Probably the only point at which they might favourably compare is in the percentage of the gross national wealth needed to fund the voyages.
Probably not. Three ships aren't all that expensive, even in the time and place Comumbus wanted them.
Note, however, one crucial difference - while Columbus was trying to sell the voyage as a trip to the Indies, most educated people knew that that was impossible. Contrary to popular rumour, most everyone with any sort of education knew perfectly well that the world was round, and knew about how big it was. Columbus sold his trip by lying about the size of the planet, and either got the Queen of Spain to hock her jewels (apocrypohal, by the by) by fooling her (unlikely in the extreme), or because she knew perfectly well that those Basque fishermen that were sailing from her ports to Newfoundland for codfish before Columbus ever thought of his voyage knew of a place west of Spain a hell of a lot closer than the Indies (you don't prepare codfish for transport on a ship, you've pretty much got to have dry land for that).
But can those horse apples travel faster than the speed of light?
Yes they can.
If Horse Apple A was going one direction at 3/4 of the speed of light in relation to Horse Apple B.
And if Horse Apple C was going in the opposite direction past Horse Apple B at 3/4 the speed of light, then an observer on Horse Apple A would in fact see Horse Apple C passing at 1 1/2 the speed of light.
So Horse Apple A and Horse Apple C are traveling away from each other at a speed greater than light in relation to their speed passing Horse Apple B.
Umm, no, they can't. Per Special Relativity, if one of them is going.75c one way, the other is going.75c the other way (both relative to a single object), they are moving at 0.96c relative to each other.
So, they're not moving at greater than lightspeed relative to each other, and are both observable to the other.
If the acceleration of dark energy is increasing, then according to Hubble's Law [wikipedia.org], objects at the "Hubble Limit" will essentially be receding from the Earth at the speed of light, and will be outside of our observable universe's event horizon forever. As viewed from earth, the object would continue red-shifting forever, like an object that falls into a black hole.
Oddly enough, the "observable universe" is considerably larger than the Hubble Limit. By a factor of three or so, I find in Wikipedia. Which leads me to suspect your conclusion.
If gravity from B left there at some time in the past, and reached A, it then continued past A toward O.
Light from A went from A to O.
Light and gravity move at the same speed, so, the light from A reaches us at the same time as the gravity from B.
Therefore, B is within the "observable universe".
In order for the above to not work, some part of the process above must include "faster than light". Which, so far as current physics is concerned, isn't part of the picture.
From my understanding, if those galaxy clusters are moving with c/2 in one direction and we are moving with c/2 the other way, the galaxy clusters are at our horizon (total speed of separation c). But while they are approaching the outside object fast, gravitational pull would be faster, and we could see the measured trajectories.
According to our current understanding of physics, the situation you describe can't actually occur. It is impossible for two pieces of matter to be moving apart at c. If we were moving at c/2 in one direction, RELATIVE to some piece of matter, and yet another piece of matter were moving at c/2 away from that reference matter in the opposite direction, that second piece of matter would be observed as moving away from us at 0.866c, and be well within our "observable universe".
Even if we assumed your case were valid, then we'd have to assume that the gravity from the object outside the observable universe (hereinafter the THING) could reach that far-flung galaxy (hereinafter, OVERTHERE), interact with it, and then the light from OVERTHERE could come here, and beat the light/gravity effects from the THING here, even though all of them (light/gravity from the THING, light/gravity from OVERTHERE) are moving at c. Can't happen unless something is moving ftl. In which case, we're back to using words like "quaint"....
You mean it would be just like dark energy and dark mass, something we cannot see but whose effect we observe?
But dark matter is within the "observable universe". The fact that we can barely detect it doesn't change that. As far as we can tell, dark matter obeys the same laws of physics as the resto of us do - it just doesn't interact with "normal" matter other than gravitationally. Nothing wrong with that, really. Neutrinos are almost that bad, after all.
This is something supposedly outside the "observable universe" that is causing the observed effect. Which opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities, none of which suggest that our understanding of physics is other than, shall we be polite and say "limited"? Or would "quaint superstition" be better? Because it requires an interaction at greater than speed of light, in order to have an observable effect while the effector is outside the observable universe (that is, too far away for light to have reached here from there).
Would that object influencing the observed object not need to be inside your light cone for you to even observe the influencing that it is doing?
No, it wouldn't. All that is necessary is that the influenced object be inside the light cone of the influencing object
Yes, it would. Gravity works at lightspeed also, so any gravitic effect on an observable object must be detectable at the observer, making the influencing object "observable".
Likewise, any other effect that we know of, all of which are limited to lightspeed. The only way that something outside the observable universe could affect something inside the observable universe and be seen by something else inside the observable universe is if the laws of physics that we know and love are basically a steaming pile of horse apples.
For a start, as you extend the cable from GEO, the center of mass of the satellite+cable moves downwards, changing its orbit. This alone will cause the bottom end (free-floating) to begin swinging, relative to Earth. Eventually, the swings will by gynormous. Then you'll touch atmosphere and the speed of the lower end will be immense, burning it up due to friction. Then it gets bad.
On the other hand, if you extend some mass upwards at the same rate that you extend mass downwards (making sure that moment arms match reasonably closely), then you can do it this way. Note that you have to have a mass ABOVE GEO at least as high as the mass below GEO. Which mass below GEO is the 22,000 Km long cable, which presumably is built stoutly enough to support more than one elevator car, which themselves won't be small (you're not going 22,000 Km in an elevator in less than days).
In other words, till we move a small asteroid into high Earth orbit, there's not much point in worrying about a Space Elevator becoming real.
However. That said, it still makes sense to work on the materials technology. It'd be basically dumb to spend a trillion or so dollars moving an asteroid to Earth orbit, only to find out that it'll be another 200 years till we have a material to connect said rock to the ground.
Warning systems are not adequate to address these issue. I, for one, when I get to that point, will simply sell my car and turn in my license for a State Issued ID. Sounds unbelievable, I know... but my grandmother did something much similar one day with no one prompting her to - and she still drove better than many younger drivers out there... just not good enough by her own judgement I guess.
The problem isn't that older people don't want to turn in their Driver's Licenses (or can't, in some places - if you live in the country, you need to drive). The problem is that as you age, and your reflexes and senses lose their edge, you are more than likely to be unaware of just how much edge you have lost. Until you are in a major accident.
Hopefully, like your grandmother, you'll make the judgement call correctly. Most likely, you won't, but at least you'll be in good company (everyone else who can't quite concede that THEY are too old to drive)....
My opinion on riders stands: if the defense budget couldn't get passed without relevant amendments, then a) the majority voting bloc, as elected by the people, doesn't believe it's worth passing;
Ahh, but it wasn't a matter of getting the Defense Budget passed. It was a matter of getting extra money for breast cancer research without raising the budget items that should be paying for such things. So they put the money into the Defense Budget (and then railed against how high "defense spending" was.
Note that there is nothing intrinsic in the system that requires riders. There's just nothing in the system that forbids riders. And while almost everyone thinks that Congress is a bunch of incompetent crooks (just like they think the Administration is), they almost always agree that THEIR Congresscritter does a good job - it's those OTHER Congresscritters (basically, the ones you can't vote for/against) who are the scalawags.
Therein lies the problem. I vote for two Senators and one Congresscritter. Mine are about average, really. Nothing special, one way or another. Will I vote to toss them out? Probably not, since the guys running against them aren't so outstanding as to make me toss a known not-so-bad for an unknown. Do I think there are a lot of scoundrels in Congress and the Senate? Yeppers. Probably half or better would be better off in prison. But what can I do about the ones I don't get a vote on? Basically, learn to live with it. Or whinge about it on/.
If a majority of the voters rather than a majority of the electors were required, we wouldn't have every presidential candidate in favor of retarded policies, and we might actually be able to debate these issues instead of having these policies taken for granted. California, New York and Texas are states with huge numbers of people whose needs have to take a backseat to the wants of the swing states. I'm in favor of abolishing the electoral college in order to have national elections be more about national issues, rather than the parochial concerns of swing state voters.
Of course, switching from the current swing states to California, New York, and Texas doesn't imply that national elections will be about "national issues". It implies they'll be about the issues of interest to New York, California, and Texas. So switching from one parochial viewpoint to another parochial viewpoint makes a lot of sense to you?
Note that Texas is an oil-producing state. If you emphasize their interests, you're handing even more influence to the oil companies than now.
resulted in things like the blatant abuse of the Interstate Commerce Clause, blackmailing states into accepting things like speed limits and Real ID, etc.
Yeah, right. Because everything would be sooo much better if only we had corrupt politicians appointing even more corrupt politicians to run things.
Actually, one must remember that the original concept was that the House of Representatives (note the name) act to represent the people. The Senate's original purpose was to represent the States, not the people.
By changing the election of Senators to direct election, we have essentially two identical house of Congress - both represent the people directly, and are beholden to the mob. As opposed to the original situation, where the Senate was NOT beholden to the mob, and was meant to provide stability in the Congress.
Of course, since the reelection rate in both houses is about 90+, it can be argued that BOTH houses of Congress provide "stability".
Note by the way that the notion of a lifetime of service in the House of Representatives was NOT part of the world-picture of the Founding Fathers. The House was meant to be something you did for a couple of years before going back to your life.
Changes like removing the u from favour or changing the re to er in calibre occurred within the first fifty years. It was a deliberate attempt to establish American spellings.
Not quite. The English didn't actually have standardized spellings at the time of the American Revolution. So it is disingenuous to say that we "changed" the spelling. We simply adopted a different standard spelling, at about the same time as the English adopted their own standard spelling.
Non-Americans absolutely have the right to express an opinion of a US democratic system, and it's just as valid as an American's (almost half of whom don't even bother participating in it anyway!).
By the same token, Americans have the right to express an opinion of a foreign democratic (or other) system. Note that the parliamentary system is designed to DO things. Our system is designed to hamstring government, not to encourage its excesses.
Even in a country that holds capitalism as dear as the US (is that still true this week? - John McCain has changed "my friends" to "comrades") if a power plant sticks out their tongue and says they're not going to deliver power, the government will swoop in. And then the government can make the changes needed.
Hint: the problem isn't really that the coal plants are intrinsically against being clean. They're not, but that's neither here nor there. The problem is that the plants cannoit be shut down - we're operating so close to capacity that offlining plants for upgrades is impractical.
And building NEW plants invokes the God NIMBY! Which is why new coal plants (clean or otherwise) aren't being built.
Enjoy the latency added to your connection. You know.. that 1ms on every packet adds up.:D
Prove that YOU suffered from extra latency, and you might have cause for a Class Action. If not, you're wasting your time.
Note that I do NOT approve of this sort of thing. Anymore than I approve of traffic cameras and similar elements of the nanny state. Nonetheless, there are legal requirements to make a class action lawsuit, and DAMAGE is one element. No damage to YOU, no Class for you.
And "damages" require something vaguely measurable. Not very measurable, but vaguely. Even asbestos class actions require that you have some sort of loathsome disease (even if the disease was NOT actually caused by asbestos, but only could have been).
I take it you can prove you were harmed by this? I'm an AT&T customer, and can't begin to think of a way to prove I was listened in on (much less harmed). Without actual harm, you (and I) have no standing in a class action lawsuit.
Why not your license to own a pet? Or... I don't know, your license to be a lifeguard? Your license to carry a gun?
Because you're not required to have a license to own a pet, or be a lifeguard, or carry a gun. Pretty much every adult outside a major metropolitan area has a Driver's License though.
Sky lab was hurried to put together and the only tragedy was that they couldn't keep it in orbit.
Sky lab was hurried to put together and the only tragedy was that they wouldn't keep it in orbit.
There, fixed that for you.
The real problem with Skylab is that we had no budget to do anything with it other than show we could put it up there for a year. There was no technical reason why it couldn't have been continued and expanded to the point where it was a useful foothold in space, rather than abandoning it to its fate.
What's really needed is a society where a majority of the individuals have a world class education. No rating system will ever work until you get that in place.
What makes you think that a world-class education will cause people to set aside their own prejudices on any subject? Educated people still make bone-headed analyses whenever their own ox would be gored by the "truth".
Treatment of insurgents is to be handled in the most nihilistic and amoral way possible. "They're fighting us, so they're sort of soliders but not real soldiers, and even then, they're lucky not to be dead if we don't kill them because we feel like it."
I'm so glad we're the good guys.
Insurgents are to be handled in the most convenient manner possible in accordance with governing laws. The Geneva Conventions on the Treatment of Insurgents and Guerrillas are NOT governing law in the USA.
The UCMJ is a governing body of law, with limited applicability, primarily to OUR soldiers, though it can be used to punish our soldiers if their treatment of insurgents/guerrillas is considered over the top by our own military command structure.
Local law in the country in question can also be applied. Note that in most places where the subject comes up (we're fighting insurgents/guerrillas in some other country), local law is far harsher than our own laws, and far harsher than our routine treatment of insurgents/guerrillas. Note that local law is considered the closest to ideal (meaning least likely to be found illegal at some later date).
Local law in the various States applies in cases of insurgency/guerrilla warfare within the USA. Note that in that case, Martial Law would likely be declared (I don't think it's actually legal to use the US Military to put down an internal insurrection in the USA without a pre-existing declaration of Martial Law), so the UCMJ or Federal Statute would apply, not local/State laws, necessarily.
If you disapprove of the USA handling of insurgents and guerrillas, I strongly suggest that you write to your Congresscritter, Senators, and the President/VP expressing your desire that we (the USA) sign onto the additional Protocols to the Geneva Convention regarding insurgents/guerrillas. And ask everyone you know to do the same.
I doubt it will do any good, since we haven't signed onto those Protocols in the last 30 years, but it's possible Obama will be willing, if he becomes President. Note that ratification is required like any other Treaty, so it will require a vote by the Senate, which may be harder to get past than the President.
Not quite. Persistent nerve agents can cause death for months or years after use, and are harder to decontaminate than radioactive fallout. Touching the underside of a fence rail in a place where persistent nerve agents have been used can be fatal for months, depending on the persistence of the agent.
Now, some poison gasses aren't especially problematic that way. Mustard gas can be a problem for longer than you might think, but not months. Non-persistent chemical agents aren't a big deal for more than a few days. But there are agents that are extremely hazardous for extended periods, and that can deny use of an area for a very long time.
Sorry, that can't be right. If they're enemy soldiers, then we've got to do things like not torture them, or give them rights under ths ame convention.
Listen, you can't have your torture and your Geneva Convention too.
Alas, you didn't actually read what I wrote. The parts of the Geneva Convention that make guerrillas "enemy soldiers" weren't signed by the USA. Therefore we are not bound by them.
However, that doesn't actually prevent us from treating them as soldiers (or civilians) at our discretion. Or as common criminals. Or as none of the above. Traditional (pre- those addenda to the Geneva Conventions) usage for guerrillas was to treat them FAR worse than enemy soldiers. They could be killed on sight, executed without trial, all sorts of interesting options, none of which included treatment as soldiers. Note treatment of such during the 19th Century and early 20th Century, before the Geneva Convention tried to give them the same rights as soldiers, without requiring from them the same obligations as soldiers.
Further note that the USA didn't sign those parts of the Geneva Conventions because they were proposed by the USSR during the Vietnam War, and would have required us to refrain from actually shooting at the enemy till the enemy had shot first (armed men not actually shooting at you had to be considered civilians), and to refrain from shooting at them as soon as they stopped shooting at you (again, armed men not actually shooting at you had to be considered civilians). Which would effectively make warfare against guerrillas impossible.
Note that the USSR did not sign onto that provision of the Geneva Conventions either, even though they had proposed it.
I'm certainly claiming that everyone we've fought since the republican guard fell has been a civilian.
Umm, no. According to those parts of the Geneva Conventions the USA hasn't signed, dealing with guerrillas, they're NOT civilians, and must be treated as enemy soldiers. According to USA rules of engagements, since we haven't signed the relevant parts of the Geneva Conventions, they're NOT civilians, and can be treated as enemy soldiers or not at our discretion.
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Probably not. Three ships aren't all that expensive, even in the time and place Comumbus wanted them.
Note, however, one crucial difference - while Columbus was trying to sell the voyage as a trip to the Indies, most educated people knew that that was impossible. Contrary to popular rumour, most everyone with any sort of education knew perfectly well that the world was round, and knew about how big it was. Columbus sold his trip by lying about the size of the planet, and either got the Queen of Spain to hock her jewels (apocrypohal, by the by) by fooling her (unlikely in the extreme), or because she knew perfectly well that those Basque fishermen that were sailing from her ports to Newfoundland for codfish before Columbus ever thought of his voyage knew of a place west of Spain a hell of a lot closer than the Indies (you don't prepare codfish for transport on a ship, you've pretty much got to have dry land for that).
Umm, no, they can't. Per Special Relativity, if one of them is going .75c one way, the other is going .75c the other way (both relative to a single object), they are moving at 0.96c relative to each other.
So, they're not moving at greater than lightspeed relative to each other, and are both observable to the other.
Oddly enough, the "observable universe" is considerably larger than the Hubble Limit. By a factor of three or so, I find in Wikipedia. Which leads me to suspect your conclusion.
Because gravity works at the speed of light.
If gravity from B left there at some time in the past, and reached A, it then continued past A toward O.
Light from A went from A to O.
Light and gravity move at the same speed, so, the light from A reaches us at the same time as the gravity from B.
Therefore, B is within the "observable universe".
In order for the above to not work, some part of the process above must include "faster than light". Which, so far as current physics is concerned, isn't part of the picture.
According to our current understanding of physics, the situation you describe can't actually occur. It is impossible for two pieces of matter to be moving apart at c. If we were moving at c/2 in one direction, RELATIVE to some piece of matter, and yet another piece of matter were moving at c/2 away from that reference matter in the opposite direction, that second piece of matter would be observed as moving away from us at 0.866c, and be well within our "observable universe".
Even if we assumed your case were valid, then we'd have to assume that the gravity from the object outside the observable universe (hereinafter the THING) could reach that far-flung galaxy (hereinafter, OVERTHERE), interact with it, and then the light from OVERTHERE could come here, and beat the light/gravity effects from the THING here, even though all of them (light/gravity from the THING, light/gravity from OVERTHERE) are moving at c. Can't happen unless something is moving ftl. In which case, we're back to using words like "quaint"....
But dark matter is within the "observable universe". The fact that we can barely detect it doesn't change that. As far as we can tell, dark matter obeys the same laws of physics as the resto of us do - it just doesn't interact with "normal" matter other than gravitationally. Nothing wrong with that, really. Neutrinos are almost that bad, after all.
This is something supposedly outside the "observable universe" that is causing the observed effect. Which opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities, none of which suggest that our understanding of physics is other than, shall we be polite and say "limited"? Or would "quaint superstition" be better? Because it requires an interaction at greater than speed of light, in order to have an observable effect while the effector is outside the observable universe (that is, too far away for light to have reached here from there).
Yes, it would. Gravity works at lightspeed also, so any gravitic effect on an observable object must be detectable at the observer, making the influencing object "observable".
Likewise, any other effect that we know of, all of which are limited to lightspeed. The only way that something outside the observable universe could affect something inside the observable universe and be seen by something else inside the observable universe is if the laws of physics that we know and love are basically a steaming pile of horse apples.
For a start, as you extend the cable from GEO, the center of mass of the satellite+cable moves downwards, changing its orbit. This alone will cause the bottom end (free-floating) to begin swinging, relative to Earth. Eventually, the swings will by gynormous. Then you'll touch atmosphere and the speed of the lower end will be immense, burning it up due to friction. Then it gets bad.
On the other hand, if you extend some mass upwards at the same rate that you extend mass downwards (making sure that moment arms match reasonably closely), then you can do it this way. Note that you have to have a mass ABOVE GEO at least as high as the mass below GEO. Which mass below GEO is the 22,000 Km long cable, which presumably is built stoutly enough to support more than one elevator car, which themselves won't be small (you're not going 22,000 Km in an elevator in less than days).
In other words, till we move a small asteroid into high Earth orbit, there's not much point in worrying about a Space Elevator becoming real.
However. That said, it still makes sense to work on the materials technology. It'd be basically dumb to spend a trillion or so dollars moving an asteroid to Earth orbit, only to find out that it'll be another 200 years till we have a material to connect said rock to the ground.
The problem isn't that older people don't want to turn in their Driver's Licenses (or can't, in some places - if you live in the country, you need to drive). The problem is that as you age, and your reflexes and senses lose their edge, you are more than likely to be unaware of just how much edge you have lost. Until you are in a major accident.
Hopefully, like your grandmother, you'll make the judgement call correctly. Most likely, you won't, but at least you'll be in good company (everyone else who can't quite concede that THEY are too old to drive)....
Ahh, but it wasn't a matter of getting the Defense Budget passed. It was a matter of getting extra money for breast cancer research without raising the budget items that should be paying for such things. So they put the money into the Defense Budget (and then railed against how high "defense spending" was.
Note that there is nothing intrinsic in the system that requires riders. There's just nothing in the system that forbids riders. And while almost everyone thinks that Congress is a bunch of incompetent crooks (just like they think the Administration is), they almost always agree that THEIR Congresscritter does a good job - it's those OTHER Congresscritters (basically, the ones you can't vote for/against) who are the scalawags.
Therein lies the problem. I vote for two Senators and one Congresscritter. Mine are about average, really. Nothing special, one way or another. Will I vote to toss them out? Probably not, since the guys running against them aren't so outstanding as to make me toss a known not-so-bad for an unknown. Do I think there are a lot of scoundrels in Congress and the Senate? Yeppers. Probably half or better would be better off in prison. But what can I do about the ones I don't get a vote on? Basically, learn to live with it. Or whinge about it on /.
Usually, it's the other way around. For years and years, breast cancer research money was appropriated as part of the Defense Budget.
Of course, switching from the current swing states to California, New York, and Texas doesn't imply that national elections will be about "national issues". It implies they'll be about the issues of interest to New York, California, and Texas. So switching from one parochial viewpoint to another parochial viewpoint makes a lot of sense to you?
Note that Texas is an oil-producing state. If you emphasize their interests, you're handing even more influence to the oil companies than now.
Actually, one must remember that the original concept was that the House of Representatives (note the name) act to represent the people. The Senate's original purpose was to represent the States, not the people.
By changing the election of Senators to direct election, we have essentially two identical house of Congress - both represent the people directly, and are beholden to the mob. As opposed to the original situation, where the Senate was NOT beholden to the mob, and was meant to provide stability in the Congress.
Of course, since the reelection rate in both houses is about 90+, it can be argued that BOTH houses of Congress provide "stability".
Note by the way that the notion of a lifetime of service in the House of Representatives was NOT part of the world-picture of the Founding Fathers. The House was meant to be something you did for a couple of years before going back to your life.
Not quite. The English didn't actually have standardized spellings at the time of the American Revolution. So it is disingenuous to say that we "changed" the spelling. We simply adopted a different standard spelling, at about the same time as the English adopted their own standard spelling.
By the same token, Americans have the right to express an opinion of a foreign democratic (or other) system. Note that the parliamentary system is designed to DO things. Our system is designed to hamstring government, not to encourage its excesses.
Note that I prefer King Log to King Stork.
Hint: the problem isn't really that the coal plants are intrinsically against being clean. They're not, but that's neither here nor there. The problem is that the plants cannoit be shut down - we're operating so close to capacity that offlining plants for upgrades is impractical.
And building NEW plants invokes the God NIMBY! Which is why new coal plants (clean or otherwise) aren't being built.
Prove that YOU suffered from extra latency, and you might have cause for a Class Action. If not, you're wasting your time.
Note that I do NOT approve of this sort of thing. Anymore than I approve of traffic cameras and similar elements of the nanny state. Nonetheless, there are legal requirements to make a class action lawsuit, and DAMAGE is one element. No damage to YOU, no Class for you.
And "damages" require something vaguely measurable. Not very measurable, but vaguely. Even asbestos class actions require that you have some sort of loathsome disease (even if the disease was NOT actually caused by asbestos, but only could have been).
I take it you can prove you were harmed by this? I'm an AT&T customer, and can't begin to think of a way to prove I was listened in on (much less harmed). Without actual harm, you (and I) have no standing in a class action lawsuit.
Because you're not required to have a license to own a pet, or be a lifeguard, or carry a gun. Pretty much every adult outside a major metropolitan area has a Driver's License though.
Sky lab was hurried to put together and the only tragedy was that they wouldn't keep it in orbit.
There, fixed that for you.
The real problem with Skylab is that we had no budget to do anything with it other than show we could put it up there for a year. There was no technical reason why it couldn't have been continued and expanded to the point where it was a useful foothold in space, rather than abandoning it to its fate.
What makes you think that a world-class education will cause people to set aside their own prejudices on any subject? Educated people still make bone-headed analyses whenever their own ox would be gored by the "truth".
Insurgents are to be handled in the most convenient manner possible in accordance with governing laws. The Geneva Conventions on the Treatment of Insurgents and Guerrillas are NOT governing law in the USA.
The UCMJ is a governing body of law, with limited applicability, primarily to OUR soldiers, though it can be used to punish our soldiers if their treatment of insurgents/guerrillas is considered over the top by our own military command structure.
Local law in the country in question can also be applied. Note that in most places where the subject comes up (we're fighting insurgents/guerrillas in some other country), local law is far harsher than our own laws, and far harsher than our routine treatment of insurgents/guerrillas. Note that local law is considered the closest to ideal (meaning least likely to be found illegal at some later date).
Local law in the various States applies in cases of insurgency/guerrilla warfare within the USA. Note that in that case, Martial Law would likely be declared (I don't think it's actually legal to use the US Military to put down an internal insurrection in the USA without a pre-existing declaration of Martial Law), so the UCMJ or Federal Statute would apply, not local/State laws, necessarily.
If you disapprove of the USA handling of insurgents and guerrillas, I strongly suggest that you write to your Congresscritter, Senators, and the President/VP expressing your desire that we (the USA) sign onto the additional Protocols to the Geneva Convention regarding insurgents/guerrillas. And ask everyone you know to do the same.
I doubt it will do any good, since we haven't signed onto those Protocols in the last 30 years, but it's possible Obama will be willing, if he becomes President. Note that ratification is required like any other Treaty, so it will require a vote by the Senate, which may be harder to get past than the President.
Now, some poison gasses aren't especially problematic that way. Mustard gas can be a problem for longer than you might think, but not months. Non-persistent chemical agents aren't a big deal for more than a few days. But there are agents that are extremely hazardous for extended periods, and that can deny use of an area for a very long time.
Alas, you didn't actually read what I wrote. The parts of the Geneva Convention that make guerrillas "enemy soldiers" weren't signed by the USA. Therefore we are not bound by them.
However, that doesn't actually prevent us from treating them as soldiers (or civilians) at our discretion. Or as common criminals. Or as none of the above. Traditional (pre- those addenda to the Geneva Conventions) usage for guerrillas was to treat them FAR worse than enemy soldiers. They could be killed on sight, executed without trial, all sorts of interesting options, none of which included treatment as soldiers. Note treatment of such during the 19th Century and early 20th Century, before the Geneva Convention tried to give them the same rights as soldiers, without requiring from them the same obligations as soldiers.
Further note that the USA didn't sign those parts of the Geneva Conventions because they were proposed by the USSR during the Vietnam War, and would have required us to refrain from actually shooting at the enemy till the enemy had shot first (armed men not actually shooting at you had to be considered civilians), and to refrain from shooting at them as soon as they stopped shooting at you (again, armed men not actually shooting at you had to be considered civilians). Which would effectively make warfare against guerrillas impossible.
Note that the USSR did not sign onto that provision of the Geneva Conventions either, even though they had proposed it.
Umm, no. According to those parts of the Geneva Conventions the USA hasn't signed, dealing with guerrillas, they're NOT civilians, and must be treated as enemy soldiers. According to USA rules of engagements, since we haven't signed the relevant parts of the Geneva Conventions, they're NOT civilians, and can be treated as enemy soldiers or not at our discretion.
Sorry.