Only in the eyes of an ivory tower theoretical type could the tripwire of nuclear weapons first use be "eased" by "low yield". No matter how low the yield, the secondary effects of the nuclear weapon remain the same. It remains a WMD. If someone lobs a "low yield" nuke at you, do you think you're going to blink an eye before using your own arsenal? The whole premise is silly.
Nuclear disarmament is a fool's errand. The deterrent effect of a nuclear arsenal cannot easily be understated. All nations would aspire to it, if it were possible. They aren't going away, and reducing the arsenal below a certain point may actually be more destabilizing than maintaining more warheads. (see below)
The construction of newer weapons has no impact on the equation, except on the counterforce mission. It might make it easier to destroy your opponent's arsenal, but you still retain the SSBN problem, meaning that in practical terms there is no difference. But newer anti-missile technologies have a similar but greater destabilizing effect on deterrence, as they CAN shoot down the SSBN-based missiles.
What is money except a measure of economic value? What is capital except a measure of society's perceived value in making a task possible? If you have to force people to do something via the application of the government's power of life and death, it probably isn't worth doing. Moonshots don't escape this logic.
I happen to think that space exploration is cool, but wtf, I don't want the letdown of going to the moon and then never going back. And I can't come up with a economically defensible reason to go back, despite the pleasure I take in the actual act of doing so.
You can wave around your Ayn Rand bullshit all you want, but you can't come up with one, either.
If it wasn't worth going back in all this time, it wasn't worth going in the first place. In the end, it was just propaganda in the race to destabilize the Soviet Union.
If private industry had done it, they would have waited until there was some economic reason to go there, like 3He. Sure, it would have happened later, but at least we'd get some kind of direct benefit from it, instead of a bunch of museum pieces that no one remembers how to reconstruct, and Tang.
I'm sure prison inmates appreciate their Tang, of course.
Let's just call it like it is. People are dumb. The monumental stupid that is around me just boggles the mind. I'll relate an example. My local HOA over the last two weeks had a Facebook board post frenzy about a guy who is wandering through the neighborhood rifling through people's unlocked cars. He (or they) leave the unlocked cars alone. Yet the people refuse to lock their car doors. Last Friday, one person's car was stolen, a BMW SUV with the keys in the car, doors open, left unattended and started to warm up on a 45 degree F day. (no warming required, really, for those who can't picture this) There's even a state law against doing just that. There's someone wandering around pillaging unlocked cars, and you leave your car started in front of your house? These people are allowed to vote and participate in society.
Anyway, this level of stupid is one thing. The levels of stupid I see a couple towns over where people get their drugs are...stunning. Imagine CL ads where they list their phone numbers and "420 friendly" or "I'm holding" in the ad?
Politicians know this is their constituency and they play to it. How do you think that dumb hopey changey shit worked? Very stupid people voting.
I could engage in a point by point takedown - for instance, the railroads are a success story?!? The government damn near killed the railroads and certainly killed the passenger segment. That said, it's not a productive use of time to do that.
The most important thing I can say is that government regulatory apparatus, applied to an industry, can only achieve a neutral result at best, freezing a state of affairs in place. It won't improve anything. Over time, as regulatory capture sets in, or the facts on the ground change, the net effect will be negative.
In practical terms, I expect Americans to be paying more for their internet in 20 years as a percentage of personal income than they do now. Probably a lot more.
Actually, I don't have to wish. I just have to watch. Government will fuck this up - it always does. In its own special way. My bet is on regulatory capture.
I agree. Endless educational financing is already available. I don't see where this changes anything for anyone. This does very little to put us on a footing for a post-scarcity society. And we are assuredly on that path right now, whether the political leadership is on board or not.
I am very concerned about civil unrest in the near future if we don't find things for all the idle hands to do.
And people shouldn't have to witness security theater to board airplanes. If so, explain the TSA? The average person is a moron, but remember that 50% of the population is dumber than that.
By definition, you are at risk when you trust people. Information that can't be disseminated is not useful. Printers, optical disc writers, and usb sticks are "dissemination". Striking a balance between trust and paranoia, particularly in a theater where actual combat is going on, usually veers towards trust.
The rules for handling classified data when I was in Iraq were much looser than those applied back home. I think this is a common feature of all active theaters since we have had information classification rules. It increased the harm generated by Manning's breach, but I don't think it's really avoidable.
I'll concede that, though his actions showed a callous disregard for human life. I can't figure out anything Snowden did that got anyone killed. Manning almost certainly resulted in some people being outed and snuffed.
I lived 35 years in Jersey and my family is still mostly there. I had a few years when all I did was drive from one dealership to another doing auto insurance claims. The place is full of car dealerships. They tend to be in clusters along old highways, though sometimes embedded in urban neighborhoods too. The last thing Jersey needs is more car dealerships and lots. So I can see the numerical limits as having some merit. It's a crowded place, and more lots competing for the same number of buyers is not really an improvement, however much Elon Musk doesn't want to use existing dealer networks. Or how much people want Tesla electric vehicles out on the road.
It is 74 months - six years and two months - into his administration. The Bush excuses wore thin in year 2. He owns the landscape.
Besides which, Bush managed to work with the other side. How do you think the Medicare Part D or No Child Left Behind or even the Patriot Act or Iraq War Resolution passed? With Bush sharing the podium with people like Teddy Kennedy, that's how.
He wasn't ready for the job. He can't work with people - if Clinton managed it with Gingrich, he could have done the same today. Hell, Gingrich was smarter than these boobs today. He has a Nixonian level of paranoia and vindictiveness. Lastly, he has Valerie Jarrett to insulate him from reality. He gives a good prepared speech and has the best political team money can buy, but he's a freaking cipher otherwise and entirely lacks the personal touch unarmed with a teleprompter.
Given the disconnect between his public persona and his actual performance, is it no wonder that most of the promises were broken? The promises were made by Axelrod and Plouffe...
I was trying it out, to get off of gmail. Both the binary client and the web service. I found the user experience was pretty bad and it was slow. Also, the mail client on Windows had a lot of runtime errors.
I was wondering if anyone actually used it and was happy with it. I certainly am not.
Most of the UXO cleared areas I have experience with are the "Stay on this path" variety. The place I work is filled with UXOs and most of the forest area is inaccessible and clearly marked so. One of my friends (a reserve O-5 in the Army) bowhunts around here, and relates that he has had several pink mist incidents with the local wildlife tripping a UXO. The guy has serious balls even hunting in those places.
Slashdot Mirror
Only in the eyes of an ivory tower theoretical type could the tripwire of nuclear weapons first use be "eased" by "low yield". No matter how low the yield, the secondary effects of the nuclear weapon remain the same. It remains a WMD. If someone lobs a "low yield" nuke at you, do you think you're going to blink an eye before using your own arsenal? The whole premise is silly.
Nuclear disarmament is a fool's errand. The deterrent effect of a nuclear arsenal cannot easily be understated. All nations would aspire to it, if it were possible. They aren't going away, and reducing the arsenal below a certain point may actually be more destabilizing than maintaining more warheads. (see below)
The construction of newer weapons has no impact on the equation, except on the counterforce mission. It might make it easier to destroy your opponent's arsenal, but you still retain the SSBN problem, meaning that in practical terms there is no difference. But newer anti-missile technologies have a similar but greater destabilizing effect on deterrence, as they CAN shoot down the SSBN-based missiles.
tl;dr - article is a bunch of pointless hot air
What is money except a measure of economic value? What is capital except a measure of society's perceived value in making a task possible? If you have to force people to do something via the application of the government's power of life and death, it probably isn't worth doing. Moonshots don't escape this logic.
I happen to think that space exploration is cool, but wtf, I don't want the letdown of going to the moon and then never going back. And I can't come up with a economically defensible reason to go back, despite the pleasure I take in the actual act of doing so.
You can wave around your Ayn Rand bullshit all you want, but you can't come up with one, either.
If it wasn't worth going back in all this time, it wasn't worth going in the first place. In the end, it was just propaganda in the race to destabilize the Soviet Union.
If private industry had done it, they would have waited until there was some economic reason to go there, like 3He. Sure, it would have happened later, but at least we'd get some kind of direct benefit from it, instead of a bunch of museum pieces that no one remembers how to reconstruct, and Tang.
I'm sure prison inmates appreciate their Tang, of course.
Let's just call it like it is. People are dumb. The monumental stupid that is around me just boggles the mind. I'll relate an example. My local HOA over the last two weeks had a Facebook board post frenzy about a guy who is wandering through the neighborhood rifling through people's unlocked cars. He (or they) leave the unlocked cars alone. Yet the people refuse to lock their car doors. Last Friday, one person's car was stolen, a BMW SUV with the keys in the car, doors open, left unattended and started to warm up on a 45 degree F day. (no warming required, really, for those who can't picture this) There's even a state law against doing just that. There's someone wandering around pillaging unlocked cars, and you leave your car started in front of your house? These people are allowed to vote and participate in society.
Anyway, this level of stupid is one thing. The levels of stupid I see a couple towns over where people get their drugs are...stunning. Imagine CL ads where they list their phone numbers and "420 friendly" or "I'm holding" in the ad?
Politicians know this is their constituency and they play to it. How do you think that dumb hopey changey shit worked? Very stupid people voting.
I could engage in a point by point takedown - for instance, the railroads are a success story?!? The government damn near killed the railroads and certainly killed the passenger segment. That said, it's not a productive use of time to do that.
The most important thing I can say is that government regulatory apparatus, applied to an industry, can only achieve a neutral result at best, freezing a state of affairs in place. It won't improve anything. Over time, as regulatory capture sets in, or the facts on the ground change, the net effect will be negative.
In practical terms, I expect Americans to be paying more for their internet in 20 years as a percentage of personal income than they do now. Probably a lot more.
Right, 7 missions in 5 years and then nothing for the next 50. Success!
Actually, I don't have to wish. I just have to watch. Government will fuck this up - it always does. In its own special way. My bet is on regulatory capture.
The usual around here.
I agree. Endless educational financing is already available. I don't see where this changes anything for anyone. This does very little to put us on a footing for a post-scarcity society. And we are assuredly on that path right now, whether the political leadership is on board or not.
I am very concerned about civil unrest in the near future if we don't find things for all the idle hands to do.
And people shouldn't have to witness security theater to board airplanes. If so, explain the TSA? The average person is a moron, but remember that 50% of the population is dumber than that.
What "illegal actions"? Military and intelligence operations aren't subject to your bullshit ideas of "illegality". Nice try, lefty.
By definition, you are at risk when you trust people. Information that can't be disseminated is not useful. Printers, optical disc writers, and usb sticks are "dissemination". Striking a balance between trust and paranoia, particularly in a theater where actual combat is going on, usually veers towards trust.
The rules for handling classified data when I was in Iraq were much looser than those applied back home. I think this is a common feature of all active theaters since we have had information classification rules. It increased the harm generated by Manning's breach, but I don't think it's really avoidable.
I'll concede that, though his actions showed a callous disregard for human life. I can't figure out anything Snowden did that got anyone killed. Manning almost certainly resulted in some people being outed and snuffed.
It's all about motivations. Manning was just fucked up and betrayed his trust. Snowden had a point to what he was doing.
No, as a matter of fact, they wouldn't. Only this nihilistic incompetent would do something like that.
Or maybe they'll limp along by taking advantage of suckers more aggressively. It's a poor allocation of resources, to be certain.
Have you ever heard of the concept of zoning? Think of this as zoning on a statewide level.
I lived 35 years in Jersey and my family is still mostly there. I had a few years when all I did was drive from one dealership to another doing auto insurance claims. The place is full of car dealerships. They tend to be in clusters along old highways, though sometimes embedded in urban neighborhoods too. The last thing Jersey needs is more car dealerships and lots. So I can see the numerical limits as having some merit. It's a crowded place, and more lots competing for the same number of buyers is not really an improvement, however much Elon Musk doesn't want to use existing dealer networks. Or how much people want Tesla electric vehicles out on the road.
It is 74 months - six years and two months - into his administration. The Bush excuses wore thin in year 2. He owns the landscape.
Besides which, Bush managed to work with the other side. How do you think the Medicare Part D or No Child Left Behind or even the Patriot Act or Iraq War Resolution passed? With Bush sharing the podium with people like Teddy Kennedy, that's how.
He wasn't ready for the job. He can't work with people - if Clinton managed it with Gingrich, he could have done the same today. Hell, Gingrich was smarter than these boobs today. He has a Nixonian level of paranoia and vindictiveness. Lastly, he has Valerie Jarrett to insulate him from reality. He gives a good prepared speech and has the best political team money can buy, but he's a freaking cipher otherwise and entirely lacks the personal touch unarmed with a teleprompter.
Given the disconnect between his public persona and his actual performance, is it no wonder that most of the promises were broken? The promises were made by Axelrod and Plouffe...
Thanks for the clarification. Makes much more sense. UXOs are very hard to find.
I was trying it out, to get off of gmail. Both the binary client and the web service. I found the user experience was pretty bad and it was slow. Also, the mail client on Windows had a lot of runtime errors.
I was wondering if anyone actually used it and was happy with it. I certainly am not.
I grant your point. I feel sorry for the people who are going to try to use the area after it's been "cleared", though.
Most of the UXO cleared areas I have experience with are the "Stay on this path" variety. The place I work is filled with UXOs and most of the forest area is inaccessible and clearly marked so. One of my friends (a reserve O-5 in the Army) bowhunts around here, and relates that he has had several pink mist incidents with the local wildlife tripping a UXO. The guy has serious balls even hunting in those places.
I knew about the Alamo/National relationship but not the rest. Educational. Thank you.