Not really. Water is water. Importing earth water to prevent using moon water is no better than using moon water first and then importing from earth to replace it.
Importing Earth Water to replace Lunar water makes no sense at all. Importing Earth HYDROGEN to add to Lunar Oxygen for fuel/reaction mass is a much better propostion. 1/9th the mass to be moved, and the moon has a lot of Oxygen bound up in the rock.
The factor supporting asteroidal materials is that the potentially could have high concentrations of useful metals. No proof of that, of course. But we do know that they're not common on the moon.
"Useful metals"? I happen to think aluminium is useful. And Iron. And Magnesium. All of which were found on the Moon by Apollo. Hard to extract? Perhaps, but we do have a lot of solar energy, and no atmosphere to obscure it there.
Are there other metals we'll want? Sure, lots. But we won't want too many others in large quantities. And so we can build most of a spacecraft (by mass) with lunar raw materials, once we have the base in place. WAY cheaper and easier than building it on Earth and putting it into orbit, given the original investment in infrastructure.
Maybe, maybe not. Hitler had already given up on trying to invade the UK by the time the US got involved, and the USSR was preparing to fall back much farther than Stalingrad if necessary. My guess is that there would have been a negotiated peace, with Germany holding much of its conquests, but the UK and the USSR still very much in existence and building up for WW3 some time in the Fifties.
By the time Hitler had given up on invading the UK, the USA had sold the British 50 destroyers, which they needed to shore up the convoy system then being used. In addition, the USA took over convoy escorts for the western half of the Atlantic, and supplied most of the ships used to supply the UK during the war. It is unlikely that the UK could have withstood the U-Boats without that aid.
It is possible that the Soviets could have retreated past Stalingrad and survived. It is worth noting that as of Stalingrad, the USA had been supplying planes/tanks/ships/other supplies to the Soviets for two years.
Or on New York and Washington and San Francisco... Both the German and the Japanese programs could almost certainly have produced atomic weapons within a couple more years, and the Manhattan Project would not have progressed nearly as fast as it did without British participation. And, of course, nobody but the Germans had anything that could be developed into an ICBM.
The USA depended on the UK far more for radar technology than for nuclear technology. However, you are correct that the Germans may have been able to build an atomic bomb, and delive it, by 1948. My own feeling is that the USA would not have bombed the Japanese first, if they had been fighting both simultaneously. Like as not, the Hiroshima bomb would have targetted Berlin.
The Japanese weren't even a serious contender.
But if we were fighting either one, especially China, for possession of any particular chunk of land equally accessible to both parties... it's even money at best.
No. If we were fighting either country for a particular chunk of land that was REALLY CLOSE to whichever one we were fighting, it would be even money, at worst. Neither China nor India has any ability to take posssession of anything at any distance from themselves without our permission. We STILL have the best Navy in the world, and could prevent China and India from fighting for some piece of real-estate halfway between us and them just by sinking everything that floats flying their flag.
That isn't the ONLY measure I can come up with. It's merely the most significant contribution to the war, by the USA or anyone else.
Blood is the only currency of war? We had more men under arms than anyone but the Soviets and the Germans, last I looked. We died less, not because we fought less, but because we fought better. Best artillery in the War. And artillery was still the big killer in modern warfare. Best Air Force - we bombed Germany flat for three years. Best Navy - they kept the sealanes to the USSR and UK open, while fighting the Japanese.
And we didn't believe in fighting fair - the object is to win. If it takes 3:1 odds to win, bring 5:1.
The Soviets lost between 25M and 50M people during the war. Not because they were great fighters, but because they couldn't protect their own people, nor beat the Germans in battle without getting most of their men killed each battle. The Germans lost 25M or so as well, because they couldn't protect their own people, and because they were surrounded by more powerful enemies.
I should also like to point out that Heinz Guderian (the guy that created the German Panzer force) decided in the 30's that the key factor in future war was the ability to produce automotive engines. And that the USA had 80% of the world's capacity in that regard. Read his book if you doubt.
"You don't win a war by dying for your country. You win by making the other poor dumb bastard die for HIS country"
Umm, no. Lend-Lease was probably the US's biggest contribution to the war. To the UK, USSR, CHina, France, Brazil, basically everyone except the Axis.
It is unlikely that the UK could have continued to fight Nazi Germany without the planes, tanks, ships, guns, food, oil, etc. we shipped them.
It is slightly more possible that the USSR could have continued fighting without the aid we sent them, but only just. Only thing the Russians built enough of were tanks. They built those at the expense of the other tools of modern war (trucks;) ).
And while the Russians built a lot of tanks, they also lost a lot. Assuming that the Soviet Army was up to TO&E, they lost more than 2/3 of the tanks they built from 1941-1945. And they weren't up to TO&E....
If we get true AI, our space program would benefit immnesely from superior intelligence and a non-political approach to space exploration.
You assume that AI is equal to superior intelligence. Unlikely in the extreme.
You also assume that AI is equal to non-political. Also unlikely. Not because the AI's would be political, though. Because the money decisions will be made by people.
Or are you seriously brain-damaged enough to believe that we will create an incredibly intelligent AI, then turn control of the Earth/country over to it?
It's not that the Shuttle's a waste, it's that someone else already does more efficiently the same task the Shuttle is supposed to do.
As a former US Submariner, it really pains me to admit this, but in this arena the Russians have us beat.
Umm, no. Apollo. We had better big-dumb boosters than they did, better spacecraft, better everything.
Course, we scrapped all that in favour of four Shuttles.
Ultimate failure of Shuttle wasn't that it was badly designed (it was, to a certain extent). It was that we built four of them, and stopped. 50 Shuttles would have seen enormously different economies than four. And an enormously different space program over the last 20 years.
You complain about hauling wings in and out of orbit and yet you want to descend the moon's gravity well to make a base? That's insane! Why waste fuel hauling your stuff up and down when there are perfectly good trojan points... the moon's resources are lame and not worth the fuel costs.
So, why bother with the Lunar Trojan points for a base? Nothing there at all. Better to build a station at geosynchronous orbit, if we aren't going to the moon.
The shuttle's wings allow a glide re-entry, which saves fuel. The tanks and various systems required for the additional fuel would mass more than the wings. RTFM.
And yet...Apollo, Gemini, Mercury, Soyuz, etc. didn't have wings, and managed to get down nicely. The Shuttle's wings are an enormous waste, unless we are planning to bring large heavy things down from orbit. And they're not optimal even then.
The next stop after L5 is the asteroid belt. Resources galore, easily shoved into new trajectories for slow delivery nearly anywhere in the system.
Hmm, ~2.4Km/s deltaV to deliver lunar raw materials to Earth. ~5.5Km/s deltaV to deliver asteroidal material to Earth. So delivering asteroidal materials takes longer, and costs more deltaV. Great trade-off, don't you think?
Seriously. We need the lunar base, as a construction point for more ships, if nothing else. Build the structures on the moon, add rocket engines and control systems made on Earth, add lunar oxygen and terrestrial hydrogen for lifesupport, water, and fuel (don't want to take lunar water for this - Moon is a Harsh Mistress, remember? Using lunar water for fuel/reaction mass would be disastrous in the long term).
After we have the moon base, we move along to Mars and the outer system. Venus can wait, unless we choose to terraform the place. Mercury would be nice, but requires too much deltaV to reach easily.
Gawd! Whatever made you think that we DRANK the stuff? I've never met anyone in N'Awlins that actually drank tapwater.
Sure. But have you ever toured your water treatment plant?
Nope. This has what to do with charging for water by the gallon? I've lived in N'Awlins for 15 years or so. Have yet to see even one hint of a water shortage, even though we suffered through a couple years of drought conditions (well, by N'Awlins standards, anyway - it didn't rain every day for a couple years. Just every other day).
You clearly don't live in an area with a water shortage where some people feel the need a golf course quality lawn
You must have missed the N'Awlins part. We have the largest river in North America flowing through town. And enough rain to float the city, most years.
Won't be worried about water here until the next Ice Age, when the North American plate tilts under the weight of the glaciars enough to reverse the flow of the Mississippi.
Itemized billing for residential water won't actually prevent people from using more water than is available. It will discourage poor people from doing so, of course, but won't have much impact on the rich.
In central Texas a number of aquifers where pumped until they colapsed, which destroyed them. Think about it for a while.
Alright.
Was that long enough?
Pumping water from aquifers is a deadend proposition, unless your wastewater is pumped back into said aquifers. Desalinize seawater, use it, add the salt back in, and pump it back into the sea. Or build a closed-cycle system for water - draw it from tanks/ponds/whatever, use it, clean it up, put it back where it came from, lather/rinse/repeat ad infinitum.
The greed of a few people destroy a resource that could have lasted thousands of years.
Indeed? If it was just a few people, no doubt you can name three of them?
Incidently, "could have lasted thousands of years" isn't the answer. Long term sustainability requires us to think in terms of "millions of years", at least.
Possibly, in some cases. Southern California, for one. But...
We have metered water in N'Awlins. And we don't have water shortages (we get our water from the Mississippi river, which flows through town) - usually the reverse.
Now I think about it, we have had metered water everywhere I lived, and I've only lived one place where water shortages could possibly have been an issue (Hawaii, in fact - takes a lot of water to keep the pineapple fields healthy).
Is the goal a measurement of water used or a post to fill?
Usually, it is a post to fill.
Residential water use is usually so close to constant that charging by the gallon (or whatever unit they use - one place I know charges by the "block", and everyone generally uses three-four per month) is likely a waste of time, when you consider all the effort required to determine who is using what.
with the extraordinary party discipline they exercise (something the Democrats can only watch and envy)
Which party discipline is that? Historically, the Republicans have been far more likely to cross party lines than the Democrats.
I admit I haven't been watching Congressional votes as closely as I used to, but somehow the amount of votes that the Bush government has lost in the House and the Senate doesn't suggest too much "party discipline".
"There is no fair use to take something that doesn't belong to you. That's not fair use..... Now, fair use is not in the law."
Actually, Fair Use IS in the law. Title 17, Section 107:
Sec. 107. - Limitations on exclusive rights:
Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors
Umm, our soldiers, in general, aren't behind enemy lines.
And the US military does make an effort to deliver mail to soldiers in combat. It is considered very bad for morale to deny soldiers their mail without a damn good reason. And being shot at on the way to deliver doesn't count.
Picture a modern city grid system, but laid out across hundreds of miles. That is what you get when you have a whole half-nation which was settled in fairly modern times.
Actually, it is more about no convenient features to mark borders of any kind - no big rivers, no mountains, no nothing. Can you say "flat"? How about "Nebraska"? They mean the same thing.;-)
Seriously, it is not so much modern times as lack of anything other than nearly featureless prairie that causes this to happen.
If the working assumption is continental governments,
You seem to be assuming that the aliens would recognize the same continental boundaries we do - specifically, that between Europe and Asia.
From space, with no knowledge of what you are seeing beyond lights, North America is clearly a developed continent. Europe is heavily developed, but the continent (what we call Eurasia) is clearly divided into several "civilizations" (China, Europe, India).
Ahh, so you're saying that *nobody* notices Federal agents with fully-autmomatic weapons and full body armor walking down the streets of NY?
Hmm, this happens in NYC? Doesn't happen in New Orleans, I can tell you that much.
Or that nobody noticed that public buildings (like the Statue of Liberty) have been closed to the public for three years?
You know a lot of people complaining about the Statu being closed? I'll give you a clue about "flyover country" - I relaized it had been closed when they announced recently that it had been partially reopened. Before that, had never had reason to even think about whether it was open or closed.
Or that you have to go through security checks to get into shopping malls?
Nope. Not here. Have to go through securcity checks to get into a courthouse, but I've had to do that for ten years. Still haven't seen a security checkpoint in a mall, though.
Maybe you should move away from NYC if it is that annoying to live there. It's really not all that noticable down here.
It's true that the USSR played a far, far larger role in defeating Nazi Germany than the USA.
No. The Russians would likely have been defeated if left on their own. The amount of equipment (planes, tanks, trucks, fuel, supplies of all kinds) we sent to the USSR was mind-boggling.
The Soviets built a hell of a lot of tanks. We built very nearly as many, gave them away to all and sundry, and still built everything else we needed to fight the war, as well as supplying
all the allies with equipment.
(Indeed one of the main reasons for launching D-Day when they did was that Churchill & Roosevelt were worried that Stalin would defeat the Germans all by himself and end up occupying the whole of Europe - in a sense it was the first battle of the cold war.)
No. D-Day happened very shortly after it became logistically feasible to do so. The Joint Chiefs of Staff had actually advocated invading France in 1943, but there was no time to build the landing craft and LST's requied, or to move the American troops required by 1943.
Note that both the NorthAfrica invasion and the Italy invasion were done largely because we felt we must do something, and had not the strength available to invade France at the time.
Note further that we had to shuttle landing craft and LST's and such between oceans regularly to assemble as many as needed for various attacks on either the Japanese or the Germans. There were never enough for simultaneous major operations.
They've forced the US to make such dramatic charges in what could be considered our basic way of life that the freedoms upon which we have based our lives are quickly being eroded.
They have? Ever polled a random sample of people to find out how many of them have even NOTICED these chages, much less thought them funamental infringements of their Rights?
Unfortunately, informed and educated electorates are hard to get in the first place and even harder to maintain.
Actually, informed and educated isn't really the issue. You need an electorate that places the welfare of the whole country ahead of their own welfare. So long as everyone is voting his own self-interest, we will have this sort of problem.
How about if they are doing this to Edward Kennedy et al on purpose.
I've been thinking about this since Friday. I am wondering if Kennedy might not be on the list (well, off the list now, but on earlier in the year) because of his assorted legal troubles in the past.
Not to suggest that he is/was guilty of anything, but a computer search of all the assorted police databases would have had his name pop up several times. If that is the technique used to build the List, then I can see Kennedy on it. Anyone know whether Lewis has ever been investigated in relation to any felonious acts?
I don't trust any research where the result agrees with the agenda of the people who paid for it. Left or Right doesn't matter.
It's amazing how little research comes out with a "We were quite surprised by the result of this one" or equivalent. It could mean that our researchers are so close to the ultimate truths of the universe/society/whatever that it's just cleaning up the details. More likely it means that they are saying what they are paid to say (even when they are not paid overtly, if the lads paying the bills have an agenda....).
Especially when there are studies with results on both sides of an issue - then you can pretty much count on each of them agreeing with the people who paid for them.
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Importing Earth Water to replace Lunar water makes no sense at all. Importing Earth HYDROGEN to add to Lunar Oxygen for fuel/reaction mass is a much better propostion. 1/9th the mass to be moved, and the moon has a lot of Oxygen bound up in the rock.
The factor supporting asteroidal materials is that the potentially could have high concentrations of useful metals. No proof of that, of course. But we do know that they're not common on the moon.
"Useful metals"? I happen to think aluminium is useful. And Iron. And Magnesium. All of which were found on the Moon by Apollo. Hard to extract? Perhaps, but we do have a lot of solar energy, and no atmosphere to obscure it there.
Are there other metals we'll want? Sure, lots. But we won't want too many others in large quantities. And so we can build most of a spacecraft (by mass) with lunar raw materials, once we have the base in place. WAY cheaper and easier than building it on Earth and putting it into orbit, given the original investment in infrastructure.
By the time Hitler had given up on invading the UK, the USA had sold the British 50 destroyers, which they needed to shore up the convoy system then being used. In addition, the USA took over convoy escorts for the western half of the Atlantic, and supplied most of the ships used to supply the UK during the war. It is unlikely that the UK could have withstood the U-Boats without that aid.
It is possible that the Soviets could have retreated past Stalingrad and survived. It is worth noting that as of Stalingrad, the USA had been supplying planes/tanks/ships/other supplies to the Soviets for two years.
Or on New York and Washington and San Francisco ... Both the German and the Japanese programs could almost certainly have produced atomic weapons within a couple more years, and the Manhattan Project would not have progressed nearly as fast as it did without British participation. And, of course, nobody but the Germans had anything that could be developed into an ICBM.
The USA depended on the UK far more for radar technology than for nuclear technology. However, you are correct that the Germans may have been able to build an atomic bomb, and delive it, by 1948. My own feeling is that the USA would not have bombed the Japanese first, if they had been fighting both simultaneously. Like as not, the Hiroshima bomb would have targetted Berlin.
The Japanese weren't even a serious contender.
But if we were fighting either one, especially China, for possession of any particular chunk of land equally accessible to both parties ... it's even money at best.
No. If we were fighting either country for a particular chunk of land that was REALLY CLOSE to whichever one we were fighting, it would be even money, at worst. Neither China nor India has any ability to take posssession of anything at any distance from themselves without our permission. We STILL have the best Navy in the world, and could prevent China and India from fighting for some piece of real-estate halfway between us and them just by sinking everything that floats flying their flag.
Fell on it? A Cat4+ hurricane can throw a steel I-beam quite nicely, thank you.
That isn't the ONLY measure I can come up with. It's merely the most significant contribution to the war, by the USA or anyone else.
Blood is the only currency of war? We had more men under arms than anyone but the Soviets and the Germans, last I looked. We died less, not because we fought less, but because we fought better. Best artillery in the War. And artillery was still the big killer in modern warfare. Best Air Force - we bombed Germany flat for three years. Best Navy - they kept the sealanes to the USSR and UK open, while fighting the Japanese.
And we didn't believe in fighting fair - the object is to win. If it takes 3:1 odds to win, bring 5:1.
The Soviets lost between 25M and 50M people during the war. Not because they were great fighters, but because they couldn't protect their own people, nor beat the Germans in battle without getting most of their men killed each battle. The Germans lost 25M or so as well, because they couldn't protect their own people, and because they were surrounded by more powerful enemies.
I should also like to point out that Heinz Guderian (the guy that created the German Panzer force) decided in the 30's that the key factor in future war was the ability to produce automotive engines. And that the USA had 80% of the world's capacity in that regard. Read his book if you doubt.
"You don't win a war by dying for your country. You win by making the other poor dumb bastard die for HIS country"
It is unlikely that the UK could have continued to fight Nazi Germany without the planes, tanks, ships, guns, food, oil, etc. we shipped them.
It is slightly more possible that the USSR could have continued fighting without the aid we sent them, but only just. Only thing the Russians built enough of were tanks. They built those at the expense of the other tools of modern war (trucks ;) ).
And while the Russians built a lot of tanks, they also lost a lot. Assuming that the Soviet Army was up to TO&E, they lost more than 2/3 of the tanks they built from 1941-1945. And they weren't up to TO&E....
You assume that AI is equal to superior intelligence. Unlikely in the extreme.
You also assume that AI is equal to non-political. Also unlikely. Not because the AI's would be political, though. Because the money decisions will be made by people.
Or are you seriously brain-damaged enough to believe that we will create an incredibly intelligent AI, then turn control of the Earth/country over to it?
As a former US Submariner, it really pains me to admit this, but in this arena the Russians have us beat.
Umm, no. Apollo. We had better big-dumb boosters than they did, better spacecraft, better everything.
Course, we scrapped all that in favour of four Shuttles.
Ultimate failure of Shuttle wasn't that it was badly designed (it was, to a certain extent). It was that we built four of them, and stopped. 50 Shuttles would have seen enormously different economies than four. And an enormously different space program over the last 20 years.
You complain about hauling wings in and out of orbit and yet you want to descend the moon's gravity well to make a base? That's insane! Why waste fuel hauling your stuff up and down when there are perfectly good trojan points... the moon's resources are lame and not worth the fuel costs.
So, why bother with the Lunar Trojan points for a base? Nothing there at all. Better to build a station at geosynchronous orbit, if we aren't going to the moon.
The shuttle's wings allow a glide re-entry, which saves fuel. The tanks and various systems required for the additional fuel would mass more than the wings. RTFM.
And yet...Apollo, Gemini, Mercury, Soyuz, etc. didn't have wings, and managed to get down nicely. The Shuttle's wings are an enormous waste, unless we are planning to bring large heavy things down from orbit. And they're not optimal even then.
The next stop after L5 is the asteroid belt. Resources galore, easily shoved into new trajectories for slow delivery nearly anywhere in the system.
Hmm, ~2.4Km/s deltaV to deliver lunar raw materials to Earth. ~5.5Km/s deltaV to deliver asteroidal material to Earth. So delivering asteroidal materials takes longer, and costs more deltaV. Great trade-off, don't you think?
Seriously. We need the lunar base, as a construction point for more ships, if nothing else. Build the structures on the moon, add rocket engines and control systems made on Earth, add lunar oxygen and terrestrial hydrogen for lifesupport, water, and fuel (don't want to take lunar water for this - Moon is a Harsh Mistress, remember? Using lunar water for fuel/reaction mass would be disastrous in the long term).
After we have the moon base, we move along to Mars and the outer system. Venus can wait, unless we choose to terraform the place. Mercury would be nice, but requires too much deltaV to reach easily.
Sure. But have you ever toured your water treatment plant?
Nope. This has what to do with charging for water by the gallon? I've lived in N'Awlins for 15 years or so. Have yet to see even one hint of a water shortage, even though we suffered through a couple years of drought conditions (well, by N'Awlins standards, anyway - it didn't rain every day for a couple years. Just every other day).
You must have missed the N'Awlins part. We have the largest river in North America flowing through town. And enough rain to float the city, most years.
Won't be worried about water here until the next Ice Age, when the North American plate tilts under the weight of the glaciars enough to reverse the flow of the Mississippi.
Itemized billing for residential water won't actually prevent people from using more water than is available. It will discourage poor people from doing so, of course, but won't have much impact on the rich.
In central Texas a number of aquifers where pumped until they colapsed, which destroyed them. Think about it for a while.
Alright.
Was that long enough?
Pumping water from aquifers is a deadend proposition, unless your wastewater is pumped back into said aquifers. Desalinize seawater, use it, add the salt back in, and pump it back into the sea. Or build a closed-cycle system for water - draw it from tanks/ponds/whatever, use it, clean it up, put it back where it came from, lather/rinse/repeat ad infinitum.
The greed of a few people destroy a resource that could have lasted thousands of years.
Indeed? If it was just a few people, no doubt you can name three of them?
Incidently, "could have lasted thousands of years" isn't the answer. Long term sustainability requires us to think in terms of "millions of years", at least.
Possibly, in some cases. Southern California, for one. But...
We have metered water in N'Awlins. And we don't have water shortages (we get our water from the Mississippi river, which flows through town) - usually the reverse.
Now I think about it, we have had metered water everywhere I lived, and I've only lived one place where water shortages could possibly have been an issue (Hawaii, in fact - takes a lot of water to keep the pineapple fields healthy).
Usually, it is a post to fill.
Residential water use is usually so close to constant that charging by the gallon (or whatever unit they use - one place I know charges by the "block", and everyone generally uses three-four per month) is likely a waste of time, when you consider all the effort required to determine who is using what.
Which party discipline is that? Historically, the Republicans have been far more likely to cross party lines than the Democrats.
I admit I haven't been watching Congressional votes as closely as I used to, but somehow the amount of votes that the Bush government has lost in the House and the Senate doesn't suggest too much "party discipline".
Actually, Fair Use IS in the law. Title 17, Section 107:
And the US military does make an effort to deliver mail to soldiers in combat. It is considered very bad for morale to deny soldiers their mail without a damn good reason. And being shot at on the way to deliver doesn't count.
Six years. This is from 1998, when Clinton was President.
Actually, it is more about no convenient features to mark borders of any kind - no big rivers, no mountains, no nothing. Can you say "flat"? How about "Nebraska"? They mean the same thing. ;-)
Seriously, it is not so much modern times as lack of anything other than nearly featureless prairie that causes this to happen.
You seem to be assuming that the aliens would recognize the same continental boundaries we do - specifically, that between Europe and Asia.
From space, with no knowledge of what you are seeing beyond lights, North America is clearly a developed continent. Europe is heavily developed, but the continent (what we call Eurasia) is clearly divided into several "civilizations" (China, Europe, India).
Hmm, this happens in NYC? Doesn't happen in New Orleans, I can tell you that much.
Or that nobody noticed that public buildings (like the Statue of Liberty) have been closed to the public for three years?
You know a lot of people complaining about the Statu being closed? I'll give you a clue about "flyover country" - I relaized it had been closed when they announced recently that it had been partially reopened. Before that, had never had reason to even think about whether it was open or closed.
Or that you have to go through security checks to get into shopping malls?
Nope. Not here. Have to go through securcity checks to get into a courthouse, but I've had to do that for ten years. Still haven't seen a security checkpoint in a mall, though.
Maybe you should move away from NYC if it is that annoying to live there. It's really not all that noticable down here.
No. The Russians would likely have been defeated if left on their own. The amount of equipment (planes, tanks, trucks, fuel, supplies of all kinds) we sent to the USSR was mind-boggling.
The Soviets built a hell of a lot of tanks. We built very nearly as many, gave them away to all and sundry, and still built everything else we needed to fight the war, as well as supplying all the allies with equipment.
(Indeed one of the main reasons for launching D-Day when they did was that Churchill & Roosevelt were worried that Stalin would defeat the Germans all by himself and end up occupying the whole of Europe - in a sense it was the first battle of the cold war.)
No. D-Day happened very shortly after it became logistically feasible to do so. The Joint Chiefs of Staff had actually advocated invading France in 1943, but there was no time to build the landing craft and LST's requied, or to move the American troops required by 1943.
Note that both the NorthAfrica invasion and the Italy invasion were done largely because we felt we must do something, and had not the strength available to invade France at the time.
Note further that we had to shuttle landing craft and LST's and such between oceans regularly to assemble as many as needed for various attacks on either the Japanese or the Germans. There were never enough for simultaneous major operations.
They have? Ever polled a random sample of people to find out how many of them have even NOTICED these chages, much less thought them funamental infringements of their Rights?
Actually, informed and educated isn't really the issue. You need an electorate that places the welfare of the whole country ahead of their own welfare. So long as everyone is voting his own self-interest, we will have this sort of problem.
I've been thinking about this since Friday. I am wondering if Kennedy might not be on the list (well, off the list now, but on earlier in the year) because of his assorted legal troubles in the past.
Not to suggest that he is/was guilty of anything, but a computer search of all the assorted police databases would have had his name pop up several times. If that is the technique used to build the List, then I can see Kennedy on it. Anyone know whether Lewis has ever been investigated in relation to any felonious acts?
I don't trust any research where the result agrees with the agenda of the people who paid for it. Left or Right doesn't matter.
It's amazing how little research comes out with a "We were quite surprised by the result of this one" or equivalent. It could mean that our researchers are so close to the ultimate truths of the universe/society/whatever that it's just cleaning up the details. More likely it means that they are saying what they are paid to say (even when they are not paid overtly, if the lads paying the bills have an agenda....).
Especially when there are studies with results on both sides of an issue - then you can pretty much count on each of them agreeing with the people who paid for them.
Yah, but crazy thing, I can't find anything I've bought online or through mailorder, no matter how hard I look.
You don't want your state ending up like California; billions in debt
You're right, I don't. They should rein in their spending if they are spending more than they are taking in.