Slashdot Mirror
Europe's Galileo Program In Serious Trouble
elrous0 writes "Various news outlets are reporting that Europe's Galileo program is facing a serious financial and technical crisis and may be permanently stalled. The European program, designed to be a superior answer to the US's GPS — and, more critically, not controlled by the US — has faced numerous hurdles since its inception. To date the Galileo program has succeeded in launching only one of its 30 planned satellites and has been beset by delays and cost overruns. Apparently, squabbling between the eight companies in the consortium behind the project is responsible for many of the problems. The project is now threatened with an EU takeover. But some doubt that even an infusion of EU capital can save the flagging program."
Thats really what I dont understand about Europeans and their EU RA RA comments. You say your all for it and love it and want the feeling of superiority over the US it would likely provide, yet time and again for years now it has been showed you guys will never ever get your acts together and just AGREE. Hell in the US we fight constantly with each other but when it comes time to buckle up and agree we do it. About the only thing you guys managed to agree with is money, which funny enough, is doing really well over the US dollar. So why is it so hard for the EU to move beyond that and agree on more things?
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
is it just me or does this sound like the EU in general.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
So how's that government funded European search engine progressing?
[Insert pithy quote here]
China scares me.
:)
Russia is starting to scare me again.
Even piddly little countries like Iran and North Korea have the capacity to scare me.
But the EU? Remember, they've got the French - I think I'll sleep comfortably against that threat!
I'm an American and I have a hard time understanding anti-Americanism, especially among the educated. The war in Iraq was justified by saying that we'll take down a dictator who was trying to commit genocide and presented a threat to our national interests. While there's a lot of opinion about what Bush and Co. knew and didn't know, there's nothing definitive; besides, Saddam had the factories and labs to produce WMDs. My problem stems from this: we've sent troops into foreign wars many times, including both world wars. The justifications are similar between Iraq and World War 2. Where's the benefit of the doubt for a nation that's saved Europe a couple of times? Why all the hatred for a country that gives large, large amounts of money to third world nations? (and for those who think this is off topic, it's mentioned in the summary)
I'm sure that like US states for the past 142 years, we'll see fit to take it out on nations outside the federation.
Where ya gonna go? Russia? Good luck with that one -- Western/Central European invasions of Russia haven't done so well historically. Africa? More trouble then it's worth.
And it's not really a good analogy to make linking the EU 'Federation' with the United States. We have a shared culture and history. You have a collection of different languages, different cultures, different priorities and different pressures. Would the EU survive real pressure from an outside source? If an outside aggressive power started offering non-aggression pacts to individual EU members trying to divide the EU what would happen? What would happen if an outside power waged economic warfare on individual member states and not on others?
I suspect that it would be a lot easier to splinter the EU then it would be to splinter the United States. You aren't going to convince New York or Texas to walk away from the United States. I suspect that you could convince the UK, Poland or others to walk away from the EU.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
As a Finnish guy who recently moved to the Netherlands, I can say that you are a fucking retard. That's like saying people from Canada, USA and Mexico see themselves first as Americans, then nationals.
Fuck, we are almost likely letting Turkey in. They are not Europeans. Islam? WTF? Read up on history and see how much moslems and europeans have been chopping each other into pieces for the past... well, human history.
Firstly, there is a thing called a "European". I identify myself as European only.
I agree, that the EU is undemocratic, and that stems solely from the fact that it is still an organisation of states, and not a federation. Anti-federalists are anti-democratic by nature. The ONLY solution is to build a United States of Europe.
BTW, Happy Europe Day in advance!
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
And of course, since they say that's why they did it, that must be why they did it. Yeah, right
Our own Declaration of Independence proclaimed that "All men are created equal" and have an "unalienable" right to liberty. But it still took America another 90 years to ban slavery.
Documents like the DoI and the ToP contain a lot of high-minded statements that are there mainly to make people feel good about supporting them. Which is not to say that they're total BS: concepts of liberty and peace are ideals, all the more important because people have a hard time living up to them. But in the real world, neither the EU ror the US were founded by idealists. Both had very pragmatic economic goals.
Which is actually a good thing. Pure idealists do not have a good track record. They tend to reject any inconvenient reality (or morality) that conflicts with their ideals.
Not for many decades, no. After all, European culture doesn't promote raping women that show too much skin, like Muslim culture does. Check out the news; rapes by Muslims are out of control in Europe, and the typical excuse is "I couldn't help myself because she didn't have enough clothes on."
It's amazing how many apologists there are for barbaric behavior.