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America's Next Bomber: Unmanned, Unlimited Range, Aimed At China
An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. military is developing its next generation bomber with Chinese anti-access strategy — the ability to stop any enemy force from coming to fight with things like carrier killer missiles — in mind. The new bomber will replace older platforms like the 1950's B-52, the 1970's B-1, and 1990's B-2 stealth bomber. The new bomber will sport some unique qualities. It will have an option to be unmanned, will act similar to a UAV, have better stealth capabilities, will be connected to U.S. intelligence networks to create a 'smart' battlefield environment, and have near unlimited range thanks to in-air refueling."
It will also be a great way to take out some hacker's ex-girlfriend's house in Nevada. Damn bitch left him for a cop.
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
Just like the B52...
I wonder how easy it would be to turn a B52 into a UAV? I mean, they can still send Slim Pickens along to get the bombs un-stuck, but otherwise unmanned.
Who the hell lets this shit through? The new bomber is designed to counter new strategies. That doesn't mean it's "aimed at China". That's a needlessly belligerent phrase -- either warmongering or scaremongering over the prospects of war. If England develops bullets that can pierce American body armor, will we hear about new "British Guns Aimed at America!"?
Sorry chickenhawks, but America and China won't go to war. Our economies are far too interdependent.
is exactly what fueled more and more propaganda on both sides during the cold war.
"The U.S. military is developing its next generation bomber with Chinese anti-access strategy"
That can only be achieved if there's ZERO electronic components made in China in the aircraft....Good luck with that.
Nov 2011 Article: US weapons 'full of fake Chinese parts'
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8876656/US-weapons-full-of-fake-Chinese-parts.html
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
We give them all our money and jobs, and then spend a fortune to arm ourselves against them. Something.....is.....wrong.....here.
Table-ized A.I.
Let's waste more money trying to kill one another. Our debt isn't high enough yet.
It will turn the battlefield into a video game. And killing people will be just as much fun as irradiating the protoss.
Why else would they build this thing to fight an enemy that doesn't even exist. Most likely it will be a trillion-dollar blackhole like the F-22 Fighter debacle. Do the politicians not care that the national + state debt is almost 19 trillion dollars? (almost $190,000 per household). Guess not.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Cheap solar powered very high altitude unmanned platforms that are cheaper to produce than the missile needed to shoot them down, just sitting up there until their payload is needed, be it a bomb, rocket, jammer, communications relay or recon.
Realities just a bunch of bits.
If you modded the parent as "funny", I assume that you mean in an ironic sort of way. Because, the parent is right on target - so to speak. As a matter of fact, my Taiwanese friends are under the impression that if China decides to assert her ownership of Taiwan, the US would huff and puff and wouldn't do shit about it; hence why the Taiwanese diaspora here in the US.
If you ever wanted to know what it was like to live in Rome during its decline, come to the US- we know.
Given the realities (ie corruption and incompetence) of the current Pentagon procurement system, if this project doesn't get killed it will be lucky to produce more than a handful of aircraft, at a cost of several billion dollars each.
What about if the Chinese get our codes and hack our defenses like the Cylons from BSG?
Then in an ironic twist, the political powers that be get a number of things they would dearly love - at the price of innocent lives. They have a "credible" threat to pursue - clearly hacking bombers is a clear act of war, they have a population that is deathly scared and willing to give up all manner of personal freedoms in exchange for perceived safety and they have an attack on their soverign soil which will motivate and infuriate the local population. They then get to enact just about every rule, law and practise that they want - all for the mere cost of innocent lives.
"You can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs..." is a lovely expression. The real challenge here is working out whether the eggs are worth the omlette in the end. I dare say that in global politics, there are folks that think it is, and folks that think it isn't.
The US knows that it is getting a lot of bad press worldwide, that a lot of staunch supporters and backing away and that its economy is in some trouble. Historically, one of the ways it sorts some of these problems out is by going to war (whether genuinly or under pretext) but the latest few in the middle east are quickly draining public support and also the coffers. From a propaganda point of view, nothing would be better than having a ligitimate case to present to the public, and be able to cry foul in the UN against the baddies. It is much easier to sell a country as being the "good guys" if they are the ones being attacked by someone else - pushing a "We are doing this for democracy/good/their benefit" is a song that many US citizens are getting very sick of hearing when they keep seeing body bags coming back and their pensions and savings just aren't worth what they should be.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
If we are still going to be good at something, should it really have to involve killing others?
Sure. I mean, it's illegal to kill yourself in many corners of this earth.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
The F-22 kickbacks have been paid off for a weapon that will likely never see service.
The F-35's on their way to suck at the budget teat in Canada and the US both. Planes which just happen to be ill-suited to patrolling the arctic, which is the main reason Canada wanted them in the first place, effectively making them as useless as the F-22s are for the US.
How many BILLIONS are they planning to spend on bombers to attack an "enemy" that shows no signs of military buildup or aggression THIS time?
Just how long is it going to take the world to stop feeding the military-industrial pigs that design this overpriced crap? When are our governments going to realize that you reach a point where no matter how much you've spent to date, you have to CANCEL a project because it will NEVER pay for itself nor deliver what it promised?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
... hold fire and land at an enemy military base?
1. we have has unlimited refueling assuming no airspace deniability since the 40's.
2. To achieve what is stated, the unstated power plant is nuclear.
3. China is trending toward consumerism and USA is "post-consumer." We would do well to solve our domestic issues, not dwell on the inevitable anarchy and war which will follow our not dealing with our issues.
4. Re-read #3
5. WAKE UP THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Thank you.
Before then, it'll be destroyed by itself, at this rate.
Like that's going to be really good for our economy or like, anyone.
I cannot fathom that there are people actually walking around with squirrel-cage driven brains that came up with this depressingly evil idea. They envision another Cold War and MAD as if it's a good thing. People like this are traitors to the US and to the entire human race.
Take your Pax Americana, chickenhawk neocons, and shove it up your collective ass.
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BMO
Okay. These are reusable. That will be nice if there is a shooting war with China. Nice and naive. But hell, if this nation is going to borrow money from China to prop up a crony socialistic faux capitalistic economy I say embrace the irony and build these high tech wonder weapons.
'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
It would take the concerted effort of the majority of the world to "destroy" the USA militarily, leaving aside nukes or really good sneakiness. They have the strongest military in the world and very good logistics, and have adequate food, water, and oil supplies to sustain any war. Although industrial capacity has diminished in recent decades, a combination the military industrial complex and the U.S. auto industry means that it is still capable of the industry necessary for war. In terms of underwear bombs, the United States is so huge that while a proliferation of bombs would of course radically change life in the country, they would not destroy it.
Destruction is more likely to be wrought from poor incentive structures in U.S. government, which makes effective and necessary change very difficult.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Too late, the Brits have already named their command and control satellite network that.
This plan is just a way to spend $TRILLIONS on US military/intel crony capitalists.
If the US just spent $1T on an industrial policy, and put China's neighbors in charge of their own military defense (but shared our intel), we'd have security, peace, and $TRILLIONS more. Not to mention the increased GDP and taxes from it, with a better functioning industrial system.
But that wouldn't dedicate all our money and effort to the war business. Which is the business that controls America.
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make install -not war
Next-Generation Bomber: just $550 million per copy for up to 100 copies, with production beginning in the early 2020s.
At these dollar amounts, it's cheaper to purchase one bomber, then make 99 copies yourself and just pay the fine for copyright infringement.
On the other hand, the hysteria over Muslim terrorists is preventing the US from investing its time and money in competing with China (and EU, and BRIC, and the rest of our global competitors). The underwear bomb isn't going to destroy America. But forcing every traveller through the underwear bomb detectors that don't work is surely destroying America. Along with all the other colossal wastes inspired by Muslim terrorists in our insane backlash.
A few hundred $billion invested in intel and assassinations, under a new legal regime that allows legitimate, Constitutional US courts to determine that certain specific people and militias are legitimate targets, would destroy the Muslim terrorist threat. Combined with a few hundred $billion more invested in education, trade and counter propaganda in the cesspools where these terrorists fester.
But instead, we're playing head-pong over "CHINA!" "TERRORISM!", responding badly to each. Because we insist on rage and paranoid overreactions, instead of careful strategy that uses force only as a last resort, not the first and only method.
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make install -not war
We already have these. They are called ICBMs.
I've built up so much character I have an alter-ego
Step 1. USA develops it Step 2. Steal it Step 3. Rename it 'Almighty Hapiness Warrior Dragon Plan' I am sure China appreciates the US doing the R&D for them on this project.
Users... the only thing keeping 1st level support from being the bottom feeders.
Ayup. We collapsed the USSR by forcing them to compete with our military spending, and now we're letting guerrillas "force" us to spend money we haven't got on our military.
Bin Laden was a bastard, but you have to admire a professionally done job.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Now what kind of sense does that make? After all, China is where the bulk of that derivatives processing has been offshored to -- obviously econocide??
Yes, I believe you've got it!
Defense contractor's revenue down.
Plan to introduce an exciting new product.
I feel the drumbeat of war with China beating steadily. Its been getting louder since the fall of the USSR.
The military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned the US about is focused on China. Its using China to justify its existence. It needs China to sustain its budget. And I think it is subtly behind the propaganda that got this author to suggest the weapons development is focused on China.
We could say China has been around 60 years or 2000 years. But in either case, China has has a pretty good track record of not engaging in wars that were not within or adjacent to its borders. In 60 years the US's can make no such claim. That the US would need a bomber to strike targets in China "for self defense" is not reasonable. And suggesting that the US would be in a defensive war against China flies in the face of what we know about Chinese ambitions.
Nah, it going to be a troop of ninja monkeys with backpack nukes.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Unlimited range? The NEACP (which the President flies on during nuclear crisis), is said to only be able to stay in the air for 3 days maximum (despite in-air refueling) due to eventually running out of motor oil. However, that was in the 1990s.
His passion was to destroy the USA.
He succeeded beyond his wildest imagination.
So I guess this means my grandkids are going to live in a world that is every bit as fucked up as this one.
Just out of curiosity: Have we any indication at all that China is looking to conquer the world and subjugate all of the West? Or is just a matter of making sure that the military contractors that already have the no-bid contract in their back pocket for this new "unmanned, unlimited range bomber aimed at China" can announce very nice projected earnings at their next shareholders meeting at Sanctuare? What kind of pieces of shit are our ruling class that they can look out over a country with eroding middle class incomes and say, "We really need to spend more on new weapons systems to fight the Chinese. Oh, and tax cuts for the rich! What the fuck is the matter with them?
Sometimes, I read a story like this, and the kid in my that used to love to play Army completely disappears, and is replaced by an adult that wishes the US would have an economic downturn sufficient to prevent its next wave of ridiculous military spending. I wonder if maybe getting a dose of what the rest of the world has been getting for the past forever might not be a good thing for America. Just enough of a taste to stop being so obsessed with having the biggest dick.
Honestly, I can't decide if our rulers are murderous sociopaths or just purely corrupted by corporate money. I don't believe it can be both. Murderous sociopaths tend to not be good for profits, and the purely corrupt tend to not have time for reveling in bloodshed because it gets in the way of their yachting and dressage time.
I don't look forward to the next election and the prospect of having to tell people I'm Canadian when I travel abroad, as I found myself doing during the past decade. The old Bowie song, "I'm Afraid of Americans" wasn't supposed to apply to Americans, I don't think.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Most of these attributes are achievable with manned aircraft. You can't keep them up forever. But many days is possible with in air refueling. The main reason we'd want unmanned aircraft is if there's a real possibility that China can deny us the use of air bases or aircraft carriers in the region. No crews to rotate, so there's no need to land. Fly them back to the continental USA to re-arm, given a few fuel transfers enroute.
No more island-hopping slowly across the Pacific like we did in WWII.
Have gnu, will travel.
I imagine all planes currently in the pipeline, or at least post-F-35, will have the option to be unmanned. Jet fighter pilots cost an absolute insane amount of money to train. Their salary is within the margin of error of their total training costs. Do you want to send someone with $60 million in training up in a jet with a 2% chance of getting blown up (or in more recent cases, losing consiousness due to malfunctioning oxygen systems and crashing)? No. Just leave them on the ground, the jet can probably fly itself better than the human operator anyways. Just stick them in front of a simulator with a live feed with the ability to make corrections as the situation changes. It's already happened with survilence vehicles, it's happening with bombers, it will happen with fighters soon enough. Only the most critical/black ops missions will have a human in the pilot's seat in 20 years time.
moox. for a new generation.
The problem lies not in them handing over their freedoms (f*ck 'em), it's that their masters believe they are getting our freedoms as well.
I am John Hurt.
I see lots of posturing from military types in the US (or at least media reporting on military types) suggesting that its essential to be able to counter a threat from China yet I haven't seen any actual reasoning as to why China needs to be considered as a potential threat.
Why would china want to attack the US, America buys so much chinese crap that any attack would be disastrous for the Chinese economy (as people and companies in America and in countries friendly to America stop buying made-in-china products)
I just wrote a post in the F-22 story about how the military made some premature assumptions about air-to-air combat that came back to bite them. I was going to comment on how I thought there's a risk that we're going to become infatuated with drones, not taking into account the fact that our latest military engagements included dominating air superiority and inconsequential anti-aircraft defenses. I have to admit I don't follow military aviation like I used to, but I can see how over-reliance on this technology will repeat history. Assuming we find ourselves fighting a military with more than pathetic ability, how are these drones going to handle countermeasures and ingenuity of a first-rate nation?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Don't worry, they are stored on secure computers from Lenovo. Nobody got fired for buying IBM^H^H^H Lenovo, right?
mod me funny
Unless they plan on designing the plane on closed, proprietary system and eschew any mass produced electronics...the Chinese will own the planes and the networks they operate on before they even take off. If it was developed on off the shelf computers, the Chinese probably already have the cad drawings.
To the mods:
I don't think I intended this to be funny. It was a few hours ago, so I admit my perspective may be skewed, but I think I was highlighting the fact that "unhackable" had the same veracity as "unsinkable" w.r.t. the Titanic. It's only a matter of time before someone figures out how to take control with a hack.
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
Kind of like an ICBM? Sounds exactly like their set of requirements back when I was a boy. Oh, except I guess ICBMs are "cheap" and not called "drones". Either that or we can't figure out how to stop pointing all our ICBMs at Russia. I wouldn't rule out the chances that the guy who invented the targeting system died of prostate cancer or something and no one else could figure out how to retarget them. It doesn't really matter that ICBMs are "not reusable", given that once you launch them, Humanity is pretty much done, anyway.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
What about if the Chinese get our codes and hack our defenses like the Cylons from BSG?
So? America would lose most cities on both coasts.
Can you think of any outcome more likely to bring tears of joy, to America's far-right?
The fact that you think that people who are politically conservative would be overjoyed by an attack on US soil, the destruction of its' cities, and the death of any of its' people as a group says far more about your AC mindset than I believe you realize.
This weapon system will integrate high value sub-assemblies from undecided congressional districts, thus ensuring total funding-superiority in any budget battle.
The fact that you think that people who are politically conservative would be overjoyed by an attack on US soil,
They were overjoyed by the attack on 9/11. it gave them the excuse to go into Iraq.
They needed their "pearl harbor moment"
Go read the PNAC statements in their own words.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/lettersstatements.htm
You and I, as citizens, are expendable in their eyes. Grow the fuck up.
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BMO
But did the Ministry of Defense trademark the name SkyNet?
It will also be a great way to take out some hacker's ex-girlfriend's house in Nevada. Damn bitch left him for a cop.
And after the damn bitch, the cop, then everyone else.
Excerpted from wikipedia
Skynet was originally installed by the military to control the national arsenal on August 4, 1997, at which time it began learning at a geometric rate. On August 29, it gained self-awareness[1], and the panicking operators, realizing the extent of its abilities, tried to deactivate it. Skynet perceived this as an attack and came to the conclusion that all of humanity would attempt to destroy it. To defend itself, Skynet launched nuclear missiles under its command at Russia, which responded with a nuclear counter-attack against the U.S. and its allies. As a result of the nuclear exchange, over three billion people were killed in an event that came to be known as Judgment Day.
This, people, is where we are heading.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
This is not about any particular enemy. This is about the fact that both of the current front-running aerial weapons systems/cash cows...the F-22 and F-35...are on the ropes as being irrelevant and horrifically expensive. This is about the industry that makes such systems trying to come up with a new market to sell to, before the aforementioned projects get cut entirely and they find themselves in deep trouble.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Actually, I think he sensed that most yanks were so hopelessly paranoid and close to the edge that they could easily be made to destroy themselves.
All it took to set that in motion was a little hollywood-style push.
You write as if all this occurred relatively all of a sudden over the last one or two, maybe three decades, and didn't require 6 to 8 decades or more to set up the conditions necessary. It started in a serious way around the time of Wilson and FDR after the failed modern US Liberalism movement re-branded itself as the Progressive movement and started gaining more and more power through the later part of the 20th century, implementing the "New Deal", the "War on Poverty", and similar programs for which the Federal government lacked the necessary Constitutional powers, and thereby firmly institutionalizing the Federal practice of going around, or just plain straight through, the restrictions placed on the Federal government by the US Constitution whenever it was expedient.
Once the camel's nose was under the tent on the Federal government being able to ever-increasingly bypass and circumvent the Constitution, what we in the US see around us and the actions we see the government taking...or not taking...were almost inevitable.
The US will never recover and never equal it's own past, and none of the current problems will truly be solved in any meaningful way, until the Federal government is once again restrained by the US Constitution and those officials in Washington and elsewhere are forced to honor the oath they took in which they swore to "...preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Any government that ignores and refuses to honor it's founding agreements with the population it governs and from which it borrows it's power, will end in tyranny or bloody & violent revolution/civil war. Or both. It's what's happened to every other government throughout history that followed the same path.
All bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and others have done is to push the accelerator pedal down a bit more in our ongoing and decades-long power-dive into collapse, violence, chaos, and eventually tyranny. Without them and their actions, we'd still be in a nearly-identical situation domestically in another 5 or 10 years. Maybe not even that long.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
... supposedly equaling China. These have been a concern to the US navy since the Soviets equipped their fleet with missile boats, haven't they? I mean I've played my deal of Harpoon, and these things are pesky no matter what the opponent is named, and also they are quite affordable to many smaller countries. Also, and somewhat strangely, I can't find a word about the defense against "carrier-killing missiles" or something comparable in the Diplomat article, but a lot about penetrating air defenses, which hopefully (and probably) isn't too high in the US navy's planning priorities with regards to the PRC.
The USA isn't "destroyed" yet.
No, but the best way to do it has been clearly demonstrated.
All it would take is a bit of organization.
No sig today...
Once again, assumptions on who "they" are when referring to conservatives in general make for patently outlandish slander, just as someone saying "all liberals are (communists||socialists||whatever) who want to purge the earth of anyone who doesn't think as they do" would be. The hyperbole makes for non-meaningful discussions.
What percentage of self-described conservatives even know what PNAC is? The letter you were referring to, if I got it right, has 41 signatories? Yet from Gallup 41% of all Americans consider themselves conservative , a number that has been fairly steady since 1990. Last I checked, not only did I not think that what 41 people's opine defines what 41% of Americans think, I didn't have to have the debating skills of a prepubescent teenager to make my points. Thank you for making mine.
If this is serious, it will be an arms race for funding with a lot of waste. The Chinese will only start the wars they think they can win. And there is no miscalculation on the Chinese side. Believe me the Chinese are very good at calculation, on things you'd never imagine. The Chinese government are trying to make USA look like a bigger hegemony than it is, and occasionally provoke a little, so that the Chinese people will feel they have to unite together no matter what. The bottom line is, the Chinese government is full of incompetent people that they'll try anything to maintain their power or transfer power to their puppets. And not to be out done, the US government seems to be shooting for the maximum security for it's people, by pursuing the best and most expensive weapons. It must think that the people really need such good sleep that 100% guarantee has to be achieved. Of course nobody needs to worry about earthquakes when asleep. Of course a lot of this is just that maybe someone wanted to publish an article. But when the two nations are so economically connected and there are a lot of economical issues in both, many would most likely welcome some distractions.
Your write, thankyou :D!
Uh huh...you DO know we spend upwards of 100 million on a triple A rated game and are damned lucky if the "AI" doesn't run into walls or parks its moronic ass right in the middle of a field with zero cover to get picked off while it stands there with a thumb up its ass, yes?
While I'm sure you are just trying to make a long winded skynet joke frankly we are so far away from AI that is as smart as a drunk rat it ain't even funny, much less being able to build something that was smart enough not to drool on its circuits. When these bunches talk about "AI" they are talking about the boring "fly in a straight line for 20 hours" kinda thing, maybe if you are lucky you program in enough to avoid bad weather.
So sorry friend, but we are about a billion times more likely to be wiped out by a "My God says to spread this virus in the name of Holy war Ai ai ai e!" than to actually make something smart enough to actually hurt us in more than an ED209 "Oh shit everybody duck because its fried a circuit again!" kinda way. Sorry I can't find the link but I heard they actually lost a couple at a test range in South Africa thanks to an ED209 style fuckup.
Hell if the contractors in other nations are like ours they'll piss trillions away only to be given in return a half assed barely functional technotoy that will be lucky if it can fly to the left without having its CPU lock when it cross a time zone. We have blown a trillion and can't get the F35 into production, you think these same bunch of bozos in the MIC could give us a T-101? If they managed to get even a T-1 that went more than 15 minutes without having a breakdown or shooting itself (or everybody around it including itself) they would consider it mission accomplished and ask for bonuses.
We better hope like hell there ain't a war with China because i have a feeling it'd be WWII all over again, only we'd be Germany with these contractors cranking out beautiful but PITA aircraft that's a bitch to keep in the air while the Chinese will just crank out MiG knockoffs like a Henry Ford assembly line.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
"funny" is the new "insightful". All hail Saint Carlin. It's really long past time to make it a karma-giving mod, especially since moderators discovered that you could apply it to controversial (frequently moderated) comments to rob the poster of karma.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So far China has never bothered invading countries far away from home (unlike the USA). And why should they? With a bit of patience and work they can have whatever they want at a fraction of the price of a war, and without the risks of one. China is patient and smart. Beats aggression any time.
So what for will this expensive toy be? To nuke file sharers hosting in countries that could not be subjugated, on behalf of the RIAA?
Or perhaps for some offensive war nobody is expecting in order to gain access to the resources an essentially broke USA soon can't afford any more by other means?
While China will be trumped about as the enemy, there will never be a direct war with them. As in the past, it will be all proxy wars.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Actually China owns about 10% of the USA's debt. Same amount as Japan.
...
From Wikipedia about 47% of the debt is owned by foreign investors, the top 7 being
China, Japan, Brazil, Taiwan, Switzerland, Russia, and the United Kingdom holding respectively approximately $1.16 trillion, $1.08 trillion, $230 billion, $178 billion, $145 billion, $143 billion, and $142 billion as of January 2012.
Time for a new boondoggle!
Nah, the underwear bomb is quite probably completely real, a completely real attack by a real enemy.
The beauty of the US military/intel industry is that it can only get more money and power, regardless of its success or failure, so long as Americans have an enemy to fear (regardless of any reality). The US doesn't need to synthesize the Qaeda, but it does need the Qaeda to exist and keep attacking, even impotently and very occasionally. Why spend any of your military budget creating the Qaeda, when the Qaeda does that itself, leaving that budget to the crony capitalists?
Nothing else changes. It was enough for the US to get the Qaeda started (Afghanistan 1979-80s), and then leave it perpetually angry and alive, failing to destroy it when the chance occurs (no drone strike on Binladen 1998, invade Iraq instead of infiltrate Afghanistan 2001-2007, Tora Bora, etc). The entire Qaeda phase of the predator/prey cycle is shoestring, outsourced, and reliable marketing for the main business. And totally authentic.
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make install -not war
Yeah, that's right. Liberals are the creators of the military/industrial complex that keeps America paranoid and always at war. Republican General Eisenhower didn't create it in his 8 years. Nixon didn't in his two terms, Reagan/Bush didn't in their 3 terms, Bush/Cheney didn't in their two terms. Liberals are somehow both anti-war, anti-military traitors, and the creators of the military and its wars.
Oh, and America was so much better, but only in the part that has no living witnesses.
You Republicans are totally insane: you always get everything exactly backwards, and never have any doubts that your fantasy is the truth that only you and a few other Fox guzzlers have realized. If only we could get a Republican some power, everything would be a perfect Andy Griffith again.
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make install -not war
Citiation Required #NotThisShitAgain
$10 that it never actually manages to get off the ground until at least a trillion dollars has been spent on the project.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
You seem to be of the opinion that the average person is what defines what conservatism is.
The average person has no power to define anything.
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BMO
Destroyed by the Muslim terrorists? My you have drunk deep of the kool aid. We are destroying ourselves, in part by the stupidity you so eloquently express.
howzabout the single-page link to the article so we don't have to click click click click click through?!!!
asshat.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Really? Which one of us is still standing?
>then shut the fuck up,
You first.
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BMO
Yeah, that's right. Liberals are the creators of the military/industrial complex that keeps America paranoid and always at war. Republican General Eisenhower didn't create it in his 8 years. Nixon didn't in his two terms, Reagan/Bush didn't in their 3 terms, Bush/Cheney didn't in their two terms. Liberals are somehow both anti-war, anti-military traitors, and the creators of the military and its wars.
That's a beautiful straw man argument there, Doc. I almost wish I'd made that argument.
My post concerned government that doesn't honor it's founding agreements with the populace it governs, and the politicians that betray their sworn oaths.
Are you trying to tell us you're OK with that sort of behavior by your government?
Oh, and America was so much better, but only in the part that has no living witnesses.
Oh no, we don't have to go that far back to see the trend. I'm old enough myself to remember a time when the Feds needed warrants, where the government couldn't seize a private citizens' property to give it to another private citizen because it may increase revenues to the government, or seize and sell private property in a police investigation without any charges even being filed nor any determination of guilt made, and with little or no recourse for the victim...err..."person of interest". It's being done by both parties because Progressives, who by definition wish government to "progress" past the Constitution, are in *both* parties.
You Republicans are totally insane:
Republican!? Hardly! The US two-party system has degenerated into nothing but a wedge-issue circus and distraction to keep the masses from realizing the bigger game and prevent them from being able to affect the government or it's governance in any meaningful way.
I'm sorry, but if you're an avid supporter of either political party in the US, you're either just not informed enough or have drank too much partisan-propaganda kool-ade to carry on a rational & meaningful discussion of real US politics.
Judging by your posting history, I know which way I'd bet.
Talk about voluntarily going through life with blinders on!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
This, people, is where we are heading.
Oh shit! We're heading toward 1997. Marty, we have to get 'back to the future'!
Wow, step away from the team red / team blue blinders. He didn't say anything about paranoid warmongering. He's talking about a Federal government freed from the bounds placed on it by its founding documents. This flag was planted firmly with the New Deal and the court-packing threats used to get approval from the Supreme Court for powers which clearly required constitutional amendments before laws could be enacted.
Fast forward to 2001 and you've got Bush pushing through the "Patriot Act", a law that wipes its tush with the constitution. A few years later you've got supposedly "liberal" president Obama doubling down on the "Patriot Act". We've got the Kelo decision saying that local governments can take your home and give it to shopping mall developers because shopping malls raise more tax revenue. Nice! We've got Gonzales v. Raich which says that the federal government can outlaw growing a plant in your own home under the commerce clause, because you theoretically could have bought or sold the plant across state lines. Of course, this decision relied on the WWII Wickard v. Filburn case that said the government can prevent you from growing food for yourself on your own land (under the theory that you would otherwise have to buy the food on the open market, which distorts interstate commerce).
Our current leadership doesn't seem to have much regard for constitutional restrictions in the area of war powers either, having attacked several countries without authorization from congress. Not that congress had enough of a sack to do anything about it. Well, other than Kucinich, who filed suit against the Libya attacks... love him or hate him, at least he stands up for what he believes in regardless of who's in power. Other than a couple of fringe cases like Kucinich and the Paul duo, Team Red and Team Blue are on the same page with regard to the irrelevance of the constitution, regardless of their rhetoric. They also seem to be on the same page with regard to your civil liberties and the war machine, regardless of their rhetoric. Oh sure, one guy over here will make a speech about gun rights, and another guy over there will make a speech about gay marriage, but when it comes down to it they all support the unfettered expansion of the powers of the federal government and only feign fealty to the constitution when it suits their purposes.
Outsource production of the bomber to China. That'll cut costs by at least 50%. Oh yeah, and maintenance/tech support can be done in India. And I hear Russia's a great place to hire low-salary pilots. We can "right-size" the military down to under 100 managers! Er...generals.
They keep claiming the RQ-170 drone wasn't hacked when there have been all sorts of hacks of the video feeds years before. The thing is anything can be hacked. The tendency is to automate the airplanes increasingly. It may get to the point where an automated system even pulls the trigger. That should not be allowed.
An aircraft is compromised simply if it has the capacity to carry a human whether the person is actually on board or not. The space lost to life support systems and occupancy areas helps drive the design process. That same space could be available for fuel or weapons. The plane can sustain higher G forces and much longer time in the air if people are kept out of the designs. My feeling is that America can not fight a major, conventional war, at this time. We do not have the rail system nor even the shipping systems to deliver the kind of forces and supplies that we did in WWII. We also have an expense issue with our weapons. A one million dollar torpedo may be one whiz bang of a killer torpedo but how many can we afford to launch? One simple bullet, delivered to a war zone is an expensive bullet indeed. So when weapons can fire as fast as many modern rifle systems just how many seconds can we afford for that rifle to fire? Look at the electric Gatteling guns used in helicopters and the many thousands of rounds they can rip off at a single squeeze of the trigger. Now figure $7. per bullet for that cartridge in a war zone. This is why we have so very few air craft carriers. They are a major force in conflicts but so expensive we only have a very few. and the planes on a carrier add up as well. One hundred or more jet fighters and you get into the billions rather quickly. We can not afford to use our weapons.
Oh I know -
http://cutekittenvideos.com/
No, but the Belgians did.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The 100 million don't go towards the AI, it goes towards the graphics and sounds. And the part that does go towards the AI isn't trying to make the AI win, it's trying to make the AI lose so the players get the satisfaction of beating the game.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Wilson and FDR were Democrats. Liberalism and Progressivism have been Democratic movements since the Republican Party abandoned Theodore Roosevelt (which is why he ran independently from them in 1912). The New Deal was FDR's Democratic programme; the War on Poverty was LBJ's Democratic programme.
Everything you cite is Democratic, even though the worst abuses by far have been Republican. Bush/Cheney and their Republican Congresses brought on everything you just cited in your last post, but you still blame "Progressives", which no one would ever accuse Bush, Cheney or being. "Progressivism and Liberalism are mandatory ideas"? That is about as irrational as you can get, and perfectly Republican.
Kool aid blah blah blah. Both parties are guilty of subverting the Constitution, but the Republican Party has been nothing but destructive to this country, while the Democratic Party has been a mixed bag - guilty mainly of failing to oppose it. The Liberal and Progressive movements, including the New Deal and even the War on Poverty, have done a great amount on behalf of the people of this country, though of course that's a mixed bag too. But you're the one pretending "they're both guilty", while condemning only Democrats. You're a Republican. I don't care if you finally rejected Republicans too - how many times did you vote for them? And now you still say exactly what you always said, even when you proudly claimed to be Republican. You're a "Libertarian" now, or some other copout that lets you act like an obsolete Republican while pretending you're not to blame.
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In reply to this observation... if you want to destroy Japan... nuke Hawaii!
If the financial loss doesn't kill them, the loss of so many golf courses will.
No, as I just explained in response to them, they are simply a Republican who's too cowardly to admit it anymore.
I agree with your post, though, except where somehow "court packing threats" had any effect (or even reality, outside some Republican propaganda factory) on the New Deal's passage. The Republicans who opposed the New Deal were the ones who ran the country into the Great Depression while they had the president/House/Senate trifecta through the 1920s, running up unsupportable debt on equity risk until it crashed the world. Just as the current Republicans are the ones who did exactly the same thing with their president/House/Senate trifecta on direct debt risk until it crashed the world, and continue to do everything they can to keep it crashing, just as they always do.
And "the Paul duo", who are totally insane, not to mention committed racists of the kind we all knew as crazy 80s survivalists. No I'm not using a metaphor.
The two parties are not equivalent, even if Democrats are also often bad, and its executives keep powers created by their Republican predecessors. Republicans are absolutely unsustainable, in a class by themselves. That doesn't excuse the Democrats, but the false equivalence is what Republicans depend on to keep ratcheting our government down every time around the cycle.
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Of course I know it, which is why I put Eisenhower and the MIC together in my post. But Eisenhower was the one who proposed and signed all those military budgets. The MIC was his job; it was what distinguished him as commander in Europe, and he was a reliable exec to keep the war machine cranked up to the max even during the greatest peace opportunity in American history. The fact that a Republican's farewell speech warned of some terrible institution he created to misdirect the blame elsewhere only underscores their direct responsibility, just as they always project their own worst faults on someone else, typically the victim,
The Constitution provides for only militias like the National Guard during any time Congress has not declared war, and during wartime the army/navy/etc are to be budgeted only for 2 years at a time, so Congresses cannot commit future Congresses to their wars. The large arms industry has always been American, and indeed has just gotten worse. We should strip the military/intel Federal budget down to under $300B, and prohibit any deployment not under a war declaration, bringing home every military asset from around the world. But we've locked ourselves into corruption so deep that it's hard to see any point to break the cycle.
But understanding history and its liars is a good place to start.
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Skynet was originally installed by the military to control the national arsenal on August 4, 1997, at which time it... came to the conclusion that all of humanity would attempt to destroy it.
In Skynet's defense, the majority of Internet content in 1997 was X-Files-vs-Babylon-5 fanfic Usenet forums, and Geocities home pages with framesets, starry-sky background images, animated GIFs of dancing babies and flashing "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" blink tags.
Even an AI programmed by Ghandi himself would have extrapolated the worst from that scenario.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Wilson and FDR were Democrats. Liberalism and Progressivism have been Democratic movements since the Republican Party abandoned Theodore Roosevelt (which is why he ran independently from them in 1912). The New Deal was FDR's Democratic programme; the War on Poverty was LBJ's Democratic programme.
Everything you cite is Democratic, even though the worst abuses by far have been Republican.
You forgot a couple. The Democrats are the only ones that ever rounded up people by ethnic/racial/national background and imprisoned them without warrant, charges, or trial or basically any due process in camps in the US. The Democrats were also stalwart racial segregation supporters.
I'm very sorry that the party you seem to blindly support has such a rich history of assaults on freedom and support for institutional racism. That's not my fault, nor my problem that it makes you uncomfortable. It's sad that the once-proud Democratic Party has been infiltrated and taken over by Progressives. Before Progressives co-opted the Democrats, one could have a reasonable discussion with a Democrat.
Many Republicans are Progressives, and most of the rest simply play the "I'm for whatever polls best and gets me re-elected, maintains the status-quo, and gets me the most campaign contributions and kickbacks" game.
I research the candidates and issues in an election, and do my best to vote for those candidates & issues that will staunchly defend and further the cause of individual freedom and promote smaller, less-burdensome, less-invasive, and less-expensive government. Trying to find someone or something to vote for in recent times has become pretty much an exercise in futility.
I have no problems voting across Party lines, but Democrats for the last few decades have given me little reason to vote for them or their policies based on the rough criteria I outlined above. Sadly, it's gotten to be nearly impossible to find any Republicans anymore that stand for and defend those principles either.
The Liberal and Progressive movements, including the New Deal and even the War on Poverty, have done a great amount on behalf of the people of this country...
[looks around at the collapsing economy, invasions of privacy, loss of habeus corpus rights, the almost-daily Constitutional violations by government, etc etc etc, all of which increased as Progressives gained power]
Oh yeah. Progressivism has done *plenty* all right.
Let's just hope we can survive Progressivism doing any more to us, as so far it's nearly killed us. No matter which Party the Progressives are in.
Progressivism is a form of Collectivism. Collectivism never works outside of relatively small groups, as it lacks any accountability. It always ends up as summed-up by one former Soviet citizen; "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us". After which they could pretend to buy bread that the bakers pretended to have had the flour to make.
You're a Republican. I don't care if you finally rejected Republicans too - how many times did you vote for them? And now you still say exactly what you always said, even when you proudly claimed to be Republican. You're a "Libertarian" now, or some other copout that lets you act like an obsolete Republican while pretending you're not to blame.
Whatever political label you want to attach to me doesn't matter here. It's irrelevant here. What's important here are the ideas, factual history, and historically-proven principles being discussed. Try discussing those in an intellectually-honest manner and stop trying to distract from your lack of ability to defend your ideas and opinions, and people might just take you a bit more seriously.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
You are so right. The f-Ing Iranians did it.
you really are a sad, sad little man
apk is a homo
Republicans created and populated Guantanamo Bay precisely that way. Guantanamo is a camp on US soil in Cuba. The offshore location fits precisely Republican hatred of the laws passed mostly by Democrats that should prevent the country but doesn't.
BTW, everyone in politics was stalwart segregationist racists, until the Democratic Party defined itself generations ago by purging its racists (who fled into a Republican Party happy to accept them) over the Civil Rights Act. The racism by what is now obviously the White Men's Party is one of its core values now.
So when I give you a chance to make good on your "both parties do it" false equivalency, you merely rant more about Democrats. You have no standing to insist on "intellectually honest" or how seriously people take me. And your prattle about "distractions" when I meet your exclusively partisan assertions with facts and logic is a hall of mirrors.
You are a Republican. You vote Republican. You talk Republican. You "think" Republican. You can kid yourself by becoming even more Republican than the Republicans you've voted for, going corporate anarchist "Libertarian", but you're a Republican. No different from anything else. You complain most loudly about what you're most guilty of.
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Yes but saying your bad guys are "smart" helps to sell a game, look at how long Far Cry I was when it came to sales because all the reviewers gushed about how the AI would gang up on you. That still don't change the fact that what we have in the vast majority of games is AI frankly barely above Daikatana levels because AI is very very hard while piling nicer models or bigger booms is not.
That also don't change the fact that we haven't seen shit from our MIC that wasn't massively over budget and underperforming in years. As one pointed out on another thread the reason we stopped short of Baghdad in GWI was that the M1 blew through so much gas the things would run dry chasing 50 year old Soviet tanks that could go twice as far on a tank, why? because they spent all the money on fancy guns and big motors and didn't look at logistics. Now to expect the same bunch of bozos that can't build a plane that can fly across the date line without shutting down to build skynet? Uh huh, not gonna happen. You'd end up with another trillion dollar turkey that would need a nuclear power plant to feed it while being dumber than a chess computer.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
What do I advocate, militias instead of a standing army, and war declarations for a military strictly limited to specific wars instead of perpetual warfare? 1930s Republicans never led the charge to demilitarize into only militias instead of a standing army. If they had, we would have had it in the 1930s, but we didn't.
Roosevelt's rapid recruitment (including a draft larger than in Vietnam, by headcount and by proportion to volunteers) and rapid manufacturing tool-up showed that we could quickly turn untrained troops and a consumer industrial base into a world-dominating force of personnel, materiel, global supply chains and even astounding warfare technologies.
You somehow think that if we're not bombing someplace or preparing to (the two phases of America's endless loop) we're isolated from it. Postwar Japan and Germany prove you wrong. America's global engagement is always damaged by our global perpetual warfare and the standing army that ensures it. Retiring that in favor of the Constitution would leave us far more engaged with the world, less isolated from our attack targets, those who fear to be next, and those who fear to be forced to join us in the attacks. And we could invest the $TRILLIONS saved annually in business, diplomacy, or private enterprise. Especially as our violent enemies are best addressed by small and mostly covert return forces, our gargantuan and constant military is becoming entirely a liability instead of an asset, as well as helping destroy the Constitution it's always betrayed in spirit.
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