personal freedoms, effective representation, and physical security, both domestically and internationally. Not all of these can be blamed on the Prez, but as the one at the top, he gets the heat.
Who's making you read this? Is it that hard to scroll?
So, essentially you're saying he meant well? That's a damning epitaph if I ever read one.
It is obviously the most technically advanced carrier in the fleet, taking the term "hardware" to new levels.
- of-Mon-20001023/004185.html
Hang on a minute. Isn't this the same USS Ronald Reagan that's run on a Windows 2000-based computer system?
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/am-info/Week
"FIRE!" "We can't fire sir, the ship is rebooting."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/13921.html
WTF.
The 'hardware' might be state of the art, but the software has a LONG way to go.
Is anybody scared yet?
From episode 2F13 "Bart vs. Australia":
Two marines take down the US flag, fold it, and eat it (presumably to
prevent it from being desecration). The family get in the helicopter
just in time as the Prime Minister calls, "All right, mates, let 'em
have it!" The assembled crowd toss their cans of Fosters' at the
helicopter.
Homer: Hey, do we get to land on an aircraft carrier?
Pilot: No, Sir, the closest vessel in the USS Walter Mondale. It's a
laundry ship. They'll take you the rest of the way.
When someone starts calling people "fascists" - intimating that they are dictators -- they are trashing the fundamental principle of this country.
Pointing out that the emporer has no clothes does not cause him to become naked.
I beg to differ (and not just because I liked Ronald Reagan) because the US Navy has named other ships after living persons. Not many, to be sure, but the tradition, if there ever was one, has long been changed.
This is an excerpt from the Ronald Reagan entry in wikipedia:
Also, in 1980, Carl Vinson became the first person to witness an aircraft carrier being launched in his own honor (history of the USS Carl Vinson).
Now, for USPS stamps, there's a clearer tradition of waiting until a person is no longer living, so if you want to start your campaign to make sure that Reagan is left off of stamps until he's deceased, go for it...
Alright! Let's take cheap shots at someone who has a neuro-degenerative disease!
If you dislike Reagan's politics, or the politics that led to the naming of CVN-76 after him, then write about that, but please don't just poke fun of him for a disease he has. Perhaps you were trying to be funny, but the rest of your post sounded serious, and this cheap shot only detracts from it.
The preceding comments reflect the author's personal opinion and are public domain, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
I think someone shot the guy before he turned the US into a smoking hole...
What a myth. Defense spending is not good for the economy. Spending $5,000,000,000.00 dollars on a weapon does not enhance the economy as much as improving infrastructure. The money is better spent on things like transportation, education, communication, or even the national parks. The same money would make as many jobs anywhere else in the conomy, and leave a tangible improvment, versus a continual money suck on the economy.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
Scary thought: What if Jimmy Carter had been re-elected? (Hey, who doesn't like double digit inflation!)
Scarier thought: President Walter Mondale. (There's a reason he only carried Minnesota and D.C.)
Why do you think is the real reason he got more Democrats to vote for him than any other Republican in history?
flame on...
"When you call the president a facist, you've pretty much trashed not just the country, not just its leaders, but everything the country is about."
"The main point here is that criticism going on mostly these days is not in good faith. It is made in bad faith to score political or other points. And that does reflect badly on the opposition. It shows that you are not a patriot, but an opportunist."
I'm astounded by this, and for once I really hope this is a troll.
So in the USA you have the freedom to say whatever you like - but if you don't follow the party line you get labelled "unpatriotic" (or maybe "communist", "one of them, not one of us", or even "a supporter of terrorism") ?
How did the USA come into existence ? Hmmmmm, let me think. Wasn't it something to do with people questioning those who governed them at the time ? Were the founding fathers "patriots" or "opportunists" ?
If I thought all Americans thought like you, my opinion of America would be greatly diminished. Fortunately, I know they don't (and it isn't).
And what is the point of an "opposition" if they are not allowed to oppose ? An unopposed government - is that the sort of government you really want ?
When a Nimitz carrier shows up off a foreign shore, everyone understands that America ``cares enough to send the best.''
Lets hope they have a good captain, it might forget where it's going.
Send us your address and we'll make sure you get what you deserve too. :)
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
Didn't Reagan introduce trickle-down economics (also known as piss-on-the-bastards economics)?
I know that the US millitary is very Republican, but surely there are other people more worthy of having $5 billion aircraft carrier named after them.
They could've at least called it the USS Reagan. It's more catchy.
"We have to sink the Reagan to the bottom of the sea."
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
Just take a drive through the state for some verification on that.
The Robert C. Byrd Highway
the Robert C. Byrd Locks and Dam
the Robert C. Byrd Institute
the Robert C. Byrd Life Long Learning Center
the Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarship Program
the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope
the Robert C. Byrd Institute for Advanced Flexible Manufacturing
the Robert C. Byrd Federal Courthouse
the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center
the Robert C. Byrd Academic and Technology Center
the Robert C. Byrd United Technical Center
the Robert C. Byrd Federal Building
the Robert C. Byrd Drive
the Robert C. Byrd Hilltop Office Complex
the Robert C. Byrd Library
the Robert C. Byrd Learning Resource Center
the Robert C. Byrd Rural Health Center
the Robert C. Byrd Hardwood Technology Center
I know there are quite a few missing too.
And all paid for by taxpayer dollars.
If you think that nuclear bombs make other weapons obsolete, then your plan for the liberation of Baghdad probably would have involved "liberating" everyone from their flesh.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
What makes the deployment of additional weapons of mass destruction a Slashdot story? Am I on the wrong news site?
Your damn right you dirty hippy.
If Andrew Jackson's ethnic cleansing (Trail of Tears) can get him commemorated on a $20 bill, then Reagan's lies (Iran-Contra) should be enough to get him commemorated on an aircraft carrier.
Does it matter at all that the congress during the Reagan administration was democratic?
& cid=6416 528
Look at this post, it's really well written on the topic:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=70738
-Bucky
what is next USS Bonzo?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
From Fiscal Year 1981 through Fiscal Year 1981, only once did the Reagan administration propose more spending than Congress approved; for the other eight years, Congress spent more money than Reagan proposed. Here are the actual figures Reagan proposed, and the actual amount Congress authorized (in billions of dollars):
But just look at your own year-to-year figures. From 1981 to 1989, only once (in 1986) did Reagan propose spending less than Congress had authorized the year before. In all the rest of those years he was asking for a spending increase compared to the previous year. It's pretty safe to say Reagan's fiscal policy was all about increased government spending.
Never approach a vast undertaking with a half-vast plan.
Correction:
...and if (God forbid!) you'd actually like to do something about the problems you see in the country you love, you're a terrorist.
"Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few." -- G.B. Shaw
(qotd = quote of the day)
1. Deep Breaths! Are you aquainted with Hyperbole? It's a literary device.
2. The most recent transfer of power was about as disorderly as possible without involving the military or spilling blood. The process, such as it was, was almost entirely ad-hoc and evolving.
3. To the extent that any criticism is in bad faith, most criticism in the political context is in bad faith. Just because you agree with your blow-hard politicos and talking heads doesn't mean that they are acting in good faith.
4. Repeat: Deep breaths. Remember: things aren't going to hell in a handbasket, they went a long time ago.
You only mention the outbound money; the money being spent on useless crap like nukes and important stuff like welfare and education and health care. You conveniently skip the fact that Reagan's proposals typically slashed social service expenditures, and that that's why his budget proposals are lower.
You also fail to mention the inbound money; all of the tax cuts proposed by Reagan and his "advisors". When you reduce income, you get a deficit.
If you want to stick to your story that the only thing that exists is spending, then you'll have to contend with the concept of it being a Democratic Congress that outspent Russia and caused their collapse and the end of the Corporatic/Communistic cold war, not a Republican President.
1) the numbers you cite don't support the contention that Congress, not President Reagan, created the deficits of the 1980's. Here are the deficits for those years (via fedstats.org, National Income and Product Amounts tables, 1981-1989)
1981 $53.7 billion (abbreviated as b)
1982 132.6b
1983 173.9b
1984 168.1b
1985 177.1b
1986 192.1b
1987 147.9b
1988 137.4b
1989 130.0b
In no single year (except maybe 1981) does the difference between Reagaan's budgets and Congress's budgets equal the deficits run by the federal government. In addition President Reagan had both veto power and popular support - if he had wanted to veto the budget he might have been able to better bend Congress to his will. He didn't, and deserves some blame for not doing so.
2) a previous contention was that Pres. reagan double government receipts during his term. Using the same source, the numbers given by BEA do not concur:
Carter 1977-1981 receipts increased from 405b to 659,3b (+70% approx.)
Reagan 1981-1989 receipts went from 659.3b to 1140.3b (+80-85% approx.)
Bush Sr. 1989-1993 receipts went from 1140b to 1471b (+30-40% approx.)
The rate of increase of receipts was greater during Carter's term than during either Reagan's terms or Bush's term (Carter was in office only 4 years while Reagan was in office for 8 years). This seems (assuming my analysis is reasonable) that President Reagan did not stimulate receipts as much as others, while helping to generate larger deficits.
While I disagree with most of what he did, I believe that President Reagan was important enough to deserve a ship, particularly if doing so is consistent with previous policy (naming carriers after presidents). Note that the first Seawolf sub is named after Pres. Carter, also living.
I mean, if Cynthia McKinney, the cutest little communist who used (yay!) to be in Congress can get Atlanta's Memorial Drive renamed to "Cynthia McKinney Parkway," then RWR should have a carrier named after him.
Think about it:
- Khomeini released the hostages the DAY Reagan was sworn in. Jimmy has 15 months to get something done, and all we heard about was savage rabbits and foreign policy consultations with Amy.
- RWR announced SDI (Directed Energy Weapon, anyone?), which ultimately bankrupted the USSR and sank the Evil Empire.
- RWR deployed IRBMs into Europe, over the objections of the local communist claques, refused to compromise with Gorby, and again, forced the USSR into bankruptcy.
- When RWR came in, Tactical Air Command was cannibalizing aircraft to keep smaller and smaller numbers of aircraft flying. during RWR's presidency, mission-available rates in TAC were in the region of 90%, plus.
- RWR slashed tax rates, starting an economic boom that continues to this day, putting America at the top of the world's economic heap. He might have PROPOSED spendeing increases, but actual spending as ENACTED by the Congress always exceeded what RWR had requested. Anyway, I'm glad the Congress over-spent so badly. The country got such a shock at seeing how badly Democrats would gorge themselves on taxpayers, the country recoiled in horror towards the Republican party. The end result is that the next Democrat president, the Rapist-in-Chief, was economically more like an Eisenhower Republican than a Democrat.
- RWR bombed Libya and invaded Grenada, showing the world (a) the time you could mess with Americans was over, and (b) that further communist expansion in the world was no longer acceptable. It wasn't until the Rapist-in-Chief seduced America's women for eight years that the Islamofascists decided we were back to the days of Carteresque decadence and they could once again start slaughtering Americans. Just in time for another Republican president to save us.
Basically, RWR ended the policy of containing evil in favor of a policy of active engagement against it, ended the notion that you could tax youself into prosperity, and gave Americans new faith in themselves after the series of body blows inflicted by Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter.
Of course, the left will never forgive him for defeating communism. Since members of the left, being mostly unemployed or underemployed in academia, have the time to slander him endlessly, I expect that in years to come we'll be unable to distinguish Reagan from Adolf Hitler, so vicious will the leftist attacks be.
Still. Tough, lads, you lost. I suggest you accept reality, breath a sigh of relief that the gulag doesn't loom, and thank God RWR was once President.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
If you track at how many of an aircraft carrier's planes are assigned to protect it during an engagement, it has been increasing over the years as weapons become more sophisticated. If trends continue, in 25 years all of a carrier's planes will be used to protect itself and the ship will have no reason to go to sea.
Spending on the military is a legitimate thing for the Federal government to do under our Constitution. Taking my money at the point of a gun to give to assholes who won't better themselves is not.
One of our biggest problems in this country is that we have too many people who believe that the sun can't come up tomorrow without the help of the government.
Regan himself was opposed to naming anything (momuments, ships...etc) after living people. He was once quoted as saying that he thought a president should be dead at least 25 years before people decide if he was good enough to have a monument or ship named after him.
Sooner or later you can sink a carrier for 1/1000 of the cost of its construction.
Iraqi weapons imports 1973-1990
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
You are my hero. In a very heterosexual manner of speaking, of course. Not that there's anything wrong with not speaking that way. Heterosexually. Speaking heterosexually. Not homosexually. At all. Ever.
Oh, and btw, the economic boom did not end in an instant.
It took Alan Greenspan about 6 months to "explode" that boom. He began a series of interest rate hikes in June of 1999 which brought the short-term Federal Funds rate to its highest level in nine years.
Right before the 2000 elections, the Fed was taking drastic measures to destroy the economic boom. Looks political?
Someone was so desperate to remove this political ace up the incumbants' sleeve, they were willing to punish ALL of the economy, just to counteract the exuberance of stock speculators and the Enron-type con artists.
Then, a few months after the elections, (we don't want to make it too obvious, right?) the Fed is seen dropping the rate like it's never been dropped in history.
Hey, thanks Alan. What great finesse.
Why don't you take your "soft landing" and shove it.
What are YOU doing here? Why are YOU posting?
That's my standard response. Tool.
Forget about the 16th ammendment, asshole?
"Yeah, but at least I didn't post as an Anonymous Coward."
What's the difference? It's not like anyone here is using mixmaster or cypherpunk to post messages
That's true, but more and more it feels like people are insulting Bush for no reason other than that it is the socially acceptable thing to do. I just graduated from high school (in Canada, btw), and it seemed like every creative project in my english class was an yet another uninsightful poem or essay. My history class was worse. All that the students "knew" for the most part was that "war is bad! always and forever!" and "Bush is a moron!" with absolutely nothing to back it up. No background knowledge at all, for the most part.
:(
I'm fine with people not liking the current administration, the war, etc... but I'm sick and tired of people believing things only because they absorbed them from the political atmosphere
We all laughed (or cried, depending) upon reading about the Navy vessel that had to be towed back to port when its WindowsNT command system failed
h tml
"Others insist that NT was not the culprit. According to Lieutenant Commander Roderick Fraser, who was the chief engineer on board the ship at the time of the incident, the fault was with certain applications that were developed by CAE Electronics in Leesburg, Va. As Harvey McKelvey, former director of navy programs for CAE, admits, "If you want to put a stick in anybody's eye, it should be in ours." But McKelvey adds that the crash would not have happened if the navy had been using a production version of the CAE software, which he asserts has safeguards to prevent the type of failure that occurred."
WinNT did not fail. On a test platform, not an operational ship, running non-release versions of software: A client application accepted incorrect input. A server application accepted this bad data, performed a bad calculation, and corrupted it's database. Client apps that tried to use this database crashed. These events are OS independent. The publisher of the original article that broke the story and "blamed WinNT" later distanced themselves from the story calling it "early speculation".
The chief engineer on the ship at the time, and the developer of the application software, seem to say that the problem was not with WinNT: http://www.sciam.com/1998/1198issue/1198techbus2.
...great, another $5Billion baby-killing machine.
Yes, a sad, sad day. When will it stop? When you have killed everyone else on the planet?
...certainly not me.
>The defining characteristic of this country is the orderly transfer of power. When someone starts calling people "fascists" - intimating that they are dictators -- they are trashing the fundamental principle of this country.
When certain "someones" put a chill on civil liberties, demand executive protection over energy meetings, cook intellegence to start wars, etc. Well, you're kind stuck with only a few words to describe this behavoir.
Worse, this administration can really be seen as a power grab to appease the hard-right conservatives that put Bush in office.
Your assertion is just another logical fallacy along the lines of "Support the troops, thus support the war."
>they are trashing the fundamental principle of this country.
No, they're criticizing those who they feel are violating these principles. Big difference.
How appropriate. Another productivity-sapping waste of money that adds to the mountain of debt being built up named after the guy who (nevertheless cluelessly) started this type of thing.
One can only hope it doesn't end up like it's namesake: a mindless blubbering dangerous puppet aimlessly serving the evil or ill-conceived agendas of a violent wannabe plutocracy.
He was the youngest carrier pilot in the U.S. Navy during WWII, saw actual combat, and even got shot down. Yet I remember that before the Gulf War he had a problem of being perceived as a wimp, w/some commentators going so far as to speculate that his hard-line stance toward Iraq was his way of proving his manhood. Go figure.
OK, I've read all the sarcastic/scathing/vitriolic typical /. comments here. Some people seem very caught up in their own self-importance, others just in ignorance. I'm sure this post will fall to the bottom of the heap. That's not really my concern.
Having spent four years aboard another carrier (USS Theodore Roosevelt CVN-71) and being a member of the commissioning crew, I thought I'd interject some of my own self-importance/ignorance here.
The ocean is wide. Ours is an island nation even though it doesn't appear to be. This fact has kept us insulated from two world wars and many other conflicts. Having borders that are largely water requires us to have a naval presence to protect/defend those borders.
Bullies. Whether any of us like it or not and whether it is logical or not, people use force to get what they want in this world. Unfortunately, it seems to be in our base nature. Logic, compassion, and reason don't have any bearing on it. The only way to prevent being overrun by bullies is to be strong yourself. Having 4.5 acres of sovereign US territory that you can move anywher on the ocean allows you to keep those bullies at bay. Whether the politicians are capapble of using that force in a way we all agree with is a matter of much disagreement. Being able to place a force in the vicinity of an ally quickly is also a tangible show of support in a tense situation.
Technology changes. The basic design for the Forrestal-class aircraft carrier was laid down in the mid 50's. Experience since then has shown that conventionally-powered aircraft carriers are hard-pressed to perform operations that are relatively simple for their nuclear-powered counterparts. There's simply not enough steam produced by the boilers to drive the ship and operate the catapults. In addition, fuel-storage requirements of the carrier mean that there is less fuel aboard for aircraft operations and to support other ships in the battle group. This makes the CVN not only more capable but more self-sufficient.
If you don't use it, you lose it. The skills necessary to produce a 100,000 ton 1100ft long, 300 ft wide, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier don't really transfer well to civil shipbuilding. Continuous building projects not only provide new, improved ships, but keep the skills necessary to produce them alive.
Salt water is a bitch. Rust starts the moment you lay down the keel to the day the last chunk of scrap goes off to make more razor blades. Naval hardware gets put to hard use through its lifetime.
Pride. An aircraft carrier is something to see. It's hard to believe that something that big can move at all. Even after having lived on one for four years, I'm still in awe.
Ok.. enough said. Getting down off soapbox.
"Well Ranger Brad, I'm a scientist. I don't believe in anything." - Dr. Roger Fleming
For that much money it should be called the U.S.S. Reagonomics.
Where's my socialized health care again?
And every one a good reason why this sort of thing should be banned.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
His point is that all most of the Democrats are doing right now regarding President Bush and the war in Iraq is picking nits in a completely partisan attempt to make him look bad, not a patriotic attempt to do what is right for this country. Not all Democrats, actually, Hillary Clinton recently came forward in support of the war (and Bill had a couple of strongly worded speeches about Iraq's WMD program in the late 90's).
I agree that it is usually silly to label someone anti-American just because they have opposing views, unless those views are in direct opposition to the U.S. constitution that we are sworn to uphold (like income tax, gun control, etc. heheheh)
informative
Are you proposing some sort of Equalization of Opportunity Act?
I seem to recall that doing a lot of good.. somewhere.
I must be imagining it.
Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.
--Ronald Reagan
"USS Ronald Reagan Commissioning Today"
/. editors enjoy inciting flames, hence the many Microsoft bug reports we see. Not even us nerds can provide unbiased media, eh? :-)
This is not a joke on Reagan, and sometimes I get the sense that
Hey! Let's fire everyone in the Pentagon and listen to this genius. We should immediately stop doing anything that isn't effective against Osama. We should mothball our fighter carriers since they can't stop Osama. We should dismantle our entire nuclear arsenal since we obviously can't use it against Osama.
Fuck-brain, maybe some things are about preventing other things and achieving other objectives than the one thing you can see in your tiny mind?
Hmmm... Three big errors on your arguments.
Please recheck your copy of the constitution. You'll find that the federal government is empowered to provide for the defense of the country- not the lunch of some kid whose parents can't feed him, and therefor shouldn't have had him.
There's little tolerance for socialism around here, and I wish there would be even less. Socialism in it's various forms has killed over 100 million people in the last century- so what the fuck makes you think you're gonna get it right?
It's not that I have no compassion for people who have fallen on hard times- my parents had to rely on aid from our church for a year or two when I was a kid- it's just that I think the government has no business redistributing my income to those who don't earn it. I'll choose which of my neighbors and friends I help, and the manner and extent to which I help them.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
The parent is NOT flamebait. This thread has turned into an anti-american debate. That's a fact.
Everytime anything tangentially related to the Republican party or the US is mentioned on Slashdot, the thread turns into an anti-american debate. That is also a fact.
Maybe you moderators should spend your moderation points on moderating all the offtopic comments about Ronald Reagans economic policy which have nothing to do with the aircraft carrier or its technology?
Mmmm.. Donuts
Here are the sums of both columns of your table:
Reagan: $7912.8 Congress: $8233.1
The Reagan years increased the deficit from ~$1000 billion to ~$4000 billion. The difference between those two figures is only $320.3 billion. The only way to make the remaining $3700 billion go away is to assume massive supply-side driven increases in taxes - voodoo economics, anyone?
Like everyone who gets to the top of the Federal government, Reagan was more interested in changing spending priorities than he was in actually reducing spending. Clinton is the exception that proves the rule here - he got spending under control because the Republican-controlled legislature wouldn't let him do anything else.
Wedged government is good government, folks...
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
So in the USA you have the freedom to say whatever you like - but if you don't follow the party line you get labelled "unpatriotic" (or maybe "communist", "one of them, not one of us", or even "a supporter of terrorism") ? [Emphasis mine.]
Labels are a form of free speech. Just as someone has the right to call the president fascist, someone else has the right to label the first person however they want. That's what's fun about free speech. What's even more fun is the concept of majority rule (ie... democracy) If enough people agree with the first guy then the president is thrown out next term. If enough people agree with the second guy, then the pres stays.
That is how the system works. It is self-contradictory to defend the first guy's right to speak by attacking the second guy's right to it.
And what is the point of an "opposition" if they are not allowed to oppose ?
They are allowed to oppose, but they aren't necessarily allowed to oppose without themselves being opposed. It's a two way street.
>Star Wars ---> Dreamed up in the 70's continues today. Even Clinton continued to fund it.
Funded quite and pushed more than quite a bit by the Reagan administration. Somewhere on the order of tens of billions of dollars for what is essentially a pork project that wasn't capable of shooting down another plane let alone a hypersonic missile.
"Clinton did it too!!" Err, that righty tagline is meaningless. Two wrongs don't make a right and criticizing Reagan has nothing to do with criticizing Clinton. That's a topic for another day.
>Grenada
Ah yes, the grudge match between the US and Cuba in which a Marxist uprising was used as an excuse to invade a country the size of my neighborhood. There were no winners here.
>War on Drugs - The war is 'lost' because we (people and government) lost focus not because it could not be won.
Oh please. Receational drug use has been a part of human history since before any established culture. Putting kids in jail for possesing or growing pot isn't focus, its stupid and counterproductive. More right-wing Jesus-isms.
>Central America ---> What part?
El Salvador - 75,000 murdered
Nicaragua - 50,000 murdered
BTW, Slashdot favorite Admiral Poindexter had a hand in a lot of the Latin American interventions. I won't mention Panama as that was Bush Sr not Reagan, but Poindexter was there too.
1. You comments display a fundamental misunderstanding of how federal government budgeting works. Once an appropriation for a Fiscal Year has been passed, budget rules stipulate that those spending levels, plus increases for inflation, plus population increase, beceoms the baseline for next year's budget. Thus each amount that Congress increases spending each year has a cumulative effect by raising the baseline each year. And keep in mind that liberals and the press screamed bloody murder anytime Reagan tried to actually cut spending (see Stockman's The Triumph of Politics for how hard Washington's poltical elites fight against budget cutting, and how budgeting rules rig the system in favor of higher spending); just imagine what they would have said if Reagan tried to "change the ground rules" of baseline budgeting. Taking out those cumulative increases, and it would indeed have erased the budget deficit. Could Reagan have vetoed those budgets? Yes, and he should have, but the political and media firestorm for doing so ("Ronald Reagan is killing our babies!" said Senator Kennedy today) would have dwarfed Monicagate. Just look at the fallout from the brief closure of some federal offices during the Gingrich-Clinton budget showdown.
2. The Carter figures are misleading because they are not inflation-adjusted dollars. After 1982, inflation was a very minor factor in increasing budgets and revenues, but during the hyperinflation of the Carter years they were a major factor. Subtract the rate of inflation from the Carter revenue increases and you're left with very little. (I would calculate the exact figure, but my Almanac doesn't go back that far, and I don't have a copy of Statistical Abstract of the United States handy.)
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
We have a big navy and there's only so many synonyms for whoop-ass.
By the way, we have a USS Churchill and there would be no serious objection and a great deal of support for naming a ship the USS Margaret Thatcher.
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
Had it not been for excessive spending by Congress (which also increased the amount of "locked in" spending for each successive budget), the budget deficit would have disappeared by the end of Reagan's term.
I think you'd better go look up the figures on budget deficits.
The deficits were far greater than the $10 billion/year differences you see between the President and Congressional budgets.
In 1980 Reagan said he was going to balance the budget by 1984...
He didn't even try.
While I disagree with President Bush, I wouldn't call him a fascist, because that isn't fair. However, the core of what the United States is not orderly power transfer (a concept which is somewhat denigrated by the circumstances of its creation and which is more characteristic of either Europe or Singapore than the US) but a government accountable for its actions to its people as opposed to governments ruling by their inherent power. Part of the mechanism for doing so is political criticism, letting the government know how you feel, either directly or indirectly. In this environment, diagreement with the policies of President Bush has been viewed as unpatriotic. While I believe that calling the President a fascist is unproductive, the suppression of contrary opinions (by people with their own political axes to grind) is a bad idea and a greater violation of this country's principle than unhelpful poltical commentary.
Note also that during the Clinton administration, President Clinton was accused by various groups of being 1) a Chinese agent and 2) a Russian agent. Many other criticisms of him were leveled without proof or substance, yet the people that complain of unpatriotic criticism were silent then. If you (not the poster, but people in general) want reasoned orderly debate, you need to support it no matter who the president is.
Second note: some of the important policies of President Bush were either decided in closed meetings (energy policy) or justified publicly with reasoning based in part on flawed, selective intelligence (the war on Iraq). If the information for substantive decisions is hidden, then we are not able to make the substantive criticisms or support necessary to fulfill our role in government. If you want policy support other than mindless support or dissent, then the information (what we can see) to understand those decisons has to be present. If not, then why else (other than political motivation) would anyone make political commentary?
Great movie, bit cheesy, lame ending but a dogfight between an F-14 Tomcat and a Zero?
I like the goof from IMDB:
"Factual Errors: A Zero that was hit by a burst of shells from an F-14's M-61A Vulcan cannon (which fires at a rate of 6000 rounds/min) would not have stayed in one piece and only suffered a damaged engine, it would have been disintegrated. Zeros were notorious for their fragility."
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Your statement equates the President witht he country. The President (whichever person happens to be occupying the office at any point in time) is not the country nor is he everything the country is about. He is one man in a position of power, nothing more.
The defining characteristic of this country is the orderly transfer of power. When someone starts calling people "fascists" - intimating that they are dictators -- they are trashing the fundamental principle of this country.
I do not think the current President is a fascist. However, if someone occupied the office of the President started acting like a dictator why would I be "trashing the fundamental principle of this country" by pointing that out, especally if my intent was to point out that we in the US of A do not want a fascist running the country, seeing how not having fascists running the country is one of our fundamental principles?
Dissenting in a country where dissent is legal and respected doesn't make you special. You are not patriotic for doing it.
Its one thing to say that the act of dissenting does not make you a patriot. Its quite another thing to say that if you dissent you are unpatriotic (as some conservatives seem to suggest these days).
I agree, most of this is a political game.
Clearly, President Bush felt that there were good reasons for going to war in Iraq. Hoepfuly, he had many good, legitimate reasons for going, because I'm sure that it was not lost on him that at a minimum, there would probably be a happy coincidence that going to war would raise his political standing.
In either case, regardless of his true motivation, he told congress and he told the public that we were going to rid Iraq of WMDs. He built public support for a war based on this reason, and if that reason were untrue (and I don't think that's been established yet) but he did not know it to be untrue, I can forgive that. However, if he really did not have a good faith belief that the reason he gave us all was the truth, I have a BIG problem with that. I'd have a big problem with that if Jimmy Carter had done it, or Bill Clinton had done it, just the same as I'd have a big problem if Reagon or Bush #1 had done it.
When an American president goes to the American public and to Congress to justifying a war, he is going to them to justify the inevitable deaths of American servicemen and woman - our sons and daughters - not to mention innocent civilians and enemy lives. If we as Americans hold each life to be sacred, if the President holds each life to be sacred, he cannot go around justifying deaths with pretenses he knows to be false. The only thing political about this is the fact that the person who happens to be in the Presidency at this time and who may have done this happens to be a Republican. Well, shame on this Republican if this is what he's done, but shame on any Democrat who would have done the same.
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
At the request of the former President, the Captain's yacht has been renamed from "Nancy" to "Pill Lady."
-- Funksaw
Then you can do all kinds of c00l stuff to kill people!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
SSN-23 Seawolf Class Attack Submarine
a vy /ssn-23.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/n
One S6W reactor one shaft at 52,000 shp with pumpjet propulsor
Eight 660-mm torpedo tubes with 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles or 50 Harpoon antiship missiles or 50 Mark 48 ADCAP torpedoes or up to 100 mines
$5 billion / 3 years to build / 280 million citizens = $5.96 per citizen per year.
yearly military budget: $380 billion
yearly NASA budget: about $20 billion?
yearly federal tax income: $1.9 trillion
That carrier is pocket change dug out from the nation's couch cushions. It's not a "new carrier OR feed the children. You don't hate the children do you!?" question. We could do both, and thousands of other worthy things, all at the same time.
Well there was no strong anti-war movement before Kosovo. Maybe democracy works after all?
The UN was against it,
No, Russia was against it, understandable so since they are a long term ally and culturally linked to the Serbian people. Note that the Russian government did not support Milosovitch but would get in trouble at home if they would allow a war against this neighbouring country. Anyway, with a Russian veto there could be no UN resolution.
Europe wasn't against it,
well, a genocide was happening in Europe at the time, the worst one since WWII.
and the left-wing of the American politics wasn't against it.
Those hypocrites, how dare they! War to stop genocide, and they call themselves liberal.
The right-wing of American politics was against it.
You mean the same who now states that we had to invaded Iraq to save the country from a genocide and a ruthless dictator, since there were no WMD after all?
Now, fast forward to the Iraq conflict. Now this time around, things are exactly opposite. The left-wing is freaking out. The right-wing is all for it. Why? Politics. That's all.
Thats all!? What about principles (sovereignty, international law, justice)? What about truth (genocide, WMD, threat to stability, links with terrorists)? What about getting allies and solving problems by working together with the world community instead of stating "either you are with us or against us". (I always wonder if Cheney knew that this statement comes from Stalin when he made it.)
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
Whatever happened to the Republican idea of Taking Personal Responsibility?
The Congress didn't hold a gun to Ronnie's head. Ray-gun signed every spending bill that put this country deeper in debt.
Rather ironic considering the fact that he got into office by attacking Jimmy Carter's 'deficit spending'. When Raygun was in office the National Debt from 1 TRILLION dollars to 4 TRILLION dollars by the time he left. So much for fiscal Conservativism.
Well what can you expect from an administration that got caught selling weapons to Iran, a country that humiliated the US in the late 70's and set the stage for Ronnie's 'America is back, standing tall and kicking ass' attitude.
Just because the Reagan administration cut government aid to the poor and vastly increased to ranks of the homeless, the starving the medically uninsured and the WORKING poor in this country does not make them fiscally conservative.
Their massive tax cuts for the rich, coupled with massive increases in 'defense' spending more than outweighed their draconian cuts in socal programs.
The only good thing you can say about those times is that at least THEY had a decent excuse for wasting massive amounts of money on military hardware. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the justification for so much wasteful spending is gone. I guess it's luck for Dubya that 9-11 happened, because gave him political cover for carrying out the pro-war spending and anti-liberty domestic policies he largley promised before he almost got the most votes in the last election.
The Third Reich was pretty orderly too.
USNS Bob Hope.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
If I thought all Americans thought like you, my opinion of America would be greatly diminished. Fortunately, I know they don't (and it isn't). You'd be surprised at how many of the people are like him. I find it very humorous that people claim to be "Americans", to believe in a little thing called The Constitution, yet they always fall back on the "If you don't like it, leave" argument. Newsflash: The people you're dismissing as unpatriotic are more patriotic than you'll ever be. If they feel the President is institution fascism in America, fine. That's their opinion. And if it offends your tender feelings, tough. The moment you start clamoring for them to shut up or remove themselves from the country so as to spare your delicate emotions is the moment you renounce your "ideals" as an "American".
Michael was probably like 4 during the Reagan administration.
When the Ronald Reagan loses the ability to make quick decisions and stumbles a lot?
./revolution
We are beginning to see the uses of directed energy weapons; you might remember the slashdot story of an artillery shell shot down with a laser.
The first ship of the next generation is expected to hit the seas in 2014 (I did RTFA). The basic design will probably stay the same for another 25-50 years (Nimitz did) after that.
Now is the time to design the underlying infrastructure to be prepared to quickly install the latest laser cannon in 2037.
However, it is not immediately clear to me why it is preferable to accelerate the ships with EM catapults. Remember, the electricity is generated by pushing steam through a turbin - it is seems likely that using the expanding steam directly is more efficient... maybe I missed something.
Tor
When you call the president a facist, you've pretty much trashed not just the country, not just its leaders, but everything the country is about.
:( People such as yourself try to paint this epidemnic on the nation's left-wing as well in order to confuse people into thinking both parties are the same, both are corrupted of morals and ethics.
But it's ok to call the President a communist, right?
The main point here is that criticism going on mostly these days is not in good faith. It is made in bad faith to score political or other points.
But again, it was ok to criticize Clinton, right?
It shows that you are not a patriot, but an opportunist.
Unless you are attacking Clinton, then you are a patriot!
where was the large anti-war movement in Kosovo.
Protesting the war, of course.
and the left-wing of the American politics wasn't against it.
Actually the left-wing of American politics was very much against it, those damn unAmerican commies!
The right-wing of American politics was against it.
But that's because they were opportunists, you admitted so yourself.
Now this time around, things are exactly opposite. The left-wing is freaking out. The right-wing is all for it. Why? Politics. That's all.
Naw the only difference is the right-wing isn't against it this time because they are opportunists. And to be correct on the label right-wing, I'm referring to the Bush lickspittles in the GOP. Pat Buchnan, of the older isolationalist GOP is opposed to the war.(Not that he wasn't an opportunist when it came to Watergate...)
99% of the dissent we see is not principled, but rather, based on politics.
Don't kid yourself. This is only true with todays right-wing.
Just because Rush Limbaugh tells you something doesn't make it true. Check out some of the liberal leaning websites that were around back in the mid 90's and you'll find a lot of opposition to Kosovo. counterpunch.org, fas.org, etc. I know because I've been doing research on issues in Wesley Clark's past and how those might influence the campaign.
> USS Hilary and the USS Chelsea and the USS
> Monica and the USS Jennifer and the USS (etc).
Are you implying that Billy was wetting his willy in his little girl?
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Quotes ... The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip." [1]
j html?articleID=10300367
In June 1989, Ronald Reagan said, "Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.
[1] http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.
When the Supreme Court did a party line dance in 5/4 time, in ceased to be orderly.
41s bench nominees gave 43 the presidency. Thanks Dad!
So, to regale us about the 'Spirit of America", I'm sorry, it was lost on the Bush Family.
America is great.
The Bush family is a cancer.
OK, let's call them Crazy Cowards and call it a compromise. Anyone who thinks they are brave by strapping on a vest of explosives and killing "hardened targets" like mothers and children in a market is indeed a coward. I can't back off that. Walk up to a soldier or politician and I would give them marks for having the balls to do it. ANYONE can kill an innocent not expecting the blow. Crazy Cowards is fair, you agree?
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
as american police / border guards often say: if you don't like the laws then get the hell out... :D hehe
-judging another only defines yourself
I beg to differ. One the 2000 election was not orderly. There are various accounts of voters (mostly minorities) being unfairly kept from casting their ballots. They level of shadiness that went on in Florida was for the most part overlooked by the US Press. Secondly dissent is not always political. Certain groups in this country have been marginalized to the point that speaking out could lead to death or violence. The civil rights movement is a clear example of this. Also homosexuals and muslims in this nation face the real threat of physical violence against them. Lastly why can we not trash everything the country is about ? Look at the framers of the constitution. Did they not tout freedom while holding SLAVES ? Where were women's rights in that document. The foundation of racism and sexism that this nation is built upon shapes our society today. All presidents have been white men. All signers of the constitution were white men. It is odd that after centuries of supposed growth the same basic power structure exists. Do not use flawed logic that white men are somehow more qualified for the job and are pre diposed to lead. And finally to anyone who tells me to leave if it dont like the counrty. Some of my descendants were the people here before europeans "discovered" this land. Others were brought here to labour without pay helping to develop your infrastructure. I'll be gald to leave if you return my land and all the capital I helped produce. You may want to deny it but al large part of this economy was built off slave labor.
You wouldn't want to put tags around that, now would you?
Carriers take forever to warp in. They should have gone with a couple of Scouts instead.
Daniel Crawford
Neither. Being homosexual is about being sexually attracted to the opposite sex, not about silly unrepresentative acts.
I'll be happy when the fucking mushroom clowd rises over your "wonderful" country :)
If that's what the President's supporters think, then they're obviously not paying attention. Bob Barr, Pat Buchanan and Robert Novak are some of Bush's biggest critics these days.
Part of the problem is that the President's supporters can't wrap their brain around this simple fact: there are a lot of people out there who think the Iraq war was an unjustified, reckless venture. Recent events, such as guerilla attacks on US troops and the admission that we had no evidence that Iraq was trying to buy uranium, have bolstered their case.
Needless to say, these people are pretty pissed off right now, and aren't likely to support the President or anyone who supports his policies (e.g., Lieberman).
Finding God in a Dog
This is Slashdot, we only do MICROSOFT baiting stories here!
paintball
Remember, Reagan fired all the Air Traffic Controllers, and then got (*) an airport named after him.
I guess Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes...
(*) - or someone else got it for him.
see how long a man remains a pacifist when forced to witness the rape of his wife
pacifism is a noble goal for humanity
emphasis on the word "goal" as opposed to "reality"
we are in the dark ages of mankind
in the future they will write about the time we live in, and shudder to contemplate how the world ever survived our time
the truth is, world peace is something that is fought for and earned and secured, not something that congeals out of the ether in a massive display of denial about the evil side of human nature... read: the modern definition of "pacifism"
don't get me wrong: blind nationalism is moronic, but blind pacifism is equally moronic
simple as that really
you need to defend noble ideals like freedom and equality until the world is mature enough to support them without the sword
we don't live in that time yet, we are not that mature
denial about that fact does not make any reality except the reality of a fool
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
A family friend used to work for the Navy designing computer systems for the various large ships. (One project he worked on was a system to replace paper maps with electronic versions. He had to develop a giant screen to display the maps that could serve as a table as well...they had to be Captain's coffee proof.) After a long and grueling project was developed, he got to go to the Mediterranean and Hawaii to install the systems onto the ships. What was nice was that he could take his vacation right after he was done installing the systems, and get his transportation to and from the exotic locales paid for by his job.
"I think that when you become a Republican, you don't get to score any more." -- Butt-head
That may be true. But as a matter of fact the man scares me. No other president of the US in my time has managed to do that, not even Reagan, which I didn't much agree with, so it's not primarily political.
Now, from my perspective across the pond, it seems that Bush really falls short of the qualifications one associates with the precedency(sp?). To be frank, he seems ignorant, not very bright, and lazy. Reading about his previous exploits doesn't do much to change that picture. Add to that his trouble with words, written and spoken (and I don't hold that against him as a man, it's just that I presume that being skilled with words is important when holding such a position; just a being a blind bus driver probably isn't a good idea).
The shortcomings of a president could (and should) be compensated by his advisors, but it seems that he only listens to the ones similar to himself. Just look at the debacle made by the secretary of war (sorry, you insist on still calling it "defence") when he decided to dabble in diplomacy, instead of letting the secretary of state handle it.
You don't really have experience with inherited heads of state, but take it from those of us who do: Bush exhibits many of the traits of king that shouldn't have been. A mediocre man finding himself in circumstances that demands excelence. We had our share of those, had to violently overthrow a few, until we wised up, had the socialist (democratic) revolution, and either threw them all out, or stripped them of all but purely ornamentary functions. (Well, the British never saw the light, but that's their loss).
Now I guess it could be worse, he could be all that he is and ambitious instead of lazy, which would be even more dangerous...
Now, I don't actually have a lot against americans as people, you have your charms and anoyances as do most. And given how your elections are run (and who pays for them) I'm not even sure I can blame you for electing him, but you could have ended up with a lot better man for the post of US ambasador to the world.
Stefan Axelsson
We had evidence that Saddam was trying to buy uranium. It's called British Intelligence, and it's an assertion that MI5 still stands by. The CIA has pointed out that they advised the cabinet that that intelligence may not be accurate before the President's speech.
Congress approved the action. Blaming the President is pretty simple-minded.
Yes, heaven forbid that living in a democracy you actually do something to have them changed...
Stefan Axelsson
I have to agree, the Iran Contra affair makes me sick. Granted Reagan had a way of making people feel better, but if I could spend 3 trillion dollars beyond the tax revenues generated by the Govt. I could make people feel happy with bread and circuses too. It's amazing how republicans can't give Clinton credit for turning around an economy driven into the ground by 8 years of Reaganomics followed by 4 years of Bush Sr. (remember the savings and loan fiasco), but they can sure as hell give Reagan credit for the downfall of the Soviet union after Carter, Johnson and Kennedy (with a brief Nixon interlude).
Nice comparison of apples to oranges there. Comparing the spending proposals of Reagan to the final spending amount, eh? Very honest....
It's always the case that more money gets spent than was planned for and/or proposed. If you want a fair comparison, compare the original budget proposals from Reagan and Congress each year. You'll see that in 7 of the 8 years, Reagan's proposed budget spent more than Congress's proposed budget.
Reagan was quite comfortable out-spending Tip O'Neil's Congress, and that's saying something! He was a big-spender extraordinaire....
In what respect....exactly. I don't even know what country the poster is from, but there is a good chance that his/her country has better education, a more informed public, with better access to uncensored news than you do. The posters country almost certainly has a better foreign policy than yours does, it would be almost imposible for it to be worse. Your government stamps around the globe, killing people in YOUR name, and you wonder where the animosity comes from? I personaly have no major issue with Americans as a people, however, your government does some truely disgusting things in your name, that you never get to read about, because Faux News, and Certainly Not News would never dare report that you bombed country X today to support some scum bag dictator who promised access to oil, or supplied rebel group Y (fill in 'terrorist' if they are fighting against you today) with 10,000 automatic weapons this week to help destabilize some government that you no longer like. The world is a wonderful place, someday, some of your countrymen might actually get to visit and learn about parts of it, while out of uniform. Your Welcome
to sink a 5B$ sitting duck? I'm guessing less than 20 if they have Russian SVUAL super- cavitating torpedo that travel 300+ mph ;)
Say goodbye to your "fish" monkey boy!
Ack! I know this is gonna get swallowed up by the political spam, but a kinda cool piece of geek news slipped past when I was reading some of the news about the new carrier.. In particular, it's ONLY GOT 3 WIRES!! Ok, so who cares? Well, it used to be a tradition among veteran carrier pilots (don't know if it still is.. anyone here in the know?) to "catch the 3rd wire".. which is to say, prove (show off :) their competance/skills by aiming for the 3rd arresting wire on the deck. I guess they'll have to go for 2nd of 3 now or something. Anyway, it was just a neat piece of military culture I heard somewhere :)
G
I agree with you for the most part, but the part at the end really struck a nerve.
Some of my descendants were the people here before europeans "discovered" this land. Others were brought here to labour without pay helping to develop your infrastructure. I'll be gald to leave if you return my land and all the capital I helped produce. You may want to deny it but al large part of this economy was built off slave labor.
I really feel sorry for what your ancestors went through, but, the thought that you are owed something from the nation of which you are a citizen because of something that happened to them is completely backward.
Do you want me (through my government and tax dollars) to give you something? My ancestors came here dirt poor and work for wages that couldn't afford a slave's standard of living in many cases for generations in coal mines. Do I owe you something? I bennefit from you ancestors misfortunes no more than you do...
I will admit it, I am very lucky, my father made it out of that dead end town in Appalachia and into college, I grew up in an upper middle class environment, and I am currently doing alright for myself. I think that those of us who are fortunate have an obligation to help out, I pay taxes at a higher rate than those who are less fortunate, and many of my taxes help less fortunate people have food and housing during hard times, and an education, I will gladly pay for these things. And if you are not fortunate, I am sorry, and I hope my tax dollars can help you. But, all people who are not fortunate deserve this help, not just those who are unfortunate because of actions taken in the past that harmed their ancestors. I am damn glad that my father got a government sponsored scholarship for pharmacy school. With out a system that supports those who are not as fortunate, I would probably be working in the paper mill right now (all the coal mines have closed...).
Lastly, if you have a good education and a good job, quit whining, and count your blessings.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Also known as the USS Know Nothing, is being sent to Liberia to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act.
Or the USS Chester Arthur, which, uh...
Never mind.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You forgot Saddam Husseins lack of biological weapons.
wtf is this doing on slashdot? i mean, come on, like anyone who doesnt work at this place really gives a crap that we are honoring a terrible president with yet another machine used to help kill people and also way too expensive considering the deficit right now.
The hostages were held throughout the elections, with every evening's news report announcing "AMERICA HELD HOSTAGE: DAY XXX", until they were suddenly released immediately upon Reagan's inauguration and coincidentally a lot of money went to Iran from the US. A few years later, CIA chief William Casey happens to have contacts in the Ayatollah's government who are looking to buy weapons he wants to sell.
Why is there no Nixon? There is a Regan, and going to be a H.W. Bush... no Carter?
If no Nixon, will there be a Clinton? CVN-21? I mean Nixon vs. Clinton, which is the lesser of two evils? No, no, I'm not trying to argue politics, but Clinton WAS impeached by congress, no? Nixon only resigned...
_CMK
Bad spellers of the world untie!
He sold biological weapons to Saddam Hussein. Is that awful enough?
Yeah, its a great thing we have a huge military so we aren't constantly being invaded like Australia and New Zealand have been.
Here's what has been bugging me lately,
Why is it ok to lie about motives, money and politics (see Reagan & the Contras, or W. & Nuclear (prounouced NukeClear) weapons) but NOT ok to lie about sex? (see Clinton and Monica).
I hate Clinton but I could honestly care less who he had sex with. I put him in the same category as Bush Jr. except maybe he was a little smarter.
Just a thought.
- If you wanna see what happens when the dumbest amonst us aspires to lead look no further than the Grand US of A
It is our huge array of massive weapons and offensive capabilities with forward bases in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere that *created* Osama Bin Laden!
We spend billions in so-called "defense" spending to bully the rest of the world into letting us into their markets and freeing nations (while leaving the resulting anarchy that you see in Iraq). Imagine that, we pissed some people off and a rich one with the skills to fight back has popped up!
If we spent a ton less on our military, more on our healthcare and education, and kept our goddamn nose out of other people's business (so long as it's not hurting us to do so)...then we'd be a lot more like Canada...and NOBODY'S blowing up anything in CANADA!!
Our current "strategy" enabled by our overwhelming military might is garbage and it (like Reagan) will spend us into a hole that will take someone like Clinton to get us back out of again. I can only hope that it happens in the next 4 years, so I can get a high-paying pharma job with the PhD I'm working on.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
[sarcasm]
Damn him for lowering taxes and stimulating the economy after the downturns of the 70's!! Bastard!
What a damned asshole! Standing up to the Soviet Union during the cold war! What the hell was he thinking!
[/sarcasm]
You must not be from the age where Reagan was president, yes he did further the deficiet, but at this cost, he helped this country on it's way to economic stability which blossomed during Clinton's era.
It's amazing how short-sighted these teens of today are.
Error 407 - No creative sig found
You complain that people are unfairly attacking Reagen in one breath, then in the next you turn around and smear liberals? Fucking hypocrite.
Because with his Alzheimer's, it'll be just as good as if we waited until he was dead?
I think people are forgetting that US Navy carriers are more than just the carrier operating alone.
Today, a USN carrier task force will not only have the carrier, but also a number of destroyers armed with the Aegis defense system surrounding the ship to provide air defense and also launch longer range attacks using Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles. Also, about 2-3 attack submarines also operate with the task force, searching out for enemy submarines and also launching offensive operations using Tomahawks against distant targets and Harpoons against enemy surface surface ships.
When the USSR still existed, they spent a huge sum of rubles building special submarines armed with large cruise missiles and also flying specially-armed Tu-95 Bear bombers carrying large cruise missiles specifically to counter the USN carrier task forces. That also explains why the Soviets built and launched large nuclear-powered satellites whose sole purpose was to try to track the movements of our carriers. Today, with the USSR no longer extant, these Soviet-era anti-carrier forces no longer exist; today's military threats are no match for the USN carrier task force. The navy of Communist China don't have anywhere near the numbers, weapon systems, or tactics needed to take on our carriers.
Besides, carriers are actually a bargain when it comes to projecting power. It is very costly to set up and operate fixed military bases in foreign countries; a carrier can carry an extremely formidable strike force anywhere in the world easily. I think the Soviet Union's biggest blunder militarily was the fact they never really addressed the need to project power using an aircraft carrier until it was way too late; if they had aircraft carriers that could launch conventional aircraft operating by the early 1970's they could have been much more successful in projecting power, especially in Africa.
When you call the president a facist, you've pretty much trashed not just the country, not just its leaders, but everything the country is about.
The fact that you can say that (true or not) is more important. That shows what a cool country we can be.
But ask yourself about Guantanamo Bay, the power that the Patriot Act gives our executive branch, the stalling of the the 9/11 investigation, refusing (even now!) to backup its so-called "intelligence" on Iraq. All these things do have a somewhat fascist sound to them. Bush has done a great job of tilting the government's balance of power toward the executive branch.
Let me just present this to you: where was the large anti-war movement in Kosovo.
Clinton was smart there. He didn't send many troops in there -- and few if any reservists. Instead of reserves to take care of camp, provide food, etc., he hired a professional army. He also avoided a bloody, muderous, prolonged stay a la Ira^H^H^H^H Vietnam.
Ever hear of a guy called Gorbachev?
Barbara and Ronnie had kids together? Why haven't I read this in the Weekly World News?
...Nothing interesting here. Just move along...
Bill Clinton doesn't deserve an ounce of credit for the boom that happened on his watch.
Well, yes of course. That's because he's a democrat.
We all know that if he had been a Republican presiding over such a boom, there would be a national airport and numerous federal buildings named after him by now.
"Next: USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77)"
Why not? You have to name them after someone or something, and like Jimmy Carter before him, Bush One's popularity has risen after he left office, and also like Carter, he has a Navy background as a WW II Naval Aviator (Carter was a sub officer and nuke; thus, a sub was named after him). Gerald Ford and Lyndon Johnson both also served in the Navy. They won't get carriers, but don't be too terribly shocked if they eventually get smaller classes of ships named after them, perhaps destroyers. Richard Nixon is the one Navy President I'm fairly sure will never be honored with a ship.
For more info on how the Navy names ships, see here.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Reagan destroyed the federal budget, everything America stands for, and a minor anti-fascist movement in central america. His name deserves to be as reviled as other American traitors Benedict Arnold, Robert E. Lee, George W. Bush, and the Rosenbergs.
In the meantime, having every one of his supporters rounded up and shot would do nicely.
That works both ways. I've met anti-war protesters who were amazed to discover that some of their fellow countrymen believe that we should invade Iraq because it was in our best interests to do so. Recent events, such as England's firm insistence on the accuracy of their own intelligence that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium, have bolstered their case.
The American left does not have a monopoly on the certainty that their side is correct.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The USS Carl Vinson was launched by its namesake...
So this isn't really the first. Plus Bush Sr. Will probably still be alive in 2008...
Hell if the CVN-21 in 2012 is named after Clinton, he most likely will be alive...hell Hill could be pres at the same time.
I guess this is like stamps, you used to have to be dead, but now anyone can get on a stamp, dead or alive...
_CMK
Bad spellers of the world untie!
He was the first president to put his foot down and stop the USSR.
I wont comment on the rest of your post, but maybe you've heard off the Cuban Missle Crisis?
needs to read "Reagans War".
I think you need to go out more and read some books that haven't come from Rush Limbaugh's book club.
The only two times we've had hostile forces on US soil happened druing the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Other than that, nada, nothin, zip. Look at Australia and New Zealand, they're democratic countries that don't have huge militaries and somehow they've never been invaded.
I was just using it as an example. Personally I dont expect anything except to be treated with respect. That whole love it or leave it arguement gets to me and I wanted to present things from a different perspective. I wanted to show that people who tell other to leave usually have no right ot do so. Peace
1. Deep Breaths! Are you aquainted with Hyperbole? It's a literary device.
The labels being tossed around - unpatroic, communist, fascist, etc are not. Look around - take a look at democrats.com, or salon.com, or indymedia.org - they are not kidding! They are not literay devices!
2. The process, such as it was, was almost entirely ad-hoc and evolving.
Uhh.. no. Canidates in an election had questions about the process and outcome. They appealed (both sides took court action at some point) to relevant courts. Courts made decisions. That's how jurisprudence in this country works. It was not ad-hoc.
Just because you agree with your blow-hard politicos and talking heads doesn't mean that they are acting in good faith.
I do not believe any of those people are acting good faith. They acting in bad faith equally as or maybe more often the protestors. They are supporting one side not because of principle but because of politics.
4. Repeat: Deep breaths. Remember: things aren't going to hell in a handbasket, they went a long time ago.
I never claimed elsewise. I am just saying that the arguments made these days are not based on principle (in 99% of the cases), but on politics.
I think you dripped a few of those sea men on your blouse there, Barbie, just as you 'disengaged' from that rant.
I thought the custom was that you waited till people were actually dead before naming things after them.
Never mind that I have had painful bowel movements that could have been better presidents than Reagan was.
Alex
Large, round, goes down.
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
1) I didn't understand how the budget baseline was set - thank you for the correction. However, the key step that Reagan would have needed to take to lower deficits was to change their procedures, rather than to simply get his budgets approved.
2) I don't have an exact figure for the revenue increases; as above, the revenue increases come from www.fedstats.gov... since I couldn't find conversions for the effects of inflation on government income, I used Table 7.11 at www.bea.gov - "Chain-Type Quantity and Pridce Indexes for Government Expenditures and Gross Investment by Type"
Carter 1977 chain factor 0.67
1981 " " 0.7244
1989 " " 0.9495
1993 " " ? (used 0.99 - 1992 is 0.991)
using these, I get
Carter 241b (1977) to 439b (1981) (in 1996 $)
Reagan 438.7b (1981) to 954b (1989)
Bush Sr. 954b (1989) to 1185b (1993)
so Reagan did more than double revenues over 8 years but Carter nearly doubled revenue in 4 years (and President Bush only increased revenue by about 20-30% )
but I could be wrong (if I'm using the wrong figures for chained inflation or misusing them)
Where are the WMD's?
Where are you in iraq now?
How many pretzels does it take to choke a neocon?
Do you have the answers to these questions?
No? Then STFU.
The point about Kosovo is this: it shows perfectly that both the support and opposition to these wars has very little to do with the war itself and everything to do with politics.
That's the fundamental point. And when this political calculation leads to the most vile accustations - "anti-American", "unpatrotic", "communist", "fascist", "dictator" etc, it really has gone way past dissent.
Check out this oil tanker that used to be named the Condoleezza Rice. I bet they can't wait to load it up with some fresh Iraqi oil.
Sheesh...There is so much political rancor going on around here who would have thought this article started off about the commisioning of a ship
Anywho...for those who may be interested I pulled these cool links from Northrop Grumman
Commisioning info
Nimitz class facts
Recent Sea Trial info
USS Reagan specific facts
BTW...I spent 4.5 years on IKE....IB!
Oh...and to keep with political theme here:
... and furthermore
I think your argument here is pretty much bullshit. I think my president is a bully and a thug. But on the other hand, I think the Constitution is wonderful. See how that works? The president of the USA is not the same thing as the USA, etc.
The defining characteristic of this country is the orderly transfer of power.
That was really the wrongest argument you could have chosen to defend the current president, who only came to power when the U.S. Supreme Court intruded in highly unusual fashion, and along party lines, to decide the election. If there was ever a president of the USA that came to power in a disorderly way, George W. Bush might be it.
When someone starts calling people "fascists" - intimating that they are dictators -- they are trashing the fundamental principle of this country.
No, they are trashing that person. Also, I think you might have a little confusion about what "fascist" means.
Regardless of how you dislike the embattled outcome of the last election it was *orderely*. There was no military coup, there was no mass unrest.
The lack of rioting and other violence is a testament to the excessive patience and virtue of the American citizens. It is perhaps also evidence of the trust and honor we place in decisions of the US Supreme Court, albeit now diminished by their interference in a decision of law of the State of Florida. Or it might mean that most citizens are mindless sheep who didn't even bother to show up for the vote. It in no way is a compliment to the current president, nor his administration.
The main point here is that criticism going on mostly these days is not in good faith. It is made in bad faith to score political or other points. And that does reflect badly on the opposition. It shows that you are not a patriot, but an opportunist.
My complaining shows that I am angry. I'm not interested in scoring points, I'm interested in change. The fact that I am willing to stand up and complain is what makes me a patriot. Your willingness to paint me and others as opportunists shows that you are interested in ad hominem attacks.
Anyone with concerns should come forward with them. Whats happening now though is artifical concern. We have people using their dissent as a mask.
I assure that my concern, and that of many millions of American patriots, is not artificial in any way, and it is offensive for you to paint us as having some sort of secret agenda. We very plainly dislike being lied to, having the Bill of Rights trashed, attacking countries that pose no threat to us, giving tax breaks to sweethearts and fat cats, scape-goating various minorities, etc. These concerns of ours are not artificial.
Dissent yes, but lets not kid ourselves. 99% of the dissent we see is not principled, but rather, based on politics.
What exactly are you saying here? 99% of dissenters are whiney Democrat losers? Not true, but even if it were, you're implying that dissenters' ideals are not "principles", but "politics"? And that the ideals of the current administration are somehow on the other hand not "politics", but "principles"? And why would that be so?
It is becoming increasingly clear that the USA attached Iraq because it wanted to "redraw the map" in the Middle East, not because it actually feared any "weapons of mass destruction" from that country. This all reeks of Wolfowitz's wet dream from a decade ago coming true.
At the rate we're going, we might not even need to name the next aircraft carrier after George Bush, because we won't need any more aircraft carriers. We'll have airbases sprinkled conveniently around the globe, in Afganistan, Iraq, Liberia, North Korea, Columbia, ...
Why are some of you getting so upset over the 5 billion is going to cost for this carrier?
/equipment ect ect ect. 5billion is only the start. But the same argument can be made for the soldiers in IRAQ. Vetrans affairs will have to support the survivors dealing with post traumatic stress syndrom for the next 60+ years.
Figures released yesterday state that its going to cost ~3.9billion PER MONTH to keep troups in IRAQ. Thats a new carrier every 1.3 months.
But the 5bn is only the starter cost, then there is the planes / maintenance / staffing
As a added bonus though, the new carriers wont get randomly picked off by guerilla soldiers since they will be on thier home turf in drydock.
my appologise if somebody else already brought this up.
Also homosexuals and muslims in this nation face the real threat of physical violence against them
These cases are far rarer than they seem. It is a joke to think about comparing what they face to what blacks faced leading up to modern times - throughout the 50's, 60's, and 70's. Quite frankly, it is simply amazing that you'd suggest. Minorities in this country do not face *widespread* physical oppression. That's just fact. Individual cases - yes. Systemic oppression and violence - no.
What happened in the 2000 election is typical. There was nothing special EXCEPT that the margins were much smaller and therefore every little incident was a major issue.
In an election with forty-million votes to be case it is not unusual for groups of problems to occur. But to claim that the 2000 election was disorderly is a monumental joke. Unbelievable joke. Look at how elections in other countries are often held and get back to me.
Finally, I have to respond to this:
You may want to deny it but al large part of this economy was built off slave labor
Ahh, no. A large part of the 1800's argrian economy was built of slave labor. The south was largely agricultural. The north industrial. Agrigrian economics make it attractive for slave labour, industrial not so much. Today's modern economy has very little in common with that of southern 1860's economic activity. The agricultural business of today dictates that far fewere people manage exponentially greater number of acres. Technology has long surpassed the contributions of slaves. Symbolically, yes, slaves built much of the south and feed the nation. But realistically, your claim is just not supportable.
And if it offends your tender feelings, tough.
Ahh, but if it offends *your* tender feelings that they dismiss people as unpatriotic, then tough. It's a two way street. You can't tell someone who is saying 'no don't say that' to 'no don't say that'.
Why do you mothball ships, they're metal, not wool.
Some points:
But it's ok to call the President a communist, right?
No. Because I doubt there is even a single elected American politican who wants establish this nation a communist society. Therefore, it is not okay (if someone is in fact an open communist, thats another story).
But again, it was ok to criticize Clinton, right?
No, not in the way it was done. There was very little principled criticism of Clinton.
Unless you are attacking Clinton, then you are a patriot!
Nope. Never said that, don't believe. There were principled dissenters to the actions in Kosovo, but they worked quietly and were'nt part of the boisterous crowd that came out of the anti-Clinton closet.
Protesting the war, of course.
The point being the Iraq anti-war cause was massive, the Kosovo one very tiny. That's the difference. The Kosovo group was mostly republicans pissed at Clinton. Under all that were some principled anti-war dissenters. They have my respect.
Actually the left-wing of American politics was very much against it, those damn unAmerican commies!
Ahh, no. It's simply false. There was very little widespread dissent. Compare the days of 500,000 person plus gatherings to what happened with Kosovo. Virtually incomparable.
Check out some of the liberal leaning websites that were around back in the mid 90's and you'll find a lot of opposition to Kosovo
I am not doubting there are left-leaning organizations and individuals who opposed Kosovo. But I am claiming that out of the people who protested Iraq, the vast majority did so out of spite of Bush, not out of anti-war conscience. That's just how it is.
same, both are corrupted of morals and ethics
The fact is that the elected representatives of the left in America supported Clinton in Kosovo because of politics just now as the elected representatives of the right supported Bush in Iraq for political purposes. The underlying issues are largely irrelevant. The congressional democrats - for example Daschle - supported Kosovo and went right around this time and bashed Bush for Iraq. Likewise Republicans - like for example Hastert - bashed Clinton and then went around and supported Bush.
I never said that taxes were not legitimate. I said that using taxpayers' money to give to deadbeats like you was not legitimate, asshole. I'm all in favor of taxes to pay for the functions of the U.S. government. I'm just against the redistribution of income. That's not the way our country is supposed to work. Only a damned socialist would be in favor of redistibution of income. Remember Marx saying "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need"?
Another botched attempt by the navy at cloaking, like the Philadelphia Experiment, only this time it was a fighter and it rematerialized in the ship just like The Pegasus in that one episode of TNG.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I'm sure this post will be lost in the vast sea of replies and even if it will be noticed, it will probably be moderated down as flamebait.
I just don't understand how the American people have so much respect for one of the worst presidents in their country's relatively short history.
This guy was an airhead, pushed around by his wife, he didn't even have any principles of his own. Before he became president, he snitched on many of his friends during the McCarty commission, while he himself had once applied for membership at the American Communist party! During his presidency, he devestated the US economy, and pissed off most the rest of the world by ordering military strikes and incurstions in affairs that were none of his business. He ordered civilian targets in libya to be bombed after a terrorist strike within the US without any proof that they were involved in that attack. When a later investigation revealed that Libya was in no way involved, he didn't even apologize for the unwarranted attack and loss of innocent life. Then there's the Iran Contra scandal. And what about Aids? He totally ignored that, because was one of those people who believed Aids was God's punishment of gay people.
Why do you love that asshole? Outside the US, he used to be the most hated US president in history. Now he shares the top spot with the baffoon that is running your country right now.
Why don't you appreciate the past presidents that were at least halfway decent, like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton? Yes, I said Bill Clinton, that's right. He cheated on his wife, but at least he had economic insight and diplomatic skills. Not just the US, but the entire planet was better off with him as president than it is now.
Damnit, I know I may be generalising, but it's the American population's general ignorance and naivete that will keep the existance of truly enlightend and righteous presidents like David Palmer on 24 limited to ficticious TV series.
Reagan was a war criminal and idiot and now you're naming one of your most sophisticated technological achievements after that asshole. I can't believe this fucking country of yours.
Yeah, go ahead. Moderate me down, this piece of "eurotrash" over here doesn't give a fuck. But you know what? There are many people worldwide that share my view!
"Oooh, does that mean we get to kick some puffy white mad zionist butt?"
Again, most of the time this kind of honor is awarded to leaders posthumously.
As I understand it HMS stands for His/Her Magesties Service. However, this is not a cult of personality, but more a recognition of office. Along the lines of "The king is dead. God save the king."
As for impeachable offence, Regan's administration was quite clearly supporting Contra rebels in direct violation of an explicit law of Congress. He knew about it and encouraged it. Again, he had enough people around him to take the fall that a case of plausible ignorance kept him from being impeached. It was a difference of what you know verses what you can prove.
But this is off topic.
Aexia... How does it feel to be humiliated like that? Ouch...
Better luck next time, d00der...
GG
I specifically said I personally wish we had a much smaller defensive only military which I guess you sorta skipped right on over.
... Japan is FORBIDDEN from commissioning anything other than a defensive-only military ... as if the US, having set up for them the constitution in 1951, still controls it. Had nothing to do with the surrender, which was in August 1945.
... uhhh ... some American city, where the talks were held? Not the Paris Accord, or Berlin Accord, or London Accord?
And as for this
And as for not wanted, that's the funniest part. France and England sure as hell wanted our help eariler than 1917, and 1941, and there's the interesting bit in the 1990s Balkans, where France threw a hissy fit and said they would do nothing in the Balkans unless we ponied up the majority of the troops. That was so funny I cried. France, not wanting to do a damned thing in the very region which started WW I, telling us, who they despise so much, that we had to come rescue their ass once more, in their very own backyard, or they woudln't even help themselves. Say, isn't the peac agreement that stopped most of the fighting named, uhh, the Dayton Accord, after
So, which part of history don't you understand? The part about the rest of the world wanting us to be the policeman sure stands out. We've done our own share of volunteering, which I think is a damn shame. We ought to let idiots like you do your own dying. But seems to me, you lazy sods with the piss poor defense budgets and armies opened up many cans of worms many times with your screams for help, and if you don't like us volunteering some of the time, and piss and moan when we don't volunteer to your liking the rest of the time, well, you opened a lot of the cans yourselves, your hypocrisy is at least as bad as ours.
Infuriate left and right
Bonzo would have made a better president. Any president that has astrologers helping him decide what to do is flat-out bug-nutz.
And again, if 64% of the budget is social programs then saying that the past debt was incurred by military spending is less than honest.
Most of the social programs are like a retirement account: people pay their money into them and they have a right to expect to get the money out. That money should really be accounted for completely separately from the rest of the budget. The fact that politicians keep dipping into it to make up for spending elsewhere is itself an abuse of the system by governments. If the US government didn't provide those social programs, taxes would have to be cut drastically so that people could try to get the equivalent retirement benefits on the free market.
If you remove those programs and just look at discretionary spending, the money for which you and I pay income tax and that gets divided up among different programs by Congress every year, somewhere between a quarter and one half of that money goes to the military. US military spending is completely out of control.
In fact, the net amount of money annually flowing into the US from other nations (the increase in the US foreign debt) corresponds rather nicely to total US military spending. In effect, Europe, China, and Japan are financing the US military. Without that influx of money, the US could not afford a strong military.
In reality, you can't say what caused the debt other than "total spending."
Do you apply that same reasoning to your personal budget? "Let's see, I spend $1000 more per month than I get. I can't really say which is responsible, the mortgage, the 401k contributions, groceries, car payments, or the fact that I am a gun collector and keep buying guns every month. Really, it could be anything. Maybe I should stop paying the mortgage."
This country is great because it is a democracy! Because the President is not appointed by 9 justices, nor by corrupt oligarchs.
sigh, here I go again....
1) The Democrats destroyed themselves.
2) I have yet to see a Republican who actually makes a significant dent in taxes. With both W (and Pataki), my taxes have gotten worse, not better. At least the Democrats are honest ("we are gonna screw you but good, now bend over! woohaa!")
3) Probably Reagan's greatest contribution was that the country definitely did have a greater sense of self-confidence by the time he left office. The 70s and early 80s were bad times for the US. We came out stronger and with greater national resolve thanks to Reagan's leadership. However, it was a rather bumpy ride.
4&5) The Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet Communism was a combination of factors. To say it was Reagan's triumph severely belittles Gorbachev, Walesa, Havel, and the thousands of Soviet Bloc citizens and political figures who decided that something, anything was better than the Soviet system. Reagan helped bring this about for sure, but his policies were one of many factors. This was a long time coming.
Mount Rushmore? Please.
Washington had the enormous burden of being the first President. The country could have imploded, but his leadership laid the foundation for how we run things today.
Jefferson was the first "opposition" president, thus allowing us to pass the first huge test of democracy--'what if the opposition wins'? And although the Consitiution made no provision for the acquisition of new land, he let the Louisiana Purchase go through. The Tripolian War was the first war and victory for the US Navy/Marines. He also was the first President to make influencing Congress with a heavy hand standard practice.
Lincoln boldly took a stand to hold the Union together and prevented the secession from suceeding. Oh yeah, and that slave-freeing bit. As a result of the demise of the agrarian South, the country became the prosperous industrial juggernaut we are today.
Roosevelt sucessfully, for the first time, used the power of the Federal government as a broker in labor/capital conflicts and did so in a even and fair manner. He spearheaded the Pure Food and Drug Act, child labor laws and other such things we take for granted today. Roosevelt used US diplomatic and military power and influence on the world stage liberally, directly paving the way for our role today as the "World's Policeman".
All of these are legacies that have fundementally changed the way we as a nation behave and think.
Reagan does not make the cut, but I am not singling him out. FDR, Johnson, Kennedy, and even Clinton have had massive impacts on this country and the world (for better or worse), but the benefits and detractors of their policies are still being hotly debated today and will be for some time.
It doesn't matter: in a few years we will have Ann Coulter running against Al Sharpton and I will move to Mars.
AC because I don't feel like resetting my password again.
Damn right. 38 +5 comments right now. Maybe 10 re: carrier technology, info from people who've served on them, etc. The remaining ~30 are all rehashing 20-year-old politics that I didn't care about when I was 10 and don't care about now that I'm 30. This is News for Nerds, not Weak Political Discourse from Crybabies.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
On July 11,2003, Anonymous Coward wrote: "We recognized, once again, that we can't love our country and hate our government."
-President Bill Clinton
December 30, 1995
"Regardless of how you dislike the embattled outcome of the last election it was *orderely*. There was no military coup, there was no mass unrest. It was orderly. A process was followed."
Ah yes. In fact, I think it was Kodos who once said, "I am looking forward to an orderly election tomorrow, which will eliminate the need for a violent blood bath."
Bring the tugboats...
Ya, and it would be like painting a bulls-eye on it that says "Nuke Me". Nothing fancy, just a simple low yield fission bomb (by todays technology standards).
Life is not for the lazy.
No ship of this size should be named after a living person. Doing so cheapens the honor that others experience by having the ships named after them in death. I concur with the previous poster in that regard.
Has no one noticed that initially these ships were named after the greatest military battles in history but that this has shifted to being named for still-living personnel? Lexington, Yorktown, Midway, etc. Where is a Gettysburg? A carrier called Normandy? Why can't we see a Nimitz-class Vicksburg? Or at least a USS Inchon? Because they are now being named for (some naval personnel but mostly Republicans who once were) Presidents.
Reagan was responsible for the modern military as we understand it in the US. His presidency saw the inflation of spending to unprecedented levels. All of which had to pass through mostly Democratic Houses and Senates. Pork-barrel and politically motivated spending by both parties is what caused the massive expansion of debt between 1980-1988, not any one man. The same pork-barrel and politically motivated spending trends are still with us: socialized medicine, drug coverage for medicare, expansion of military spending without a war, etc.
Let me expand on these because they're not entirely obvious. Socialized medicine already exists in many parts of this country, where even the poorest can get complex surgery done and pay only what they can with the local governments covering the rest. Ever wonder where most of your local taxes go if you live in a major city? Schools and medical care for the poor are the two big ones in most places.
Drug coverage for medicare is another. Granted, sometimes name-brand drugs vary greatly from generics, but not very often. Most people asking for a drug these days are influenced by advertising for prescription drugs (allowed first under Reagan in 1987 if I remember right). Ban that, let the docs do their work, and see what happens.
Expansion of the military without a wartime situtation. This is a politically motivated tactic used by both Republicans looking to appease the might-makes-right faction and Democrats who get the parts made and vehicles assembled in their districts. Military suppliers make fortunes off of $700 toilet seats that only fail 1 time in 10 million. Costs could be slashed by integrating the military into one unit but most people won't support that.
This country has a mixed history of people in office, most of whom are either amoral, blatantly corrupt, or both. Recently we have seen many fascists (people who hold the view of strong executive branches running countries via corporate entities) in the executive branch, Ashcroft is the most glaring example but not the only one. No one man can be blamed for our country's ills and anyone, liberal or conservative, who does so is either unwilling to look at the whole record or trying to shift blame from their own party. If anyone would like to challenge that assertion, please provide a reason and documentation, I'd like to know how both sides justify blaming individuals for the faults of a country whose population approaches 0.3 billion.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
Yeah, those snappy names really help with the exocet missles. Scares em RIGHT off, yessiree bob. Maybe something along the lines of HMS Repugnant or HMS Highheels... wait... that won't work, Benny Hill is dead. Sigh
....not to mention Mr. Howe and the girls. I think the Professor is AWOL.
I don't care whether you believe this or not.,But when you find out that the current recovery is temporary, your job is going to Bangalore, when you find your middle-class neighborhood sliding into the shitter because all of a sudden, there aren't any jobs and you're now wondering why you didn't take the advice of your smartest friends and leave the US. . . I just want you to remember this post.
This was when one important thing changed and very few people noticed. I'll let you try to figure out what that something is. It had to do with the role of CEOs in corporations, and that's as much of a hint as I'm going to bother with, since my purpose of life isn't to illuminate the darkness within the heads of rabid partisans of any US political party.
Tech Public Policy stuff
The Americans, why? Ronald Reagan did absofucking nothing for his people and now you are naming vehicle of war after his name. Please, all Americans, get a gun and shoot yourselves to the head, earth will be much more peaceful place after that act of justice.
I would agree, but I would think that the growth of the Russian nationalist movement was fueled by the bad Soviet economy, and the fact that people were getiing tired of the shortages of everyday items. I seem to remember reading stories about people having to wait in line for hours to get things like toilet paper.
I think you are full of crap and that you made up that "fact" to either promote Commies or disparage Christians.
From the reference below I estimate that 60 billion people have been born since 1 AD. About 6 billion are alive, so that leaves 54 billion deaths since Christianity was started. As others have pointed out, Commies have really killed between 100 and 200 million. We'll take the low estimate of 100 million. That gives an "order of magnitude more" as being 1000 million or 1 billion. For your assertion to be true, Christianity would have to have killed about 1.7% of all people who have died since it was started. Considering that Christianity started small and spread there are huge areas of the world (some, like China were heavily populated)through history (and even now) where it had little to no chance to kill people. That means that the percent of fatalities caused by Christianity would have to be MUCH higher in the Mid East and Europe where Christianity had an effect. I think your assertion fails this "sanity check" unless you expand your definition of lives "claimed" to include a lot indirect things (although to be consistent, that would also increase the deaths caused by Communism).
Come on, this is a geek forum... You Godless Commies can't just make up numbers and expect people not to check the math.
http://www.prb.org/Content/ContentGroups/PTarticle /0ct-Dec02/How_Many_People_Have_Ever_Lived_on_Eart h_.htm
Take out extra spaces
To all who believe in working together to forge a nation of educated, dedicated individuals who support one another, who seek peace and democracy for a united world and economic prosperity for all people, black, white, yellow, red or brown, there is an alternative.
We are still here, and we still have a dream... the dream of One World, One Peaceful Nation. It can happen, but we need your help and your belief that if we work together, fight for the rights and equity if common people everywhere, and support attitudes that foster peace and responsible self-government, we can and will someday be one small happy planet together.
Deregulated the banking industry, allowing Milkin and other junk bond scumbags to pillage the S&L's resulting in a $157 Billion dollar, plus interest (since it's paid for by 30 year bonds) bailout.
Iran-Contra has already been covered. This is almost as reprehensible as Nixon's attempt to become King.
War on Drugs. Bearing in mind, that a) prohibition always backfires, b) violent crime associated with the drug trade would disappear if drugs were legalized, c) money wasted on the drug war, in particular prison construction and maintainence could be spent on more usefull things, like voluntary rehab programs, this "war" in no way justificies the civil rights destruction used to fight it.
Worst deficit spending ever.
Links to organized crime, dating back to his days as President of the Screen Actors Guild.
Ed Meese and James Watt. Reagan's administration was worse than Grant and Harding's combined.
Packing the Supreme court full of conservative assholes which rubber stamp the systematic dismemberment of the Bill of Rights.
Face it, Reagan was an Evil Asshole and probably our worst president.
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filler
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Don't forget his acting achievements on the propaganda front that are really comparable with McCarthy's best results.
Surprise-surprise! USSR was not an evil empire, although the US propaganda definitely succeeded in making ordinary Americans believe that. That is a topic for a separate discussion, but just consider internationalism in the USSR vs. racism in the US and gender equality in Soviet Russia since 1917 vs. woman position in the US until few decades ago. Or find out which country used nuclear bombs against civilians, doesn't it deserve to be called evil empire for that? Or who killed more innocents in Vietnam or Korea. Or who supported the most number of totalitarian wacko dictators in the third world?
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
In the 20?? conquest, they'll definitely come in through Belgium. Brussels, to be precise.
I believe they've retired the Submarine of the same name. And Polk was one of our best presidents.
It would scare the hell out of all the leftist ninnies like Saddam and the Europeons!
You know you signed your /. post "ET2" right? hehe..
-Fellow ET2
Amazing the response you get dissing on the president.
Well friend, concerning your statement "feel free to leave anytime". Well actually, i would rather TAKE BACK our country from the corporate fascists, and then maybe beat the shit out of jerkoffs like you.
I am sick and tired of being ostracized for stating things as they are. King George is from a privledged few in this country that wield their money and power as a large stick to force others to their moral(un) and religious(un) creeds. This country is about FREEDOM, remember? Your statement is exactly in line with the stupid ass American's who believe the tripe(read shit) that the govt and press are shoving down our throats.
Grow up, and pull your head out of your ass, and you might see what's going on BEFORE they toss you in jail for picking your nose..
You said "it required Germany to give up most of her gains in the Eastern Theater"
YEAH RIGHT???!!! Everyone knows Germany is a HIM!
Fatherland, dorkwad!
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
I don't think Bush should bear the blame for the bust that's happened on his watch.
He may not be to blame, but he's not helped the situation at all, and through his inaction with corporate scandals like Enron, he's made a bad situation worse. Uncertainty, and a low level of investor confidence have a negative effect on the market, and the economy as a whole.
And to top it off, we're spending 4 billion dollars a month to police Iraq, and we're going to be spending that every month, for the next 2-4 years. Wouldn't that money be much better spent as domestic economic stimulus? People are out of work, old people and children have their health care taken away because of "budgetary constraints", but we can spend $45 billion dollars yearly providing services to another country?
Yeah, Bush is doing a great job, if you're an Iraqi. Why doesn't he just go and be president over there? He, Cheney and Rumsfeld can have their police state, and the rest of us can get back to being a prosperous democracy.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Anyone with a trace of "common" sense? I was just surprised that it lasted that long. I'd long since given up talking about it, because I kept getting weird looks whenever I mentioned tulip bulbs.
The USS Jimmy Carter will have *plenty* of weapons on it. As a final modified version of the Seawolf class, it's shaping up to be the most advanced submarine ever built. Believe me, I'm a Mech Engineer at GD Electrc Boat in Groton CT, and today I got a chance to walk over, through, and under this boat and it truly is impressive. It's scheduled for delivery to the Navy next year, not this year.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
You know, one of the many reasons that the rest of the world views USians with such a piquant mix of fear and loathing is your breathtakinly egotistical assumption that anyone who doesn't say otherwise must belong to your hooting, braying pack of thugs.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
War on drugs ---> Bush Sr., Nancy was "Just say No to drugs." Not to mention drug use DID decline through the end of the 80's and early 90's. The war is 'lost' because we (people and government) lost focus not because it could not be won.
We lost the war on drugs? I thought we won the war on drugs when Bush gave the Taliban $43 million dollars, so they would ban opium production in Afghanistan.
This was, of course in May, 2001. Who would have known that 4 months later, that money would be used to crash airplanes into the WTC.
So kids, remember, when you buy drugs, you're supporting terrorism. Oh, and also, when you vote for Bush, you're supporting terrorism.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
It is important to note that in its strictest sense, fascism does not imply dictatorship. Simply put it means EXTREME patriotism. It is no coincidence that fascism usually arises under dictatorships (or vice versa) because charismatic leaders are more likely to become dictators and countries that are 'ripe' for fascism are usually 'ripe' for a charismatic dictator. Note that Hitler leveraged the German's strong sense of Germanness to achieve his (awful) goals. Calling Bush a fascist could almost be seen as a compliment, he's handled himself rather well. 'We the people' entered a time of heightend patriotism after 9.11. Bush has leveraged this to achieve political goals - and, in general, 'We the people' have been cheering him on. Bush's goals are quite altruistic in comparision, whether any of us agree with them or not.
I'd assume it'll strike even more fear in the hearts of American taxpayers...
What are you doing wasting your time here?
Better let those Naval smarty men know that they should seriously consider figuring out how many missiles each potential enemy could conceivably launch at a single time, against a single carrier group.
Also, you may want to suggest that they track the military spending of other nations, so that they can properly revise their estimates as these arsenals grow.
And remind them that they'll probably want to develop some kind of "office of naval intelligence" to make sure they know where the missile launch platforms are, at any given moment.
Ooh! Ooh! Don't forget to tell them to develop antimissile systems adequate to the task of defending against all these missile launches. And weapons systems that can take out the missile launch platforms before they launch, of course.
Because I'm pretty sure nobody in the Navy is smart enough to figure any of this out on their own.
And if they're that stupid, it's a safe bet they're waaay too stupid to come over here to Slashdot for the benefit of your military wisdom.
So put down your crack pipe and call the Navy right now! It's a matter of national security!
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
The defining characteristic of this country is the orderly transfer of power.
Well... yeah, except you're completely wrong. A more defining characteristic of this country would be the bill of rights protecting speach like calling our president a facist.
My Blog
I keep thinking "okay, now things have gone too far; I'll have to switch sides over this one", but then somebody comes along and debunks it.
So far, my policy of sticking my fingers in my ears and singing "la la la I can't hear you" is actually working out pretty well. Sooner or later, every ugly little accusation gets washed away.
When are all the anti-Clinton lies going to be debunked anyway? And am I the only one that's noticed that the people attacking Bush are the same people who stood by Clinton? Kinda hard to imagine they know much about the truth, isn't it?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Well, Nixon got a postage stamp. How should we honor other Americans with just as legitimate a claim to fame and who have contributed just as much to making the USA the great nation it is?
Actually, I wish Reagan well. In fact, I wish him another 10 years and a miraculous cure for the Alzheimer's which from the available evidence, affected him long before he retired from the Presidency.
That should be long enough to finally demonstrate what the Reagan legacy really means to America. What will America look like without a middle class? What will America look like when it's superpower status is becoming a thing of the past?
Don't know, but I plan to be on the outside looking in long before that.
Tech Public Policy stuff
What does your country's constitution say?
If my country gets much worse, I might want to do some comparison shopping.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
And that was the day when I became a fan of danheskett (178529).
Lately democracy seems to be based on the skybox, the Happy Meal box, the X-box, and the idiot box.
They are trying to name everything after Ronald Reagan, as they want us to forget about the (R ) "dick" Nixon. I guess the Republicans see naming everything after Ronald Reagan as free advertising for the Republican party at taxpayer expense.
Tom Delay: "Hey, it worked for 3Com park -- and it can work for Ronald "Deficit" Reagan. I want to make it work for the Republican party."
This fits with the idea the Republican have laid bare their willingness to use the government as a tool of the Rich and The Corporations (AKA the rich): the republican constituency in is just the upper 2% of incomes.
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?
Dammit! Why do I never have mod points when I need them? What's the points of having oodles of karma!?
Mod this guy up some!
Good point and you can't blame them. If I lived on a ship whose sole purpose is to go into situations where civilians have been evacuated, where you face the possibility of getting nailed by torpedoes, missles, small arms fire, chemical weapons, and/or rubber boats filled with suicide bombers, I would think the same way. You only add a new piece of technology if it proves to give you a decisive tactical edge (e.g. fly by wire aircraft, Phalanx antimissle defense) over the old techniques.
There's a reason why ships still carry good old artillery in addition to missles.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Does anyone else find it ironic that an aircraft carrier reputed to be running on a WinNT based OS is named after a president with altzheimer's disease?
The CARTER (SSN 23) is currently in new construction at Electric Boat in Groton, CT. The last of the SEAWOLF (SSN 21) class, she will be the largest fast attack submarine ever built by the United States.
Due to be commissioned in January 2005 in Kings Bay, GA.
Very few details about the additional 100 foot hull segment added to the CARTER are available beyond some generic posters made by EB and a very few web sites.
The SEAWOLF class represents the most sophisticated submarine design ever made by the US, representing a no-compromise approach not found in the much less expensive VIRGINIA class.
Someone should tell this to the morons who got us involved in Iraq.
bad they cant get them all eh? The world would be a better place then.
1. Inflation. According to the Consumer price index, an item that cost $100 in 1980, cost $143.57 in 1988.
2. Population increase. The US population in 1980 was 226.5 million. In 1988 it was 243.9 million. An increase of 7.7%. So there were more people to pay taxes, and more people to receive benefits.
Evidence.
There was a great punk compilation album called "Let Them Eat Jellybeans!" with Ronald Reagan on the cover against an American flag. Anybody else ever see it or listen to it?
you don't remember sengan, do you?
He used to routinely spew is leftist garbage in his postings, and you don't see much from him anymore, do ya?
Karma determines the starting value of your posts.
You get that based on the moderation of your posts by others.
On the other hand, Mod points determine how you can mod other people's posts, and that determination is set by the Meta-moderators judging the moderators.
I suspect that when the meta-moderators disagree with a moderation, it automatically goes back for two or three other metas, and if everyone disagrees with your moderation, you never get mod points again.
For example, at one time I moderated three posts (Informative, Interesting, Troll). But at that last [very long] post, I decided 'I better check it all out'; so I clicked through. When I was done, and decided 'yes, that is a troll'. So I clicked "back", and noticed that the 'Troll' had changed to "informative". I changed it back, pulled to the bottom, and clicked 'Submit'.
On the results, it turned out that Troll was not the only one that had changed. "Informative" changed to "Interesting", and "Interesting" changed to "Offtopic", which it definitely was not. Aarrgh.
Anyhow, I've never seen a mod point since then.
So if you don't have mod points, it could be because you were moderating as a troll, or it could be because you've been here too long, and two or three people decided that one of your moderations was completely wrong.
Most people have no concept of the complex ballet of muscle, mind and machine that goes into launching, coordinating, and retrieving multiple squadrons of Tomcats, Hornets, and Orions. I respect all of the military for their service, but the the guys on the Carriers get the most respect in my book. They don't call it the most dangerous job in the world for nothing.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
When you call the president a facist, you've pretty much trashed not just the country, not just its leaders, but everything the country is about.
This very statement, your statement, supports the assertion that the US government has shifted toward fascism. From all appearances, it seems that in the current hyper-nationalist environment in the US, "Our Great Leader" and "Our Great Homeland" [1] are no longer seen as separate or separable...
Does this at all sound eerily familiar to anyone?
Be very careful with this type of rhetoric and be very careful when treading near this type of equivalency, it is very dangerous for any society in the long run.
[1] Before anyone complains about the use of the word "homeland" here, note that the US government does now prominently use this term itself, i.e. "Department of Homeland Security" which no doubt in more sane years would have been called the "Department of Internal Security" to match the "Internal Revenue Service", "Department of the Interior", etc.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Fellas, fellas, don't fight...you're both assholes.
The real travesty is that anti-American sentiment is up all over the world. I read in a magazine today that "90% of Palestinians and 86% of Jordanians view Osama Bin Laden as one of the top 3 most respected world leaders." This is only likely to lead to more terrorist attacks.
But as Bush says, "bring 'em on..."
-a
I'm sorry, but whats your point? Clinton was just as big an asshole as Bush is now, so what does a wishy washy quote from Clinton show? That the man didn't know what he was talking about and wanted to shape public opinion to deflect criticism of himself.
I bet you thought you were being so smart with that quote, didn't you?
No hes not, hes trashing 50% of the voting public who voted the nazi crapo wanker GB nut case
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Missles in Cuba! what a fond memory. if Fidel was allowed to have Disney Inc. put a world class entertainment park in a nice beach area ...say... the Varadero coast in Cuba, now that is my kind of MilitaryCapital marriage which would lessen the need for missles.
a rising standard of living would be my cure for the trickle down economic theory.
peace!
All processes are curruptable!
get a clue you drone.
America is DOA
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Here's one possible approach; two StarLifter-scale aircraft drop a spread of 30 small cruise missiles from roughly 300km away; cruise missiles assume a running altitude of approx 500mm above wavetops (we're assuming dumb cruise missiles, smart ones would travel in the troughs), missiles are programmed to use good old fashioned cameras to find stuff and hit the biggest thing they can find, launch platforms have given them a rough idea of where carrier is.
Can you shoot them down? Will Vulcan's radar pinpoint the incomings among the wave clutter well enough to aim within 100m? Will it see them at all? Could an aircraft even find these little buggers, let alone chase or down them? Does your enemy care if they wipe out eight cruisers and two supply ships on the way in as long as they get to drop a tac-nuke into the guts of your $5G toy? Would a price tag of $0.1G to do this upset them at all?
Next scenario is to throw two or three hundred conventional cruise missiles at once. Cheaper, dumber missiles, no fancy flying but how good is your EW? If they threw another thousand brainless decoys into the mix, would your computers deal well with, say 1300 targets at once? See that aircraft over there? Race you to it!
OK, having fun with that? How about plastic mines, timed to find you during the night? Sure, a little mine ain't going to do you much damage, but these are really, really cheap and the enemy can afford to lay down maybe fifty thousand of them. Here we are, it's four AM, and your carrier (every ship in your fleet) has just had several hundred mines punch holes in the side of it at once. Oops, no more manouverability... and, oh look, what are those funny incoming radar traces near sea level?
Next...? (-: Bear in mind that I thought all of these up in the last few minutes. Given time, resources and a bunch of seriously nasty cohorts I can't imagine Ronny babe staying afloat for more than a few days in a real shooting war :-)
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Australia also has this technology called Jindalee which can do ATC in LAX from the middle of the Australian desert. China has something like it which tracks stealth aircraft no worries.
Care to bet that nobody else has this kind of technology, or could build it if they got annoyed enough? Germany? Brazil?
Quote: "You -ing Americans are all the -ing same! It's listen-to-me this or let-me-tell-you that! Well it's all finished now, 'coz you're..." (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Communism wasn't "defeated" at all. You are apparently referring to the economic collapse of an isolationist/expansionist USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). Communism in USSR was the goal, but it was never achieved. In fact, communism explicitly forbids, as a central tenet, the isolationist notions for which Stalin and the state which followed him are so well-known.
] on Earth" without any particular regard to the status or the policies of the US government or state of the US economy at a given time.
Today one can see well-functioning examples of socialist policy across western Europe, most notably in the Scandinavian countries, who have very high standards of living, unemployment numbers that are similar to the US (whose numbers are actually cooked by ignoring homeless, migrants, etc.), virtually nonexistent poverty and much higher levels of consumer and worker satisfaction than the US and Canada.
The US right wing just likes to claim that socialism/communism are "dead" and the powers on the right realize that the US populace is too politically unsophisticated (i.e. Look at the numbers on how many Americans don't even know who their vice president is! Look at the numbers on how many Americans believe that Iraq is responsible for September 11th!) to know any better, not to mention that it scores very well with American-style jingoism, which is wont to buy any argument, no matter how ridiculous, which paints America as "The Greatest [Country|Nation|Power|Economy|People|Place|System
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Smarter than thou.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Heh. This post gets modded as flamebait? I guess some Leftist thug didn't agree with me. Typical.
The point being the Iraq anti-war cause was massive, the Kosovo one very tiny. That's the difference.
The Iraq war was massive... The Kosovo campaign was not. At least in terms of US involvement. Also Kosovo was dealing with an existing issue which was being widely publicized on the news. Iraq was dealing with something that happened 12 years ago when we were under more of a direct threat from other institutions.
That's the difference.
Quite clearly you were not listening if you think all anti-war protests are the same. The Iraqi war was opposed by far more than just the "Make peace not war" love-in liberals, it was opposed by military veterans and other groups.
Ahh, no. It's simply false. There was very little widespread dissent. Compare the days of 500,000 person plus gatherings to what happened with Kosovo. Virtually incomparable.
Again, you were not listening to the protesters.
I am not doubting there are left-leaning organizations and individuals who opposed Kosovo.
Sure you are... You asked "Where were they during Kosovo?" You're trying to make something of this when quite clearly the facts don't support your case.
The underlying issues are largely irrelevant.
The underlying issues are most relevant.
The congressional democrats - for example Daschle - supported Kosovo and went right around this time and bashed Bush for Iraq. Likewise Republicans - like for example Hastert - bashed Clinton and then went around and supported Bush.
That's because the underlying issues are different, which is what makes them relevant to the discussion.
You, sir, are trying to distract from the issue to make political hay. That's a very opportunistic point of view.
In WWII Japan invaded the Australian territory of New Guinea, there were then air raids on Papua (another Australian territory at the time). Then in 1942 they bombed Darwin, Australia's most northern capital city.
The British were more concerned with defending India and wouldn't commit troops to helping Australia, but fortunately for us the US did so.
You can fine more info here.
Apparently MS wasn't content with getting a missile cruiser towed to port after a computer crash.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Occured in the Carter administration.
An excellent point, and I was not aware that there WAS a USS Jimmy Carter until you pointed it out. However, they're very different ships; the USS Ronald Reagan is limited to traveling above the surface, while the USS Jimmy Carter has the option of travelling below it.
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
Actually, not tough. It has nothing to do with me telling people to shut up - or even leave. It has to do with them being fucking idiots.
:)
ohhh I remember them bastards from Red Storm Rising. On more than one occasion I've been sunk by them without me knowing they were there. I think only the typhoons were harder to find than they were.
All our ships are belong to U.S. Ok...I was really late in my joke, but I just saw that post while metamoderating :)
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
And if the "liberal" posters are being modded down for posting political "flamebait," how come this reactionary idiot is getting "insightful" points?
All that said, I think there ought to be a -12 "political opinion" option in the mod box.