You forgot to mention from the article that the shoplifter was armed and took a woman and child as hostage in a standoff with police. Although the property damages was extreme in the particular case, the SWAT team's response to the hostage situation wasn't.
So, you're saying that the SWAT team pretty much destroyed a house that had HOSTAGES INSIDE???? And you think that's okay?
That depends both on the tracks the tank is fitted with and the surface on which the tank is driven. Some tanks have (or can be fitted with) tracks that have rubber pads on them, which greatly reduce any damage to roads by spreading the weight of the tank more widely.
As I recall, the article I was reading mentioned exactly this. And this was a pretty small tank - only 7.5T (considerably less than an 18-wheeler, comparable to a large delivery truck).
If one were to draft a new constitution in this day and age, you would look a bit silly for arguing a civil militia with handguns and old military surplus equipment could keep a well-armed government in check.
Might want to read up on the Warsaw Uprising sometime. Amazing what even a small number of firearms in the hands of people desperate enough to fight an army can do....
as police have always had and always will have better access to top grade weaponry and armour.
I would argue this statement is false. When the 2nd amendment was drafted the hunting rifle in the hands of the average citizen was not especially inferior to that of the one in the hands of the local serif or for that matter the regular army soldier. Moreover the local serif and the soldier were no more able to defend themselves against said rifle than your average citizen was.
Just so.
Note that, to a certain extent, this is still true. Your basic.30-06 is considerably more powerful than the.223 that an M4/M16 uses. Powerful enough to blow right through the body armour worn by police and soldiers alike. And your average hunter tends to have had rather more practice with his firearm of choice than your police officer gets. Your really serious hunter gets more practice than your average soldier gets....
There ARE people who own howitzers. Requires a license from the Federal government, and payment of a buttload of money (so only the rich can do so, generally).
And yet I've never heard of a howitzer being used in commission of a crime.
I also note that in the UK, ownership of a tank is perfectly legal. It has to be demilitarized (the gun barrel(s) filled with concrete, that sort of thing), but it can be managed, if you're rich enough. Saw an article the other day about some guy who uses his Scimitar light tank to drive to town to get groceries....
They are not "near misses" they are "near hits". Near misses means something hit but nearly missed hitting.
You seem to be assuming that "near miss" means "nearly miss" as opposed to, say "nearby miss". Your assumption is all well and good, but it's not a law of nature or anything....
came up with a vague recollection (and please correct me if I'm wrong) of two-headed aliens whose spaceships' hulls are entirely transparent to radiation (and thus must impart protection via time dilation)...
No, General Products hulls were NOT entirely transparent to radiation. Just to radiation in the visible spectrum....
Hmm, your link says that your chance of being killed by a terrorist attack in the USA between 2007 and 2011 was 1 in 20,000,000. Which suggests a higher chance of being killed by terrorists than seems to exist. List I googled for people killed in "terrorist attacks" included cases where the only person killed was the "terrorist". And entirely too many of the cases looked more like the usual crap that goes on, rather than terrorism (abortion protester shot? Is this terrorism now?).
Why don't you address the many problems that occurred because there were too many cabs?
Which problems were those? A quick googling suggests that the "problem" was that the general public was "concerned about the maintenance and mechanical integrity" of the taxis as a result of the taxis working long hours.
Note that "the public is concerned" is NOT the same as "the taxis had issues".
Note further that public concern was a side-effect of taxis working too many hours, which problem is not going to be cured by fewer taxis for the same demand....
and it is determined that a nuclear device is the proper technique, then we would only need one such system to be built and kept ready - with a grand total of one special purpose nuclear device.
I like the way you assume nothing could possibly go wrong with your single launch. Be a shame to have one special purpose nuclear device fall onto the moon because the launch vehicle screwed up....
Trust me. Don't build special purpose devices (which require testing in any case), and don't just keep one around. Keep enough that you can recover from a launch pad error and an Apollo 13-style error and a brand new kind of screw up....
I'm at a desk with no sun in my eyes, but didn't need google to tell me that nukes use fission not fusion....
Castle Bravo was in 1954. It wasn't the first fusion bomb (1952), nor was it the biggest (Tsar Bomba - 1961), but it exceeded expectations of blast (2-4 times expected) enough that it was the major source of radioactive fallout for the US till Tsar Bomba....
About the only people using fission bombs at this point are the North Koreans.
The most sense is to build a nuclear launch facility on the dark side of the moon, with rockets that are designed to be accurate in space, but unable to target the Earth,
I'm interested in the notion of a rocket on the moon that can reach a NEO but NOT the Earth.
Alas, ain't going to happen. If a rocket can do lunar escape speed, it can hit the Earth. And lunar escape speed is pretty much mandatory for hitting an NEO (unless the NEO passes within about one lunar diameter of the moon)....
The net neutrality rules have nothing to do with peering, they have everything to do with throttling
I take it you didn't bother to read the FCC's rule? Charging more for higher bandwidth is against the FCC's rule.
Yeah, no doubt what they really meant was throttling. However, what they WROTE applies to pretty much any tiered service that your ISP provides ($50 for 5GB/sec, $100 for 8GB/sec - that's charging more for higher bandwidth!!!). Including this particular case....
Then you should also sign a card saying you are not entitled to medical care to treat potential illnesses caused that have direct links to the digestion of trans fats, unless you pay for it yourself.
Only when they decide to institute the same rule for smokers. And yes, smoking grass counts - it's no better for you than tobacco....
She got way more than she paid in. Everybody except the rich does. That's because one of the dirty little secrets of social security and Medicare is that they're socialist programs.
Theoretically (and ONLY theoretically), SSA and Medicare are paid for by SS/Medicare taxes. And since the income taxed for those programs has a cap, the "rich" could not possibly be paying into them enough to keep the programs solvent while "everyone else" gets "way more than they paid in".
Note that for many years SSA/Medicare took in way more money than was paid out. As originally designed, you were eligible for both programs at age 65, which was the average age of death. In other words, about half of everyone died before they could collect a penny of SS/Medicare. And so the program(s) built up a surplus.
Then our lifespans started going up due to better general health and medicine. So now, pretty much everyone collects SS/Medicare for a long time (20 years isn't unusual these days, though it'll get slightly less common since they started raising the age of eligibility). And the SS/Medicare programs are no longer running surpluses, and the "trust funds" are invested in T-Bills (in other words, they took the money, spent it, and replaced it with IOU's to themselves), so by and by, they're going to be empty.
At which point, presumably, they'll raise age of eligibility some more and/or raise SS/Medicare taxes to cover the shortfalls. It's going to be interesting to see the public response when the age of eligibility reaches 75 and SSA/Medicare tax rates reach 30% (or age of eligibility reaches 85 and taxes reach 20%, whichever works best).
The only real change as a result of this law is that the telecoms have to pay to collect & store the information that the Feds used to do themselves.
So now they'll have to get their secret court to rubberstamp a warrant for them instead of just emailing a request downstairs when they want some information on someone. Big whoop!
However you typically only get about about 10% [wikipedia.org] of your annual radiation exposure in the US from the potassium-40, carbon-14 etc inside your body so I expect that your background radiation estimate is on the low side.
Hmm, from your link, on average, Americans get 85% of their radiation exposure from CT-Scans and Radon gas in the air.
Over half the remaining 15% comes from cosmic radiation and "terrestrial radiation" (i.e. dirt, whose radioactivity depends on the exact composition of the local dirt).
And for those who follow the link and notice that Americans get much more dosage from "medical uses" than everyone else, note that the data doesn't include radiation therapy in the "worldwide" figures, but DOES include it in the "American" figures.
You are assuming they intend to follow legal proceedings, like extradition. The asumption is they intent to abduct him and put him in a secret American prison.
Umm, they can abduct him from the UK at least as easily as from Sweden.
Again, it makes no sense for the US to want him in Sweden, since Sweden is LESS ACCESSIBLE than the UK for any purpose that we might have (other than the one we seem to have chosen - to ignore him - which I think is what really pisses Assange off).
The Navy is always fighting the last war. In 1939 they had too many battleships.
Two things:
1) the US wasn't involved in a war in 1939.
2) the US had exactly the number of battleships as allowed by the Naval Treaties of the time. And the US had exactly the number of aircraft carriers as allowed by the same Naval Treaties. Note that having fewer BBs then would not have affected the number of CVs in any way, since both were limited by treaty.
Oh, and in spite of the US having "too many battleships", it looks like they managed to win that war just fine.
And an aside - did you know that the US was the only major naval power to not lose a single battleship/battlecruiser at sea during WW2? And yes, we used BBs in the Pacific (including most of the ones sunk at Pearl Harbor - Arizona and Oklahoma were the only ones not returned to service).
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So, you're saying that the SWAT team pretty much destroyed a house that had HOSTAGES INSIDE???? And you think that's okay?
This!
Alas, that's why I don't get to shoot nearly so much as I would like....
As I recall, the article I was reading mentioned exactly this. And this was a pretty small tank - only 7.5T (considerably less than an 18-wheeler, comparable to a large delivery truck).
Might want to read up on the Warsaw Uprising sometime. Amazing what even a small number of firearms in the hands of people desperate enough to fight an army can do....
Just so.
Note that, to a certain extent, this is still true. Your basic .30-06 is considerably more powerful than the .223 that an M4/M16 uses. Powerful enough to blow right through the body armour worn by police and soldiers alike. And your average hunter tends to have had rather more practice with his firearm of choice than your police officer gets. Your really serious hunter gets more practice than your average soldier gets....
Already been tried. Supremes ruled it unconstitutional.
And yet I've never heard of a howitzer being used in commission of a crime.
I also note that in the UK, ownership of a tank is perfectly legal. It has to be demilitarized (the gun barrel(s) filled with concrete, that sort of thing), but it can be managed, if you're rich enough. Saw an article the other day about some guy who uses his Scimitar light tank to drive to town to get groceries....
You seem to be assuming that "near miss" means "nearly miss" as opposed to, say "nearby miss". Your assumption is all well and good, but it's not a law of nature or anything....
No, General Products hulls were NOT entirely transparent to radiation. Just to radiation in the visible spectrum....
Hmm, your link says that your chance of being killed by a terrorist attack in the USA between 2007 and 2011 was 1 in 20,000,000. Which suggests a higher chance of being killed by terrorists than seems to exist. List I googled for people killed in "terrorist attacks" included cases where the only person killed was the "terrorist". And entirely too many of the cases looked more like the usual crap that goes on, rather than terrorism (abortion protester shot? Is this terrorism now?).
86 million per MONTH, not per year. So an average of one per four months on each line.
...and I've never gotten one.
Note to self: ask wife and child if they've ever gotten one.
Hmm, but seems that I remember my mother telling me once that she got one....
Of course he's not suggesting that. He's suggesting that Putin wants another sideshow and is desperate enough to think this'll do it....
Which problems were those? A quick googling suggests that the "problem" was that the general public was "concerned about the maintenance and mechanical integrity" of the taxis as a result of the taxis working long hours.
Note that "the public is concerned" is NOT the same as "the taxis had issues".
Note further that public concern was a side-effect of taxis working too many hours, which problem is not going to be cured by fewer taxis for the same demand....
I like the way you assume nothing could possibly go wrong with your single launch. Be a shame to have one special purpose nuclear device fall onto the moon because the launch vehicle screwed up....
Trust me. Don't build special purpose devices (which require testing in any case), and don't just keep one around. Keep enough that you can recover from a launch pad error and an Apollo 13-style error and a brand new kind of screw up ....
Castle Bravo was in 1954. It wasn't the first fusion bomb (1952), nor was it the biggest (Tsar Bomba - 1961), but it exceeded expectations of blast (2-4 times expected) enough that it was the major source of radioactive fallout for the US till Tsar Bomba....
About the only people using fission bombs at this point are the North Koreans.
I'm interested in the notion of a rocket on the moon that can reach a NEO but NOT the Earth.
Alas, ain't going to happen. If a rocket can do lunar escape speed, it can hit the Earth. And lunar escape speed is pretty much mandatory for hitting an NEO (unless the NEO passes within about one lunar diameter of the moon)....
I take it you didn't bother to read the FCC's rule? Charging more for higher bandwidth is against the FCC's rule.
Yeah, no doubt what they really meant was throttling. However, what they WROTE applies to pretty much any tiered service that your ISP provides ($50 for 5GB/sec, $100 for 8GB/sec - that's charging more for higher bandwidth!!!). Including this particular case....
Only when they decide to institute the same rule for smokers. And yes, smoking grass counts - it's no better for you than tobacco....
Theoretically (and ONLY theoretically), SSA and Medicare are paid for by SS/Medicare taxes. And since the income taxed for those programs has a cap, the "rich" could not possibly be paying into them enough to keep the programs solvent while "everyone else" gets "way more than they paid in".
Note that for many years SSA/Medicare took in way more money than was paid out. As originally designed, you were eligible for both programs at age 65, which was the average age of death. In other words, about half of everyone died before they could collect a penny of SS/Medicare. And so the program(s) built up a surplus.
Then our lifespans started going up due to better general health and medicine. So now, pretty much everyone collects SS/Medicare for a long time (20 years isn't unusual these days, though it'll get slightly less common since they started raising the age of eligibility). And the SS/Medicare programs are no longer running surpluses, and the "trust funds" are invested in T-Bills (in other words, they took the money, spent it, and replaced it with IOU's to themselves), so by and by, they're going to be empty.
At which point, presumably, they'll raise age of eligibility some more and/or raise SS/Medicare taxes to cover the shortfalls. It's going to be interesting to see the public response when the age of eligibility reaches 75 and SSA/Medicare tax rates reach 30% (or age of eligibility reaches 85 and taxes reach 20%, whichever works best).
The only real change as a result of this law is that the telecoms have to pay to collect & store the information that the Feds used to do themselves.
So now they'll have to get their secret court to rubberstamp a warrant for them instead of just emailing a request downstairs when they want some information on someone. Big whoop!
And yet BMI is calculated using a square ratio (weight/hgt^2).
Which is why it produces odd results for exceptionally tall or short people.
Hmm, from your link, on average, Americans get 85% of their radiation exposure from CT-Scans and Radon gas in the air.
Over half the remaining 15% comes from cosmic radiation and "terrestrial radiation" (i.e. dirt, whose radioactivity depends on the exact composition of the local dirt).
And for those who follow the link and notice that Americans get much more dosage from "medical uses" than everyone else, note that the data doesn't include radiation therapy in the "worldwide" figures, but DOES include it in the "American" figures.
Umm, they can abduct him from the UK at least as easily as from Sweden.
Again, it makes no sense for the US to want him in Sweden, since Sweden is LESS ACCESSIBLE than the UK for any purpose that we might have (other than the one we seem to have chosen - to ignore him - which I think is what really pisses Assange off).
Two things:
1) the US wasn't involved in a war in 1939.
2) the US had exactly the number of battleships as allowed by the Naval Treaties of the time. And the US had exactly the number of aircraft carriers as allowed by the same Naval Treaties. Note that having fewer BBs then would not have affected the number of CVs in any way, since both were limited by treaty.
Oh, and in spite of the US having "too many battleships", it looks like they managed to win that war just fine.
And an aside - did you know that the US was the only major naval power to not lose a single battleship/battlecruiser at sea during WW2? And yes, we used BBs in the Pacific (including most of the ones sunk at Pearl Harbor - Arizona and Oklahoma were the only ones not returned to service).