A modern politician flips a coin and if it comes up heads he'll be a republican - tails he'll be a democrat
Umm, no. Actually, there is a bit more thought to it than that. For instance, the politician-to-be might ask himself the following questions:
1) Is my district overwhelmingly Democrat or Republican?
2) Is the incumbent a Democrat or Republican?
3) Does the incumbent plan to retire soon?
If, for example, the answers to the above questions are Yes (dem), Dem, and Yes, then obviously you become a Democrat.
If, on the other hand, they are No, Dem, No, then you become a Republican.
Now, it's generally true that, other than the extreme left and right, the poiticians in either Party chose their Party for purely pragmatic reasons, not because of idealogy.
1) Its taxation system was designed to destroy its tax base,
2) There was this nasty plague,
3) The Empire had no system for picking Emperors beyond "the guy who wins the Civil War after the last Emperor died". Note though, that they had a working system for a while, and abandoned it when one of the Emperors decided to stop using it, and let his son inherit.
4) There were these barbarians living beyond the borders who wanted the good stuff like the Romans had.
Add all those things together, and the WESTERN Empire fell. The Eastern Empire lasted another thousand years, finally falling to this Turkish army that wanted the good stuff like the Romans had.
Yeah, which means someone else probably did it. Now, lets see... who has a vested interest in and history of suppressing votes in florida... rrr.... reee.... repuh.... republi.... republicaaa... (note: the completion of this word is left as an excersize to anyone with at least one functioning brain cell).
Let's see. Who has the capability to snarf up a bunch of ballots. The County Election Supervisor? In case you were wondering, her name is Brenda C. Snipes. Oddly enough, she's a Democrat.
Who else could do it? One of her employess, perhaps. Not sure how that could actually happen, since it is unlikely that the Eelection Supervisor's office would hand 58,000 envelopes to their gopher and say "drop these at the Post Office on your way home, will you?". If only because 58,000 absentee ballots probably weighs in at 5+ tons. So, likely enough the Post Office picks the stuff up from the Office.
Now, the USPS guy who picked it up could be a Republican who is stupid enough to believe he can "lose" 5 tons of mail without anyone noticing. It's not terribly likely, given the amount of noise being made about voting irregularities these days, but it is possible.
Oddly enough, the article mentions a police investigation, which, so far, "has not uncovered any evidence of criminal wrongdoing."
Won't it be funny if this reduces down to Ms. Snipes saying "Oops! We told the USPS it was the pallet in Warehouse 2, when it was actually the pallet in Warehouse 1 they should have picked up. My bad"?
Don't official policies get based on promises made by/during political campaigns?
In a word, no. At least not in the USA.
During the campaign, both candidates try their best, with a straight face, to promise that everyone who votes for them will get to spend a night with the Swedish Bikini Team (or the equivalent male group, if they are so inclined) after the election. In addition to the free Lincoln Towncar, forgiveness of their mortgages and all taxes until the end of time.
Oh, and they'll make you immortal, too!
After the campaign is over, all that is forgotten (including the so-called Party Platform), and the winner gets on to the proper business of government - taking your money, and giving it to someone else.
136 rem/person/year is the estimated radiation dose from coal in America.
I trust you really meant mrem? Or even microrem? Because 136 rem/year would tend to kill the people affected within four to five years.
civilians around Chernobyl received 8.6 million rem/person/year:
You are misunderstanding something you read somewhere. 600 rem is a fatal dose. If civilians near Chernobyl received 8+ million rem each that year, they wouldn't have died, they'd have disolved.
Neutrons, however, are NOT "easily stopped". Neutrons are one of the more damaging forms of ionizing radiation. They are best neutralized by distance or by low-molecular-weight shielding. Such as water. H2 would work quite nicely as well, though keeping the H2 liquid when bombarding it with high-energy neutrons would be entertaining. Neutron-absorbing material, such as reactor control rods are made from, would work as well, if you didn't mind your shielding possibly becoming radioactive.
The 15000 pounds figure is actually the low end of the estimate for one of their three operation modes - the engine can also be used just to supply electrical power for ion drives (much lower thrust, more efficient) or with an "afterburner" of LOX added to the hydrogen (45,000-60,000 pounds thrust, less efficient).
Actually, it is nominal thrust for "straight" nuclear thermal mode. The article mentions 20,000 pounds, as I recall, within the context of two engines, operating at 66%.
O2 afterburner mode is going to be interesting. 200% (they said) increase in thrust, and what's the Specific Impulse? Somewhere between 900+ and 444, hopefully near 600.
Baseball keeps statistics on everything. Number of strikeouts a given batter has against red-headed left-handed pitchers who prefer knuckle-balls, that sort of thing.
The computer is the greatest thing since sliced bread, as far as baseball statistic fans are concerned - even more ability to determine inane statiscs.
1) They don't plan on bringing the reactor back down to earth when they're done with it.
2) Radiation shielding. Interestingly enough, the reaction mass (H2) makes quite good shielding. As does the distance between the reactor and the crew compartment(s) (which will be filled with reaction mass tankage, most likely).
An operating reactor produces somewhere around 1 Curie per Watt output. This reduces to negligible within 48 hours of shutdown.
"Really dense containers" aren't terribly useful for a spacecraft. Nor are they especially useful as shielding. They'll stop alpha/beta/gamma just fine, but are pretty much useless against neutrons.
3) Nuclear material does NOT have an "inert" form. Unless you count a shutdown reactor as "inert". Which it isn't.
Please note that this device is NOT meant to replace the SSME, or any other booster. It is meant for placing some reasonably large mass in a Mars transfer orbit, starting from LEO (or higher).
SS1 didn't use ammonia and rubber. Laughing gas and rubber, but no ammonia.
Nuclear fission isn't evil. It isn't especially dangerous. It won't mutate your kids, or the cows, or the grass. If your first thoughts on hearing the words "nuclear fission" are Chernobyl or Three Mile Island (or even Hiroshima), then you're neither educated nor informed about the subject of nuclear fission.
Did you read the article? It has 15000 pounds of thrust, at nominal output. Totally useless for ground-orbit missions. It is designed to fly from orbit here to orbit somewhere interesting.
White people didn't come to North America for the scenery.
No, they came for the farmland, the sand, the potash, or so they could establish a Theocracy (Massachusetts).
Contrary to popular rumour, we did NOT come here to separate Church and State - that idea came along about 150 years later, when we got around to rebelling against our English Overlords, and had to do something to prevent the 17,123 Christian sects then practiced from going at each other's throats.
Well, no. Monogamy has been the norm (in that almost everyone pacticed it) since the beginning of history.
Polygamy has been practiced by some cultures, generally by the wealthy within those cultures.
Islam, as an example, allows (requires?) four wives, but only wealthy men can do so (not enough women to go around for all of us to have two, much less four).
There are advantages to polygamy, or various extended family formats. There are probably disadvantages also, but most of us wouldn't look farther than two (or more) different women in our beds....
So, after voting for the DMCA (it was unanimous in the Senate), he's now ready to change it. So, did he oppose the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension, I wonder...no, another one that passed unanimously. How about the PATRIOT Act? Wasn't unanimous, but Kerry came down in favour of it.
A Sino / Russian military alliance would EASILY defeat the US Military.
Umm, no. A Sino/Russian military alliance couldn't even reach the USA. It takes control of the seas to put troops here, and neither of them has it.
It also takes the ability to operate at the end of 3000+ mile (5000+ Km) supply lines. Neither of them have that, either.
This ignoring the fact that Gulf War 1 & 2 demonstrated the inadequacy of Soviet weaponry and doctrine for use of same, vis a vis our own weapons and doctrine. And both the Chinese and Russians use Soviet weapons and doctrine.
All the "rest of the World" would have to do is supply arms and munitions to the other side, possibly some troops of there own.
The rest of the world has no meaningful force projection capability, either. Certainly not against US control of the seas. So their troops are irrelevant.
As to their arms and munitions, I should, perhaps, point out that neither the Chinese nor Russians use any weapons currently for sale by European countries. So, the European weapons would be essentially (a) useless, or (b) a logisitics nightmare, therefore (c) unused. Note that I equate European with "rest of the world" in this case, since outside, the USA, China, and Russia, Europe is about the only manufacturer of heavy weapons (tanks, planes, and such).
If Bush gets elected me thinks I need some training with an Assault Rifle, cause there will be War, whether it is a Civil War, or a Sino/Russian invasion (which would lead to a Civil War), a war is virtually guaranteed.
Do yourself a favour, then. Forget the assault rifle (too expensive to buy a fully automatic weapon, and keeping it fed is a royal pain). Get a good, reliable,.30-06 bolt-action rifle. And learn to hit things with it. It'll blow through most body armour in use today with no real trouble, and a reasonably well-trained marksman is more than capable of dealing with the prospect of a war, civil or otherwise. And if you were talking about a semi-auto version of a modern military rifle ("assault weapon"), learn to tell the difference between that and an assault rifle before you start. Because an "assault weapon" will NOT blow through most body armour, nor does it provide you with especially more firepower than a good bolt-action rifle.
And if you really believe in a Sino-Russian invasion of the USA, I've got this great bargain in a Bridge for you....
Like it should have be done after Munich 1938, your government will then be forced from power by an international coalition of the willing, to prevent further damage.
I'm curious. Just how, exactly, do you propose to force our government from power?
If your chosen technique involves military force, and does NOT involve nuclear weapons, good luck!
Personally, I'd suggest econominc sanctions, since they have proved themselves time and again when used to remove governments the UN disapproves of.
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Umm, no. Actually, there is a bit more thought to it than that. For instance, the politician-to-be might ask himself the following questions:
1) Is my district overwhelmingly Democrat or Republican?
2) Is the incumbent a Democrat or Republican?
3) Does the incumbent plan to retire soon?
If, for example, the answers to the above questions are Yes (dem), Dem, and Yes, then obviously you become a Democrat.
If, on the other hand, they are No, Dem, No, then you become a Republican.
Now, it's generally true that, other than the extreme left and right, the poiticians in either Party chose their Party for purely pragmatic reasons, not because of idealogy.
1) Its taxation system was designed to destroy its tax base,
2) There was this nasty plague,
3) The Empire had no system for picking Emperors beyond "the guy who wins the Civil War after the last Emperor died". Note though, that they had a working system for a while, and abandoned it when one of the Emperors decided to stop using it, and let his son inherit.
4) There were these barbarians living beyond the borders who wanted the good stuff like the Romans had.
Add all those things together, and the WESTERN Empire fell. The Eastern Empire lasted another thousand years, finally falling to this Turkish army that wanted the good stuff like the Romans had.
Let's see. Who has the capability to snarf up a bunch of ballots. The County Election Supervisor? In case you were wondering, her name is Brenda C. Snipes. Oddly enough, she's a Democrat.
Who else could do it? One of her employess, perhaps. Not sure how that could actually happen, since it is unlikely that the Eelection Supervisor's office would hand 58,000 envelopes to their gopher and say "drop these at the Post Office on your way home, will you?". If only because 58,000 absentee ballots probably weighs in at 5+ tons. So, likely enough the Post Office picks the stuff up from the Office.
Now, the USPS guy who picked it up could be a Republican who is stupid enough to believe he can "lose" 5 tons of mail without anyone noticing. It's not terribly likely, given the amount of noise being made about voting irregularities these days, but it is possible.
Oddly enough, the article mentions a police investigation, which, so far, "has not uncovered any evidence of criminal wrongdoing."
Won't it be funny if this reduces down to Ms. Snipes saying "Oops! We told the USPS it was the pallet in Warehouse 2, when it was actually the pallet in Warehouse 1 they should have picked up. My bad"?
Umm, no. Tol Erresea was Britain. The Shire would have been on the European mainland somewhere.
Largest surplus? Curious thing about that "surplus" - the National Debt increased even while that "surplus" was being recorded in the history books.
Works fine for me. 0.9.2, if that helps. Opened your link in another tab, with three tabs previously opened to diverse places.
Sorry to hear that you have the flu this early in the season. Hope it turns out to be a mild one for you.
In a word, no. At least not in the USA.
During the campaign, both candidates try their best, with a straight face, to promise that everyone who votes for them will get to spend a night with the Swedish Bikini Team (or the equivalent male group, if they are so inclined) after the election. In addition to the free Lincoln Towncar, forgiveness of their mortgages and all taxes until the end of time.
Oh, and they'll make you immortal, too!
After the campaign is over, all that is forgotten (including the so-called Party Platform), and the winner gets on to the proper business of government - taking your money, and giving it to someone else.
I know this is nitpicking, but 300,000,000/6,000,000,000 is 1/20, not 1/24.
It's really sad when people who like to think of themselves as being of above average intelligance can't divide.
"I can offer you a definite tentative hypothesis, but don't hold me to it." -- Jaime Retief
And even then, with an unelected President, Reagan could only manage "almost won the Republican Primary".
I trust you really meant mrem? Or even microrem? Because 136 rem/year would tend to kill the people affected within four to five years.
civilians around Chernobyl received 8.6 million rem/person/year:
You are misunderstanding something you read somewhere. 600 rem is a fatal dose. If civilians near Chernobyl received 8+ million rem each that year, they wouldn't have died, they'd have disolved.
Neutrons, however, are NOT "easily stopped". Neutrons are one of the more damaging forms of ionizing radiation. They are best neutralized by distance or by low-molecular-weight shielding. Such as water. H2 would work quite nicely as well, though keeping the H2 liquid when bombarding it with high-energy neutrons would be entertaining. Neutron-absorbing material, such as reactor control rods are made from, would work as well, if you didn't mind your shielding possibly becoming radioactive.
Actually, it is nominal thrust for "straight" nuclear thermal mode. The article mentions 20,000 pounds, as I recall, within the context of two engines, operating at 66%.
O2 afterburner mode is going to be interesting. 200% (they said) increase in thrust, and what's the Specific Impulse? Somewhere between 900+ and 444, hopefully near 600.
The computer is the greatest thing since sliced bread, as far as baseball statistic fans are concerned - even more ability to determine inane statiscs.
1) They don't plan on bringing the reactor back down to earth when they're done with it.
2) Radiation shielding. Interestingly enough, the reaction mass (H2) makes quite good shielding. As does the distance between the reactor and the crew compartment(s) (which will be filled with reaction mass tankage, most likely).
An operating reactor produces somewhere around 1 Curie per Watt output. This reduces to negligible within 48 hours of shutdown.
"Really dense containers" aren't terribly useful for a spacecraft. Nor are they especially useful as shielding. They'll stop alpha/beta/gamma just fine, but are pretty much useless against neutrons.
3) Nuclear material does NOT have an "inert" form. Unless you count a shutdown reactor as "inert". Which it isn't.
Please note that this device is NOT meant to replace the SSME, or any other booster. It is meant for placing some reasonably large mass in a Mars transfer orbit, starting from LEO (or higher).
SS1 didn't use ammonia and rubber. Laughing gas and rubber, but no ammonia.
Nuclear fission isn't evil. It isn't especially dangerous. It won't mutate your kids, or the cows, or the grass. If your first thoughts on hearing the words "nuclear fission" are Chernobyl or Three Mile Island (or even Hiroshima), then you're neither educated nor informed about the subject of nuclear fission.
Did you read the article? It has 15000 pounds of thrust, at nominal output. Totally useless for ground-orbit missions. It is designed to fly from orbit here to orbit somewhere interesting.
No, they came for the farmland, the sand, the potash, or so they could establish a Theocracy (Massachusetts).
Contrary to popular rumour, we did NOT come here to separate Church and State - that idea came along about 150 years later, when we got around to rebelling against our English Overlords, and had to do something to prevent the 17,123 Christian sects then practiced from going at each other's throats.
Polygamy has been practiced by some cultures, generally by the wealthy within those cultures.
Islam, as an example, allows (requires?) four wives, but only wealthy men can do so (not enough women to go around for all of us to have two, much less four).
There are advantages to polygamy, or various extended family formats. There are probably disadvantages also, but most of us wouldn't look farther than two (or more) different women in our beds....
"If we ain't fighting about slavery, what the Hell are we fighting for?" -- General Nathan Bedford Forrest, CSA
Sounds like more of the same to me.
Umm, no. A Sino/Russian military alliance couldn't even reach the USA. It takes control of the seas to put troops here, and neither of them has it.
It also takes the ability to operate at the end of 3000+ mile (5000+ Km) supply lines. Neither of them have that, either.
This ignoring the fact that Gulf War 1 & 2 demonstrated the inadequacy of Soviet weaponry and doctrine for use of same, vis a vis our own weapons and doctrine. And both the Chinese and Russians use Soviet weapons and doctrine.
All the "rest of the World" would have to do is supply arms and munitions to the other side, possibly some troops of there own.
The rest of the world has no meaningful force projection capability, either. Certainly not against US control of the seas. So their troops are irrelevant.
As to their arms and munitions, I should, perhaps, point out that neither the Chinese nor Russians use any weapons currently for sale by European countries. So, the European weapons would be essentially (a) useless, or (b) a logisitics nightmare, therefore (c) unused. Note that I equate European with "rest of the world" in this case, since outside, the USA, China, and Russia, Europe is about the only manufacturer of heavy weapons (tanks, planes, and such).
If Bush gets elected me thinks I need some training with an Assault Rifle, cause there will be War, whether it is a Civil War, or a Sino/Russian invasion (which would lead to a Civil War), a war is virtually guaranteed.
Do yourself a favour, then. Forget the assault rifle (too expensive to buy a fully automatic weapon, and keeping it fed is a royal pain). Get a good, reliable, .30-06 bolt-action rifle. And learn to hit things with it. It'll blow through most body armour in use today with no real trouble, and a reasonably well-trained marksman is more than capable of dealing with the prospect of a war, civil or otherwise. And if you were talking about a semi-auto version of a modern military rifle ("assault weapon"), learn to tell the difference between that and an assault rifle before you start. Because an "assault weapon" will NOT blow through most body armour, nor does it provide you with especially more firepower than a good bolt-action rifle.
And if you really believe in a Sino-Russian invasion of the USA, I've got this great bargain in a Bridge for you....
Isn't McCain one of the sponsors for that new Security Bill everyone is kvetching about? Not very Populist, if so.
I'm curious. Just how, exactly, do you propose to force our government from power?
If your chosen technique involves military force, and does NOT involve nuclear weapons, good luck!
Personally, I'd suggest econominc sanctions, since they have proved themselves time and again when used to remove governments the UN disapproves of.