I saw something like that on R Lee Ermy's Mail Call on History channel.
USMC is taking regular weapons, hooking them up to compressors and feeding them strips of firing caps and then let them fire on screens with situations projected on them.
Everything is hooked up to computers so the refs can see where the bullets are going and the trainies are getting used to the weapons going off with the recoil and sound.
Because those good people from the land of the Angel Moronai couldn't talk about this stuff at bars like the people who came up with the High Sierra or El Torito CD formats did, or like the Firewire people did, they only get to talk about stuff at Church, where you can't talk and at Applebees and Olive Garden after church where they have to talk over the sound of 89 kids.
I have nothing but love for the big red N and the good people from Novell.
Go Novell!
Re:CIA Humint - Sigint - Remote Sensing
on
IT at the CIA
·
· Score: 1
And what happened between 8 am PDT and 9am PDT?
Nothing.
Just because nothing happened doesn't mean the Spooks from CIA busted through a window somewhere and stopped Dr. Evil.
I'm not anti-intellegence, it's just from what one reads about the CIA's failures/successes seems to make it look like they ain't doing a very good job.
When it comes to counter-intel they like to play who-can-be-the-biggest-idiots with FBI.
Re:Not a fair accounting....
on
IT at the CIA
·
· Score: 1
Which is funny because all through the 80s the DoD published Soviet Military Power that wildly overstated WP military strength and systems deployment.
I have the 83,85,86,87,88,89 SMPs and they were claiming the Mi-28 would be in service by 1988 and it's still only in limited Russian deployment and very limited foreign military sales.
CIA Humint - Sigint - Remote Sensing
on
IT at the CIA
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
The CIA's problem isn't a lack of funding, a lack of agents in the field or a lack of IT.
The problem is that since 1980 it hasn't figured out anything in advance.
1983 Hezbollah attacks on France/US missed 1983 Marxist revolt in Granada missed 1989 Czech border reforms missed 1989 E. Germany fall missed 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait missed 1991 Coup attempt in USSR missed 1992-94 Islamists in Somalia missed 1993 Bombing of WTC missed 1998 African Embassy bombings missed 1999 Attempt on DDG Sullivans missed 2000 Bombing of Cole missed 2001 WTC/Pentagon missed
Clancy has been a CIA supporter for a long-time even though they don't accomplish anything anymore.
I read the Hunt for Bin Laden which is about the Green Berets in Afghanistan which doesn't have anything nice to say about CIA either.
Since the Second World War military technology has advanced by leaps and bounds.
From 1945 to 1985 the United States, EU countries and Soviet Union advanced at about the same rate.
Since 1985 the United States focused on decapatating weapons for it's Air-Land Battle 2000 view of battle tactics for Western Europe. Cruise Missiles, Aegis, Patriot, Copperhead, GPS, LGBs, Hellfire, Apache, A-10, F-15E.
By 1990-92 the US was about a generation ahead of the USSR in weapons systems. By 1999 it was about 2 generations ahead. By 2001-03 its about 3 generations ahead.
This focus on decapatating systems leads the US military to strike mainly at Command/Control/Communications (C3) which leads to dimminished casualties.
1991 - the US carpet bombed the Iraqis 2003 - the US dropped GPS guided bombs on C3 sites and achived the same result, the destruction of the regular forces as a fighting force.
I find it terrible to compare a military or a nation that goes out of it's way to minimize casualties during a conflict to those who go out of thier way to maximize casualties during a conflict.
If the US Government funds a study it's automagically a lie. If someone else funds it is automagically the truth.
Got it.
I wish THC was a magic bullet for cancer, I really do. I've had cancer twice, and I've lost an uncle and a grandmother and friends to cancer.
But it's not a magic bullet. There is no magic bullet for cancer, even then best treatments will never save everyone.
Benzine, genes, solar radiation, man-made radiation, coffee, tea, opiates, ants, licking toads, farting around blank CD-Rs it all causes cancer.
The AP says the UN says that cancer rates are increasing
"The number of new cancer cases worldwide is expected to increase by 50 percent over the next 20 years, partly because poor nations are adopting unhealthy Western habits, the World Health Organization said Thursday."
"Worldwide, about 10 million people are diagnosed with cancer every year and 6 million people die from it. The report projects that the annual number of diagnoses will reach 15 million by 2020, based on current trends in smoking, diet and exercise."
Part of the problem is likely that people don't die of things that killed them sooner in life so the environmental things that help cause cancer have time to kick in. Plus the benzine, Windows NT SP 3, toad licking and the couple cubic feet of gas from Three Mile Island in 1979.
I'm sure in your mind, someone that dies from skin cancer from staying out in the sun too much in Hong Kong died because of US drug policy.
And for every study linking THC to stopping cancer there is a study refuting that.
UCLA says smoking weed leads to lung cancer and that THC supresses anti-tumor immune responses.
"Or another example, our criminalizing the use of intravenous drugs, knowing full well that needle-borne diseases like AIDS/HIV would spread like wildfire, killing even more people."
Criminalizing IV drugs spreads AIDS? Is that like criminalizing cats spreads mice?
The fact is that the majority of AIDS/HIV transmission comes from sex and from infected mothers giving birth, not drugs.
These "indisputable" facts are easily disputed. There is zero evidence that THC would be a magic cure for the hundreds of cancers. And there is no way that anyone can blame the US for the 6 million cancer deaths world-wide.
If it's so indisputable, then the Ministries/Departments/Directorates of Health of the other 200+ nation-states on Earth and the World Health Organization are equally guilty.
I will stand by the facts. If you pile up the bodies, Communism, Socialism, Facism, and Fundamentalism have killed tens of millions more than the United States has in the last 100 years.
For all of the faults of the US, I don't think that anyone has any right to call them barbaric.
Europe 1914-18 - 10 million dead on Western Front Europe 1914-17 - 2 million dead on Eastern Front Europe 1939-45 - 12 million killed in death camps Europe 1992-1999 - 250,000 killed in Former Yugoslavia Russia 1918-1953 - 30-40 million starved to death, executed, slaughtered, etc Europe 1941-45 - 20-30 million killed on Eastern Front Europe - Post WW2 - killed while 790,000 repatriated to USSR China - 1933-45 - 12 million killed China - 1949-75 - 30-50 million starved to death, executed, slaughtered, etc Algerian War - at least 36,000 killed Pakistan - 1971 - 1-3 million Bengalis killed Cambodia 1973-1980 - 1-3 million killed Vietnam - 1945-75 - 1.2 million killed by US, No. Vietnam, So. Vietnam, France Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos - 1-3 million killed by Communists following Vietnam War Iraq - 2003 - 15-50 thousand killed Iraq - 1990 - 25-100 thousand killed Somalia - 1992-94 2-8 thousand killed Granada 1983 - 2-6 hundred killed or wounded Panama 1989 - 1-2 thousand killed
I'm all for the EU creating something like this Nav System, I'm also all for the EU defending it's self.
But it's not right to call America barbaric when the US fronts and wars are among the least bloody in the last 100 years.
Apple is putting stores in the Seattle Metro area and in Portland.
The Computer Store is alright, but they charge out the ass for RAM, game software and other add-ons.
Also, thier staff seems to be the best kind of know-it-all geek.
I've bought 5 or 6 computers from the Computer Store in Portland and Eugene as well as alot of software but in the last year I've stopped purchasing from them.
I'd bought a Firefly 1.8 inch Firewire HD from Apple Store and went to Computer Store Tigard OR for another one.
When I asked for a 5GB 1.8 inch Firewire drive I was told with a sneer "No one makes 5 gig drives anymore." I pointed at an iPod there and said, "Well Apple gets 5GB drives from Toshiba." I was told it wasn't a 1.8 because such a thing didn't exsist and shouldn't beleave the Internet about such things.
The Computer Store forgot something, that the Customer is always right.
Before Challenger they were, Hubble and KH-12 have similar chasis for Shuttle launches, but after the delay from Challenger NRO/NSA/DMA switched to Titan for KH and Lacrosse.
Commerical sat launches were outlawed by Congress after Challenger and while some recce birds were launched by Shuttle after Challenger, it was due to problems with Delta/Titan which have been fixed and so for the last decade they do the launching.
Everything now is launched by the Russians, Chinese, Delta, Ariane, Titan, Sealaunch now.
Nor does Shuttle capture and repair anything anymore but Hubble.
This sort of thing is easy to do monthes later when we can say, "yea there was a hole and it made the wing fail".
But at the time there was only evidence of foam falling. NASA could have had a recon sat take a look at Shuttle during an orbit but what if the damage was too small to spot? They couldn't spacewalk out there and examine that point on the Columbia.
They couldn't have said "Well there might be a hole, stop everything, we'll rush another Shuttle up there and try to do a risky space transfer that's never been done and then leave a 110 ton uncontrolled craft up there to tumble back to earth on it's own."
What if they'd rushed a second one up and there was a problem because of that rush and two were lost?
It's tragic, and the energy needs to be spent on fixing the problems with the remaining three and getting replacements.
Not sure about the EU's laws on currency but the US has the following
http://www.moneyfactory.com/document.cfm/18/104
"Defacement of currency is a violation of Title 18, Section 333 of the United States Code. Under this provision, currency defacement is generally defined as follows: Whoever mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, Federal Reserve Bank, or Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued, shall be fined not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both."
Now I'm sure someone will complain about my talking up the F-22 and claim I'm over Tom Clancy'ing it's capabilities or something.
My info came from International Air Power Review Volume 5 pages 60-62 and covers the ALR-94 passive receiver, Intra-Flight Datalink and APG-77 radar in non-cooperative target recognition and jet engine modulation modes.
"Listen to the techno-slobberers, and you'd think the networks that brought unprecedented communication among U.S. troops popped up, fully formed, out of the Mesopotamian sand."
I really like his site, but he pooh-poos the advances going on and the time it takes to develop systems a little much.
For the most part the units used in Iraq were heavy formations with traditional equipment.
Slate wrote "JUNK THE APACHE"
Forget about the fact it was during a sand storm and the first time a new version (D - Longbow) was used in massed formations
There has been alot of press made about the US military's changes in the way it communicates and it's desire to "swarm" on an enemy instead of the old way it and every other army has moved and communicated.
Basicly since the Romans every conventional army moved like a great set of parallel lines with interconnecting lines between them for communication and supply.
There has been a layer of abstraction between what the Generals tell the Colonels, what the Colonels tell the Captains, what the Captains tell the Lieutenants and what the Lieutenants tell thier soldiers.
Since the Revolution the layers of abstraction grew wider and wider.
By the Second World War, the United States Army had the widest gulf between the commanders and the men at the front of any Army in the European Theatre of Operation.
By Vietnam it was worse and the Gulf War it came to a head when Schwarzkopf canned a General who refused to advance due to a lack of fuel for his M-1s.
Now what is happening is remarkably fast adaptation of technology and communications systems for an Army.
In Afghanistan it was possible for A-Teams on the ground to contact the Pentagon directly and request supplies for themselves or thier allies on the ground and to have those things loaded within hours on C-17s.
Beyond the chat-rooms and GPS are the data-links between aircraft like the newer F-15s, F-22s, Grippens, Comanche, or data-links between ships, helicopters and patrol aircraft.
An example of this can be seen in the F-22. The radar of the F-22 has many modes, but one of them is to sit there dark and listen for radar signals, then it sends out pencil thin beams to detect the engines of an aircraft and it compiles a list of possible types from that signature. Using a data-link the detecting F-22 can send back detailed target information and aircraft behind the lead aircraft can launch AIM-120 missiles on a profile to light thier radars only when they get close to the target.
People have been pooh-pooing this revolution in communication and sensors in the press, but I think there is an assumption of rapid technology adpotion in the private sector that just doesn't happen in the military, but as militaries go the United States is adopting at a revolutionary rate.
And how many hundreds of birds would it take to cover the contiental United States?
Plus theres the problem that Keyhole can't see through clouds, so then you deal with lower resolution Lacrosse SAR imaging.
It'd take hundreds or thousands of birds in low earth orbit over the US to cover everything from every angle, plus in urban centers it would be next to worthless, so then you have to cover them with UAVs. I'd expect LA would take a couple hundred UAVs to cover completely.
In a few years there will be 300 million people in the United States with roughly a 140 million autos on 6.7 million km of roads and nearly 15,000 airstrips.
There is no way that in a few years there will be any way anyone can track the movements of all those people and vehicles.
"So, the part I don't understand is, if the people who wrote the bill of rights thought that everyone should always have the right to bear arms under any circumstances, then why did they put it in the context of a "well regulated Militia"?"
Because when they wrote it, they assumed all adult white males were in the milita.
Over time that changed but the words in the Constitution remained the same.
Around the turn of the century, Congress passed a law that explained the milita aspect somewhat.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/10/311.html The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
The classes of the militia are - The organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/10/312.html Sec. 312. - Militia duty: exemptions
The following persons are exempt from militia duty:
The Vice President.
The judicial and executive officers of the United States, the several States and Territories, and Puerto Rico.
Members of the armed forces, except members who are not on active duty.
Customhouse clerks.
Persons employed by the United States in the transmission of mail.
Workmen employed in armories, arsenals, and naval shipyards of the United States.
Pilots on navigable waters.
Mariners in the sea service of a citizen of, or a merchant in, the United States.
A person who claims exemption because of religious belief is exempt from militia duty in a combatant capacity, if the conscientious holding of that belief is established under such regulations as the President may prescribe. However, such a person is not exempt from militia duty that the President determines to be noncombatant
So what the NRA goes by for it's outlook on the citizen milita here is US Code
Slashdot Mirror
This is totally off-topic...
But how can someone fail repeatedly with rifles?
It boggles me...
They push the Stinger Advantage because SA-14s from the old Soviet Client states are 1/4th the price.
I saw something like that on R Lee Ermy's Mail Call on History channel.
USMC is taking regular weapons, hooking them up to compressors and feeding them strips of firing caps and then let them fire on screens with situations projected on them.
Everything is hooked up to computers so the refs can see where the bullets are going and the trainies are getting used to the weapons going off with the recoil and sound.
The US has gotten really really good at overwhelming force.
But the US is lacking in less-than-lethal, mine clearing, engineering and base security.
From my little browse of the site it looks like that is the focus here.
Heaven and Hell - about Led Zeppelin
The Culture books by Iain Banks - I would start with Player of Games or Use of Weapons
The Bear Went over the Mountain - Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan
Cartoon History of the Universe series Volumes 1-3
Because those good people from the land of the Angel Moronai couldn't talk about this stuff at bars like the people who came up with the High Sierra or El Torito CD formats did, or like the Firewire people did, they only get to talk about stuff at Church, where you can't talk and at Applebees and Olive Garden after church where they have to talk over the sound of 89 kids.
I have nothing but love for the big red N and the good people from Novell.
Go Novell!
And what happened between 8 am PDT and 9am PDT?
Nothing.
Just because nothing happened doesn't mean the Spooks from CIA busted through a window somewhere and stopped Dr. Evil.
I'm not anti-intellegence, it's just from what one reads about the CIA's failures/successes seems to make it look like they ain't doing a very good job.
When it comes to counter-intel they like to play who-can-be-the-biggest-idiots with FBI.
Which is funny because all through the 80s the DoD published Soviet Military Power that wildly overstated WP military strength and systems deployment.
I have the 83,85,86,87,88,89 SMPs and they were claiming the Mi-28 would be in service by 1988 and it's still only in limited Russian deployment and very limited foreign military sales.
The CIA's problem isn't a lack of funding, a lack of agents in the field or a lack of IT.
The problem is that since 1980 it hasn't figured out anything in advance.
1983 Hezbollah attacks on France/US missed
1983 Marxist revolt in Granada missed
1989 Czech border reforms missed
1989 E. Germany fall missed
1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait missed
1991 Coup attempt in USSR missed
1992-94 Islamists in Somalia missed
1993 Bombing of WTC missed
1998 African Embassy bombings missed
1999 Attempt on DDG Sullivans missed
2000 Bombing of Cole missed
2001 WTC/Pentagon missed
Clancy has been a CIA supporter for a long-time even though they don't accomplish anything anymore.
I read the Hunt for Bin Laden which is about the Green Berets in Afghanistan which doesn't have anything nice to say about CIA either.
I just don't see how they are relavent anymore.
Since the Second World War military technology has advanced by leaps and bounds.
From 1945 to 1985 the United States, EU countries and Soviet Union advanced at about the same rate.
Since 1985 the United States focused on decapatating weapons for it's Air-Land Battle 2000 view of battle tactics for Western Europe. Cruise Missiles, Aegis, Patriot, Copperhead, GPS, LGBs, Hellfire, Apache, A-10, F-15E.
By 1990-92 the US was about a generation ahead of the USSR in weapons systems. By 1999 it was about 2 generations ahead. By 2001-03 its about 3 generations ahead.
This focus on decapatating systems leads the US military to strike mainly at Command/Control/Communications (C3) which leads to dimminished casualties.
1991 - the US carpet bombed the Iraqis
2003 - the US dropped GPS guided bombs on C3 sites and achived the same result, the destruction of the regular forces as a fighting force.
I find it terrible to compare a military or a nation that goes out of it's way to minimize casualties during a conflict to those who go out of thier way to maximize casualties during a conflict.
If the US Government funds a study it's automagically a lie. If someone else funds it is automagically the truth.
Got it.
I wish THC was a magic bullet for cancer, I really do. I've had cancer twice, and I've lost an uncle and a grandmother and friends to cancer.
But it's not a magic bullet. There is no magic bullet for cancer, even then best treatments will never save everyone.
Benzine, genes, solar radiation, man-made radiation, coffee, tea, opiates, ants, licking toads, farting around blank CD-Rs it all causes cancer.
The AP says the UN says that cancer rates are increasing
"The number of new cancer cases worldwide is expected to increase by 50 percent over the next 20 years, partly because poor nations are adopting unhealthy Western habits, the World Health Organization said Thursday."
"Worldwide, about 10 million people are diagnosed with cancer every year and 6 million people die from it. The report projects that the annual number of diagnoses will reach 15 million by 2020, based on current trends in smoking, diet and exercise."
Part of the problem is likely that people don't die of things that killed them sooner in life so the environmental things that help cause cancer have time to kick in. Plus the benzine, Windows NT SP 3, toad licking and the couple cubic feet of gas from Three Mile Island in 1979.
I'm sure in your mind, someone that dies from skin cancer from staying out in the sun too much in Hong Kong died because of US drug policy.
And for every study linking THC to stopping cancer there is a study refuting that.
UCLA says smoking weed leads to lung cancer and that THC supresses anti-tumor immune responses.
"Or another example, our criminalizing the use of intravenous drugs, knowing full well that needle-borne diseases like AIDS/HIV would spread like wildfire, killing even more people."
Criminalizing IV drugs spreads AIDS? Is that like criminalizing cats spreads mice?
The fact is that the majority of AIDS/HIV transmission comes from sex and from infected mothers giving birth, not drugs.
These "indisputable" facts are easily disputed. There is zero evidence that THC would be a magic cure for the hundreds of cancers. And there is no way that anyone can blame the US for the 6 million cancer deaths world-wide.
If it's so indisputable, then the Ministries/Departments/Directorates of Health of the other 200+ nation-states on Earth and the World Health Organization are equally guilty.
I will stand by the facts. If you pile up the bodies, Communism, Socialism, Facism, and Fundamentalism have killed tens of millions more than the United States has in the last 100 years.
For all of the faults of the US, I don't think that anyone has any right to call them barbaric.
Europe 1914-18 - 10 million dead on Western Front
Europe 1914-17 - 2 million dead on Eastern Front
Europe 1939-45 - 12 million killed in death camps
Europe 1992-1999 - 250,000 killed in Former Yugoslavia
Russia 1918-1953 - 30-40 million starved to death, executed, slaughtered, etc
Europe 1941-45 - 20-30 million killed on Eastern Front
Europe - Post WW2 - killed while 790,000 repatriated to USSR
China - 1933-45 - 12 million killed
China - 1949-75 - 30-50 million starved to death, executed, slaughtered, etc
Algerian War - at least 36,000 killed
Pakistan - 1971 - 1-3 million Bengalis killed
Cambodia 1973-1980 - 1-3 million killed
Vietnam - 1945-75 - 1.2 million killed by US, No. Vietnam, So. Vietnam, France
Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos - 1-3 million killed by Communists following Vietnam War
Iraq - 2003 - 15-50 thousand killed
Iraq - 1990 - 25-100 thousand killed
Somalia - 1992-94 2-8 thousand killed
Granada 1983 - 2-6 hundred killed or wounded
Panama 1989 - 1-2 thousand killed
I'm all for the EU creating something like this Nav System, I'm also all for the EU defending it's self.
But it's not right to call America barbaric when the US fronts and wars are among the least bloody in the last 100 years.
Apple is putting stores in the Seattle Metro area and in Portland.
The Computer Store is alright, but they charge out the ass for RAM, game software and other add-ons.
Also, thier staff seems to be the best kind of know-it-all geek.
I've bought 5 or 6 computers from the Computer Store in Portland and Eugene as well as alot of software but in the last year I've stopped purchasing from them.
I'd bought a Firefly 1.8 inch Firewire HD from Apple Store and went to Computer Store Tigard OR for another one.
When I asked for a 5GB 1.8 inch Firewire drive I was told with a sneer "No one makes 5 gig drives anymore." I pointed at an iPod there and said, "Well Apple gets 5GB drives from Toshiba." I was told it wasn't a 1.8 because such a thing didn't exsist and shouldn't beleave the Internet about such things.
The Computer Store forgot something, that the Customer is always right.
Satellites are no longer launched by Shuttle.
Before Challenger they were, Hubble and KH-12 have similar chasis for Shuttle launches, but after the delay from Challenger NRO/NSA/DMA switched to Titan for KH and Lacrosse.
Commerical sat launches were outlawed by Congress after Challenger and while some recce birds were launched by Shuttle after Challenger, it was due to problems with Delta/Titan which have been fixed and so for the last decade they do the launching.
Everything now is launched by the Russians, Chinese, Delta, Ariane, Titan, Sealaunch now.
Nor does Shuttle capture and repair anything anymore but Hubble.
This sort of thing is easy to do monthes later when we can say, "yea there was a hole and it made the wing fail".
But at the time there was only evidence of foam falling. NASA could have had a recon sat take a look at Shuttle during an orbit but what if the damage was too small to spot? They couldn't spacewalk out there and examine that point on the Columbia.
They couldn't have said "Well there might be a hole, stop everything, we'll rush another Shuttle up there and try to do a risky space transfer that's never been done and then leave a 110 ton uncontrolled craft up there to tumble back to earth on it's own."
What if they'd rushed a second one up and there was a problem because of that rush and two were lost?
It's tragic, and the energy needs to be spent on fixing the problems with the remaining three and getting replacements.
Not sure about the EU's laws on currency but the US has the following
http://www.moneyfactory.com/document.cfm/18/104
"Defacement of currency is a violation of Title 18, Section 333 of the United States Code. Under this provision, currency defacement is generally defined as follows: Whoever mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, Federal Reserve Bank, or Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued, shall be fined not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both."
Health Insurance usually costs around 50-60% of the total HR budget in the US now.
Toss in retirement and life insurance and other crap and things add up quick.
Now I'm sure someone will complain about my talking up the F-22 and claim I'm over Tom Clancy'ing it's capabilities or something.
My info came from International Air Power Review Volume 5 pages 60-62 and covers the ALR-94 passive receiver, Intra-Flight Datalink and APG-77 radar in non-cooperative target recognition and jet engine modulation modes.
I've seen a fair amount of pooh-pooing.
From Noah Shachtman
"Listen to the techno-slobberers, and you'd think the networks that brought unprecedented communication among U.S. troops popped up, fully formed, out of the Mesopotamian sand."
I really like his site, but he pooh-poos the advances going on and the time it takes to develop systems a little much.
For the most part the units used in Iraq were heavy formations with traditional equipment.
Slate wrote "JUNK THE APACHE"
Forget about the fact it was during a sand storm and the first time a new version (D - Longbow) was used in massed formations
There has been alot of press made about the US military's changes in the way it communicates and it's desire to "swarm" on an enemy instead of the old way it and every other army has moved and communicated.
Basicly since the Romans every conventional army moved like a great set of parallel lines with interconnecting lines between them for communication and supply.
There has been a layer of abstraction between what the Generals tell the Colonels, what the Colonels tell the Captains, what the Captains tell the Lieutenants and what the Lieutenants tell thier soldiers.
Since the Revolution the layers of abstraction grew wider and wider.
By the Second World War, the United States Army had the widest gulf between the commanders and the men at the front of any Army in the European Theatre of Operation.
By Vietnam it was worse and the Gulf War it came to a head when Schwarzkopf canned a General who refused to advance due to a lack of fuel for his M-1s.
Now what is happening is remarkably fast adaptation of technology and communications systems for an Army.
In Afghanistan it was possible for A-Teams on the ground to contact the Pentagon directly and request supplies for themselves or thier allies on the ground and to have those things loaded within hours on C-17s.
Beyond the chat-rooms and GPS are the data-links between aircraft like the newer F-15s, F-22s, Grippens, Comanche, or data-links between ships, helicopters and patrol aircraft.
An example of this can be seen in the F-22. The radar of the F-22 has many modes, but one of them is to sit there dark and listen for radar signals, then it sends out pencil thin beams to detect the engines of an aircraft and it compiles a list of possible types from that signature. Using a data-link the detecting F-22 can send back detailed target information and aircraft behind the lead aircraft can launch AIM-120 missiles on a profile to light thier radars only when they get close to the target.
People have been pooh-pooing this revolution in communication and sensors in the press, but I think there is an assumption of rapid technology adpotion in the private sector that just doesn't happen in the military, but as militaries go the United States is adopting at a revolutionary rate.
All they need to do is contact Apple Education and cry for help.
I've worked with Apple Ed in Public and Private K-12s and they've always been very helpful.
Find the local area Apple people and ask.
And how many hundreds of birds would it take to cover the contiental United States?
Plus theres the problem that Keyhole can't see through clouds, so then you deal with lower resolution Lacrosse SAR imaging.
It'd take hundreds or thousands of birds in low earth orbit over the US to cover everything from every angle, plus in urban centers it would be next to worthless, so then you have to cover them with UAVs. I'd expect LA would take a couple hundred UAVs to cover completely.
The logistics of that would be very hard to do.
In a few years there will be 300 million people in the United States with roughly a 140 million autos on 6.7 million km of roads and nearly 15,000 airstrips.
There is no way that in a few years there will be any way anyone can track the movements of all those people and vehicles.
"So, the part I don't understand is, if the people who wrote the bill of rights thought that everyone should always have the right to bear arms under any circumstances, then why did they put it in the context of a "well regulated Militia"?"
Because when they wrote it, they assumed all adult white males were in the milita.
Over time that changed but the words in the Constitution remained the same.
Around the turn of the century, Congress passed a law that explained the milita aspect somewhat.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/10/311.html
The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
The classes of the militia are -
The organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/10/312.html
Sec. 312. - Militia duty: exemptions
The following persons are exempt from militia duty:
The Vice President.
The judicial and executive officers of the United States, the several States and Territories, and Puerto Rico.
Members of the armed forces, except members who are not on active duty.
Customhouse clerks.
Persons employed by the United States in the transmission of mail.
Workmen employed in armories, arsenals, and naval shipyards of the United States.
Pilots on navigable waters.
Mariners in the sea service of a citizen of, or a merchant in, the United States.
A person who claims exemption because of religious belief is exempt from militia duty in a combatant capacity, if the conscientious holding of that belief is established under such regulations as the President may prescribe. However, such a person is not exempt from militia duty that the President determines to be noncombatant
So what the NRA goes by for it's outlook on the citizen milita here is US Code