And the Mississippi has purposely flowed past New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico.
Umm, the Mississippi has been forced to do so by the Army Corps of Engineers. It has been constrained for some time against its "natural inclination" to shift over into the Atchafalaya, leaving New Orleans high and dry.
Well, leaving New Orleans low and soggy - it's still in a swamp. But no longer relevant as a port, anyway...
An extreme example would be a gun where the entire design practically demands you fire it with your right hand. A left handed person must either learn to use their right hand (and have a poorer aim), or attempt to shoot it with their left hand (and get all fouled up on the moulded grip, safety catch & ejection mechanism). Neither is optimal.
Interestingly, gun use seems not to be solidly connected to handedness. My father, who is right-handed, has always shot left-handed. Gun use seems to be more an issue of which EYE is dominant (I'm right-handed and right-eyed, my father ir right-handed and left-eyed).
That said, most guns can be acquired in left-handed and/or ambidextrous versions. Molded grips and whatnot are eminently replacable with left-handed versions, many, if not most, safeties can be replaced with a mirror image, and it is even possible to get a slide that has the efection port to the left, if you're willing to go to the trouble.
Yes, and there were many other tests. Go to Wikipedia and look up "Nuclear Testing."
Yah, I know about our other tests. I was referring only to the WW2 weapons.
I had understood that we never built a U-235 imposion bomb. I can find only one clear reference to one (the Iraqis were trying to make one), and several mentions of U-235 secondaries on early Hydrogen bombs.
In addition, some of the hydrogen bomb testbeds were described as "originally a two stage fission bomb using oralloy (weapons-grade Uranium) core". Unfortunately, it is not clear if that "originally" referred to the bomb as designed, or the bomb as built.
There are, of course, those mentions of U-235 secondaries on hydrogen bombs. Apparently, several early test bombs used U-235 implosion devices as a secondary - not the initial bomb that triggered the fusion, but an implosion device set amidst the fusionables, that was imploded by the detonation of the primary fission device, in order to enhance the fusion effects.
The reference in "Dark Sun" is, as far as I can tell, to such a secondary implosion device.
Note that the weapons so described do not mention the nature of the primary fission device, which could have been oralloy (U235), Pu, or one of the RACER cores (Pu with D-T in the middle, which D-T enhanced the fissioning of the Pu by providing lots of extra neutrons, thus allowing for smaller bombs). It is quite possible that some of those early testbeds used U-235 implosion devices as primaries.
I am also reminded of the Atomic Annie (which I saw in a museum in Fort Sill many year ago), the first atomic artillery piece. That weapon used U-235, in a gun assembly similar to the Hiroshima bomb.
The test bomb was Plutonium, the Hiroshima bomb was Uranium, the Nagasaki bomb was plutonium.
Uranium-238 was used in the jacket of the first hydrogen bomb (a three stage, fission-fusion-fission device), but I've never heard of it being used in another atomic bomb - we didn't have enough enriched uranium in WW2, and after, Plutonium was the clearly better choice.
Re:... there'd be no "controversy" - baloney
on
Buggy Voting Machines
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
Clinton won twice with far greater margins
Of course, Clinton never quite managed a majority of the vote. 43% and 49%, as I recall.
Re:Does /. want endorsements from the NY Times?
on
Buggy Voting Machines
·
· Score: 1
And if you look at the statistics of who votes, you can see that it's the ignorant (less schooling) and religious (christian only) who voted for Bush.
Actually, from CNN's exit polls, you see that Bush did well among people with High School diplomas, some college, and college graduates (52, 54, 52% respectively).
Kerry did well among people in Postgraduate "study", and edged Bush out among people who didn't have a high school education.
Interestingly, though Bush only got 49% of the non high school graduates to vote for him, the change from 2000 results indicated that Gore had an overwhelming majority of non-HS graduates voting for him (Bush's vote in that demographic increased from 39% in 2000 to 49% now).
Note further that ~65% of the people who voted for Bush did NOT describe themselves as "Born Again", though Bush did carry the "Born Again" demographic quite solidly.
Finally, note that Bush carried the "Military Veteran" demographic, and the "Married" demographic, with 57% in each case. I wonder what it says about Kerry that unmarried people like him more than married people? Or that the Military Veterans disliked him in droves?
Interestingly, it looks like Bush won the election based on the Cities, even though he didn't get a majority (or even a plurality) in that demographic. But he made strong gains from 2000 in the cities (from 35% to 45%)....
In general, your summation is reasonable. A few quibbles:
which is a collection of metal-sheathed fuel rods immersed in water and probably in excess of 2500 degrees.
Not that hot. it would be melting at that temperature. Try 500 degrees as a ballpark figure.
Nuclear bombs are extremely complicated devices, and while I don't know the specifics (for obvious reasons) I am sure that creating one is not nearly as simple as "Take lots of radioactive stuff and put it all together and it'll explode!"
Fission bombs ar remarkably simple devices, really. Actually, if you can manage to make two pieces of weapons-grade Uranium, each about 75% of critical mass, and smash them together really fast, you get a nice boom. The Hiroshima bomb was built like that. Efficient fission bombs are complicated. We've not built a bomb like the Hiroshima bomb since, well, the Hiroshima bomb. The implosion type of bomb is much more difficult to make (though it must be noted that it can be done with 1940's technology), and becomes even more difficult when you start trimming the amount of nuclear material (a euphemism for Plutonium or Uranium, though we haven't used Uranium since the Hiroshima bomb) to what are normally sub-critical amounts.
Umm, nuclear plans go "critical" whenever they are operating. "Critical" just means it is producing as many neutrons as the process is consuming.
As an extension, "super-critical" means that the process is producing more neutrons than are being consumed. That is, the fission rate (power output) is increasing. Nuclear plants do that regularly also.
A meltdown, or similar failure, doesn't actually require ciriticality (though being critical makes it easier to happen), it requires loss of cooling. If the reactor is critical (or sub-critical but recently critical, or super-critical), and all the coolant is withdrawn, it can get hot enough to melt the fuel rods. Note that in a properly designed reactor, the coolant is a moderator, and loss of coolant automagically shuts down the reaction. But the decay heat of fission products doesn't magically go away....
Too bad we have a third party on our primary ballots, else I would believe you.
They get elected often? You have a Libertarian Congresscritter, perhaps? Senator? I just checked, and I can't find one in either house of your State Congress. How odd that your current system hasn't managed to produce a single third Party Senator/Congressman, with 147 total members
No. Stop making things up. It is as I said. The parties can choose their own candidate, and even if they do not participate in the primaries, the state would hold it without them, and decide for them who their candidate is.
So, the State could force a candidate down the Parties' throats? And this is part of your preferred system? Isn't that interesting, as a look at the inner workings of politics?
Because the people of that party get to decide who they let represent them. This is the concept of right to association, and it is a Constitutional right that the Supreme Court has upheld. If we, the members of the group, decide we don't want you to represent our group, then you may not represent our group.
And if half the people in your group want you to represent them, and half want me, which half gets to keep the name? Your half, or mine?
Presumably, if 15% of your Party picked a Nazi to represent them, you'd be behind him? After all, it's the system you wanted, isn't it? the winner of a plurality of the vote gets to represent EVERYONE in the Party, whether they like it or not! Great system, really great!
Note to self - if I ever want to become dictaor for life, start in Washington state, join a Party, then get about a dozen good friends to run against me in the Primary. That'll dilute the vote of the opposition enough that I can easily win the nomination of the Party, and proceed with the *Master Plan to Take Over the World"* (Pinky - What are we doing tonight? the Brain "same as we do every night- try to take over the world")
You would strip away my personal right to association. Shame on you.
And you strip away said rights from the members of your Party who don't win that plurality of the Primary votes. Shame on you.
What's exceptionally odd is that you are virulently anti-party, and yet you think it is so important that someone get to wear the label of a party, perhaps even against the will of the people of that party. Why do you care so much about party affiliations, when you hate parties so much?
*laughs* No, I'm not anti-Party. I'm indifferent to Party. Party is what people do when they can't think very well for themselves. I can, so I neither need nor want them, but by all means, keep your Party, if it makes you feel better.
In YOUR system, people have to get approval of the Party to get on the ballot.
Why do you keep saying such patently false things? There is nothing true in that statement. Anyone can get on the ballot if they have enough signatures: all that they cannot do without the approval of the people of a party is say they are affiliated with that party.
So, if 15% of the Party approves of me, that's sufficient endorsement? How about 14%? 13%? Keep in mind a Party Primary with 10 candidates could easily result in a "winner" with 14% of the Party favouring him/her/it. So, if you have 14% of the Party behind you, you have "the approval of the Party", but if I have 12% behind me, I don't? Why would that be? Why couldn't those million (or however many it works out to in your state) people claim to be Republicans, and declare me THEIR candidate? Do you have a Trademark on the name?
As to why I say such things, I'm possibly older than you, and read more history than you. I know perfectly well that the guys who run the Parties have a great deal of influence on such things. Of course, it helps that local politics here are notably corrupt, so I get to see the seamier side of things.
I think you're right that the states should not be funding the primary. But that they choose to does not mean anything in regard to who should be able to choose the candidates who will represent that party.
You keep talking about this like it's the issue, but it is not. The state does not have to pay for a primary, that is its choice.
You DO understand that the States' decision to fund Primaries was made by the Republicans and Democrats in the local state governments, right? The decision wasn't made in order to "better choose the candidate", it was made to "better lock out the third parties".
And note that in WA, even if the parties do choose their own candidates outside the primary, someone else could win the primary and get to represent that party on the general election ballot, against the party's wishes.
Only if you have a State-funded Primary. Which you wouldn't have if the two Major Parties hadn't thought it would help them.
NO reason that the Voters should be forbidden to vote for Edwin Edwards just because the Democratic Party didn't approve of him.
That's absolutely true. They can either write him in, or nominate him as the candidate of another party with enough signatures, or get enough signatures to get him on as an independent.
So, he wants to run as a Democrat, since he is a member of that Party. Why should he be forbidden to? Why should your desire to have only one Dem candidate prevent a card-carrying (do people still do that?) Democrat from running if he wishes to, even if the "Party" doesn't want him to.
Everyone gets on the ballot the same way. Everyone. You get enough people to give you their signature, and you get on the ballot. What could be more democratic? But this system destroys that, by taking my signature and giving it to someone I did not pledge it to.
Everyone gets on the ballot the same way. Everyone. You get enough people to give you their signature, and you get on the ballot. What could be more democratic? You're describing the Louisiana system, not your own. In YOUR system, people have to get approval of the Party to get on the ballot. Here, they don't.
Of course, it might be seen as infringing on the Rights of the other four Dems, who thought that they could do the job better then the one
How could it be seen that way? They do not have a right to my signature. I give it to the party who acts as a proxy.
So, you let the Party run your life? Great system. Me, I ignore the Party, and manage just fine. When I vote, I pick a Candidate who mostly agrees with me without looking at his Party. Because his Party isn't really as important as that he mostly agrees with me.
You work under the assumption that the Party is some monolithic entity. Which, I suppose, is why the Parties are becoming less inclusive, and more exclusive these days. Conservative Democrat? Hardly to be found. Liberal Republican? Likewise. Once upon a time, both Parties had Liberal and Conservative wings. And we didn't have one Party dominating national politics to this extent.
And yet you would steal the signature I promised to the choice of the Republican party, and give it to someone else entirely. What about my rights?
You can still vote for the guy you wanted to vote for. And *I* can vote for the guy *I* wanted to vote for, even if 51% of the Republicans didn't like him! What a concept! Allowing me to vote for a Republican (or Dem, I tend to split about 50-50, most years) that didn't get the "stamp of approval" of the Party bosses. And don't think that the Party bosses don't have a say in which candidates you get to select from. After all, they were running things back when the original Primary laws were written.
The Parties have flimflammed you into believing that THEIR interests come ahead of YOUR interests.
I am a member of the party, and it is there *for the purpose of* representing my interests. Whe
This is a bit of a myth. Fact is, the USA military wasn't in condition to fight the Japanese much earlier than we did.
At the time of the Rape of Nanking, the US Pacific Fleet was smaller than the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the entire US Army was smaller than the Imperial Japanese Army. And our Air Force (Army Air Corps then) hardly existed.
And this discounts qualitative differences, since the USA had only recently begun modernizing its military at that time.
For instance, the USA had fewer than 361 tanks at that time (361 is total delivered of all models that were operational in that period. Deliveries would have occurred both before and after that time), and none of those tanks were more capable than the Panzer 1, which was designed as a training machine.
No battleships more recent than the end of WW1.
Two aircraft carriers less than ten years old, and four overall.
We had 36 bombers.
The obsolete fighters being destroyed by the Japanese in 1941 were the replacements for the fighters being flown at the time of the Rape of Nanking. And we had fewer then 76 of them then (76 were ordered, the last delivered came sometime after the Rape of Nanking, but I don't know how many of the 76 were operational at that time.)
If the USA had gone to war over Nanking, it is possible that the Japanese would have backed off. It is far more likely that they would have kicked the crap out of us, and forced a rather embarrassing peace down our throats.
Can't argue with those, much. Of course, it disenfranchises the minority within a political Party, since they have to suffer through the candidate picked by the majority of that Party.
As long as the taxpayers don't have to pay for a Primary, I don't really give a rat's hind leg how the Parties pick their guy(s). Nor do I much care how you pick people to be on the ballot.
Just remember, when you place the Party above the Man, you're helping the "Ebhil Two Party" system. and you're not actually helping anyone at all. Except the Party hacks.
The point is, humans have never created a structure that can last even the previous standard of 10,000 years.
You mispoke. We have never created a structure that HAS lasted the previous ten thousand years. Not quite the same as one that CAN. There is no reason to believe that the Great Pyramid will be gone in 5000 years, it's stood the last 5000 quite nicely, losing only its outer facade.
Of course you realize that that answer applies equally well to ANY problem. Global Warming, the next Ice Age, pollution, whatever.
When someone complains, we'll just say "don't worry, in a century, technology will be better able to solve the problem. For now, you can just suffer..."
Yeah, because it is so ludicrous that a group of people should get to choose who represents that group on the ballot. Sorry, you're not making any sense. You are weakening the voters by giving them less opportunity to get someone on the ballot. You think a party is not comprised of a group of people with like interests; you think this system is not open to ANY group of people that wishes to participate in a like manner. You think wrong.
Indeed? The taxpayers should foot the bill to allow some subset to choose the person favoured by a subset of the subset want on the ballot? Makes no sense at all. You can choose who represents YOU on the ballot in any fashion you like. You just can't restrict MY right to choose who represents ME, even by the artifice of holding a "Party Primary" for the purpose of excluding the minority of your own Party.
Last Congressional election, we had seven candidates on the ballot, as I recall. Five Democrats, two Republicans. How is anyone being disenfranchised there?
If the Lousiana Democratic Party wanted to pay for a Party Caucus, or send ballots to all registered Democrats, I'm sure they could have done so, if they only wanted one Democrat running. Same for the Republicans. No reason the State should foot the bill for an issue that is purely internal to the Party. NO reason that the Voters should be forbidden to vote for Edwin Edwards just because the Democratic Party didn't approve of him
Note, for the record, that the Dems approved of Edwards completely, and my choice of his name in this example is in no way meant to malign him - his conviction on various corruption charges later does that quite nicely.
Note further that his opponent in that race was a Nazi/KKK'er. The downside of the open system we use is that it tends to select for people a bit less middle-of-the-road. Being blah about everything doesn't tend to catch the voters' attention very well. Standing and speaking your mind works better, unless you are spouting complete nonsense - David Duke had to tone his previous rhetoric down a LOT to make himself acceptable to enough voters to reach the runoff. Lucky for us we'd rather have a crook than a Nazi....
Of course, it might be seen as infringing on the Rights of the other four Dems, who thought that they could do the job better then the one (who would have won the Primary, if we'd done it that way). I tend to think that individual civil rights matter more than the Parties' "civil rights".
we don't weaken voters by giving them LESS opportunity to get people on the ballot. There are generally MORE people on the ballot here than in other places. We're pretty easy about getting on a ballot here - we had at least eight Presidential candidates on our last ballot - how many were there in Washington State?
The Parties have flimflammed you into believing that THEIR interests come ahead of YOUR interests. I want the two best candidates to be in the runoff, not have a Superbowl sort of thing, where the best team from one Conference plays the best from the other (and the second best team overall stays home, because they were in the same Conference as the best team, which happens more often than not). Our system pretty much guarantees that, by making Party affiliation irrelevant to the ballots. YOu can choose to vote for someone whose ideas you like, and associate with like-minded people all you want. But Louisiana won't help you force YOUR ideas on the general public. If your guy is popular enough, he'll get the votes, no matter the Party.
If the two most popular guys are Republican, there won't be a Dem on the runoff ballot. If they're Dems, no Rep in the runoff. If they're Libertarian, neither Dems nor Reps. Here, it's all about ideas, not about Parties. We don't care whether the guy with the good ideas is a Dem or Rep or Lib or Green, and none of those characteristics make someone more or less electable here. Unlike, say, Washington, where if 51% of the Republicans don't like someone, he won't get o
It's clearly labels. Just depends on how the law defines "general election" and "primary". In our system, we call it an "election" and a "runoff". Runoff is required if no candidate gets a majority of the vote, not otherwise.
Now, if Washington intends to have what we would call a runoff (and they would call an Election) no matter the result of what we would call the election (and they would call a Primary), then there is a noticable difference, and I can see the Courts coming down hard on them. Course, they could change to our system....
Note that we don't have "primaries", because it's not the State's business to pay for a political Party to choose a candidate. They can choose their candidate(s) in any way they choose, without the State spending a dime on their behalf.
Scalia's theory that the State has an obligation to spend millions of dollars to help the Parties choose their candidates is frankly ludicrous. The "Primary" was just a way of foisting the cost of the Party selection process off on the taxpayers.
Note further that national Parties REALLY don't like our system, and REALLY don't want the idea to spread - it weakens the political Parties, and strengthens the Voters at their expense. Which is enough reason for me to approve the system wholeheartedly.
Well, not quite. We don't make Party relevant in our state and local elections (and remember, President is the only National election in the USA), though we are nice enough to list their Party affiliation on the ballot, if they want us to.
I should have said "someone building a launch vehicle with a scramjet doesn't care." The engine designer may care, but the launch vehicle designer just cares about his Isp and the amount of tankage he needs to design in.
I'm curious. Exactly how is it different, other than a few labels?
We have an election, top two vote getters go to runoff.
you have a primary, top two vote getters go to election.
I don't know anything abuot the WA system other than what is posted here, so I'd like to learn why your's is bad, and our's is good (and has survived court challenges, as I recall).
Ah, practical considerations always have to interfere with basic chemistry;) Now I wonder what the optimal ratio is for a waverider scramjet... it has a nonstandard asymmetric "nozzle", so I wonder if it goes back to 9:1, or at least approaches it? It'd be interesting to find out, because that's the number that really matters. In a waverider design like the X-43, it's the hypersonic shocks that do the compression for you.
For a scramjet, the whole question is moot. A scramjet doesn't carry oxidizer onboard, it uses the atmosphere. Most likely, it gets near 100% combustion of the H2. Of course, that is irrelevant, since it has an unlimited quantity of free oxidizer....
Wikipedia says that the shuttle uses a constant 6:1 ratio:
I'll take your word for that. It's been nearly 20 years since I cared enough to check this sort of thing. Perhaps the 5:1 was just Saturn, perhaps the original Shuttle mixture was changed in the decades since then.
Also, this page states that you're wrong about the reason for running fuel rich:
Interesting. Now I need to get the book referred to therein. Reason I gave was the one I got out of my college textbook, let's see, 25 years ago. From the beginning of the comment, it's still a not-uncommon belief, so whomever wrote that old textbook must not have been called on it often.
Interesting idea, that. Of course, the fact that Louisiana has been using this system for decades (well, longer than I've lived there) seems to contradict your theory.
Note that we don't open up our Primaries to anyone, we just don't have Primaries, per se. Anyone who wants the office can run (five Dems and two Reps this last Senate race, I think), if noone gets a majority (not plurality) of the votes, top two, regardless of party, go to runoff in a month.
Slashdot Mirror
Umm, the Mississippi has been forced to do so by the Army Corps of Engineers. It has been constrained for some time against its "natural inclination" to shift over into the Atchafalaya, leaving New Orleans high and dry.
Well, leaving New Orleans low and soggy - it's still in a swamp. But no longer relevant as a port, anyway...
Interestingly, gun use seems not to be solidly connected to handedness. My father, who is right-handed, has always shot left-handed. Gun use seems to be more an issue of which EYE is dominant (I'm right-handed and right-eyed, my father ir right-handed and left-eyed).
That said, most guns can be acquired in left-handed and/or ambidextrous versions. Molded grips and whatnot are eminently replacable with left-handed versions, many, if not most, safeties can be replaced with a mirror image, and it is even possible to get a slide that has the efection port to the left, if you're willing to go to the trouble.
Of course there is. However, one must remember that by the standards of the 1500's, "today's fundamentalist zealot" is quite a liberal thinker.
As an example, keep in mind that in 1500, the Question : Creation or Evolution? hadn't even been conceived.
Always nice to find out something new...
Yah, I know about our other tests. I was referring only to the WW2 weapons.
I had understood that we never built a U-235 imposion bomb. I can find only one clear reference to one (the Iraqis were trying to make one), and several mentions of U-235 secondaries on early Hydrogen bombs.
In addition, some of the hydrogen bomb testbeds were described as "originally a two stage fission bomb using oralloy (weapons-grade Uranium) core". Unfortunately, it is not clear if that "originally" referred to the bomb as designed, or the bomb as built.
There are, of course, those mentions of U-235 secondaries on hydrogen bombs. Apparently, several early test bombs used U-235 implosion devices as a secondary - not the initial bomb that triggered the fusion, but an implosion device set amidst the fusionables, that was imploded by the detonation of the primary fission device, in order to enhance the fusion effects.
The reference in "Dark Sun" is, as far as I can tell, to such a secondary implosion device.
Note that the weapons so described do not mention the nature of the primary fission device, which could have been oralloy (U235), Pu, or one of the RACER cores (Pu with D-T in the middle, which D-T enhanced the fissioning of the Pu by providing lots of extra neutrons, thus allowing for smaller bombs). It is quite possible that some of those early testbeds used U-235 implosion devices as primaries.
I am also reminded of the Atomic Annie (which I saw in a museum in Fort Sill many year ago), the first atomic artillery piece. That weapon used U-235, in a gun assembly similar to the Hiroshima bomb.
Uranium-238 was used in the jacket of the first hydrogen bomb (a three stage, fission-fusion-fission device), but I've never heard of it being used in another atomic bomb - we didn't have enough enriched uranium in WW2, and after, Plutonium was the clearly better choice.
Of course, Clinton never quite managed a majority of the vote. 43% and 49%, as I recall.
Actually, from CNN's exit polls, you see that Bush did well among people with High School diplomas, some college, and college graduates (52, 54, 52% respectively).
Kerry did well among people in Postgraduate "study", and edged Bush out among people who didn't have a high school education.
Interestingly, though Bush only got 49% of the non high school graduates to vote for him, the change from 2000 results indicated that Gore had an overwhelming majority of non-HS graduates voting for him (Bush's vote in that demographic increased from 39% in 2000 to 49% now).
Note further that ~65% of the people who voted for Bush did NOT describe themselves as "Born Again", though Bush did carry the "Born Again" demographic quite solidly.
Finally, note that Bush carried the "Military Veteran" demographic, and the "Married" demographic, with 57% in each case. I wonder what it says about Kerry that unmarried people like him more than married people? Or that the Military Veterans disliked him in droves?
Interestingly, it looks like Bush won the election based on the Cities, even though he didn't get a majority (or even a plurality) in that demographic. But he made strong gains from 2000 in the cities (from 35% to 45%)....
which is a collection of metal-sheathed fuel rods immersed in water and probably in excess of 2500 degrees.
Not that hot. it would be melting at that temperature. Try 500 degrees as a ballpark figure.
Nuclear bombs are extremely complicated devices, and while I don't know the specifics (for obvious reasons) I am sure that creating one is not nearly as simple as "Take lots of radioactive stuff and put it all together and it'll explode!"
Fission bombs ar remarkably simple devices, really. Actually, if you can manage to make two pieces of weapons-grade Uranium, each about 75% of critical mass, and smash them together really fast, you get a nice boom. The Hiroshima bomb was built like that. Efficient fission bombs are complicated. We've not built a bomb like the Hiroshima bomb since, well, the Hiroshima bomb. The implosion type of bomb is much more difficult to make (though it must be noted that it can be done with 1940's technology), and becomes even more difficult when you start trimming the amount of nuclear material (a euphemism for Plutonium or Uranium, though we haven't used Uranium since the Hiroshima bomb) to what are normally sub-critical amounts.
As an extension, "super-critical" means that the process is producing more neutrons than are being consumed. That is, the fission rate (power output) is increasing. Nuclear plants do that regularly also.
A meltdown, or similar failure, doesn't actually require ciriticality (though being critical makes it easier to happen), it requires loss of cooling. If the reactor is critical (or sub-critical but recently critical, or super-critical), and all the coolant is withdrawn, it can get hot enough to melt the fuel rods. Note that in a properly designed reactor, the coolant is a moderator, and loss of coolant automagically shuts down the reaction. But the decay heat of fission products doesn't magically go away....
They get elected often? You have a Libertarian Congresscritter, perhaps? Senator? I just checked, and I can't find one in either house of your State Congress. How odd that your current system hasn't managed to produce a single third Party Senator/Congressman, with 147 total members
No. Stop making things up. It is as I said. The parties can choose their own candidate, and even if they do not participate in the primaries, the state would hold it without them, and decide for them who their candidate is.
So, the State could force a candidate down the Parties' throats? And this is part of your preferred system? Isn't that interesting, as a look at the inner workings of politics?
Because the people of that party get to decide who they let represent them. This is the concept of right to association, and it is a Constitutional right that the Supreme Court has upheld. If we, the members of the group, decide we don't want you to represent our group, then you may not represent our group.
And if half the people in your group want you to represent them, and half want me, which half gets to keep the name? Your half, or mine?
Presumably, if 15% of your Party picked a Nazi to represent them, you'd be behind him? After all, it's the system you wanted, isn't it? the winner of a plurality of the vote gets to represent EVERYONE in the Party, whether they like it or not! Great system, really great!
Note to self - if I ever want to become dictaor for life, start in Washington state, join a Party, then get about a dozen good friends to run against me in the Primary. That'll dilute the vote of the opposition enough that I can easily win the nomination of the Party, and proceed with the *Master Plan to Take Over the World"* (Pinky - What are we doing tonight? the Brain "same as we do every night- try to take over the world")
You would strip away my personal right to association. Shame on you.
And you strip away said rights from the members of your Party who don't win that plurality of the Primary votes. Shame on you.
What's exceptionally odd is that you are virulently anti-party, and yet you think it is so important that someone get to wear the label of a party, perhaps even against the will of the people of that party. Why do you care so much about party affiliations, when you hate parties so much?
*laughs* No, I'm not anti-Party. I'm indifferent to Party. Party is what people do when they can't think very well for themselves. I can, so I neither need nor want them, but by all means, keep your Party, if it makes you feel better.
In YOUR system, people have to get approval of the Party to get on the ballot.
Why do you keep saying such patently false things? There is nothing true in that statement. Anyone can get on the ballot if they have enough signatures: all that they cannot do without the approval of the people of a party is say they are affiliated with that party.
So, if 15% of the Party approves of me, that's sufficient endorsement? How about 14%? 13%? Keep in mind a Party Primary with 10 candidates could easily result in a "winner" with 14% of the Party favouring him/her/it. So, if you have 14% of the Party behind you, you have "the approval of the Party", but if I have 12% behind me, I don't? Why would that be? Why couldn't those million (or however many it works out to in your state) people claim to be Republicans, and declare me THEIR candidate? Do you have a Trademark on the name?
As to why I say such things, I'm possibly older than you, and read more history than you. I know perfectly well that the guys who run the Parties have a great deal of influence on such things. Of course, it helps that local politics here are notably corrupt, so I get to see the seamier side of things.
So, have you stopped beating your mother?
Wife. It's "have you stopped beati
Seriously, blowing things off till your children have to pay for your misjudgements is a bad idea. A not unusual idea, but bad, nonetheless.
Another? Did I even use that word? If so, could you point it out?
You keep talking about this like it's the issue, but it is not. The state does not have to pay for a primary, that is its choice.
You DO understand that the States' decision to fund Primaries was made by the Republicans and Democrats in the local state governments, right? The decision wasn't made in order to "better choose the candidate", it was made to "better lock out the third parties".
And note that in WA, even if the parties do choose their own candidates outside the primary, someone else could win the primary and get to represent that party on the general election ballot, against the party's wishes.
Only if you have a State-funded Primary. Which you wouldn't have if the two Major Parties hadn't thought it would help them.
NO reason that the Voters should be forbidden to vote for Edwin Edwards just because the Democratic Party didn't approve of him.
That's absolutely true. They can either write him in, or nominate him as the candidate of another party with enough signatures, or get enough signatures to get him on as an independent.
So, he wants to run as a Democrat, since he is a member of that Party. Why should he be forbidden to? Why should your desire to have only one Dem candidate prevent a card-carrying (do people still do that?) Democrat from running if he wishes to, even if the "Party" doesn't want him to.
Everyone gets on the ballot the same way. Everyone. You get enough people to give you their signature, and you get on the ballot. What could be more democratic? But this system destroys that, by taking my signature and giving it to someone I did not pledge it to.
Everyone gets on the ballot the same way. Everyone. You get enough people to give you their signature, and you get on the ballot. What could be more democratic? You're describing the Louisiana system, not your own. In YOUR system, people have to get approval of the Party to get on the ballot. Here, they don't.
Of course, it might be seen as infringing on the Rights of the other four Dems, who thought that they could do the job better then the one
How could it be seen that way? They do not have a right to my signature. I give it to the party who acts as a proxy.
So, you let the Party run your life? Great system. Me, I ignore the Party, and manage just fine. When I vote, I pick a Candidate who mostly agrees with me without looking at his Party. Because his Party isn't really as important as that he mostly agrees with me.
You work under the assumption that the Party is some monolithic entity. Which, I suppose, is why the Parties are becoming less inclusive, and more exclusive these days. Conservative Democrat? Hardly to be found. Liberal Republican? Likewise. Once upon a time, both Parties had Liberal and Conservative wings. And we didn't have one Party dominating national politics to this extent.
And yet you would steal the signature I promised to the choice of the Republican party, and give it to someone else entirely. What about my rights?
You can still vote for the guy you wanted to vote for. And *I* can vote for the guy *I* wanted to vote for, even if 51% of the Republicans didn't like him! What a concept! Allowing me to vote for a Republican (or Dem, I tend to split about 50-50, most years) that didn't get the "stamp of approval" of the Party bosses. And don't think that the Party bosses don't have a say in which candidates you get to select from. After all, they were running things back when the original Primary laws were written.
The Parties have flimflammed you into believing that THEIR interests come ahead of YOUR interests.
I am a member of the party, and it is there *for the purpose of* representing my interests. Whe
At the time of the Rape of Nanking, the US Pacific Fleet was smaller than the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the entire US Army was smaller than the Imperial Japanese Army. And our Air Force (Army Air Corps then) hardly existed.
And this discounts qualitative differences, since the USA had only recently begun modernizing its military at that time.
For instance, the USA had fewer than 361 tanks at that time (361 is total delivered of all models that were operational in that period. Deliveries would have occurred both before and after that time), and none of those tanks were more capable than the Panzer 1, which was designed as a training machine.
No battleships more recent than the end of WW1.
Two aircraft carriers less than ten years old, and four overall.
We had 36 bombers.
The obsolete fighters being destroyed by the Japanese in 1941 were the replacements for the fighters being flown at the time of the Rape of Nanking. And we had fewer then 76 of them then (76 were ordered, the last delivered came sometime after the Rape of Nanking, but I don't know how many of the 76 were operational at that time.)
If the USA had gone to war over Nanking, it is possible that the Japanese would have backed off. It is far more likely that they would have kicked the crap out of us, and forced a rather embarrassing peace down our throats.
As long as the taxpayers don't have to pay for a Primary, I don't really give a rat's hind leg how the Parties pick their guy(s). Nor do I much care how you pick people to be on the ballot.
Just remember, when you place the Party above the Man, you're helping the "Ebhil Two Party" system. and you're not actually helping anyone at all. Except the Party hacks.
You mispoke. We have never created a structure that HAS lasted the previous ten thousand years. Not quite the same as one that CAN. There is no reason to believe that the Great Pyramid will be gone in 5000 years, it's stood the last 5000 quite nicely, losing only its outer facade.
When someone complains, we'll just say "don't worry, in a century, technology will be better able to solve the problem. For now, you can just suffer..."
Indeed? The taxpayers should foot the bill to allow some subset to choose the person favoured by a subset of the subset want on the ballot? Makes no sense at all. You can choose who represents YOU on the ballot in any fashion you like. You just can't restrict MY right to choose who represents ME, even by the artifice of holding a "Party Primary" for the purpose of excluding the minority of your own Party.
Last Congressional election, we had seven candidates on the ballot, as I recall. Five Democrats, two Republicans. How is anyone being disenfranchised there?
If the Lousiana Democratic Party wanted to pay for a Party Caucus, or send ballots to all registered Democrats, I'm sure they could have done so, if they only wanted one Democrat running. Same for the Republicans. No reason the State should foot the bill for an issue that is purely internal to the Party. NO reason that the Voters should be forbidden to vote for Edwin Edwards just because the Democratic Party didn't approve of him
Note, for the record, that the Dems approved of Edwards completely, and my choice of his name in this example is in no way meant to malign him - his conviction on various corruption charges later does that quite nicely.
Note further that his opponent in that race was a Nazi/KKK'er. The downside of the open system we use is that it tends to select for people a bit less middle-of-the-road. Being blah about everything doesn't tend to catch the voters' attention very well. Standing and speaking your mind works better, unless you are spouting complete nonsense - David Duke had to tone his previous rhetoric down a LOT to make himself acceptable to enough voters to reach the runoff. Lucky for us we'd rather have a crook than a Nazi....
Of course, it might be seen as infringing on the Rights of the other four Dems, who thought that they could do the job better then the one (who would have won the Primary, if we'd done it that way). I tend to think that individual civil rights matter more than the Parties' "civil rights".
we don't weaken voters by giving them LESS opportunity to get people on the ballot. There are generally MORE people on the ballot here than in other places. We're pretty easy about getting on a ballot here - we had at least eight Presidential candidates on our last ballot - how many were there in Washington State?
The Parties have flimflammed you into believing that THEIR interests come ahead of YOUR interests. I want the two best candidates to be in the runoff, not have a Superbowl sort of thing, where the best team from one Conference plays the best from the other (and the second best team overall stays home, because they were in the same Conference as the best team, which happens more often than not). Our system pretty much guarantees that, by making Party affiliation irrelevant to the ballots. YOu can choose to vote for someone whose ideas you like, and associate with like-minded people all you want. But Louisiana won't help you force YOUR ideas on the general public. If your guy is popular enough, he'll get the votes, no matter the Party.
If the two most popular guys are Republican, there won't be a Dem on the runoff ballot. If they're Dems, no Rep in the runoff. If they're Libertarian, neither Dems nor Reps. Here, it's all about ideas, not about Parties. We don't care whether the guy with the good ideas is a Dem or Rep or Lib or Green, and none of those characteristics make someone more or less electable here. Unlike, say, Washington, where if 51% of the Republicans don't like someone, he won't get o
Now, if Washington intends to have what we would call a runoff (and they would call an Election) no matter the result of what we would call the election (and they would call a Primary), then there is a noticable difference, and I can see the Courts coming down hard on them. Course, they could change to our system....
Note that we don't have "primaries", because it's not the State's business to pay for a political Party to choose a candidate. They can choose their candidate(s) in any way they choose, without the State spending a dime on their behalf.
Scalia's theory that the State has an obligation to spend millions of dollars to help the Parties choose their candidates is frankly ludicrous. The "Primary" was just a way of foisting the cost of the Party selection process off on the taxpayers.
Note further that national Parties REALLY don't like our system, and REALLY don't want the idea to spread - it weakens the political Parties, and strengthens the Voters at their expense. Which is enough reason for me to approve the system wholeheartedly.
Well, not quite. We don't make Party relevant in our state and local elections (and remember, President is the only National election in the USA), though we are nice enough to list their Party affiliation on the ballot, if they want us to.
Works quite well, we think.
I should have said "someone building a launch vehicle with a scramjet doesn't care." The engine designer may care, but the launch vehicle designer just cares about his Isp and the amount of tankage he needs to design in.
We have an election, top two vote getters go to runoff.
you have a primary, top two vote getters go to election.
I don't know anything abuot the WA system other than what is posted here, so I'd like to learn why your's is bad, and our's is good (and has survived court challenges, as I recall).
Wikipedia says that the shuttle uses a constant 6:1 ratio:
I'll take your word for that. It's been nearly 20 years since I cared enough to check this sort of thing. Perhaps the 5:1 was just Saturn, perhaps the original Shuttle mixture was changed in the decades since then.
Also, this page states that you're wrong about the reason for running fuel rich:
Interesting. Now I need to get the book referred to therein. Reason I gave was the one I got out of my college textbook, let's see, 25 years ago. From the beginning of the comment, it's still a not-uncommon belief, so whomever wrote that old textbook must not have been called on it often.
Note that we don't open up our Primaries to anyone, we just don't have Primaries, per se. Anyone who wants the office can run (five Dems and two Reps this last Senate race, I think), if noone gets a majority (not plurality) of the votes, top two, regardless of party, go to runoff in a month.