"Free" wireless? Try "taxpayer funded" wireless. This is yet another taxpayer funded wealth redistribution program. But, as a geek, I don't mind so much, because its free interent. As an economist, the connective power of the Internet has economic benefits for society the same way the highway system and public streets do.
By the way, its good that michael didn't post this. When Bush proposed universal high speed access for all Americans, michaels left wing-nut two cent comment was "but he doesn't say how he's going to pay for all this".
...when we're talking about tech or IT jobs, but its really good when ordering medication or getting healthcare that is 'as good as here'? Make up your minds people.
...you're locked into the wage slave mentality. Yes, walmart offers "mcjobs", and if you think you can do better than you should. But here's the thing: Walmart doesn't have 'hard jobs'. You're either a cashier, clerk, stock person, or janitor. None of these positions require much skill, educatoin, or quite frankly, exertion. That's the very definition of a mcjob, is a low wage low skilled position, If you want more money, better benefits, et al, you need to make yourself worth it to an employer. You need to acquire job skills that go beyond working a ten key, swiping cans over a scanner, or pushing a broom. And before you bring up the 'buying a house, raising a family', don't. I know single mothers with three kids, openly gay men, and teenage moms in the same or similar circumstance that are doing it and have done it.
As for me, yes I'm young, no I'm not buying a home. I am unemployed and a full time student scraping by on roughly $200 a month total. So I know it can be done.
"Who said anything about lobbying? I said "manipulating". Have you ever sat on a community board where WAL-MART is trying to come in?"
No. Apparently neither have you. I can name a handful of citiesof the top of my head - including Scottsdale, AZ, Gettysburg, VA, Stockton, TX, Newnan, GA, and others - who have told WalMart to shove it.
"Unions have been fighting WAL_MART all over the place."
Unions fight EVERY employer, irregardless of how good or bad they are. Its the natural state of a union to consistently demand more from an employer using collective bargaining because the Unions themselves are parasitic, and the more they get for their members the more they get for their officers. I don't understand how people like you can be anti-corporate when it comes to Walmart, but not see the evil in unions.
"You don't understand supply chains I guess. WAL-MART forces suppliers to sell to them at WAL-MARTs prices"
Alas, it is you who understands nothing of supply chains, or free market capitalism for that matter. Walmart CAN NOT FORCE ANYONE! They cans simply choose to take their business elsewhere. You act as if Walmart has a legal obligation to buy from a given distributor. Again, I'd like to point out that there are plenty of distributors who have dropped Walmart as a customers.
"The problem with WAL-MART is that they are so big, they can price things however they want. If they lose money in one store for a year - it is a drop in the bucket. When they move into an area, they price their products just below what they are at the other stores - often selling at large losses."
No kidding, EVERYONE DOES THIS! What do you think a loss leader is? Also known as an ADV (advertised to demonstrate value), it is hte hook that attracts customers. You act like this is some crime, but in fact its part of running a smart business. This all ramps up to one thing: You are ignorant of how to run a business. The fact of the matter is that Walmart simply runs a leaner business model relying on volume to make up for margin. The ultimate recipient of this benefit is the consumer, who - if they feel it is worth it - braves the four square mile parking lots packed with inbred rednecks and screaming little bastard children to save a dime on mouthwash and buy socks for fifty cents less than Target.
"At some point in time we pay the cost. Sure, toilet paper and laundry detergent might be cheaper. But unemployment burdens go up. Medical coverages go up."
That is probably not the most moronic thing I have ever heard, but its up there. It shows a distinct lack of comprehension of the basics of economics.
"Some people need to just realize that perhaps paying $1 more for a product at a local business saves them money in the long run. Small local business keep a higher percentage of each $ in the local community. That has a direct local impact. WAL-MART has been eroding this for years."
*sigh*. All this could be avoided if they'd teach economics in elementary school. Newsflash guy: the money you spend at Walmart pays salaries for walmart employees, who live *gasp* in the community. They pay local taxes, they buy local goods, and they give to local charities. What doesn't go into the local community goes to establish other Walmarts. Walmart is the only economic engine in many small rural areas,a nd that has always been their niche. I would think mindless leftists like you would celebrate walmart (if it weren't for the fact they were a) big, b) a corporatoin, and c)successful, you probably would), since they are the ultimate super-efficient spread the wealth program.
"But if WAL-MART is so great, why are so many communities fighting to keep WAL-MART out? People are learning."
"The problem is that they are successful by manipulating local government..."
It's called "lobbying", and its perfectly legal and a right enjoyed by every American. Or perhaps you think government should be rigid and inflexible in the face of the needs of its community?
"...keeping employees pay and benefits low..."
WalMart has one of the most generous pay and benefits packages of any retail chain. In a small town like where I live, WalMart stores are typically the number one employer, with queues months long of people trying to a position.
"...forcing their hand against their suppliers..."
Its called "getting a better deal". When you order the volume of goods WalMart does, you have the right to expect discounts. You say "forcing hands", but nobody is forcing distributors to sell to WalMart. Wal Mart cannot force their distributors to lower their prices any more than distributors can force Walmart to carry their goods. One good example would be Amsoil, who makes arguably one of the best petroleum product lines on the market.;
"...and using unethical pricing standards to force local competitors out of business..."
Your definition of ethical is apparently very loose. The very nature of competition is that whoever has the lowest price wins the market. Welcome to the real word of free-market capitalism. The way for places like K-mart to fight back is to not compete directly, or take a loss-lead on certain products to maintain profit elsewhere, or to offer value added services. What is unethical is the mentality of people like you that is that if the competition maintains business as usual, and goes out of business, that its somehow not their fault, but Walmarts.
As for the ethical practices of KMart, Target, or Costco, there are plenty of places to wham them. If you honestly think Costco - a company whose majority shareholder is the Chinese government, and who imports many products from China that are made with prison (slave) labor. Or lets not forget Kmart, buying Kathy Lee Gifford's childrens clothes which are made by underpaid child labor in third world countries. Target, well, they are an example of a smart competitor. You'll notice that most target stores are within a few miles of a Walmart, too.
One day, you'll learn about reality, and you'll be very deflated.
K-Mart, Target, Costco, and dozens of other retail chains being the competition. I'll never understand why left-wing nutjobs like michael have this obsessive compulsive desire to slander 'big corporations'. What is the gain in attacking someone for being successful? There is none. It's all part of this collectivist mindset which punishes anyone who exceeds the herd. I could abide by their stupidity if it were merely idealogical, but these tools don't attack the ideaology, they attack the symbols.
Thats all you've got? I'm sorry to say that none of those were ever inconceivable to men of learning and intellect.
The notion that man, whose collective energy output is 114 gigajoules (114 x 10^9) could ever significantly impact a system which contains 131 terrajoules (131.0 x 10^12 joules) of energy, is quite frankly ignorant. If the global climate were really so fragile that a thousandths of a percent of fluctuation would destabilize it, then we would have been wiped out by solar flares eons ago.
Knee jerk reactions to unsubstantiated problems are probably more dangerous than the problems the are intended to solve.
Lets presume you're right, then what? Do we proceed on some half-baked 'plan' to save the environment? What if whatever we do doesn't actually solve the problem - or worse, makes it worse?
The proper and necessary course of action is to actually come to a consensus as to what effect - if any - human output has on the environment, particularly with respect to 'global warming'.
Here is where the arrogance of so-called 'environmentalists' becomes staggering. To assume that humankind has any hope of significantly impacting a system as large and powerful as the earths atmosphere. Alas, arrogance trumps science, which is all too common these days.
Which is why, presumably, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan recently declared the invasion illegal, and the recent ISG report has concluded no WMD?
I wasn't aware the SecGenUN had that kind of power. Last time I checked, it was up to the Security Council - which had previously declared 9 times that Iraq was in violation of UN Resolutions, and 3 time authorized the use of force. I suppose if that makes the Iraq war illegal, it also means that it was illegal when Clinton and our NATO allies bombed Sarajevo, Sudan, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
You seem to be intelligent and well informed, but you're wasting those qualities if you can't see what is under your nose
I think I see a little better than you what is going on here. Did Saddam Hussein fail to comply with UN Sanctions and the '91 cease-fire treaty? Yes. Was Saddam Hussein engaged in relationships with and giving material aid and support to terrorists, including but not limited to Al Qaeda? Absolutely. Was Saddam engaged in atrocities and ethnic cleansing? Most definately. Lastly, did the UN on 3 separate occasions authorize "member states" to use force to make Saddam comply? Yes. Now the question is, did anyone other than Bush, Blair - and don't forget Australian Prime Minister Howard and Polish President Kwasniewski - have the integrity and fortitude to actually enforce the will of the International Community? No. Except for 32 nations which aided us, the rest of the International Community was unwilling to take the action deemed necessary by the UN Security Council and the General Assembly. The proper question should be what was the problem with the 14 nations that were against the war? You don't suppose the million-dollar bribes in Oil-for-Food money that Saddam funneled to key government officials has anything to do with that do you? You didn't get your check, by chance, did you?
Of course you didn't. Yet you hold on to this inane and pedantic conspiracy theory that Bush and Blair secretly planned the Iraq war years ago. Unlike good conspiracy theories, there's no hook, there's no goal, and there's no profit in it for either, yet you hold on to it. Why, I don't know. Maybe it gives you hope to believe that the people you hate most cannot possibly be doing it right.
Quite frankly, I feel bad for you. One day you'll wake up and realize what a tool you've been. Until then, consider yourself plonked.
Strange, though, how someone like Donald Rumsfeld would just now be saying things like "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links Saddam and Al Qaeda."
You mean Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld? Last time I checked, he wasn't the head of any intelligence agency, nor was he priivy to the types of intelligence made available to the 9/11 comission who specifically stated in their report that Saddam and Al Qaeda did have a working relationship for many years.
Look, I'll cut this short and save alot of bandwidth. You're a partisan bigot. The cylinders? They were a dual use material. Maybe they were for artillery shells, maybe they were for ad-hoc centrifuges. The yellow cake? UN inspectors have been reporting on the hundreds of barrels of uranium dioxide stored at Al Tuwaitha under UN seal. It is referred to countless times in UNSCOM documents. It's not even a debatable fact that they exist, and your willful ignorance says more about you than about anything else, but what it should tell you is that Saddam was reticent about dismantling his WMD programs, and did everything in his power to both hang on to the products of those programs as well as to obscure any continuation of them. No amount of intelligence in the world will suffice for people like you. All you want is the opportunity to tear down Bush, and that's all you'll do with it. So bottom line, I'm not wasting my time with an anonymous coward who isn't even basically versed in the facts of the issue.
By the way, the reasons (plural) for invading Iraq had to do with non-compliance with weapons inspections, continued human rights violations, support for terrorism, and the like. These are all factually proven, the UN has accepted them, and its plain fact to anyone who isn't blinded by hatred like you are. The fact of the matter is only Bush, Blair, and a handful of other countries had the balls to stand up and do something about it. Not suprisingly, Bush, Blair, and that handful of countries appear to be the only ones not taking kick backs from Oil for Food.
Listen up here jerkwad. Not everyone can be an astronaut. Plenty of fighter jocks, however, have gone on to get advanced degrees in engineering, aerospace, physics, and the like. So before you go singing the praises of a bunch of slide-rule thumbing pencil-neck geeks who never chanced to hang their balls out over the line and risk having them snapped off, remember that the Astronaut corps truly does represent the best of the best. So it wasn't the guys with the calculators (which, by the way, took up entire floors in the days of Apollo) who beat Russia. It was everyone who worked hard for a common goal.
Second, I notice Rutan did NOT go on the second flight. In fact, from the fact that the two "passengers" were balast (again!), I'm concerned that Scaled Composites were more concerned about the rolls in the first flight than they let on.
Nope. The two passengers on the first flight were also ballast. Also, the 'roll' on the first flight was simply an artifact of punching out of atmosphere where aerodynamic damping doesn't work because there's no atmosphere. It's being blown entirely out of proportion, and you should note that once in space, the pilot feathered the wings and used RCS to stablize the plane quickly.
The reason for having a different pilot on the second flight has more to do with Scaled Composites having the prestige of TWO astronauts instead of one. There are three test pilots assigned to space ship one, and while the original pilot did most of the testing, at least two other flights were flown by one of the others. The original pilot, by the way, is one of Rutan's closest friends and long-time employees.
You are right, however. SS1 is a dumb nuts and bolts craft meant as a proof of concept. Future versions, including the scaled up Tier Two program which will produce a larger version of the same launch system for 7 people (under Virgin Galactic, apparently) will likely feature more advance avionics, some fly-by-wire, and some environmentals.
Well if you want to go far enough back in that vein, the British used rocketry as field artillery since the 1800's. Particularly effective against aboriginals in Africa, India, and Australia. Of course, all the blame belongs to the chinese, who used rockets in war and in celebration.
I hate to rain on your glory parade, but part of the reason private enterprise is getting into space is because beauracratic government-run space agencies like NASA, ESA, and so on have done such a miserable job expanding the envelope over the last 30 years. If you ask me, NASA at this point stands as a collosally embarrasing failure in that after 20 years there is nothing to replace the shuttle on the horizon except drawings and models of different SSTOs. NASA is one big pool of talent being utterly wasted by institutional management mindsets.
What I would like to see is more NASA talent break out from NASA, snag up some DARPA money, and actually do something useful. Give me my god damned flying car already!
SpaceShip One is built predominantly from Carbon Fiber. The first carbon fibers were actually developed by Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan while working on the light bulb. This was done by "carbonizing" (heating in a vacuum to remove all non-carbon componants) a cotton fiber. In 1957, scientists developed a reliable process for manufacturing carbon fibers from cotton and rayon. Then it was in 1961 when japanese scientists produced polyacrylonitrile, which is the first true high-performance carbon fiber. The resin used for compositing in many high performance applications dates back to the 1920s.
The flight controls used are simple cable, pulley, spring, lever controls. That is to say, the entire craft is mechanical and direct connect, except for the linear actuators which deploy the wing to the feather-cock configuration, and the outboard elevators.
The avionics were developed entirely in house, and housed in a single unit known as the TONAS (Tier One NAvigation System), and while it could be argued that NASA pioneered the miniaturization of electronics and digital computers, the truth is that Bell Labs invented what NASA built upon, and the actual devices used in the TONAS rely more on private sector research into VLSI and IC technology than anything NASA ever did. Incidentally, the TONAS was built in-house by Scaled Composites own electronics and software engineering guru.
Lastly, the hybrid solid/liquid booster used in SSO was first developed by Russian Scientists S.P. Korolev and M.K. Tikhonravov in 1933. While they used liquid oxygen as the oxidizer and plastic gasoline impregnated cellophane, SSO utilized liquid NO2 oxidizer and what is basically tire rubber. NASA didn't even bother with hybrid rocket motors until 1995, by which time amature rocketry had already flirted with home-built designs to get over the thrust limitations of even the larger commercially available engines.
So like the sign said, it's still SPACESHIP ONE, Government Zero in the low cost sub-orbital category. By the way, NASA nor any other space agency has ever turned around a single launch vehicle in as little as 5 days. Thats just one of the record firsts that Burt Rutan and the team at Scaled Composites have given us.
Well, there's the three - count 'em three - meetings between Mohammed Atta and IIS agents in Prague. The media was all to happy too report that the CIA was unable to confirm one of them, but Czech intelligence confirms three meetings, the subject of which is believed to be Iraq contracting an attack on VOA broadcast stations.
There is also the well documented meeting between IIS officer and Mukhabarat agent Ahmed Hikmat Shakir and three of the 9/11 hijackers in Kuala Lumpur.
We know that Saddam and Bin Ladin had a dialogue during the period between 1994 and 1997 when Saddam offered safe haven and training to Bin Ladin and Al Qaeda operatives. Bin Ladin turned down relocating there in favor of Afghanistan, but hundreds of Al Qaeda militants received trianing at Salman Pak.
There is a dozen or so lesser contacts between Iraqi intermediaries and high level Al Qaeda operatives. Remember the 'aspirin factory' Clinton targeted with tomahawks? The plant was built by one of Bin Ladin's construction companies, and financed and owned by a company out of Khartoum that was a front for Iraqs Petrochemical and Petroleum Project (P3), which had previously handled Iraq's open and active WMDs program. The reason that factory was targeted, by the way, is because soil samples taken from around the factory revealed the presence of O-ethylmethylphosphonothioic acid, a precursor of VX nerve agent which has no other industrial, medical, or natural source or use.
These are just a fewsamples of what is available from open-source intelligence methods. If you read the 9/11 report, read books like "The Connection" (Stephen F. Hayes), and cull news articles and cross reference them, it becomes clear that while Saddam didn't have his finger on the button of 9/11, he tacitly supported terrorist networks including Al Qaeda making it possible for a rag-tag group of jihaddists to pull it off.
Despite endless innuendo and speculation on the part of Bush and Cheney, there was no pre-invasion accord between Saddam and Bin Laden, remember?
Yeah, we'll just ignore the countless liasons between the 9/11 hijackers, members of Al Qaeda, and Iraqi Intelligence officers. There's not link whatsoever.
Honestly, I don't want you to have to strain yourself with a little bit if introspective examination on such a complicated issue. Especially when you've already got an axe to grind. Get lost troll boy.
In case Michael's hacking has you confused folks, the NYT article never claimed that the White House lied. The entire jist of the article is that there was opposition to evidence which the Bush administration built their WMDs claims on. That's not good enough for michael, however. He has to nearly double the length of the submission by adding his own 2 cents of editorial drivel. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP!
What a complete and utter hack. Michael has once again proven that far from this sites aim, he is incapable of posting anything other than his left-leaning hack bullshit. This is one reason I will never pay real money for slashdot.
Brrrt. No credible scientist has yet come out and stated that the miniscule amounts of CO2 we pump into the atmosphere is in any way a significant factor for global warming. Nature puts more of the other green house gasses into the atmosphere than all of human activity to date. So it seems that we're back to the obvious; the cause of global warming is (drums please) the SUN!
I don't think so. I think that the thermal energy required to break the NaCl bond is also the thermal energy required to vaporize sodium, so if you heated saltwater hot enough, you'd get...nothing. I remember table salt (NaCl) being an oddity in that it actually has a high bonding energy, where as most halogens are easily liberated from their salts.
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...he will change his mind anyway.
"Free" wireless? Try "taxpayer funded" wireless. This is yet another taxpayer funded wealth redistribution program. But, as a geek, I don't mind so much, because its free interent. As an economist, the connective power of the Internet has economic benefits for society the same way the highway system and public streets do.
By the way, its good that michael didn't post this. When Bush proposed universal high speed access for all Americans, michaels left wing-nut two cent comment was "but he doesn't say how he's going to pay for all this".
...when we're talking about tech or IT jobs, but its really good when ordering medication or getting healthcare that is 'as good as here'? Make up your minds people.
...you're locked into the wage slave mentality. Yes, walmart offers "mcjobs", and if you think you can do better than you should. But here's the thing: Walmart doesn't have 'hard jobs'. You're either a cashier, clerk, stock person, or janitor. None of these positions require much skill, educatoin, or quite frankly, exertion. That's the very definition of a mcjob, is a low wage low skilled position, If you want more money, better benefits, et al, you need to make yourself worth it to an employer. You need to acquire job skills that go beyond working a ten key, swiping cans over a scanner, or pushing a broom. And before you bring up the 'buying a house, raising a family', don't. I know single mothers with three kids, openly gay men, and teenage moms in the same or similar circumstance that are doing it and have done it.
As for me, yes I'm young, no I'm not buying a home. I am unemployed and a full time student scraping by on roughly $200 a month total. So I know it can be done.
No. Apparently neither have you. I can name a handful of citiesof the top of my head - including Scottsdale, AZ, Gettysburg, VA, Stockton, TX, Newnan, GA, and others - who have told WalMart to shove it.
Unions fight EVERY employer, irregardless of how good or bad they are. Its the natural state of a union to consistently demand more from an employer using collective bargaining because the Unions themselves are parasitic, and the more they get for their members the more they get for their officers. I don't understand how people like you can be anti-corporate when it comes to Walmart, but not see the evil in unions.
Alas, it is you who understands nothing of supply chains, or free market capitalism for that matter. Walmart CAN NOT FORCE ANYONE! They cans simply choose to take their business elsewhere. You act as if Walmart has a legal obligation to buy from a given distributor. Again, I'd like to point out that there are plenty of distributors who have dropped Walmart as a customers.
No kidding, EVERYONE DOES THIS! What do you think a loss leader is? Also known as an ADV (advertised to demonstrate value), it is hte hook that attracts customers. You act like this is some crime, but in fact its part of running a smart business. This all ramps up to one thing: You are ignorant of how to run a business. The fact of the matter is that Walmart simply runs a leaner business model relying on volume to make up for margin. The ultimate recipient of this benefit is the consumer, who - if they feel it is worth it - braves the four square mile parking lots packed with inbred rednecks and screaming little bastard children to save a dime on mouthwash and buy socks for fifty cents less than Target.
That is probably not the most moronic thing I have ever heard, but its up there. It shows a distinct lack of comprehension of the basics of economics.
*sigh*. All this could be avoided if they'd teach economics in elementary school. Newsflash guy: the money you spend at Walmart pays salaries for walmart employees, who live *gasp* in the community. They pay local taxes, they buy local goods, and they give to local charities. What doesn't go into the local community goes to establish other Walmarts. Walmart is the only economic engine in many small rural areas,a nd that has always been their niche. I would think mindless leftists like you would celebrate walmart (if it weren't for the fact they were a) big, b) a corporatoin, and c)successful, you probably would), since they are the ultimate super-efficient spread the wealth program.
They certainly aren't doing
It's called "lobbying", and its perfectly legal and a right enjoyed by every American. Or perhaps you think government should be rigid and inflexible in the face of the needs of its community?
WalMart has one of the most generous pay and benefits packages of any retail chain. In a small town like where I live, WalMart stores are typically the number one employer, with queues months long of people trying to a position.
Its called "getting a better deal". When you order the volume of goods WalMart does, you have the right to expect discounts. You say "forcing hands", but nobody is forcing distributors to sell to WalMart. Wal Mart cannot force their distributors to lower their prices any more than distributors can force Walmart to carry their goods. One good example would be Amsoil, who makes arguably one of the best petroleum product lines on the market.
Your definition of ethical is apparently very loose. The very nature of competition is that whoever has the lowest price wins the market. Welcome to the real word of free-market capitalism. The way for places like K-mart to fight back is to not compete directly, or take a loss-lead on certain products to maintain profit elsewhere, or to offer value added services. What is unethical is the mentality of people like you that is that if the competition maintains business as usual, and goes out of business, that its somehow not their fault, but Walmarts.
As for the ethical practices of KMart, Target, or Costco, there are plenty of places to wham them. If you honestly think Costco - a company whose majority shareholder is the Chinese government, and who imports many products from China that are made with prison (slave) labor. Or lets not forget Kmart, buying Kathy Lee Gifford's childrens clothes which are made by underpaid child labor in third world countries. Target, well, they are an example of a smart competitor. You'll notice that most target stores are within a few miles of a Walmart, too.
One day, you'll learn about reality, and you'll be very deflated.
K-Mart, Target, Costco, and dozens of other retail chains being the competition. I'll never understand why left-wing nutjobs like michael have this obsessive compulsive desire to slander 'big corporations'. What is the gain in attacking someone for being successful? There is none. It's all part of this collectivist mindset which punishes anyone who exceeds the herd. I could abide by their stupidity if it were merely idealogical, but these tools don't attack the ideaology, they attack the symbols.
I don't know whether to mod this as Funny - because it is - or Insightful - which it is.
Thats all you've got? I'm sorry to say that none of those were ever inconceivable to men of learning and intellect.
The notion that man, whose collective energy output is 114 gigajoules (114 x 10^9) could ever significantly impact a system which contains 131 terrajoules (131.0 x 10^12 joules) of energy, is quite frankly ignorant. If the global climate were really so fragile that a thousandths of a percent of fluctuation would destabilize it, then we would have been wiped out by solar flares eons ago.
Knee jerk reactions to unsubstantiated problems are probably more dangerous than the problems the are intended to solve.
Lets presume you're right, then what? Do we proceed on some half-baked 'plan' to save the environment? What if whatever we do doesn't actually solve the problem - or worse, makes it worse?
The proper and necessary course of action is to actually come to a consensus as to what effect - if any - human output has on the environment, particularly with respect to 'global warming'.
Here is where the arrogance of so-called 'environmentalists' becomes staggering. To assume that humankind has any hope of significantly impacting a system as large and powerful as the earths atmosphere. Alas, arrogance trumps science, which is all too common these days.
I wasn't aware the SecGenUN had that kind of power. Last time I checked, it was up to the Security Council - which had previously declared 9 times that Iraq was in violation of UN Resolutions, and 3 time authorized the use of force. I suppose if that makes the Iraq war illegal, it also means that it was illegal when Clinton and our NATO allies bombed Sarajevo, Sudan, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
I think I see a little better than you what is going on here. Did Saddam Hussein fail to comply with UN Sanctions and the '91 cease-fire treaty? Yes. Was Saddam Hussein engaged in relationships with and giving material aid and support to terrorists, including but not limited to Al Qaeda? Absolutely. Was Saddam engaged in atrocities and ethnic cleansing? Most definately. Lastly, did the UN on 3 separate occasions authorize "member states" to use force to make Saddam comply? Yes. Now the question is, did anyone other than Bush, Blair - and don't forget Australian Prime Minister Howard and Polish President Kwasniewski - have the integrity and fortitude to actually enforce the will of the International Community? No. Except for 32 nations which aided us, the rest of the International Community was unwilling to take the action deemed necessary by the UN Security Council and the General Assembly. The proper question should be what was the problem with the 14 nations that were against the war? You don't suppose the million-dollar bribes in Oil-for-Food money that Saddam funneled to key government officials has anything to do with that do you? You didn't get your check, by chance, did you?
Of course you didn't. Yet you hold on to this inane and pedantic conspiracy theory that Bush and Blair secretly planned the Iraq war years ago. Unlike good conspiracy theories, there's no hook, there's no goal, and there's no profit in it for either, yet you hold on to it. Why, I don't know. Maybe it gives you hope to believe that the people you hate most cannot possibly be doing it right.
Quite frankly, I feel bad for you. One day you'll wake up and realize what a tool you've been. Until then, consider yourself plonked.
...is actually the Tier One Navigation Unit, TONU ("tah new"). TONAS was something completely different.
No you didn't. Learn to phrase a question.
You mean Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld? Last time I checked, he wasn't the head of any intelligence agency, nor was he priivy to the types of intelligence made available to the 9/11 comission who specifically stated in their report that Saddam and Al Qaeda did have a working relationship for many years.
Look, I'll cut this short and save alot of bandwidth. You're a partisan bigot. The cylinders? They were a dual use material. Maybe they were for artillery shells, maybe they were for ad-hoc centrifuges. The yellow cake? UN inspectors have been reporting on the hundreds of barrels of uranium dioxide stored at Al Tuwaitha under UN seal. It is referred to countless times in UNSCOM documents. It's not even a debatable fact that they exist, and your willful ignorance says more about you than about anything else, but what it should tell you is that Saddam was reticent about dismantling his WMD programs, and did everything in his power to both hang on to the products of those programs as well as to obscure any continuation of them. No amount of intelligence in the world will suffice for people like you. All you want is the opportunity to tear down Bush, and that's all you'll do with it. So bottom line, I'm not wasting my time with an anonymous coward who isn't even basically versed in the facts of the issue.
By the way, the reasons (plural) for invading Iraq had to do with non-compliance with weapons inspections, continued human rights violations, support for terrorism, and the like. These are all factually proven, the UN has accepted them, and its plain fact to anyone who isn't blinded by hatred like you are. The fact of the matter is only Bush, Blair, and a handful of other countries had the balls to stand up and do something about it. Not suprisingly, Bush, Blair, and that handful of countries appear to be the only ones not taking kick backs from Oil for Food.
Now where in the fuck did I say NASA lacked talent?
Listen up here jerkwad. Not everyone can be an astronaut. Plenty of fighter jocks, however, have gone on to get advanced degrees in engineering, aerospace, physics, and the like. So before you go singing the praises of a bunch of slide-rule thumbing pencil-neck geeks who never chanced to hang their balls out over the line and risk having them snapped off, remember that the Astronaut corps truly does represent the best of the best. So it wasn't the guys with the calculators (which, by the way, took up entire floors in the days of Apollo) who beat Russia. It was everyone who worked hard for a common goal.
Nope. The two passengers on the first flight were also ballast. Also, the 'roll' on the first flight was simply an artifact of punching out of atmosphere where aerodynamic damping doesn't work because there's no atmosphere. It's being blown entirely out of proportion, and you should note that once in space, the pilot feathered the wings and used RCS to stablize the plane quickly.
The reason for having a different pilot on the second flight has more to do with Scaled Composites having the prestige of TWO astronauts instead of one. There are three test pilots assigned to space ship one, and while the original pilot did most of the testing, at least two other flights were flown by one of the others. The original pilot, by the way, is one of Rutan's closest friends and long-time employees.
You are right, however. SS1 is a dumb nuts and bolts craft meant as a proof of concept. Future versions, including the scaled up Tier Two program which will produce a larger version of the same launch system for 7 people (under Virgin Galactic, apparently) will likely feature more advance avionics, some fly-by-wire, and some environmentals.
Well if you want to go far enough back in that vein, the British used rocketry as field artillery since the 1800's. Particularly effective against aboriginals in Africa, India, and Australia. Of course, all the blame belongs to the chinese, who used rockets in war and in celebration.
I hate to rain on your glory parade, but part of the reason private enterprise is getting into space is because beauracratic government-run space agencies like NASA, ESA, and so on have done such a miserable job expanding the envelope over the last 30 years. If you ask me, NASA at this point stands as a collosally embarrasing failure in that after 20 years there is nothing to replace the shuttle on the horizon except drawings and models of different SSTOs. NASA is one big pool of talent being utterly wasted by institutional management mindsets.
What I would like to see is more NASA talent break out from NASA, snag up some DARPA money, and actually do something useful. Give me my god damned flying car already!
SpaceShip One is built predominantly from Carbon Fiber. The first carbon fibers were actually developed by Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan while working on the light bulb. This was done by "carbonizing" (heating in a vacuum to remove all non-carbon componants) a cotton fiber. In 1957, scientists developed a reliable process for manufacturing carbon fibers from cotton and rayon. Then it was in 1961 when japanese scientists produced polyacrylonitrile, which is the first true high-performance carbon fiber. The resin used for compositing in many high performance applications dates back to the 1920s.
The flight controls used are simple cable, pulley, spring, lever controls. That is to say, the entire craft is mechanical and direct connect, except for the linear actuators which deploy the wing to the feather-cock configuration, and the outboard elevators.
The avionics were developed entirely in house, and housed in a single unit known as the TONAS (Tier One NAvigation System), and while it could be argued that NASA pioneered the miniaturization of electronics and digital computers, the truth is that Bell Labs invented what NASA built upon, and the actual devices used in the TONAS rely more on private sector research into VLSI and IC technology than anything NASA ever did. Incidentally, the TONAS was built in-house by Scaled Composites own electronics and software engineering guru.
Lastly, the hybrid solid/liquid booster used in SSO was first developed by Russian Scientists S.P. Korolev and M.K. Tikhonravov in 1933. While they used liquid oxygen as the oxidizer and plastic gasoline impregnated cellophane, SSO utilized liquid NO2 oxidizer and what is basically tire rubber. NASA didn't even bother with hybrid rocket motors until 1995, by which time amature rocketry had already flirted with home-built designs to get over the thrust limitations of even the larger commercially available engines.
So like the sign said, it's still SPACESHIP ONE, Government Zero in the low cost sub-orbital category. By the way, NASA nor any other space agency has ever turned around a single launch vehicle in as little as 5 days. Thats just one of the record firsts that Burt Rutan and the team at Scaled Composites have given us.
Well, there's the three - count 'em three - meetings between Mohammed Atta and IIS agents in Prague. The media was all to happy too report that the CIA was unable to confirm one of them, but Czech intelligence confirms three meetings, the subject of which is believed to be Iraq contracting an attack on VOA broadcast stations.
There is also the well documented meeting between IIS officer and Mukhabarat agent Ahmed Hikmat Shakir and three of the 9/11 hijackers in Kuala Lumpur.
We know that Saddam and Bin Ladin had a dialogue during the period between 1994 and 1997 when Saddam offered safe haven and training to Bin Ladin and Al Qaeda operatives. Bin Ladin turned down relocating there in favor of Afghanistan, but hundreds of Al Qaeda militants received trianing at Salman Pak.
There is a dozen or so lesser contacts between Iraqi intermediaries and high level Al Qaeda operatives. Remember the 'aspirin factory' Clinton targeted with tomahawks? The plant was built by one of Bin Ladin's construction companies, and financed and owned by a company out of Khartoum that was a front for Iraqs Petrochemical and Petroleum Project (P3), which had previously handled Iraq's open and active WMDs program. The reason that factory was targeted, by the way, is because soil samples taken from around the factory revealed the presence of O-ethylmethylphosphonothioic acid, a precursor of VX nerve agent which has no other industrial, medical, or natural source or use.
These are just a fewsamples of what is available from open-source intelligence methods. If you read the 9/11 report, read books like "The Connection" (Stephen F. Hayes), and cull news articles and cross reference them, it becomes clear that while Saddam didn't have his finger on the button of 9/11, he tacitly supported terrorist networks including Al Qaeda making it possible for a rag-tag group of jihaddists to pull it off.
No connection my ass.
Yeah, we'll just ignore the countless liasons between the 9/11 hijackers, members of Al Qaeda, and Iraqi Intelligence officers. There's not link whatsoever.
Honestly, I don't want you to have to strain yourself with a little bit if introspective examination on such a complicated issue. Especially when you've already got an axe to grind. Get lost troll boy.
In case Michael's hacking has you confused folks, the NYT article never claimed that the White House lied. The entire jist of the article is that there was opposition to evidence which the Bush administration built their WMDs claims on. That's not good enough for michael, however. He has to nearly double the length of the submission by adding his own 2 cents of editorial drivel. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP!
What a complete and utter hack. Michael has once again proven that far from this sites aim, he is incapable of posting anything other than his left-leaning hack bullshit. This is one reason I will never pay real money for slashdot.
Brrrt. No credible scientist has yet come out and stated that the miniscule amounts of CO2 we pump into the atmosphere is in any way a significant factor for global warming. Nature puts more of the other green house gasses into the atmosphere than all of human activity to date. So it seems that we're back to the obvious; the cause of global warming is (drums please) the SUN!
I don't think so. I think that the thermal energy required to break the NaCl bond is also the thermal energy required to vaporize sodium, so if you heated saltwater hot enough, you'd get...nothing. I remember table salt (NaCl) being an oddity in that it actually has a high bonding energy, where as most halogens are easily liberated from their salts.