An astronaut talks about keeping things simple and you somehow turn this into political posturing.
I'm going to ask you to answer the same question posed to the Senator: precisely how is a Mars mission "simple" compared to a Moon mission?
The answer: it isn't, and you're too blind to see that.
Attn moderators: If this was a carefully researched rant, I'd support your moderating it up. But it isn't. There is a factual error (30 not 50 years),
We haven't gone back yet, you fool, so 30 years vs. 50 years has yet to be decided.
several unsupported declarations (need settlements,
Are you going to argue that we don't need settlements, that humanity will be just fine for eternity on Earth alone?
the lesser complexity of a moon COLONY vs. a mars RUN,
Yes, my shortsighted comrade. If something goes wrong on an Earth-lunar run, you're not that far from help. If something goes wrong on an Earth-Mars run, you're pretty much SOL. And that doesn't even begin to debate the worthiness of spending several billion dollars to put a bootprint on Mars versus spending that same money to give us a permanent lunar colony. Such a colony would give valuable experience in setting up such an offworld site, experience that could be put to use making a permanent Mars colony. Given the vast distances involved, a Mars RUN is far less perferrable to a Mars COLONY. Send folks there to STAY, not to return a few rocks.
moonbase improves access to mars
I challenge you to find the part of my post that actually stated this. You won't find it because this is pure conjecture on your part, probably derived from your intense desire to fabricate me saying something wrong. Too bad it's just your paranoia showing up, because you're lying. Regardless that I never said it, I wouldn't have said it anyway because I don't believe it. However, a moon base would be easier to construct and would give us valuable experience in setting up such a base. That is not to be underestimated, my underestimating comrade.
and his safety vs. politics rant
As opposed to your fabricating rant?
and it *insults* a prominent figure
Insults? No, I stated my opinion. If it differs from yours, tough. It seems you've got a terminal case of defending a Democrat, even if it means sacrificing logic and common sense, even to the point of fabricating statements I never made. Typical.
i commend you on your stupidity; at least you're trying.
Since you're the one that has singlehandedly been unable to come up with any logical arguments to defend your illogical points, I'd say it's you that needs to be doing the trying, not me.
However, I've come to the conclusion that you're so beneath me in intelligence level that it's an unworthy use of my time to attempt to enlighten you. I'll leave you in your ignorant, narrow-minded, self-important world, free to practice your ad hominem attacks against people you're unable to defeat logically. Nurse your wounds from this contest of wills, but don't feel too bad. You never had a chance to win, and your worldview is so myopic as to preclude you ever actually learning anything. Further, you're so hate-filled that your anger has taken hold of you, forcing you to make statements that are so illogical and irrelevant as to be embarassing.
However, I've wasted enough time on you. You've earned a spot on my "foes" list, so you can at least be proud of that. Perhaps next time when we have the opportunity to disagree, you'll be better prepared, but I doubt it. However, in the meantime, Mr. Scientist, perhaps you'll take the time to learn proper English grammar, punctuation, and spelling in your posts. Your current diction is so illiterate as to be embarassing to anyone who claims to be of higher intelligence. But then again, we've proven you're not of higher intelligence, so perhaps I should cut you some slack.
No, it's not. Military-related paranoia aside, the potential for long-term residency is far better on Mars because of the higher gravity and existing atmosphere--even if it's not breathable, it still provides some protection from solar radiation.
So does about a meter of lunar soil, or have you forgotten that fact? As for the Martian atmosphere, it's so thin that it might well be considered a total vacuum with the exception of being useful for aerobraking. It's not breathable, and unprotected exposure to it would incapacitate a human pretty quickly -- just like the moon. The higher gravity is also negligible, except that it makes launching spacecraft more difficult from Mars than the Moon.
About the only thing Mars really has going for it (environmentally, that is) is the temperature. While it gets pretty cold on Mars, it rarely gets fantastically hot. In full lunar sunshine with no atmosphere to help convection, things get pretty hot without shielding. This is easily fixable by burying habitats in lunar soil, however, so it would only apply to things that have to rove around or stick up out of the ground (communications antennas, airlocks, rovers, spacesuits, etc.)
There is an old saying: "possession is nine-tenths of the law." Regardless of treaty, if any nation puts a base on the Moon, they're going to (at the very least) claim rights to the ground that base sits on. Likely they'll claim a significant area around it as well as a "buffer zone" for further base expansion/exploration. If any other nation opposes such a claim, they have two choices: (a) sputter, fume, foam at the mouth, give long speeches in the U.N., pass worthless resolutions with no teeth, and ultimately do nothing, or (b) do something to forcibly remove the opposing base.
However, keep in mind that whoever puts a base there first has a significant strategic advantage. It's a helluva lot easier to prevent your opponent from building a moonbase if you've got your own base to launch attacks from. Any such attack on a pre-existing moonbase would have to come from Earth, meaning that any moonbase would have at least a three-day warning to take action of its own.
You are, of course, ignoring the fantastic cost and complexity involved in building such systems. You could easily spend half a trillion dollars putting a permanently-manned military moonbase in place with such a weapons system, not to mention the ongoing support costs. You would exceed the entire military budget for the entire United States pretty quickly with such a scheme, with very limited results. After all, the Moon cannot alter its orbit like a satellite can. What if your target is on the other side of the planet? Care to wait while the Moon orbits to the correct location?
Sorry, it's neither practical nor feasible to do anything like what you're describing, not when a tenth of that same money can be spent Earthside in the development of other weapon systems that would be more effective, cheaper, and easier to deploy and maintain. It's a nice conspiracy theory for the tinfoil beanie crowd, though.
If the (Democratic) Senator wishes to say that getting to the moon is "enormously complex," then precisely how would he define a trip to Mars? It's a six day journey to the moon, but it's a six-to-nine month journey to Mars, followed by an almost mandatory one year stay, then a six-to-nine month return trip.
If complexity and danger are enough for Senator Glenn to rule out a moon colony, just how in the hell can he claim a Mars run is an easier choice?
Perhaps the Senator has, in his old age, forgotten Apollo 8, which did a dry run of the entire Apollo CM/LM setup all the way around the moon before an actual landing was attempted. Many claimed it was a waste to send the whole damned setup to the moon and not land, but NASA (rightly) decided that a shorter hop was safer than a massive leap. By establishing a moonbase first, we are in a far better position to send manned expeditions and, more importantly, colonization efforts to Mars.
The last thing I want to see happen is for NASA to blow its wad on a Mars trip, bring back a few rocks, and then sit on its thumb for the next fifty years like we did post-Apollo. We need permanent offworld settlements, not rock gathering missions. A moonbase gets us a toehold, but with an election year dawning and the Democratic Senator Glenn wishing to derail Republican Bush space initiatives, I guess politics wins out over safety of astronaut lives. Thanks, Senator. You're such an American hero.
Ecehelon _DOES_ monitor 100% of electronic communications.
Please explain how this could even be remotely possible to accomplish. The storage capacity needed for 100% monitoring of all ELINT (ELectronic INTelligence) data in just North America would dwarf the capacity of the top 500 data centers in the country -- daily! Do you have any idea just how many calls are made every single day by nearly six billion human beings? Your very claims are so ludicrous as to make you a laughingstock.
The NSA/CIA/BlackHelicopterAgencyOfChoice may monitor 100% of verified suspicious conversations, but it is not only impractical to monitor it all, it is wasteful to do. 95% of those conversations would be utterly irrelevant to any of these agencies ("Honey, pick up a loaf of bread on your way home.") The ridiculous noise-to-signal ratio would actually impeded the agency's ability to do its job, and if you had the slightest amount of sense in your head, you'd realize that. They might be able to monitor all the cell phone calls of Iraq or Afghanistan, but monitoring the entire communications network of a modern, industrialized, computerized, wireless nation is several orders of magnitude more difficult. But, again, if you had any sense you'd have realized this by now.
Like I said originally, don't spew facts from the top of your head and act like you know what your talking about
No, we can't have anyone trying to immitate you, now, can we?
someday, somewhere, someone is going to make you look like an ignorant fool.
Perhaps, but you're not that someone, and no one will ever be able to make me look as ignorant and bullheaded as you have amply demonstrated. Please, go put on your tinfoil hat and keep listening for the black helicopters. They're coming for you because you obviously know too much.
Your blatant and frank honesty has immediately earned you a spot on my "friends" list. You have defined yourself as being more mature and intelligent than 99.5% of the entire Slashdot population. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to commenting on some of your posts one day.
Perhaps you should read it again, then. Investigators were not listening to random calls taken in by a broad net. Prior capture of other terrorists had yielded all sorts of phone numbers, addresses, and other contact and location information. Intelligence agencies then homed in on these particular phone numbers, recorded everything, and then analyzed it later. This is not "routine monitoring," this is targeted intelligence gathering. This is like saying that because the CIA tapped the Russian embassy's phone back in the 60's, the CIA was engaging in routine monitoring of all phone calls in the United States. That's ludicrous, just like suggesting routine monitoring of all cell phone conversations.
Perhaps you should read it again, then. Investigators were not listening to random calls taken in by a broad net. Prior capture of other terrorists had yielded all sorts of phone numbers, addresses, and other contact and location information. Intelligence agencies then homed in on these particular phone numbers, recorded everything, and then analyzed it later. But I'm sure it sounds much more interesting if you try to paint it as some sort of grand conspiracy.
Whew! For a minute there, I was afraid you were looking for people standing around a jar and dying. Since they're only dieing, no one has anything to fear.
What does dieing mean, anyway? Oddly enough, Merriam-Webster hasn't seen fit to include it in the English dictionary. I'm sure it's their oversight.
Opteron systems seemed to fare the best, although dual Xeon configurations almost always beat dual Opterons.
Perhaps the benchmarks show the 2P Xeon's doing OK against 2P Opteron's, but for the price of two Xeon MP chips you can buy five Opteron 848's. Rounding that down, I wonder how well the 2P Xeon does against the 4P Opteron? Oops, Anand already though of that. He says "it would not be pretty." Indeed.
Ever hear of the Nazi party? Did you know it was a shortened version of the German name for the "Social Democratic" movement in Germany? And you have the gall to call me a fascist.
which means i feel it is the responsibility of government to provide basic services and civil infrastructure, including health care, education, law & enforcement, libraries, schools, some level of social welfare
In other words, a nanny state that make sure you never bump your big toe without some government social worker there to soothe your battered ego, and a therapist to make sure you handle the mental trauma without undue stress, and a trio of lawyers and regulators all clamoring to outlaw anything you might ever bump your big toe on for the rest of eternity. You can keep it.
this stems from the belief that a well-educated, healthy population ultimately benefits everyone and disadvantages noone
Disadvantages no one? Who the hell pays for all your handy government programs and government handouts, comrade? Santa Claus? The tooth fairy? The Easter bunny? No, people pay for your damned programs. But Europe and the rest of central Asia have been so browbeaten over the centuries that the citizens have no idea that life could possibly be any other way. Paying 40% of your income to taxes? Well, it's always been that way, so why complain? Sorry, you can keep it. No wonder our ancestors boarded leaky boats to sail to an unknown wilderness. I would have, too, if I'd had to put up with spineless jellyfish like you as companions.
everyone really does start off on an equal footing, and are not disadvantaged by race, religion, parental income, etc.
Which is another way of saying that you make sure nobody every rises above the mediocrity level inherent to your overall society. Hey, we're all equal, which means we all suck equally! Now don't you go getting ahead of the pack, mister! We'll tax you and regulate you and penalize you until you fit back in your nice, society-mandated slot. Harrison Bergeron indeed. Ever read Vonnegut, a European who had enough sense to get sick of Europe? Probably not. It's not in your socially-acceptable schedule, no doubt.
ever heard of china? they might be opening their markets but they are still communist.
A Communist system that allows even the slightest hint of free market is no longer Communist, just like goverment regulation of certain industries prevents the United States from being perfectly capitalist. However, since you chose to crow so loudly about how wonderful China is, perhaps you'd care to explain what happened in Tiananmen Square? A wonderful government system you've got there, comrade! Everyone is perfectly taken care of by the government, and those who step out of line are exterminated. And you have the gall to criticize the United States! Pot, meet kettle. I'm sure you two already know each other.
what does honesty and integrity have to do with the philosophy of government? idiot!
You're the total fucking idiot here, comrade, if you don't expect your government to be honest and have integrity, and if you don't expect your government to respect those same qualities (as well as hard work and innovation) in its citizens. But, I forget, you're comfortable with mediocrity, where everyone is equal, remember?
i don't care how much money people make, as long as the larger population is well cared for and as long as everyone gets a fair go to "make it".
Allow me to paraphrase your statement into truthfulness: "I don't care how much money you make so long as you pay as much as is necessary to support those who refuse to work as hard as you, who refuse to innovate as well as you, and who refuse to plan and discipline themselves as well as you are given all the same luxuries and benefits that you yourself
you're obviously a closed-minded, right-wing, bottle-fed capitalist whose idea of social responsibility is getting his pay cheque on time
Social responsibility? Please show me where, in the United States Constituion, I have any responsibility to anyone else in the entire country, or the entire world for that matter, so long as I don't infringe on their rights to life, liberty, and property? Please show me where it is written that I am required to donate any of my time, effort, or material goods to anyone else at any time for any reason, outside of taxes?
You see, that's where you liberals get your uppity, holier-than-thou attitude reputation from. You seem to think that because I've got something that someone else doesn't have, that in some way obligates me give some of it away to someone else.
Well, I've got news for you: I don't have to do any such thing. If I choose to do so, that is my business, and I do it on my own free will. Neither you nor the government nor any other sentient being on this entire planet has any rights to anything that I have legally acquired due to hard work, hard work of my forebearers, or by blind chance. Since when did you get annointed as someone who can say who can and cannot own something? Because that's what you're doing -- you're saying "you have something, but you should be required to give it to someone else simply because they don't have it."
That is pure unadulterated Communism. It's been tried before, on a grand scale and with Draconian enforcement. It failed miserably. It failed for a fundamental reason inherent to human beings, namely that we are not all created equal. Some of us can run faster than we can write. Some can add faster than we can run. But above all, some of us are driven to strive and succeed while others are completely happy with mediocrity. I am one of the former, not one of the latter, and I have succeeded quite well. I owe nothing and no one for my success but me, because I made it to where I am all on my own.
Why, then, should I have a "responsibility" to pony up any of my hard-won gains to someone else who just was too damned lazy to get up and go to work in the morning? Somone who was more concerned about getting off work at 5pm rather than staying until 8pm to get the job done for the client? People are where they are because they have chosen to be there, unless the government or some other force has denied them the rights to exceed and excel.
In the U.S., although men are not created equal, they are presented with equal opportunities to succeed. I am not special, and I was not given preferrential treatment. My parents were working poor, but I am not, and no government program was necessary for me to be where I am today. I give to charity, but that is my decision to make as to who gets the money, how much, when, and under what circumstances.
You, sir, are a pompous Communist, parading around telling everyone what they need to be doing with their stuff. If you like the idea so much, I hear there are plenty of empty apartments in the former Soviet Union. You know, the ones that were vacated by people who starved to death or were taken away to Siberia. You'd fit in real nice there.
Have a nice day, comrade, with love from a successful capitalist who has all the things you do not: honesty, integrity, and the will to mind my own fucking business when it comes to someone else's achievements.
lol. as a scientist with a PhD, i'm on the side of impartiality, justice, and pragmatism.
and your prior post...
well, you shouldn't be too surprised when people start flying planes into your buildings in response to being fucked in the arse by a selfish bully.
Impartial? Pragmatic? Bullshit. You're just someone who hates America and is looking for a convenient way to shove the deaths of over 3,000 civilians in our faces, all while saying "Neener Neener Neener! You deserved it, you big bad bully! Waaaaaah!!!" Shall I bring you a bottle and a clean diaper?
as for being afraid - the current american administration has many things in common with late 1930s nazi germany
Oh, jeez, here come the comparisons to Hitler...
unilateralism
Check your facts again, professor. Although you claim to have a PhD, you can't read or add, it seems. The definition of "unilateral" is "done or undertaken by one person or party". If the United States had done this alone, you'd be correct. However, there are British, Polish, Australian, Belgian, and many other nationalites providing troops, vehicles, weapons, and supplies for this effort. What this presents us with now is a binary solution set. It's either (a) you knew this already and chose to ignore it, to lie, to make your point, or (b) you didn't know it and are thus a completely ignorant fool. Make your choice quick, professor. Time's a wastin'.
the propaganda
What propaganda? Where are the big, glaring posters of our benevolent leader? Where are the statues to his greatness? Where are the brownshirts, beating, killing, and silencing objectionable voices? Nope, no Goebbels here. Try again, you nitwit.
the speeches
Oh, you mean things like the annually scheduled State of the Union speech, the same thing that's been going on for around 200 years? Yep, it's all concocted by Bush to take over the world, yessirree...
don't believe me?
Not for a moment, because you're not only wrong, you're pitifully, stupidly wrong.
read a little on pre-WW2 germany
Perhaps you'd like to peruse my book collection, which has extensive texts on pre- and post-war Germany. However, since you seem colossally ignorant of history, I doubt you'll take the invitation.
yeah, i think many people are afraid of the current american administration - majorly right-wing, headstrong, and belligerent, and in control of a military worth more than the next top 20 militaries in the world. you should be afraid too.
Majorly right-wing? Only if you're a bleeding-heart, left-wing, Communist-loving, Stalin-apologist liberal, which you seem to fit the mold for exactly. Your "it's a right wing conspiracy" raving is just your knee jerk reaction to this country moving back to the center, away from the left-leaning of the past eight years. Don't like it? Cry me a river. You may have a PhD, but you don't have a lick of sense. Then again, it's rare to find those two things in close proximity to one another.
Have a happy day, Comrade! Another day closer to victory for the glorious socialist movement! Rejoice!
And those who instigate such acts shouldn't be too surprised when we start bombing the living hell out of them, toppling their regimes, and exterminating them like the vermin that they are.
Oh, but I forgot, you're on their side, aren't you? Be afraid. You deserve it.
Let's suppose the USA suddenly stopped acting like they were under siege by the entire world and started feeding their own people and acting like citizens of a greater whole.
We already feed our own quite nicely, thank you. And a good portion of the rest of the world. Not that anyone thanks us for it, of course.
Countries far and wide might stop resenting the growing US imperialism, terrorism against US interests might decrease, and the quality of life would increase.
This, of course, assumes that all these terrorists would simply start loving us if we'd only just leave them alone. Of course, leaving them alone is what gave rise to the "Death to America" cult in the first place. Sorry, your argument doesn't wash. Try blaming America somewhere else. We are not the root cause of the rest of the world's problems despite your earnest attempts to paint us as such.
It would, however, mean that the neoconservatives would lose control, and control equals power.
Ah, the neocon label. I was wondering when you'd pull that liberal one-trick pony out of your hat. Sorry, it doesn't stick here. You can take your anti-American bias and blast it elsewhere, because here it just sounds like a very bad case of envy and sour grapes. The U.S. is on top of the world economically, politically, and militarily, and you don't like it. Waaaah! Cry me a river. Is it Bush hatred that's driving you, or are you not an American citizen? Either way, the results are the same.
I would like to add though, that most of those here (Sweden) who hate the US doesn't do so because you have weapons. They hate you because they define morally correct actions by who executes them - and you're on the right wing - not by what the actions are.
I'm not sure I completely understand this statement. Are you saying that the anti-U.S. groups in Sweden dislike us because we're "right wing" regardless of what our actions are? That's a pretty silly view, if you ask me. Right wing, left wing...it all depends upon the point of view of the person doing the defining. To a socialist, we're definitely right wing. To a fascist, we're left wing. I tend to think we're pretty darn close to the middle, but then again I'm an American.
They also don't like you because they live in peace, in a society where you can negotiate.
We also live in a world where you can negotiate. We have negotiated with just about every country on the face of the planet at one time or another. With the vast majority of these, negotiations are fruitful and beneficial to all sides. With some, no negotiation is possible. When that minority also seeks to oppose our goals, we'll try mightily to seek some sort of compromise. However, as I've pointed out, you simply can't compromise with certain people/countries. When the opposition is fierce enough, that means economic sanctions, political sanctions, and -- as a last resort -- military intervention.
"Most of them have never had a gun pointed at their forehead"
Something they can thank NATO for, as the former Soviet Union would've been all too happy to do the pointing if it had been allowed.
which is when diplomacy wears down and you have to at least let the adversary know that you will defend yourself, before the bolo pulls the trigger. They simply do not get that some people will rather kill you than bend in even the slightest manner.
And you've hit the nub right on the head, there. Some people simply (and I mean simply) think that conflict is always avoidable. It is not. There is a time when further time at the negotiation table is not only fruitless, it is dangerous. Neville Chamberlain didn't figure this out and we had the bloodiest, most destructive World War this planet has ever seen because of it. Imagine how much more peaceful this planet could be/could've been had force been used more often, and earlier, than it actually was. As Churchill stated after the war, "at one point, a memo would've been sufficient to stop Hitler." So true.
I on the other hand love the US, which is why you and I will stay modded down.:)
Such is life, eh?
Of course, there's a lot of bad crap in your backyard too, but certainly not more than elsewhere.
Bad crap comes in degrees. I, for one, think we have strayed very far from what the Founding Fathers intended, but I still think this country is the single best place to be on Earth. Immigrants certainly agree with me, America is the land of opportunity. That doesn't mean I wouldn't enough viewing the natural splendors and cultural richness of a place like Sweden, but as they say, "there's no place like home."
the US have been, and continue to be arseholes when it comes to interfering in world politics, always to its advantage.
Good. I want the U.S. to do things to its advantage, since I am a U.S. citizen. I don't give a hoot in hell whether or not it helps or hurts anyone else, because they're not me, they don't live here, and they don't pay my taxes. If others benefit from our actions, so much the better. If they don't, I don't really care. You can either work with us, remain neutral, or work against us. Those who work with the U.S. will see the benefits of doing so. Those who remain neutral will neither be catered to nor chastised. Those who oppose us will be ground into dust. That's life. Sorry to burst your utopian bubble.
And what should we do when what "they" want is diametrically opposed to what "we" want? Give in? I think not. Compromise if possible, but if it's us or them, I choose us. If "they" have a problem with it, they can meet us on the field of battle and die for their stiff-necked inability to compromise with their betters.
The US no doubt has the power to keep space off limits for anyone for military arms race. Why in gods name then do they push the envelope so that other countries has to follow?
Because no matter how good the current weapons are, until we can take out a single target with absolute impunity and no collateral damage, they can be improved.
Warmongers, thats what i see.
You see what you want to see, no doubt.
Lets hope the administration gets changed to something less warhappy and perhaps a it more interested in all US citizens than of enriching a few select people.
Ah, the class warfare war cry! Perhaps we should adopt a more enlightened form of government where we have a perfect worker's paradise, a classless society, where everyone is equal.
Oops! That's been tried before. It didn't work out too well. All the animals were created equal, but some were more equal than others.
Do you really honestly believe shock and awe will make them go "oh, sorry about wanting to destroy democracy, we'll just not bother you anymore"? If so, I have some land to sell you, at a very good price.
No, but if we systematically deny the terrorists any real successes while simultaneously hunting and eradicating them like the dogs they are, the ultimate futility of their actions might come into play.
Here's a mighty good example. Just where do you think the Palestinian movement might be today if they weren't throwing rocks and blowing themselves up, but instead had spent time working with the Israeli's for a peaceful compromise and allowing Israel to be painted as the bully? But no, they've got do don their headscarves, throw rocks and grenades at riot troops, and blow up women and children at restaurants. Their struggle is ultimately self-defeating because they consistently allow themselves to be painted as the bad guys.
Applying this on a global scale would yield real results, except for one thing. Let's suppose North Korea suddenly stopped acting like they were under seige by the entire world and started feeding their own people and acting like citizens of a greater whole. Countries far and wide might start sending economic and humanitarian aid, foreign investments might increase, and the quality of life would increase. It would, however, mean that the military dictatorships and tyrants would lose control, and control equals power. That's why you have places like Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran (gosh, what do these countries have in common? I just can't put my finger on it), and North Korea, where the leaders live oppulently while their "subjects" live in squalor. The only way these regimes can be perpetuated is by ironfisted control and by deflecting anger externally -- usually to the U.S. or westernism in general.
So, if you want a better world for all humanity, the fastest route would be to overthrow all of these regimes and institute governments that act responsibly towards their citizens. Iraq is now on the road to such a system. Who's next?
Slashdot Mirror
An astronaut talks about keeping things simple and you somehow turn this into political posturing.
I'm going to ask you to answer the same question posed to the Senator: precisely how is a Mars mission "simple" compared to a Moon mission?
The answer: it isn't, and you're too blind to see that.
Attn moderators: If this was a carefully researched rant, I'd support your moderating it up. But it isn't. There is a factual error (30 not 50 years),
We haven't gone back yet, you fool, so 30 years vs. 50 years has yet to be decided.
several unsupported declarations (need settlements,
Are you going to argue that we don't need settlements, that humanity will be just fine for eternity on Earth alone?
the lesser complexity of a moon COLONY vs. a mars RUN,
Yes, my shortsighted comrade. If something goes wrong on an Earth-lunar run, you're not that far from help. If something goes wrong on an Earth-Mars run, you're pretty much SOL. And that doesn't even begin to debate the worthiness of spending several billion dollars to put a bootprint on Mars versus spending that same money to give us a permanent lunar colony. Such a colony would give valuable experience in setting up such an offworld site, experience that could be put to use making a permanent Mars colony. Given the vast distances involved, a Mars RUN is far less perferrable to a Mars COLONY. Send folks there to STAY, not to return a few rocks.
moonbase improves access to mars
I challenge you to find the part of my post that actually stated this. You won't find it because this is pure conjecture on your part, probably derived from your intense desire to fabricate me saying something wrong. Too bad it's just your paranoia showing up, because you're lying. Regardless that I never said it, I wouldn't have said it anyway because I don't believe it. However, a moon base would be easier to construct and would give us valuable experience in setting up such a base. That is not to be underestimated, my underestimating comrade.
and his safety vs. politics rant
As opposed to your fabricating rant?
and it *insults* a prominent figure
Insults? No, I stated my opinion. If it differs from yours, tough. It seems you've got a terminal case of defending a Democrat, even if it means sacrificing logic and common sense, even to the point of fabricating statements I never made. Typical.
i commend you on your stupidity; at least you're trying.
Since you're the one that has singlehandedly been unable to come up with any logical arguments to defend your illogical points, I'd say it's you that needs to be doing the trying, not me.
However, I've come to the conclusion that you're so beneath me in intelligence level that it's an unworthy use of my time to attempt to enlighten you. I'll leave you in your ignorant, narrow-minded, self-important world, free to practice your ad hominem attacks against people you're unable to defeat logically. Nurse your wounds from this contest of wills, but don't feel too bad. You never had a chance to win, and your worldview is so myopic as to preclude you ever actually learning anything. Further, you're so hate-filled that your anger has taken hold of you, forcing you to make statements that are so illogical and irrelevant as to be embarassing.
However, I've wasted enough time on you. You've earned a spot on my "foes" list, so you can at least be proud of that. Perhaps next time when we have the opportunity to disagree, you'll be better prepared, but I doubt it. However, in the meantime, Mr. Scientist, perhaps you'll take the time to learn proper English grammar, punctuation, and spelling in your posts. Your current diction is so illiterate as to be embarassing to anyone who claims to be of higher intelligence. But then again, we've proven you're not of higher intelligence, so perhaps I should cut you some slack.
No, it's not. Military-related paranoia aside, the potential for long-term residency is far better on Mars because of the higher gravity and existing atmosphere--even if it's not breathable, it still provides some protection from solar radiation.
So does about a meter of lunar soil, or have you forgotten that fact? As for the Martian atmosphere, it's so thin that it might well be considered a total vacuum with the exception of being useful for aerobraking. It's not breathable, and unprotected exposure to it would incapacitate a human pretty quickly -- just like the moon. The higher gravity is also negligible, except that it makes launching spacecraft more difficult from Mars than the Moon.
About the only thing Mars really has going for it (environmentally, that is) is the temperature. While it gets pretty cold on Mars, it rarely gets fantastically hot. In full lunar sunshine with no atmosphere to help convection, things get pretty hot without shielding. This is easily fixable by burying habitats in lunar soil, however, so it would only apply to things that have to rove around or stick up out of the ground (communications antennas, airlocks, rovers, spacesuits, etc.)
Dare I say it, could the Democratic Senator Glenn be playing election-year politics by speaking out against a Republican space plan?
Nah, couldn't be. That would just be crass and pedantic, now, wouldn't it?
There is an old saying: "possession is nine-tenths of the law." Regardless of treaty, if any nation puts a base on the Moon, they're going to (at the very least) claim rights to the ground that base sits on. Likely they'll claim a significant area around it as well as a "buffer zone" for further base expansion/exploration. If any other nation opposes such a claim, they have two choices: (a) sputter, fume, foam at the mouth, give long speeches in the U.N., pass worthless resolutions with no teeth, and ultimately do nothing, or (b) do something to forcibly remove the opposing base.
However, keep in mind that whoever puts a base there first has a significant strategic advantage. It's a helluva lot easier to prevent your opponent from building a moonbase if you've got your own base to launch attacks from. Any such attack on a pre-existing moonbase would have to come from Earth, meaning that any moonbase would have at least a three-day warning to take action of its own.
You are, of course, ignoring the fantastic cost and complexity involved in building such systems. You could easily spend half a trillion dollars putting a permanently-manned military moonbase in place with such a weapons system, not to mention the ongoing support costs. You would exceed the entire military budget for the entire United States pretty quickly with such a scheme, with very limited results. After all, the Moon cannot alter its orbit like a satellite can. What if your target is on the other side of the planet? Care to wait while the Moon orbits to the correct location?
Sorry, it's neither practical nor feasible to do anything like what you're describing, not when a tenth of that same money can be spent Earthside in the development of other weapon systems that would be more effective, cheaper, and easier to deploy and maintain. It's a nice conspiracy theory for the tinfoil beanie crowd, though.
If the (Democratic) Senator wishes to say that getting to the moon is "enormously complex," then precisely how would he define a trip to Mars? It's a six day journey to the moon, but it's a six-to-nine month journey to Mars, followed by an almost mandatory one year stay, then a six-to-nine month return trip.
If complexity and danger are enough for Senator Glenn to rule out a moon colony, just how in the hell can he claim a Mars run is an easier choice?
Perhaps the Senator has, in his old age, forgotten Apollo 8, which did a dry run of the entire Apollo CM/LM setup all the way around the moon before an actual landing was attempted. Many claimed it was a waste to send the whole damned setup to the moon and not land, but NASA (rightly) decided that a shorter hop was safer than a massive leap. By establishing a moonbase first, we are in a far better position to send manned expeditions and, more importantly, colonization efforts to Mars.
The last thing I want to see happen is for NASA to blow its wad on a Mars trip, bring back a few rocks, and then sit on its thumb for the next fifty years like we did post-Apollo. We need permanent offworld settlements, not rock gathering missions. A moonbase gets us a toehold, but with an election year dawning and the Democratic Senator Glenn wishing to derail Republican Bush space initiatives, I guess politics wins out over safety of astronaut lives. Thanks, Senator. You're such an American hero.
Ecehelon _DOES_ monitor 100% of electronic communications.
Please explain how this could even be remotely possible to accomplish. The storage capacity needed for 100% monitoring of all ELINT (ELectronic INTelligence) data in just North America would dwarf the capacity of the top 500 data centers in the country -- daily! Do you have any idea just how many calls are made every single day by nearly six billion human beings? Your very claims are so ludicrous as to make you a laughingstock.
The NSA/CIA/BlackHelicopterAgencyOfChoice may monitor 100% of verified suspicious conversations, but it is not only impractical to monitor it all, it is wasteful to do. 95% of those conversations would be utterly irrelevant to any of these agencies ("Honey, pick up a loaf of bread on your way home.") The ridiculous noise-to-signal ratio would actually impeded the agency's ability to do its job, and if you had the slightest amount of sense in your head, you'd realize that. They might be able to monitor all the cell phone calls of Iraq or Afghanistan, but monitoring the entire communications network of a modern, industrialized, computerized, wireless nation is several orders of magnitude more difficult. But, again, if you had any sense you'd have realized this by now.
Like I said originally, don't spew facts from the top of your head and act like you know what your talking about
No, we can't have anyone trying to immitate you, now, can we?
someday, somewhere, someone is going to make you look like an ignorant fool.
Perhaps, but you're not that someone, and no one will ever be able to make me look as ignorant and bullheaded as you have amply demonstrated. Please, go put on your tinfoil hat and keep listening for the black helicopters. They're coming for you because you obviously know too much.
Your blatant and frank honesty has immediately earned you a spot on my "friends" list. You have defined yourself as being more mature and intelligent than 99.5% of the entire Slashdot population. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to commenting on some of your posts one day.
If you think government (any government) needed the PATRIOT act to allow a broad conspiracy to exist, you're more naive than I originally thought.
Perhaps you should read it again, then. Investigators were not listening to random calls taken in by a broad net. Prior capture of other terrorists had yielded all sorts of phone numbers, addresses, and other contact and location information. Intelligence agencies then homed in on these particular phone numbers, recorded everything, and then analyzed it later. This is not "routine monitoring," this is targeted intelligence gathering. This is like saying that because the CIA tapped the Russian embassy's phone back in the 60's, the CIA was engaging in routine monitoring of all phone calls in the United States. That's ludicrous, just like suggesting routine monitoring of all cell phone conversations.
Perhaps you should read it again, then. Investigators were not listening to random calls taken in by a broad net. Prior capture of other terrorists had yielded all sorts of phone numbers, addresses, and other contact and location information. Intelligence agencies then homed in on these particular phone numbers, recorded everything, and then analyzed it later. But I'm sure it sounds much more interesting if you try to paint it as some sort of grand conspiracy.
...people standing around said jar start dieing.
Whew! For a minute there, I was afraid you were looking for people standing around a jar and dying. Since they're only dieing, no one has anything to fear.
What does dieing mean, anyway? Oddly enough, Merriam-Webster hasn't seen fit to include it in the English dictionary. I'm sure it's their oversight.
Opteron systems seemed to fare the best, although dual Xeon configurations almost always beat dual Opterons.
Perhaps the benchmarks show the 2P Xeon's doing OK against 2P Opteron's, but for the price of two Xeon MP chips you can buy five Opteron 848's. Rounding that down, I wonder how well the 2P Xeon does against the 4P Opteron? Oops, Anand already though of that. He says "it would not be pretty." Indeed.
i would call myself a democratic socialist
Ever hear of the Nazi party? Did you know it was a shortened version of the German name for the "Social Democratic" movement in Germany? And you have the gall to call me a fascist.
which means i feel it is the responsibility of government to provide basic services and civil infrastructure, including health care, education, law & enforcement, libraries, schools, some level of social welfare
In other words, a nanny state that make sure you never bump your big toe without some government social worker there to soothe your battered ego, and a therapist to make sure you handle the mental trauma without undue stress, and a trio of lawyers and regulators all clamoring to outlaw anything you might ever bump your big toe on for the rest of eternity. You can keep it.
this stems from the belief that a well-educated, healthy population ultimately benefits everyone and disadvantages noone
Disadvantages no one? Who the hell pays for all your handy government programs and government handouts, comrade? Santa Claus? The tooth fairy? The Easter bunny? No, people pay for your damned programs. But Europe and the rest of central Asia have been so browbeaten over the centuries that the citizens have no idea that life could possibly be any other way. Paying 40% of your income to taxes? Well, it's always been that way, so why complain? Sorry, you can keep it. No wonder our ancestors boarded leaky boats to sail to an unknown wilderness. I would have, too, if I'd had to put up with spineless jellyfish like you as companions.
everyone really does start off on an equal footing, and are not disadvantaged by race, religion, parental income, etc.
Which is another way of saying that you make sure nobody every rises above the mediocrity level inherent to your overall society. Hey, we're all equal, which means we all suck equally! Now don't you go getting ahead of the pack, mister! We'll tax you and regulate you and penalize you until you fit back in your nice, society-mandated slot. Harrison Bergeron indeed. Ever read Vonnegut, a European who had enough sense to get sick of Europe? Probably not. It's not in your socially-acceptable schedule, no doubt.
ever heard of china? they might be opening their markets but they are still communist.
A Communist system that allows even the slightest hint of free market is no longer Communist, just like goverment regulation of certain industries prevents the United States from being perfectly capitalist. However, since you chose to crow so loudly about how wonderful China is, perhaps you'd care to explain what happened in Tiananmen Square? A wonderful government system you've got there, comrade! Everyone is perfectly taken care of by the government, and those who step out of line are exterminated. And you have the gall to criticize the United States! Pot, meet kettle. I'm sure you two already know each other.
what does honesty and integrity have to do with the philosophy of government? idiot!
You're the total fucking idiot here, comrade, if you don't expect your government to be honest and have integrity, and if you don't expect your government to respect those same qualities (as well as hard work and innovation) in its citizens. But, I forget, you're comfortable with mediocrity, where everyone is equal, remember?
i don't care how much money people make, as long as the larger population is well cared for and as long as everyone gets a fair go to "make it".
Allow me to paraphrase your statement into truthfulness: "I don't care how much money you make so long as you pay as much as is necessary to support those who refuse to work as hard as you, who refuse to innovate as well as you, and who refuse to plan and discipline themselves as well as you are given all the same luxuries and benefits that you yourself
you're obviously a closed-minded, right-wing, bottle-fed capitalist whose idea of social responsibility is getting his pay cheque on time
Social responsibility? Please show me where, in the United States Constituion, I have any responsibility to anyone else in the entire country, or the entire world for that matter, so long as I don't infringe on their rights to life, liberty, and property? Please show me where it is written that I am required to donate any of my time, effort, or material goods to anyone else at any time for any reason, outside of taxes?
You see, that's where you liberals get your uppity, holier-than-thou attitude reputation from. You seem to think that because I've got something that someone else doesn't have, that in some way obligates me give some of it away to someone else.
Well, I've got news for you: I don't have to do any such thing. If I choose to do so, that is my business, and I do it on my own free will. Neither you nor the government nor any other sentient being on this entire planet has any rights to anything that I have legally acquired due to hard work, hard work of my forebearers, or by blind chance. Since when did you get annointed as someone who can say who can and cannot own something? Because that's what you're doing -- you're saying "you have something, but you should be required to give it to someone else simply because they don't have it."
That is pure unadulterated Communism. It's been tried before, on a grand scale and with Draconian enforcement. It failed miserably. It failed for a fundamental reason inherent to human beings, namely that we are not all created equal. Some of us can run faster than we can write. Some can add faster than we can run. But above all, some of us are driven to strive and succeed while others are completely happy with mediocrity. I am one of the former, not one of the latter, and I have succeeded quite well. I owe nothing and no one for my success but me, because I made it to where I am all on my own.
Why, then, should I have a "responsibility" to pony up any of my hard-won gains to someone else who just was too damned lazy to get up and go to work in the morning? Somone who was more concerned about getting off work at 5pm rather than staying until 8pm to get the job done for the client? People are where they are because they have chosen to be there, unless the government or some other force has denied them the rights to exceed and excel.
In the U.S., although men are not created equal, they are presented with equal opportunities to succeed. I am not special, and I was not given preferrential treatment. My parents were working poor, but I am not, and no government program was necessary for me to be where I am today. I give to charity, but that is my decision to make as to who gets the money, how much, when, and under what circumstances.
You, sir, are a pompous Communist, parading around telling everyone what they need to be doing with their stuff. If you like the idea so much, I hear there are plenty of empty apartments in the former Soviet Union. You know, the ones that were vacated by people who starved to death or were taken away to Siberia. You'd fit in real nice there.
Have a nice day, comrade, with love from a successful capitalist who has all the things you do not: honesty, integrity, and the will to mind my own fucking business when it comes to someone else's achievements.
Contrast these two statements, please:
lol. as a scientist with a PhD, i'm on the side of impartiality, justice, and pragmatism.
and your prior post...
well, you shouldn't be too surprised when people start flying planes into your buildings in response to being fucked in the arse by a selfish bully.
Impartial? Pragmatic? Bullshit. You're just someone who hates America and is looking for a convenient way to shove the deaths of over 3,000 civilians in our faces, all while saying "Neener Neener Neener! You deserved it, you big bad bully! Waaaaaah!!!" Shall I bring you a bottle and a clean diaper?
as for being afraid - the current american administration has many things in common with late 1930s nazi germany
Oh, jeez, here come the comparisons to Hitler...
unilateralism
Check your facts again, professor. Although you claim to have a PhD, you can't read or add, it seems. The definition of "unilateral" is "done or undertaken by one person or party". If the United States had done this alone, you'd be correct. However, there are British, Polish, Australian, Belgian, and many other nationalites providing troops, vehicles, weapons, and supplies for this effort. What this presents us with now is a binary solution set. It's either (a) you knew this already and chose to ignore it, to lie, to make your point, or (b) you didn't know it and are thus a completely ignorant fool. Make your choice quick, professor. Time's a wastin'.
the propaganda
What propaganda? Where are the big, glaring posters of our benevolent leader? Where are the statues to his greatness? Where are the brownshirts, beating, killing, and silencing objectionable voices? Nope, no Goebbels here. Try again, you nitwit.
the speeches
Oh, you mean things like the annually scheduled State of the Union speech, the same thing that's been going on for around 200 years? Yep, it's all concocted by Bush to take over the world, yessirree...
don't believe me?
Not for a moment, because you're not only wrong, you're pitifully, stupidly wrong.
read a little on pre-WW2 germany
Perhaps you'd like to peruse my book collection, which has extensive texts on pre- and post-war Germany. However, since you seem colossally ignorant of history, I doubt you'll take the invitation.
yeah, i think many people are afraid of the current american administration - majorly right-wing, headstrong, and belligerent, and in control of a military worth more than the next top 20 militaries in the world. you should be afraid too.
Majorly right-wing? Only if you're a bleeding-heart, left-wing, Communist-loving, Stalin-apologist liberal, which you seem to fit the mold for exactly. Your "it's a right wing conspiracy" raving is just your knee jerk reaction to this country moving back to the center, away from the left-leaning of the past eight years. Don't like it? Cry me a river. You may have a PhD, but you don't have a lick of sense. Then again, it's rare to find those two things in close proximity to one another.
Have a happy day, Comrade! Another day closer to victory for the glorious socialist movement! Rejoice!
And those who instigate such acts shouldn't be too surprised when we start bombing the living hell out of them, toppling their regimes, and exterminating them like the vermin that they are.
Oh, but I forgot, you're on their side, aren't you? Be afraid. You deserve it.
Let's suppose the USA suddenly stopped acting like they were under siege by the entire world and started feeding their own people and acting like citizens of a greater whole.
We already feed our own quite nicely, thank you. And a good portion of the rest of the world. Not that anyone thanks us for it, of course.
Countries far and wide might stop resenting the growing US imperialism, terrorism against US interests might decrease, and the quality of life would increase.
This, of course, assumes that all these terrorists would simply start loving us if we'd only just leave them alone. Of course, leaving them alone is what gave rise to the "Death to America" cult in the first place. Sorry, your argument doesn't wash. Try blaming America somewhere else. We are not the root cause of the rest of the world's problems despite your earnest attempts to paint us as such.
It would, however, mean that the neoconservatives would lose control, and control equals power.
Ah, the neocon label. I was wondering when you'd pull that liberal one-trick pony out of your hat. Sorry, it doesn't stick here. You can take your anti-American bias and blast it elsewhere, because here it just sounds like a very bad case of envy and sour grapes. The U.S. is on top of the world economically, politically, and militarily, and you don't like it. Waaaah! Cry me a river. Is it Bush hatred that's driving you, or are you not an American citizen? Either way, the results are the same.
Well put!
:)
Thank you.
I would like to add though, that most of those here (Sweden) who hate the US doesn't do so because you have weapons. They hate you because they define morally correct actions by who executes them - and you're on the right wing - not by what the actions are.
I'm not sure I completely understand this statement. Are you saying that the anti-U.S. groups in Sweden dislike us because we're "right wing" regardless of what our actions are? That's a pretty silly view, if you ask me. Right wing, left wing...it all depends upon the point of view of the person doing the defining. To a socialist, we're definitely right wing. To a fascist, we're left wing. I tend to think we're pretty darn close to the middle, but then again I'm an American.
They also don't like you because they live in peace, in a society where you can negotiate.
We also live in a world where you can negotiate. We have negotiated with just about every country on the face of the planet at one time or another. With the vast majority of these, negotiations are fruitful and beneficial to all sides. With some, no negotiation is possible. When that minority also seeks to oppose our goals, we'll try mightily to seek some sort of compromise. However, as I've pointed out, you simply can't compromise with certain people/countries. When the opposition is fierce enough, that means economic sanctions, political sanctions, and -- as a last resort -- military intervention.
"Most of them have never had a gun pointed at their forehead"
Something they can thank NATO for, as the former Soviet Union would've been all too happy to do the pointing if it had been allowed.
which is when diplomacy wears down and you have to at least let the adversary know that you will defend yourself, before the bolo pulls the trigger. They simply do not get that some people will rather kill you than bend in even the slightest manner.
And you've hit the nub right on the head, there. Some people simply (and I mean simply) think that conflict is always avoidable. It is not. There is a time when further time at the negotiation table is not only fruitless, it is dangerous. Neville Chamberlain didn't figure this out and we had the bloodiest, most destructive World War this planet has ever seen because of it. Imagine how much more peaceful this planet could be/could've been had force been used more often, and earlier, than it actually was. As Churchill stated after the war, "at one point, a memo would've been sufficient to stop Hitler." So true.
I on the other hand love the US, which is why you and I will stay modded down.
Such is life, eh?
Of course, there's a lot of bad crap in your backyard too, but certainly not more than elsewhere.
Bad crap comes in degrees. I, for one, think we have strayed very far from what the Founding Fathers intended, but I still think this country is the single best place to be on Earth. Immigrants certainly agree with me, America is the land of opportunity. That doesn't mean I wouldn't enough viewing the natural splendors and cultural richness of a place like Sweden, but as they say, "there's no place like home."
the US have been, and continue to be arseholes when it comes to interfering in world politics, always to its advantage.
Good. I want the U.S. to do things to its advantage, since I am a U.S. citizen. I don't give a hoot in hell whether or not it helps or hurts anyone else, because they're not me, they don't live here, and they don't pay my taxes. If others benefit from our actions, so much the better. If they don't, I don't really care. You can either work with us, remain neutral, or work against us. Those who work with the U.S. will see the benefits of doing so. Those who remain neutral will neither be catered to nor chastised. Those who oppose us will be ground into dust. That's life. Sorry to burst your utopian bubble.
We shouldn't enforce anything "they" don't want.
And what should we do when what "they" want is diametrically opposed to what "we" want? Give in? I think not. Compromise if possible, but if it's us or them, I choose us. If "they" have a problem with it, they can meet us on the field of battle and die for their stiff-necked inability to compromise with their betters.
The US no doubt has the power to keep space off limits for anyone for military arms race. Why in gods name then do they push the envelope so that other countries has to follow?
Because no matter how good the current weapons are, until we can take out a single target with absolute impunity and no collateral damage, they can be improved.
Warmongers, thats what i see.
You see what you want to see, no doubt.
Lets hope the administration gets changed to something less warhappy and perhaps a it more interested in all US citizens than of enriching a few select people.
Ah, the class warfare war cry! Perhaps we should adopt a more enlightened form of government where we have a perfect worker's paradise, a classless society, where everyone is equal.
Oops! That's been tried before. It didn't work out too well. All the animals were created equal, but some were more equal than others.
Do you really honestly believe shock and awe will make them go "oh, sorry about wanting to destroy democracy, we'll just not bother you anymore"? If so, I have some land to sell you, at a very good price.
No, but if we systematically deny the terrorists any real successes while simultaneously hunting and eradicating them like the dogs they are, the ultimate futility of their actions might come into play.
Here's a mighty good example. Just where do you think the Palestinian movement might be today if they weren't throwing rocks and blowing themselves up, but instead had spent time working with the Israeli's for a peaceful compromise and allowing Israel to be painted as the bully? But no, they've got do don their headscarves, throw rocks and grenades at riot troops, and blow up women and children at restaurants. Their struggle is ultimately self-defeating because they consistently allow themselves to be painted as the bad guys.
Applying this on a global scale would yield real results, except for one thing. Let's suppose North Korea suddenly stopped acting like they were under seige by the entire world and started feeding their own people and acting like citizens of a greater whole. Countries far and wide might start sending economic and humanitarian aid, foreign investments might increase, and the quality of life would increase. It would, however, mean that the military dictatorships and tyrants would lose control, and control equals power. That's why you have places like Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran (gosh, what do these countries have in common? I just can't put my finger on it), and North Korea, where the leaders live oppulently while their "subjects" live in squalor. The only way these regimes can be perpetuated is by ironfisted control and by deflecting anger externally -- usually to the U.S. or westernism in general.
So, if you want a better world for all humanity, the fastest route would be to overthrow all of these regimes and institute governments that act responsibly towards their citizens. Iraq is now on the road to such a system. Who's next?