Only TEPCO's nuclear power stations suffered heavy damage by tsunami in Tohoku's coast. Japan Atomic Power Co's Tokai NPS and Tohoku Electric Co's Hamaoka NPS survived the quake and tsunami with minimum damage. Hamaoka survived despite being closer to the epicenter, and Tokai NPS didn't get much damage thanks to heeding the advice of experts in 2006-2007 that said their seawalls were too low for the tsunamis that could affect the coast and raised them. TEPCO did nothing. It was TEPCO's regulatory capture and negligence what made this ecological and economic disaster to happen.
I fully agree with your first comment and your point about unions. I'm a government's unionized worker, I like the benefits and backing of my union, but I hate the way many of my coworkers mistreat citizens, they can't get inside their boneheads the idea that we are public servants, so we must always strive to serve the public to the best of our abilities and means.
Well, I think that the point of the long training in "Starship Troopers" was to be long enough to wed out people that expected an easy way to get citizenship an become an elected official. Certainly, since the main point was to give citizenship only to people able to put first the welfare of his society before his personal welfare, an obvious improvement over Heinlein's model could be that serving in emergency services like disaster relief or firefighters would be equivalent to doing the military service for citizenship.
Another reason in the book for military service was to not have chickenhawks in government and to avoid an scenario like the real WWI or the imaginary WWIII in "Starship Troopers". We can speculate that a presidency veterans like McCain, Clark or Kerry would have had less wars than the ones done by Clinton, Bush Jr. or Obama that never set foot on a war zone.
I have read both books and I liked them. A friend of me lent me "The Forever War" and certainly, it was pointing the drawbacks of a "Starship Troopers" style society even if it wasn't exactly the purpose of the book. I think that Heinlein didn't expect much from people per se, but he really believed in the power of education and he didn't foresee a society with a mayority of sociopaths. I specially like and agree with his theory of morality; myself, being in Mexico, I can see that the guy was on the right track, but I must confess my ignorance if another philosopher stated that theory before Heinlein.
I don't understand why some people called Heinlein a fascist. It was plainly clear that he valued too much freedom and human life, so, in such an important matter like war, certainly is necessary to be damn sure that war and violence are the only available option, and not because a leader needs to appear strong to woe voters, because $deity said so, or because he put his dick in the wrong lady.
But you are under the assumption that a dictatorship doesn't ever have a sizable support among the population. That never has been the case. Dictatorships have always a small but large enough minority to maintain control, and in the particular example of Castro, he has been in power for 53 years, and the regime will stay for the foreseeable future, no matter how much is Cuba in USA's doorstep.
Sorry, thats what Stalin wanted, but Sergei Korolev, the key man behind USSR's space program was as good than any german enginer, the russians had enough knowledge of rocketry with the Katyusha and their own Jet Propulsion Research Institute. The R-7 and derivatives are clearly different from any german or USA's built rocket.
For kitchens, workshops and kids the tablet form factor is way better than anything with a real keyboard. Despite having a large glass surface they are less prone to break or get damaged by a liquid spill than a netbook or laptop.
The easier fix would be to provide a nice machine with almost fully open access to the web and/or internet, and a good enough machine to keep control of the SCADA system, that way you have your system operators happy, alert all the time and without any need to break security procedures.
I have a telescope that, outside the moon, I can't really see much due light pollution, but can't stop to get amazed every time I see moon craters. Maybe the pictures are doctored but even so, I love to see beatiful pictures like these published. If I were american, I would feel enormously proud for stuff like this instead of the last bombing campaign of USAF or CIA.
Well, instead of the CIA looking for "not so secret iranian Revolutionary Corps facility in Teheran to bomb" they will need to look around thousands of generic gyms. The thing is almost hidden in plain sight, but for this reason, harder to find.
But legalization will make drugs mostly a public health problem, like it is and should be. The huge black market for drugs turn this awful public health problem in a national security problem for many countries without reducing a pinch the health problem. Legalization will free all the funds wasted in useless anti drugs agencies to do a more effective treatment of current addicts and do better preventive campaigns. Advertising for drugs can be restricted or forbidden, in the same way that tobacco and alcoholic beverages advertising is in most countries.
Still, all the ones that want to get drugged manage to do it; actually, the illegality of drugs, specially in USA, is a very small deterrent to drug users.
More than that, the right to only be searched under a court order, the right of freedom of movement, the right to work, the right to live (trigger happy cops), the right to not be discriminated, the right to enjoy equal protection under law. Now, the war on terror is part of the slippery slope. "We are searching you because we are fighting those evil terrorists, also, we are fighting those evil drug smugglers. Do you resist? Are you in favor of terrorists and stoners?"
If I were in the iranians shoes, I understand why they did it. Hell, here in Mexico with the raging drug war and the ATF supplying weapons to the drug cartels and a lot of human rights abuses done by the security forces fighting a war in USA's behalf, is a testament of how much we like american people that the USA's flag is still respected.
In the short time I was in USA I was well treated and all the americans that I have personally meet are really nice people, but I simply can't understand the lack of empathy of a significant majority of americans that think that foreigners don't have a problem if USAF start dropping bombs in their cities or that we can have democracy only as long the leader we choose put USA's priorities before the interest of our nations.
This was my first thought too. This overrides the need to decrypt the command and control signals and forces the USAF to do a very laborious review and audit of their computer systems and assume that iranians know perfectly how much the americans know about their defenses. The psychological effect of this is enormous. In effect, the iranians have killed any chance of being attacked by the USA this winter unless they do something really stupid or Obama becomes Bush's style insane.
We had 2 attacks from Zetas and guerrillas in oil installations around 3 years ago. They have been stopped since these installations are under surveillance of a fleet of drones made in Israel and USA and army detachments. The narco war was begun by american imposed drunken moron SOB, at the beginning only as a mean to start a propaganda war, but now it is being used as a mean to sink more the country in a semi colonial state. USA's TSA and customs agents supervise our main airports and ports since 2008, so, if the flow of drugs and the killings didn't stop is because some guys in Washington don't want to stop it.
For the record, I would love to see my country become more like Western Europe or Japan than the picture of a nightmarish future USA/world it is today.
Power generation and transmision installations are key to the security and welfare of people, so if decent people, untrained managed to break the security of a nuclear power station what could have been done by trained enemies that intended to do damage? The problem is that the managers of Fukushima and the managers of EDF can't understand that the whole power plant complex is necessary for the proper security of the power station. If they don't see it that way then they will begin to cut corners until the security of the critical parts become irremediably compromised, just like it has been demonstrated in this case and in the case of Fukushima Daichi. The effects, of course, are not comparable, but this breach and the disaster of Fukushima are things that simply shouldn't never have happened.
Slashdot Mirror
Only TEPCO's nuclear power stations suffered heavy damage by tsunami in Tohoku's coast. Japan Atomic Power Co's Tokai NPS and Tohoku Electric Co's Hamaoka NPS survived the quake and tsunami with minimum damage. Hamaoka survived despite being closer to the epicenter, and Tokai NPS didn't get much damage thanks to heeding the advice of experts in 2006-2007 that said their seawalls were too low for the tsunamis that could affect the coast and raised them. TEPCO did nothing. It was TEPCO's regulatory capture and negligence what made this ecological and economic disaster to happen.
You made my day. Thank you!
ROTFL
P.S.
I fully agree with your first comment and your point about unions. I'm a government's unionized worker, I like the benefits and backing of my union, but I hate the way many of my coworkers mistreat citizens, they can't get inside their boneheads the idea that we are public servants, so we must always strive to serve the public to the best of our abilities and means.
Well, I think that the point of the long training in "Starship Troopers" was to be long enough to wed out people that expected an easy way to get citizenship an become an elected official. Certainly, since the main point was to give citizenship only to people able to put first the welfare of his society before his personal welfare, an obvious improvement over Heinlein's model could be that serving in emergency services like disaster relief or firefighters would be equivalent to doing the military service for citizenship.
Another reason in the book for military service was to not have chickenhawks in government and to avoid an scenario like the real WWI or the imaginary WWIII in "Starship Troopers". We can speculate that a presidency veterans like McCain, Clark or Kerry would have had less wars than the ones done by Clinton, Bush Jr. or Obama that never set foot on a war zone.
Best Regards
I have read both books and I liked them. A friend of me lent me "The Forever War" and certainly, it was pointing the drawbacks of a "Starship Troopers" style society even if it wasn't exactly the purpose of the book. I think that Heinlein didn't expect much from people per se, but he really believed in the power of education and he didn't foresee a society with a mayority of sociopaths. I specially like and agree with his theory of morality; myself, being in Mexico, I can see that the guy was on the right track, but I must confess my ignorance if another philosopher stated that theory before Heinlein.
I don't understand why some people called Heinlein a fascist. It was plainly clear that he valued too much freedom and human life, so, in such an important matter like war, certainly is necessary to be damn sure that war and violence are the only available option, and not because a leader needs to appear strong to woe voters, because $deity said so, or because he put his dick in the wrong lady.
That's what they are doing. And, as a side note, put an end to the lie that commerce brings peace.
But you are under the assumption that a dictatorship doesn't ever have a sizable support among the population. That never has been the case. Dictatorships have always a small but large enough minority to maintain control, and in the particular example of Castro, he has been in power for 53 years, and the regime will stay for the foreseeable future, no matter how much is Cuba in USA's doorstep.
Someone really must mod up parent.
RIP, and thanks for all the fun. He spent well his time.
From the same company that rejected Wozniak's Apple I, they appear to try to make Xerox feel better about that PARC thing.
Sorry, thats what Stalin wanted, but Sergei Korolev, the key man behind USSR's space program was as good than any german enginer, the russians had enough knowledge of rocketry with the Katyusha and their own Jet Propulsion Research Institute. The R-7 and derivatives are clearly different from any german or USA's built rocket.
For kitchens, workshops and kids the tablet form factor is way better than anything with a real keyboard. Despite having a large glass surface they are less prone to break or get damaged by a liquid spill than a netbook or laptop.
The easier fix would be to provide a nice machine with almost fully open access to the web and/or internet, and a good enough machine to keep control of the SCADA system, that way you have your system operators happy, alert all the time and without any need to break security procedures.
He really is new here :)
I have a telescope that, outside the moon, I can't really see much due light pollution, but can't stop to get amazed every time I see moon craters. Maybe the pictures are doctored but even so, I love to see beatiful pictures like these published. If I were american, I would feel enormously proud for stuff like this instead of the last bombing campaign of USAF or CIA.
My hat off to the Hubble team.
Best Regards
Well, death by excessive amusement beats death by a JDAM blowing you up. Maybe this is the real reason of why Obama got the Peace Nobel prize.
Well, instead of the CIA looking for "not so secret iranian Revolutionary Corps facility in Teheran to bomb" they will need to look around thousands of generic gyms. The thing is almost hidden in plain sight, but for this reason, harder to find.
Iran should return the drone when the USA gives back them their murdered scientists and teachers.
But legalization will make drugs mostly a public health problem, like it is and should be. The huge black market for drugs turn this awful public health problem in a national security problem for many countries without reducing a pinch the health problem. Legalization will free all the funds wasted in useless anti drugs agencies to do a more effective treatment of current addicts and do better preventive campaigns. Advertising for drugs can be restricted or forbidden, in the same way that tobacco and alcoholic beverages advertising is in most countries.
Still, all the ones that want to get drugged manage to do it; actually, the illegality of drugs, specially in USA, is a very small deterrent to drug users.
More than that, the right to only be searched under a court order, the right of freedom of movement, the right to work, the right to live (trigger happy cops), the right to not be discriminated, the right to enjoy equal protection under law. Now, the war on terror is part of the slippery slope. "We are searching you because we are fighting those evil terrorists, also, we are fighting those evil drug smugglers. Do you resist? Are you in favor of terrorists and stoners?"
If I were in the iranians shoes, I understand why they did it. Hell, here in Mexico with the raging drug war and the ATF supplying weapons to the drug cartels and a lot of human rights abuses done by the security forces fighting a war in USA's behalf, is a testament of how much we like american people that the USA's flag is still respected.
In the short time I was in USA I was well treated and all the americans that I have personally meet are really nice people, but I simply can't understand the lack of empathy of a significant majority of americans that think that foreigners don't have a problem if USAF start dropping bombs in their cities or that we can have democracy only as long the leader we choose put USA's priorities before the interest of our nations.
This was my first thought too. This overrides the need to decrypt the command and control signals and forces the USAF to do a very laborious review and audit of their computer systems and assume that iranians know perfectly how much the americans know about their defenses. The psychological effect of this is enormous. In effect, the iranians have killed any chance of being attacked by the USA this winter unless they do something really stupid or Obama becomes Bush's style insane.
We had 2 attacks from Zetas and guerrillas in oil installations around 3 years ago. They have been stopped since these installations are under surveillance of a fleet of drones made in Israel and USA and army detachments. The narco war was begun by american imposed drunken moron SOB, at the beginning only as a mean to start a propaganda war, but now it is being used as a mean to sink more the country in a semi colonial state. USA's TSA and customs agents supervise our main airports and ports since 2008, so, if the flow of drugs and the killings didn't stop is because some guys in Washington don't want to stop it.
For the record, I would love to see my country become more like Western Europe or Japan than the picture of a nightmarish future USA/world it is today.
Power generation and transmision installations are key to the security and welfare of people, so if decent people, untrained managed to break the security of a nuclear power station what could have been done by trained enemies that intended to do damage? The problem is that the managers of Fukushima and the managers of EDF can't understand that the whole power plant complex is necessary for the proper security of the power station. If they don't see it that way then they will begin to cut corners until the security of the critical parts become irremediably compromised, just like it has been demonstrated in this case and in the case of Fukushima Daichi. The effects, of course, are not comparable, but this breach and the disaster of Fukushima are things that simply shouldn't never have happened.
Best regards