I am also concerned that this announcement will drain all remaining funding from the current unmanned exploration programs
I was worried about this to, but Bush mentioned in his speech that robots would pave the way for manned missions. So it sounds like at least some of the unmanned exploration will continue. I don't know what it means for the telescopes and things of that nature. (I think, seeing the reaction to the Mars Rover, that the best thing NASA could do for itself is build that multiple-satellite planet-finder telescope that's still in the design stage. Once we start finding Earth-sized Earth-like planets out there, the government will be forced to fund the space program like it does the Pentagon.)
techno-vampire might have been overly optimistic. It is possible that the program might become so popular it would be political suicide to cancel it. There's a lot of excitement about the Mars rovers, and space travel is a lot more important to the average voter than supercoliders (which, I am assuming, average people considered a barely justified expense when they thought about it at all).
That being said, Bush didn't say much that hasn't been said and then quietly not-acted-upon, before. Since he didn't plan to allocate any more money to the program ($1 billion over 5 years is something like a 1% budget increase), I'm doubt that anything is going to happen at all.
However, the timing of his speech may have unexpected effect. The Mars Rover has been a publicity bonanza for NASA, and people may hold Bush to his word because they're excited about what's going on already. Also, the Democratic candidates will probably feel compelled to come out with their own "space plans" and will at least have to go on record with what they think should happen. So, there will be some discussion about it, at least as long as the Mars Rover missions are still working. Maybe that will give the whole idea of being serious about space enough momentum that it will become politically important to keep the space plan (whatever it ends up being) going.
On the whole, though, I wasn't particularly encouraged by what Bush said. I was half hoping that his pro-business credentials would get him to promote a deregulated space market. But, that will probably take a few more years (and some X Prize success) to become a viable option.
Yeah, it's a problem. Bush is so much more attractive than Dean to conservative voters that he can do almost anything he wants (too easy on the environment, not enough attention to health care or education, a barely defensible economic policy) and we'll still vote for him. I think if Dean gets the Democratic nod, Bush will have so little to worry about as far as re-election is concerned that he won't change his position at all. So I'm really hoping that the Democrats field a strong candidate. Even if I still end up voting for Bush (his performance against terrorists is hard to beat), a strong competitor will force him and the Republicans to improve on areas that they've let slide in the last few years.
As Politburo was saying, it's early yet...
The nice thing about these space promises (if and when he makes them), is we'll get to see him act on them before the election. The problem is, of course, that no politician (yet) has been severly hurt by making promises about space and then not delivering. Some day it will be a real issue....
Thinking it over a bit, I'm pretty close to an indefensible position. It is too close to election time for it to be entirely believable that this was simply something Bush woke up one morning and decided to do. Also, presidential candidates are notorious for touting space-related goals during elections and ignoring them from then on. Us space-geeks are a gullible bunch.
However, I think it's plausible, judging from Bush's other actions, that he's not simply dangling this out there and hoping the voters will be swayed by his leadership. Also, I don't get the impression he really cares too much about the political race yet (that's where the polls come in: sure it's early, but he's got no worries yet). I don't think I could give factual support for either of these statements without a lot more work than I'm willing to put forth at the moment. So, unless you really want me to defend these, I'm just going to let it go at that.
It's hard to judge a candidate's motives when he does something right. Is he doing the right thing because he believes in it, or is he just trying to appease the electorate? And, for promises like this, do you trust him to keep them? Because Bush tends to do what he says he's going to do, if he says we're going to Mars, I'm going to trust him somewhat. Enough to vote for him next year? Not soley on his space-credentials, but it's a plus.
Of course Bush isn't operating in a vacuum. There are obvious political benefits to inspiring the American people with talk of exploration and bold new space programs. But...
Bush doesn't need to the political benefit. Today, he would be elected regardless of his 10-year plan for Mars colonization (if that's his plan, we'll have to wait and see what it actually is).
And, even if he were concerned about the elections, his energy is best spent elsewhere, while the nine dwarfs squabble amongst themselves.
So, sure, he's not stupid, but he's got no reason to change NASA just to win an election.
You're not going to believe this, but some of us actually do believe that Bush is a visionary.
The most recent example: immigration laws are really screwed up, especially with regard to Mexico. Most Republicans want to be tough on immigration. However, Bush stood up and said immigration needs to be changed.
Other examples: The Freedom Car (almost too visionary for my taste). Following a defense policy of pre-emption instead of waiting to be hit by terrorists (you might disagree with it, but it's a completely different defensive stance than we've had before. The closest thing to it was when Roosevelt used the navy to protect England before officially entering WWII).
He may be wrong, but he's got ideas (or, in the case of pre-emption, he's got good advisors) and he's not afraid to talk about them.
This isn't an election-year ploy for the simple reason that Bush is not running for election yet. He doesn't have to. I haven't seen a poll yet that says he's in danger of being beaten by a Democrat. The Democrats are busy campaigning against each other and tearing each other down.
I don't think you're accusing me of anything, but I'm all for the robot developement.
First of all, a robot dog is better than a mule because it won't spook and it will eventually be smarter (just as a cruise missle is more effective than a car bomber).
Secondly, the tech won't be classified forever, so the public money won't go to waste, although it may take longer to directly benefit the public than if it was given directly to MIT to develope cute robot helpers.
And, although I'd rather have live soldiers than pampered pets, I'd also perfer not to have to sacrifice our dumb chums for our survival. The robot-dog allows me to avoid this moral discomfort.
Does anyone know if there are any plans in the works at NASA, ESA, or elsewhere to send higher-resolution orbitting cameras to Mars? I know that the current pictures are by far the most detailed we've ever had, but someone must be thinking of doing better.
They must have have a pretty good idea where the Beagle should be, a good enough camera might at least be able to verify that it's there. (Not that it would matter, but it'd be nice to know...)
Doesn't the reactor have to be replaced every 20 years or so because the bombardment degrades the protective casing? So, it's not a one-time radioactive cost, but could happen several times during the life of a power plant.
I'm just trying to get a handle on how much fuel waste a fission reactor produces, compared to how much reactor waste a fusion reactor produces. I have no idea, really.
Building a vehicle that's guaranteed to come back to Earth is a good first goal. Carmack's team is basically building a huge rocket to go up, and a parachute to make the coming down part survivable. Consider the extra math, physics, and computer processing that would have to go into getting back to Earth once you are in orbit. Sure it can be done, but wouldn't you want to test the other parts of the process first?
As far as I can understand, this contests involves building larger than commercially available rocket engines, managing small-scale life support, dealing with simple launch paths, and surviving re-entry stress that doesn't involve serious heat. (I might be wrong on some of these, and I might not have realized other essential things involved) You can see how all of those pieces are simpler aspects of a full-blown orbital launch.
I happened to notice this afternoon that this weblog takes issue with the same essay that the parent poster used for their diatribe. It's a depressing little editorial from the Guardian. I didn't read either the parent post or the editorial very closely, but after a quick glance at both I suspect you got to read the editorial in its entirety as you composed your reply.
good job. Sure you could have taken the high road and refused to acknowledge a troll, but if you weren't allowed to indulge occasionally, life would be too dreary.
Since the Bush administration has changed the US policy to pre-emtive strikes against threats to the US, building a nuclear arsenal is no longer a guarantee against war with the US. Take a random, similar bunch of countries hostile to the US: North Korea, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Lybia. If you list those five in order of who's at risk of attack by the US, North Korea and Iran are going to be the top two on your list. What distinguishes them from the other three? They are attempting to get nuclear capability.
Nuclear capability is almost uncontrollable now. Almost, but not quite. The US has every reason to deal swiftly and decisively with hostile nuclear nations. Because if Iran or North Korea get nukes, the US is much, much more vulnerable.
Because of the danger of anonymous, nuclear strikes by terrorists, a country hostile to the US can't simply have nukes as a defensive measure. The US will see that country as an immediate threat. If you're a small tyranny, you don't want the US considering you a threat these days.
A lot of the intelligence the forces have been getting is from guys coming in off the street saying that they know where a certain Baathist is hiding. This isn't the most valuable kind of intelligence, (after all, the civilian could just be trying to settle a score with his innocent neighbor) but it has some value, and it's helpful in setting a context for more valuable tips that aren't obviously connected. The generals said today that they expected a lot more intelligence to come in after this capture. This isn't because they expected Saddam to start telling all his secrets (they said that they expected to learn nothing from him), but they expect more civilians to help them now that they have less to fear from the possibility of retribution.
Every time an Iraqi tips of the coallition forces about a Baathist, that Iraqi is risking his life. The more Baathists caught, the less risk, and the more people willing to contribute, and the whole process snowballs. The more high-profile the capture, the better response from the man-on-the-street. So, an "Iraqi guy tipping them off" is an indication of the improving intelligence capabilities.
On a related note. The Iraqis marching against terrorism last week were risking their lives. Naturally, considering the terrorism that is going on right now, the marches weren't all that big. But, if they live the month and hold another march, more people will join them. Same idea.
Also, it makes me realize how fortunate I am that I don't live there and that I don't have to do that type of risk-analysis every day.
The fact that the US hasn't invaded a country with nuclear capability is an accident of history at this time. MAD worked pretty well when there weren't many countries with nuclear capability. Now, with Iran and N.K. both attempting to achieve nuclear capability, it is very likely that the US will invade a nuclear country in the near future. There is no way to effectively deter terrorists or unstable countries from using nuclear weapons.
The current policy of the US seems to be to consider invading unstable, hostile countries before they go nuclear if possible (that was one of the arguments for invading Iraq--Iraq was trying to get nuclear capability). With N.K. and Iran, it may be that the US discovers that they have nuclear capability after the fact. They may plan to invade these countries because of their budding nuclear capability.
Because of these nations' sponsorship of terrorism, we would need to strike them before they had nuclear weapons, or, barring that, before they had a significant number of nuclear weapons, in order to protect our coastal cities from nuclear shipping cargo.
I know that Pakistan almost fits into the same category as Iran and North Korea, but we're hanging on to the thread of hope that it's stable enough (and the army will continue to be friendly enough), that it isn't a threat.
North Korea may be safe from invasion for a while because it could take Japan or South Korea down with it.
Iran is not safe. If it continues to pursue nuclear capability, and the IAEA continues to act like the UN did with regard to Iraq, it Will be bombed soon. Either by Israel, or the US, or both. And if you're going to bomb that country's army to destroy it's nuclear capability, might as well push it up a notch or two to destroy the mullah's power completely and free the people, right?
Come on, the Baathists and the Islamikazis aren't competing like gangs fighting over turf in Iraq. They might run slightly different organizations, but their immediate goals are similar: to fuck shit up with the coallition. They aren't turning each other in, especially not the heretofor mythic Saddam. It is true that this doesn't prove the US is any further along in their pursuit of Islamic terror cells in Iraq, but use your head. If the US can get inside the workings of the Ba'athists, who have a long-entrenched network and blood ties to the region, they are probably doing ok with a bunch of foreigners who are lost in the country without the help of Ba'athists.
Sure, the terror isn't over, but the US is getting inside these groups. Every time they make a capture like this, more civilians are emboldened to report terrorists in their neighborhood. Every time they capture or kill a leader, more Islamic teenagers think that maybe, just maybe, their psychotic Imams are wrong when they assure them the American is weak and will be easily be cowed by the passion of the jihadis. (Don't expect peace anytime soon. ha, at least the imams have been able to scare you.)
Nice try, attempting to nullify the accomplishment because of bin Laden. These guys aren't looking for bin Laden; that's not their job. This is like complaining that goes on on this site when money goes to scientific research instead of doing nice things like feeding the poor; things aren't perfect, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a good thing. (And, as I mentioned in another post, the troops in Iraq have a lot better resources than the troops in Afganistan. It's less likely that the Afganistan troops will be successful, but here's hoping.)
As another response pointed out, we do have a clue how the terror networks get and use their money. Now that we have Saddam and his henchmen, we'll have more of a clue. Also, before the war Saddam was a major source. We knew that, and we stopped it. Hopefully someday we'll stop the Saudis from contributing as well.
You say that we don't actually have good intelligence on these guys, we don't have a clue where bin Laden is, and we don't know how the money works. But we do; you just wish we don't.
"Not yet" is good, optomistic thinking, but it seems that there has been a lot more energy spent tracking down Baathists in Iraq than tracking down the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. There are several good reasons for this. There are more troops in Iraq. Also, Bin Laden could be in a country the US doesn't have complete control over, like Pakistan or Iran.
I really had the feeling that capturing Saddam was a matter of time (especially after Uday and Qusay), but getting Bin Laden isn't such a certainty. Will be great if they do get him, though.
I haven't read further down in the comments, so I don't know if someone else has mentioned this. This isn't just a symbol of Saddam's fall from power. It's a symbol of the increased control and improving intelligence capabilities of the American forces. Even if Saddam wasn't doing a lot of commanding from his hole in the ground, the fact that the special forces were able to track him down shows, once again, that they are picking apart the enemy infrastructure piece by piece.
Congratulations to them. This might be even more of an independence day for Iraqis than the day they threw down that statue in Bagdad.
There some sort of principle of dimishing returns involved in guarding against cheating. A cheat that allows a few extra votes for the cheater, but is difficult to do, is probably not worth recalling all the voting machines to fix. A cheat that allows someone an unlimited amount of votes (or allows them to reset all the votes tallied on a given machine) is a fatal flaw. There is a lot of motivation for the second type of cheat, and machines should be guaranteed against those types of exploits by the government, or we need a new government.
I've seen a lot of suggestions that each electronic vote should have a printed receipt which could be tallied separately. That would go a long way towards preventing people from resetting all the electronic votes for a particular candidate. I don't know why that idea is not already a standard for these machines--it is so simple and makes so much sense. That would invalidate on-line voting, but that shouldn't be allowed anyways for other reasons.
After reading your replies to other posters, it doesn't seem like the 'coin whip' or the 'light wand' would apply to voting machines. Regardless, those sound like exploits of the hardware and mechanics. There may be similar vulnurabilities with current (non-computerized) voting machines. I don't think this invalidates dmh20002's point that voting machines should at least be subject to the same scrutiny and review as slot machines.
There are factories all over the entire country that are involved in these big projects. Each part of a new jet is built in a different voting district. This way, every politician can go home to his voters and say "sure the B2 is costing the gov't a lot of money, but that money is being spent right here in our city. That's why I voted for it. That's why you should vote for me; I create jobs." It's not just Republicans, all the politicians do it because it's just good politics.
(Full disclosure: I live in Massachusetts, home of the Big Dig, a.k.a Tip-ONeil's-gift-to-his-state)
There's a lot of bellyaching on this topic about spending going out of control. That's not just Republicans who are to blame. If the Democrats really wanted to stop the spending, they could cause trouble like they're doing for the Republican judicial nominees. The Democrats spending all the money they can, just like the Republicans. The Democrats blame the Republicans, saying it's a Republican controlled congress. The Republicans blame the Democrats, saying the Democrats are the tax-and-spend party. The most recent budget is the worst pork-barrel mess that's been passed in a long time.
Our best hope as voters is for the Supreme Court to change the rules on gerrymandering so we can vote all of those fools out of office. Read about it and check the news on the Dec. 10th hearing.
It would be one big positive for Bush in a sea of negatives if he actually made this happen...
I'm not trying to start another pro-anti-Bush flame-war (that seems to be going on in thread above this one), but politically this seems similar to his "freedom car" plan (remember that? A hydrogen powered car based on a standardized, drive-by-wire platform built by GM; it will take approx. 10 years to develop).
The similarity is that moon base the plan is ambitious, long-term, and will succeed or fail quite some time after Bush is no longer president (assuming he doesn't do something crazy like lose 2004 and win in 2008). In the near term, it will seem suspicously like pork-barrelling, as you mention in your 2nd and 3rd doubts. And, in the near term, he will probably reap the rewards of more investment in various space-related businesses around the country. If the moon base succeeds, his name will (should) be associated with it historically. If it fails, the funding will be quietly cut by some future administration, the government subsidies will have gone to nothing, and the man to blame will be out of office already and not bear the consequences of his poor investment. It's unlikely that his place in history will be diminished by a failed space program (look at Bush Sr.'s plan mentioned in the National Review article. I didn't remember that he wanted to go to Mars).
There are lots of projects that need more than 4 or 8 years to come to fruition, and you can't automatically accuse a president of pork-barrelling when he plans further into the future than his current term in office. After all, we want a president that has long-term plans, as long as they are good ones. It's your call whether the we should risk the cost of failure (a) a small percentage of the budget wasted. b) NASA allowed to live, and fail, a little more). I think we should.
Just think if the moon base is successful, and we return to the halcyon days of the 60s space programs. A man can dream, can't he? (This is always the point at which NASA asks for a contribution)
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I am also concerned that this announcement will drain all remaining funding from the current unmanned exploration programs
I was worried about this to, but Bush mentioned in his speech that robots would pave the way for manned missions. So it sounds like at least some of the unmanned exploration will continue. I don't know what it means for the telescopes and things of that nature. (I think, seeing the reaction to the Mars Rover, that the best thing NASA could do for itself is build that multiple-satellite planet-finder telescope that's still in the design stage. Once we start finding Earth-sized Earth-like planets out there, the government will be forced to fund the space program like it does the Pentagon.)
techno-vampire might have been overly optimistic. It is possible that the program might become so popular it would be political suicide to cancel it. There's a lot of excitement about the Mars rovers, and space travel is a lot more important to the average voter than supercoliders (which, I am assuming, average people considered a barely justified expense when they thought about it at all).
That being said, Bush didn't say much that hasn't been said and then quietly not-acted-upon, before. Since he didn't plan to allocate any more money to the program ($1 billion over 5 years is something like a 1% budget increase), I'm doubt that anything is going to happen at all.
However, the timing of his speech may have unexpected effect. The Mars Rover has been a publicity bonanza for NASA, and people may hold Bush to his word because they're excited about what's going on already. Also, the Democratic candidates will probably feel compelled to come out with their own "space plans" and will at least have to go on record with what they think should happen. So, there will be some discussion about it, at least as long as the Mars Rover missions are still working. Maybe that will give the whole idea of being serious about space enough momentum that it will become politically important to keep the space plan (whatever it ends up being) going.
On the whole, though, I wasn't particularly encouraged by what Bush said. I was half hoping that his pro-business credentials would get him to promote a deregulated space market. But, that will probably take a few more years (and some X Prize success) to become a viable option.
Yeah, it's a problem. Bush is so much more attractive than Dean to conservative voters that he can do almost anything he wants (too easy on the environment, not enough attention to health care or education, a barely defensible economic policy) and we'll still vote for him. I think if Dean gets the Democratic nod, Bush will have so little to worry about as far as re-election is concerned that he won't change his position at all. So I'm really hoping that the Democrats field a strong candidate. Even if I still end up voting for Bush (his performance against terrorists is hard to beat), a strong competitor will force him and the Republicans to improve on areas that they've let slide in the last few years.
As Politburo was saying, it's early yet...
The nice thing about these space promises (if and when he makes them), is we'll get to see him act on them before the election. The problem is, of course, that no politician (yet) has been severly hurt by making promises about space and then not delivering. Some day it will be a real issue....
Thinking it over a bit, I'm pretty close to an indefensible position. It is too close to election time for it to be entirely believable that this was simply something Bush woke up one morning and decided to do. Also, presidential candidates are notorious for touting space-related goals during elections and ignoring them from then on. Us space-geeks are a gullible bunch.
However, I think it's plausible, judging from Bush's other actions, that he's not simply dangling this out there and hoping the voters will be swayed by his leadership. Also, I don't get the impression he really cares too much about the political race yet (that's where the polls come in: sure it's early, but he's got no worries yet). I don't think I could give factual support for either of these statements without a lot more work than I'm willing to put forth at the moment. So, unless you really want me to defend these, I'm just going to let it go at that.
It's hard to judge a candidate's motives when he does something right. Is he doing the right thing because he believes in it, or is he just trying to appease the electorate? And, for promises like this, do you trust him to keep them? Because Bush tends to do what he says he's going to do, if he says we're going to Mars, I'm going to trust him somewhat. Enough to vote for him next year? Not soley on his space-credentials, but it's a plus.
This is my third attempt at responding, slashdot keeps crashing.
Thanks for the info and the link.
Of course Bush isn't operating in a vacuum. There are obvious political benefits to inspiring the American people with talk of exploration and bold new space programs. But...
Bush doesn't need to the political benefit. Today, he would be elected regardless of his 10-year plan for Mars colonization (if that's his plan, we'll have to wait and see what it actually is).
And, even if he were concerned about the elections, his energy is best spent elsewhere, while the nine dwarfs squabble amongst themselves.
So, sure, he's not stupid, but he's got no reason to change NASA just to win an election.
You're not going to believe this, but some of us actually do believe that Bush is a visionary.
The most recent example: immigration laws are really screwed up, especially with regard to Mexico. Most Republicans want to be tough on immigration. However, Bush stood up and said immigration needs to be changed.
Other examples:
The Freedom Car (almost too visionary for my taste).
Following a defense policy of pre-emption instead of waiting to be hit by terrorists (you might disagree with it, but it's a completely different defensive stance than we've had before. The closest thing to it was when Roosevelt used the navy to protect England before officially entering WWII).
He may be wrong, but he's got ideas (or, in the case of pre-emption, he's got good advisors) and he's not afraid to talk about them.
This isn't an election-year ploy for the simple reason that Bush is not running for election yet. He doesn't have to. I haven't seen a poll yet that says he's in danger of being beaten by a Democrat. The Democrats are busy campaigning against each other and tearing each other down.
I don't think you're accusing me of anything, but I'm all for the robot developement.
First of all, a robot dog is better than a mule because it won't spook and it will eventually be smarter (just as a cruise missle is more effective than a car bomber).
Secondly, the tech won't be classified forever, so the public money won't go to waste, although it may take longer to directly benefit the public than if it was given directly to MIT to develope cute robot helpers.
And, although I'd rather have live soldiers than pampered pets, I'd also perfer not to have to sacrifice our dumb chums for our survival. The robot-dog allows me to avoid this moral discomfort.
Does anyone know if there are any plans in the works at NASA, ESA, or elsewhere to send higher-resolution orbitting cameras to Mars? I know that the current pictures are by far the most detailed we've ever had, but someone must be thinking of doing better.
They must have have a pretty good idea where the Beagle should be, a good enough camera might at least be able to verify that it's there. (Not that it would matter, but it'd be nice to know...)
Funny because it's true.
A mule is to a robot dog as a suicide-car-bomber is to a cruise missle.
Only the US armed forces can afford the expense (and get the developement costs low enough) to go with the robotic option.
Doesn't the reactor have to be replaced every 20 years or so because the bombardment degrades the protective casing? So, it's not a one-time radioactive cost, but could happen several times during the life of a power plant.
I'm just trying to get a handle on how much fuel waste a fission reactor produces, compared to how much reactor waste a fusion reactor produces. I have no idea, really.
Building a vehicle that's guaranteed to come back to Earth is a good first goal. Carmack's team is basically building a huge rocket to go up, and a parachute to make the coming down part survivable. Consider the extra math, physics, and computer processing that would have to go into getting back to Earth once you are in orbit. Sure it can be done, but wouldn't you want to test the other parts of the process first?
As far as I can understand, this contests involves building larger than commercially available rocket engines, managing small-scale life support, dealing with simple launch paths, and surviving re-entry stress that doesn't involve serious heat. (I might be wrong on some of these, and I might not have realized other essential things involved) You can see how all of those pieces are simpler aspects of a full-blown orbital launch.
I happened to notice this afternoon that this weblog takes issue with the same essay that the parent poster used for their diatribe. It's a depressing little editorial from the Guardian. I didn't read either the parent post or the editorial very closely, but after a quick glance at both I suspect you got to read the editorial in its entirety as you composed your reply.
good job. Sure you could have taken the high road and refused to acknowledge a troll, but if you weren't allowed to indulge occasionally, life would be too dreary.
Since the Bush administration has changed the US policy to pre-emtive strikes against threats to the US, building a nuclear arsenal is no longer a guarantee against war with the US. Take a random, similar bunch of countries hostile to the US: North Korea, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Lybia. If you list those five in order of who's at risk of attack by the US, North Korea and Iran are going to be the top two on your list. What distinguishes them from the other three? They are attempting to get nuclear capability.
Nuclear capability is almost uncontrollable now. Almost, but not quite. The US has every reason to deal swiftly and decisively with hostile nuclear nations. Because if Iran or North Korea get nukes, the US is much, much more vulnerable.
Because of the danger of anonymous, nuclear strikes by terrorists, a country hostile to the US can't simply have nukes as a defensive measure. The US will see that country as an immediate threat. If you're a small tyranny, you don't want the US considering you a threat these days.
A lot of the intelligence the forces have been getting is from guys coming in off the street saying that they know where a certain Baathist is hiding. This isn't the most valuable kind of intelligence, (after all, the civilian could just be trying to settle a score with his innocent neighbor) but it has some value, and it's helpful in setting a context for more valuable tips that aren't obviously connected. The generals said today that they expected a lot more intelligence to come in after this capture. This isn't because they expected Saddam to start telling all his secrets (they said that they expected to learn nothing from him), but they expect more civilians to help them now that they have less to fear from the possibility of retribution.
Every time an Iraqi tips of the coallition forces about a Baathist, that Iraqi is risking his life. The more Baathists caught, the less risk, and the more people willing to contribute, and the whole process snowballs. The more high-profile the capture, the better response from the man-on-the-street. So, an "Iraqi guy tipping them off" is an indication of the improving intelligence capabilities.
On a related note. The Iraqis marching against terrorism last week were risking their lives. Naturally, considering the terrorism that is going on right now, the marches weren't all that big. But, if they live the month and hold another march, more people will join them. Same idea.
Also, it makes me realize how fortunate I am that I don't live there and that I don't have to do that type of risk-analysis every day.
The fact that the US hasn't invaded a country with nuclear capability is an accident of history at this time. MAD worked pretty well when there weren't many countries with nuclear capability. Now, with Iran and N.K. both attempting to achieve nuclear capability, it is very likely that the US will invade a nuclear country in the near future. There is no way to effectively deter terrorists or unstable countries from using nuclear weapons.
The current policy of the US seems to be to consider invading unstable, hostile countries before they go nuclear if possible (that was one of the arguments for invading Iraq--Iraq was trying to get nuclear capability). With N.K. and Iran, it may be that the US discovers that they have nuclear capability after the fact. They may plan to invade these countries because of their budding nuclear capability.
Because of these nations' sponsorship of terrorism, we would need to strike them before they had nuclear weapons, or, barring that, before they had a significant number of nuclear weapons, in order to protect our coastal cities from nuclear shipping cargo.
I know that Pakistan almost fits into the same category as Iran and North Korea, but we're hanging on to the thread of hope that it's stable enough (and the army will continue to be friendly enough), that it isn't a threat.
North Korea may be safe from invasion for a while because it could take Japan or South Korea down with it.
Iran is not safe. If it continues to pursue nuclear capability, and the IAEA continues to act like the UN did with regard to Iraq, it Will be bombed soon. Either by Israel, or the US, or both. And if you're going to bomb that country's army to destroy it's nuclear capability, might as well push it up a notch or two to destroy the mullah's power completely and free the people, right?
Come on, the Baathists and the Islamikazis aren't competing like gangs fighting over turf in Iraq. They might run slightly different organizations, but their immediate goals are similar: to fuck shit up with the coallition. They aren't turning each other in, especially not the heretofor mythic Saddam. It is true that this doesn't prove the US is any further along in their pursuit of Islamic terror cells in Iraq, but use your head. If the US can get inside the workings of the Ba'athists, who have a long-entrenched network and blood ties to the region, they are probably doing ok with a bunch of foreigners who are lost in the country without the help of Ba'athists.
Sure, the terror isn't over, but the US is getting inside these groups. Every time they make a capture like this, more civilians are emboldened to report terrorists in their neighborhood. Every time they capture or kill a leader, more Islamic teenagers think that maybe, just maybe, their psychotic Imams are wrong when they assure them the American is weak and will be easily be cowed by the passion of the jihadis. (Don't expect peace anytime soon. ha, at least the imams have been able to scare you.)
Nice try, attempting to nullify the accomplishment because of bin Laden. These guys aren't looking for bin Laden; that's not their job. This is like complaining that goes on on this site when money goes to scientific research instead of doing nice things like feeding the poor; things aren't perfect, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a good thing. (And, as I mentioned in another post, the troops in Iraq have a lot better resources than the troops in Afganistan. It's less likely that the Afganistan troops will be successful, but here's hoping.)
As another response pointed out, we do have a clue how the terror networks get and use their money. Now that we have Saddam and his henchmen, we'll have more of a clue. Also, before the war Saddam was a major source. We knew that, and we stopped it. Hopefully someday we'll stop the Saudis from contributing as well.
You say that we don't actually have good intelligence on these guys, we don't have a clue where bin Laden is, and we don't know how the money works. But we do; you just wish we don't.
"Not yet" is good, optomistic thinking, but it seems that there has been a lot more energy spent tracking down Baathists in Iraq than tracking down the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. There are several good reasons for this. There are more troops in Iraq. Also, Bin Laden could be in a country the US doesn't have complete control over, like Pakistan or Iran.
I really had the feeling that capturing Saddam was a matter of time (especially after Uday and Qusay), but getting Bin Laden isn't such a certainty. Will be great if they do get him, though.
I haven't read further down in the comments, so I don't know if someone else has mentioned this. This isn't just a symbol of Saddam's fall from power. It's a symbol of the increased control and improving intelligence capabilities of the American forces. Even if Saddam wasn't doing a lot of commanding from his hole in the ground, the fact that the special forces were able to track him down shows, once again, that they are picking apart the enemy infrastructure piece by piece.
Congratulations to them. This might be even more of an independence day for Iraqis than the day they threw down that statue in Bagdad.
There some sort of principle of dimishing returns involved in guarding against cheating. A cheat that allows a few extra votes for the cheater, but is difficult to do, is probably not worth recalling all the voting machines to fix. A cheat that allows someone an unlimited amount of votes (or allows them to reset all the votes tallied on a given machine) is a fatal flaw. There is a lot of motivation for the second type of cheat, and machines should be guaranteed against those types of exploits by the government, or we need a new government.
I've seen a lot of suggestions that each electronic vote should have a printed receipt which could be tallied separately. That would go a long way towards preventing people from resetting all the electronic votes for a particular candidate. I don't know why that idea is not already a standard for these machines--it is so simple and makes so much sense. That would invalidate on-line voting, but that shouldn't be allowed anyways for other reasons.
After reading your replies to other posters, it doesn't seem like the 'coin whip' or the 'light wand' would apply to voting machines. Regardless, those sound like exploits of the hardware and mechanics. There may be similar vulnurabilities with current (non-computerized) voting machines. I don't think this invalidates dmh20002's point that voting machines should at least be subject to the same scrutiny and review as slot machines.
There are factories all over the entire country that are involved in these big projects. Each part of a new jet is built in a different voting district. This way, every politician can go home to his voters and say "sure the B2 is costing the gov't a lot of money, but that money is being spent right here in our city. That's why I voted for it. That's why you should vote for me; I create jobs." It's not just Republicans, all the politicians do it because it's just good politics.
(Full disclosure: I live in Massachusetts, home of the Big Dig, a.k.a Tip-ONeil's-gift-to-his-state)
There's a lot of bellyaching on this topic about spending going out of control. That's not just Republicans who are to blame. If the Democrats really wanted to stop the spending, they could cause trouble like they're doing for the Republican judicial nominees. The Democrats spending all the money they can, just like the Republicans. The Democrats blame the Republicans, saying it's a Republican controlled congress. The Republicans blame the Democrats, saying the Democrats are the tax-and-spend party. The most recent budget is the worst pork-barrel mess that's been passed in a long time.
Our best hope as voters is for the Supreme Court to change the rules on gerrymandering so we can vote all of those fools out of office. Read about it and check the news on the Dec. 10th hearing.
It would be one big positive for Bush in a sea of negatives if he actually made this happen...
I'm not trying to start another pro-anti-Bush flame-war (that seems to be going on in thread above this one), but politically this seems similar to his "freedom car" plan (remember that? A hydrogen powered car based on a standardized, drive-by-wire platform built by GM; it will take approx. 10 years to develop).
The similarity is that moon base the plan is ambitious, long-term, and will succeed or fail quite some time after Bush is no longer president (assuming he doesn't do something crazy like lose 2004 and win in 2008). In the near term, it will seem suspicously like pork-barrelling, as you mention in your 2nd and 3rd doubts. And, in the near term, he will probably reap the rewards of more investment in various space-related businesses around the country. If the moon base succeeds, his name will (should) be associated with it historically. If it fails, the funding will be quietly cut by some future administration, the government subsidies will have gone to nothing, and the man to blame will be out of office already and not bear the consequences of his poor investment. It's unlikely that his place in history will be diminished by a failed space program (look at Bush Sr.'s plan mentioned in the National Review article. I didn't remember that he wanted to go to Mars).
There are lots of projects that need more than 4 or 8 years to come to fruition, and you can't automatically accuse a president of pork-barrelling when he plans further into the future than his current term in office. After all, we want a president that has long-term plans, as long as they are good ones. It's your call whether the we should risk the cost of failure (a) a small percentage of the budget wasted. b) NASA allowed to live, and fail, a little more). I think we should.
Just think if the moon base is successful, and we return to the halcyon days of the 60s space programs. A man can dream, can't he? (This is always the point at which NASA asks for a contribution)
If those are your ideas of good books, I'm interested in these mysteries by Elizabeth Peters that you mention.
I need a break in between the tough reads; my wife wants to be Indian Jones. Maybe these would be good books.
Thanks for the suggestion....