Japanese Balloon Battle

mw2040 writes "Slate reports on a little-known method used by the Japanese during WWII - hydrogen-filled paper balloons with deadly payloads floated without a guidance-system across the Pacific. Both amazing low-tech warfare and a cautionary tale about censorship during wartime. More links (even one for our neighbors to the North) (shamelessly stolen from the article)."

Comments

Those wily Japs

[Anonymous Coward]

They're pretty good at water cannons too.

Balloon Battle?

[News for nerds]

No it's the Balloon Fight

irreversible? we'll see...

[bje2]

From the dvd-d.com Q&A:

Is the destruction process irreversible ? The process which makes the DVD-D data unreadable is irreversible. Tampering with the erasing system is technically and economically impossible. Before destruction start, there is no way of tampering with the disc; After the destruction process is started, there is no way to significantly interfere with it; There are no ways to repair the disc after the weathering process has made it unreadable. Solutions to repair the disc would be extremely complex. Furthermore, there is limited rational interest in interfering with the destruction process : All solutions targeted at reverse engineering the DVD-D to make it playable on a permanent basis are extremely costly and complex, if they can ever succeed; Anyway, the reparation cost would be much higher than the cost of a permanent DVD, and this would never justify the involvement of anybody in such an operation.

Don't we hear something similar every time a new copy protection or ripping protection, or whatver similar concept is released? and then 30 minutes later some kid breaks it by holding down the <shift> key...

PARENT REPORTED TO FBI

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because the government says it didn't happen, doesn't mean it didn't actually happen.

How dare you question the government!

Re:Little known??

[NatasRevol]

Heh, Moore is just a younger one...

The Really Huge Press Failure of Today

[Baldrson]

Prisoner rape in US prisons is the huge story that isn't being reported by US press. This is for a variety of reasons, but when the Slate article says:

We believe it never happened, just as our children might have been led to believe Abu Ghraib never happened.

They are acting as the press always does: Protect the US government from the public becoming aware that sexual sadism toward prisoners started here, against US citizens.

If there is anything worthy of the term "terrorism" it is the fact that the US government acts like a serial rapist that simply cannot control himself when it comes to the very demography that not only must "comply" with a vastly disproportionate tax burden, but which also makes up a disproportionate number of the deaths on the Iraq occupation: white males.

From Human Rights Watch "No Escape: Male Rape in US Prisons":

Past studies have documented the prevalence of black on white sexual aggression in prison. These findings are further confirmed by Human Rights Watch's own research. Overall, our correspondence and interviews with white, black, and Hispanic inmates convince us that white inmates are disproportionately targeted for abuse. Although many whites reported being raped by white inmates, black on white abuse appears to be more common. To a much lesser extent, non-Hispanic whites also reported being victimized by Hispanic inmates.

Other than sexual abuse of white inmates by African Americans, and, less frequently, Hispanics, interracial and interethnic sexual abuse appears to be much less common than sexual abuse committed by persons of one race or ethnicity against members of that same group. In other words, African Americans typically face sexual abuse at the hands of other African Americans, and Hispanics at the hands of other Hispanics. Some inmates told Human Rights Watch that this pattern reflected an inmate rule, one that was strictly enforced: "only a black can turn out [rape] a black, and only a chicano can turn out a chicano." Breaking this rule by sexually abusing someone of another race or ethnicity, with the exception of a white inmate, could lead to racial or ethnic unrest, as other members of the victim's group would retaliate against the perpetrator's group. A Texas inmate explained, for example: "The Mexicans--indeed all latinos, nobody outside their race can 'check' one without permission from the town that, that person is from. If a black dude were to check a mexican w/out such permission & the mexican stays down & fights back, a riot will take place."The causes of black on white sexual abuse in prison have been much analyzed. Some commentators have attributed it to the norms of a violent black subculture, the result of social conditioning that encourages aggressiveness and the use of force. Others have viewed it as a form of revenge for white dominance of blacks in outside society. Viewing rape as a hate crime rather than one primarily motivated by sexual urges, they believe that sexually abused white inmates are essentially convenient surrogates for whites generally. Elaborating on this theory, one commentator surmised that "[i]n raping a white inmate, the black aggressor may in some measure be assaulting the white guard on the catwalk."

Some inmates, both black and white, told Human Rights Watch that whites were generally perceived as weaker and thus more vulnerable to sexual abuse. An African American prisoner, describing the situation of incarcerated whites, said:

• When individuals come to prison, they know that the first thing that they will have to do is fight. Now there are individuals that are from a certain race that the majority of them are not physically equip to fight. So they are the majority that are force to engage in sexual acts.

Another African American inmate, while generally agreei

Re:Not exactly .....

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Your .sig

Mr. Bradbury only said this because Moore used a title similar to his own book, most likely* on purpose, without requesting permission.

Bradbury's a crackpot who flew off the handle. To think he owns the terms Fahrenheit followed by numbers is absurd. But Bradbury is not speaking of any of Mr. Moore's films, just the use of Farenheit 9/11.

"When asked if he agrees with Moore's political positions, Bradbury replied, "That has nothing to do with it. He copied my title; that is what happened. That has nothing to do with my political opinions."" --WorldNetDaily

So you're taking a quote out of context to slander Mr. Moore. I happen to find Mr. Moore an excellent film maker, not because I agree with what he says, but because he does say it. He may arrive at some incorrect conclusions, he may hold some things back that do not support his case, hell he may change the way things were in order to support his position (like everyone else), but he causes me to really think and research his assertions, as well as my own assertions. Can you ask any more from a movie/documentary? Or do you prefer the types of documentaries where you are just spoon fed the things you agree with and want to hear?

*Should be definately, but I've never heard Mr. Moore's side of this issue. Perhaps a little more backbone on Moore's part will