The salient question was "are you ready to die?". This wasn't a rhetorical question, and I think you're misreading me as a pacifist. I'm not in the least pacifistic. However, The average American has *no* idea what war entails, as your post illustrates handily. War in Afghanistan is an ugly, ugly business, and I don't think the US is ready to do it. What percentage of casualties are you prepared to accept to that standing army? (bane of liberty, remember)
Hi, Zico. What was your MOS? What's your military training? How 'bout at least that history major with concentration in military history, or work in a think tank? Hmm. well, looks like we can potentially spread around that "uninformed" tag. From reading your posts during the last several years, I wouldn't call you "moronic", but "willfully ignorant" may very well apply. Please do a bit of research as to what's happened to everyone who attempted to invade/overthrow Afghanistan, including Alexander, Genghis Khan (who managed to hold it for his lifetime by basically killing everyone he came in contact with), the Russians, the Brits, and the Soviets.
Well, while we're having this little scuffle in Afghanistan, the Middle East is heating up significantly, and the extremists are getting followers on both sides. In fact, looks like there'll be at least a scuffle, if not a full-on war, between either Hamas or Hizbollah and Israel relatively soon, and perhaps coups in Egypt and Jordan. There still may be a coup in Pakistan, as the radicals have quite a bit of support. Pakistan has nukes and delivery systems, y'know. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a nuclear power run by rabid radicals right next door to the 10th Mountain as they try to invade? Then, all we need is for China to decide now is the time to take back Taiwan, since we *can not* fight a two-front war. Surprise, WW3.
Kipling had something to say about this, back when the Brits tried and failed to invade Afghanistan, after the Russians failed, and before the Soviets failed.
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!
Yes, if Duh-bya was stupid enough to send in the B-52s (about the only thing we can "carpet-bomb" with), the US losses _would_ be incredibly high. You forget, these guys kicked the ass of the Soviet Union at its strongest. The last conqueror to succeed in Afghanistan was Genghis Khan, and he basically killed everyone. All I've heard about so far is cruise missile attacks, which won't solve squat. The only thing that will get the Taliban out of power is putting ground troops in. Losses will be very high, and some of you Slashdotters will likely be drafted. Ready to go die?
PalmAMP from Ironcreek Software (looks like their site is goobered, but you can find the download by Googling still) and the PalmAMP XMMS plugin should do at least a big chunk of what you're trying to do. The XMMS plugin is GPL as well, so you can perhaps turn your FIFO daemon into a converter for the PalmAMP protocol, thus saving the time of writing the GUI.
Did the Pacifica station (KPFT) go away? It used to have decent (real) punk and a goodly amount of other listenable stuff, though it was somewhat unpredictable. If you didn't know the schedule, there was a good chance you'd tune in and get half an hour of utter new age crap. 'Course, this was ten years ago, so it may have gone away or way downhill.
They're just not doing daylight savings time. Note: your "Mon Jul 2 15:13:14 EDT" is equivalent to their "Monday July 02, @02:13PM EST". Different timezones (EST vs. EDT) mean different indicated times for the same moment. Doesn't mean that they shouldn't go to UTC, since it's a worldwide site, but they're not wrong.
I'll give you the "unorganized" militia point
(i.e., arm the the rabble, the unwashed masses that make up the U.S.). Supposedly that is so citizens can stop the Government from taking over.
Actually, the base idea of the unorganized militia is to have a pool of trained (well regulated) soldiers to draw from. The imperative to have a revolution every 20 years or so, from Jefferson and others, is a separate thing. However, having the majority of the population skilled in small arms and small unit tactics makes both goals easier.
Excuse me? Small arms vs Abrams tanks, Bradley APCs, F-16, bombs, missiles, nukes, etc.?
Don't give me "little Viet Nam took on and defeated the big, bad U.S.". Most "Americans" can barely lift the remote control and you expect them to move out to the woods and fight the "evil incarnate" government?
This is, of course, a complete straw man, as I never mentioned fighting the government. However, I'll do a bit of the thinking for you, and it's easier since you've got a whole *2 years* of infantry training. Low intensity conflict doesn't mean stupid conflict. A leader with limited resources (small arms) would be silly to take on the strongest parts of his/her enemy (M-1/M2/M3/AH-64/F-16/bombs/missiles/bla bla bla). If you're able to widen your view just a bit, imagine small cells located in Columbus, GA infiltrating in the guise of some of the many civilian workers and using delayed chem/bio attacks against the "high speed" troops of Benning, where you got trained. Plus, all of your high-tech weapons are very very vulnerable to breaks in the logistical chain. (can't easily fight an Abrams with small arms, but bet a lightly guarded ammo transfer point would go up quite well with a bit of det cord. Your Abrams isn't even as effective as a bulldozer without ammo. Also, ever see how much of a hassle it is to change an M-1 power pack after its relatively fragile turbine eats a bit of sand?) If you must have small arms involved, they work just fine to take bigger arms, which was the idea behind the Liberator pistol of WWII. The model might better be Chechnya, Afghanistan, etc than Viet Nam.
Hell, most Americans love government. They want their social security checks, interstate highways, national defense and national parks. They also know that they can't trust big business to keep the very air we breath and water we drink clean!
Another straw man, but just to shoot that one down, take a look at the percentage of people in Northern Ireland that actively support the assorted resistance movements there, compared to the problems caused. For that matter, you should look up how many of the Colonists supported the Founders in their "terrorism".
Anyway, why do you duck well regulated? Could it be that regulation is a governmental task, so maybe gun control is -- dare I say it -- Constitutional?:->
Uninformed, to say the least. If you want clarification as to the intent of the Founders, check their writings (Federalist Papers, records of debates, etc. Watch that knee there:-) Plus, you might look into how many of them remained anonymous to post their writings.
Who the fuck are you to give me shit when you won't even identify yourself? I am an Army veteran "trained in firearms", so I don't have take any crap from a cowardly junior member of the Kouncil of Konservative Kaucasians!!!
Ahh, argumentum ad hominem and gratuitous abuse, the last refuges of a losing debater. My views and opinions stand for themself, following the great tradition of pseudonymous criticism. Notice, I'm logged in, and you can be at least semi-sure that you're arguing with the same person the whole time.
However, to give you a bit of background: (1) In case you haven't guessed, I'm also one of those "Army veterans trained in firearms" you're so proud of. I've spent more time in the field than your whole time in service. (2) Comparing me to Limbaugh, as you did with the last link (guess I should be glad it wasn't goatse.cx, eh?) might be funny if it wasn't so sad. I'm small-and-large-L Libertarian, Objectivist, agnostic, 13.8% score on the 500 question Purity test, and can usually pick either "other" or "Native American" on race questions, though I look relatively generic-Anglo. However, my race is not any of those, it's "human". Homo Sapiens Sapiens, just like you.
Yup, that's why I had "who should all be trained with firearms" on there...It's always fun explaining the facts to people like el_chicano who are too busy jerking their knee to do research.
US Code, Title 10, Subtitle A, Part I, Chapter 13, Section 311. Militia: composition and classes:
(a) 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.
(b) The classes of the militia are -
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
So, if you're male, between the ages of 17 and 45, and are or plan to be a US citizen, surprise! You're in the militia! Feel any different? Well, you're not really supposed to. The militia is basically the whole of the people, who should all be trained with firearms.
Rifle/pistol/shotgun is certainly not a "large arsenal", though it might be similar in Massachusetts, where firearms are very hard to purchase and own legally. That set of three firearms is the basic set of defense firearms, as practiced in the IPSC 3-gun match. The bolt-action rifle (.460 Weatherby Mag.) which Mcdermott did not have in his possession, (it was in a locker in the building) is identical to that used by large-game hunters, and not particularly useful in close quarters, such as the mezzanine area of Edgewater Technologies where most of the shootings took place. I might be willing to accept Mike Dillon's collection as an "arsenal"...he started Dillon Reloading to feed it, lol.
Yup, certainly...in Massachusetts, which is one of the hardest places to get and own firearms in the US. Hmm, wonder what would happen if all firearms were banned in the US? Perhaps they'd ship them in with the weed?
The existence of a tool isn't the problem. The actions of the tool users are. If you have a lack of firearms, you end up with the UK, where a guy with a sword used that on a couple politicians recently, or if you go into the wrong part of town wearing the wrong footy colors, you get kicked to death or into the hospital. Very "civilized" there.
Perhaps you want to ban ammo, so you can have the situation in Rwanda where Hutus killed 271 Tutsis and wounded another 227...with machetes. They were saving scarce ammo for their rifles, so used the machetes on the soft targets--women and children, mostly.
People are nasty, brutish, and violent, like the rest of life. Even those supposedly "civilized" people that have given up the means to defend themselves can regress surprisingly quickly to savagery.
That bit (the forty-three times more likely garbage) is from the (discredited) Kellerman study. Check some more modern statistics, showing for example: Great declines in violent crimes in states that have allowed concealed carry a 400% (yes, 400 percent!) increase in violent crime in Australia after the Aussies allowed some misguided emotional politicians to prevent law-abiding citizens from owning firearms.
Perhaps the next time you guys get invaded, you'll refuse the tens of thousands of Stens, grenades, etc. that would be shipped to the resistance fighters. Hint: Ask some people that were Resistance during WWII, and you may get a slightly different viewpoint. Oh, wait...we're in a brave new world, and there's no war anymore.
Well well well, I'll certainly think about that "herdmember" quote as I'm watching you guys chanting in unison, led by some scrungy failed 60s radical. Hint: You've made several incorrect assumptions about me, my viewpoints, my love life, etc. I'm quite expressive, not repressed at all...I'd just rather put a boot up some of these whiners than a brick through a windshield. There are a ton of things I dislike about the WTO, but I feel not the slightest kinship with some piece of human debris whining about how he can't get a job because "the man's got him down" when it's the best job market ever, which seemed to be most of what I saw out there. Sorry, the ideal of the WTO is correct...real unrestricted free trade. The problem is in implementation, with junk like WIPO and bad IP laws screwing things up. Also, I find it pretty funny that you attempt to compare me, the atheist/libertarian/all around angry sort to Quayle's radical religious right. One more hint...look up what it takes to get a 13.8% 500 question purity test score, and perhaps you'll have some insight as to who was "screwing a whole lot". Ad hominem is weak when applied to someone you don't know anything about. (Admittedly, my ad hominem about the protesters isn't much better, but at least I'm basing it on experience)
So, you would have required the entire downtown area to be a war zone before accepting that these punks were beyond the pale? Or perhaps it takes all of Washington, with all the aging grunge kids in Aberdeen joining in?
Go walk up and down Pike and Pine, between 2nd and 4th (actually, you should have done it earlier when the freaks were roaming the streets) You'd see a very different version of the story, with people rolling dumpsters at the cops, throwing bottles, and smashing and looting. Plus once you were inside the police lines (I work in there) you'd have seen anarchy in action. I didn't mind, and was in no danger (I look like one of the protesters), but to the normals, this is definitely an emergency. I'm just waiting for all the idiots from Portland and further south to come up and join the fun.
I was there too, watching this bunch get gassed while laughing in our conference room, which overlooks one of the intersections. People were protesting everything under the sun, including each other...sorry, the SPD, while badly mismanaging the riot, showed admirable restraint in not just wading in with the billy clubs. Most of the bunch out there didnt know WTO from a hole in the ground.
Slashdot Mirror
The salient question was "are you ready to die?". This wasn't a rhetorical question, and I think you're misreading me as a pacifist. I'm not in the least pacifistic. However, The average American has *no* idea what war entails, as your post illustrates handily. War in Afghanistan is an ugly, ugly business, and I don't think the US is ready to do it. What percentage of casualties are you prepared to accept to that standing army? (bane of liberty, remember)
Hi, Zico. What was your MOS? What's your military training? How 'bout at least that history major with concentration in military history, or work in a think tank? Hmm. well, looks like we can potentially spread around that "uninformed" tag. From reading your posts during the last several years, I wouldn't call you "moronic", but "willfully ignorant" may very well apply. Please do a bit of research as to what's happened to everyone who attempted to invade/overthrow Afghanistan, including Alexander, Genghis Khan (who managed to hold it for his lifetime by basically killing everyone he came in contact with), the Russians, the Brits, and the Soviets.
Well, while we're having this little scuffle in Afghanistan, the Middle East is heating up significantly, and the extremists are getting followers on both sides. In fact, looks like there'll be at least a scuffle, if not a full-on war, between either Hamas or Hizbollah and Israel relatively soon, and perhaps coups in Egypt and Jordan. There still may be a coup in Pakistan, as the radicals have quite a bit of support. Pakistan has nukes and delivery systems, y'know. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a nuclear power run by rabid radicals right next door to the 10th Mountain as they try to invade? Then, all we need is for China to decide now is the time to take back Taiwan, since we *can not* fight a two-front war. Surprise, WW3.
Kipling had something to say about this, back when the Brits tried and failed to invade Afghanistan, after the Russians failed, and before the Soviets failed.
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!
Rudyard Kipling
Yes, if Duh-bya was stupid enough to send in the B-52s (about the only thing we can "carpet-bomb" with), the US losses _would_ be incredibly high. You forget, these guys kicked the ass of the Soviet Union at its strongest. The last conqueror to succeed in Afghanistan was Genghis Khan, and he basically killed everyone. All I've heard about so far is cruise missile attacks, which won't solve squat. The only thing that will get the Taliban out of power is putting ground troops in. Losses will be very high, and some of you Slashdotters will likely be drafted. Ready to go die?
PalmAMP from Ironcreek Software (looks like their site is goobered, but you can find the download by Googling still) and the PalmAMP XMMS plugin should do at least a big chunk of what you're trying to do. The XMMS plugin is GPL as well, so you can perhaps turn your FIFO daemon into a converter for the PalmAMP protocol, thus saving the time of writing the GUI.
Did the Pacifica station (KPFT) go away? It used to have decent (real) punk and a goodly amount of other listenable stuff, though it was somewhat unpredictable. If you didn't know the schedule, there was a good chance you'd tune in and get half an hour of utter new age crap. 'Course, this was ten years ago, so it may have gone away or way downhill.
They're just not doing daylight savings time. Note: your "Mon Jul 2 15:13:14 EDT" is equivalent to their "Monday July 02, @02:13PM EST". Different timezones (EST vs. EDT) mean different indicated times for the same moment. Doesn't mean that they shouldn't go to UTC, since it's a worldwide site, but they're not wrong.
There is no product called X11 Windows.
(hint: man X)
Actually, the base idea of the unorganized militia is to have a pool of trained (well regulated) soldiers to draw from. The imperative to have a revolution every 20 years or so, from Jefferson and others, is a separate thing. However, having the majority of the population skilled in small arms and small unit tactics makes both goals easier.
Excuse me? Small arms vs Abrams tanks, Bradley APCs, F-16, bombs, missiles, nukes, etc.?
Don't give me "little Viet Nam took on and defeated the big, bad U.S.". Most "Americans" can barely lift the remote control and you expect them to move out to the woods and fight the "evil incarnate" government?
This is, of course, a complete straw man, as I never mentioned fighting the government. However, I'll do a bit of the thinking for you, and it's easier since you've got a whole *2 years* of infantry training. Low intensity conflict doesn't mean stupid conflict. A leader with limited resources (small arms) would be silly to take on the strongest parts of his/her enemy (M-1/M2/M3/AH-64/F-16/bombs/missiles/bla bla bla). If you're able to widen your view just a bit, imagine small cells located in Columbus, GA infiltrating in the guise of some of the many civilian workers and using delayed chem/bio attacks against the "high speed" troops of Benning, where you got trained. Plus, all of your high-tech weapons are very very vulnerable to breaks in the logistical chain. (can't easily fight an Abrams with small arms, but bet a lightly guarded ammo transfer point would go up quite well with a bit of det cord. Your Abrams isn't even as effective as a bulldozer without ammo. Also, ever see how much of a hassle it is to change an M-1 power pack after its relatively fragile turbine eats a bit of sand?) If you must have small arms involved, they work just fine to take bigger arms, which was the idea behind the Liberator pistol of WWII. The model might better be Chechnya, Afghanistan, etc than Viet Nam.
Hell, most Americans love government. They want their social security checks, interstate highways, national defense and national parks. They also know that they can't trust big business to keep the very air we breath and water we drink clean!
Another straw man, but just to shoot that one down, take a look at the percentage of people in Northern Ireland that actively support the assorted resistance movements there, compared to the problems caused. For that matter, you should look up how many of the Colonists supported the Founders in their "terrorism".
Anyway, why do you duck well regulated? Could it be that regulation is a governmental task, so maybe gun control is -- dare I say it -- Constitutional? :->
Uninformed, to say the least. If you want clarification as to the intent of the Founders, check their writings (Federalist Papers, records of debates, etc. Watch that knee there :-) Plus, you might look into how many of them remained anonymous to post their writings.
Who the fuck are you to give me shit when you won't even identify yourself? I am an Army veteran "trained in firearms", so I don't have take any crap from a cowardly junior member of the Kouncil of Konservative Kaucasians!!!
Ahh, argumentum ad hominem and gratuitous abuse, the last refuges of a losing debater. My views and opinions stand for themself, following the great tradition of pseudonymous criticism. Notice, I'm logged in, and you can be at least semi-sure that you're arguing with the same person the whole time.
However, to give you a bit of background:
(1) In case you haven't guessed, I'm also one of those "Army veterans trained in firearms" you're so proud of. I've spent more time in the field than your whole time in service.
(2) Comparing me to Limbaugh, as you did with the last link (guess I should be glad it wasn't goatse.cx, eh?) might be funny if it wasn't so sad. I'm small-and-large-L Libertarian, Objectivist, agnostic, 13.8% score on the 500 question Purity test, and can usually pick either "other" or "Native American" on race questions, though I look relatively generic-Anglo. However, my race is not any of those, it's "human". Homo Sapiens Sapiens, just like you.
Yup, that's why I had "who should all be trained with firearms" on there...It's always fun explaining the facts to people like el_chicano who are too busy jerking their knee to do research.
US Code, Title 10, Subtitle A, Part I, Chapter 13, Section 311. Militia: composition and classes:
(a) 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.
(b) The classes of the militia are -
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
So, if you're male, between the ages of 17 and 45, and are or plan to be a US citizen, surprise! You're in the militia! Feel any different? Well, you're not really supposed to. The militia is basically the whole of the people, who should all be trained with firearms.
Rifle/pistol/shotgun is certainly not a "large arsenal", though it might be similar in Massachusetts, where firearms are very hard to purchase and own legally. That set of three firearms is the basic set of defense firearms, as practiced in the IPSC 3-gun match. The bolt-action rifle (.460 Weatherby Mag.) which Mcdermott did not have in his possession, (it was in a locker in the building) is identical to that used by large-game hunters, and not particularly useful in close quarters, such as the mezzanine area of Edgewater Technologies where most of the shootings took place. I might be willing to accept Mike Dillon's collection as an "arsenal"...he started Dillon Reloading to feed it, lol.
Yup, certainly...in Massachusetts, which is one of the hardest places to get and own firearms in the US. Hmm, wonder what would happen if all firearms were banned in the US? Perhaps they'd ship them in with the weed?
The existence of a tool isn't the problem. The actions of the tool users are. If you have a lack of firearms, you end up with the UK, where a guy with a sword used that on a couple politicians recently, or if you go into the wrong part of town wearing the wrong footy colors, you get kicked to death or into the hospital. Very "civilized" there.
Perhaps you want to ban ammo, so you can have the situation in Rwanda where Hutus killed 271 Tutsis and wounded another 227...with machetes. They were saving scarce ammo for their rifles, so used the machetes on the soft targets--women and children, mostly.
People are nasty, brutish, and violent, like the rest of life. Even those supposedly "civilized" people that have given up the means to defend themselves can regress surprisingly quickly to savagery.
There's actually a whole genre of SF devoted to this...do some Googling on "steampunk".
That bit (the forty-three times more likely garbage) is from the (discredited) Kellerman study. Check some more modern statistics, showing for example:
Great declines in violent crimes in states that have allowed concealed carry
a 400% (yes, 400 percent!) increase in violent crime in Australia after the Aussies allowed some misguided emotional politicians to prevent law-abiding citizens from owning firearms.
Perhaps the next time you guys get invaded, you'll refuse the tens of thousands of Stens, grenades, etc. that would be shipped to the resistance fighters. Hint: Ask some people that were Resistance during WWII, and you may get a slightly different viewpoint.
Oh, wait...we're in a brave new world, and there's no war anymore.
Well well well, I'll certainly think about that "herdmember" quote as I'm watching you guys chanting in unison, led by some scrungy failed 60s radical.
Hint: You've made several incorrect assumptions about me, my viewpoints, my love life, etc. I'm quite expressive, not repressed at all...I'd just rather put a boot up some of these whiners than a brick through a windshield.
There are a ton of things I dislike about the WTO, but I feel not the slightest kinship with some piece of human debris whining about how he can't get a job because "the man's got him down" when it's the best job market ever, which seemed to be most of what I saw out there. Sorry, the ideal of the WTO is correct...real unrestricted free trade. The problem is in implementation, with junk like WIPO and bad IP laws screwing things up.
Also, I find it pretty funny that you attempt to compare me, the atheist/libertarian/all around angry sort to Quayle's radical religious right.
One more hint...look up what it takes to get a 13.8% 500 question purity test score, and perhaps you'll have some insight as to who was "screwing a whole lot". Ad hominem is weak when applied to someone you don't know anything about. (Admittedly, my ad hominem about the protesters isn't much better, but at least I'm basing it on experience)
So, you would have required the entire downtown area to be a war zone before accepting that these punks were beyond the pale? Or perhaps it takes all of Washington, with all the aging grunge kids in Aberdeen joining in?
Go walk up and down Pike and Pine, between 2nd and 4th (actually, you should have done it earlier when the freaks were roaming the streets) You'd see a very different version of the story, with people rolling dumpsters at the cops, throwing bottles, and smashing and looting. Plus once you were inside the police lines (I work in there) you'd have seen anarchy in action. I didn't mind, and was in no danger (I look like one of the protesters), but to the normals, this is definitely an emergency. I'm just waiting for all the idiots from Portland and further south to come up and join the fun.
I was there too, watching this bunch get gassed while laughing in our conference room, which overlooks one of the intersections. People were protesting everything under the sun, including each other...sorry, the SPD, while badly mismanaging the riot, showed admirable restraint in not just wading in with the billy clubs. Most of the bunch out there didnt know WTO from a hole in the ground.
They trashed and looted Starbucks, broke some tens of thousands of dollars worth of shop windows, damaged/destroyed cars, etc. etc. etc.
Ahh...another geek likely loudly complaining about how he can't get laid.
Hint: Social skills really help.
IPO = "Initial Public Offering"
Nope, looks like a somewhat garbled version of Peach Bottom to me...look it up.