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Future Weapons of War in the Works
An anonymous reader writes "Who needs explosive missiles when you can just launch a 3 foot long chunk of metal at near Mach 7 speeds and get the same result? Popular Science looks at weapons the military is developing for future wars including electromagnetic railguns, space darts, superfast torpedos, laser cannons, and a gun that fires a million rounds per minute."
Quite apart from being a remarkably funny post. It is unfortunately true that the "tiddlywinks" motif has actually been looked at seriously, dropping specially shaped cupronickel (IIRC) discs from aircraft that heat up and reform into nice pointy molten metal bullets that tend to turn tanks into smoldering lumps of swiss cheese is a weapon that was mooted some years (20??) ago.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
Yes, and a little more mature as well.
I find it highly disturbing that the US recoils in revulsion at the brutal beheading of one of its own, but bats nary an eyelid when superweapons designed to kill MILLIONS are announced.
It's called lack of empathy.
I've heard some people saying that the recent torture/humiliation photos "aren't that bad". However, I expect if the situation in the photos were reversed (e.g. a small Iraqi woman holding a naked, beaten up US marine on the end of a leash) those same people would be able to empathize with the victims a whole lot better...
Because he's a right-wing bastard like Bush and Howard.
You think he's against any of what's happened? Sure, he makes some concerned noises occasionally to make out to his people that he's the voice of reason, but Bush, Blair and Howard decided from day 1 what they were going to do, and everything else has been lies, deception, thuggery and murder.
No, Ralph Nader is Jar Jar
An entire generation was brainwashed to hate America as the enemy.
Are you being ironic?
Sorry pal, this isn't Civilization. You can't just improve relations with other countries by throwing money at them.
So until we do find a way to make everyone happy with us (yeah right!) I think it's a good idea to invest in technology that can A. make military operations less costly and B. requires that fewer soldiers be put in the line of fire when the shit DOES hit the fan.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
No it's not. The conservative party was the reason tha the peace process was stalled for so long in Northern Ireland. The Conservatives held a weak majority and therefore required the support of the Ulster Unionists (who unquestioningly supported Mr Major in return for him not compromising on the Northern Ireland issue). The only way Major helped the peace process way by so sensationally messing up the 1997 election, and allowing Tony Blair a nice comfortable majority to play with
Socialists like giving aid to third world countries because a) it justifies higher taxation at home and b) they don't need to trouble themselves about the root causes.
Although your comment contains an elemtent of truth, I don't see anyone care about conflics and political instability in Africa (from which the 'average African suffers mostly). I believe it's better giving aid to those in need than to totally ignore the misery of millions. About the higher taxation: I do believe the annual spending of the average Western country (socialist or not) is only marginal compared to e.g. military expenses. And I (living in a social, not socialist country) have never heard anyone mention third-world aid as an excuse of higher taxation.
pfftt... what are you, an insult machine?
...
just admit it, your situation is hopeless. you live in a land not your own, and the walls of your palace are coming down
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Do you know what Sunnis and Shi'ites are fighting over?
... because there are people like you in the world who serve only to justify inhumanity, not do something about it ... we get gun-makers arming teenagers.
Take two Sunni children and two Shi'ite children, give them a mud-making machine away from all the adults, and show them how to work together to make houses for all the lepers in the neighborhood.
There. Peace.
But no
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
As far as I'm concerned, that goes for financial decision-making as well. What kind of freedom do we have when we have virtually no say in how 35-50% of our paycheck is spent?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
man you just don't get it, that is NOT going to happen unless lets say... a powerfull country does that or forcs peace on them... or they kill each other.
If you read that, it says we consistently give the most foreign aid of any country in the world. And what did it get us? 4 hijacked planes and -3000 innocent civilians.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Take two Sunni children and two Shi'ite children, give them a mud-making machine away from all the adults
Everone else has already pounded your larger points into a fine-grained powder, so it looks like it's up to me to ask the question everyone has been avoiding: what the fuck is this "mud-making machine" you keep babbling about?
No, seriously.
Where you come from, what happens when you combine dirt and water without mechanical aid?
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
You apparently are very much unaware of how education and media collude to control what and how you perceive the world, with the ultimate goal of conrolling what you do with your life.
In fact, what you say is so wrong that the simple reason mandatory education was ever implemented was specifically to better control the masses.
People are not innately consumers or internationalists or egalitarians. Only through relentless propaganda do people give into the international system of finance we have in place. Only then do they crave new material goods, or welcome endless hordes of foreign immigrants, or believe their system of society should be imposed on the entire world. Education is absolutely necessary to maintain our current system.
Also, I should say that your point of view is very representative of the ridiculous points of view found on American college campuses. Try and examine the world without parrotting the views of your teachers and your 5 million fellow rebel students.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Instead you invaded Iraq, which you knew, beyond all reasonable doubt, had no WMD...
Beyond all reasonable doubt? Hardly...just because they haven't been found doesn't mean they don't exist! How hard would it be to take weapons into that God-forsaken wasteland of desert and bury them? One sandstorm later and all trace is gone.
Now you don't have to hide the weapons. You only have to hide a set of GPS coordinates!
Of course the questions beg to be asked:
1) How could this happen under the nose of satellite surveillance?
2) Can you remove all traces of nuclear & biological weapons so that we couldn't detect them? I don't know the answer, but I would say there is reasonable doubt (at least in my mind).
Watching from the inside its hard to sleep too.
the "root cause" (to use the fancy schamcy bleeding heart liberal term) of "terrorism" in Northern Ireland is that the GOD DAMNED BRITISH WON'T GET OUT OF IRELAND AND GIVE US BACK OUR FUCKING ISLAND!!!!!!! No right at all to be there. Quite frankly, if my mates gave me a suitcase nuke and told me to blow up the london underground, i'd have no qualms at all about doing it. 800 years of brutal, racist oppression. it cannot stand.
anyway, muslims are bent on world domination, not fighting against occupiers of their land. 15 active conflicts, all of which have to do with muslims not getting along with their neighbors. do you really think that in Indonysia, they will stop chopping off the headsd of christians if Israel stops fighting for their survival?
All Muslims hate Jews. They may not all be terrorists, but not all Nazis were in the SS. Islam is like Nazism only 10x worse. the SS didn't wrap themselves in Christ as they were administering Zyklon-B. And I know sure has hell it wasn't Christ or Mary or St. Patrick that put an Armalite in my hand and told me to fight for Ireland.
Islam is a social disease. It spreads like AIDS. It must be eliminated before they take over the western world and crush the light of humanity, plunging the world into 1000 years of darkness. If you don't believe that will happen, then i hope you're the last one they kills, so that you can see every other decent human being perish before your eyes and know full well it was the disbelief of people like you that let darkness spread over the land. There is no fleaing to Numinor in this realm, my friend.
Sinn Féin.
There were lots of land losses after WW I & II.
Many of them were quite unfair (Finland comes to mind), but the people from the lost areas moved out to neighboring countries -- and there is no problem today. Except for one case.
Now, tell me what makes it much worse with Israel?
It was not an existing country before and would, without the present state, have been part of another country. It should have been much less of a problem than many other areas.
(And then we have the literally hundreds of less criticism over literally hundreds of times worse treatment of non-muslims by muslims in Sudan over decades. Etc, etc, etc.)
It seems to me you're really simplifying a complex matter.
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
People like me, eh? I haven't started any genocidal wars, not that I can remember.
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You've done nothing but justify war the entire thread. Those who can find an infinite # of ways to justify war are the ones who are letting it happen
The problem with liberals like you is that you assume that people are fundamentally cooperative and sane, if only the nasty Warmongers (or Americans or Jews or Capitalists or whoever you blame) would go away, the world would return to Eden-like bliss. My advice to you is to grow up a bit.
The problem with people like you is you seem to think its okay to just let entropy have its way with our race. Where is the love?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Puff the Nuclear Weapon
Puff the Nuclear Weapon was pointed at Iraq,
and waited in his submarine for the signal to attack.
Little George Bush Junior, he loved that rascal puff,
and all those days, he nightly prayed for the UN to get tough.
oh
Puff the Nuclear Weapon lived in the sea,
protecting all our freedoms to
a brand new SUV.
Puff the Nuclear Weapon lived in the sea,
protecting all our freedoms to
a brand new SUV.
Now Puff he liked to travel, so he wore travelling clothes
While Bush was home and on the phone, from locations undisclosed.
Presidents and Princes, they bowed when'ere he came,
and Nation States lowered their flags when Puff roared out his name.
oh
Puff the Nuclear Weapon defender of the peace,
securing the world's oil supply
and the occasional golden fleece.
Puff the Nuclear Weapon defender of the peace,
securing the world's oil supply
and hte occasional golden fleece.
Plutonium lasts for ever, but not so little boys.
ICBMs and M-16s give way to... other toys.
And one grey day it happened: The traders broke the Dow.
So Puff the Nuclear Weapon's on the open market now.
His warhead packed in plastic, green crates that bore his name.
Poor Puff would not intimidate for the Stars and Stripes again.
Without his life long friend, poor puff could not be brave,
so al-Qaida hid that that weapon in a deep, dark, man-made cave.
oh
Puff the Nuclear Weapon lived in the sea,
but now he's in a backpack
some where close to you and me.
Puff the Nuclear Weapon defender of the free,
and you can blame it all upon
Bush fiscal policy.
lyrics fully GPL.
So which "truth" is it that they need to recognize?
The truth can hurt, but lies are really irritating.
Facts? I don't see any facts to disprove. I see some statements that, in my opinion, cannot be proven because they are false. Give me some hard data and I'll either refute it with more hard data or concede the point.
Now we come to the crux of the matter. Most so called "education" is actually brainwashing and is a perversion of the kind of personal development and mentoring that used to happen only for the sons of nobles long ago.
Education comes from the root latin "Educare" which means to draw out, or to extract the resource which is already there like drawing water from a well. To school someone on the other hand is to force them into a class of person which has certain known skills, attributes and capabilities and then make them into a cog in the machine.
A truly educated person is hard to control, because they will have the knowledge, opinions and most importantly the fully developed critical mind to make their own decisions.
A truly schooled person will be easy to control, because they've spent years of their life being trained to do as they're told.
Both of these individuals can do what an untrained person cannot - devise new ways of making peace and war.
Think about that, and look at the person sitting next to you. Can you trust them with an education?
1. What if the people you kill aren't actually fascists, but you label them that way just so that you can get away with it?
...
2. Your government is criminal and repressive. By default then, so are you.
3. Your post is now bookmarked as a prime example of yet another robo-Consumerican spouting vitriol and hatred
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
You don't hear much from Mr. Plame since his book came out. The book that says his sources in Niger confirmed that Iraq was fishing for yellow cake in Niger.
Umm, BZZT. The documents the whole case was built on were fraudulent. Go study current affairs.
His wife wasn't a "CIA spy", either. Just because someone works for the CIA, doesn't mean they are operating under official cover
She was an undercover operative for the CIA, who 'worked' for a shell company. Everyone who ever had any dealings with this company or lady was put at risk by this (illegal) disclosure. You're wrong on both counts. Watch a lot of Fox?
The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
Isn't it also unfair, illegal and cruel to strap a bomb to your chest and blow up a bus at the behest of Mr. Arafat?
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
No, your real problem is that your list of friends is growing shorter at a rapid pace.
More and more countries are neutral vis a vis the US. Not actively working against it, but certainly not bothering to help.
Sure, You have all the firepower You need to fight your wars alone, but without the help of foreign intelligence, airstrips and military bases it is a lot harder.
And even though few states actively support terrorists, some start to care less and less about fighting them, as long as their targets are somewhere else...
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Obviously you've never watched a lot of the BBC News output, otherwise you'd know that's one of the most pig-ignorant statements made on Slashdot for a while. The BBC is no friend of big business, and whilst it may be called a corporation, it does not operate along the same lines.
if you give -any- large group of people sufficient means to self-sustain their communities, and make those means available to all and sundry, you will reduce tensions in the area.
I'll think you'll find with this, is that once a large group of people can self-sustain their communities, tensions often INCREASE as they start to look enviously at someone else's self-sustaining community.
Also, another suggestion. Capital Letters are your friend - Go on, dont't be Afraid ! Use them !
This is their big problem in Iraq. Americans just don't do peacekeeping.
The usual pattern of things throughout the wars in Yugoslavia throughout the nineties was: Milosevic starts war. Atrocities commence. Americans start bombing, threaten to invade. Milosevic backs off. Yugoslavia gets a bit smaller. Europeans keep peace under UN flag. The result of this is that the Americans end up with an army that's absolutely brilliant at invading countries and crushing opposition, but doesn't know its arse from its elbow in keeping order afterwards.
Of course, the Europeans didn't exactly cover themselves with glory in the Balkans. Srebrenica was an utterly appalling failure.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
There were lots of land losses after WW I & II.
...worse treatment of non-muslims by muslims in Sudan
Land losses are one thing, but where can you go if your country basically ceases to exist?
It was not an existing country before...
But there was a strong feeling of a being a nation before. For example, Poland as as state didn't exist for hundreds of years, but the people always considered themselves a nation.
That's because it's in Africa. It sounds cynical, but international politics is not interested in Africa. The people in Sudan are poor, the country has little military power and there are few natural resources.
I mean, how long did it take for the world to recognize what's happening in Rwanda?
It seems to me you're really simplifying a complex matter.
Of course I do. It's a posting on Slashdot, not a 20-volume encyclopedia about the history of the Middle East.
I don't need a signature.
Do you know what Sunnis and Shi'ites are fighting over? Whether Mohammed's heirs should have been his sons or his disciples. They've been killing each other over this for 1300 years. You think a mud brick machine is going to help here???
You've got to admit, though, that one never sees rich people fighting over shit like this. When was the last time two first-world, democratic countries, with reasonable basic standards of living for their citizens, went to war over anything?
Well, okay, about sixty years ago. But you get my point. Poor people are much more likely to seek to solve thier problems by blowing stuff (or themselves) up, becuase they've got less to lose.
Rich lunatics such as Bin Laden excepted, of course. Damn, this is turning out not to be as strong a point as I had hoped.
evil math within Nature's Cubic Creation!
That's quite enough from you, froggie. Now, would you please send al Queda one of your efficient French guillotines so that they don't have to hack the heads off of Jews with a dull sword anymore?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
2. Yes there were plently of excuses aired as to why we should invade Iraq. Apparently the Bush administration, the CIA and the Pentagon argued at great lengths over which excuse to use, and WMD was all they could agree on. The one thing worse than a big lie used to start a war is a collection of big lies used to start a war. I beleive the court at Nuremberg called this type of war the 'ultimate crime' that 'contained all other crimes'.
3. Bullshit. Iraq is a conquest. The war is on everybody who disagrees with the US's wars of conquest. As an antiwar demonstrator, I can personally testify that our local police see me as the enemy, and use the same sort of rough-handling tactics as the US occupying forces to 'keep us in line'.
4. You think you can take anything you don't agree with and slap an 'Al Qaeda' tag on it. That's pretty handy, but very flawed logic. In fact, there is now speculation that the beheading of Nick Berg was arranged and paid for by the US to shift the focus away from the US's war crimes. You have to admit, the US have been taking a beating recently. The timing was remarkable. And even if the above speculation turns out to be untrue, if the US invaded my country and treated my people the way the Iraqis are being treated, I'm sure I'd think about doing the same thing, and I certainly wouldn't be alone. But all this talk al Al Qaeda ignores the fact that it is official policy to systematically toture, rape and execute Iraqi civilians. That heartless bitch that's had her pictures splashed all over the news recently ( you know, the one with the stupid grin who points at the Iraqis in various homosexual poses ) claims ( as do her partners in crime ) that she was merely following orders . Some orders!
6. Resorting to taking quotes from other war criminals? Well done. But your quote is good advice for your fearless leader. Surely Baby Bush is one of the biggest dickheads to ever graze the US's pastures. Is he the best you could do. Really? That's pretty sad. The man doesn't have a fucking clue, and as your wise quote points out, he'd be much better off shutting his mouth and letting people wonder.