Today's (enlisted) US Navy Submariner is a trained, technical specialist in at least 2 fields, possibly 1 or 2 more (depending on at which point in his career he made the transition to submarine service) and has spent a minimum of 15 months, as much as two years in highly stressful, intensive and submarine specific training before even stepping on-board. Then comes the year-long OJT submarine qualification program in addition to his normal technical specialty.
Any 'meatheads' were washed-out long before this point.
What you're missing is that Paul is a Strict Constitultionalist. And one of the key points of the US Constitution is that any and all powers not explicitly granted to the Federal Government by the Constitution are reserved for the States or People. So having the Federal branches take a hands-off attitude towards issues that really aren't in their purview (drug usage, abortion, etc) each state is free to craft it's own rules in accodance to the desires and needs of their citizens. Which is a good thing, because the needs and desires of citizens of Montana are quite different from the needs and desires of the citizens of New York.
Better yet, skip the jet jockeys and flyboys. Recruit from the submarine service. Steely-eyed, and they have the proven skills to work in inhospitable environments for months on end without cracking up or going psycho.
Bingo! Exactly, my friend. I am solely responsible for my health, safety, and welfare.
I get hurt, I pay for medical attention, or learn first aid / medicine, and treat myself. Or, I cultivate professional and/or personal aquaintences that can tend to me, in exchange for my past or future services to them.
The same applies to your other examples. Your reply indicates some sarcasm, but that's the exact reality of which I am a proponent.
Ah yes. Well, that's the difference between theory and practice, too. In Oz, they aren't even free in theory. In the US, the current administration has limited the practical expressions of freedom that are guarenteed in theory. But adminstrations come and go, yet the Constitution is still here.
Nice place to live. But it's not FREE. Ultimate freedom is the right to do things that aren't best for you. Like not wearing seatbelts, owing a firearm, etc.
Obviously, there's a measurable fraction of the human population that likes it that way, nice and safe. Great, keep it over there. Just don't get any of it on me.
Waste issue is resolved, from a technical standpoint. It's just politics now. Once Yucca mountain goes online the stuff can be burried there. The Navy sends all of it's fuel cores to Hanford for temporary storage until a permanent facility is found. For subs that are decommisioned, the entire reactor compartment is buried at Hanford.
Personally, I think it's all overkill. Press them all into blocks, stack them out in a hanger out in the middle of the desert. Put up DANGER-RADIOACTIVE signs. Then let Practical Darwinism take over from there. If folks are stupid enough to want to grab some of those blocks, they get what they deserve.
Ok, the very fact that you're asking those questions shows that you have insufficient understanding of the case.
Solar power is highly ineffecient in two specific regards. 1) the materials needing to convert light to electricity only do so at the rate of 9 - 14% effeciency. 2) It is currently highly impractical to set up a single solar generating station then run power to the local grid. So you'll need have mulitudes of stations (such as one for each home or neighborhood) mulitiplying the cost for materials.
I'll set aside the whole cloud cover / climate related issues which limited the geographic deployment of of widespread solar power.
As another poster said, it makes a great suppliment to a home. It's not a plug-in replacement by a long shot.
The upside on nuclear power. As the FA noted, the US NAVY has run ~250 reactors for the last 60 years and there has not been one single accident resulting in the release of radioactive waste into the environment. So yes, it's very possible to run reactors (fission) safely. Three Mile Island, for all the panic and doom and gloom also failed to release any radiation into the environment. Chernobyl's accident was deliberatly induced by the plant operators and nearly all of its victims were firefighters and damage control personnel on-site. Several children did suffer from thyroid cancer, which was treatable, hadn't their condition been ignored by the authorities.
Is nuclear (fission) power perfect? No, but per capita, there's a far less environmental toll than coal or or oil. Personally, I'm holding out for fusion power myself.
(disclosures.... My house has suplimental solar and wind power w/ solar heating. Former US Navy submariner.)
While the USSR had a very different ideology, they were a) stable, in the sense their government wasn't designed to collapse overnight, and b) rational.
If you've ever read the rantings of Iran's president or that of Kim Jung-il of North Korea, you can certainly see how people would have doubts about their rationality and stabilty. For all of the flap in the US over the last 7 years, we're still a nation of laws, the highest enshrined in the Constitution. Yes, it's under attack, but until it's burned and shredded, I won't give up hope.
Plus, the problem with letting Iran or North Korea have nuclear weapons, is that it's very unlikely that they won't share them with other nations, or, worse yet, non-governmental bodies. Hamas and Al-Queda spring to mind. China can, and has, leaned on North Korea, so they are less likely to do something too foolish.
I'd much rather prefer that nuclear weapons not be involved at all. But if I have to declare a choice between the two, I'd much rather rain nuclear fire upon Iran than vice versa.
Out here in the plains of South Dakota, the local baby Bell was Qwest. They ran broadband to the local metro area, Rapid City (pop ~60,000). None of the other towns in the area had broadband. Even dial-up numbers were located in Rapid City or Souix Falls (350 miles east), and both cities are outside of local calling except for the immediately neighboring towns. Cut to 2002. After years of complaints and wishing and being told by Qwest that there just wasn't enough profit in this area (your argument), PrairieWave Communications launched their own highspeed cable / phone / isp service. I travel to lots of local ranches in the area, places where a close neighbor is 5 or 6 miles away, and they have broadband access. They might not have cell-phone reception, but they have highspeed. Qwest saw the demand, and put in trenches and cables, and now they're laughing all the way to the bank.
Moral: If enough people want a service, eventually a company will come along and provide it for them.
"socially adept introverts" and "high toleration for lack of achievement"....
What about US submarine crews? As a former member of the Sub service, I can tell you 6 months under water at a stretch is do-able. Months of sheer boredom punctuated by seconds of ball-wrenching terror is pretty much the norm.
Perhaps NASA needs to get away from the current crop of 'flyboys' (since computers fly the shuttle anyways) and move towards a group of people that are already used to working for extended periods of time in close, desolate quarters?
On the contrary... Niether the Democratic party or the Republican party accurately represent the views of the typical US-ian. Too often, both parties are more interested in staying in power than advancing the ideals of the Constitution and 'typical' American. So us voters get screwed no matter what.
Put a Democrat and Republican in a barrel and roll it down the hill, I guarentee there'll be a lyin', thievin', cheatin' son-of-a-bith on top all the way down.
(but then I guess it all works out in the end. no one gets everything they want, but then no one gets nothing. everyone gets a little something, which I suppose is fair)
His point is that Kerry and Kennedy weren't elected in a vacumn, there's an established mentality of that population center that caters to the over-reacting, let-the-state-protect-you-from-all-that-is-Bad crowd. Kerry and Kennedy are the symptoms, not the cause, of such thinking.
Did anyone else notice that TFA is not a 'news' article, but rather a "statement by Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of GrassrootsFreedom.com" ?
In other words, no meat or substance to this at all. Let's get the text of the bill itself, or have some attempt at fair journalism. Ah, I forgot, this is Slashdot. No such thing here.
Well, seasons for one. I got tired of only having two of them, 'brown' and 'wet'. And when I lived in Redondo (90-93) it was being encroached with gang activity from Hermosa and Venice. Even King Harbor got to be pretty crudy and skanky. Brea was nice, but the summers were brutal. Especially being up against the hills there, all the smog would flow up against them. The cost of living in LA was the deal breaker. In Van Nuys, I was paying 950 for a decent, two bedroom apartment, that just happened to be in the flight line of the airport.
In Pittsburgh, (well technically Arnold) for a three-bedroom house, I paid $350. Off street parking, two story + full basement, and a nice sized yard. 20 miles from downtown, and an hour drive to work (out by the airport) After live in LA, a 1-hour drive seemed like heaven.
I really enjoyed the people in PGH, too. Everywhere I went, they were helpful and pleasent. In Brea, I lived at the end of a cul-de-sac with 6 other houses. After 4 years, I only knew 1 of them by name, and he was our local pastor. People were pretty insular-minded there. My new neighbors in PGH helped me move in, we poured sidewalks together, and many a night we shared a six-pack while chatting over the fence.
The comradery, the civic and community spirit in Pittsburgh really impressed me. Very much like a small-town feeling.
I lived in LA for a dozen years (Brea, Redondo Beach, and Burbank) before moving to Pittsburgh to take a job with Fisher Scientific. I agree with the parents factual comments about Pittsburgh, but I actually enjoyed living there. It was a dynamic change from life in LA, and I found it invigorating. If it wasn't for my father's deteriorating health forcing me to move to the mid-west, I'd still be there.
But as I always like to say - if there was a 10% chance that a disease would kill you, you'd still want the doctor to treat you for it - even if it cost 10% of your income to pay for the medicine
That's all well and good. It's my choice to spend my income as I see fit. But I'm pretty sure you'd object if I spent 10% of YOUR income to prevent or treat a condition I only had a 10% chance of killing me. And I'm certain I'd object to being required to spend 10% of my income to treat a condtion that only had a 10% chance of killing you.
It's not that I'm against spending the money. It's that I'm against being REQUIRED to spend the money (ie, taxes / fees / etc.)
BUZZZ. Wrong. Wealth is created by the effort and work of individuals. The State can help or hinder the process, but all that's all.
If there were only one person on Earth, there would be no need for any system, economic, legal or social.
State sanctioned violence does mean that the State commits the violence. If you take what I belive is mine, and can prove so to a jury of my peers, then the violence is you face is from the muzzle or edge of my weapon.
True, one has responsibilites. But again, the State should not dictate them, but one's own self honor and esteem. Noblese Oblige, and all that. I donate to various charities because I belive in their goals, or am moved to help their members. Not because the State makes me.
The State has no right to redistribute wealth among its citizens. Taxes should be used to pay for products and services required for the functioning of the State and its military, not to give money to another citizen because they cannot / will not work, or to provide healthcare for another citizen who cannot / will not pay for his own. Charity is the province of individuals and civic groups, not the State.
Well, that used to be the rule in CA. We could only sell the telephones, and then we called the provider he selected and setup the phone for him. The result? Phones were hideously expensive. $1000-$1500 range (this was in the early 90's, when car phones in other states were running around $700.00).
The CA PUC (Public Utilities Commission) thought they were giving consumers a break by giving them complete control of their choices. Eventually the rule prohibiting the tying of purchase price to service plan was overturned, and phone prices dropped, and the cell phone revolution skyrocketed.
What country's rules should be used for defining what should and should not go into.xxx?
US? The US is not the whole of the internet, unlike many people assume. And as puritanical as our views on porn are, they're nothing compared to say... Brazil.
Basically, by making a.xxx TLD, you put ICANN (and by extension the US) in charge of defining 'what is porn?' on a GLOBAL level.
That's why I am opposed to a.xxx TLD. I'm all for a.xxx.us or.xxx.uk. Leave it up to the individual countries to decide how they want to handle porn sites. Just as easy to block for parental / corporate controls, but the content is dictated by local regulation.
But ICANN already has a mechanism where they can already receive input from other governments and agencies.
After all is said and done, after taking input and having discussions, some agency will have to say 'This is the way that it will be'.
Why is it so important that it be taken away from ICANN (which does a fairly good job) and given to another body (like ITU) and risk having the whole thing collapse and/or become mired in international politics?
It's not that I'm pro-US, but I've not seen any compeling reason to take it away from ICANN and turn it over to a UN body. There seems to be no technological reason, which leaves politics... and this is an area that I'm adament stays politics-free.
Slashdot Mirror
Meathead?
Today's (enlisted) US Navy Submariner is a trained, technical specialist in at least 2 fields, possibly 1 or 2 more (depending on at which point in his career he made the transition to submarine service) and has spent a minimum of 15 months, as much as two years in highly stressful, intensive and submarine specific training before even stepping on-board. Then comes the year-long OJT submarine qualification program in addition to his normal technical specialty.
Any 'meatheads' were washed-out long before this point.
What you're missing is that Paul is a Strict Constitultionalist. And one of the key points of the US Constitution is that any and all powers not explicitly granted to the Federal Government by the Constitution are reserved for the States or People. So having the Federal branches take a hands-off attitude towards issues that really aren't in their purview (drug usage, abortion, etc) each state is free to craft it's own rules in accodance to the desires and needs of their citizens. Which is a good thing, because the needs and desires of citizens of Montana are quite different from the needs and desires of the citizens of New York.
Better yet, skip the jet jockeys and flyboys. Recruit from the submarine service. Steely-eyed, and they have the proven skills to work in inhospitable environments for months on end without cracking up or going psycho.
Bingo! Exactly, my friend. I am solely responsible for my health, safety, and welfare.
I get hurt, I pay for medical attention, or learn first aid / medicine, and treat myself. Or, I cultivate professional and/or personal aquaintences that can tend to me, in exchange for my past or future services to them.
The same applies to your other examples. Your reply indicates some sarcasm, but that's the exact reality of which I am a proponent.
Ah yes. Well, that's the difference between theory and practice, too. In Oz, they aren't even free in theory. In the US, the current administration has limited the practical expressions of freedom that are guarenteed in theory. But adminstrations come and go, yet the Constitution is still here.
Nice place to live. But it's not FREE. Ultimate freedom is the right to do things that aren't best for you. Like not wearing seatbelts, owing a firearm, etc.
Obviously, there's a measurable fraction of the human population that likes it that way, nice and safe. Great, keep it over there. Just don't get any of it on me.
Waste issue is resolved, from a technical standpoint. It's just politics now. Once Yucca mountain goes online the stuff can be burried there. The Navy sends all of it's fuel cores to Hanford for temporary storage until a permanent facility is found. For subs that are decommisioned, the entire reactor compartment is buried at Hanford.
Personally, I think it's all overkill. Press them all into blocks, stack them out in a hanger out in the middle of the desert. Put up DANGER-RADIOACTIVE signs. Then let Practical Darwinism take over from there. If folks are stupid enough to want to grab some of those blocks, they get what they deserve.
Ok, the very fact that you're asking those questions shows that you have insufficient understanding of the case.
Solar power is highly ineffecient in two specific regards. 1) the materials needing to convert light to electricity only do so at the rate of 9 - 14% effeciency. 2) It is currently highly impractical to set up a single solar generating station then run power to the local grid. So you'll need have mulitudes of stations (such as one for each home or neighborhood) mulitiplying the cost for materials.
I'll set aside the whole cloud cover / climate related issues which limited the geographic deployment of of widespread solar power.
As another poster said, it makes a great suppliment to a home. It's not a plug-in replacement by a long shot.
The upside on nuclear power. As the FA noted, the US NAVY has run ~250 reactors for the last 60 years and there has not been one single accident resulting in the release of radioactive waste into the environment. So yes, it's very possible to run reactors (fission) safely. Three Mile Island, for all the panic and doom and gloom also failed to release any radiation into the environment. Chernobyl's accident was deliberatly induced by the plant operators and nearly all of its victims were firefighters and damage control personnel on-site. Several children did suffer from thyroid cancer, which was treatable, hadn't their condition been ignored by the authorities.
Is nuclear (fission) power perfect? No, but per capita, there's a far less environmental toll than coal or or oil. Personally, I'm holding out for fusion power myself.
(disclosures.... My house has suplimental solar and wind power w/ solar heating. Former US Navy submariner.)
While the USSR had a very different ideology, they were a) stable, in the sense their government wasn't designed to collapse overnight, and b) rational.
If you've ever read the rantings of Iran's president or that of Kim Jung-il of North Korea, you can certainly see how people would have doubts about their rationality and stabilty. For all of the flap in the US over the last 7 years, we're still a nation of laws, the highest enshrined in the Constitution. Yes, it's under attack, but until it's burned and shredded, I won't give up hope.
Plus, the problem with letting Iran or North Korea have nuclear weapons, is that it's very unlikely that they won't share them with other nations, or, worse yet, non-governmental bodies. Hamas and Al-Queda spring to mind. China can, and has, leaned on North Korea, so they are less likely to do something too foolish.
I'd much rather prefer that nuclear weapons not be involved at all. But if I have to declare a choice between the two, I'd much rather rain nuclear fire upon Iran than vice versa.
So what you're saying is, you blew the money-shot?
so? it's not like it's worth anything. Labor intensive, to boot
Out here in the plains of South Dakota, the local baby Bell was Qwest. They ran broadband to the local metro area, Rapid City (pop ~60,000). None of the other towns in the area had broadband. Even dial-up numbers were located in Rapid City or Souix Falls (350 miles east), and both cities are outside of local calling except for the immediately neighboring towns. Cut to 2002. After years of complaints and wishing and being told by Qwest that there just wasn't enough profit in this area (your argument), PrairieWave Communications launched their own highspeed cable / phone / isp service. I travel to lots of local ranches in the area, places where a close neighbor is 5 or 6 miles away, and they have broadband access. They might not have cell-phone reception, but they have highspeed. Qwest saw the demand, and put in trenches and cables, and now they're laughing all the way to the bank.
Moral: If enough people want a service, eventually a company will come along and provide it for them.
"socially adept introverts" and "high toleration for lack of achievement" ....
What about US submarine crews? As a former member of the Sub service, I can tell you 6 months under water at a stretch is do-able. Months of sheer boredom punctuated by seconds of ball-wrenching terror is pretty much the norm.
Perhaps NASA needs to get away from the current crop of 'flyboys' (since computers fly the shuttle anyways) and move towards a group of people that are already used to working for extended periods of time in close, desolate quarters?
On the contrary... Niether the Democratic party or the Republican party accurately represent the views of the typical US-ian. Too often, both parties are more interested in staying in power than advancing the ideals of the Constitution and 'typical' American. So us voters get screwed no matter what.
Put a Democrat and Republican in a barrel and roll it down the hill, I guarentee there'll be a lyin', thievin', cheatin' son-of-a-bith on top all the way down.
(but then I guess it all works out in the end. no one gets everything they want, but then no one gets nothing. everyone gets a little something, which I suppose is fair)
His point is that Kerry and Kennedy weren't elected in a vacumn, there's an established mentality of that population center that caters to the over-reacting, let-the-state-protect-you-from-all-that-is-Bad crowd. Kerry and Kennedy are the symptoms, not the cause, of such thinking.
Did anyone else notice that TFA is not a 'news' article, but rather a "statement by Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of GrassrootsFreedom.com" ?
In other words, no meat or substance to this at all. Let's get the text of the bill itself, or have some attempt at fair journalism. Ah, I forgot, this is Slashdot. No such thing here.
Well, seasons for one. I got tired of only having two of them, 'brown' and 'wet'. And when I lived in Redondo (90-93) it was being encroached with gang activity from Hermosa and Venice. Even King Harbor got to be pretty crudy and skanky. Brea was nice, but the summers were brutal. Especially being up against the hills there, all the smog would flow up against them.
The cost of living in LA was the deal breaker. In Van Nuys, I was paying 950 for a decent, two bedroom apartment, that just happened to be in the flight line of the airport.
In Pittsburgh, (well technically Arnold) for a three-bedroom house, I paid $350. Off street parking, two story + full basement, and a nice sized yard. 20 miles from downtown, and an hour drive to work (out by the airport) After live in LA, a 1-hour drive seemed like heaven.
I really enjoyed the people in PGH, too. Everywhere I went, they were helpful and pleasent. In Brea, I lived at the end of a cul-de-sac with 6 other houses. After 4 years, I only knew 1 of them by name, and he was our local pastor. People were pretty insular-minded there. My new neighbors in PGH helped me move in, we poured sidewalks together, and many a night we shared a six-pack while chatting over the fence.
The comradery, the civic and community spirit in Pittsburgh really impressed me. Very much like a small-town feeling.
I lived in LA for a dozen years (Brea, Redondo Beach, and Burbank) before moving to Pittsburgh to take a job with Fisher Scientific. I agree with the parents factual comments about Pittsburgh, but I actually enjoyed living there. It was a dynamic change from life in LA, and I found it invigorating. If it wasn't for my father's deteriorating health forcing me to move to the mid-west, I'd still be there.
But as I always like to say - if there was a 10% chance that a disease would kill you, you'd still want the doctor to treat you for it - even if it cost 10% of your income to pay for the medicine
That's all well and good. It's my choice to spend my income as I see fit. But I'm pretty sure you'd object if I spent 10% of YOUR income to prevent or treat a condition I only had a 10% chance of killing me. And I'm certain I'd object to being required to spend 10% of my income to treat a condtion that only had a 10% chance of killing you.
It's not that I'm against spending the money. It's that I'm against being REQUIRED to spend the money (ie, taxes / fees / etc.)
BUZZZ. Wrong. Wealth is created by the effort and work of individuals. The State can help or hinder the process, but all that's all.
If there were only one person on Earth, there would be no need for any system, economic, legal or social.
State sanctioned violence does mean that the State commits the violence. If you take what I belive is mine, and can prove so to a jury of my peers, then the violence is you face is from the muzzle or edge of my weapon.
True, one has responsibilites. But again, the State should not dictate them, but one's own self honor and esteem. Noblese Oblige, and all that. I donate to various charities because I belive in their goals, or am moved to help their members. Not because the State makes me.
The State has no right to redistribute wealth among its citizens. Taxes should be used to pay for products and services required for the functioning of the State and its military, not to give money to another citizen because they cannot / will not work, or to provide healthcare for another citizen who cannot / will not pay for his own. Charity is the province of individuals and civic groups, not the State.
Well, that used to be the rule in CA. We could only sell the telephones, and then we called the provider he selected and setup the phone for him. The result? Phones were hideously expensive. $1000-$1500 range (this was in the early 90's, when car phones in other states were running around $700.00).
The CA PUC (Public Utilities Commission) thought they were giving consumers a break by giving them complete control of their choices. Eventually the rule prohibiting the tying of purchase price to service plan was overturned, and phone prices dropped, and the cell phone revolution skyrocketed.
I'm an American and I love not having a monthly contract. (Cingular Go-Phone, Pick-Your-Plan)
Ok, let's say we make a .xxx TLD...
.xxx?
.xxx TLD, you put ICANN (and by extension the US) in charge of defining 'what is porn?' on a GLOBAL level.
.xxx TLD. I'm all for a .xxx.us or .xxx.uk. Leave it up to the individual countries to decide how they want to handle porn sites. Just as easy to block for parental / corporate controls, but the content is dictated by local regulation.
What country's rules should be used for defining what should and should not go into
US? The US is not the whole of the internet, unlike many people assume. And as puritanical as our views on porn are, they're nothing compared to say... Brazil.
Basically, by making a
That's why I am opposed to a
But ICANN already has a mechanism where they can already receive input from other governments and agencies.
After all is said and done, after taking input and having discussions, some agency will have to say 'This is the way that it will be'.
Why is it so important that it be taken away from ICANN (which does a fairly good job) and given to another body (like ITU) and risk having the whole thing collapse and/or become mired in international politics?
It's not that I'm pro-US, but I've not seen any compeling reason to take it away from ICANN and turn it over to a UN body. There seems to be no technological reason, which leaves politics... and this is an area that I'm adament stays politics-free.