The more impressive trick is that it's way, way past it's total mission time, and was scheduled to come down around thanksgiving. It's now almost 2 months past it's original planned mission.
That's only impressive if it's deliberate... otherwise it has become just another piece of space junk.
Well... quite the American mentality right there huh? People dying (in OTHER countries) is a lesser evil to expensive gas!! And you guys wonder why the rest of the world view you with contempt...
No, I don't wonder at all. And the politicians don't give a damn about dead foreigners, unless it affects their reelection prospects.
Remember Cheney's "That's not a number we have a lot of interest in."? The wellbeing of natives has never mattered in colonial ventures.
Lunatics in Teheran are bound to try their new toys and losses are justified for them (they are not losses anyway as people go to heaven directly of course).
The same can be said about Washington. I remember GWB sanctimoniously stating regarding some of our casualties that they are in a better place now, as if he had a hotline to God to ask how it turned out for them.
They are maybe not silly enough to try yet but there will be time when they think USA is hopelessly stretched and will not answer - Saddam did the same mistake.
Saddam thought he was our bitch and had a green light for invading Kuwait. "Stretch" had nothing to do with it.
You are not seriously thinking that they spend a thought or two losses that can be incurred if they thought that at the same time this would bring them some major profit in terms of popularity inland or even a great win against infidels???
Again, same mentality as a lot of people in Washington.
Nor is Iran technologically in the dark ages, having its own robotics industry and technology from China and Russia.
I'm sure China would be delighted to see us throw away a few trillion dollars on another war that won't gain us anything except bad PR. We can sell them some more of our assets to pay for it.
100+ missile boats can send out a lot of missiles before they're sunk.
Also, IIRC an estimated 900,000 Iranians died resisting Saddam Hussein's grab of a useless strip of land along the border. Anyone who thinks they'll just run away and hide is a fool.
Read about small boats and aircraft did during US war games under Gen. Paul van Ripen.
Also remember the words that got a general in trouble in Iraq: "This isn't the war we were expecting to fight.", or something to that effect.
Militaries are notoriously bad about preparing to fight the last war again. Or the war before last... The US has spent most of the last 65 years spending petabucks preparing to refight WWII (vs. the Russians) in central Europe and the Japanese navy at sea.
There was no good naval battle on CNN in a while. If it happens, it will be really exciting 1 hour, because that's how long it will take to destroy all Iran's fleet.
You should read about the wargames that someone mentioned in another post.
Supposedly it went so badly for the good guys that the referees stopped the game before it was over.
The press conference where he informs the country that their settlers were attacked by Indian spearmen would be golden.
Yeah, you've got to make sure to tell all the ministers what's going on, so there won't be an embarrassed silence when he asks the Minister of Defense why they can't seem to make progress in the war with the Aztecs.
Most importantly, all of the predictions made by the Global Warming scientists are wrong. They predicted that the past 3 years would be the worst ever for hurricanes - they turned out to be some of the most mild. The predicted temperature changes couldn't have be much worse.
"The year 2011 brought the most billion-dollar climate disasters to the United States ever, piling history-making events on top of each other to catastrophic results. The litany of disaster included a scorching drought that rivaled the Dust Bowl summer of 1936, a tornado season twice as bad as the great 1974 tornado outbreak, and flooding worse than the the great 1927 flood on the Mississippi River. [...] Nationwide, more than 6,000 heat records were broken this year. On average, the U.S. has three or four events every year that are considered major natural disasters. But, this year, there were at least fourteen billion-dollar disasters. Damages are expected to exceed $53 billion."
If we did ever discover a living dinosaur. What would that say about our science?
Actually, not much. It would just tell us that a population survived the cataclysm and has been lurking somewhere that we haven't explored thoroughly.
Now, if we discover that the earth is hollow, or that the stars are just pin-holes in a dome with a big light behind it, or that neutrinos travel faster than the speed of light, or that greenhouse gasses don't actually cause greenhouse effects, *then* we'll have to make some major changes to our theories.
Sorry to break it to you but while your observation regarding the melt in Greenland is about 80% accurate, the preponderance of ice in Antarctica is not floating on the surface of water but rather is sitting on a continental land mass.
...and slipping into the sea...at a rate that exceeds the prognostics.
Global warming doesn't preclude local cooling. In fact, it's a natural consequence as weather patterns change.
Maybe, maybe not.
Global warming just means more thermal energy in the atmosphere and oceans. That can have dramatic effect on weather patterns; a simple "everywhere is warmer today than it was yesterday" is *not* what you should expect.
And FYI, one of the most threatening looming effects of GW is that meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet will cause the Gulf Stream to shut down, throwing northwestern Europe into a climate as cold as other regions at that latitude.
Even if the the world's climate were warming, you have no evidence to support that it is more than a perodic aberration.
We've understood the physics of greenhouse gasses for almost 200 years, and we know we've been dumping sh*tloads of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere at accelerating rates since around the time of the Industrial Revolution.
Do you dispute the physics? Do you dispute the fact that we're dumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere?
Do you actually have a *reason* for your skepticism?
That group then says that noone should ever challenge their science or examine it (the science is settled).
I'd like to know who is saying that, and if someone is saying it, why anyone else should care.
Science is always subject to challenge. The problem for reality deniers is, a challenge only succeeds when the evidence is on its side.
And that the only people who can perform the science are people who already agree with the conclusions and who are close friends to the current researchers
Are you unaware that a prominent skeptical scientist put together a team to review the evidence, and just released their report? How come they weren't locked out?
and if you come to any other conclusion then will be personally and professionally destroyed.
Got a list of victims? People whose conclusions were actually based on evidence?
Even wild and ridiculous theories are tested and proven or disproved. Tests MUST be reproducible and available to all. That is the very nature of "The Scientific Method".
No, lots of natural phenomena are inherently irreproducible. And lots of science *is* available to all, though not many people are willing to invest the ten years of hard labor necessary to become an entry-level expert.[*]
I don't like bullies - especially ones who dress up and play scientists.
And professionals don't like big-headed A/Cs who think they know more than the experts.
[*] NSF *requires* data dissemination by its grantees. Of course, corporate research is only made available when it suits their interests.
It is my observation that in the United States and even Canada it is the religious right who make up the highest proportion of global warming nay-sayers. Go figure.
Republican politicians, whose agenda is to take care of the rich, have succeeded in making it a "conservative" issue. I think the religious right mostly picks it up from their conservative leaders (e.g., FOX News).
There may also be some creationists who think the earth can't be changed by mere humans, or who think we're the stewards and thus can screw it up as much as we please, or evangelicals who think Jesus is going to come back in this generation (of course), so the earth doesn't need to last much longer.
Theres always been warming and cooling. Nobody has ever denied that the earth goes through warming and cooling cycles.
That's true, but not all of those cycles have been as cozy as what we've had during our lifetimes. Ice a mile deep down to the latitude of New York City would be a non-trivial inconvenience, as would sweltering heat, higher sea levels, etc.
It's pretty obvious who here is having trouble wrapping their head around reality if you actually believe there are a whole bunch of people who refuse to believe that the planet goes through warming and cooling cycles.
I'm astonished that anyone who thinks the fact that the planet goes through warming and cooling cycles is a reason not to do anything about greenhouse emissions.
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The more impressive trick is that it's way, way past it's total mission time, and was scheduled to come down around thanksgiving. It's now almost 2 months past it's original planned mission.
That's only impressive if it's deliberate... otherwise it has become just another piece of space junk.
This is the company that all but flat-out said they were tampering with a US election, right? And we trust them with... anything?
They're more careful with the important stuff, like money.
According to Ohio Revised Code 3101.01(A), effective in 2004, marrying VMs and ATMs is illegal.
Ohio needs to get with it and pass some less restrictive marriage laws!
Well... quite the American mentality right there huh? People dying (in OTHER countries) is a lesser evil to expensive gas!!
And you guys wonder why the rest of the world view you with contempt...
No, I don't wonder at all. And the politicians don't give a damn about dead foreigners, unless it affects their reelection prospects.
Remember Cheney's "That's not a number we have a lot of interest in."? The wellbeing of natives has never mattered in colonial ventures.
Lunatics in Teheran are bound to try their new toys and losses are justified for them (they are not losses anyway as people go to heaven directly of course).
The same can be said about Washington. I remember GWB sanctimoniously stating regarding some of our casualties that they are in a better place now, as if he had a hotline to God to ask how it turned out for them.
They are maybe not silly enough to try yet but there will be time when they think USA is hopelessly stretched and will not answer - Saddam did the same mistake.
Saddam thought he was our bitch and had a green light for invading Kuwait. "Stretch" had nothing to do with it.
You are not seriously thinking that they spend a thought or two losses that can be incurred if they thought that at the same time this would bring them some major profit in terms of popularity inland or even a great win against infidels???
Again, same mentality as a lot of people in Washington.
Define "factor"
How about just using it in a sentence: "Your wife will divorce you when she finds out you factor best friend."
Nor is Iran technologically in the dark ages, having its own robotics industry and technology from China and Russia.
I'm sure China would be delighted to see us throw away a few trillion dollars on another war that won't gain us anything except bad PR. We can sell them some more of our assets to pay for it.
100+ missile boats can send out a lot of missiles before they're sunk.
Also, IIRC an estimated 900,000 Iranians died resisting Saddam Hussein's grab of a useless strip of land along the border. Anyone who thinks they'll just run away and hide is a fool.
Iran is doing what all failing governments do, redirecting the ire of their people to someone other than itself.
Kind of like the USA's warmongering politicians are doing with Iran?
I think the message is more "Fuck with us and people die" rather than "We will conquer the Earth". Just my 2c.
Or worse, "Fuck with us and your voters will be paying ten dollars a gallon for gasoline."
Read about small boats and aircraft did during US war games under Gen. Paul van Ripen.
Also remember the words that got a general in trouble in Iraq: "This isn't the war we were expecting to fight.", or something to that effect.
Militaries are notoriously bad about preparing to fight the last war again. Or the war before last... The US has spent most of the last 65 years spending petabucks preparing to refight WWII (vs. the Russians) in central Europe and the Japanese navy at sea.
There was no good naval battle on CNN in a while. If it happens, it will be really exciting 1 hour, because that's how long it will take to destroy all Iran's fleet.
You should read about the wargames that someone mentioned in another post.
Supposedly it went so badly for the good guys that the referees stopped the game before it was over.
The press conference where he informs the country that their settlers were attacked by Indian spearmen would be golden.
Yeah, you've got to make sure to tell all the ministers what's going on, so there won't be an embarrassed silence when he asks the Minister of Defense why they can't seem to make progress in the war with the Aztecs.
Just put him to playing Civilization or the like, and tell him he's running the country.
Most importantly, all of the predictions made by the Global Warming scientists are wrong. They predicted that the past 3 years would be the worst ever for hurricanes - they turned out to be some of the most mild. The predicted temperature changes couldn't have be much worse.
But we did get this:
"The year 2011 brought the most billion-dollar climate disasters to the United States ever, piling history-making events on top of each other to catastrophic results. The litany of disaster included a scorching drought that rivaled the Dust Bowl summer of 1936, a tornado season twice as bad as the great 1974 tornado outbreak, and flooding worse than the the great 1927 flood on the Mississippi River. [...] Nationwide, more than 6,000 heat records were broken this year. On average, the U.S. has three or four events every year that are considered major natural disasters. But, this year, there were at least fourteen billion-dollar disasters. Damages are expected to exceed $53 billion."
All I see is fabricated data and corrupt models promulgated by politicians in the name of more control.
Maybe you should be reading science journals instead of black-helicopter-paranoiac web sites.
Just out of curiosity....
If we did ever discover a living dinosaur. What would that say about our science?
Actually, not much. It would just tell us that a population survived the cataclysm and has been lurking somewhere that we haven't explored thoroughly.
Now, if we discover that the earth is hollow, or that the stars are just pin-holes in a dome with a big light behind it, or that neutrinos travel faster than the speed of light, or that greenhouse gasses don't actually cause greenhouse effects, *then* we'll have to make some major changes to our theories.
Sorry to break it to you but while your observation regarding the melt in Greenland is about 80% accurate, the preponderance of ice in Antarctica is not floating on the surface of water but rather is sitting on a continental land mass.
...and slipping into the sea ...at a rate that exceeds the prognostics.
You are actively admitting that you have a financial incentive as an individual for man-made climate change to be untrue.
Sure, as long as you actively admit that you have an interest yourself. Those Greenpeace t-shirts aren't going to sell themselves...
Believe it or not, some of us don't get a cut on the sales of those t-shirts.
Global warming doesn't preclude local cooling. In fact, it's a natural consequence as weather patterns change.
Maybe, maybe not.
Global warming just means more thermal energy in the atmosphere and oceans. That can have dramatic effect on weather patterns; a simple "everywhere is warmer today than it was yesterday" is *not* what you should expect.
And FYI, one of the most threatening looming effects of GW is that meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet will cause the Gulf Stream to shut down, throwing northwestern Europe into a climate as cold as other regions at that latitude.
Even if the the world's climate were warming, you have no evidence to support that it is more than a perodic aberration.
We've understood the physics of greenhouse gasses for almost 200 years, and we know we've been dumping sh*tloads of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere at accelerating rates since around the time of the Industrial Revolution.
Do you dispute the physics? Do you dispute the fact that we're dumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere?
Do you actually have a *reason* for your skepticism?
Was there a leather-bound scroll I missed somewhere?
If you believe in everything written in scrolls, you need professional help asap. ;-)
Also, some can't be safely read aloud, so be careful with them.
The above proves that the above above was in deed correct.
The above above above was bullshit. The only thing I'd change is adding "or clueless or a fool" to "insane or a paid-for-by-assholes troll".
That group then says that noone should ever challenge their science or examine it (the science is settled).
I'd like to know who is saying that, and if someone is saying it, why anyone else should care.
Science is always subject to challenge. The problem for reality deniers is, a challenge only succeeds when the evidence is on its side.
And that the only people who can perform the science are people who already agree with the conclusions and who are close friends to the current researchers
Are you unaware that a prominent skeptical scientist put together a team to review the evidence, and just released their report? How come they weren't locked out?
and if you come to any other conclusion then will be personally and professionally destroyed.
Got a list of victims? People whose conclusions were actually based on evidence?
Even wild and ridiculous theories are tested and proven or disproved. Tests MUST be reproducible and available to all. That is the very nature of "The Scientific Method".
No, lots of natural phenomena are inherently irreproducible. And lots of science *is* available to all, though not many people are willing to invest the ten years of hard labor necessary to become an entry-level expert.[*]
I don't like bullies - especially ones who dress up and play scientists.
And professionals don't like big-headed A/Cs who think they know more than the experts.
[*] NSF *requires* data dissemination by its grantees. Of course, corporate research is only made available when it suits their interests.
It is my observation that in the United States and even Canada it is the religious right who make up the highest proportion of global warming nay-sayers. Go figure.
Republican politicians, whose agenda is to take care of the rich, have succeeded in making it a "conservative" issue. I think the religious right mostly picks it up from their conservative leaders (e.g., FOX News).
There may also be some creationists who think the earth can't be changed by mere humans, or who think we're the stewards and thus can screw it up as much as we please, or evangelicals who think Jesus is going to come back in this generation (of course), so the earth doesn't need to last much longer.
Theres always been warming and cooling. Nobody has ever denied that the earth goes through warming and cooling cycles.
That's true, but not all of those cycles have been as cozy as what we've had during our lifetimes. Ice a mile deep down to the latitude of New York City would be a non-trivial inconvenience, as would sweltering heat, higher sea levels, etc.
It's pretty obvious who here is having trouble wrapping their head around reality if you actually believe there are a whole bunch of people who refuse to believe that the planet goes through warming and cooling cycles.
I'm astonished that anyone who thinks the fact that the planet goes through warming and cooling cycles is a reason not to do anything about greenhouse emissions.