Yeah, Europe is pretty big. Bigger than Texas. Bigger than Alaska. More than 10 million square kilometers - I looked it up! That's a bit bigger than Canada. or the US.
So - any corporation that decides to stop doing business in Europe would, by definition, no longer be "global".
Uhhhh - the AGREEMENT that Microsoft entered into resulted FROM monopoly hearings. The charge here is that Microsoft VIOLATED that AGREEMENT. Whether Microsoft remains a monopoly or not, whether Microsoft blocks other browsers or not, has nothing to do with the fine.
Try this - get hauled into court for some rather minor charge. Marijuana possession would work. Plead with the judge to not jail your ass. Agree to any demand that he makes, so long as he doesn't send you to jail.
Then, after you've left the court room, fail to live up to the agreement that you made with that judge.
Microsoft can get even by not selling their stuff in Europe. Apple picks up part of the market. Linux gains a bit. Android gains some. ChromeOS gains some too. The various BSD distros. Maybe ecomstation and a few others gain. Sure, go ahead and convince Microsoft to stop selling. Sounds like a win-win proposition to me!
The last term I wanted was a politically correct term. Maybe you missed the "squids, jarheads, and grunts" part of my post. Airmen? How in hell would that fit into my theme? Flyboy is a lot closer, but zoomies is perfect.
My premise was, you don't wave a magic wand, and create a ready unit for a special purpose.
You go on to show that Delta Force was created after the fiasco in the desert, in anticipation of future requirements that might be similar.
And - how long did it take to integrate Delta Force into a viable unit?
I think that you misunderstood my point, then proceeded to make my point stronger for me.
At that point in history, just about the only mechanized units that had ever campaigned anywhere near that region were World War Two units, and the Israeli Defense Force. (I realize, aircraft aren't mechanized, but they are mechanical in many respects)
The job had never been done, and no one knew how to accomplish the mission. My statement, IF ANYONE could have done the job, it would have been the Marines. But, instead, a politician decided to put ALL the services in on the mission, which no one knew how to accomplish.
That pretty much assured that the impossible mission would fail.
Jimmy failed the military, by handing them an impossible mission, then requiring them to assemble a hodge-podge spur-of-the-moment team for that mission.
You got any idea how long it takes just to teach boots how to march in step? Any idea how long it takes to learn to fly? Any idea how long it takes to become part of any unit?
The most professional soldier or sailor in the world doesn't walk in to a new assignment, and integrate over night. FFS, we don't even do quarterly evaluations on people who have been stationed with us for less than ninety days.
It takes YEARS to fully integrate a combat unit. Literally, YEARS.
Besides, take away the bullshit competitiveness, and all you're left with are candy assed civilians. Non-competitive soldiers? Come on, Jasper, which continuum are you from, anyway?
I've probably made mention before that I'm an asocial type of guy. Just call me an asocial asshole, and everything is good. I don't want to talk to a receptionist, I don't want to deal with some toad carrying my luggage, I just want my room.
BUT - I'd rather deal with the talkative receptionist, and the toad, and whoever else, than the machine.
When things go drastically WRONG, there is zero satisfaction in trying to strangle the damned machine. COME HERE TOAD!!!! (choke the toad until his eyes bug out) Now I feel better.
The Iraq war was declared a win, and marketed as such. Quite successfully, I'll add.
Aircraft crashing and burning in the desert with no enemies to blame it on cannot be marketed as a victory, even to retarded high school kids. Forget trying to sell it to high school kids of even average intelligence.
That's even worse, if you think about it. Most Americans rely on credit cards, and they just run the damned things up until they are refused. At least with a checkbook, the checks start bouncing as soon as you're overdrawn, not after you're ten thousand or more in debt.
Jimmy Carter was thrown out on his ass because he permitted the hostage crisis to last so long - right up through the election. Being a veteran, Jimmy Carter SHOULD HAVE had some idea how to handle that hostage situation. Instead of handling it, or getting the experts to handle it, he put together this special little Kum-By-Yah task force. And, watched that task force fuck itself in the desert.
Being a NAVY veteran, Jimmy SHOULD HAVE known that if ANYONE could handle the mission, it would have been the Marines. (That is not to say that the Marines could have successfully completed the mission - that is only saying that IF ANYONE could do it, they could.)
Jimmy Carter made a laughing stock of himself, and the Armed Forces with his Feel-Good-Circle-Jerk task force.
You simply cannot magically wave a wand, and create a task force consisting of squids, jarheads, grunts, and whatever the fuck the Air Force people call themselves, and expect them to accomplish anything more than a cluster fuck.
Zumwalt should have taught his protege something about leadership.
They hostage situation may or may not have cost him the election anyway, but that major fuck-up guaranteed that he couldn't be re-elected.
Uhhhh - actually, harboring bin Laden was justification for declaring war. Police? What police? The Taliban expressed their contempt for the US by harboring the most wanted man in the world, and that was cause for the punitive campaign that I outlined above.
Well, you've mentioned Herr Bush's indiscretions - so that's covered.
As for "official records" to back up Swift Boater's stories - I'm not sure about that. I witnessed a couple of incidents while in the service, which don't seem to be part of any "official records". In fact, searches on the internet don't find anything, in spite of the fact that those incidents SHOULD have made newspaper headlines in the countries in which they occured. Without the deck log from my ships, it's impossible to verify the incidents.
If that's true - more power to you. The longest shot I've ever made was little more than 1/2 mile. The shot was poorly placed, but the caribou bled out all the same, and I brought the meat home.
I've met people who can make shots over a mile, but there aren't a lot of them. There are a lot more people who THINK they can make such shots, than there are people who can prove it.;^)
TBH, without a damned good scope, I'm not hitting anything at 300 yards anymore. I've always had bad vision, but it's deteriorating as I age. Given a good scope, though, even a mediocre marksman can reach out to around 500 yards with the.270. (I guess I should define "mediocre" as being able to consistently hit a target at 100 yards using a standard iron sight, as opposed to using a telescopic sight.) AC mentioned the.243, and I really like that round. But, the.270 carries more energy out to those long ranges. It depends on what you're shooting at, and how lethal you require the shot to be, which round is "better".
You should check out the.270, preferably in a Remington 700 model. It reaches considerably further than 300 yards, or 300 meters, depending on your load.
Those douches need to be spanked, and spanked badly. Beat them until their mothers cry. (Alright, so that's unlikely to happen since they all climbed out of some puddle of primordial ooze.)
Very well - I invite you to enter a closed room with a controlled atmosphere. Remove ALL of the CO2 from the room, leaving all natural levels of all other gases. Record your respiration pattern over the next several minutes, and see how unnatural it gets.
There is no minimum IQ requirement for state representatives. Nor is there an IQ requirement to post on slashdot. Apparently, there is no minimum IQ for moderating either, since parent post has been modded "insightful".
What happens to the human body when CO2 is absent? Oh yeah, we forget to breathe, right? A minimal level of CO2 is necessary to stimulate breathing, as I recall.
I made no mention at all of anything that was "classified" for the first decade after I left the service. We have this wonderful thing called the "internet" today. Some of the things that I had witnessed while in uniform, I found published on the internet. I thinks to myself, "Self, that's odd - isn't that shit classified?"
It took little digging to find that a whole BUNCH of stuff is declassified with time.
Uncle Sam has never sent me a letter, to notify me that stuff has been declassified, but I no longer feel obligated to keep stuff secret. In fact - now that my ship rests at the bottom of the ocean, I can probably reveal the fact that, yes, in fact, we DID carry nuclear armed ASROCKs. Only for a very brief period, while I was aboard, did we NOT have nukes aboard. We carried those on every deployment.
It is very unlikely that the average grunt knows anything that stays classified for ten years or more. Our Cryptology Techs certainly know stuff that stays classified longer than that, but they aren't exactly "average grunts" either.
Desert Storm is now ancient history, and it's VERY unlikely that any of your friends has any pertinent information that remains classified. Your Korean War veteran relative is probably in the clear to blab anything and everything he knows. In fact, much of it is probably available on Youtube today.
Well, I only served 8 years. Maybe I don't understand.
Some people think that classified information stays classified forever. Other people like to impress their friends that they know classified information that can't be repeated. I don't know any of the people that you refer to, of course, so I can't say if any of them fall into either category.
I do know that as intel ages, it tends to be declassified.
The shop manual is indeed good reading. I have two for my motorcycle, and one each for the cars. I've never learned much of anything useful from an owner's manual though.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, Europe is pretty big. Bigger than Texas. Bigger than Alaska. More than 10 million square kilometers - I looked it up! That's a bit bigger than Canada. or the US.
So - any corporation that decides to stop doing business in Europe would, by definition, no longer be "global".
Uhhhh - the AGREEMENT that Microsoft entered into resulted FROM monopoly hearings. The charge here is that Microsoft VIOLATED that AGREEMENT. Whether Microsoft remains a monopoly or not, whether Microsoft blocks other browsers or not, has nothing to do with the fine.
Try this - get hauled into court for some rather minor charge. Marijuana possession would work. Plead with the judge to not jail your ass. Agree to any demand that he makes, so long as he doesn't send you to jail.
Then, after you've left the court room, fail to live up to the agreement that you made with that judge.
I think I like that idea.
Microsoft can get even by not selling their stuff in Europe. Apple picks up part of the market. Linux gains a bit. Android gains some. ChromeOS gains some too. The various BSD distros. Maybe ecomstation and a few others gain. Sure, go ahead and convince Microsoft to stop selling. Sounds like a win-win proposition to me!
The last term I wanted was a politically correct term. Maybe you missed the "squids, jarheads, and grunts" part of my post. Airmen? How in hell would that fit into my theme? Flyboy is a lot closer, but zoomies is perfect.
My premise was, you don't wave a magic wand, and create a ready unit for a special purpose.
You go on to show that Delta Force was created after the fiasco in the desert, in anticipation of future requirements that might be similar.
And - how long did it take to integrate Delta Force into a viable unit?
I think that you misunderstood my point, then proceeded to make my point stronger for me.
At that point in history, just about the only mechanized units that had ever campaigned anywhere near that region were World War Two units, and the Israeli Defense Force. (I realize, aircraft aren't mechanized, but they are mechanical in many respects)
The job had never been done, and no one knew how to accomplish the mission. My statement, IF ANYONE could have done the job, it would have been the Marines. But, instead, a politician decided to put ALL the services in on the mission, which no one knew how to accomplish.
That pretty much assured that the impossible mission would fail.
Jimmy failed the military, by handing them an impossible mission, then requiring them to assemble a hodge-podge spur-of-the-moment team for that mission.
I think that was one of the complaints among the cast of 'Serenity' and 'Firefly'.
You got any idea how long it takes just to teach boots how to march in step? Any idea how long it takes to learn to fly? Any idea how long it takes to become part of any unit?
The most professional soldier or sailor in the world doesn't walk in to a new assignment, and integrate over night. FFS, we don't even do quarterly evaluations on people who have been stationed with us for less than ninety days.
It takes YEARS to fully integrate a combat unit. Literally, YEARS.
Besides, take away the bullshit competitiveness, and all you're left with are candy assed civilians. Non-competitive soldiers? Come on, Jasper, which continuum are you from, anyway?
Maybe in an alternative reality. If so, I'd like to visit there. Hopefully, Customs wouldn't eat my wallet and my ass when I came back.
I'd pay a little to watch that video. But, only if everyone is speaking in English. I don't even know how to cuss or ask for a beer in Chinese.
I've probably made mention before that I'm an asocial type of guy. Just call me an asocial asshole, and everything is good. I don't want to talk to a receptionist, I don't want to deal with some toad carrying my luggage, I just want my room.
BUT - I'd rather deal with the talkative receptionist, and the toad, and whoever else, than the machine.
When things go drastically WRONG, there is zero satisfaction in trying to strangle the damned machine. COME HERE TOAD!!!! (choke the toad until his eyes bug out) Now I feel better.
The Iraq war was declared a win, and marketed as such. Quite successfully, I'll add.
Aircraft crashing and burning in the desert with no enemies to blame it on cannot be marketed as a victory, even to retarded high school kids. Forget trying to sell it to high school kids of even average intelligence.
That's even worse, if you think about it. Most Americans rely on credit cards, and they just run the damned things up until they are refused. At least with a checkbook, the checks start bouncing as soon as you're overdrawn, not after you're ten thousand or more in debt.
Jimmy Carter was thrown out on his ass because he permitted the hostage crisis to last so long - right up through the election. Being a veteran, Jimmy Carter SHOULD HAVE had some idea how to handle that hostage situation. Instead of handling it, or getting the experts to handle it, he put together this special little Kum-By-Yah task force. And, watched that task force fuck itself in the desert.
Being a NAVY veteran, Jimmy SHOULD HAVE known that if ANYONE could handle the mission, it would have been the Marines. (That is not to say that the Marines could have successfully completed the mission - that is only saying that IF ANYONE could do it, they could.)
Jimmy Carter made a laughing stock of himself, and the Armed Forces with his Feel-Good-Circle-Jerk task force.
You simply cannot magically wave a wand, and create a task force consisting of squids, jarheads, grunts, and whatever the fuck the Air Force people call themselves, and expect them to accomplish anything more than a cluster fuck.
Zumwalt should have taught his protege something about leadership.
They hostage situation may or may not have cost him the election anyway, but that major fuck-up guaranteed that he couldn't be re-elected.
Uhhhh - actually, harboring bin Laden was justification for declaring war. Police? What police? The Taliban expressed their contempt for the US by harboring the most wanted man in the world, and that was cause for the punitive campaign that I outlined above.
Well, you've mentioned Herr Bush's indiscretions - so that's covered.
As for "official records" to back up Swift Boater's stories - I'm not sure about that. I witnessed a couple of incidents while in the service, which don't seem to be part of any "official records". In fact, searches on the internet don't find anything, in spite of the fact that those incidents SHOULD have made newspaper headlines in the countries in which they occured. Without the deck log from my ships, it's impossible to verify the incidents.
If that's true - more power to you. The longest shot I've ever made was little more than 1/2 mile. The shot was poorly placed, but the caribou bled out all the same, and I brought the meat home.
I've met people who can make shots over a mile, but there aren't a lot of them. There are a lot more people who THINK they can make such shots, than there are people who can prove it. ;^)
Not if you're planning on eating Easter dinner at her table. ;^)
Ahhh . . .
TBH, without a damned good scope, I'm not hitting anything at 300 yards anymore. I've always had bad vision, but it's deteriorating as I age. Given a good scope, though, even a mediocre marksman can reach out to around 500 yards with the .270. (I guess I should define "mediocre" as being able to consistently hit a target at 100 yards using a standard iron sight, as opposed to using a telescopic sight.) AC mentioned the .243, and I really like that round. But, the .270 carries more energy out to those long ranges. It depends on what you're shooting at, and how lethal you require the shot to be, which round is "better".
You should check out the .270, preferably in a Remington 700 model. It reaches considerably further than 300 yards, or 300 meters, depending on your load.
Those douches need to be spanked, and spanked badly. Beat them until their mothers cry. (Alright, so that's unlikely to happen since they all climbed out of some puddle of primordial ooze.)
Very well - I invite you to enter a closed room with a controlled atmosphere. Remove ALL of the CO2 from the room, leaving all natural levels of all other gases. Record your respiration pattern over the next several minutes, and see how unnatural it gets.
There is no minimum IQ requirement for state representatives. Nor is there an IQ requirement to post on slashdot. Apparently, there is no minimum IQ for moderating either, since parent post has been modded "insightful".
What happens to the human body when CO2 is absent? Oh yeah, we forget to breathe, right? A minimal level of CO2 is necessary to stimulate breathing, as I recall.
I made no mention at all of anything that was "classified" for the first decade after I left the service. We have this wonderful thing called the "internet" today. Some of the things that I had witnessed while in uniform, I found published on the internet. I thinks to myself, "Self, that's odd - isn't that shit classified?"
It took little digging to find that a whole BUNCH of stuff is declassified with time.
Uncle Sam has never sent me a letter, to notify me that stuff has been declassified, but I no longer feel obligated to keep stuff secret. In fact - now that my ship rests at the bottom of the ocean, I can probably reveal the fact that, yes, in fact, we DID carry nuclear armed ASROCKs. Only for a very brief period, while I was aboard, did we NOT have nukes aboard. We carried those on every deployment.
It is very unlikely that the average grunt knows anything that stays classified for ten years or more. Our Cryptology Techs certainly know stuff that stays classified longer than that, but they aren't exactly "average grunts" either.
Desert Storm is now ancient history, and it's VERY unlikely that any of your friends has any pertinent information that remains classified. Your Korean War veteran relative is probably in the clear to blab anything and everything he knows. In fact, much of it is probably available on Youtube today.
Well, I only served 8 years. Maybe I don't understand.
Some people think that classified information stays classified forever. Other people like to impress their friends that they know classified information that can't be repeated. I don't know any of the people that you refer to, of course, so I can't say if any of them fall into either category.
I do know that as intel ages, it tends to be declassified.
The shop manual is indeed good reading. I have two for my motorcycle, and one each for the cars. I've never learned much of anything useful from an owner's manual though.