Bullshit. Ever actually changed out a production system? Or for that matter, ever rebuilt your home PC? You pull the every component in need of replacement at once. Replacing "one component at a time" when they are going to produce incompatible output does you no good at all.
Your commentary so far indicates a startling lack of common sense. Also, a serious problem of disconnection with reality, so please stop smoking crack.
And that was one of the dumbest comments I've ever heard, and something I didn't agree with at all. What was your point again? I agree with 80% of what's in the Obamacare reforms. The other 20% I chalk up to legislative process, because the art of compromise is that nobody is completely happy when all is said and done - but on the average, most people are better off for it.
The sea level rising a couple feet sounds really scary in a perfect knowledge vacuum.
Obviously you don't live anywhere near a coast. The sea level rising a couple feet at the coastal city nearest to me, means probably 5,000 or more people whose homes have a foot of water in them. It also means a major re-planning and rebuild of a lot of the dock structures for the shipping port, and re-planning/rebuild of many of the structures at the local marina and launch docks for recreational boating. It also means a major change in coastal erosion patterns, wildlife, and navigability for the surrounding area due to the creation of highly shallow flat areas that are nevertheless waterlogged / "under water."
Compared to past, present, and future geological events, frankly I'm VERY unimpressed by a minor sea level fluctuation like that.
Volcanic eruptions suck. Earthquakes suck. Tsunami suck. On the other hand, we can't prevent those - best we can do is improve our early warning systems. We CAN mitigate the damage we do to the environment, however.
The politically correct environmentalist position is if we go Pol Pot on our population (with the poorly hidden message that we'll be going Pol Pot on the "politically nonenvironmentalist" population, or at least not our ethnic / cultural group) and destroy our economy down to the level of Somalia or Afghanistan, then it'll be "better".
Oh for the love of... sigh. With this one paragraph you proved how completely fucking insane you are, because nobody I know who is an "environmentalist" has ever proposed such a thing. The closest to come has actually been the racist shitheads of the local Republican Party, who propose enforced limits (either economic penalty-based or forced-sterilization-if-on-government-assistance) on lower income people having babies (while at the same time denying this is anything like China's "one child policy", where only the ultra-rich are allowed to have an extra kid or two) with the express purpose of limiting the growing population of hispanics and blacks.
But what use is basic logic and common sense when you have political parties campaigning on "God wants me to be prezidunt 2 git that uppity nigger outta our white house"? When you have a group of people who can get revved up into a foaming, frothing-mouthed frenzy by some boob publishing an entirely dishonest book claiming "OMG Obama was at a Black Panther rally in 2007" (the actual event was a commemoration of the 1965 voting rights march in Selma, Alabama, attended by a host of dignitaries that included both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton).
The reality is, an entire political party has decided that horrific lies and appeals to anything but sanity are their way to get elected. It's saddening and maddening at once, because there was a time I agreed with many of their positions on logical grounds - but they've become so extreme and hate-filled today that finding a sensible, sane compromise and actually fixing any problems has become impossible.
When the phrase "bend the truth" passes your lips as a PI, you should be fired and then barred by the courts from ever working as a PI again, and any lawyer who ever has to examine or cross-examine you should simply start out by asking why you're barred from working as a PI.
End of discussion.
What this guy did was completely disgusting, wholly reprehensible, and in any sane legal system would count as perjury.
The "rules of war" - aka the Geneva Conventions - do, as you say, not apply to non-state actors. For that matter, they do not apply to national armies ("state actors") who are members of a state like, say, North Korea which has not signed and ratified the Geneva Conventions.
The Conventions were specifically written that way to avoid tying the hands of armies which would hold to them when facing - dare I say it - insane, murderous groups who throw all common decency and notions of humanity out the window and engage in such tactics as hiding their forces with civilians, holding hostages and using human shields, and using suicide troops.
Nope. Al-Awlaki was a member of a paramilitary organization which declared war on the USA. That is what that clause is plainly referring to. Dumbass.
It doesn't matter if Congress declared war on them. THEY DECLARED WAR ON US. Ipso Facto, a state of war exists. Al-Awlaki left the US, publicly renounced his citizenship, joined an organization that declared war on the US, ordered attacks, and behaved in every way as a commander of enemy forces who were at war with the USA.
This was the President of the USA ordering a strike on the military headquarters of an organization at war with the US. Al-Awlaki, as well as several other ranking members of that organization, was killed in the strike. Obama made the right call, and anyone who says "waah but this is illegal" is a fucking moron.
However, that still leaves the question of whether or not him being on US soil would be a "domestic law enforcement" issue or a "enemy invader in time of war" issue. In the latter, the US military would still be perfectly authorized to take him down or capture him.
Not really. In the state of Yemen, a cleric counts as a consular and half the legal code is verbal - for instance, you can divorce your wife just by shouting "I divorce you" (in Arabic) over and over again a few times, then telling a cleric you did so.
There's also the elements of treason, aiding and abetting enemies, involvement in terrorism... yawn. If you're trying to make this the "we shouldn't use drones or target-kill the leaders of a group at war with us" argument, this isn't the guy to do it with. Hell, out of the right wing kook fringe you're more likely to have them shouting "reenact Dresden" or "reenact Hiroshima" rather than looking askance at taking out the head of a terrorist organization.
5th amendment doesn't apply to persons killed in military operations. Otherwise, every time the US Congress votes to go to war or authorizes a military action, they're violating the 5th amendment, which has been ruled an invalid argument.
Likewise for anyone shot/killed by police who believed their lives were threatened or the lives of others were threatened at the time.
End of discussion as far as the courts are concerned. What part of except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger don't you understand?
Indeed. We should kind of expect this sort of behavior.
Of course we also should expect that a small percentage of iOS developers are making a large chunk of the iOS store revenue, since there's so much goddamn shovelware clogging up the iOS store...
Nice attempt at trolling. But whatever, I'll take you seriously:
Second, Religious fundies do not automagically make a school system fail. MAny religious schools ran by the same type of religious findies, perform well above secular schools dominated by liberals. So throwing the hit on religious fundies in there achieved what with reality?
No, but religious fundies trying to rewrite the state curriculum have a lot to do with failing schools.
Also, do you understand that if tuition goes up, and state funding stays the same, it's automatically a lower percentage of tuition without removing any funding?
Except that funding HAS been removed. So your entire argument is invalid.
Basically. Locally (as in state gov), they're pretty much all Republicans. That's what you get when your state has had a Republican stranglehold making gerrymandered districts to stick all the "undesirables" in as few districts as possible for over two decades.
Parental involvement is needed. This we can agree on.
HOWEVER: - When your government is insisting on "saving money" by bumping up grade school numbers to 40 kids in a classroom and no teachers' aides to help keep order? PROBLEM. - When your government is telling schools desperate for basic building maintenance and desperate to hire enough teachers to make ends meet "fuck you, cut your budget so that we can cut property taxes", PROBLEM. - When your government is telling teachers "fuck you, you're just a glorified babysitter, what do you do anyways?" - PROBLEM. - When your government's idea of "accountability" is "fuck the poor, we don't care what the public schools are like, all our kids go to private school anyways" - PROBLEM.
Look at Texas as a great example. Last 20 years of Republican rule, their schools have fallen in rank and in ability every year. Rick Perry packed the educational boards with a bunch of religious fundies, doing his level best to make it even worse.
And of course, at the same time as they are complaining about how much it costs to go to college, they're flipping the middle finger to higher education and slashing funding across the board. 10 years ago, 50% of state college funding came from the state, today it's less than 20% (and they wonder why tuition went up!).
Meanwhile, the "solution" generally proposed is to require constant continuing education and certification requirements on teachers... which means for a job that doesn't pay well to start with, they're spending a buttload more time and money just staying certified.
And we wonder why people don't stay in teaching...
But they always exempted themselves anyways. I get cold calls all the fucking time from robocallers and phone pools for the local Republican turds trying to get reelected. It's one small reason among many that I won't vote for those corrupt goons.
Water. Try owning a house in any city without running water. You'll be fined/charged. Electricity. Pretty much the same, unless you (like the Amish) can drum up some form of "religious objection." Good luck managing it unless you're Amish or Mennonite. Clothing... check. Either you buy it, or someone buys it and gifts it to you. Education. You pay, through your taxes, for it. One way or another. Retirement. See also: Social Security. You can argue over the semantics all day long, you can argue you are "paying now for someone else and others will pay for you"... end of the day, you are contributing funds to a government program designed to ensure that the elderly are not left Completely Fucking Destitute.
Said niggers and spics will never be smart, no matter how much money is spent on them. You can't see that because you are young and brainwashed, but every white person like you comes to this conclusion eventually, even if they refused to acknowledge.
Thank you for being the perfect example of the racist retardican fringe that I've been speaking of.
I saw plenty of professors who wore their politics on their sleeves.
The difference was (in general), a liberal professor is willing to accept that you have a different viewpoint. They are willing to DEBATE you on it and give you equal time. They are willing to concede that you have good points and acknowledge them, they are willing to moderate their own positions and take your points on board when you bring up something they hadn't previously considered or that is argued well. I turned in several papers that argued completely contrary to the views I knew the professor held, and STILL got high grades because I argued my points well.
The "conservative" professors, meanwhile, were generally hidebound dogmatic fools who were only interested in "showing up" their colleagues, indoctrinating minds into seig-heil follower mentality, and if you didn't just spew back the hate and bile they passed out in classroom, you wouldn't get a passing grade. I watched three of these assholes tear into some of my classmates after they "found out" that the classmates were officers in the university Gay-Straight Student Alliance.
So... in all due respect, FUCK them. I've seen the true colors of the "Republicans." No thank you.
Welcome to the scenario. The Redneck Retard fringe that runs Texas, nominally associated with the Republicans (also majorly associated with the Tea Party lunatic fringe) hates education.
The more educated people are, the less likely they have the inbred racist hatred of Brown People that can be played on in a general election (if you don't believe it is a factor, listen to rightwing retard talk radio for 5 minutes and see how often they come back to "omg immigration them brown spanish speakin ferners iz takin over ur state and takin ur jerbz!").
Chopping away at public education funding is the start. They're working on trying to eliminate public education entirely, ever since the Supreme court ruled that these assholes can't deny a kid an education on account of having the wrong color skin.
Reading your posts and realizing the willful ignorance and raw hatred that contributes to them is depressing.
I watched a thousand retarded republican rednecks cheer for the killing of people whose misfortune is to fall ill without insurance a little over a week ago.
I've watched as Republicans, year after year, gut public education while sending their kids to private schools and then complain about the "cost" of educating the next generation.
I've watched as they insist that cutting taxes on the obnoxiously wealthy is "justice" while hiking taxes on mothers who can barely afford to buy milk for their kids is "paying their fair share."
There is an entire political party out there that exists on nothing but willful ignorance and raw hatred. They are called Republicans.
I'm hoping that you didn't miss the point, which is that as long as you have enough fuel to do it, you can ascend as slowly as you like.
No, but I was responding to a moron's comment about creating "new tech" that would "make gaining escape velocity more cost effective."
The energy costs are fixed. Without violating the laws of physics and thermodynamics as we know them - and presently the brightest and most knowledgeable minds available believe that FTL travel is simply impossible - the expended energy to lift a certain amount of mass into stable orbit CANNOT be lower than a certain minimum.
Put simpler: it is impossible to take object X, starting at relative rest, and move it from point A to point B without expending energy. There are multiple sources from which we can get this energy, always at some conversion loss, but the energy must be expended. The cost, in energy, must be paid.
"High Altitude Balloon" - still requires a certain amount of force (via bouyancy, but with limits on weight load); does not function well beyond a certain altitude due to lack of sufficient atmosphere to provide upwards force via bouyancy. Not true "zero-point fuel" since your device still needs ascension force to climb the tether.
Ground Lasers using ablative propulsion may leave the "motor" on the ground but still burn off fuel from the device. Laser propulsion using photon radiation pressure provides so little force that it can only be operable with immensely wide catch devices in a microgravity environment, not nearly enough to escape even Earth's relatively weak gravity.
tl;dr version: I know what I'm talking about, you're just full of shit.
Slashdot Mirror
Bullshit. Ever actually changed out a production system? Or for that matter, ever rebuilt your home PC? You pull the every component in need of replacement at once. Replacing "one component at a time" when they are going to produce incompatible output does you no good at all.
Also, please stop being a dumbass. The plural of anecdote is not data.
Your commentary so far indicates a startling lack of common sense. Also, a serious problem of disconnection with reality, so please stop smoking crack.
And that was one of the dumbest comments I've ever heard, and something I didn't agree with at all. What was your point again? I agree with 80% of what's in the Obamacare reforms. The other 20% I chalk up to legislative process, because the art of compromise is that nobody is completely happy when all is said and done - but on the average, most people are better off for it.
The sea level rising a couple feet sounds really scary in a perfect knowledge vacuum.
Obviously you don't live anywhere near a coast. The sea level rising a couple feet at the coastal city nearest to me, means probably 5,000 or more people whose homes have a foot of water in them. It also means a major re-planning and rebuild of a lot of the dock structures for the shipping port, and re-planning/rebuild of many of the structures at the local marina and launch docks for recreational boating. It also means a major change in coastal erosion patterns, wildlife, and navigability for the surrounding area due to the creation of highly shallow flat areas that are nevertheless waterlogged / "under water."
Compared to past, present, and future geological events, frankly I'm VERY unimpressed by a minor sea level fluctuation like that.
Volcanic eruptions suck. Earthquakes suck. Tsunami suck. On the other hand, we can't prevent those - best we can do is improve our early warning systems. We CAN mitigate the damage we do to the environment, however.
The politically correct environmentalist position is if we go Pol Pot on our population (with the poorly hidden message that we'll be going Pol Pot on the "politically nonenvironmentalist" population, or at least not our ethnic / cultural group) and destroy our economy down to the level of Somalia or Afghanistan, then it'll be "better".
Oh for the love of... sigh. With this one paragraph you proved how completely fucking insane you are, because nobody I know who is an "environmentalist" has ever proposed such a thing. The closest to come has actually been the racist shitheads of the local Republican Party, who propose enforced limits (either economic penalty-based or forced-sterilization-if-on-government-assistance) on lower income people having babies (while at the same time denying this is anything like China's "one child policy", where only the ultra-rich are allowed to have an extra kid or two) with the express purpose of limiting the growing population of hispanics and blacks.
Ah for a lack of modpoints to mod this up...
Yes it does. It also bothers me that common sense is so rare it's a goddamn superpower.
But what use is basic logic and common sense when you have political parties campaigning on "God wants me to be prezidunt 2 git that uppity nigger outta our white house"? When you have a group of people who can get revved up into a foaming, frothing-mouthed frenzy by some boob publishing an entirely dishonest book claiming "OMG Obama was at a Black Panther rally in 2007" (the actual event was a commemoration of the 1965 voting rights march in Selma, Alabama, attended by a host of dignitaries that included both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton).
The reality is, an entire political party has decided that horrific lies and appeals to anything but sanity are their way to get elected. It's saddening and maddening at once, because there was a time I agreed with many of their positions on logical grounds - but they've become so extreme and hate-filled today that finding a sensible, sane compromise and actually fixing any problems has become impossible.
In other words... a total lack of both logic and common sense.
No kidding.
When the phrase "bend the truth" passes your lips as a PI, you should be fired and then barred by the courts from ever working as a PI again, and any lawyer who ever has to examine or cross-examine you should simply start out by asking why you're barred from working as a PI.
End of discussion.
What this guy did was completely disgusting, wholly reprehensible, and in any sane legal system would count as perjury.
Oh good grief. Get the fuck over yourself.
The "rules of war" - aka the Geneva Conventions - do, as you say, not apply to non-state actors. For that matter, they do not apply to national armies ("state actors") who are members of a state like, say, North Korea which has not signed and ratified the Geneva Conventions.
The Conventions were specifically written that way to avoid tying the hands of armies which would hold to them when facing - dare I say it - insane, murderous groups who throw all common decency and notions of humanity out the window and engage in such tactics as hiding their forces with civilians, holding hostages and using human shields, and using suicide troops.
Nope. Al-Awlaki was a member of a paramilitary organization which declared war on the USA. That is what that clause is plainly referring to. Dumbass.
It doesn't matter if Congress declared war on them. THEY DECLARED WAR ON US. Ipso Facto, a state of war exists. Al-Awlaki left the US, publicly renounced his citizenship, joined an organization that declared war on the US, ordered attacks, and behaved in every way as a commander of enemy forces who were at war with the USA.
This was the President of the USA ordering a strike on the military headquarters of an organization at war with the US. Al-Awlaki, as well as several other ranking members of that organization, was killed in the strike. Obama made the right call, and anyone who says "waah but this is illegal" is a fucking moron.
However, that still leaves the question of whether or not him being on US soil would be a "domestic law enforcement" issue or a "enemy invader in time of war" issue. In the latter, the US military would still be perfectly authorized to take him down or capture him.
Actually, if someone else declares war on you, then you are de facto at war even without a declaration of war on your part.
Al Qaeda - both the global organization, and the group Al-Awlaki led - have declared war on the US. Ipso Facto, the US is therefore at war with them.
Not really. In the state of Yemen, a cleric counts as a consular and half the legal code is verbal - for instance, you can divorce your wife just by shouting "I divorce you" (in Arabic) over and over again a few times, then telling a cleric you did so.
There's also the elements of treason, aiding and abetting enemies, involvement in terrorism... yawn. If you're trying to make this the "we shouldn't use drones or target-kill the leaders of a group at war with us" argument, this isn't the guy to do it with. Hell, out of the right wing kook fringe you're more likely to have them shouting "reenact Dresden" or "reenact Hiroshima" rather than looking askance at taking out the head of a terrorist organization.
5th amendment doesn't apply to persons killed in military operations. Otherwise, every time the US Congress votes to go to war or authorizes a military action, they're violating the 5th amendment, which has been ruled an invalid argument.
Likewise for anyone shot/killed by police who believed their lives were threatened or the lives of others were threatened at the time.
End of discussion as far as the courts are concerned. What part of except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger don't you understand?
Indeed. We should kind of expect this sort of behavior.
Of course we also should expect that a small percentage of iOS developers are making a large chunk of the iOS store revenue, since there's so much goddamn shovelware clogging up the iOS store...
Nice attempt at trolling. But whatever, I'll take you seriously:
Second, Religious fundies do not automagically make a school system fail. MAny religious schools ran by the same type of religious findies, perform well above secular schools dominated by liberals. So throwing the hit on religious fundies in there achieved what with reality?
No, but religious fundies trying to rewrite the state curriculum have a lot to do with failing schools.
Also, do you understand that if tuition goes up, and state funding stays the same, it's automatically a lower percentage of tuition without removing any funding?
Except that funding HAS been removed. So your entire argument is invalid.
Basically. Locally (as in state gov), they're pretty much all Republicans. That's what you get when your state has had a Republican stranglehold making gerrymandered districts to stick all the "undesirables" in as few districts as possible for over two decades.
Parental involvement is needed. This we can agree on.
HOWEVER:
- When your government is insisting on "saving money" by bumping up grade school numbers to 40 kids in a classroom and no teachers' aides to help keep order? PROBLEM.
- When your government is telling schools desperate for basic building maintenance and desperate to hire enough teachers to make ends meet "fuck you, cut your budget so that we can cut property taxes", PROBLEM.
- When your government is telling teachers "fuck you, you're just a glorified babysitter, what do you do anyways?" - PROBLEM.
- When your government's idea of "accountability" is "fuck the poor, we don't care what the public schools are like, all our kids go to private school anyways" - PROBLEM.
Look at Texas as a great example. Last 20 years of Republican rule, their schools have fallen in rank and in ability every year. Rick Perry packed the educational boards with a bunch of religious fundies, doing his level best to make it even worse.
And of course, at the same time as they are complaining about how much it costs to go to college, they're flipping the middle finger to higher education and slashing funding across the board. 10 years ago, 50% of state college funding came from the state, today it's less than 20% (and they wonder why tuition went up!).
Meanwhile, the "solution" generally proposed is to require constant continuing education and certification requirements on teachers... which means for a job that doesn't pay well to start with, they're spending a buttload more time and money just staying certified.
And we wonder why people don't stay in teaching...
But they always exempted themselves anyways. I get cold calls all the fucking time from robocallers and phone pools for the local Republican turds trying to get reelected. It's one small reason among many that I won't vote for those corrupt goons.
Water. Try owning a house in any city without running water. You'll be fined/charged.
Electricity. Pretty much the same, unless you (like the Amish) can drum up some form of "religious objection." Good luck managing it unless you're Amish or Mennonite.
Clothing... check. Either you buy it, or someone buys it and gifts it to you.
Education. You pay, through your taxes, for it. One way or another.
Retirement. See also: Social Security. You can argue over the semantics all day long, you can argue you are "paying now for someone else and others will pay for you"... end of the day, you are contributing funds to a government program designed to ensure that the elderly are not left Completely Fucking Destitute.
The list goes on pretty considerably.
Right here, dog crap for brains.
You're a fucking liar.
Said niggers and spics will never be smart, no matter how much money is spent on them. You can't see that because you are young and brainwashed, but every white person like you comes to this conclusion eventually, even if they refused to acknowledge.
Thank you for being the perfect example of the racist retardican fringe that I've been speaking of.
I saw plenty of professors who wore their politics on their sleeves.
The difference was (in general), a liberal professor is willing to accept that you have a different viewpoint. They are willing to DEBATE you on it and give you equal time. They are willing to concede that you have good points and acknowledge them, they are willing to moderate their own positions and take your points on board when you bring up something they hadn't previously considered or that is argued well. I turned in several papers that argued completely contrary to the views I knew the professor held, and STILL got high grades because I argued my points well.
The "conservative" professors, meanwhile, were generally hidebound dogmatic fools who were only interested in "showing up" their colleagues, indoctrinating minds into seig-heil follower mentality, and if you didn't just spew back the hate and bile they passed out in classroom, you wouldn't get a passing grade. I watched three of these assholes tear into some of my classmates after they "found out" that the classmates were officers in the university Gay-Straight Student Alliance.
So... in all due respect, FUCK them. I've seen the true colors of the "Republicans." No thank you.
Welcome to the scenario. The Redneck Retard fringe that runs Texas, nominally associated with the Republicans (also majorly associated with the Tea Party lunatic fringe) hates education.
The more educated people are, the less likely they have the inbred racist hatred of Brown People that can be played on in a general election (if you don't believe it is a factor, listen to rightwing retard talk radio for 5 minutes and see how often they come back to "omg immigration them brown spanish speakin ferners iz takin over ur state and takin ur jerbz!").
Chopping away at public education funding is the start. They're working on trying to eliminate public education entirely, ever since the Supreme court ruled that these assholes can't deny a kid an education on account of having the wrong color skin.
Reading your posts and realizing the willful ignorance and raw hatred that contributes to them is depressing.
I watched a thousand retarded republican rednecks cheer for the killing of people whose misfortune is to fall ill without insurance a little over a week ago.
I've watched as Republicans, year after year, gut public education while sending their kids to private schools and then complain about the "cost" of educating the next generation.
I've watched as they insist that cutting taxes on the obnoxiously wealthy is "justice" while hiking taxes on mothers who can barely afford to buy milk for their kids is "paying their fair share."
There is an entire political party out there that exists on nothing but willful ignorance and raw hatred. They are called Republicans.
I'm hoping that you didn't miss the point, which is that as long as you have enough fuel to do it, you can ascend as slowly as you like.
No, but I was responding to a moron's comment about creating "new tech" that would "make gaining escape velocity more cost effective."
The energy costs are fixed. Without violating the laws of physics and thermodynamics as we know them - and presently the brightest and most knowledgeable minds available believe that FTL travel is simply impossible - the expended energy to lift a certain amount of mass into stable orbit CANNOT be lower than a certain minimum.
Put simpler: it is impossible to take object X, starting at relative rest, and move it from point A to point B without expending energy. There are multiple sources from which we can get this energy, always at some conversion loss, but the energy must be expended. The cost, in energy, must be paid.
"High Altitude Balloon" - still requires a certain amount of force (via bouyancy, but with limits on weight load); does not function well beyond a certain altitude due to lack of sufficient atmosphere to provide upwards force via bouyancy. Not true "zero-point fuel" since your device still needs ascension force to climb the tether.
Ground Lasers using ablative propulsion may leave the "motor" on the ground but still burn off fuel from the device. Laser propulsion using photon radiation pressure provides so little force that it can only be operable with immensely wide catch devices in a microgravity environment, not nearly enough to escape even Earth's relatively weak gravity.
tl;dr version: I know what I'm talking about, you're just full of shit.