I think that our response to any Chinese nuclear attack would be disastrous for all involved, especially the Chinese.
You still don't get it. Its not China planning a limited nuke strike against our cities. Its China putting a nuke strike against an "invading" navy. The ecological effects of one nuke is limited. Just as its unlikely the US would intervene over an initial invasion, its unlikely the US would go into limited nuclear exchanges over its task force. (A task force is not a city.) The only thing the Chinese gov't needs to do before that point is build up enough of a nuclear force to make it costly to the US. There is no way the US is willing to lose NYC, LA, and its bread basket over Taiwan. If the Chinese miscalculates, oh well, its 1.2 billion verses 300K.
That's why China hasn't just marched over to Taiwan yet and planted a flag in the(ir) ground.
No, the reason why China hasn't marched over yet is they haven't modernized their air force to the point they have air superiority, not enough sunburns to guarantee a sinking of an invading fleet, and not enough ICBMs to dissuade the US to contemplate a first strike. YET. What we do know is that they are building swarms of amphibious invasion craft. That is practical for only one thing.
Besides, anyone that has visited Shanghai (as I have) would know that the reason China doesn't really give a poop about Taiwan and Hong Kong is that in 50 to 100 years those islands will just be quaint compared to Shanghai in all relevant aspects.
China is a big place. The more "cosmopolitan" residents of Shanghai do not reflect the worldview of all of China. Nor do they have any real influence over the Central Committee. What China does have is A LOT of peasants that would like "the good life", a few of Chinese generals that shoot off their mouth like a General Boykin, and a Central Committee that looks to use nationalism propaganda to keep the general population in line.
Don't get me wrong. I beleive China desires to economically integrate Taiwan into the mainland, over 10-30 years. Its the best scenario for them. But they are quite hardline about Taiwan trying to "break off" from China. The question is whether they would sit back if Taiwan formally declared its independence from China. You think they will. I think they'd go nuts, and they are militarily preparing now for such a contingency in 2008.
In any case, my desire here is not to speculate whether China would invade Taiwan. I really don't know. My intention is to point out that the US Navy is woefully flawed in its naval strategy because of its current naval configuration. Right now, our US Navy is designed like the HMS Repulse and the Prince of Wales. It needs to be a radically more decentralized delivery force. That would require decommissioning most of its large carriers into many small carriers (or none) and a decade of building before they could implement the new strategy.
They're the only one that presents a credible "classical" military threat. Europe would be the most devastating, but the way its constituted and general relations now, its just not going to happen in our lifetime. Russia isn't, because its not economically there yet, and they aren't the empire which could suck the Ukraine, Belarus, and Eastern Europe for resources and manpower. Africa? South America? lol.
China is the only country that has explosive potential to grow economically. It is also building industrially, not by selling movies and happy meals. But people are taking this oligarchically run nation, who's economy best resembles a fascist state, and pretending they are a nation of happy smurfs, therefore incapable of using military force in its interest. While I see an oligarchy that can barely keep power over its teeming population of peasants, who feed them nationalistic bullshit, ala North Korea or the United States, thinking its their ticket to order in the 21st century. They're spoiling for a fight, they're not stupid to pick one until they think they will prevail. When they get that shiny new ICBM force, and modernize their military, which is almost done, that's when they're going to move. Just in time for 2008 and Taiwan.
the world has been spending a lot of time in places like Kuwait, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq
Yes, they are the other credible threat. A unifying ideology that covers a third of the world conducting warfare against the infidel in the only effective manner they know will work for them.
But that has a good chance of working in our favor as well. Is a happy, prosperous Chinese population going to want to go to war over Taiwan, or is it going to want to take its kids to soccer games
The United States is the richest country on earth. Are we taking our kids to soccer games, or sending them to Iraq? Yes, I think your rationalizing is that stupid.
But if China does that, then I feel the world is going to have more problems to deal with than considering the proper carrier/destroyer/sub mix.
Tactical nukes are not a credible weapon strategy against a swarming, hard to hit Navy. Its great against carrier task forces, though. The US is a boxer with a monster knockout punch, but no jab. The US is Mike Tyson. He'll take out the scrubs, but a real boxer is going to knock him on his ass.
We may get a first hand chance to see if we can deal with global warming with nuclear winter.
We may. Lets use your optimistic mindset. Perhaps they'll cancel each other out.
Subs are in trouble as well, what with the new super cavitation torpedoes.
But first you have to locate the sub, then be in a position to execute a firing solution.
As for supersonic missiles, those are fairly irrelevant except it reduces your envelope for interception
That's the whole freaking point. All of these phalanx, AEGIS, and CAP strategies to take out a missle barrage is based on the idea that they will be able to respond in time to take them all out. If you reduce the time to impact to 1/10 the time, there's no chance you'll be able to take them all out.
when the current naval defence system is designed to intercept ballistic missiles, do you really think a supersonic weapon will be that hard in comparison?
Its bad enough trying to pickup a subsonic missle travelling below surface radar detection. When it is supersonic, it will cripple the ability of an airplane to get to a trajectory to fire an antimissle weapon, which by the way, is not currently designed to take out supersonic missles.
Besides the rumor is that the new missles are designed to make significant changes in trajectory before striking, which will significantly reduce the effectiveness of defensive weapon systems designed to defend against "ballistic" weapons.
As for the numbers you suggested, those are completly off, long range weapons are quite expensive.
You don't get it. 100 of them are cheaper than a destroyer. And China will have yuan to burn.
Nukes, as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, are suicide weapons. Basically you can't use nukes and expect to really win,
1 nuke = $100K. 1 naval task force = $1000000000K Sure winner on the spreadsheet. In fact, the US losing two carrier groups would probably permanently cripple its ability to confront a nation of that stature for a generation. They are not suicide weapons. It'll just be like two large asteroids hitting opposite ends of the earth. (Effing catacalysmic.)
The picture is real simple. In 2008, Taiwan declares itself a sovereign nation. Beijing runs its Olympics, then asserts its national autonomy and executes its invasion plans. Of course, China wouldn't even contemplate doing this until it has an ICBM force comparable to US (which it will in two years). I have problems believing GWB would be stupid enough to honor its defense obligations towards Taiwan, given the potential consequences. But lets pretend he's willing to "cowboy up".
China launches 10,000 crappy, barely seaworthy, but cheap landing craft carrying an army group equivalent to half the entire population of Taiwan. If it lands intact, its all over. Now what is going to stop that craft? Taiwan's airforce? Nope, mainland China will outnumber them 10:1. Taiwan's navy is going to stop China's navy?
No, the only thing that is going to have a prayer in hell of stopping that would be the USN. And the instant that USN got in range of Taiwan, a 10K Sunburn missle barrage would be headed towards it. You think it can survive it? Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree. Lets pretend the USN thinks it can hide behind Taiwan and still give its naval support. Well, for openers, the instant the US attacks an amphib boat, it becomes an act of war against China. You see, Taiwan is not recognized as a nation by the UN. It would be a foreign power (US) attacking Chinese military units engaged in a police action against a renegade island recognised by the world as having sovereignty over it. China then floats up the 4 nuclear subs it had sitting in the area waiting for the naval task force's arrival, and then pops off a nuke launched from underwater. Bye Bye foreign invader. Bye Bye one trillion dollar naval task force.
What can the US do? According to the UN, the US illegally attacked the Chinese. If they get sunk in the Taiwan
If they were from Roguestateistan, it would not be an issue. The USN is way too prepared and powerful for that kind of contingency. Even if the 'Stan had only SCUDs for missle delivery, they'd never get close enough for it to take out an aircraft carrier (say within 25 nautical miles). I'd sleep happily, with our multitrillion dollar naval task groups built for a 1960's style confrontation.
The problem is not even Russia. It just doesn't have a navy that can even present a serious threat to a US Naval task group. Its not a matter of national pride; the Russians never had to take naval power seriously. Even its ability to "project" power though its aircraft carrier never lasted much more than a decade.
No, the credible threat is China. The China we were familiar with in the '50s-'70s is not the China of today. It is going to be the 2nd richest economy in the world within a decade. And given the way the US is handling its economic issues, we'll probably drop to #3. If the EU becomes truly unified, we'll drop to #4. China is going to have nothing but money to blow. It wants Taiwan back. It is looking to exercise its military options. Of course, they want to do it peacefully; they lose a lot of value if they use the gun. But if the West won't bend over, China will come out shooting IF they think they can prevail. They are dying for an excuse to demonstrate they can deal whoopass.
And the whole point of my tirade was that the tactics to take out a carrier group is trivial to an economic power like China. They're not going to out build surface warships to the US. They don't need to. And why would they want to sink trillions of dollars into an obsolete concept? All they need is 10,000 Sunburns (and perhaps a hundred subs for reach). With that, the US cannot enter the Taiwan Strait, and can't get their Carrier group close enough to Taiwan to offer air defense. And if China can't get the range with the Sunburns, its going to be a few uninterceptable tactical nukes. Carrier groups like to clump together, to protect the testicle and to concentrate firepower. It only take one nuke. Remember, the Chinese stole our missle technology back in the '90's (and rumor has it they have our AEGIS software too).
My point is the age of the expensive aircraft carrier groups is soon over, just like the battleship. The US Navy does not appear to have modified its organization or technology to meet the future battlefield. Unfortunately, not being a naval expert, I can't even guess what the new navy needs to look like. All I know it can't be presently constituted where massive missle attack or nuke can sink a trillion dollar taskforce. I'd be looking toward more submersible craft, perhaps hydrofoil craft (for surface speed), more stealth. Perhaps "small" aircraft carriers, holding fewer planes, but many more of them.
The navy of the future is not a hulking air craft carrier with its surface protection all clumped together, hoping its CAP and phalanx systems can defend itself, taking two weeks to get towards the China coast, only to be taken out by a tactical nuke. Its a lot of little ships that can be anywhere in a hurry, that you can't see, and can't count on a missle barrage to take out all its firepower. It take a whole new committment to organization and warfare philosophy, and you have to build the new ships that reflect it. And given that it takes 2-4 years to build a capital ship, the US would have to start NOW and wait 10 years before it could see a result. There is almost no change in that direction right now. That means we may see a trillion dollars, power and lives vaporize within a decade.
You need to buy a clue. Technology always improves, it means the Navy must always change. Billy Mitchell got canned because he kept trying to point out in the late '20s that the battleship era was over. "Aircraft carriers" sending bomb via biplanes certainly seemed ridiculous to many admirals, but boy, battleship relevance was history by WW II.
Its pathetic that you're mentioning Silkworms. The Chinese will be using Sunburns; they are supersonic and damn near impossible to intercept. You go yammering about CAP and AEGIS, but they aren't going to shoot down 10,000 SOTA anti-ship missles aimed at your task group. And even if they couldn't get those numbers, a few tactical nukes would take out a Navy task group. The writing is on the wall, the era of the Aircraft Carrier group will be soon over. They're great for projecting air power far away from friendly air bases for beach conflicts, but they won't own the sea or the air.
The submariners are right. The Navy consists of two types of vessels; subs and targets. I wish the U.S. Navy was more proactive about designing the Navy of the future.
I suspect that the anonymous submitter and the Slashdot editor got the story slightly incorrect. I've had gmail and gtalk for a while. But I went to the googlepages.com site and added myself to the waitlist a few minutes ago. I noticed my userid and password information was already imputted to the appropriate login box. Well, I hit the login button, and whadaya know, I now have a working Google Page account.
Either Google has already set aside a web account for Gmail/Gtalk users, or they randomly prearranged for me access to the beta service (without a long wait). My suggestion would be to try logging in, using your gmail account, and see what happens. I'd give out my webpage address, but given that the name matches my email account, I think I'll pass on giving it out for now. (Nothing to look at anyway...)
The commie left voted to steal the land.
The conservative right voted to let the people keep their homes.
Yes. And in 2000, the Conservative Right decided to subvert Constitutional rights assigned to the states, and the Commie Left voted to defend Federalism. Congratulations. They appointed a President that deliberately broke the law and his vow to defend the Constitution when he authorized spying on American citizens without a court warrant. (Your hero. Some fucking patriot you are.)
So who was "sympathetic towards corporate interests"?
Both voting blocs in the Supreme Court. And Alito.
Your bias is so strong, it's revolting.
I call them as I see them. You, on the other hand, think you have no bias, which makes you a retard. Which explains you are too much of a coward to stand by your opinions like a man.
Twenty years ago, I didn't have a doubt in the world that the SC would laugh out a case such as this one. But I also would never believe the Supreme Court would side with a municipal gov't's "right" to seize a homeowner's property for rich corporate interests because the municipality would get "a cut" in the future profits.
I have no idea how Roberts will vote, but Alito has a voting record that appears sympathetic towards corporate interests.
The tragedy here is that it appears the legislature does not produce law with the public good as the primary concern anymore. Patents are a legal concept to encourage economic and technological activity by creating a limited monopoly on a unique product. It never was supposed to be able to create a limited monopoly on an idea or "knowledge". That does not encourage economic and technological activity, it pretty much strangles it. Just because a law mades it possible to stretch its interpretation beyond its original intent doesn't mean it should be accomodated at every instance.
You see, this is the English's problem. They didn't have a Field Marshal like Patton to explain to them that "the goal is not to die for one's country, but to get the other bastard to die for their country."
Don't get me wrong, on the individual level, the courage and professionalism of the British forces is quite impressive, and sacrifice heartbreaking. But you guys freaking LOST in Gallipoli!
It was a fiasco that lead to the collapse of Imperial Russia, and the rise of modern Turkey.
Even Americans have stopped being nostalgic about the Alamo. And ultimately, the Americans won THAT campaign. Not like the Dardenelles Campaign, where every military analyst goes... "gee, we won WW I, but wouldn't it have been nice to not have embarked on that fiasco..."
Yeah, individually, you proved yourselves, but really, it was a failure. Stop glorifying failure. Gallipoli and the Charge of the Light Brigade. Sheesh. It was a purely a propaganda measure by the Monarchy to get suckers like you to think there's something glorious about dying for one's country. And to make failure less painful and reduce the desire to lynch the idiots who thought that one up.
Gallipoli, Dieppe, leave the beach invasions to the Americans. Can't think of a single, significant American beach invasion failure. Even when getting slaughtered at Iwo Jima, we were conscientious enough to accomplish the objective for what the sacrifice was made.
Agreed. Granted the Soviet Union probably was the biggest contributor in terms of military force against the Axis, but I have my doubts they could have singlehandedly beaten the Germans in WWII. America's military forces quickly outstripped what Britain was putting up. And we're not even counting in the economic/manufacturing aid America provided. I'd guess by the time US/Britain hit France, they must have occupied about 1/3 of all the German forces, increasing that percentage as they got towards the Rhine.
Now picture the Soviet Union without that second front. No Murmansk convoys during 42-44, no long range bombing of Germany's industrial centers, and roughly a third more military force. Germany's problem was (Hitler) always trying to hold more land than they were capable of defending, and Russian winter. Even after the failures of Stalingrad & Kursk, if Hitler had adopted Guderian/Model/Mansteins' style of mobile warfare at that point, I think (without a second front) the Germans could have made a Soviet gov't collapsing push into the Caucasses. Without a second front, the Soviets would have experienced the same supply problems the Germans had going into the SU. Forget about liberating Eastern Europe. In fact, if the Germans didn't have that poisonous Aryan mentality, they could have gotten a good chunk of the USSR to revolt against the Communists.
As for the Japanese, just remember they're an island nation with a limited population and totally dependent external sources of raw materials. Granted, the Japanese would have predominated Asia, but I doubt they would have bothered invading Australia. (Why bother, if there were no Americans.) Just realize the Japanese could not possibly stand up against the US, even if the US was alone. The US put 70% of their military resources into Europe, and even with 30-40%, they were able to crush the Japanese. (Didn't matter what standing army the Japanese had in Manchuria. They couldn't control the sea.) Battle of Coral Sea and Midway pretty much sealed the Japanese fate.
As much as some moan about the concept, turning space into a tourist attraction may be the only way we're ever really going to get off this rock.
You should be careful about presuming the underlying conditions will remain to give you a sustainable result. You have to realize your worldview is based on a life experience in the US, which has experienced a vast amount of economic wealth since the 1950's, and has been pissing it away ever since. Its like living off your credit card, presuming you'll eventually get a higher paying job to pay off the debts. The world doesn't work like that, and that experience is almost a chapter in history.
There is no future higher paying job (unless you're in the health care industry). The US has abandoned its industrial base, the industries it had an economic advantage in, and is so f*cking up its high tech industries and education, it will not even have that as a growth industry. You have a brain that can find a cure for AIDS or the next technological marvel? Fine, you have a future. Everyone else will be a form of wage slave or white collar con-man.
NASA & the Apollo space programs existed for two reasons. 1) The US was so ridiculously rich, it wanted to piss away tax dollars to aerospace companies. 2) The US was in a military competition and wanted to divert dollars to military-industrial complex without calling it weapons. There may be a new boom in space exploration, but it won't be led by the US. It will be too financially broken from its non-critical military adventurism. And if the gov't is bankrupt, be sure there will not be lots of new millionaires to take up the space exploration spending slack.
Already, only one third of our US budget is deemed "discretionary" spending. That means if we nuked every social welfare program, education subsidy, stopped all subsidized construction, opened our border to illegals and terrorists, allowed interstate crime to go unchecked, disbanded the military, we would only be able to reduce the total tax burden by a third. The IRS would still have to collect taxes for everything that doesn't enhance our lives, which is interest on treasury debt, and financial obligations, like federal pensions and social security. This is what's called maxing out your credit card; now live like a debt slave. Sure, the US can declare bankruptcy, its called hyperinflation. The rest of the world we owe money to will not take kindly to that. It will be a world wide depression (recession, if the rest of the world is lucky), and we will experience starvation and loss of material wealth (like housing, cars, entertainment devices). No more highspeed Internet or Slashdot, you won't be able to afford it.
Right now, the Treasury secretary is begging the Congress to raise the debt ceiling, i.e. borrow more money that its currently allowed to by law. If the Congress does not, the gov't will experience chapter 11-like bankruptcy situation; we won't have enough cash to pay currently due bills. Of course, the Congress could choose to just shutdown gov't programs and make the US live within its means. No, we're going to hit the credit card harder this year. You see this crisis on the TV or papers? Nope, stay clueless and happy, mushroom.
It's pretty apparent that NASA isn't going to be doing much more than sending out probes.
It may not even be able to do that. Bush cronies, for years, has been looking for ways to loot NASA's science budget (which barely cracks a few billion). But if they kill all space probe exploration, there will be quite a stink. (They're not killing manned programs, because it already helps their buds, like DeLay.) So, what does Bush do? He announces a NEW program to put man back on the moon and to Mars. Forget the fact the US does not have that kind of discretionary spending, like it did in the 1960's. Of course it costs more than probes. So, we take money away from exploring asteroids and Plu
I know American companies have to be more efficient, and workers need to handle more tasks and title responsibilities in order for productivity to increase. But I think if you stop forcing office workers to handle live poultry, you'll prevent the only known vector for contracting the disease.
We would be learning from the mistakes of other cultures; like China, whose individuals are known to raise their own poultry livestock at their residences. This is not as outlandish as it sounds. After all, America has seeemed to have learned from the French to avoid mandatory limits to hours worked per week.
Alternately, if you still think there is a credible concern for the H5N1 virus to mutate to a human communicable form, then I'd suggest taking care of the AIDS epidemic first. AIDS is incurable, and I'm sure you're worried about that virus mutating into a form transmissible by contact, sneezing, or become airborne. Will you be recommending mass cullings of AIDS sufferers? or merely enforced, indefinite quarantine?
I'm sure guys like Rumsfeldt and Frist would welcome gov't financing of vaccine research, but I think Iraq has taken away all of the money available for discretionary spending in the budget. I guess they'll have to take lobbyist jobs, like everyone else.
Maybe its me, but what SMALL businessman is going to gamble mediocre voice quality and phone outages based on local internet conditions just to save money "they wanted to spend anyway"?
Yes, telco contracts are significantly more expensive than residential, but its for a reason. Its not because small businesses want to be fleeced, its to get 99.999% uptime. Its for someone to yell at when the phone service goes down, and then to actually have the service restored in the shortest time possible. No small businessman is going to risk a 2 hour outage that deter customers with 6 figure contracts. Even if it was reliable as telco support, getting mediocre voice quality is going to send a wrong message to customers.
The only instance where I see this working is someplace with lots of internal or B&B communication; a union office or HealthSouth. Even then, they're going to have to keep regular phone service for the "front office". Am I missing something here?
Its not the lust for power; its the willingness to betray any principle or debase oneself in the pursuit of power.
McCain has basically shown himself to be Smeagol.
Clinton, on the other hand, may look like Gollum, but she didn't punk out on the Alito filibuster, bankruptcy bill, and other voting issues of importance to me.
Do I trust Clinton? Hell no. Would I nominate her for president? Hell no, but only because she'd lose. Would I vote for her to be president when given McCain as the alternative? Yes. Find me a Republican that hasn't sold out to the Fundamentalist Christians, neocons, or the rich, and I'll gladly vote for him over Hillary.
The party democrats thought that Kerry was the man. That's why they are floundering. They have absolutely no idea their ship is leaking
Kerry is known to be a ponderous flipflopper, but even he could not have pulled that election year farce if it weren't for people constantly telling him to be a two-faced asskisser, or GWB actually had some Skull & Bones pull. He tried to compete with Bush on the TV circuit and money circuit (not his strength), he didn't have political operatives like Dick Morris to hit under the belt, and no one to kick him in the ass where there was time to make up ground, and no father that bothered to teach him only a whore tries to make everyone happy or not mad at them. What's sad is that chump actually thinks he has a shot in 2008, when he's more damaged goods than Hillary.
You see my point by the way, the democrats spend a lot of time calling the republicans things like 'evil', without any sense of how they should be different.
No, non-professional Democrats call Republicans evil. They know exactly what should be done different. They all vary, and some may not be feasible or plain stupid, but they know exactly that it should be different. You are confused with Professional Democrats, who do not call Republicans "evil", they call them "my collegue". The solution is simple, vote for people that defend your important issues. Unfortunately, Republican voters don't care about integrity (Delay, Frist), about veterans (whether its body armor or lost body parts), about illegal immigration, about the potential threat posed by the China, about Al Queda (they'll use it as an excuse to subvert every constitutional right, but not catch the fleabag Osama, which is telling), about the country going into irreversible hock, but they care about how the rich need more tax cuts, and are willing to allow the President violate the Constitution for the illusion of safety. If they really stood for principle, they would not be reelecting politicians who perpetrate this crap. Therefore, I don't think Republican voters really do have any integrity, they just care about picking a "winner" even if it makes them losers.
Standing for something is the first step.
Murtha stood up, for the troops. He says, "Enough of this bullshit, prepare to get out of Iraq." I don't see you nominating him for president.
I don't want to vote for somebody who says they believe in the things I believe in, I want to vote for somebody who makes me believe in what they believe in.
Which makes you a sheep. A sucker. The right-wing's bitch. I want my gov't to do my bidding, or get the f*ck out my district. Only a pillow-biting bottom or a ho wants "believe in" someone else's bullshit. Such a person has no principles or core values.
You leave me curious as to how you *would* describe Hillary.
A f*cking Republican in a red state, but hers is Blue. But no Democan can match Lieberman. Lord, I wish he loses the primary, even if it meant losing the Senate seat.
Neither party would run a woman without at least a tacit guarantee that the other party would too.
You must be a Democrat. And will participate in your first ballot.
Which would mean an unofficial truce would have to be struck for us to see Condi v Hilary.
DELUSIONAL Democrat. No, it would be Hillary vs whomever best appeared able to squash her like a bug in the polls. I'm guessing McCain, because some women would look at him as sensitive and reasonable, yet a war vet, therefore "manly". Guys will vote for McCain, just because the alternative is Hillary. (I, a heterosexual male, would vote for Hillary. Any guy that would kiss up to Bush after he accused him of cheating on his wife and had a "disgusting" interracial fling resulting in a bastard child was obviously castrated at the POW camp and is capable of committing any indignity to pursue his lust for power.)
Yeah, and I was so willing to vote for a war hero. I really wanted the Bob Dole of 1984.
But he decided to go against almost every issue that I, a non-geriatric anti-fundamentalist liberal, considered important.
Hell, Poppy Bush did a hell of job in Gulf War I, but blithely belittling the significance of the young unemployed (as I was at the time) and putting Clarence Thomas into the SC pretty much sealed that deal.
Damn your luck Maxume. You've been hit by the one female slashdot reader with mod points. (Damn you, Taco's wife...)
While I can chuckle, I can't say I agree with the less complimentary adjectives.
The democrats, if they wish to remain relevant,
But the leadership doesn't. The DNC political advisors merely want to keep their high paying salaries, and depend on the good graces of big business to do that. Media consultants merely want to skim off the top of those political commercials that can only be funded by big business. Politicians merely want to stay re-elected, and pander to big business for campaign finances and post-congressional lobby jobs. Winning control of the House and Senate is secondary to these people, as it is to big business.
This is the reality we live in. We will either have to erode the relevance of the Democratic Party and suffer continual Republican victories until a replacement party can squash both, or you will have to shoot DNC operatives until all of the traitors are eliminated.
and actually take a stand for something.
They don't stand for anything. Unless you count their self-interest as a principle. Which is what the Republicans stand for. Hell, they jettisoned fiscal responsibility in gov't, adopt invasions of convenience, destroy the economy so foreigners call the shots, and is more than happy to abandon US servicemen and destroy the US military.
It should be freaking obvious that Hilary does not have a snowball's chance in hell of winning a presidential election, because she doesn't appeal to the Red State cretins that voted Bush over Kerry. Kerry never inspired the hatred Hilary does. So yes, I agree, the RNC would love Hilary as the Democratic candidate for President.
Well, I can read but my military knowledge is limited, agreed. Thanks for the more accurate info. Doesn't change my main points.
It demonstrates your knowledgability in military affairs.
We (the US and the UK (I'm British)) made the area a warzone.
Being the agents involved in making an area a warzone does not change the fact its a warzone. If "innocent" farmers weren't blowing up our soldiers and shooting them at roadsides, the US military would not feel a survival imperative to attack these people at roadsides in the middle of the night when they are setting up IEDs and ambush points.
Its not a matter of what's "right", its a matter of what "is". If you have a problem with that, you can vote your regime out of power. Or express your displeasure. But you're not going to convince me or those soldiers have a moral obligation to be sitting ducks.
Frankly, all efforts should be made so women can walk alone at night through central park.
Then apparently you don't believe people should own passenger motor vehicles, alcohol should be made illegal, and food should be carefully rationed to prevent obesity. Because its obvious you think people should be protected from their own stupidity.
Ideals are a good thing, aren't they? Wasn't that a major basis for the 2nd iraq war in the first place? - the ideal of removing a vicious dictator from power?
Don't pedal that crap with me. I don't support the Iraq invasion, and I support a quick withdrawal. But I don't think soldiers have a moral obligation to be target practice. Unlike you.
4)(from another point of view)[...]
Yes, the civilians know the score. Yes, the US occupation merely generates more enemies of the US. Doesn't change the fact that soldiers will shoot people on suspicious activity.
Also censorship to what VOLUNTEERS would CHOOSE to hear is unjustified. These people are not conscripts. They are people enough in tune to their citizen obligations (or opportunities) to enlist. Denying them the same information available to nonenlisted citizens merely makes them less than a citizen.
To quote Henry Kissinger, "Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy."
That attitude must be shared by the Bush Administration, because apparently they will only permit radio programs that speak favorably towards its policy to be heard by the livestock.
Its too late to get the gov't to treat the enlisted like the patriots they are. Bush was elected. If you think speaking out is going to make a difference, then you're going to have to make the truth hurt, and crawl out of your anomymous hidey hole.
This is one of the things that makes conscription so reprehensible.
But slaughtering patriot "volunteers" are okay?!?! Soldiers that want out of Iraq did not volunteer to invade it! The poor bastards that wanted to keep our country safe, not invade countries that did not represent a credible threat to the US! They did not volunteer to be kept beyond the year tour in Iraq (stop-loss).
You think conscription is so reprehensible, well, get ready for it. Because Bush is making promises the VOLUTEER military can't keep. You young losers can get ready to lose a limb for being born in this country, and for supporting, or ignoring, that lying chimp.
1) Its not an Apache helicopter, its an AC130 gunship. Its basically a propeller cargo plane with 40 mm cannons on each side and a 160 mm howitzer. They had the nickname in Vietnam as "Puff, the Magic Dragon". Obviously, you are demonstrating your military knowledge and reading skills.
2) Iraq is a war zone, and the US military are not there to act as police. If they see something suspicious, they are authorized to fire at it. Not watch an ambush being prepared so our boys can get blown up and shot at.
3) What the hell are "law abiding" Iraqis doing IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, congregating at a roadside in the country, moving a pipe shape into a field? Hell, every woman has the right to walk alone at night through Central Park, and when she gets raped and murdered, the perpetrators are still liable for every criminal violation. But anyone with $0.02 worth of common sense calls her a Darwin Award candidate.
4) Hint: if you live in Iraq, drive out in the middle of nowhere, move an anti-armor weapon into a field, pace off the distance to the road, you are a combatant. Repeat after me...
Nethack (or, originally, Rogue) is made by an independent group and it's one of the most innovative RPGs made in the past two decades
Innovative??? Innovative??? What the heck makes nethack innovative? Its been the same character based RPG I've known since I took computer classes on a mainframe back in the early '80's. It was based on an even earlier game called Rogue. Lemme guess, nethack pioneered copying computer game themes!
Slashdot Mirror
You still don't get it. Its not China planning a limited nuke strike against our cities. Its China putting a nuke strike against an "invading" navy. The ecological effects of one nuke is limited. Just as its unlikely the US would intervene over an initial invasion, its unlikely the US would go into limited nuclear exchanges over its task force. (A task force is not a city.) The only thing the Chinese gov't needs to do before that point is build up enough of a nuclear force to make it costly to the US. There is no way the US is willing to lose NYC, LA, and its bread basket over Taiwan. If the Chinese miscalculates, oh well, its 1.2 billion verses 300K.
No, the reason why China hasn't marched over yet is they haven't modernized their air force to the point they have air superiority, not enough sunburns to guarantee a sinking of an invading fleet, and not enough ICBMs to dissuade the US to contemplate a first strike. YET. What we do know is that they are building swarms of amphibious invasion craft. That is practical for only one thing.
China is a big place. The more "cosmopolitan" residents of Shanghai do not reflect the worldview of all of China. Nor do they have any real influence over the Central Committee. What China does have is A LOT of peasants that would like "the good life", a few of Chinese generals that shoot off their mouth like a General Boykin, and a Central Committee that looks to use nationalism propaganda to keep the general population in line.
Don't get me wrong. I beleive China desires to economically integrate Taiwan into the mainland, over 10-30 years. Its the best scenario for them. But they are quite hardline about Taiwan trying to "break off" from China. The question is whether they would sit back if Taiwan formally declared its independence from China. You think they will. I think they'd go nuts, and they are militarily preparing now for such a contingency in 2008.
In any case, my desire here is not to speculate whether China would invade Taiwan. I really don't know. My intention is to point out that the US Navy is woefully flawed in its naval strategy because of its current naval configuration. Right now, our US Navy is designed like the HMS Repulse and the Prince of Wales. It needs to be a radically more decentralized delivery force. That would require decommissioning most of its large carriers into many small carriers (or none) and a decade of building before they could implement the new strategy.
They're the only one that presents a credible "classical" military threat. Europe would be the most devastating, but the way its constituted and general relations now, its just not going to happen in our lifetime. Russia isn't, because its not economically there yet, and they aren't the empire which could suck the Ukraine, Belarus, and Eastern Europe for resources and manpower. Africa? South America? lol.
China is the only country that has explosive potential to grow economically. It is also building industrially, not by selling movies and happy meals. But people are taking this oligarchically run nation, who's economy best resembles a fascist state, and pretending they are a nation of happy smurfs, therefore incapable of using military force in its interest. While I see an oligarchy that can barely keep power over its teeming population of peasants, who feed them nationalistic bullshit, ala North Korea or the United States, thinking its their ticket to order in the 21st century. They're spoiling for a fight, they're not stupid to pick one until they think they will prevail. When they get that shiny new ICBM force, and modernize their military, which is almost done, that's when they're going to move. Just in time for 2008 and Taiwan.
Yes, they are the other credible threat. A unifying ideology that covers a third of the world conducting warfare against the infidel in the only effective manner they know will work for them.
The United States is the richest country on earth. Are we taking our kids to soccer games, or sending them to Iraq? Yes, I think your rationalizing is that stupid.
Tactical nukes are not a credible weapon strategy against a swarming, hard to hit Navy. Its great against carrier task forces, though. The US is a boxer with a monster knockout punch, but no jab. The US is Mike Tyson. He'll take out the scrubs, but a real boxer is going to knock him on his ass.
We may. Lets use your optimistic mindset. Perhaps they'll cancel each other out.
But first you have to locate the sub, then be in a position to execute a firing solution.
That's the whole freaking point. All of these phalanx, AEGIS, and CAP strategies to take out a missle barrage is based on the idea that they will be able to respond in time to take them all out. If you reduce the time to impact to 1/10 the time, there's no chance you'll be able to take them all out.
Its bad enough trying to pickup a subsonic missle travelling below surface radar detection. When it is supersonic, it will cripple the ability of an airplane to get to a trajectory to fire an antimissle weapon, which by the way, is not currently designed to take out supersonic missles. Besides the rumor is that the new missles are designed to make significant changes in trajectory before striking, which will significantly reduce the effectiveness of defensive weapon systems designed to defend against "ballistic" weapons.
You don't get it. 100 of them are cheaper than a destroyer. And China will have yuan to burn.
1 nuke = $100K. 1 naval task force = $1000000000K Sure winner on the spreadsheet. In fact, the US losing two carrier groups would probably permanently cripple its ability to confront a nation of that stature for a generation. They are not suicide weapons. It'll just be like two large asteroids hitting opposite ends of the earth. (Effing catacalysmic.)
The picture is real simple. In 2008, Taiwan declares itself a sovereign nation. Beijing runs its Olympics, then asserts its national autonomy and executes its invasion plans. Of course, China wouldn't even contemplate doing this until it has an ICBM force comparable to US (which it will in two years). I have problems believing GWB would be stupid enough to honor its defense obligations towards Taiwan, given the potential consequences. But lets pretend he's willing to "cowboy up".
China launches 10,000 crappy, barely seaworthy, but cheap landing craft carrying an army group equivalent to half the entire population of Taiwan. If it lands intact, its all over. Now what is going to stop that craft? Taiwan's airforce? Nope, mainland China will outnumber them 10:1. Taiwan's navy is going to stop China's navy? No, the only thing that is going to have a prayer in hell of stopping that would be the USN. And the instant that USN got in range of Taiwan, a 10K Sunburn missle barrage would be headed towards it. You think it can survive it? Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree. Lets pretend the USN thinks it can hide behind Taiwan and still give its naval support. Well, for openers, the instant the US attacks an amphib boat, it becomes an act of war against China. You see, Taiwan is not recognized as a nation by the UN. It would be a foreign power (US) attacking Chinese military units engaged in a police action against a renegade island recognised by the world as having sovereignty over it. China then floats up the 4 nuclear subs it had sitting in the area waiting for the naval task force's arrival, and then pops off a nuke launched from underwater. Bye Bye foreign invader. Bye Bye one trillion dollar naval task force.
What can the US do? According to the UN, the US illegally attacked the Chinese. If they get sunk in the Taiwan
If they were from Roguestateistan, it would not be an issue. The USN is way too prepared and powerful for that kind of contingency. Even if the 'Stan had only SCUDs for missle delivery, they'd never get close enough for it to take out an aircraft carrier (say within 25 nautical miles). I'd sleep happily, with our multitrillion dollar naval task groups built for a 1960's style confrontation.
The problem is not even Russia. It just doesn't have a navy that can even present a serious threat to a US Naval task group. Its not a matter of national pride; the Russians never had to take naval power seriously. Even its ability to "project" power though its aircraft carrier never lasted much more than a decade.
No, the credible threat is China. The China we were familiar with in the '50s-'70s is not the China of today. It is going to be the 2nd richest economy in the world within a decade. And given the way the US is handling its economic issues, we'll probably drop to #3. If the EU becomes truly unified, we'll drop to #4. China is going to have nothing but money to blow. It wants Taiwan back. It is looking to exercise its military options. Of course, they want to do it peacefully; they lose a lot of value if they use the gun. But if the West won't bend over, China will come out shooting IF they think they can prevail. They are dying for an excuse to demonstrate they can deal whoopass.
And the whole point of my tirade was that the tactics to take out a carrier group is trivial to an economic power like China. They're not going to out build surface warships to the US. They don't need to. And why would they want to sink trillions of dollars into an obsolete concept? All they need is 10,000 Sunburns (and perhaps a hundred subs for reach). With that, the US cannot enter the Taiwan Strait, and can't get their Carrier group close enough to Taiwan to offer air defense. And if China can't get the range with the Sunburns, its going to be a few uninterceptable tactical nukes.
Carrier groups like to clump together, to protect the testicle and to concentrate firepower. It only take one nuke. Remember, the Chinese stole our missle technology back in the '90's (and rumor has it they have our AEGIS software too).
My point is the age of the expensive aircraft carrier groups is soon over, just like the battleship. The US Navy does not appear to have modified its organization or technology to meet the future battlefield. Unfortunately, not being a naval expert, I can't even guess what the new navy needs to look like. All I know it can't be presently constituted where massive missle attack or nuke can sink a trillion dollar taskforce. I'd be looking toward more submersible craft, perhaps hydrofoil craft (for surface speed), more stealth. Perhaps "small" aircraft carriers, holding fewer planes, but many more of them.
The navy of the future is not a hulking air craft carrier with its surface protection all clumped together, hoping its CAP and phalanx systems can defend itself, taking two weeks to get towards the China coast, only to be taken out by a tactical nuke. Its a lot of little ships that can be anywhere in a hurry, that you can't see, and can't count on a missle barrage to take out all its firepower. It take a whole new committment to organization and warfare philosophy, and you have to build the new ships that reflect it. And given that it takes 2-4 years to build a capital ship, the US would have to start NOW and wait 10 years before it could see a result. There is almost no change in that direction right now. That means we may see a trillion dollars, power and lives vaporize within a decade.
You need to buy a clue. Technology always improves, it means the Navy must always change. Billy Mitchell got canned because he kept trying to point out in the late '20s that the battleship era was over. "Aircraft carriers" sending bomb via biplanes certainly seemed ridiculous to many admirals, but boy, battleship relevance was history by WW II.
Its pathetic that you're mentioning Silkworms. The Chinese will be using Sunburns; they are supersonic and damn near impossible to intercept. You go yammering about CAP and AEGIS, but they aren't going to shoot down 10,000 SOTA anti-ship missles aimed at your task group. And even if they couldn't get those numbers, a few tactical nukes would take out a Navy task group. The writing is on the wall, the era of the Aircraft Carrier group will be soon over. They're great for projecting air power far away from friendly air bases for beach conflicts, but they won't own the sea or the air.
The submariners are right. The Navy consists of two types of vessels; subs and targets. I wish the U.S. Navy was more proactive about designing the Navy of the future.
I suspect that the anonymous submitter and the Slashdot editor got the story slightly incorrect. I've had gmail and gtalk for a while. But I went to the googlepages.com site and added myself to the waitlist a few minutes ago. I noticed my userid and password information was already imputted to the appropriate login box. Well, I hit the login button, and whadaya know, I now have a working Google Page account.
Either Google has already set aside a web account for Gmail/Gtalk users, or they randomly prearranged for me access to the beta service (without a long wait). My suggestion would be to try logging in, using your gmail account, and see what happens. I'd give out my webpage address, but given that the name matches my email account, I think I'll pass on giving it out for now. (Nothing to look at anyway...)
Yes. And in 2000, the Conservative Right decided to subvert Constitutional rights assigned to the states, and the Commie Left voted to defend Federalism. Congratulations. They appointed a President that deliberately broke the law and his vow to defend the Constitution when he authorized spying on American citizens without a court warrant. (Your hero. Some fucking patriot you are.)
Both voting blocs in the Supreme Court. And Alito.
I call them as I see them. You, on the other hand, think you have no bias, which makes you a retard. Which explains you are too much of a coward to stand by your opinions like a man.
I hope he's wrong too.
Twenty years ago, I didn't have a doubt in the world that the SC would laugh out a case such as this one. But I also would never believe the Supreme Court would side with a municipal gov't's "right" to seize a homeowner's property for rich corporate interests because the municipality would get "a cut" in the future profits.
I have no idea how Roberts will vote, but Alito has a voting record that appears sympathetic towards corporate interests.
The tragedy here is that it appears the legislature does not produce law with the public good as the primary concern anymore. Patents are a legal concept to encourage economic and technological activity by creating a limited monopoly on a unique product. It never was supposed to be able to create a limited monopoly on an idea or "knowledge". That does not encourage economic and technological activity, it pretty much strangles it. Just because a law mades it possible to stretch its interpretation beyond its original intent doesn't mean it should be accomodated at every instance.
You see, this is the English's problem. They didn't have a Field Marshal like Patton to explain to them that "the goal is not to die for one's country, but to get the other bastard to die for their country."
Don't get me wrong, on the individual level, the courage and professionalism of the British forces is quite impressive, and sacrifice heartbreaking. But you guys freaking LOST in Gallipoli!
It was a fiasco that lead to the collapse of Imperial Russia, and the rise of modern Turkey. Even Americans have stopped being nostalgic about the Alamo. And ultimately, the Americans won THAT campaign. Not like the Dardenelles Campaign, where every military analyst goes... "gee, we won WW I, but wouldn't it have been nice to not have embarked on that fiasco..."Yeah, individually, you proved yourselves, but really, it was a failure. Stop glorifying failure. Gallipoli and the Charge of the Light Brigade. Sheesh. It was a purely a propaganda measure by the Monarchy to get suckers like you to think there's something glorious about dying for one's country. And to make failure less painful and reduce the desire to lynch the idiots who thought that one up.
Gallipoli, Dieppe, leave the beach invasions to the Americans. Can't think of a single, significant American beach invasion failure. Even when getting slaughtered at Iwo Jima, we were conscientious enough to accomplish the objective for what the sacrifice was made.
Agreed. Granted the Soviet Union probably was the biggest contributor in terms of military force against the Axis, but I have my doubts they could have singlehandedly beaten the Germans in WWII. America's military forces quickly outstripped what Britain was putting up. And we're not even counting in the economic/manufacturing aid America provided. I'd guess by the time US/Britain hit France, they must have occupied about 1/3 of all the German forces, increasing that percentage as they got towards the Rhine.
Now picture the Soviet Union without that second front. No Murmansk convoys during 42-44, no long range bombing of Germany's industrial centers, and roughly a third more military force. Germany's problem was (Hitler) always trying to hold more land than they were capable of defending, and Russian winter. Even after the failures of Stalingrad & Kursk, if Hitler had adopted Guderian/Model/Mansteins' style of mobile warfare at that point, I think (without a second front) the Germans could have made a Soviet gov't collapsing push into the Caucasses. Without a second front, the Soviets would have experienced the same supply problems the Germans had going into the SU. Forget about liberating Eastern Europe. In fact, if the Germans didn't have that poisonous Aryan mentality, they could have gotten a good chunk of the USSR to revolt against the Communists.
As for the Japanese, just remember they're an island nation with a limited population and totally dependent external sources of raw materials. Granted, the Japanese would have predominated Asia, but I doubt they would have bothered invading Australia. (Why bother, if there were no Americans.) Just realize the Japanese could not possibly stand up against the US, even if the US was alone. The US put 70% of their military resources into Europe, and even with 30-40%, they were able to crush the Japanese. (Didn't matter what standing army the Japanese had in Manchuria. They couldn't control the sea.) Battle of Coral Sea and Midway pretty much sealed the Japanese fate.
You should be careful about presuming the underlying conditions will remain to give you a sustainable result. You have to realize your worldview is based on a life experience in the US, which has experienced a vast amount of economic wealth since the 1950's, and has been pissing it away ever since. Its like living off your credit card, presuming you'll eventually get a higher paying job to pay off the debts. The world doesn't work like that, and that experience is almost a chapter in history.
There is no future higher paying job (unless you're in the health care industry). The US has abandoned its industrial base, the industries it had an economic advantage in, and is so f*cking up its high tech industries and education, it will not even have that as a growth industry. You have a brain that can find a cure for AIDS or the next technological marvel? Fine, you have a future. Everyone else will be a form of wage slave or white collar con-man.
NASA & the Apollo space programs existed for two reasons. 1) The US was so ridiculously rich, it wanted to piss away tax dollars to aerospace companies. 2) The US was in a military competition and wanted to divert dollars to military-industrial complex without calling it weapons. There may be a new boom in space exploration, but it won't be led by the US. It will be too financially broken from its non-critical military adventurism. And if the gov't is bankrupt, be sure there will not be lots of new millionaires to take up the space exploration spending slack.
Already, only one third of our US budget is deemed "discretionary" spending. That means if we nuked every social welfare program, education subsidy, stopped all subsidized construction, opened our border to illegals and terrorists, allowed interstate crime to go unchecked, disbanded the military, we would only be able to reduce the total tax burden by a third. The IRS would still have to collect taxes for everything that doesn't enhance our lives, which is interest on treasury debt, and financial obligations, like federal pensions and social security. This is what's called maxing out your credit card; now live like a debt slave. Sure, the US can declare bankruptcy, its called hyperinflation. The rest of the world we owe money to will not take kindly to that. It will be a world wide depression (recession, if the rest of the world is lucky), and we will experience starvation and loss of material wealth (like housing, cars, entertainment devices). No more highspeed Internet or Slashdot, you won't be able to afford it.
Right now, the Treasury secretary is begging the Congress to raise the debt ceiling, i.e. borrow more money that its currently allowed to by law. If the Congress does not, the gov't will experience chapter 11-like bankruptcy situation; we won't have enough cash to pay currently due bills. Of course, the Congress could choose to just shutdown gov't programs and make the US live within its means. No, we're going to hit the credit card harder this year. You see this crisis on the TV or papers? Nope, stay clueless and happy, mushroom.
It may not even be able to do that. Bush cronies, for years, has been looking for ways to loot NASA's science budget (which barely cracks a few billion). But if they kill all space probe exploration, there will be quite a stink. (They're not killing manned programs, because it already helps their buds, like DeLay.) So, what does Bush do? He announces a NEW program to put man back on the moon and to Mars. Forget the fact the US does not have that kind of discretionary spending, like it did in the 1960's. Of course it costs more than probes. So, we take money away from exploring asteroids and Plu
Dear Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni (Director, NIH):
I know American companies have to be more efficient, and workers need to handle more tasks and title responsibilities in order for productivity to increase. But I think if you stop forcing office workers to handle live poultry, you'll prevent the only known vector for contracting the disease.
We would be learning from the mistakes of other cultures; like China, whose individuals are known to raise their own poultry livestock at their residences. This is not as outlandish as it sounds. After all, America has seeemed to have learned from the French to avoid mandatory limits to hours worked per week.
Alternately, if you still think there is a credible concern for the H5N1 virus to mutate to a human communicable form, then I'd suggest taking care of the AIDS epidemic first. AIDS is incurable, and I'm sure you're worried about that virus mutating into a form transmissible by contact, sneezing, or become airborne. Will you be recommending mass cullings of AIDS sufferers? or merely enforced, indefinite quarantine?
I'm sure guys like Rumsfeldt and Frist would welcome gov't financing of vaccine research, but I think Iraq has taken away all of the money available for discretionary spending in the budget. I guess they'll have to take lobbyist jobs, like everyone else.
Maybe its me, but what SMALL businessman is going to gamble mediocre voice quality and phone outages based on local internet conditions just to save money "they wanted to spend anyway"? Yes, telco contracts are significantly more expensive than residential, but its for a reason. Its not because small businesses want to be fleeced, its to get 99.999% uptime. Its for someone to yell at when the phone service goes down, and then to actually have the service restored in the shortest time possible. No small businessman is going to risk a 2 hour outage that deter customers with 6 figure contracts. Even if it was reliable as telco support, getting mediocre voice quality is going to send a wrong message to customers. The only instance where I see this working is someplace with lots of internal or B&B communication; a union office or HealthSouth. Even then, they're going to have to keep regular phone service for the "front office". Am I missing something here?
Its not the lust for power; its the willingness to betray any principle or debase oneself in the pursuit of power.
McCain has basically shown himself to be Smeagol.
Clinton, on the other hand, may look like Gollum, but she didn't punk out on the Alito filibuster, bankruptcy bill, and other voting issues of importance to me.
Do I trust Clinton? Hell no. Would I nominate her for president? Hell no, but only because she'd lose. Would I vote for her to be president when given McCain as the alternative? Yes. Find me a Republican that hasn't sold out to the Fundamentalist Christians, neocons, or the rich, and I'll gladly vote for him over Hillary.
No, I'm pretty cynical, you are NAIVE.
Kerry is known to be a ponderous flipflopper, but even he could not have pulled that election year farce if it weren't for people constantly telling him to be a two-faced asskisser, or GWB actually had some Skull & Bones pull. He tried to compete with Bush on the TV circuit and money circuit (not his strength), he didn't have political operatives like Dick Morris to hit under the belt, and no one to kick him in the ass where there was time to make up ground, and no father that bothered to teach him only a whore tries to make everyone happy or not mad at them. What's sad is that chump actually thinks he has a shot in 2008, when he's more damaged goods than Hillary.
No, non-professional Democrats call Republicans evil. They know exactly what should be done different. They all vary, and some may not be feasible or plain stupid, but they know exactly that it should be different. You are confused with Professional Democrats, who do not call Republicans "evil", they call them "my collegue".
The solution is simple, vote for people that defend your important issues. Unfortunately, Republican voters don't care about integrity (Delay, Frist), about veterans (whether its body armor or lost body parts), about illegal immigration, about the potential threat posed by the China, about Al Queda (they'll use it as an excuse to subvert every constitutional right, but not catch the fleabag Osama, which is telling), about the country going into irreversible hock, but they care about how the rich need more tax cuts, and are willing to allow the President violate the Constitution for the illusion of safety. If they really stood for principle, they would not be reelecting politicians who perpetrate this crap. Therefore, I don't think Republican voters really do have any integrity, they just care about picking a "winner" even if it makes them losers.
Murtha stood up, for the troops. He says, "Enough of this bullshit, prepare to get out of Iraq." I don't see you nominating him for president.
Which makes you a sheep. A sucker. The right-wing's bitch. I want my gov't to do my bidding, or get the f*ck out my district. Only a pillow-biting bottom or a ho wants "believe in" someone else's bullshit. Such a person has no principles or core values.
A f*cking Republican in a red state, but hers is Blue. But no Democan can match Lieberman. Lord, I wish he loses the primary, even if it meant losing the Senate seat.
You must be a Democrat. And will participate in your first ballot.
DELUSIONAL Democrat. No, it would be Hillary vs whomever best appeared able to squash her like a bug in the polls. I'm guessing McCain, because some women would look at him as sensitive and reasonable, yet a war vet, therefore "manly". Guys will vote for McCain, just because the alternative is Hillary. (I, a heterosexual male, would vote for Hillary. Any guy that would kiss up to Bush after he accused him of cheating on his wife and had a "disgusting" interracial fling resulting in a bastard child was obviously castrated at the POW camp and is capable of committing any indignity to pursue his lust for power.)
Why wouldn't you want to limit your programming experience to one hardware platform (x86 PC), and one operating system (made by Microsoft)?
Yeah, and I was so willing to vote for a war hero. I really wanted the Bob Dole of 1984. But he decided to go against almost every issue that I, a non-geriatric anti-fundamentalist liberal, considered important. Hell, Poppy Bush did a hell of job in Gulf War I, but blithely belittling the significance of the young unemployed (as I was at the time) and putting Clarence Thomas into the SC pretty much sealed that deal.
Damn your luck Maxume. You've been hit by the one female slashdot reader with mod points. (Damn you, Taco's wife...)
While I can chuckle, I can't say I agree with the less complimentary adjectives.
But the leadership doesn't. The DNC political advisors merely want to keep their high paying salaries, and depend on the good graces of big business to do that. Media consultants merely want to skim off the top of those political commercials that can only be funded by big business. Politicians merely want to stay re-elected, and pander to big business for campaign finances and post-congressional lobby jobs. Winning control of the House and Senate is secondary to these people, as it is to big business.
This is the reality we live in. We will either have to erode the relevance of the Democratic Party and suffer continual Republican victories until a replacement party can squash both, or you will have to shoot DNC operatives until all of the traitors are eliminated.
They don't stand for anything. Unless you count their self-interest as a principle. Which is what the Republicans stand for. Hell, they jettisoned fiscal responsibility in gov't, adopt invasions of convenience, destroy the economy so foreigners call the shots, and is more than happy to abandon US servicemen and destroy the US military.
It should be freaking obvious that Hilary does not have a snowball's chance in hell of winning a presidential election, because she doesn't appeal to the Red State cretins that voted Bush over Kerry. Kerry never inspired the hatred Hilary does. So yes, I agree, the RNC would love Hilary as the Democratic candidate for President.
It demonstrates your knowledgability in military affairs.
Being the agents involved in making an area a warzone does not change the fact its a warzone. If "innocent" farmers weren't blowing up our soldiers and shooting them at roadsides, the US military would not feel a survival imperative to attack these people at roadsides in the middle of the night when they are setting up IEDs and ambush points.
Its not a matter of what's "right", its a matter of what "is". If you have a problem with that, you can vote your regime out of power. Or express your displeasure. But you're not going to convince me or those soldiers have a moral obligation to be sitting ducks.
Then apparently you don't believe people should own passenger motor vehicles, alcohol should be made illegal, and food should be carefully rationed to prevent obesity. Because its obvious you think people should be protected from their own stupidity.
Don't pedal that crap with me. I don't support the Iraq invasion, and I support a quick withdrawal. But I don't think soldiers have a moral obligation to be target practice. Unlike you.
Yes, the civilians know the score. Yes, the US occupation merely generates more enemies of the US. Doesn't change the fact that soldiers will shoot people on suspicious activity.
Also censorship to what VOLUNTEERS would CHOOSE to hear is unjustified. These people are not conscripts. They are people enough in tune to their citizen obligations (or opportunities) to enlist. Denying them the same information available to nonenlisted citizens merely makes them less than a citizen.
To quote Henry Kissinger, "Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy."
That attitude must be shared by the Bush Administration, because apparently they will only permit radio programs that speak favorably towards its policy to be heard by the livestock.
Its too late to get the gov't to treat the enlisted like the patriots they are. Bush was elected. If you think speaking out is going to make a difference, then you're going to have to make the truth hurt, and crawl out of your anomymous hidey hole.
But slaughtering patriot "volunteers" are okay?!?! Soldiers that want out of Iraq did not volunteer to invade it! The poor bastards that wanted to keep our country safe, not invade countries that did not represent a credible threat to the US! They did not volunteer to be kept beyond the year tour in Iraq (stop-loss).
You think conscription is so reprehensible, well, get ready for it. Because Bush is making promises the VOLUTEER military can't keep. You young losers can get ready to lose a limb for being born in this country, and for supporting, or ignoring, that lying chimp.
1) Its not an Apache helicopter, its an AC130 gunship. Its basically a propeller cargo plane with 40 mm cannons on each side and a 160 mm howitzer. They had the nickname in Vietnam as "Puff, the Magic Dragon". Obviously, you are demonstrating your military knowledge and reading skills.
2) Iraq is a war zone, and the US military are not there to act as police. If they see something suspicious, they are authorized to fire at it. Not watch an ambush being prepared so our boys can get blown up and shot at.
3) What the hell are "law abiding" Iraqis doing IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, congregating at a roadside in the country, moving a pipe shape into a field? Hell, every woman has the right to walk alone at night through Central Park, and when she gets raped and murdered, the perpetrators are still liable for every criminal violation. But anyone with $0.02 worth of common sense calls her a Darwin Award candidate.
4) Hint: if you live in Iraq, drive out in the middle of nowhere, move an anti-armor weapon into a field, pace off the distance to the road, you are a combatant. Repeat after me...
Innovative??? Innovative??? What the heck makes nethack innovative? Its been the same character based RPG I've known since I took computer classes on a mainframe back in the early '80's. It was based on an even earlier game called Rogue. Lemme guess, nethack pioneered copying computer game themes!