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Fingers Crossed for Beagle
Adam_Trask writes "Never has a spacecraft been built so quickly, on so little money, and been sent on such a long journey fraught with so many dangers. Beagle 2 has been carried to the vicinity of Mars by the Mars Express mothership, and released successfully to go its own way for the final leg of the journey."
Wow, a post that makes the moderators look bad gets censored.
How surprising and how disgusting.
Sieg Heil, Moderators!
First post. And then the NASA will reply back "You failed it"
Cowardly Anonymous asshole, the evidence of the popularity of the rest of the world "wanting to be Americans" is at our immigration offices everyday, to say nothing of our ghettoes and suburbs full of illegal aspirants. If we want to talk about the past, we can look at the insane conditions elsewhere (where you apparently dwell, under a rock), from which our immigrants fled. When they arrived, they were more bloodthirsty, exterminating the tribal nations who had kept the continent so nice for visitors. But after a few centuries as Americans, they had become the most compassionate, generous nation on Earth, although it's just a start (and is even currently overwhelmed by the tyrannical Bush dynasty, so Eurasian in their fascist warmongering). Europeans are just catching up now, and I welcome them. But Aristotelian black & white binary logic of "America is best/worst" is for computers, and Anonymous Cowards, so exercise your atrophied human brain and think about where the gifts that keep you fed come from.
When we look at today, Coward, we see the fruits of American leadership, so clear in the space arena. The economic return on the American space investment is well documented as a tremendous windfall, in spite of your Anonymous blabber to the contrary. If you're satisfied with the Earth only, or would rather have a Soviet space umbrella keeping you in line with the Politburo, that's your problem. If you can't see how America is preeminent in space through its timely deployment of technologies, and sense in partnering now with Russian technology that deadended too early, then you understand neither space, strategic engagement, or anything else worth discussing. Your nervous laughter abroad, Anonymous Coward, is a poor substitute for actually getting out there and proving something. Pry your clenched fists away from Mommy's aprons, and bend them to something for Humanity's future, rather than idiotic, anonymous postings to Slashdot. Grow up and join the adventure.
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make install -not war
"Americans, they had become the most compassionate, generous nation on Earth"
I'm not trolling but come on - do you really believe that? Off hand I know that the Scandinavian countries donate much more as a percentage of their GDP than the US does.
"Eurasian in their fascist warmongering"
I don't know where to start with this. The EU was built to prevent war and we believe in the UN far more than the US does (evidently).
I do not believe in "my country, right or wrong", and I would hope that most slashdotters do not either, irrespective of their nationality - there's good and bad in every country.
It's hard to debate meaningfully about such fuzzy statements as "the most compassionate nation", or relative generosity. And my statement is valuable mostly as hyberbole. But the total American money contribution is of course the largest, not least due to our sheer size and wealth. More to the point, the American people's concept (if a "people" can have a "concept") of our role in the world is peacemaker. This is especially evident when looking at such butchery as the war in Iraq, and even Vietnam, where sleazy Presidents and their warmongering military corporations trick the American people into sending their children into the line of fire, by threatening the terror of Communism, WMDs, jihad, and other bugbears. A little closer to home, in Europe, the American people supported Clinton's intervention in the Serbian anschluss, as humanitarians, while Germans and the rest of the region just let it slide, repeating their moral errors of the 20th century. Of course, we all could do so much more to unite against genocide and international injustice. But the American people are consistently at the forefront of peace, and have been for at least a century. Our preeminence in warmongering is more a measure of our economy than of our people.
:), least of all in an offtopic thread on connected to a British space mission ;).
"Eurasian" fascist warmongering is a reflection of history. As I point out in my post, modern Europeans have joined enlightened people in embracing crossborder peace. In the longer term, invasions have been the whole picture of the Eurasian continents. The EU, like the US, and even the UN, is a great step away from war as international communication of dominance. But it is recent, and has yet to defuse an actual war, rather than merely inherit a (thankfully) warweary culture. I wish the EU could have proven itself in Iraq this year, but it failed the test. Even though France, Russia and Germany opposed the American invasion to protect the debt with which they propped up Hussein, if they had counterbalanced the USA's invasion, their relevance to peace would have been firmly established beyond their own borders. We're still waiting (eagerly) for that day to come.
BTW, if I believed in "my country, right or wrong", I wouldn't be trying to change it for the better, which is the most right thing about how the USA is set up. And if I didn't believe that a worthwhile fraction of Slashdotters had open minds, I wouldn't be pounding out this high-handed, idealistic drivel
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make install -not war
First of all, thanks for your offtopic "high-handed, idealistic drivel". You are clearly a well meaning person even if I fundamentally disagree with some of your points.
"A little closer to home, in Europe, the American people supported Clinton's intervention in the Serbian anschluss"
You're right, Clinton was a good man, and it's a shame that his reputation has been tarnished because of some extra-marital affair when Bush junior goes to war on a fake pretext of Iraqs complicity in 9/11 and WMD.
"Even though France, Russia and Germany opposed the American invasion to protect the debt with which they propped up Hussein"
I think you're being a little unfair - the fact is that many countries made money out of Husseins govenment, the US included (in fact they led the way). We (the EU) are just incredibly wary of the current US administration. I hope that you, like all right thinking Europeans would like to see the end of the Bush dynasty, and unlike me you'll have a choice in 2004.
Merry Xmas!