I've seen a number of prominant historians comment on that very fact.
The question you've ansewered is one of the best asked about the Cold War.
Namely, why did the Soviet Union collapse and China endure?
The answer is exactly what you said. Where Gorbachev proved unwilling to use military force to put down rebellion in the DDR, the PRC showed no such reservations about Tiananmen square. Therein lies the difference and the first cracks in the Soviet Union.
Because he WASN'T like the other hard line "commies." Gorby was the first of the next generation of the Communist (Bolshevik) party. Here, what follows is the birth and death dates of the rulers (since the name of the post changed a lot) of the USSR.
Note that everyone up to Gorby was not only alive during the Lenin years but was policialy indoctrinated in the Stalin years. Gorby came too late for that. Born in 1931, Gorby's school years got him nearly all the way through the Stalin period.
Consequently, Gorbachev was really a product of the Khrushchev years rather than Stalin. Realize that Khrushchev's break with Stalin (as mentioned in grandparent post) was not looked upon favorably by the hard line commies you refer to and their move on power following his tenure instituted a period of reactionary extremism.
Gorbachev then, represented a fundamental ideological break with the old hard line elements in the party. If Reagan (note I'm fixing my spelling. All you ACs who bitched about it clearly didn't read the sig) had really been the deciding factor in the fall of the Soviet Union one would expect to see a re-centering of the political climate under Cherenko, Brezhnev, and Andropov all of whom held power during Reagan's first term of office. Instead, what you see is the exact opposite. These three are Stalinists they don't move to the center, but rather further to the extremes.
Reagan's evil empire musings and his overtly hostile attitude towards the Soviet Union weren't terribly helpfull in the big picture. In fact Reagan's saber rattling nearly plunged us into thermonuclear war during the Able Archer exercises, a little publicized intelligence/war-game debacle that got way out of hand.
As for the spending of the 1980s, the United States dug itself into a multi trillion dollar hole in the process. Most of that money went into the military industrial complex. While I've no real issue beefing up the military (as having the 2nd best isn't good for much) its a real pity that some of the social programs so badly needed in this country go un-funded so we can sink another billion into systems both unneeded and unwanted by the Pentagon.
Getting back to the point... Gorby did what he did because he saw the ruin being perpetuated on his country by the lies and secrecy of the Stalinists. He genuinely believed he could redeem the Soviet Government and put to rest some of the injustices done in the name of the Party under Stalin and his followers. He was wrong.
When the dust settled Bush and Reagan got to grin at the world and tell it what a great job they did because no one was left to disagree with them.
As a historian, nothing irritates me more than the neo-conservative hogwash that Regan or Bush Sr won the Cold War. The Cold War lasted from 1945 (actually 47 if you ask most historians) to 1991. As such, I don't find it unreasonable to assume that Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter also had something to do with that victory.
That said anyone who's studied the Soviet Era can tell you exactly how much sense the "Regan won the Cold War" theory makes. The X Telegram (George Kennan) stated in no uncertain terms that the Soviet Union must expand or collapse from within. Based on this document, it was the official position of the United States to contain the spread of communism. This was not a four or eight year process, but a stand which took decades. If Regan won the cold war for what purpose did our servicemen give their lives in Vietnam? In Korea?
All this aside, the argument I hear most frequently is that Regan's "genius" in backing the Star Wars program forced the Soviet Union into a spending spiral that caused internal collapse of the economy and thus the collapse of the Soviet Union itself.
Unfortunately, this is totally unsubstantiated. First off, the Soviet Union consistently spent huge sums of money on the military. Many will toss figures at this argument quoting between 40% to 70% of Soviet GDP in the late 1980s. Realize two things when you see this argument. First, as a (officially) communist State the USSR has no GDP. No numbers were every kept to this extent in the USSR and any numbers we have are based on the (somewhat) biased estimates of the US armed forces and defense contractors (who have a vested interest here).
Secondly, earlier estimates from the Kennedy, Eisenhower, and Johnson administrations indicate Soviet Military spending at around 40% of the countries production capacity (think Civilization shields here, since we still don't have a real GDP here). Unfortunately I've been unable to locate decent links for this data. Apparently it only exists in dead tree media.
So what did cause the collapse of the Soviet Union? The answer is pretty obvious once you think about it... The Soviet Union caused it. Khrushchev started the ball rolling when he gave The Secret Speech at the 20th Party Congress in 1956. When Khrushchev released political pressures in the Soviet Union the result was what you'd expect. Give them an inch they take a mile. Khrushchev tried to clamp down on this movement, but was only able to stem its tide. Hard-line elements in the Soviet Government were less than pleased with this, and this was one of the factors that pushed Khrushchev to the now infamous military aggressiveness exhibited during his tenure.
After Khrushchev hard-line elements regained power in the Soviet Union and by instituting a Geritocracy favoring those who followed in the traditions of Stalin these elements kept the dissidents in perilous check.
Gorbachev changed all that. His policies of Glasnost and Perestroika snowballed. These policies were intended to allow some of the internal pressures to abate while keeping the Soviet system in power and the country under control. However, much like punching a hole in a dam, the tiny valve soon became a rushing torrent. Civil War erupted and on December 25 1991 the Soviet Flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time.
What caused it? More than anything else it was the tide of political conservatism in the Soviet Union. This tide wasn't encouraged by Star Wars or Stealth Technology. It was the result of Coca Cola and McDonalds, the product of Ford and General Motors. The Soviet people wanted what the United States had... prosperity.
And just as Kennan said, the Soviet model couldn't maintain a decent standard of living without expanding.
So my apologies to Regan and his crew. And in answer to your question "what was Regan's legacy?" The answer is as follows. Regan was in the right place at the right time and managed not to screw it up to badly. It's a foreign policy the right has been following ever sense.
She gets up at 6:30 every morning to go to work. The school day runs till 2:30. She's supposed to stick around until 3:30ish.
She then comes home and works on lesson plans and grading until dinner (circa 7:00), takes a 1 hour break at dinner and continues work until 10:00 or 11:00. Bed is at midnight.
Teaching isn't nearly as much slack time as you think.
Oh... and summers are busy as well. Due to the recent "revolution" in education, most teachers have to spend a good part of their summer earning recirtification points so they can keep their licence.
And then there's the No Child Left Behind act. I won't get started on that one. Suffice it to say the Federal Government is acting like the Pointy Haired Boss of education.
The light side of the moon isn't the point. (largely because it doesn't exist).
The moon has some key advantages but to understand them you have to understand the fundamental difference between Planetside and Spaceside environments.
Planetside - Energy poor, stuff rich. In short, we've got tons of minerals, resources, atmosphere, etc here on Terra firma, but energy is hard to come by. Energy is expensive on earth because you're constantly fighting all the stuff to get to the energy.
Spaceside - Energy rich, stuff poor. Orbital locations are rife with energy. Unfiltered sunlight streams through them all the time. One of the major problems in design for orbital equipment is dumping the energy out of the system.
Now examine the moon. The moon has no atmosphere to speak of, which means that there is comparitively very little stuff in the way of getting to most of the energy there. Similarly, the moon has lots of usefull minerals on the surface... minerals that with the huge quantities of energy avaiable, can be easily converted into more usefull forms. Finaly the moon is at the edge of earth's gravity well. While it took the combined greatest minds of a generation to get mankind to the moon, it takes a reasonably clever college graduate and a not totaly unreasonable budget to get stuff BACK from the moon.
Lunar stations provide massive scientifc, commercial, and logistical oportunities for the future. The only thing the moon doesn't provide is defence capability. The United States signed a treaty some time ago with the USSR (and several other signitories I belive) pledging never to use the moon for military purposes.
Now.. given that we've flagrently ignored the ABM treaty I don't see the current administration having any issues with constructing a "Death Star".... aside from the technical ones of course.
Re:Great. Answer the phone, get an ear infection.
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No, those companies are on an interstellar space craft headed for the a remote spiral arm of the galaxy.
Basicly this allowed them to ascertain that a detonation at ground level would have more of its energy absorbed by the ground and terrain than a detonation at altitude X.
Remember, the Manhattan project dealt with explosive forces heretofor unreckoned with in history. No one was really sure if a blast of that magnitude would be substantialy dampened by man made obstructions.
The afforementioned incident provided a passable model wherein one could reason that buildings could act as a sheild to a several ton explosion, there was no evidence to suggest that this would not be true for a several kiloton explosion as well.
Think of it this way. Oppenheimer didn't use this case study as a reason to detonate the bomb in the air, but rather a reason not to detonate it on the ground.
Let me clear up some misconceptions about cancer therapy before you all manage to get off on some strange political tangent (yes, I realize you've allready gone off on some political tangent)
Note BTW: I am a cancer survivor... this is first hand knowledge.
Cancer patients at your average hospital receive a level of care that's been more or less completely tested and sutdied by the FDA. This process takes years, but this regime is strong enough to cure most cases.
In cases where the patent seems unresponsive to the standard therapies they may be transfered to a research oriented instituion (National Institutes of Health, many University Hospitals, etc). These institutions can provide experimental treatment to patients in need of it.
Experimental treatments have four grade levels. A, B, C, and D. Grade D treatments are given to new cases in research hospitals fairly frequently (I received Grade D experimental therapy and recovered with no relapses).
As the situation escalates the patient may try more and more unproven techniques. When the FDA approves something for human trials it is approved for Class A therapy.
Generaly if a drug fails to kill people instantly it moves from class A to class B pretty quickly. Each step down the ladder takes more time than the last steps above it. Stem cell treatments for example, are a class D therapy today... they've moved from class A in the early 1990s. Many of the drugs I took in the early 1990s however, entered the standard regimine in the last few years.
So long and the sort of it, the people most at risk are getting this stuff ASAP. Less desperate cases will continue using more tested methods unless things start to deteriorate rapidly.
Disclaimer: I presently work for Echostar/Dish Network.
Heh.... joke's on them. Dish just launched a major promotion that's pushing the Dish DVR 510 receiver to the overwhelming majority of the customer base. The promo basicly allows current customers to get one of these installed for free (programing agreement... but TANSTAFL).
For those of you to lazy to follow the link, the 510 is a DVR receiver with a plethora of happy output jacks. Add on a warrenty (and keep that warrenty) and you've basicly got a DRM free DVR as long as you want to keep it (with 100% digital today... not in 2005).
Ok, so some might interpret it as a blatent product plug, but I think it's pretty cool.
NB: I just checked the Dish website... the promo's not listed there for some reason. Sucks, I was gonna give a link. If you're insterested call in.
For the record, most environmentalists are less worried about the planet and more worried about you.
No one has any doubts that if human kind makes the biggest mess we can of this ball of mud that life will go on. The industrial companies are right, human kind is small change in the cycles of global climate.
Of course, when you're small change it doesn't take a whole hell of a lot to exterminate you and most everything like you.
No one thinks we're gonna wreck the planet, but aside from Al Gore, most of us wouldn't want to see Florida under water.
Humankind probably won't make any major changes in the global scheme of things, but the minor changes we make could cause untold havoc, suffering, and chaos... at least on the human scale.
So yes... the Sun might be the major cause of global warming.... in much the same way that your heater is the major thing that heats your house.
Does this mean it's a good idea to set the drapes on fire?
I agree with you... modding sucked on that one. (Note, I'm the author of the parrent you disagreed with). Looking over your reply I did get some facts wrong and I appreciate your correction of them.
Lets not forget the fact that has human beings a technology like this would go exactly 20 minutes before someone used it to start creating some kind of insanely lethal weapon.
Jim Bob here built himself a bunch of shotgun shells that pump the sonofabitch ye shoot fulla Ricin... what's Ricin again Jim Bob?
Course, that's kinda a moot point... if you take a shotgun blast......
Theory stands, with proper nanoassembly techniques there's not a whole lot of chemical difference between a vinal chair and a container of VX gas.
I can tell you which one I'd trust my neighbor with though.
Beyond that, Nanotech represents the last best hope for providing the kind of living conditions we're always talking about the the overwhelming majority of the world that we (frankly) don't give a shit about.
I'm talking about the US's opinions here... the rest of the Western World is a great deal more enlightened.
Nanotech devices represent a number of really key ideas. Starting with affordable water filtration devices and moving all the way up to super efficient energy, nanotech could bring the 3rd world out of the 3rd world.
Of course, actualy nanoscale machinery capable of doing anything seriously complex is a long way out. We're not going to see this technology applied to the energy industry or to manufacturing in the next 10 years, but given enough time it will happen. Right now we're at nanoscale materials (carbon nanotubes etc). Those primarily benefit the industrial nations. As nanoscale machinery becomes available you'll see one of those few instances where a major advance in science benefits the worlds poor....
Not really off topic after there's a little sub thread going on it!
For the record the Russians lost something on the order of 34,000,000 in WWII. This was largely due to two major issues with the Red Army.
1.) Stalin genuinely belived the Malatov-Ribintropp pact which divided Poland between the two countries. It took Stalin several days (weeks? Sources are unclear on this) to react to the news that Germany had invaded. This, in conjunction with his general paranoia and consistant purging of the Red Army's higherups lead to confusion and disarray in the face of the enemy.
2.) Once the Red Army rallied, Stalin realized he had a lot more men than he had weapons for them to fight with. Thus began a classic Soviet military strategy. When faced with an enemy better equiped than you, trade men for technology. In the case of WWII Stalin sent around five times as many soldiers into battle than he did guns. The result was that a lot of young men died without a weapon to fight with. The idea was that once soldier A had been shot, solider B would take up his gun and keep going. For a good example of how this worked see Enemy At the Gates.
While it is unfair to say that we Yanks saved the collective asses of Europe in WWII militarily, it's not unfair to say we did it economicaly. Roosevelt (against US popular opinion, and in a deal that would have gotten him impeached today) supplied weapons to the UK, the French Resistance, Russia, and a few others at cost or at a loss in many cases. The US economy was fighting in the European theater well before December 7, 1941.
That said, yes... the UK had turned the tide in the Battle of Britian, and while I'm not completely sold that Montgomery had Rommel under wraps in Africa before Paton showed up, he was making progress. The Soviets were doing an excelent job on the Eastern Front of the war and things were definately looking up for "All That Is Just and Good In The World" (tm) before the Yanks stepped in.
That said, history is the study of what happened, not what might have happened. There's no way of knowing what the effect of Hitler's new "superweapons" (the V1, the Hydrogen powered Uboat, and the Mesherschmidt 271[the jet... can't remember the number]) would have been had the US not stepped into shorten the war. Had those weapons ever entered full production things may have broken differently in the European theater. There's just no way to tell.
I don't know which if any rights are being violated. My gut feeling is that no rights are being violated (though it greeves me to say that).
Legaly, parrents are allowed to control what their child is exposed to before they turn 18. This is why parrents can opt their children out of Sex Ed (called Family Life in my State) classes even though the State/state has a very strong (perhaps compelling?) reason to insist that they be there.
Similarly this same logic is used to defend those parrents who do not want their children asked to say the pledge of alegiance in schools.
Now in my loacal area those on the radical left want to see manditory Sex Ed and no pledge. Those on the radical right want to see manditory pledge and no Sex Ed (abstinance abstinance abstinance). Me? I want the kids fed something that can be distinguished from both petemoss and year old cheese-loaf at the same time.
Honestly though, there's no easy answer to your question. The libritarians might be right on this one, the market will decide the fate of this product.
I suspect the NRA will publish something about "gun friendly" and "gun hostile" web cop software packages. You'll see people using web cop tools to shape their children's political viewpoints.... all in all the shape of the world won't change, just the way it gets that way.
You seem to have missed what most people miss when dealing with the ACLU's stance on issues.
The ACLU doesn't look at most issues in a case by case basis. They realize that the best way to protect your constitutional rights isn't through the congress or through the executive, but through the court system. Consequently the ACLU isn't looking at issues case by case for what they agree with, they are looking for cases that will make very strong precidents for the future issues they agree with.
Now then, when the Govt required libraries to block access to porn sites in the interest of "protecting our children" the ACLU steped in and helped fight it. Today libraries must be able to remove those blocks at a moments notice should someone have a desire to view those sites who is not a minor.
This is based on previous precidents reguarding obsenity and indecency.
The Symantec system (potentialy) represents a MUCH STRONGER precident beacuse it does not hit those obsenity laws at all. Noone has made an effort to declare handguns or firearms indecent or obscene in their community and consequently this sort of thing provides the ACLU with a great case to overturn laws requireing such a system.
The ACLU will fight this if given the chance, not because of what Symentec is blocking, but because Symentec is blocking ANYTHING.
According to this (somewhat dubious looking) page the total deaths in Vietnam for the first nine years total as follows
US -- 229,159 South Vietnam -- 792,288 Total -- 1,021,447
Iraq, in contrast has had the following casualties according to this (decidedly left wing) site....
Iraq -- (7,784 - 9,596)
Total (max) -- 9,951
I'm not thrilled with the death toll in Iraq, but lets not pretend that these wars stack up to each other. When it comes to US (& allied) casualties, Vietnam was three orders of magnitude worse (nine years vs thus far in iraq, your figgures, not mine).
However, and I think this is key to realize. In the first year in Vietnam we lost 63 men. We've lost five times that in little more than 6 months in Iraq.
Most residents of the United States have fallen into the falacy of the much touted Liberal Bias In The Media (caps intentional).
We've had it cramed down our throats by every radio talk show zelot, republican candidate, and conservitive figure we're willing to listen to.
It's simply not the case. Are most journalists liberal? Unquestionably. Education is one of the strongest factors in determining political viewpoints (next to family and wealth) and most journalists hold at least a BA/BS.
Nonetheless, this does not mean that the media as a whole is liberal. General Motors employs thousands of union workers who, for the most part, have liberal leanings and vote democrat. Would you therefore assume that the automotive interests of General Motors are represented by the Democratic Party? [Fact, GM consistanly supports conservitive candidates above liberal ones, all other factors being equal].
The companies we're talking about aren't interested in the Liberal Agenda. Do you think AOL Time Warner wants to see more regulation of the media? Do you think MSNBC (note the MS there) wants to see anti-monopolistic measures taken in the software industry?
When the BBC ran the story on how the Jessica Lynch rescue wasn't all it was cracked up to be did you see it in the US media? Of course not... That isn't to say it didn't run, you'll find several versions of it with a quick google search... but it wasn't exactly above the fold.
MSNBC is even debuting a made for TV version of the "rescue." Executives have repeatedly declined comment as to which version of events they'll be displaying.
So here's my question. If Bill Clinton had presented blatently false information in the State of the Union Address, acted on that information and gone to war on the basis of it, lied about what happened IN the war all the while systematicly dismanteling the individual rights of the US Population... if all that had happened, don't you think the media would have had a bit more to shout about than a stain on a blue dress?
Clinton was impeached for lieing before Congress. The Bush Administration also lied before Congress. Then it went on to commit the country to a war on the same lies. Where is the special investigative council? Where are the media watch dogs?
Liberal Media indeed.... in an election between a stiff and a coke head who did the media favor? The coke head. Go figgure....
Besides the obvious excuse to use the word "paradigm" I have to ask if this is going to really be that big a deal. I mean, yes it's great to have this kind of thing for the disabled... but the majority of the use cases for this kind of thing seem hampered.
I can't think of a lot of reasons I'd want something like this on a home system. Besides the creepy "I'm talking to the walls" feel, I can't imagine it would be any faster or more engaging to interact in this manner.
Public use cases seem like a good idea, until you realize that background noise and assholes shouting commands over your sholder could end up causing more problems than the system solved.
When this kind of thing can be attached to a really powerfull datamining engine and equiped with a much larger vocabularly I'll be impressed. Right now it looks like more of a toy.
People got along fine making most goods from plastic and burning fossil fuels to get from point A to point B. When objections were raised about the environmental impact of this lifestyle some people said "People got along ok without domesticated animals and clothes by living in trees for thousands of years too. Let's go back to that. You first."
These people were the first against the wall when the revolution came.
We say gas is expensive, but it's not -=that=- expensive. Consider that gallon of milk can run you twice what a gallon of gas costs.
Similarly, consider the price of a handle of vodka. Almost every refined product we purchase costs more per gallon than gasoline.
The real question should be this. At what level are US Citizen prepared to take drastic means to keep energy prices down? California seems to be tolerating relitively high gas prices in comparison to the rest of the US. Admittedly it's California, so there's a bit of inherent irrationality there, but they haven't done a whole lot more than lobby for their regulations to be implemented on the national level.
When push comes to shove I think it would take a massive shift in policy almost completely by suprise. If gas prices climb slowly you won't see a change. If they spike upward (like if the Mid East decides tomorow it doesn't want to sell oil to the US and we're stuck with no one but Vesesuela) suddenly however, I think you'll see a bunch of angry SUV driving soccer moms.
A slow rise in gas prices might lead to exploration of alternative energy sources. When gas hits $3.50 a gallon I think you'll see a real economic pressure to provide super fuel efficient cars etc. Similarly as electric bills rise you'll see more money going to alternate sources of electric energy as well.
As for jumps, I think we'd have to hit around $6 a gallon... maybe more before you saw a real unapologetic war for oil. Most of the US population isn't as bloodthirsty as the rest of the world belives us to be (complaicent yes, bloodthirsty no). To get the public to rally behind a war of conquest for a material good you'd have to see some pretty rough consequences from pasifism.
If you finance a car you still own the car. It's also colateral on the loan. If you didn't own it, it couldn't be considered colateral.
A better example would be, if I lease a car from a dealer (3 year lease, whatever) is that dealer still responsible for the various types of insurance on the car.
Of course not, on the other hand the dealer is responsible for most repairs on the vehicle, though you may be charged for stuff you caused to go wrong.
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I've seen a number of prominant historians comment on that very fact.
The question you've ansewered is one of the best asked about the Cold War.
Namely, why did the Soviet Union collapse and China endure?
The answer is exactly what you said. Where Gorbachev proved unwilling to use military force to put down rebellion in the DDR, the PRC showed no such reservations about Tiananmen square. Therein lies the difference and the first cracks in the Soviet Union.
Because he WASN'T like the other hard line "commies." Gorby was the first of the next generation of the Communist (Bolshevik) party. Here, what follows is the birth and death dates of the rulers (since the name of the post changed a lot) of the USSR.
Lenin 1870-1924
Stalin 1879-1953 (note this period)
Khrushchev 1894-1971
Brezhnev 1906-1982
Andropov 1914-1984
Cherenko 1911-1985
Gorby 1931-????
Note that everyone up to Gorby was not only alive during the Lenin years but was policialy indoctrinated in the Stalin years. Gorby came too late for that. Born in 1931, Gorby's school years got him nearly all the way through the Stalin period.
Consequently, Gorbachev was really a product of the Khrushchev years rather than Stalin. Realize that Khrushchev's break with Stalin (as mentioned in grandparent post) was not looked upon favorably by the hard line commies you refer to and their move on power following his tenure instituted a period of reactionary extremism.
Gorbachev then, represented a fundamental ideological break with the old hard line elements in the party. If Reagan (note I'm fixing my spelling. All you ACs who bitched about it clearly didn't read the sig) had really been the deciding factor in the fall of the Soviet Union one would expect to see a re-centering of the political climate under Cherenko, Brezhnev, and Andropov all of whom held power during Reagan's first term of office. Instead, what you see is the exact opposite. These three are Stalinists they don't move to the center, but rather further to the extremes.
Reagan's evil empire musings and his overtly hostile attitude towards the Soviet Union weren't terribly helpfull in the big picture. In fact Reagan's saber rattling nearly plunged us into thermonuclear war during the Able Archer exercises, a little publicized intelligence/war-game debacle that got way out of hand.
As for the spending of the 1980s, the United States dug itself into a multi trillion dollar hole in the process. Most of that money went into the military industrial complex. While I've no real issue beefing up the military (as having the 2nd best isn't good for much) its a real pity that some of the social programs so badly needed in this country go un-funded so we can sink another billion into systems both unneeded and unwanted by the Pentagon.
Getting back to the point... Gorby did what he did because he saw the ruin being perpetuated on his country by the lies and secrecy of the Stalinists. He genuinely believed he could redeem the Soviet Government and put to rest some of the injustices done in the name of the Party under Stalin and his followers. He was wrong.
When the dust settled Bush and Reagan got to grin at the world and tell it what a great job they did because no one was left to disagree with them.
As a historian, nothing irritates me more than the neo-conservative hogwash that Regan or Bush Sr won the Cold War. The Cold War lasted from 1945 (actually 47 if you ask most historians) to 1991. As such, I don't find it unreasonable to assume that Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter also had something to do with that victory.
That said anyone who's studied the Soviet Era can tell you exactly how much sense the "Regan won the Cold War" theory makes. The X Telegram (George Kennan) stated in no uncertain terms that the Soviet Union must expand or collapse from within. Based on this document, it was the official position of the United States to contain the spread of communism. This was not a four or eight year process, but a stand which took decades. If Regan won the cold war for what purpose did our servicemen give their lives in Vietnam? In Korea?
All this aside, the argument I hear most frequently is that Regan's "genius" in backing the Star Wars program forced the Soviet Union into a spending spiral that caused internal collapse of the economy and thus the collapse of the Soviet Union itself.
Unfortunately, this is totally unsubstantiated. First off, the Soviet Union consistently spent huge sums of money on the military. Many will toss figures at this argument quoting between 40% to 70% of Soviet GDP in the late 1980s. Realize two things when you see this argument. First, as a (officially) communist State the USSR has no GDP. No numbers were every kept to this extent in the USSR and any numbers we have are based on the (somewhat) biased estimates of the US armed forces and defense contractors (who have a vested interest here).
Secondly, earlier estimates from the Kennedy, Eisenhower, and Johnson administrations indicate Soviet Military spending at around 40% of the countries production capacity (think Civilization shields here, since we still don't have a real GDP here). Unfortunately I've been unable to locate decent links for this data. Apparently it only exists in dead tree media.
So what did cause the collapse of the Soviet Union? The answer is pretty obvious once you think about it... The Soviet Union caused it. Khrushchev started the ball rolling when he gave The Secret Speech at the 20th Party Congress in 1956. When Khrushchev released political pressures in the Soviet Union the result was what you'd expect. Give them an inch they take a mile. Khrushchev tried to clamp down on this movement, but was only able to stem its tide. Hard-line elements in the Soviet Government were less than pleased with this, and this was one of the factors that pushed Khrushchev to the now infamous military aggressiveness exhibited during his tenure.
After Khrushchev hard-line elements regained power in the Soviet Union and by instituting a Geritocracy favoring those who followed in the traditions of Stalin these elements kept the dissidents in perilous check.
Gorbachev changed all that. His policies of Glasnost and Perestroika snowballed. These policies were intended to allow some of the internal pressures to abate while keeping the Soviet system in power and the country under control. However, much like punching a hole in a dam, the tiny valve soon became a rushing torrent. Civil War erupted and on December 25 1991 the Soviet Flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time.
What caused it? More than anything else it was the tide of political conservatism in the Soviet Union. This tide wasn't encouraged by Star Wars or Stealth Technology. It was the result of Coca Cola and McDonalds, the product of Ford and General Motors. The Soviet people wanted what the United States had... prosperity.
And just as Kennan said, the Soviet model couldn't maintain a decent standard of living without expanding.
So my apologies to Regan and his crew. And in answer to your question "what was Regan's legacy?" The answer is as follows. Regan was in the right place at the right time and managed not to screw it up to badly. It's a foreign policy the right has been following ever sense.
My wife's a teacher.
She gets up at 6:30 every morning to go to work.
The school day runs till 2:30. She's supposed to stick around until 3:30ish.
She then comes home and works on lesson plans and grading until dinner (circa 7:00), takes a 1 hour break at dinner and continues work until 10:00 or 11:00. Bed is at midnight.
Teaching isn't nearly as much slack time as you think.
Oh... and summers are busy as well. Due to the recent "revolution" in education, most teachers have to spend a good part of their summer earning recirtification points so they can keep their licence.
And then there's the No Child Left Behind act. I won't get started on that one. Suffice it to say the Federal Government is acting like the Pointy Haired Boss of education.
The light side of the moon isn't the point. (largely because it doesn't exist).
The moon has some key advantages but to understand them you have to understand the fundamental difference between Planetside and Spaceside environments.
Planetside - Energy poor, stuff rich. In short, we've got tons of minerals, resources, atmosphere, etc here on Terra firma, but energy is hard to come by. Energy is expensive on earth because you're constantly fighting all the stuff to get to the energy.
Spaceside - Energy rich, stuff poor. Orbital locations are rife with energy. Unfiltered sunlight streams through them all the time. One of the major problems in design for orbital equipment is dumping the energy out of the system.
Now examine the moon. The moon has no atmosphere to speak of, which means that there is comparitively very little stuff in the way of getting to most of the energy there. Similarly, the moon has lots of usefull minerals on the surface... minerals that with the huge quantities of energy avaiable, can be easily converted into more usefull forms. Finaly the moon is at the edge of earth's gravity well. While it took the combined greatest minds of a generation to get mankind to the moon, it takes a reasonably clever college graduate and a not totaly unreasonable budget to get stuff BACK from the moon.
Lunar stations provide massive scientifc, commercial, and logistical oportunities for the future. The only thing the moon doesn't provide is defence capability. The United States signed a treaty some time ago with the USSR (and several other signitories I belive) pledging never to use the moon for military purposes.
Now.. given that we've flagrently ignored the ABM treaty I don't see the current administration having any issues with constructing a "Death Star".... aside from the technical ones of course.
No, those companies are on an interstellar space craft headed for the a remote spiral arm of the galaxy.
Something about a giant goat....
Basicly this allowed them to ascertain that a detonation at ground level would have more of its energy absorbed by the ground and terrain than a detonation at altitude X.
Remember, the Manhattan project dealt with explosive forces heretofor unreckoned with in history. No one was really sure if a blast of that magnitude would be substantialy dampened by man made obstructions.
The afforementioned incident provided a passable model wherein one could reason that buildings could act as a sheild to a several ton explosion, there was no evidence to suggest that this would not be true for a several kiloton explosion as well.
Think of it this way. Oppenheimer didn't use this case study as a reason to detonate the bomb in the air, but rather a reason not to detonate it on the ground.
Let me clear up some misconceptions about cancer therapy before you all manage to get off on some strange political tangent (yes, I realize you've allready gone off on some political tangent)
Note BTW: I am a cancer survivor... this is first hand knowledge.
Cancer patients at your average hospital receive a level of care that's been more or less completely tested and sutdied by the FDA. This process takes years, but this regime is strong enough to cure most cases.
In cases where the patent seems unresponsive to the standard therapies they may be transfered to a research oriented instituion (National Institutes of Health, many University Hospitals, etc). These institutions can provide experimental treatment to patients in need of it.
Experimental treatments have four grade levels. A, B, C, and D. Grade D treatments are given to new cases in research hospitals fairly frequently (I received Grade D experimental therapy and recovered with no relapses).
As the situation escalates the patient may try more and more unproven techniques. When the FDA approves something for human trials it is approved for Class A therapy.
Generaly if a drug fails to kill people instantly it moves from class A to class B pretty quickly. Each step down the ladder takes more time than the last steps above it. Stem cell treatments for example, are a class D therapy today... they've moved from class A in the early 1990s. Many of the drugs I took in the early 1990s however, entered the standard regimine in the last few years.
So long and the sort of it, the people most at risk are getting this stuff ASAP. Less desperate cases will continue using more tested methods unless things start to deteriorate rapidly.
Disclaimer: I presently work for Echostar/Dish Network.
Heh.... joke's on them. Dish just launched a major promotion that's pushing the Dish DVR 510 receiver to the overwhelming majority of the customer base. The promo basicly allows current customers to get one of these installed for free (programing agreement... but TANSTAFL).
For those of you to lazy to follow the link, the 510 is a DVR receiver with a plethora of happy output jacks. Add on a warrenty (and keep that warrenty) and you've basicly got a DRM free DVR as long as you want to keep it (with 100% digital today... not in 2005).
Ok, so some might interpret it as a blatent product plug, but I think it's pretty cool.
NB: I just checked the Dish website... the promo's not listed there for some reason. Sucks, I was gonna give a link. If you're insterested call in.
For the record, most environmentalists are less worried about the planet and more worried about you.
No one has any doubts that if human kind makes the biggest mess we can of this ball of mud that life will go on. The industrial companies are right, human kind is small change in the cycles of global climate.
Of course, when you're small change it doesn't take a whole hell of a lot to exterminate you and most everything like you.
No one thinks we're gonna wreck the planet, but aside from Al Gore, most of us wouldn't want to see Florida under water.
Humankind probably won't make any major changes in the global scheme of things, but the minor changes we make could cause untold havoc, suffering, and chaos... at least on the human scale.
So yes... the Sun might be the major cause of global warming.... in much the same way that your heater is the major thing that heats your house.
Does this mean it's a good idea to set the drapes on fire?
It's in space.... it doesn't make a sound even if there is someone there to observe it.
I agree with you... modding sucked on that one. (Note, I'm the author of the parrent you disagreed with). Looking over your reply I did get some facts wrong and I appreciate your correction of them.
Lets not forget the fact that has human beings a technology like this would go exactly 20 minutes before someone used it to start creating some kind of insanely lethal weapon.
Jim Bob here built himself a bunch of shotgun shells that pump the sonofabitch ye shoot fulla Ricin... what's Ricin again Jim Bob?
Course, that's kinda a moot point... if you take a shotgun blast......
Theory stands, with proper nanoassembly techniques there's not a whole lot of chemical difference between a vinal chair and a container of VX gas.
I can tell you which one I'd trust my neighbor with though.
Beyond that, Nanotech represents the last best hope for providing the kind of living conditions we're always talking about the the overwhelming majority of the world that we (frankly) don't give a shit about.
I'm talking about the US's opinions here... the rest of the Western World is a great deal more enlightened.
Nanotech devices represent a number of really key ideas. Starting with affordable water filtration devices and moving all the way up to super efficient energy, nanotech could bring the 3rd world out of the 3rd world.
Of course, actualy nanoscale machinery capable of doing anything seriously complex is a long way out. We're not going to see this technology applied to the energy industry or to manufacturing in the next 10 years, but given enough time it will happen. Right now we're at nanoscale materials (carbon nanotubes etc). Those primarily benefit the industrial nations. As nanoscale machinery becomes available you'll see one of those few instances where a major advance in science benefits the worlds poor....
... and that should read V2... not V1
Not really off topic after there's a little sub thread going on it!
For the record the Russians lost something on the order of 34,000,000 in WWII. This was largely due to two major issues with the Red Army.
1.) Stalin genuinely belived the Malatov-Ribintropp pact which divided Poland between the two countries. It took Stalin several days (weeks? Sources are unclear on this) to react to the news that Germany had invaded. This, in conjunction with his general paranoia and consistant purging of the Red Army's higherups lead to confusion and disarray in the face of the enemy.
2.) Once the Red Army rallied, Stalin realized he had a lot more men than he had weapons for them to fight with. Thus began a classic Soviet military strategy. When faced with an enemy better equiped than you, trade men for technology. In the case of WWII Stalin sent around five times as many soldiers into battle than he did guns. The result was that a lot of young men died without a weapon to fight with. The idea was that once soldier A had been shot, solider B would take up his gun and keep going. For a good example of how this worked see Enemy At the Gates.
While it is unfair to say that we Yanks saved the collective asses of Europe in WWII militarily, it's not unfair to say we did it economicaly. Roosevelt (against US popular opinion, and in a deal that would have gotten him impeached today) supplied weapons to the UK, the French Resistance, Russia, and a few others at cost or at a loss in many cases. The US economy was fighting in the European theater well before December 7, 1941.
That said, yes... the UK had turned the tide in the Battle of Britian, and while I'm not completely sold that Montgomery had Rommel under wraps in Africa before Paton showed up, he was making progress. The Soviets were doing an excelent job on the Eastern Front of the war and things were definately looking up for "All That Is Just and Good In The World" (tm) before the Yanks stepped in.
That said, history is the study of what happened, not what might have happened. There's no way of knowing what the effect of Hitler's new "superweapons" (the V1, the Hydrogen powered Uboat, and the Mesherschmidt 271[the jet... can't remember the number]) would have been had the US not stepped into shorten the war. Had those weapons ever entered full production things may have broken differently in the European theater. There's just no way to tell.
Excelent point.
I don't know which if any rights are being violated. My gut feeling is that no rights are being violated (though it greeves me to say that).
Legaly, parrents are allowed to control what their child is exposed to before they turn 18. This is why parrents can opt their children out of Sex Ed (called Family Life in my State) classes even though the State/state has a very strong (perhaps compelling?) reason to insist that they be there.
Similarly this same logic is used to defend those parrents who do not want their children asked to say the pledge of alegiance in schools.
Now in my loacal area those on the radical left want to see manditory Sex Ed and no pledge. Those on the radical right want to see manditory pledge and no Sex Ed (abstinance abstinance abstinance). Me? I want the kids fed something that can be distinguished from both petemoss and year old cheese-loaf at the same time.
Honestly though, there's no easy answer to your question. The libritarians might be right on this one, the market will decide the fate of this product.
I suspect the NRA will publish something about "gun friendly" and "gun hostile" web cop software packages. You'll see people using web cop tools to shape their children's political viewpoints.... all in all the shape of the world won't change, just the way it gets that way.
You seem to have missed what most people miss when dealing with the ACLU's stance on issues.
The ACLU doesn't look at most issues in a case by case basis. They realize that the best way to protect your constitutional rights isn't through the congress or through the executive, but through the court system. Consequently the ACLU isn't looking at issues case by case for what they agree with, they are looking for cases that will make very strong precidents for the future issues they agree with.
Now then, when the Govt required libraries to block access to porn sites in the interest of "protecting our children" the ACLU steped in and helped fight it. Today libraries must be able to remove those blocks at a moments notice should someone have a desire to view those sites who is not a minor.
This is based on previous precidents reguarding obsenity and indecency.
The Symantec system (potentialy) represents a MUCH STRONGER precident beacuse it does not hit those obsenity laws at all. Noone has made an effort to declare handguns or firearms indecent or obscene in their community and consequently this sort of thing provides the ACLU with a great case to overturn laws requireing such a system.
The ACLU will fight this if given the chance, not because of what Symentec is blocking, but because Symentec is blocking ANYTHING.
According to this (somewhat dubious looking) page the total deaths in Vietnam for the first nine years total as follows
US -- 229,159
South Vietnam -- 792,288
Total -- 1,021,447
Iraq, in contrast has had the following casualties according to this (decidedly left wing) site....
Iraq -- (7,784 - 9,596)
Total (max) -- 9,951
I'm not thrilled with the death toll in Iraq, but lets not pretend that these wars stack up to each other. When it comes to US (& allied) casualties, Vietnam was three orders of magnitude worse (nine years vs thus far in iraq, your figgures, not mine).
However, and I think this is key to realize. In the first year in Vietnam we lost 63 men. We've lost five times that in little more than 6 months in Iraq.
I suppose karma should be used for something....
Most residents of the United States have fallen into the falacy of the much touted Liberal Bias In The Media (caps intentional).
We've had it cramed down our throats by every radio talk show zelot, republican candidate, and conservitive figure we're willing to listen to.
It's simply not the case. Are most journalists liberal? Unquestionably. Education is one of the strongest factors in determining political viewpoints (next to family and wealth) and most journalists hold at least a BA/BS.
Nonetheless, this does not mean that the media as a whole is liberal. General Motors employs thousands of union workers who, for the most part, have liberal leanings and vote democrat. Would you therefore assume that the automotive interests of General Motors are represented by the Democratic Party? [Fact, GM consistanly supports conservitive candidates above liberal ones, all other factors being equal].
The companies we're talking about aren't interested in the Liberal Agenda. Do you think AOL Time Warner wants to see more regulation of the media? Do you think MSNBC (note the MS there) wants to see anti-monopolistic measures taken in the software industry?
When the BBC ran the story on how the Jessica Lynch rescue wasn't all it was cracked up to be did you see it in the US media? Of course not... That isn't to say it didn't run, you'll find several versions of it with a quick google search... but it wasn't exactly above the fold.
MSNBC is even debuting a made for TV version of the "rescue." Executives have repeatedly declined comment as to which version of events they'll be displaying.
So here's my question. If Bill Clinton had presented blatently false information in the State of the Union Address, acted on that information and gone to war on the basis of it, lied about what happened IN the war all the while systematicly dismanteling the individual rights of the US Population... if all that had happened, don't you think the media would have had a bit more to shout about than a stain on a blue dress?
Clinton was impeached for lieing before Congress. The Bush Administration also lied before Congress. Then it went on to commit the country to a war on the same lies. Where is the special investigative council? Where are the media watch dogs?
Liberal Media indeed.... in an election between a stiff and a coke head who did the media favor? The coke head. Go figgure....
Besides the obvious excuse to use the word "paradigm" I have to ask if this is going to really be that big a deal. I mean, yes it's great to have this kind of thing for the disabled... but the majority of the use cases for this kind of thing seem hampered.
I can't think of a lot of reasons I'd want something like this on a home system. Besides the creepy "I'm talking to the walls" feel, I can't imagine it would be any faster or more engaging to interact in this manner.
Public use cases seem like a good idea, until you realize that background noise and assholes shouting commands over your sholder could end up causing more problems than the system solved.
When this kind of thing can be attached to a really powerfull datamining engine and equiped with a much larger vocabularly I'll be impressed. Right now it looks like more of a toy.
An excerpt from the Encyclopedia Galactica:
People got along fine making most goods from plastic and burning fossil fuels to get from point A to point B. When objections were raised about the environmental impact of this lifestyle some people said "People got along ok without domesticated animals and clothes by living in trees for thousands of years too. Let's go back to that. You first."
These people were the first against the wall when the revolution came.
The one who's car went from "normal car" to "supernova of light" in the IR sensitive camera.
Lots of hand held video cameras can see IR, very helpfull for determining if a remote is working.
We say gas is expensive, but it's not -=that=- expensive. Consider that gallon of milk can run you twice what a gallon of gas costs.
Similarly, consider the price of a handle of vodka. Almost every refined product we purchase costs more per gallon than gasoline.
The real question should be this. At what level are US Citizen prepared to take drastic means to keep energy prices down? California seems to be tolerating relitively high gas prices in comparison to the rest of the US. Admittedly it's California, so there's a bit of inherent irrationality there, but they haven't done a whole lot more than lobby for their regulations to be implemented on the national level.
When push comes to shove I think it would take a massive shift in policy almost completely by suprise. If gas prices climb slowly you won't see a change. If they spike upward (like if the Mid East decides tomorow it doesn't want to sell oil to the US and we're stuck with no one but Vesesuela) suddenly however, I think you'll see a bunch of angry SUV driving soccer moms.
A slow rise in gas prices might lead to exploration of alternative energy sources. When gas hits $3.50 a gallon I think you'll see a real economic pressure to provide super fuel efficient cars etc. Similarly as electric bills rise you'll see more money going to alternate sources of electric energy as well.
As for jumps, I think we'd have to hit around $6 a gallon... maybe more before you saw a real unapologetic war for oil. Most of the US population isn't as bloodthirsty as the rest of the world belives us to be (complaicent yes, bloodthirsty no). To get the public to rally behind a war of conquest for a material good you'd have to see some pretty rough consequences from pasifism.
If you finance a car you still own the car. It's also colateral on the loan. If you didn't own it, it couldn't be considered colateral.
A better example would be, if I lease a car from a dealer (3 year lease, whatever) is that dealer still responsible for the various types of insurance on the car.
Of course not, on the other hand the dealer is responsible for most repairs on the vehicle, though you may be charged for stuff you caused to go wrong.