You sir, are extremely misinformed. The fact that you pushed some of the buttons means nothing to me.
Hmm, I was on the scene, yet I'm misinformed. I know more about these systems than you'll ever know, yet I'm misinformed. My hands-on experience means nothing to you.
You, sir, are a blithering idiot.
As for the restaurant and such, we didn't miss the building, did we? Yeah, Saddam wasn't there, but that's an intel failure. It happens in war time. The alternative is to blanket the entire area with munitions, killing even more innocents.
Is that why the US managed to hit a clearly located Red Cross compound in Afghanistan not once but twice? Or why it managed to hit a Chinese embassy building in the Balkans?
Hey, the grandparent was complaining about the abiliity to aim at a target. I responded that our weapons are hella accurate. He never said anything about hitting the right target. That's an intelligence failure, and has fuckall to do with the accuracy of the weapons being used.
Naturally the American taxpayers will be told that this will make the world a safer place.
Call me crazy, but I think the US having the ability to rain down death and destruction on anyone who gets in our way does make the world a safer place. For Americans. And those are the only people our tax dollars should be protecting in the first place.
Also, am I the only one who is a mite worried about their ability to aim correctly at the target, as they didn't do a particularly good job of that in Iraq with a much shorter range to worry about.
You're either misinformed, or terminally stupid. I'm inclined to think the latter.
The US airstrikes consistently landed within feet, and oft times inches, or their intended targets. This was after traveling hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles away. I know, I was there, I pushed some of the buttons that launched those airstrikes. I also worked with one of the guys who designed the GPS guided smart bombs; they're as accurate, or more so, as Fox News reported.
Technically, you're correct. But I think it's a reasonable assumption that if someone is being belligerant to a cop, they're not the type to respect law and authority. Which means it's likely they've done something wrong. Also, you're more likely to be the type that'll throw a punch unprovoked. I think it's safe to say any cop on the street wants to avoid being sucker punched by Random J. Asshole.
I just finished downloading and watching the video. The very first thing out of the cop's mouth is "Well, I've got a report that there's been a fightin' going on between you two tonight."
When the cop asks for ID, the guy says "Why?" The cop's response is "The thing of it is, we're conducting an investigation, ok, so I need to see some identification." I'm not sure where the "investigating an investigation" comes from, but that's not what was said.
At this point, the cop has:
1) Said why he's pulled up to talk to the guy. 2) Has politely requested to see his ID several times. 3) Has politely explained why he needs to see the ID.
Nothing about this smacks of Nazi Germany, or Soviet Russia. It's just a random cop, doing his job, and trying to be a professional. The cowboy here, though, well, he starts acting like a cowboy. He gets beligerant, he even starts insisting the cop go ahead and arrest him. Which the cop refuses to do, until the cowboy continually insists he won't show his ID. He keeps going on about how he's parked legally, which the cop never refutes, but that's not why he needs to see some ID. There was a report of a fight, and the cop needs to know who he's talking to so he can do his job.
As for the girl, she deserved to have her ass thrown on the deck. What kind of idiot forces their way out of a truck, screaming bloody murder at a bunch of cops? What are they supposed to think when she's acting so unreasonable?
Also, Hiibel claims his daughter was driving. Then why was she on the passenger side of the truck? Assuming she had slid over to the passenger side prior to the arrival of the cops, why didn't she slide back over to the driver's side to exit the vehicle? I'm thinking her passage was probably impeded, and that the father was the actual driver (also witness how insistent he was that he had parked the truck legally). This guy's whole story smells of utter bullshit.
I've got $5 that says the Supreme Court bounces this guy out on his ear.
In the U.S., most people revere very highly "innocent until proven guilty" (except for the military)
The UCMJ provides the same protections under military law for members of the military as the Constitution. So you're innocent until proven guilty, have the right to counsel, and for any serious offense have the right to have your case heard in a court of law (a court-martial). So the military reveres "innocent until proven guilty" just as highly as civilians do.
Don't forget: every member of the US military takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution, and we all take that oath very seriously. I'm always more worried about the type of people who go into law enforcement than the military. Law enforcement types are taught to see other Americans as the bad guys; the military is always looking at foreigners to fill that role. Much better from my point of view.
Back on topic: not only is your SS card (wow, that sounds weird) not a valid ID, it's not a mandatory one, either. You need an SSN for payroll tax purposes, so that's why you need to show your employer your card as part of the INS check when you start a new job. But since there's no picture on it, most authorities won't accept it by itself to establish your identity.
Not decoy ICBM's. Balloon decoys. And hell yes. You can put ~100 of them on each booster because they are little more than balls of mylar.
Those only work once the warheads have seperated from the launch vehicle. The solution? Target the launch vehicle *before* the warheads deploy.
Look, no defense system is perfect, and noone ever claimed missile defense is a panacea. But it's better than sitting around, doing nothing to protect ourselves. Just like the best lock will only slow down the best thief, not stop him, so too will the best defensive system only reduce the amount of damage done by the best offensive system. The goal is to increase our country's chance of survival. Unfortunately, there's no way to guarantee it.
And now I know that they're the same, even before I meet Tankado. Thanks, friendly book reviewer!
Are you kidding? (I know you were, I saw the emoticon.) As soon as he wrote the name "Tankado", I immediately thought "must be the dead guy in Spain." Once the reviewer confirmed that, I knew there was no way I'd ever waste my time reading this book.
No, not really. The problem with intercepting an ICBM is above all one of decoys. The radar and IR sensors see an incomning cloud of 100 identical shiny, round objects. One of them contains a warhead. Which do you hit?
Why, all of them, of course. Definitely the biggest hurdle.
Given that it's MUCH easier to build a decoy than an interceptor, that is a game that you can't win (assuming equal resources going in - which against the Russkies is a reasonable bet).
ROFLMAO! The US and Russia have equal resources? Man, what are you smoking? The US has a GDP of $10.45 trillion, Russia's is only $1.4 trillion. That's almost an order of magnitude in difference. Do you honestly think Russia can build enough decoy ICBMs to counter the number of interceptors we could assemble?
So basically you're saying that there is no global warming...
The jury is still out on whether humans are causing/have caused global warming.
...SUVs are safe and get 30 mpg...
I didn't say that, I implied they're not evil.
...letting governments do whatever they say without standing up for any cause is the right thing to do.
OK, ya got me there. I don't agree with just laying down and letting the guvmint do what it wants. At the same time, I don't have much regard for "professional activists", who are driven more by their desire to change something, anything, than to achieve a particular goal. They're no better, and are in fact basically the same, as professional politicians. I have more regard for the Sarah Bradies of the world, even when I despise their politics, than the professional bandwagon-jumpers-on like the UCS. At least she targetted one thing she thought was important and kept her sights set on it, instead of using a shotgun approach like the UCS appears to have done.
a) The 2001 tests showed that a certain class of missile could be destroyed before reaching the point when it would deploy its multiple warheads. Pretty important thing to prove.
b) If our "allies" were willing to develop their own defenses, they'd up their military spending. As long all of them combined spend less than we do on our own, we'll be stuck protecting them, too. (Personally, I don't have a problem with this. I sleep much more comfortably at night, knowing that as much as France and Germany might hollar at us, that's all they can do.)
c) Aegis isn't likely to be the system used in the long run, not for continental defense. Somehow I doubt you could mount enough missiles, with enough engine capacity, on ships to make it worthwhile. That's what places like Idaho and Nebraska are for. That said, Aegis can be seen as one of the first steps to this type of technology, and many of its abilities will likely be built into it.
The difference is that a navy ship does not get attacked by hundreds if not thousands of missles...
Actually, that's not true. Modern Aegis is programmed to track and destroy, literally, hundreds of missiles per destroyer or cruiser, thousands per battle group. The systems were originally designed to counter the Soviet threat, and one of their known tactics was to use target saturation.
You are correct, though, that ICBMs would typically travel much more quickly than anti-ship missiles. There are some other big differences, too, like the survivability of an ICBM to proximity fused weapons (Exocets are much smaller and more easily destroyed than Tridents, for example). But like I said, it's only a question of scale, and none of those hurdles are insurmountable. Like the old saying goes, if we can put a man on the moon, we can knock a missile out of the air.
This is what I meant by incremental improvements. Yes, some of the first tests were done under "ideal" circumstances. But those were designed to test the feasability of actually hitting a supersonic missile and disabling it, not tracking it, too. As we go along, the technology will mature and we'll be more able to protect not just our homeland, but our allies, too (since they're unwilling to do it themselves).
Now, answer this: the Navy has been able to knock down incoming anti-ship missiles for years now. The technology has gotten to the point where the chance of a missile impacting one of our ships is miniscule. How is that fundamentally different from shooting down an ICBM? Answer: it's not, it's only a question of scale.
No kidding. A quick perusal of their site comes up with articles on global warming, how to be an activist, the evils of SUVs, and other non-sense. Little wonder such a group would condemn the policies of the current administration.
For instance, this blurb is on their front page: "Misplaced Priorities in the 2005 Budget. President Bush's budget request for 2005 increases funding for the dysfunctional missile defense system while shortchanging programs that could ensure a future of cleaner energy and automobiles."
"Dysfunctional"? Funny, seems every test that's been conducted has shown better results than the previous one. I'm not sure how something designed to safeguard the US from attack by, oh, say, North Korea (who has persued nuclear weapons and missiles with range to California in the past), and which, while not perfect, is getting better, can be described as "dysfunctional." You'd think a bunch of Nobel laureates would understand the concept of "incremental improvement."
that is if optimality was defined by an intention to stimulate the economy and reduce magnitude and druation of the recession.
Well, considering that there wasn't a recession (we never had two consecutive quarters of negative growth, the definition of a recession), and all this talk about "lost jobs" ignores all the new businesses which have been started in the last two years, I'd say he did a pretty good job with what he was handed.
That said, I'm not sure either President deserves any real blame, and not a lot of credit, for the boom and bust of the turn of the century. Clinton did push through some things that helped the Internet and the larger economy grow (though he should've tried to keep things from getting as out of control with regards to wild market valuations), and Bush probably wasn't as proactive as he could have been (even though by the time he took office all of the forces were well in motion). But all-in-all, they both did fairly good jobs with the hands they were respectively dealt.
he is fairly balanced-being critical of both bush and clinton.
Interesting that he can be balanced when he's being critical of a man who wasn't President during the "roaring nineties" (#41 had little, if anything, to do with the new economy, #43 was elected after the bubble burst).
Of course, it doesn't hurt to colonize numerous less powerfull nations, systematically remove all profit and natural resources, then "benevolently" grant said colonies their independence when everything of value is gone and they're no longer profitable to the empire.
Hmm, maybe that's why the dollar is so weak compared to the pound....
Not really. Once you have a set of rules striving to impose order on chaos, you have government. It might be a simple tribal council, or a shaman-led theocracy, but it's still a government. Even the Swiss Family Robinson had government, eg. the parents decided how their kids should behave.
There are _real_ elections in China. It's weird how many Americans don't realize that.
And there are real crackdowns on disidents, too. So to say China isn't a totalitarian government is a little like saying Disney isn't a multinational media company.
As for communism != totalitarianism, the only way a communist system can work is for all power to be concentrated in the hands of a few, with no real checks and balances. If that isn't a prime example of totalitarian government, I don't know what is.
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You sir, are extremely misinformed. The fact that you pushed some of the buttons means nothing to me.
Hmm, I was on the scene, yet I'm misinformed. I know more about these systems than you'll ever know, yet I'm misinformed. My hands-on experience means nothing to you.
You, sir, are a blithering idiot.
As for the restaurant and such, we didn't miss the building, did we? Yeah, Saddam wasn't there, but that's an intel failure. It happens in war time. The alternative is to blanket the entire area with munitions, killing even more innocents.
Is that why the US managed to hit a clearly located Red Cross compound in Afghanistan not once but twice? Or why it managed to hit a Chinese embassy building in the Balkans?
Hey, the grandparent was complaining about the abiliity to aim at a target. I responded that our weapons are hella accurate. He never said anything about hitting the right target. That's an intelligence failure, and has fuckall to do with the accuracy of the weapons being used.
Naturally the American taxpayers will be told that this will make the world a safer place.
Call me crazy, but I think the US having the ability to rain down death and destruction on anyone who gets in our way does make the world a safer place. For Americans. And those are the only people our tax dollars should be protecting in the first place.
Don't like it? Go get your own military for once.
Also, am I the only one who is a mite worried about their ability to aim correctly at the target, as they didn't do a particularly good job of that in Iraq with a much shorter range to worry about.
You're either misinformed, or terminally stupid. I'm inclined to think the latter.
The US airstrikes consistently landed within feet, and oft times inches, or their intended targets. This was after traveling hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles away. I know, I was there, I pushed some of the buttons that launched those airstrikes. I also worked with one of the guys who designed the GPS guided smart bombs; they're as accurate, or more so, as Fox News reported.
Is being stupid a crime?
Yep, and it's usually a capital offense. Haven't you heard of the Darwin Awards?
Technically, you're correct. But I think it's a reasonable assumption that if someone is being belligerant to a cop, they're not the type to respect law and authority. Which means it's likely they've done something wrong. Also, you're more likely to be the type that'll throw a punch unprovoked. I think it's safe to say any cop on the street wants to avoid being sucker punched by Random J. Asshole.
I just finished downloading and watching the video. The very first thing out of the cop's mouth is "Well, I've got a report that there's been a fightin' going on between you two tonight."
When the cop asks for ID, the guy says "Why?" The cop's response is "The thing of it is, we're conducting an investigation, ok, so I need to see some identification." I'm not sure where the "investigating an investigation" comes from, but that's not what was said.
At this point, the cop has:
1) Said why he's pulled up to talk to the guy.
2) Has politely requested to see his ID several times.
3) Has politely explained why he needs to see the ID.
Nothing about this smacks of Nazi Germany, or Soviet Russia. It's just a random cop, doing his job, and trying to be a professional. The cowboy here, though, well, he starts acting like a cowboy. He gets beligerant, he even starts insisting the cop go ahead and arrest him. Which the cop refuses to do, until the cowboy continually insists he won't show his ID. He keeps going on about how he's parked legally, which the cop never refutes, but that's not why he needs to see some ID. There was a report of a fight, and the cop needs to know who he's talking to so he can do his job.
As for the girl, she deserved to have her ass thrown on the deck. What kind of idiot forces their way out of a truck, screaming bloody murder at a bunch of cops? What are they supposed to think when she's acting so unreasonable?
Also, Hiibel claims his daughter was driving. Then why was she on the passenger side of the truck? Assuming she had slid over to the passenger side prior to the arrival of the cops, why didn't she slide back over to the driver's side to exit the vehicle? I'm thinking her passage was probably impeded, and that the father was the actual driver (also witness how insistent he was that he had parked the truck legally). This guy's whole story smells of utter bullshit.
I've got $5 that says the Supreme Court bounces this guy out on his ear.
In the U.S., most people revere very highly "innocent until proven guilty" (except for the military)
The UCMJ provides the same protections under military law for members of the military as the Constitution. So you're innocent until proven guilty, have the right to counsel, and for any serious offense have the right to have your case heard in a court of law (a court-martial). So the military reveres "innocent until proven guilty" just as highly as civilians do.
Don't forget: every member of the US military takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution, and we all take that oath very seriously. I'm always more worried about the type of people who go into law enforcement than the military. Law enforcement types are taught to see other Americans as the bad guys; the military is always looking at foreigners to fill that role. Much better from my point of view.
Back on topic: not only is your SS card (wow, that sounds weird) not a valid ID, it's not a mandatory one, either. You need an SSN for payroll tax purposes, so that's why you need to show your employer your card as part of the INS check when you start a new job. But since there's no picture on it, most authorities won't accept it by itself to establish your identity.
Not decoy ICBM's. Balloon decoys. And hell yes. You can put ~100 of them on each booster because they are little more than balls of mylar.
Those only work once the warheads have seperated from the launch vehicle. The solution? Target the launch vehicle *before* the warheads deploy.
Look, no defense system is perfect, and noone ever claimed missile defense is a panacea. But it's better than sitting around, doing nothing to protect ourselves. Just like the best lock will only slow down the best thief, not stop him, so too will the best defensive system only reduce the amount of damage done by the best offensive system. The goal is to increase our country's chance of survival. Unfortunately, there's no way to guarantee it.
And now I know that they're the same, even before I meet Tankado. Thanks, friendly book reviewer!
Are you kidding? (I know you were, I saw the emoticon.) As soon as he wrote the name "Tankado", I immediately thought "must be the dead guy in Spain." Once the reviewer confirmed that, I knew there was no way I'd ever waste my time reading this book.
No, not really. The problem with intercepting an ICBM is above all one of decoys. The radar and IR sensors see an incomning cloud of 100 identical shiny, round objects. One of them contains a warhead. Which do you hit?
Why, all of them, of course. Definitely the biggest hurdle.
Given that it's MUCH easier to build a decoy than an interceptor, that is a game that you can't win (assuming equal resources going in - which against the Russkies is a reasonable bet).
ROFLMAO! The US and Russia have equal resources? Man, what are you smoking? The US has a GDP of $10.45 trillion, Russia's is only $1.4 trillion. That's almost an order of magnitude in difference. Do you honestly think Russia can build enough decoy ICBMs to counter the number of interceptors we could assemble?
So basically you're saying that there is no global warming...
...SUVs are safe and get 30 mpg...
...letting governments do whatever they say without standing up for any cause is the right thing to do.
The jury is still out on whether humans are causing/have caused global warming.
I didn't say that, I implied they're not evil.
OK, ya got me there. I don't agree with just laying down and letting the guvmint do what it wants. At the same time, I don't have much regard for "professional activists", who are driven more by their desire to change something, anything, than to achieve a particular goal. They're no better, and are in fact basically the same, as professional politicians. I have more regard for the Sarah Bradies of the world, even when I despise their politics, than the professional bandwagon-jumpers-on like the UCS. At least she targetted one thing she thought was important and kept her sights set on it, instead of using a shotgun approach like the UCS appears to have done.
Add to this that Russia sucessfully tested a balistic missile that can manuver in flight to dodge missile defense sheilds yesterday.
You mean this ballistic missile test? According to the article, the missile crashed 98 seconds after take-off. Doesn't sound so successful to me.
a) The 2001 tests showed that a certain class of missile could be destroyed before reaching the point when it would deploy its multiple warheads. Pretty important thing to prove.
b) If our "allies" were willing to develop their own defenses, they'd up their military spending. As long all of them combined spend less than we do on our own, we'll be stuck protecting them, too. (Personally, I don't have a problem with this. I sleep much more comfortably at night, knowing that as much as France and Germany might hollar at us, that's all they can do.)
c) Aegis isn't likely to be the system used in the long run, not for continental defense. Somehow I doubt you could mount enough missiles, with enough engine capacity, on ships to make it worthwhile. That's what places like Idaho and Nebraska are for. That said, Aegis can be seen as one of the first steps to this type of technology, and many of its abilities will likely be built into it.
The difference is that a navy ship does not get attacked by hundreds if not thousands of missles...
Actually, that's not true. Modern Aegis is programmed to track and destroy, literally, hundreds of missiles per destroyer or cruiser, thousands per battle group. The systems were originally designed to counter the Soviet threat, and one of their known tactics was to use target saturation.
You are correct, though, that ICBMs would typically travel much more quickly than anti-ship missiles. There are some other big differences, too, like the survivability of an ICBM to proximity fused weapons (Exocets are much smaller and more easily destroyed than Tridents, for example). But like I said, it's only a question of scale, and none of those hurdles are insurmountable. Like the old saying goes, if we can put a man on the moon, we can knock a missile out of the air.
Doesn't anyone know how to read the fucking news critically anymore?!
Dateline of the linked article: July 31, 2001
Dateline of this article: November 21, 2002
This is what I meant by incremental improvements. Yes, some of the first tests were done under "ideal" circumstances. But those were designed to test the feasability of actually hitting a supersonic missile and disabling it, not tracking it, too. As we go along, the technology will mature and we'll be more able to protect not just our homeland, but our allies, too (since they're unwilling to do it themselves).
Now, answer this: the Navy has been able to knock down incoming anti-ship missiles for years now. The technology has gotten to the point where the chance of a missile impacting one of our ships is miniscule. How is that fundamentally different from shooting down an ICBM? Answer: it's not, it's only a question of scale.
No kidding. A quick perusal of their site comes up with articles on global warming, how to be an activist, the evils of SUVs, and other non-sense. Little wonder such a group would condemn the policies of the current administration.
For instance, this blurb is on their front page: "Misplaced Priorities in the 2005 Budget. President Bush's budget request for 2005 increases funding for the dysfunctional missile defense system while shortchanging programs that could ensure a future of cleaner energy and automobiles."
"Dysfunctional"? Funny, seems every test that's been conducted has shown better results than the previous one. I'm not sure how something designed to safeguard the US from attack by, oh, say, North Korea (who has persued nuclear weapons and missiles with range to California in the past), and which, while not perfect, is getting better, can be described as "dysfunctional." You'd think a bunch of Nobel laureates would understand the concept of "incremental improvement."
that is if optimality was defined by an intention to stimulate the economy and reduce magnitude and druation of the recession.
Well, considering that there wasn't a recession (we never had two consecutive quarters of negative growth, the definition of a recession), and all this talk about "lost jobs" ignores all the new businesses which have been started in the last two years, I'd say he did a pretty good job with what he was handed.
That said, I'm not sure either President deserves any real blame, and not a lot of credit, for the boom and bust of the turn of the century. Clinton did push through some things that helped the Internet and the larger economy grow (though he should've tried to keep things from getting as out of control with regards to wild market valuations), and Bush probably wasn't as proactive as he could have been (even though by the time he took office all of the forces were well in motion). But all-in-all, they both did fairly good jobs with the hands they were respectively dealt.
he is fairly balanced-being critical of both bush and clinton.
Interesting that he can be balanced when he's being critical of a man who wasn't President during the "roaring nineties" (#41 had little, if anything, to do with the new economy, #43 was elected after the bubble burst).
Ssshhh! You're refuting assinine statements with facts, liberals hate it when you do that!
Of course, it doesn't hurt to colonize numerous less powerfull nations, systematically remove all profit and natural resources, then "benevolently" grant said colonies their independence when everything of value is gone and they're no longer profitable to the empire.
Hmm, maybe that's why the dollar is so weak compared to the pound....
So where do I sign up to convince people to write POS Software for me?
Too late, someone aleady is.
(Don't forget the other meaning of "POS".)
Order can exist without government, you know
Not really. Once you have a set of rules striving to impose order on chaos, you have government. It might be a simple tribal council, or a shaman-led theocracy, but it's still a government. Even the Swiss Family Robinson had government, eg. the parents decided how their kids should behave.
There are _real_ elections in China. It's weird how many Americans don't realize that.
And there are real crackdowns on disidents, too. So to say China isn't a totalitarian government is a little like saying Disney isn't a multinational media company.
As for communism != totalitarianism, the only way a communist system can work is for all power to be concentrated in the hands of a few, with no real checks and balances. If that isn't a prime example of totalitarian government, I don't know what is.
In an anarchist society, it is possible to be organized
Except that "anarchy" means "without order". So, no, it isn't possible to be organized in an anarchy, despite what Chomsky has to say.
Just because someone's earned a doctorate in linguistics doesn't mean he gets to change the definitions of words.