The biggest problem about the theoretical war with China is where it would be fought. There's no ground in between us.
War is improbable, but you can't determine what is possible and what isn't possible based on current capabilities TODAY. Ten years from now, anything is possible, five years from now, well, China will have capabilities they don't have now.
Worst of all is presuming the US will have an insurmountable naval superiority. That superiority will consist of a maxmimum of 4 carrier groups (based on how they are currently deployed). No way will that be competitive with the entire, *modernized* Chinese air force. And after the thousands of Chinese fighter/bombers those carrier task forces will shootdown, the fleet will still have to deal with a barrage of tactical missles. Its possible our current navy is obsolete in design.
So, the US rolls over if the Chinese make a move on Taiwan. Luckily, the Chinese are historically very isolationist. But that may change if oil becomes a big problem for China. China will HAVE to develop the ability to exert power beyond its borders. Yeah, incorporating Russia is the ugly probability, but I can see them making a direct migration into the Middle East. The US has nominal control of Afghanistan right now, but militarily, its presence is token. If the US gets too frisky about threatening Iran, Iran could conclude an alliance with China. China's pitch would be that they aren't really commnunist anymore, and with a little religious tolerance to Islam could go a long way. Either possibility won't happen until China & Taiwan are "reunited", or China has made some sort of major military campaign.
Wouldn't it be much better to have a few Virginias loaded to the gills with cruise missiles parked off of NKs coast, so that as soon as NK even prepped for fire, we'd just flatten their artillery within a 1/2 hours flight time with cruise missiles?
You are f**king deluded if you think our entire inventory of cruise missles launched by EVERY ship in the US Navy would take out 10,000 artillery pieces. For openers, the US does not possess 10,000 cruise missles. Cruise missles don't do squat. We fired a thousand of them into Iraq, and we still had to send in air strikes. Nope, the US would take out that artillery with "Rolling Thunder" and tons of air strikes. But forget about preemptive strike. The US is not going to hit NK because they're showing mobilization at the border. For openers, NK is always showing mobilization at the border. And then picture the US trying to justify to the world such a strike saying "We KNOW a NK strike was 24 hours away. Hell, they have WMD!". Furthermore, there's no chance of a pre-emptive strike being secret. The NK's will know as soon as the B-52's are in the air.
And it would take more like three days to completely suppress NK's artillery. A big reason for that delay is that we don't have artillery that can effectively participate in counter-battery operations. HENCE, the whole point of my argument for the Crusader. The Crusader is armored and mobile; it could operate in that kind of combat environment. But the bottom line is this: The US Army is woefully underequipped in artillery. It counts on air force to be its artillery, and that means it has much less firepower AND makes combat more expensive. Because the US is woefully inadequate in artillery, its ground forces can get its ass handed to them by a third world country, let alone a world class military. Sure, its likely the US would prevail over NK, but the difference is that the US doesn't evaluate its victories like cold war Russians and Chinese.
If you want to say the Crusader is unacceptable in its design characteristics, fine. But the US needs a premiere artillery system, and needs to be designing one right now. Its not happening, and the US will get bitten on the ass over it.
Our military is rapid response. That's why crusader is bad. We have a colonial army.
No, our military wants to be all things, doesn't want to pay for it, and doesn't want to face reality. (But that's more the politicians' problem.) The military is designed to deal with strategic threats against this country and its allies. It HAS to have a "winning" response to a military conflict against a large nation. That means tanks, that means artillery. "We have a colonial army"?!?!? What the hell does that mean?
The only way NK is attacking us first is if its planning to lob nukes. And no way NK would make any official pronouncements of war before lobbing whatever. Yes, NK could lay waste to Seoul and whatever US forces stationed there. But as gratifying to them it might be to blow up Americans, they'd be blowing up their own people. Worst still, there's little likelihood they could roll down to Pusan, outside of their artillery's range. No, if the NK was attacking ROK and the US, it would be because they thought they needed to stave off a internal revolt with a desperate gesture. And no, they wouldn't be giving advance warning on that scenario. The US doesn't have the stones to attack first. If they did, it would only be under the pretext of taking out nuclear weapons. And the US couldn't attack without prepositioning forces to accomplish such a campaign. And piss off Asia in the process. Nope, NK is swinging first, and there will be nukes lobbed.
Nuclear war with China? You're dreaming. Granted we probably could make China a nuclear ashtray with the loss of only a few major US cities. But only today. Ten years from now, they will have missle forces comparable to ours in numbers and in design. (What's the point in stealing it, otherwise?) The US may have no compunctions about nuking nations that can't hit back, but it has never struck me as willing to be suicidal. No, either the US will have the kind of military organization capable of going head to head with China, or they're backing down every chance they get. The US will back down on Taiwan. But the Chinese will want oil, and I don't know if the US is willing to back down on the Middle East. On the other hand, I don't see us lobbing nukes over it either.
Oh, the interdiction of artillery is something I see a decade down the road
A DECADE down the road?!?! Are you f**king nuts? Laser based systems can't shoot down ballistic missles, let alone shells! (Unless the tests are rigged.)
What nation would pay a world's ransom for such an anti-artillery system? China? They'd have to be 10x richer than the US currently is now. (richest nation on earth) Stick to daydreaming about moon colonization. I cringe to think how many of our troops would die with you in any significant part of the procurement chain.
You have to be kidding. Lets get rid of M1 Tanks, because their ammo presents a supply problem? Lets eliminate fighter bomber missions, because their ammo presents a supply problem?
You are right, if you put a crusader on a transport plane, you'll have to set aside a separate plane for the resupply vehicle. And that is really bad from a logistic/strategic point of view. Crusaders were not designed for a rapid response military. And perhaps its a compelling reason to cancel the program.
But there are some military capabilities provided by artillery that will never be adequately replaced by airplanes or guided missles. NEVER. Airplanes and guided missles cannot deliver the same rate of metal death that artillery can. Artillery is really most useful for large scale military confrontations. Current military planners are so enamored with being "Policeman of the World", they are neglecting the requirements of a conventional military engagement.
There is a lot ot be said for saving money on a potentially flawed weapon system. But if that's the case, there still needs to be a design program *now* for the replacement of current artillery systems. They date back to the '60's, we don't have enough artillery pieces, they don't have adequate range, etc. . Right now, there is a 3rd world country in Asia that can slaughter two US divisions with relative impunity because they have 10,000 artillery pieces, and we can't even pretend that we can neutralize them. What about the unthinkable confrontation with a world power like China?
The deadliest weapon on the battlefield by far is artillery. Slaughters infantry better than any tank or aircraft.
Aircraft is an incredibly poor substitute for artillery. It takes 10-15 minutes to send a salvo, the aircraft can get shot down, and if they miss the target, it'll take another 15-30 minutes to send another attack. Artillery, on the other hand, will have pulverized the position, and a whole bunch of other positions in that time period.
The problem is that the US Army is WOEFULLY obsolete with its artillery pieces, and there are too few of them too. Every non-european army has longer ranged pieces (critical for counter-battery attacks), and much more of them. The US still uses stationary guns. Not that its all bad; they're much cheaper than Crusaders. But as a comparison, the North Koreans probably outnumber the *entire* US army in artillery pieces 10 to 1 (not only on the DMZ), and would pulverize those US units without the US being able to return fire (105mm doesn't have the range).
The Crusaders are hideously expensive, too heavy to move them quickly to a combat zone, and we probably wouldn't produce enough of them to make a difference. But an artillery battery has got to be 10-50x cheaper than a squadron of attack fighters. Oh well, maybe the US Army will reconsider after 10,000 North Korean artillery pieces lay waste to 37,000 man US divisions.
Angel, Firefly, ______(fill in the blank), rabid fanbase, show is profitable, they're all killed. Why? The shows do not attract the type of viewer (stupid teens) that attract big time advertisers.
Now you want to start a new show, based on a character from a show that failed to attract the desired advertiser demographic. What is wrong with this picture? As an intellectually snobbish geek, I must say I am embarrassed by the stupidity of your proposal.
Lets sit in on a hypothetical studio meeting discussing a Willow spinoff by network executives who are as stupid as you:
(*ACTION*)
CHIEF EXEC: We need new shows that will attract most of the 18-25 year olds in the country, so we have advertisers beating down our doors to give us money!
EXEC #1: I know! Buffy was the most popular show among the 30-45 year old age group when it ended. If we create a spinoff show based on the Willow character, we can attract all those OLD fans. That will chase those advertisers away...
EXEC #2: And Alyson Hannigan will be turning 30 this year. She's already starred in a movie where she gets married. Yeah, all those teenaged boys lust after aged women. And all those teenaged girls will tune so they can get tips on how to appear as matronly as Willow. (Or how to appear as an adult behaving like a ditzy immature girl.) After all, teenaged girls want to desired by teenaged boys more than anything. Everyone knows that only middle-aged men lust after Britney Spears. (Yuk.)
CHIEF EXEC: Great idea! Let's put that show into production. In two years, spend millions of dollars, we can lock up the entire 30-45 audience, and no advertiser will pay for that show!
(*CUT*)
Congratulations. You have just demonstrated you are even more stupid than TV executives.
But fret not. I think there is a potential scenario where there could be a Willow spinoff. Since you've demonstrated how mentally challenged you are, let me spell it out for you:
(*ACTION*)
CHIEF EXEC: We need new shows that will attract most of the 18-25 year olds in the country, so we have advertisers beating down our doors to give us money!
EXEC #1: I know! Buffy was the most popular show among the 30-45 year old age group when it ended. We'll create a spinoff show based on the Willow character!
CHIEF EXEC: Are you a total moron?!?! The only audience it will attract are the rabid AGED fans we don't give a damn about. We'll go bankrupt!
EXEC #1: Not if its properly executed! We can't have those crappy writers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Subtle humor, metaphors to adult crisis, sharp dialogue, good plots, long story arcs; they can only attract mediocre old people with the attention span to appreciate that sort of crap.
No, we'll hire all those writers from "Sabrina the Teenaged Witch"! Vacuous comedy, inane, irrelevant plots. That show did rather well in the teenaged & pre-teen audiences. And best of all, they're out of work now, we'll get them for a song...
CHIEF EXEC: You talk a good game, but there's no way Alyson Hannigan will appeal to kids. My God, she's already taking roles as a married woman.
EXEC #2: Chief, don't worry about that. We'll just make Hannigan the head crone of the coven. We'll hire really young actresses to play the buxom, sexually dripping, apprentice witches. We'll keep shifting all the script plots and lines to focus on the young hotties. Its done on all those sucessful shows. Remember "Party of Five" started out focusing on the older sister, what's that crone's name... Nieve Campbell. But then they put on Jennifer Love Hewitt. Ratings skyrocketed. Campbell disappeared, and nobody noticed.
EXEC #3: Why don't we hire Jennifer Love Hewitt instead of Alyson Hannigan?
EXEC #2: Nah, we already have a head crone. We have to hire Alyson as the head crone because teenagers are incredibly stupid viewers. They're don't have the intellectual capacity of imagining Jenni
Learning assembler is not about learning programming. It is about the integration of the theoretical basis of serial computing by interacting with its representation in physical hardware.
Of course it may seem difficult and irrelevant. Assembler is not about providing abstractions so you can more easily develop working programs. Its all about the most basic logical operations combined by a programmer to achieve a finite state machine (the program). When you finally have a mastery of assembler, you come to appreciate boolean algebra and the concepts of serial computing. You learn to think as the CPU thinks. You develop a genuine understanding of the nature of a computer and an appreciation of the theory that made it come into existence. It must be like the feeling some physicists had at the turn of the century when they were muddling through general and special theory of relativity and a couple of decades later be able to validate the theories' "correctness" in the a-bomb.
If you go through the trouble of learning to program assembler on more than one architecture you will come to realize that even though all the instructions have different mnemonics, (one CPU will have branch on condition instructions, another will have test and jump on flag instructions, some combination of instructions are more efficient on one CPU but not another -- whatever!) *its all the same*. And that's because the basic theory is all the same, regardless of CPU, or who made the computer.
(This elegance of assembler of course does not apply to Intel CPUs, which incorporated all sorts of horrible kludges in order to add functionality to the CPU. Its the last CPU I'd want to be using for an assembler class.)
I find people's reactions to assembler to be a good sign of the individual's grasp of computing. Those that can't interface with the core being of the machine is better off being a theoretician or go into management.
Nah. I prefer to send Osama & Harris. And if Jackson is required in the package deal, I could live with it. (But Darl is obviously a more qualified candidate than Jackson...)
When a US postal worker goes into the office and guns down his co-workers, then its obviously a government conspiracy to lower head counts. After all, the postal worker was a federal employee. (And man, it is a pain in the ass to fire a unionized federal employee...)
Or we can presume that the BBC is a company comprised of idiots, because of this idiot. And further proof, his editor approved the story.
Now, yes, WAP for 7K is easy. Buy a bunch of US Robotics, 1 for every 2 floors, and a bunch of wireless cards. Run Cat5 up and down the inside of the fireescape (drill) and stuff the holes with firebreak.
OH COME ON! There's a bit more complication than that. The WAP has to cover most of the entire floor. The geometry of the building may require more than one WAP, or special antennas/reflectors/repeaters to accomplish that coverage. And conforming to building codes is not a minor detail either.
Is it just me, or don't people think its odd that he's contemplating this investment (and work) on a building he probably doesn't own...?
Compare even a significant loss against the cost of rent and you're better off buying.
Minus fees, maintenance costs, property taxes, and taxes accrued from the property transfer, not necessarily. WHEN its an overpriced market for property ownership, you will sink more money into the property than when you rent. (A landlord is still compelled to make rent competitive with the local market. Sometimes in an overvalued housing market, it means he can't factor in all ownership expenses.) The money not spent in home ownership can be put into stock indexes, and even with taxes, you will still make a profit. If you sell property at the same price you bought it, the money you spent on rent HAS to outperform the market in that timeperiod.
I know too many people who bought property, lost their jobs, and couldn't hold on to the property. All their financial sweat equity went to the bank. I'm not saying you will not be financially ahead by owning property; I'm saying its an investment with its risks, not a sure thing.
Unless you're in a real estate market that moves up big, it usually takes 4-6 years before you hit the breakeven point.
That's just nuts, dedicating income to property ownership as a 4-6 year investment. Property ownership is about LONG-TERM investment. The shortest mortgages I've heard of is like 10 years. SURE, you can arrange to sell the property before completing the mortgage. But its not a liquid transaction like stocks.
The idea of property ownership is accumulating equity by taking the money you're giving to a landlord "back to yourself". It obviously doesn't pay off when you're expending much more money on property than you would by renting. Property owndership is a 10-25 year commitment. 4-6 years is for people who make their living "moving" property. And that's way too sophisticated a racket for myself to want to venture into.
There are psychological aspects to consider as well. As one person told me, "You don't own your house until you've finished paying off the mortgage". As another former homeowner said, "It wasn't me owning a house. It was more like a house owning me." When you own property, you also have to consider added costs like homeowner's insurance. You also become your own super, which means you have to shell out money (and as important, TIME) for home repairs. Do you really want to spend your leisure time doing yard work? (No? More money to shell out to contractors.)
And face it, if economic times get tough, it doesn't mean you can just dump the house and preserve your accumulated equity. Don't get me wrong; you can TRY, you just may not be successful in that goal.
From a financial point of view, property owning is usually a winner. (I don't believe in factoring in presumed future accumulated value without considering the potential downsides as well.) You obviously get away with taxes. When you rent, you're paying taxes on the rental. Its just unlisted price adjustment in your landlord's rent calculations. When you own, you get money back that would be going to George W Bush.
For me, its the psychological aspect that gets me. I "can't" just pick up and go. I "can't" tell the boss where he can stick this job. I have to spend time doing drudgework, rather than on my computer. Yeah, when I have a long-term gig, I'm going condo, but that is yet another ball of wax.
Funny, my first thought was exactly the parent reactions to the story. I'm a tad pleased it was the first thought of a lot of people.
Maybe its me, but I think you *should* have accounts in more than one bank. If you can get the information segregated, its harder for one person to get a clear picture of your finances or spending tendencies. Also, if you have a problem with a credit card or identity theft, you can just switch out of the problem, and you will have resources to fall back on (unless the information is not segregated).
Finally, look at Enron. The bottom line is that very rich and very connected institutions are quite capable of perpetrating fraud to the collapse of the institution. Its not limited to companies either. There was a bank failure in a Japanese bank (can't remember the name, but it caused a run on the bank at its NYC branch), and Barings(?) investment bank. One could assume if Citibank goes under, the economy will be in chaos anyway, but I chose to deal with the multiple statements.
For sure, you can sit on welfare and get your food stamps, and lead the zero-earner lifestyle.
Ironic, isn't that what the female adult of the family would be doing in your idealized world? (Fair implication, no, but you're the one bringing up strawman arguments.)
But simple things like owning a home are extremely hard to pull off without the financial strength of two.
Hard yes, but the argument is irrelevant. Its not a necessity in order for parents to raise children. Before WW II, the family owning property was significantly lower than today. It was only directly after WW II, that the homeowning trend amoung the middle class increased. Its a case of values. Is it better for the family collective to accumulate wealth at the expense of close rearing of children? If its a necessity, how did families exist before 1940?
Look, the reason why people own property is because they chose to work for it. Its not an entitlement that should be bestowed to a married couple and paid off of my wages. You know where you can go if you feel entitled.
You've overstated the case about the "needs" of modern life. If your TV is destroyed in an earthquake,...
You claim that I overstated my case about the exaggeration of necessity, and then you make it for me.
One thing I just thought of is the 40-hour work week. Maybe a reason we need two earners in a modern family is because those two are working less.
40 hr work week was a depression era policy. Can't explain why there needs to be 2 income earners when it has been in affect since WW II. Moms needing to work did not become a trend until the 1970's.
Did Richard Nixon misreport income taxes and obstruct the IRS investigation? No, as I recall. Are you suggesting he did?
I was raised thinking Richard Nixon was some kind of unique, venal villian. Ronald Reagan's administration and others afterwards has forced me reconsider that perspective.
The disgrace is not unique to Richard Nixon. Apparently, in the USA, its not that a politician commits a crime that is disgraceful. Its whether they are convicted or don't get away with the crime that matters. The American voter is a disgrace, because they tolerate corruption as long as it suits their biases or if they're too stupid to realize a crime has been committed.
Women have had the right to work, but after WWII the family requires both spouses to work in order to pay the bills.
I highlighted and bolded the erroneous presumption. As long as a family is fed and has a roof over their head, requirements are met. That was the financial requirement most families were confronted pre-WW II.
Its the American obsession with material posessions that has made it impossible to be satisfied without two salary incomes. "Oh, we need two gas-guzzling SUVs because we chose to live in a place without mass transit." "Oh, we need to save for our children's college education." "We need to put our kids in a private school." "We need to own a house in a nice neighborhood." "We need to cover that monthly cable and internet bill, entertainment system, and SOTA computer." "We need to vacation somewhere every year."
The US political system was never able to provide those luxuries for everyone back in the single-earner era. Its pretty stupid to rip down a system because it can't support your lifestyle expectations. Moderate your greed and perceptions, don't carp on reality because of a fantasy that never existed.
How is China gonna stay afloat if America can't afford to buy Chinese goods at good old American Wal-Mart?
Their rich will still be rich, the overleveraged will be bankrupt. The Chinese will focus their economy on their domestic consumers (1+ billion of them) and exports to Europe and Asia. And they won't have any nation capable of stopping them from reclaiming Taiwan. One can argue win-win, but I think in this scenario, the Chinese gov't is better off with a US economic collapse.
I can't say I'm a fan of counter-revolution either. The same dumb-asses that voted GWB for President will be the same dumb-asses determining the new, "more equitable" form of government. Nukes and plague are not intelligence or integrity selective.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the legal structure of this country. There would be a less unilateral, interventionist gov't if it were a parlimentary system with a Concordet voting scheme, and a popularly elected executive. I don't see how the media can be legislated to improve its integrity. Revolution is not going to change the fact that news outlets are owned by the rich, and its citizens are so stupid they make their decisions on TV commercials (which favor the richest candidate). You can't legislate integrity. You can only make power centralization impossible to one rich person/group. Seems the current Constitution does an adequate job in accomplishing this.
"As the extent to which Democratic communications were monitored came into sharper focus, Republicans yesterday offered a new defense. They said that in the summer of 2002, their computer technician informed his Democratic counterpart of the glitch, but Democrats did nothing to fix the problem."
Feign ignorance and indignation:
"Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, made a preliminary inquiry and described himself as "mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch."
Movie trivia:
"I'm shocked, *shocked* to find cracking in this establishment." "Here are their memos." "Ah, thank you..." (Can anyone guess the movie? Answer: acnalbasaC)
So much for the integrity of our elected leaders. At least now I have a motivation to run for Senator.
Why the heck would you replace U-5's with SunBlades? Is it because of the unique SPARC software? A current 64-bit desktop PC beats a Sunblade hands down, at half the price.
And how symathetic do you think scriptwriters are towards Israelis when when they kill women and children with a bomb or missle meant for a Palestinian muckety-muck terrorist? Is that justifiable persecution, or not persecution at all?
The fans would get the "in" jokes, already know the political environment, and understand the different cultures of the species from the show.
Hence the problem. The show could only exist off its built-in fan base. All of these sci-fi shows are shooting for a "Nielsen-popping generic" audience, not a "moderately sized" niche audience. I bet when Enterprise was in pre-production, Berman had dreams of capturing a new mainstream TV audience, off of a new, different Star Trek (yeah, right). Face it, the only people who give a crap about the Star Trek universe and culture are Trekkies, and there aren't enough of them now to keep Enterprise afloat. (And I for one say, "Hallelujah"!) Besides, who would get to pick the scripts for the new show... Berman?
There's only one channel out there that might be able to pull it off, and that's Sci-Fi, because of their built-in niche audience. But I'm pretty sure they've almost abandoned that strategy and only go for cheap production, or none at all.
Its a show *I* would really like to see though. And to reinforce its popularity, they could stick in a couple one episode storylines concerning characters from the previous series. A post-TS9 Sisko story, or Quark pre-TS9, clone Ryker/Maquis, etc. . But production costs would be a problem, since I'm guessing they've cannabalized the sets from TNG/DS9 already. Yeah, its a dead duck. Entertainment companies don't produce film/TV for quality ideas or execution anymore.
Hate to say it, but I imagine because if they made the effort to market generic pieces in bulk, it would murder their profit margin. They couldn't keep charging the high prices for generic blocks. And then the copycats would move in.
Slashdot Mirror
The biggest problem about the theoretical war with China is where it would be fought. There's no ground in between us.
War is improbable, but you can't determine what is possible and what isn't possible based on current capabilities TODAY. Ten years from now, anything is possible, five years from now, well, China will have capabilities they don't have now.
Worst of all is presuming the US will have an insurmountable naval superiority. That superiority will consist of a maxmimum of 4 carrier groups (based on how they are currently deployed). No way will that be competitive with the entire, *modernized* Chinese air force. And after the thousands of Chinese fighter/bombers those carrier task forces will shootdown, the fleet will still have to deal with a barrage of tactical missles. Its possible our current navy is obsolete in design.
So, the US rolls over if the Chinese make a move on Taiwan. Luckily, the Chinese are historically very isolationist. But that may change if oil becomes a big problem for China. China will HAVE to develop the ability to exert power beyond its borders. Yeah, incorporating Russia is the ugly probability, but I can see them making a direct migration into the Middle East. The US has nominal control of Afghanistan right now, but militarily, its presence is token. If the US gets too frisky about threatening Iran, Iran could conclude an alliance with China. China's pitch would be that they aren't really commnunist anymore, and with a little religious tolerance to Islam could go a long way. Either possibility won't happen until China & Taiwan are "reunited", or China has made some sort of major military campaign.
Wouldn't it be much better to have a few Virginias loaded to the gills with cruise missiles parked off of NKs coast, so that as soon as NK even prepped for fire, we'd just flatten their artillery within a 1/2 hours flight time with cruise missiles?
You are f**king deluded if you think our entire inventory of cruise missles launched by EVERY ship in the US Navy would take out 10,000 artillery pieces. For openers, the US does not possess 10,000 cruise missles. Cruise missles don't do squat. We fired a thousand of them into Iraq, and we still had to send in air strikes. Nope, the US would take out that artillery with "Rolling Thunder" and tons of air strikes. But forget about preemptive strike. The US is not going to hit NK because they're showing mobilization at the border. For openers, NK is always showing mobilization at the border. And then picture the US trying to justify to the world such a strike saying "We KNOW a NK strike was 24 hours away. Hell, they have WMD!". Furthermore, there's no chance of a pre-emptive strike being secret. The NK's will know as soon as the B-52's are in the air.
And it would take more like three days to completely suppress NK's artillery. A big reason for that delay is that we don't have artillery that can effectively participate in counter-battery operations. HENCE, the whole point of my argument for the Crusader. The Crusader is armored and mobile; it could operate in that kind of combat environment. But the bottom line is this: The US Army is woefully underequipped in artillery. It counts on air force to be its artillery, and that means it has much less firepower AND makes combat more expensive. Because the US is woefully inadequate in artillery, its ground forces can get its ass handed to them by a third world country, let alone a world class military. Sure, its likely the US would prevail over NK, but the difference is that the US doesn't evaluate its victories like cold war Russians and Chinese.
If you want to say the Crusader is unacceptable in its design characteristics, fine. But the US needs a premiere artillery system, and needs to be designing one right now. Its not happening, and the US will get bitten on the ass over it.
Our military is rapid response. That's why crusader is bad. We have a colonial army.
No, our military wants to be all things, doesn't want to pay for it, and doesn't want to face reality. (But that's more the politicians' problem.) The military is designed to deal with strategic threats against this country and its allies. It HAS to have a "winning" response to a military conflict against a large nation. That means tanks, that means artillery. "We have a colonial army"?!?!? What the hell does that mean?
The only way NK is attacking us first is if its planning to lob nukes. And no way NK would make any official pronouncements of war before lobbing whatever. Yes, NK could lay waste to Seoul and whatever US forces stationed there. But as gratifying to them it might be to blow up Americans, they'd be blowing up their own people. Worst still, there's little likelihood they could roll down to Pusan, outside of their artillery's range. No, if the NK was attacking ROK and the US, it would be because they thought they needed to stave off a internal revolt with a desperate gesture. And no, they wouldn't be giving advance warning on that scenario. The US doesn't have the stones to attack first. If they did, it would only be under the pretext of taking out nuclear weapons. And the US couldn't attack without prepositioning forces to accomplish such a campaign. And piss off Asia in the process. Nope, NK is swinging first, and there will be nukes lobbed.
Nuclear war with China? You're dreaming. Granted we probably could make China a nuclear ashtray with the loss of only a few major US cities. But only today. Ten years from now, they will have missle forces comparable to ours in numbers and in design. (What's the point in stealing it, otherwise?) The US may have no compunctions about nuking nations that can't hit back, but it has never struck me as willing to be suicidal. No, either the US will have the kind of military organization capable of going head to head with China, or they're backing down every chance they get. The US will back down on Taiwan. But the Chinese will want oil, and I don't know if the US is willing to back down on the Middle East. On the other hand, I don't see us lobbing nukes over it either.
Oh, the interdiction of artillery is something I see a decade down the road
A DECADE down the road?!?! Are you f**king nuts? Laser based systems can't shoot down ballistic missles, let alone shells! (Unless the tests are rigged.)
What nation would pay a world's ransom for such an anti-artillery system? China? They'd have to be 10x richer than the US currently is now. (richest nation on earth) Stick to daydreaming about moon colonization. I cringe to think how many of our troops would die with you in any significant part of the procurement chain.
Wow, a military troll.
You have to be kidding. Lets get rid of M1 Tanks, because their ammo presents a supply problem? Lets eliminate fighter bomber missions, because their ammo presents a supply problem?
You are right, if you put a crusader on a transport plane, you'll have to set aside a separate plane for the resupply vehicle. And that is really bad from a logistic/strategic point of view. Crusaders were not designed for a rapid response military. And perhaps its a compelling reason to cancel the program.
But there are some military capabilities provided by artillery that will never be adequately replaced by airplanes or guided missles. NEVER. Airplanes and guided missles cannot deliver the same rate of metal death that artillery can. Artillery is really most useful for large scale military confrontations. Current military planners are so enamored with being "Policeman of the World", they are neglecting the requirements of a conventional military engagement.
There is a lot ot be said for saving money on a potentially flawed weapon system. But if that's the case, there still needs to be a design program *now* for the replacement of current artillery systems. They date back to the '60's, we don't have enough artillery pieces, they don't have adequate range, etc. . Right now, there is a 3rd world country in Asia that can slaughter two US divisions with relative impunity because they have 10,000 artillery pieces, and we can't even pretend that we can neutralize them. What about the unthinkable confrontation with a world power like China?
Agreed on all your points.
The deadliest weapon on the battlefield by far is artillery. Slaughters infantry better than any tank or aircraft.
Aircraft is an incredibly poor substitute for artillery. It takes 10-15 minutes to send a salvo, the aircraft can get shot down, and if they miss the target, it'll take another 15-30 minutes to send another attack. Artillery, on the other hand, will have pulverized the position, and a whole bunch of other positions in that time period.
The problem is that the US Army is WOEFULLY obsolete with its artillery pieces, and there are too few of them too. Every non-european army has longer ranged pieces (critical for counter-battery attacks), and much more of them. The US still uses stationary guns. Not that its all bad; they're much cheaper than Crusaders. But as a comparison, the North Koreans probably outnumber the *entire* US army in artillery pieces 10 to 1 (not only on the DMZ), and would pulverize those US units without the US being able to return fire (105mm doesn't have the range).
The Crusaders are hideously expensive, too heavy to move them quickly to a combat zone, and we probably wouldn't produce enough of them to make a difference. But an artillery battery has got to be 10-50x cheaper than a squadron of attack fighters. Oh well, maybe the US Army will reconsider after 10,000 North Korean artillery pieces lay waste to 37,000 man US divisions.
Angel, Firefly, ______(fill in the blank), rabid fanbase, show is profitable, they're all killed. Why? The shows do not attract the type of viewer (stupid teens) that attract big time advertisers.
Now you want to start a new show, based on a character from a show that failed to attract the desired advertiser demographic. What is wrong with this picture? As an intellectually snobbish geek, I must say I am embarrassed by the stupidity of your proposal.
Lets sit in on a hypothetical studio meeting discussing a Willow spinoff by network executives who are as stupid as you:
(*ACTION*)
CHIEF EXEC: We need new shows that will attract most of the 18-25 year olds in the country, so we have advertisers beating down our doors to give us money!
EXEC #1: I know! Buffy was the most popular show among the 30-45 year old age group when it ended. If we create a spinoff show based on the Willow character, we can attract all those OLD fans. That will chase those advertisers away...
EXEC #2: And Alyson Hannigan will be turning 30 this year. She's already starred in a movie where she gets married. Yeah, all those teenaged boys lust after aged women. And all those teenaged girls will tune so they can get tips on how to appear as matronly as Willow. (Or how to appear as an adult behaving like a ditzy immature girl.) After all, teenaged girls want to desired by teenaged boys more than anything. Everyone knows that only middle-aged men lust after Britney Spears. (Yuk.)
CHIEF EXEC: Great idea! Let's put that show into production. In two years, spend millions of dollars, we can lock up the entire 30-45 audience, and no advertiser will pay for that show!
(*CUT*)
Congratulations. You have just demonstrated you are even more stupid than TV executives.
But fret not. I think there is a potential scenario where there could be a Willow spinoff. Since you've demonstrated how mentally challenged you are, let me spell it out for you:
(*ACTION*)
CHIEF EXEC: We need new shows that will attract most of the 18-25 year olds in the country, so we have advertisers beating down our doors to give us money!
EXEC #1: I know! Buffy was the most popular show among the 30-45 year old age group when it ended. We'll create a spinoff show based on the Willow character!
CHIEF EXEC: Are you a total moron?!?! The only audience it will attract are the rabid AGED fans we don't give a damn about. We'll go bankrupt!
EXEC #1: Not if its properly executed! We can't have those crappy writers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Subtle humor, metaphors to adult crisis, sharp dialogue, good plots, long story arcs; they can only attract mediocre old people with the attention span to appreciate that sort of crap.
No, we'll hire all those writers from "Sabrina the Teenaged Witch"! Vacuous comedy, inane, irrelevant plots. That show did rather well in the teenaged & pre-teen audiences. And best of all, they're out of work now, we'll get them for a song...
CHIEF EXEC: You talk a good game, but there's no way Alyson Hannigan will appeal to kids. My God, she's already taking roles as a married woman.
EXEC #2: Chief, don't worry about that. We'll just make Hannigan the head crone of the coven. We'll hire really young actresses to play the buxom, sexually dripping, apprentice witches. We'll keep shifting all the script plots and lines to focus on the young hotties. Its done on all those sucessful shows. Remember "Party of Five" started out focusing on the older sister, what's that crone's name... Nieve Campbell. But then they put on Jennifer Love Hewitt. Ratings skyrocketed. Campbell disappeared, and nobody noticed.
EXEC #3: Why don't we hire Jennifer Love Hewitt instead of Alyson Hannigan?
EXEC #2: Nah, we already have a head crone. We have to hire Alyson as the head crone because teenagers are incredibly stupid viewers. They're don't have the intellectual capacity of imagining Jenni
Learning assembler is not about learning programming. It is about the integration of the theoretical basis of serial computing by interacting with its representation in physical hardware.
Of course it may seem difficult and irrelevant. Assembler is not about providing abstractions so you can more easily develop working programs. Its all about the most basic logical operations combined by a programmer to achieve a finite state machine (the program). When you finally have a mastery of assembler, you come to appreciate boolean algebra and the concepts of serial computing. You learn to think as the CPU thinks. You develop a genuine understanding of the nature of a computer and an appreciation of the theory that made it come into existence. It must be like the feeling some physicists had at the turn of the century when they were muddling through general and special theory of relativity and a couple of decades later be able to validate the theories' "correctness" in the a-bomb.
If you go through the trouble of learning to program assembler on more than one architecture you will come to realize that even though all the instructions have different mnemonics, (one CPU will have branch on condition instructions, another will have test and jump on flag instructions, some combination of instructions are more efficient on one CPU but not another -- whatever!) *its all the same*. And that's because the basic theory is all the same, regardless of CPU, or who made the computer.
(This elegance of assembler of course does not apply to Intel CPUs, which incorporated all sorts of horrible kludges in order to add functionality to the CPU. Its the last CPU I'd want to be using for an assembler class.)
I find people's reactions to assembler to be a good sign of the individual's grasp of computing. Those that can't interface with the core being of the machine is better off being a theoretician or go into management.
Nah. I prefer to send Osama & Harris. And if Jackson is required in the package deal, I could live with it. (But Darl is obviously a more qualified candidate than Jackson...)
When a US postal worker goes into the office and guns down his co-workers, then its obviously a government conspiracy to lower head counts. After all, the postal worker was a federal employee. (And man, it is a pain in the ass to fire a unionized federal employee...)
Or we can presume that the BBC is a company comprised of idiots, because of this idiot. And further proof, his editor approved the story.
Now, yes, WAP for 7K is easy. Buy a bunch of US Robotics, 1 for every 2 floors, and a bunch of wireless cards. Run Cat5 up and down the inside of the fireescape (drill) and stuff the holes with firebreak.
OH COME ON! There's a bit more complication than that. The WAP has to cover most of the entire floor. The geometry of the building may require more than one WAP, or special antennas/reflectors/repeaters to accomplish that coverage. And conforming to building codes is not a minor detail either.
Is it just me, or don't people think its odd that he's contemplating this investment (and work) on a building he probably doesn't own...?
Compare even a significant loss against the cost of rent and you're better off buying.
Minus fees, maintenance costs, property taxes, and taxes accrued from the property transfer, not necessarily. WHEN its an overpriced market for property ownership, you will sink more money into the property than when you rent. (A landlord is still compelled to make rent competitive with the local market. Sometimes in an overvalued housing market, it means he can't factor in all ownership expenses.) The money not spent in home ownership can be put into stock indexes, and even with taxes, you will still make a profit. If you sell property at the same price you bought it, the money you spent on rent HAS to outperform the market in that timeperiod.
I know too many people who bought property, lost their jobs, and couldn't hold on to the property. All their financial sweat equity went to the bank. I'm not saying you will not be financially ahead by owning property; I'm saying its an investment with its risks, not a sure thing.
Unless you're in a real estate market that moves up big, it usually takes 4-6 years before you hit the breakeven point.
That's just nuts, dedicating income to property ownership as a 4-6 year investment. Property ownership is about LONG-TERM investment. The shortest mortgages I've heard of is like 10 years. SURE, you can arrange to sell the property before completing the mortgage. But its not a liquid transaction like stocks.
The idea of property ownership is accumulating equity by taking the money you're giving to a landlord "back to yourself". It obviously doesn't pay off when you're expending much more money on property than you would by renting. Property owndership is a 10-25 year commitment. 4-6 years is for people who make their living "moving" property. And that's way too sophisticated a racket for myself to want to venture into.
There are psychological aspects to consider as well. As one person told me, "You don't own your house until you've finished paying off the mortgage". As another former homeowner said, "It wasn't me owning a house. It was more like a house owning me." When you own property, you also have to consider added costs like homeowner's insurance. You also become your own super, which means you have to shell out money (and as important, TIME) for home repairs. Do you really want to spend your leisure time doing yard work? (No? More money to shell out to contractors.)
And face it, if economic times get tough, it doesn't mean you can just dump the house and preserve your accumulated equity. Don't get me wrong; you can TRY, you just may not be successful in that goal.
From a financial point of view, property owning is usually a winner. (I don't believe in factoring in presumed future accumulated value without considering the potential downsides as well.) You obviously get away with taxes. When you rent, you're paying taxes on the rental. Its just unlisted price adjustment in your landlord's rent calculations. When you own, you get money back that would be going to George W Bush.
For me, its the psychological aspect that gets me. I "can't" just pick up and go. I "can't" tell the boss where he can stick this job. I have to spend time doing drudgework, rather than on my computer. Yeah, when I have a long-term gig, I'm going condo, but that is yet another ball of wax.
Funny, my first thought was exactly the parent reactions to the story. I'm a tad pleased it was the first thought of a lot of people.
Maybe its me, but I think you *should* have accounts in more than one bank. If you can get the information segregated, its harder for one person to get a clear picture of your finances or spending tendencies. Also, if you have a problem with a credit card or identity theft, you can just switch out of the problem, and you will have resources to fall back on (unless the information is not segregated).
Finally, look at Enron. The bottom line is that very rich and very connected institutions are quite capable of perpetrating fraud to the collapse of the institution. Its not limited to companies either. There was a bank failure in a Japanese bank (can't remember the name, but it caused a run on the bank at its NYC branch), and Barings(?) investment bank. One could assume if Citibank goes under, the economy will be in chaos anyway, but I chose to deal with the multiple statements.
For sure, you can sit on welfare and get your food stamps, and lead the zero-earner lifestyle.
Ironic, isn't that what the female adult of the family would be doing in your idealized world? (Fair implication, no, but you're the one bringing up strawman arguments.)
But simple things like owning a home are extremely hard to pull off without the financial strength of two.
Hard yes, but the argument is irrelevant. Its not a necessity in order for parents to raise children. Before WW II, the family owning property was significantly lower than today. It was only directly after WW II, that the homeowning trend amoung the middle class increased. Its a case of values. Is it better for the family collective to accumulate wealth at the expense of close rearing of children? If its a necessity, how did families exist before 1940?
Look, the reason why people own property is because they chose to work for it. Its not an entitlement that should be bestowed to a married couple and paid off of my wages. You know where you can go if you feel entitled.
You've overstated the case about the "needs" of modern life. If your TV is destroyed in an earthquake,...
You claim that I overstated my case about the exaggeration of necessity, and then you make it for me.
One thing I just thought of is the 40-hour work week. Maybe a reason we need two earners in a modern family is because those two are working less.
40 hr work week was a depression era policy. Can't explain why there needs to be 2 income earners when it has been in affect since WW II. Moms needing to work did not become a trend until the 1970's.
Note to young people : Richard Nixon was a crook.
Did Richard Nixon misreport income taxes and obstruct the IRS investigation? No, as I recall. Are you suggesting he did?
I was raised thinking Richard Nixon was some kind of unique, venal villian. Ronald Reagan's administration and others afterwards has forced me reconsider that perspective.
The disgrace is not unique to Richard Nixon. Apparently, in the USA, its not that a politician commits a crime that is disgraceful. Its whether they are convicted or don't get away with the crime that matters. The American voter is a disgrace, because they tolerate corruption as long as it suits their biases or if they're too stupid to realize a crime has been committed.
Women have had the right to work, but after WWII the family requires both spouses to work in order to pay the bills.
I highlighted and bolded the erroneous presumption. As long as a family is fed and has a roof over their head, requirements are met. That was the financial requirement most families were confronted pre-WW II.
Its the American obsession with material posessions that has made it impossible to be satisfied without two salary incomes. "Oh, we need two gas-guzzling SUVs because we chose to live in a place without mass transit." "Oh, we need to save for our children's college education." "We need to put our kids in a private school." "We need to own a house in a nice neighborhood." "We need to cover that monthly cable and internet bill, entertainment system, and SOTA computer." "We need to vacation somewhere every year."
The US political system was never able to provide those luxuries for everyone back in the single-earner era. Its pretty stupid to rip down a system because it can't support your lifestyle expectations. Moderate your greed and perceptions, don't carp on reality because of a fantasy that never existed.
How is China gonna stay afloat if America can't afford to buy Chinese goods at good old American Wal-Mart?
Their rich will still be rich, the overleveraged will be bankrupt. The Chinese will focus their economy on their domestic consumers (1+ billion of them) and exports to Europe and Asia. And they won't have any nation capable of stopping them from reclaiming Taiwan. One can argue win-win, but I think in this scenario, the Chinese gov't is better off with a US economic collapse.
I can't say I'm a fan of counter-revolution either. The same dumb-asses that voted GWB for President will be the same dumb-asses determining the new, "more equitable" form of government. Nukes and plague are not intelligence or integrity selective.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the legal structure of this country. There would be a less unilateral, interventionist gov't if it were a parlimentary system with a Concordet voting scheme, and a popularly elected executive. I don't see how the media can be legislated to improve its integrity. Revolution is not going to change the fact that news outlets are owned by the rich, and its citizens are so stupid they make their decisions on TV commercials (which favor the richest candidate). You can't legislate integrity. You can only make power centralization impossible to one rich person/group. Seems the current Constitution does an adequate job in accomplishing this.
Blame the victim:
"As the extent to which Democratic communications were monitored came into sharper focus, Republicans yesterday offered a new defense. They said that in the summer of 2002, their computer technician informed his Democratic counterpart of the glitch, but Democrats did nothing to fix the problem."
Feign ignorance and indignation:
"Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, made a preliminary inquiry and described himself as "mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch."
Movie trivia:"I'm shocked, *shocked* to find cracking in this establishment." "Here are their memos." "Ah, thank you..." (Can anyone guess the movie? Answer: acnalbasaC)
So much for the integrity of our elected leaders. At least now I have a motivation to run for Senator.
Why the heck would you replace U-5's with SunBlades? Is it because of the unique SPARC software? A current 64-bit desktop PC beats a Sunblade hands down, at half the price.
It helps get the goyim to support pro-Israeli positions by publicizing anti-Semetic event as an anti-American event.
And how symathetic do you think scriptwriters are towards Israelis when when they kill women and children with a bomb or missle meant for a Palestinian muckety-muck terrorist? Is that justifiable persecution, or not persecution at all?
The fans would get the "in" jokes, already know the political environment, and understand the different cultures of the species from the show.
Hence the problem. The show could only exist off its built-in fan base. All of these sci-fi shows are shooting for a "Nielsen-popping generic" audience, not a "moderately sized" niche audience. I bet when Enterprise was in pre-production, Berman had dreams of capturing a new mainstream TV audience, off of a new, different Star Trek (yeah, right). Face it, the only people who give a crap about the Star Trek universe and culture are Trekkies, and there aren't enough of them now to keep Enterprise afloat. (And I for one say, "Hallelujah"!) Besides, who would get to pick the scripts for the new show... Berman?
There's only one channel out there that might be able to pull it off, and that's Sci-Fi, because of their built-in niche audience. But I'm pretty sure they've almost abandoned that strategy and only go for cheap production, or none at all.
Its a show *I* would really like to see though. And to reinforce its popularity, they could stick in a couple one episode storylines concerning characters from the previous series. A post-TS9 Sisko story, or Quark pre-TS9, clone Ryker/Maquis, etc. . But production costs would be a problem, since I'm guessing they've cannabalized the sets from TNG/DS9 already. Yeah, its a dead duck. Entertainment companies don't produce film/TV for quality ideas or execution anymore.
Hate to say it, but I imagine because if they made the effort to market generic pieces in bulk, it would murder their profit margin. They couldn't keep charging the high prices for generic blocks. And then the copycats would move in.
It appears that GWB now spends money like a Democrat! (Its just that no money gets set aside to social programs.)