It is now, but only through the idiots in the white house. I did not suggest that we should pull out of Iraq at this time. In fact, I am one of the few ppl that I know that believe that we should allow the surge some time to see if it will work. Personally, I doubt it will. But I believe that gates and Petraus are well above most of the idiots that are/were in the white house (cheney, rove, rumsfeld, etc). One of the issues with AQ is that they thrive where there is a vacuum in established politics. But, W. has done more for AQ in his 7 years. For starters he did not listen to those in the know about the coming 9/11. Nor, did he listen to the CIA when they advised against Iraq. All in all, W. has done more for AQ that ALL of the top AQ has. That is why they are trying to attack us now.
I disagree with most of your position. I think we had plenty of reason to invade after all the failed UN resolutions, certain knowledge that Saddam had WMD, Saddam's reluctance to let us inspect, repeated violations of the "no fly" zone, and Saddam's refusal to leave the country voluntarily. Was the war executed perfectly? No, but it was still probably better executed than any similar invasion in history.
You claim GWB has helped AQ...I claim his policies have killed or captured a whole lot of AQ. Sure, they are recruiting - I'm pretty sure their best recruiting tool are translations of all the defeatist articles and speeches we're constantly pounded with over here. Why wouldn't you join AQ when clearly America is a paper tiger with no staying power and no will to win?
You were questioning the patriotism of others on this list who you know NOTHING about. I have known a few officers who have been to Iraq and they tell me that we need to pull out. These guys were in the thick of things (trees ), but also had access to other information (the forest). Your questioning other's patriotism is no different than Bush's "you are either with us or against us" crap. Most of those who want us out of Iraq are JUST as patriotic AND just as American as you or I. They simply believe that we have lost the Iraqi war. Considering that many of the top brass believe that now, they are no different.
I'm sure very few of the "top brass" think we've "lost the war". It is possible we'll not prevail, but again I'd attribute many of our problems over there to our apparent lack of resolve over here. At any rate, it should greatly change the equation in Iraq when we bomb Iran into oblivion. It seems to me inevitable before the 11/08 election.
As to the "patriotism" of the defeatists, well perhaps they're patriots but if so they're also stupid, intoxicated, or confused. That's my only explanation for people who think we're "losing" when we've had less than 3,000 combat deaths in FIVE YEARS OF FIGHTING.
Now we know why China wants to build destroying missiles. You can take out the whole attack force by destroying the satellite network.
Um, no. Funny thing is that UAVs make great comms relay stations too.
It could potentially affect GPS, which would mean fallback to inertial guidance. Good thing we have lots of laser guided precision weapons, including Hellfires.
Integrity is an RTOS platform, not a general purpose OS.
Linux is also a widely used RTOS platform. Integrity is optimized for realtime embedded use, but provides all the facilities of a "general purpose" OS. It's also possible to run Linux inside an Integrity partition.
One aspect of security is that no user should be able to affect the availability of the system through various forms of DOS attack, like the venerable forkbomb.
I'll look into Xen a bit more, does it allow the partitioning of CPU, memory and other resources in a deterministic way?
In the embedded space, Green Hills Integrity has gained a lot of traction for reliable systems since it allows the developer to partition the system into spaces with guaranteed amounts of memory, cpu cycles and so on. It also offers strong guarantees that one partition can't affect another partition. See the Integrity features page.
So, my question is: Is there similar functionality in the works for Linux?
While Apple computers are more expensive up front, you do get quite a bit of bundled software, and a good, standards compliant, OS. I feel the software more than makes up for the extra cost.
Once you've paid for your Mac, you now have the world's most flexible computer. It'll run MacOS, Linux and Windows. With VM software you can run it all at once, with few compromises.
That means you can run freeware for all three operating systems, so the Mac actually has more free software available than any other computer. Many Linux programs build flawlessly under MacOS for instance.
You obviously don't realise that it's extremely easy to determine the source of a nuclear weapon by analysing the fall out and radiation. The US would know in a matter of days where the weapon originated from and a matter of minutes later, where it came from - in your implausible scenario this is Iran, would be reduced to a heap of smoking rubble.
So, if you can demonstrate any scenario at all in which Iran is plausibly going to initiate a nuclear attack on the US please go ahead
You need to read up on the 12th Imam, the Mahdi. He is the central figure of a Muslim sect to which the President of Iran is an adherent. It is apocalyptic, and the prophecy involves a time of great troubles after which the people of Islam will unite and conquer the world.
So, your basic assumption that the government of Iran wants to avoid nuclear attack is probably flawed.
Further, your assumption that the US could quickly identify the source of the weapon is suspect. What if the weapon was made with material smuggled from somewhere else, or some was mixed in? What if some other major power wanted to cause mischief and used Iranian ore to manufacture a bomb? Even in the aftermath of a nuclear attack, the US won't rush to judgment, at least in a nuclear manner.
The list of suspects is very short, and the list of suspects with a MAD scenario in case of nuclear attack is even shorter. The suspects who are on the former list but not on the latter would find their country reduced to a radioactive desert in a matter of hours.
Is that what you think, that the US would blindly lash out at several countries with nuclear weapons? Aside from almost certainly triggering WW III, such a move would be stupid from the standpoint that some third party (say, Russia) could nuke several cities and escape retaliation.
I find your scenario implausible.
That's why you _need_ appropriate delivery methods (i.e. ones that can deliver nukes within a matter of minutes) if you want to play nuclear war.
A sub/ship in the harbor is a 0-minute delivery method.
Quit listening to government and media propaganda numbnuts.
I form my opinions based on objective fact as best I can determine it. I'm much less likely a propaganda victim than yourself.
-As a signatory to the Nuclear non-Proliferation treaty, Iran has a RIGHT to develop nuclear energy, which includes Uranium enrichment capability."
Sure, it has a right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Since it is clearly pursuing non-peaceful purposes, it has no such right.
-Taking an arrogant and belligerent stance toward Iran only gives them MORE incentive to develop weapons. We name three countries an "Axis of Evil", then attack one of them with overwhelming military force. Don't you think that the other two would be inclined to ramp up their military capabilities?
Not if they're smart. Libya, for instance, was smart.
We named them an "Axis of Evil", stated our objections to their behavior, and asked them to change it. Has it changed?
-Iran isn't stupid or suicidal. They're well aware of the fact that if they attacked the U.S. with a nuclear weapon, it would definitely mean their own destruction.
First, you're making quite an assumption in saying Iran isn't "suicidal", and one I'm not willing to make. We're really speaking of Iran's leadership here, who are true believers in an apocalyptic religion and want to bring the end times. Where is the disincentive to use nuclear weapons again?
However, even if that were not the case, how would a nuke detonation in the states automatically point to Iran? What if the detonation uses Russian nuclear material? I'm missing the mechanism through which we retaliate against the right entity. Things are even muddier if the nuke is delivered through a third party like Al Qaida.
So which is it? You say it's nonsense to suggest that we're a colonial (imperial) power, yet conclude that we "run things internationally." How does that work? Why would we be "screwed economically" by dismantling some of our network of 700+ major foreign military bases, ending our trillion dollar war and reducing military spending? We could buy every drop of oil we need with the amount of money we're spending on the war and the DoD budget. We're going to screw ourselves through renegade government spending and idiotic imperialistic crusades like the Iraq war.
I guess you missed the point that our military expense goes towards fueling our economic might. You'd probably also be surprised at how much military R&D benefits the civilian sector.
I agree with you about government spending, but my concerns revolve around the (far more expensive) Social Security and Medicare programs. Dollars spent on the military and defense are some of the best and most necessary government expenditures in my book. Whether you choose to admit it or not, regardless of what America does there will be those who seek her downfall. The military will be out there defending your sorry ass whether or not you appreciate that service.
It's sad when someone like you who's clearly benefited from being an American is so clueless about the simple realities of life. If we have to rely on the likes of you for our future, I'm quite sure America will quickly achieve second-rate status in the world.
More to the point, they don't have a delivery system which could get a nuke anywhere even close to the U.S.
Sure they don't. There's no way a cargo ship (or sub for that matter, and Iran does have them) could sail into an American harbor and detonate a nuke. It'll never happen. After all, where would they find a crew willing to commit suicide?
Oh, wait...
(And, to respond to another poster, why would they do that knowing we have a large arsenal? Because we'd have no way of knowing who detonated the device - and it would still have a catastrophic effect on America. Think if multiple devices were detonated...)
So, to those who rated my original post 'flamebait', I say "stick your heads back in the sand...or back into the orifice from whence it came".
How about a sane foreign policy? Like cockpit locks, it won't prevent all terrorist attacks, but less bullying and more actual diplomacy will help. It also wouldn't hurt to examine economic policies and disproportionate consumption of resources. America is a colonial power by fiat and as long as that is so, there will continue to be terrorists.
Yes, let's be nice to the Iranians. I'm sure they'll never seek to hurt us with the nuclear weapons they're building.
Moron.
(As to us being a 'colonial power by fiat' - what nonsense. If the US were to go completely isolationist and withdraw entirely within our borders, another country or countries would rush to fill the power vacuum. I prefer to have the US run things internationally, not Russia or China, thank you very much. If they did, we'd be screwed economically soon enough, and most likely militarily as well.)
Here's a suggestion: 9-11 could have been prevented with locks on the cockpit door.
Probably not. The pilots would also have to have had enough resolve to not open the door to prevent crew and passengers from being slaughtered. Remember, nobody knew that the planes would be used as missiles.
Believe it or not, the most effective deterrents to another 9/11 type attack are the war in Iraq, and the upcoming pounding of Iran.
Pro-terror heads of state in the ME need to understand that bad things happening here in America means very bad things happening to them, personally.
While something may be necessary, it may also be atrocious. Just because our leaders made the decision to drop the bomb (based on what they considered best for our nation), doesn't negate the fact that we killed lots and lots of civilians and left thousands burned and dying of radiation poisoning. There's no such thing as a moral war, though there may be necessary ones.
I disagree. Instead, these were acts that were intended to save lives, and in fact they did exactly that. In this case, the ends absolutely justified the means. My view on this is somewhat colored by the fact that our enemy at the time would have cheerfully killed, enslaved and/or raped every civilian in the United States if given the opportunity.
Is war nice, fair or pretty? No, and denying those realities is very dangerous.
As to your statement about 'no moral war', my reply is:
"War has never solved anything - except oppression, slavery, tyranny, fascism, and communism. Terrorism is a work in progress."
BTW, better grit your teeth if you're an antiwar type. There are going to be some big (though I doubt nuclear) booms in Iran soon, I'm pretty sure... I hear things are going pretty well with the new 30,000 lb. conventional bunker buster bomb testing.
I think he means merciful as in killing less people in the long run, not an act of mercy to those people in particular.
The 'official' estimate I've seen for Allied losses during a conventional invasion of Japan is one million dead. That doesn't count Japanese military or civilian losses.
I'm not sure about the exact numbers, but I'm quite sure the total on both sides would have been much higher than the number affected by the A-bombs.
Now, are you honestly going to own up to your actions in this case?
I was mainly objecting to his use of the term "horrid atrocities" to refer to the bombings. That term certainly implied a certain viewpoint on his part and in fact he owned up to exactly that viewpoint.
They weren't 'atrocities' they were matter of course actions for a total war. If you've seen footage (or seen the statistics) of the Marines going ashore on any island in the Pacific you know why dropping those bombs was a good idea.
I can't tell for sure what he might be "implying" - what he's expressing, though, is that when broaching the issue at an exhibition, the truth should not become glossed over. Are you, though, by declaring that bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not wrong, implying it was right to hide the gory details from the public?
Oh, absolutely not (I'm also well in the minority in advocating lots of uncensored ME war footage on TV - we need to toughen up, not live in ignorance). The public should just be educated as to the facts of the situation. Note that conventional bombing in Germany was more destructive and caused more loss of life than the A-bombs were in Japan...
For that matter, we should all be thankful for nuclear weapons - do you really think we'd have gone this long without a world war without them?
You don't launch the exhibit with "Hey look at our horrid atrocities!" splattered all over it.--
Absolutely not! That would ruin the image people are trying to indoctr..errr...teach our children that slavery didn't exist, and we didn't bomb two cities into rubble. We just relocated them into an ethereal presence is all. If you don't like owning up to your actions....don't do the actions. When did that get so difficult?
Are you somehow implying that bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was wrong? If so, you're a fool.
A country that can't seem to absorb fewer than 4,000 dead today had lost close to half a million people. Anything to reduce US casualties was acceptable. If the Japanese had won, there would have been a never-ending bloodbath, so mercy wasn't a consideration. In any event, ending the war earlier was merciful to both sides in the long run.
Because trading oil dependence for uranium dependence leads nowhere.
Nonsense. Our readily available oil supplies will be exhausted in just a couple decades. We know of enough uranium here in the US to supply all our energy needs for over 100 years, and that's without breeder reactors which would extend things enormously.
I believe we'll be building lots of nuclear reactors in the States over the next couple decades. Perhaps we'll reach France's percentage of nuclear electricity generation (he says sarcastically). It's exciting that with plugin hybrids some'll be driving nuclear powered cars soon.
The collider will smash protons together hoping to catch a glimpse of the subatomic particles that are thought to have last been seen at the Big Bang.
That line is some of the worst hyperbole ever. Here's why. First, there was (almost by definition) no one there to 'see' anything at the Big Bang. (Supernatural explanations aside, and this purports to be a science article.) Second, these subatomic particles are formed frequently in nature, as high-energy astronomy has found various natural particle accelerators that are FAR more powerful than anything we're likely to build on Earth.
On the other hand, it would be cool if people would return their copy of Vista en masse because it infringes some copyright.
Return it because of it's name...where did they come up with 'Vista'?
Vista is the name of a very ordinary small town in North San Diego County. Well, ordinary except for the large number of illegals hanging around. In fact, we always considered it rather a dump. (Apologies to any Vista residents that might be reading this, there are some nice spots in Vista as well heh.)
However, I'd rather live in Vista than run Vista.
I'm really enjoying my iMac. BTW, actually back on topic, I guess Mac users can relax and watch this patent flailing without worries - Apple and Microsoft have all sorts of agreements in place. (I'm certainly rooting for the FOSS side of things.)
So you take the "we can't lose if we never leave" stance? Yes, saving face is clearly more important than saving lives.
Staying in Iraq IS saving lives, fool. If we leave anytime soon, millions will likely die (not to mention the increased risk of lots of people dying here in the US). You want that blood on your hands? Our soldiers are taking some casualties, but at very low rates compared with any other war you'd care to name. In other words, the losses are (more than) acceptable, given any positive outcome compared with leaving.
"Bush's logic that a "date certain" will only embolden the insurgents falls on its face when you realize there already is a date certain: January 20th, 2009. The momentum has already started in Congress to end the war. It's a political certainty that no candidate is going to be elected in 2008 without a clear plan bring the troops home. The Republicans need to ask themselves how many US soldiers and Iraqi civilians have to die between now and then."
You're dead wrong. A Republican will be elected in 2008, they're already leading in the polls - and the top contenders have no plans to leave Iraq prematurely. I'm actually betting the winner will be Fred Thompson, though he hasn't announced his candidacy yet.
Most likely Republicans will regain a majority at least in the Senate also.
The political dynamic will change a lot once we bomb Iran into submission later this year. Yes I'm serious.
Only to replace them with pesky laser cascades. Laser enrichment isn't a magic wand.
How so? The 'holy grail' of laser enrichment is a single-stage process to 90%+ pure U235F8.
Re:Which is why India's looking at thorium...
on
The Coming Uranium Crisis
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· Score: 4, Interesting
We can solve the problem by designing bigger and better weapons. A century ago, nitroglycerin manufacturing was once an international political issue. Today, we really couldn't care less if some country wants to play with dynamite.
The element of 'realpolitik' involved is that when a technology becomes so available it can't be controlled, the big powers just give up and move on to other problems.
However, there is a qualitative difference between WMDs and earlier weapons. WMDs can easily erase a city, fairly easily erase a country, and realistically could erase all life from the planet. So, there is a great concern about them regardless of ease of manufacture.
The bald fact is that both biological and chemical WMDs can be manufactured in very scary quantities in small labs now. Some of the recent developments with bioweapons make me personally more concerned with them than nuclear weapons. It is also possible that someone will finally figure out a practical method of laser uranium enrichment that'll eliminate all those pesky centrifuge cascades.
What is my point? That WMD manufacture is entering or has already entered a similar phase to dynamite in terms of ease of production. I feel we still need to cripple Iran's nuclear program, but we also need to start a determined and intelligent civil defense effort so when the inevitable WMD attacks occur we survive with minimal losses.
Will our species survive long enough to get off this rock? Stay tuned...
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree with most of your position. I think we had plenty of reason to invade after all the failed UN resolutions, certain knowledge that Saddam had WMD, Saddam's reluctance to let us inspect, repeated violations of the "no fly" zone, and Saddam's refusal to leave the country voluntarily. Was the war executed perfectly? No, but it was still probably better executed than any similar invasion in history.
You claim GWB has helped AQ...I claim his policies have killed or captured a whole lot of AQ. Sure, they are recruiting - I'm pretty sure their best recruiting tool are translations of all the defeatist articles and speeches we're constantly pounded with over here. Why wouldn't you join AQ when clearly America is a paper tiger with no staying power and no will to win?
You were questioning the patriotism of others on this list who you know NOTHING about. I have known a few officers who have been to Iraq and they tell me that we need to pull out. These guys were in the thick of things (trees ), but also had access to other information (the forest). Your questioning other's patriotism is no different than Bush's "you are either with us or against us" crap. Most of those who want us out of Iraq are JUST as patriotic AND just as American as you or I. They simply believe that we have lost the Iraqi war. Considering that many of the top brass believe that now, they are no different.
I'm sure very few of the "top brass" think we've "lost the war". It is possible we'll not prevail, but again I'd attribute many of our problems over there to our apparent lack of resolve over here. At any rate, it should greatly change the equation in Iraq when we bomb Iran into oblivion. It seems to me inevitable before the 11/08 election.
As to the "patriotism" of the defeatists, well perhaps they're patriots but if so they're also stupid, intoxicated, or confused. That's my only explanation for people who think we're "losing" when we've had less than 3,000 combat deaths in FIVE YEARS OF FIGHTING.
Fred Thompson '08!
Is that because he just shuttles data between work and his home desktop?
I think the value proposition of desktops will appeal to people (especially gamers and other power users) for a long time to come.
Go with the most widely used version of Unix(like operating systems). MacOS X!
:^)
It even has commercial application support, unlike Linux.
Um, no. Funny thing is that UAVs make great comms relay stations too.
It could potentially affect GPS, which would mean fallback to inertial guidance. Good thing we have lots of laser guided precision weapons, including Hellfires.
Linux is also a widely used RTOS platform. Integrity is optimized for realtime embedded use, but provides all the facilities of a "general purpose" OS. It's also possible to run Linux inside an Integrity partition.
One aspect of security is that no user should be able to affect the availability of the system through various forms of DOS attack, like the venerable forkbomb.
I'll look into Xen a bit more, does it allow the partitioning of CPU, memory and other resources in a deterministic way?
(BTW, it's ARINC 653.)
So, my question is: Is there similar functionality in the works for Linux?
While Apple computers are more expensive up front, you do get quite a bit of bundled software, and a good, standards compliant, OS. I feel the software more than makes up for the extra cost.
Once you've paid for your Mac, you now have the world's most flexible computer. It'll run MacOS, Linux and Windows. With VM software you can run it all at once, with few compromises.
That means you can run freeware for all three operating systems, so the Mac actually has more free software available than any other computer. Many Linux programs build flawlessly under MacOS for instance.
Good stuff!
So, if you can demonstrate any scenario at all in which Iran is plausibly going to initiate a nuclear attack on the US please go ahead
You need to read up on the 12th Imam, the Mahdi. He is the central figure of a Muslim sect to which the President of Iran is an adherent. It is apocalyptic, and the prophecy involves a time of great troubles after which the people of Islam will unite and conquer the world.
So, your basic assumption that the government of Iran wants to avoid nuclear attack is probably flawed.
Further, your assumption that the US could quickly identify the source of the weapon is suspect. What if the weapon was made with material smuggled from somewhere else, or some was mixed in? What if some other major power wanted to cause mischief and used Iranian ore to manufacture a bomb? Even in the aftermath of a nuclear attack, the US won't rush to judgment, at least in a nuclear manner.
Is that what you think, that the US would blindly lash out at several countries with nuclear weapons? Aside from almost certainly triggering WW III, such a move would be stupid from the standpoint that some third party (say, Russia) could nuke several cities and escape retaliation.
I find your scenario implausible.
That's why you _need_ appropriate delivery methods (i.e. ones that can deliver nukes within a matter of minutes) if you want to play nuclear war.
A sub/ship in the harbor is a 0-minute delivery method.
I form my opinions based on objective fact as best I can determine it. I'm much less likely a propaganda victim than yourself.
-As a signatory to the Nuclear non-Proliferation treaty, Iran has a RIGHT to develop nuclear energy, which includes Uranium enrichment capability."
Sure, it has a right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Since it is clearly pursuing non-peaceful purposes, it has no such right.
-Taking an arrogant and belligerent stance toward Iran only gives them MORE incentive to develop weapons. We name three countries an "Axis of Evil", then attack one of them with overwhelming military force. Don't you think that the other two would be inclined to ramp up their military capabilities?
Not if they're smart. Libya, for instance, was smart.
We named them an "Axis of Evil", stated our objections to their behavior, and asked them to change it. Has it changed?
-Iran isn't stupid or suicidal. They're well aware of the fact that if they attacked the U.S. with a nuclear weapon, it would definitely mean their own destruction.
First, you're making quite an assumption in saying Iran isn't "suicidal", and one I'm not willing to make. We're really speaking of Iran's leadership here, who are true believers in an apocalyptic religion and want to bring the end times. Where is the disincentive to use nuclear weapons again?
However, even if that were not the case, how would a nuke detonation in the states automatically point to Iran? What if the detonation uses Russian nuclear material? I'm missing the mechanism through which we retaliate against the right entity. Things are even muddier if the nuke is delivered through a third party like Al Qaida.
So which is it? You say it's nonsense to suggest that we're a colonial (imperial) power, yet conclude that we "run things internationally." How does that work? Why would we be "screwed economically" by dismantling some of our network of 700+ major foreign military bases, ending our trillion dollar war and reducing military spending? We could buy every drop of oil we need with the amount of money we're spending on the war and the DoD budget. We're going to screw ourselves through renegade government spending and idiotic imperialistic crusades like the Iraq war.
I guess you missed the point that our military expense goes towards fueling our economic might. You'd probably also be surprised at how much military R&D benefits the civilian sector.
I agree with you about government spending, but my concerns revolve around the (far more expensive) Social Security and Medicare programs. Dollars spent on the military and defense are some of the best and most necessary government expenditures in my book. Whether you choose to admit it or not, regardless of what America does there will be those who seek her downfall. The military will be out there defending your sorry ass whether or not you appreciate that service.
It's sad when someone like you who's clearly benefited from being an American is so clueless about the simple realities of life. If we have to rely on the likes of you for our future, I'm quite sure America will quickly achieve second-rate status in the world.
Sure they don't. There's no way a cargo ship (or sub for that matter, and Iran does have them) could sail into an American harbor and detonate a nuke. It'll never happen. After all, where would they find a crew willing to commit suicide?
Oh, wait...
(And, to respond to another poster, why would they do that knowing we have a large arsenal? Because we'd have no way of knowing who detonated the device - and it would still have a catastrophic effect on America. Think if multiple devices were detonated...)
So, to those who rated my original post 'flamebait', I say "stick your heads back in the sand...or back into the orifice from whence it came".
Yes, let's be nice to the Iranians. I'm sure they'll never seek to hurt us with the nuclear weapons they're building.
Moron.
(As to us being a 'colonial power by fiat' - what nonsense. If the US were to go completely isolationist and withdraw entirely within our borders, another country or countries would rush to fill the power vacuum. I prefer to have the US run things internationally, not Russia or China, thank you very much. If they did, we'd be screwed economically soon enough, and most likely militarily as well.)
Probably not. The pilots would also have to have had enough resolve to not open the door to prevent crew and passengers from being slaughtered. Remember, nobody knew that the planes would be used as missiles.
Believe it or not, the most effective deterrents to another 9/11 type attack are the war in Iraq, and the upcoming pounding of Iran.
Pro-terror heads of state in the ME need to understand that bad things happening here in America means very bad things happening to them, personally.
I disagree. Instead, these were acts that were intended to save lives, and in fact they did exactly that. In this case, the ends absolutely justified the means. My view on this is somewhat colored by the fact that our enemy at the time would have cheerfully killed, enslaved and/or raped every civilian in the United States if given the opportunity.
Is war nice, fair or pretty? No, and denying those realities is very dangerous.
As to your statement about 'no moral war', my reply is:
"War has never solved anything - except oppression, slavery, tyranny, fascism, and communism. Terrorism is a work in progress."
BTW, better grit your teeth if you're an antiwar type. There are going to be some big (though I doubt nuclear) booms in Iran soon, I'm pretty sure... I hear things are going pretty well with the new 30,000 lb. conventional bunker buster bomb testing.
The 'official' estimate I've seen for Allied losses during a conventional invasion of Japan is one million dead. That doesn't count Japanese military or civilian losses.
I'm not sure about the exact numbers, but I'm quite sure the total on both sides would have been much higher than the number affected by the A-bombs.
So yes, merciful.
I was mainly objecting to his use of the term "horrid atrocities" to refer to the bombings. That term certainly implied a certain viewpoint on his part and in fact he owned up to exactly that viewpoint.
They weren't 'atrocities' they were matter of course actions for a total war. If you've seen footage (or seen the statistics) of the Marines going ashore on any island in the Pacific you know why dropping those bombs was a good idea.
Oh, absolutely not (I'm also well in the minority in advocating lots of uncensored ME war footage on TV - we need to toughen up, not live in ignorance). The public should just be educated as to the facts of the situation. Note that conventional bombing in Germany was more destructive and caused more loss of life than the A-bombs were in Japan...
For that matter, we should all be thankful for nuclear weapons - do you really think we'd have gone this long without a world war without them?
Are you somehow implying that bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was wrong? If so, you're a fool.
A country that can't seem to absorb fewer than 4,000 dead today had lost close to half a million people. Anything to reduce US casualties was acceptable. If the Japanese had won, there would have been a never-ending bloodbath, so mercy wasn't a consideration. In any event, ending the war earlier was merciful to both sides in the long run.
Nonsense. Our readily available oil supplies will be exhausted in just a couple decades. We know of enough uranium here in the US to supply all our energy needs for over 100 years, and that's without breeder reactors which would extend things enormously.
I believe we'll be building lots of nuclear reactors in the States over the next couple decades. Perhaps we'll reach France's percentage of nuclear electricity generation (he says sarcastically). It's exciting that with plugin hybrids some'll be driving nuclear powered cars soon.
That line is some of the worst hyperbole ever. Here's why. First, there was (almost by definition) no one there to 'see' anything at the Big Bang. (Supernatural explanations aside, and this purports to be a science article.) Second, these subatomic particles are formed frequently in nature, as high-energy astronomy has found various natural particle accelerators that are FAR more powerful than anything we're likely to build on Earth.
One hopes the author will do better next time.
Return it because of it's name...where did they come up with 'Vista'?
Vista is the name of a very ordinary small town in North San Diego County. Well, ordinary except for the large number of illegals hanging around. In fact, we always considered it rather a dump. (Apologies to any Vista residents that might be reading this, there are some nice spots in Vista as well heh.)
However, I'd rather live in Vista than run Vista.
I'm really enjoying my iMac. BTW, actually back on topic, I guess Mac users can relax and watch this patent flailing without worries - Apple and Microsoft have all sorts of agreements in place. (I'm certainly rooting for the FOSS side of things.)
Staying in Iraq IS saving lives, fool. If we leave anytime soon, millions will likely die (not to mention the increased risk of lots of people dying here in the US). You want that blood on your hands? Our soldiers are taking some casualties, but at very low rates compared with any other war you'd care to name. In other words, the losses are (more than) acceptable, given any positive outcome compared with leaving.
"Bush's logic that a "date certain" will only embolden the insurgents falls on its face when you realize there already is a date certain: January 20th, 2009. The momentum has already started in Congress to end the war. It's a political certainty that no candidate is going to be elected in 2008 without a clear plan bring the troops home. The Republicans need to ask themselves how many US soldiers and Iraqi civilians have to die between now and then."
You're dead wrong. A Republican will be elected in 2008, they're already leading in the polls - and the top contenders have no plans to leave Iraq prematurely. I'm actually betting the winner will be Fred Thompson, though he hasn't announced his candidacy yet.
Most likely Republicans will regain a majority at least in the Senate also.
The political dynamic will change a lot once we bomb Iran into submission later this year. Yes I'm serious.
Can't afford one eh? Too bad for you, my 24" iMac is sweeeet!
Macs are only expensive if your time is free! =)
How so? The 'holy grail' of laser enrichment is a single-stage process to 90%+ pure U235F8.
The element of 'realpolitik' involved is that when a technology becomes so available it can't be controlled, the big powers just give up and move on to other problems.
However, there is a qualitative difference between WMDs and earlier weapons. WMDs can easily erase a city, fairly easily erase a country, and realistically could erase all life from the planet. So, there is a great concern about them regardless of ease of manufacture.
The bald fact is that both biological and chemical WMDs can be manufactured in very scary quantities in small labs now. Some of the recent developments with bioweapons make me personally more concerned with them than nuclear weapons. It is also possible that someone will finally figure out a practical method of laser uranium enrichment that'll eliminate all those pesky centrifuge cascades.
What is my point? That WMD manufacture is entering or has already entered a similar phase to dynamite in terms of ease of production. I feel we still need to cripple Iran's nuclear program, but we also need to start a determined and intelligent civil defense effort so when the inevitable WMD attacks occur we survive with minimal losses.
Will our species survive long enough to get off this rock? Stay tuned...