That's why you don't allow full use of your upload to bittorrent. The roommate killed the net connect when he got first set up and started 10-15 torrents. Once I got him down to a more manageable 3-5 at a time with 3kps upload with 100% file size limit he only was using 1/2 the upload max.
Besided the whole point to Bittorrent is the popularity. If everyone wants it then you get a more robust connection, though not neccessiarly faster one, but once everyone has already gotten it then you get to drink from the fire hose on download and will never will upload a single bit. I'm sure the same thing will be done for a IP-movie service or any others.
Not all movie chains are created equal, only some of the big boys buy 100+ copies of a new release to service the demand for release day. The local video store here still only stocks 5-10 copies so you can forget about getting one for the first week or two.
Any orbital device is just a platform anyway. They can build it in such a way that any number of devices could be mounted on it.
Now as far as dumping the Hubble into the ocean. The the ones screaming the loudest in the science community are the ones that either have a guarenteed time slot for the Hubble or are awaiting their turn and haven't gotten it yet. A new probe would potentially disrupt their cozy little situation and force them to compete for the opportunity to use the new probe or loose their place in line. Sucks for you guys but your parents were supposed to teach you about dealling with dissappointment when you were 5.
For the sake of the unwashed masses that only want to see pretty pictures and are for the most part just have some minor emotional attachment to it, just name the next probe Hubble II, and make sure the public releases keep coming.
I'd rather just pay a couple of bucks and dump the commercials. Of course that was the original draw to cable, till they slowly but surely sneaked those in there too.
It's already easy enough, of course people still give me a funny look about "watching TV" on my computer, that is until I set up bittorrent and point them to a few sites that have all their favorite shows or hand them a external harddrive with the last 4 years of a show they were interested in but have never had a chance to watch.
There is also a strange culture in this country that turns up it's nose at Associates degrees as something that only people who work full time and enroll in one of those cheesy tech schools where you can get a degree in only 6 months. Personally I'm a little miffed that I listened to my counsler and my parents, else I would have two or three extra associates degrees under my belt.
A 1 or 2 year associates degree is a much more attainable goal for nearly all college students than the soul (and money) sucking 4-5 years many bachelor degrees want. A student can use that time to figure out what they want to do with themselves and in a worse case senario have something to show for their efforts after they drop out of school their Junior year (like I did).
There is also this little word of wisdom about any degrees reguardless of the level. Once you have the piece of paper in hand they can't change the requirements to graduate on you, where as when you just have credits they can play all sorts of games.
I do agree entirely with you that people shouldn't be shoe horned into a single field, but at the same time, the system makes little effort to see what you are one good at and two interested in. Which in my opinion is one of the worst aspect of the education system. Back to our original topic. People waste alot of time taking irelevant courses, that could be better served by the Discovery or History channel.
Welcome to my rant, I'm tired and annoyed so the following will probably be a pit scattered but I don't much care.
We do deserve some grief over some of the trade issues, we have made some nasty mistakes, but those are being taken care of are they not?
Most of those "opposed" to US international agenda are the ones that are unhappy that the Cold War is over and upset that the US actually expects them to fucking knock it off already (France, Germany, Russia, etc, etc etc) and quit selling weapons and nuke tech to every other third world nation.
If you want to get in the nitty gritty of it all. Afganistan is Russia's fault, well wait weren't the Germans there before for them causing trouble, and we cannot forget the French and British colonial ambitions.
Did we make a mess by using the tactic of "The Enemy of my Enemy is a friend" to fight the Communist threat. (Everyone has seemed to conviently forgotten thatt Iraq was an ally in the Cold War with the USSR?) Hell yea we did, but we are paying for it in blood and money, and you know what we are cleaning up said mess, unlike so many countries who tend to be our biggest detracters in addition to being the biggest contributers to the nightmare that is the Middle East today.
If the US had aspirations of global dominancy we would already own the planet. Anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot and has obviously never actually been to the US. (There are plenty of Global International Companies that would like too, but they do not repesent the US people.)
We had the opportunity at total global domination 50 years ago, lets see how that played out.
Had control of Europe gave it back.
Had control of England or could have gave it back.
Had control of the Middle East gave it back
Had control of Japan gave it back
Had control of portions of Asia gave it back
Had Control of portions of Africa gave it back
Could have steamrolled Russia (Who made the Nazies look the kind of people you'd let baby sit your kids) we should have but didn't
We were the only country not destroyed economically by WWII so what did we do? We poured money to rebuild everyone else, who with a few exceptions never paid us back.
I'm ranting since I'm sick of lets take a stab at the US to some how validate their argument tactics. The UN is a political organization and has no business dealing with what was and still isa primarily a US business venture sponsored by public and private funds. Any country can set up their own internet and tell us to piss off, but if they want to play in our game then they are going to have to play by our rules.
Last time I checked the only thing in control of anything on the internet, is one the ISP which just happens to be in what ever country it's located and two the rules for the naming of the internet.
So yeah that it's a little upsetting that Amsterdam didn't get a fair chance at www.freakyanalsex.com, but get over it already.
Freakin whaaa people. It's about naming and some basic standards not content... idiot
If countries can't be bothered to spend a few million dollar a year to protect the whole freakin reagion then they got what they deserved when the wave came in and killed everyone.
Of course it's America's fault for not treating them like children and taking care of everything for them, and of course they would have screamed bloodly murder that we were meddling in their affairs if we had.
Then after piles of dead start washing up on the beach, we were being called a bunch of cheap bastards when we didn't start spending billions, which we did, to bail out yet another disaster that could have been avoided for practically nothing.
You know what maybe we should just retain control of the internet, hell Al Gore invented it so it's ours by default. I'm sure he has a patent on the "www" portion of the address. So all you whiners out there owe us a quarter, every time you type in an address.
Actually its not so much a cable, sat, or tv thing (screw those blood suckers) but those making the shows need to start making them available for download either with commercials included or for a subscription fee or even a per episode purchase.
On demabd cable or even streaming is not the future of mass media, the download is. The sooner they wake up and realize this they can stop pissing away their profits paying the giant media companies and all the lawyers who send out the threats to someone in another country who happens to not want to wait the better part of a decade to see their favorite show.
Hehe have a sniffer looking for people who don't want their picture taken and then take their picture with a film camera.
There is a simple solution to this as has been for every type of stupid tech solution. Don't buy it.
Beside it won't be long before someone sues. It's pretty much ingrained in civil law. You have no right to privacy while in public.
I can see though it being legal and usefull to companies, the military, and other public/private venues such as concerts to keep people from being able to use their easily concealed digital cameras. Outside these areas I see it as nothing more than an attempt to extend copyright far beyond sane boundaries. Of course it would be funny if they required this technology in all security and police cameras too. So much for evidence and it would be the death to the show "Cops"
No they already offer a polished weather service, what they are talking about now is offering a dumbed down weather service for the average person to use which is no different than the regular service except they take an extra moment to put it in english.
try this out, goto the NOAA aviation website and do a TAF (terminal area forecast) aka the local weather. You'll have to put in an airport so try KPMD (Palmdale airport, Palmdale CA) You have two options raw data or translated
Forecast for: KPMD
Text: KPMD 241130Z 241212 23008KT P6SM SKC
Forecast period: 1200 to 1500 UTC 24 January 2005
Forecast type: FROM: standard forecast or significant change
Winds: from the SW (230 degrees) at 9 MPH (8 knots; 4.2 m/s)
Visibility: 6 miles (10 km)
Clouds: clear skies
Weather: no significant weather forecast for this period
Text: FM1500 VRB03KT P6SM SCT200
Forecast period: 1500 UTC 24 January 2005 to 0100 UTC 25 January 2005
Forecast type: FROM: standard forecast or significant change
Winds: variable direction winds at 3 MPH (3 knots; 1.6 m/s)
Visibility: 6 miles (10 km)
Clouds: scattered clouds at 20000 feet AGL
Weather: no significant weather forecast for this period
Text: FM0100 24008KT P6SM BKN100
Forecast period: 0100 to 1200 UTC 25 January 2005
Forecast type: FROM: standard forecast or significant change
Winds: from the WSW (240 degrees) at 9 MPH (8 knots; 4.2 m/s)
Visibility: 6 miles (10 km)
Ceiling: 10000 feet AGL
Clouds: broken clouds at 10000 feet AGL
Weather: no significant weather forecast for this period
The whole point for the coding was for bandwidth since this info use to be sent out by teletype, which by the way is the same information the weather stations use to provide the weather. The only ones that provide better local coveral are the ones that have their own weather radar, but they are far and few between.
You can goto http://www.weather.gov/ to see what they are screaming about it's even simpler than the aviation site.
The cost out of pocket to the tax payers a year is about $3 each and it might cost an extra nickle to provide the automated websites. Money well spent in my book.
Sure go to the National Tranportation Safety Board website and go look up general aviation accidents and you'll see a huge number of accidents based on the weather.
The main cause is still the pilot though
Not checking weather
Not turning around when caught in bad weather
Then not being able to control his airplane due to his lack of planning, lack of training, and of course the weather.
You want a high profile example of how weather kills. Do a search for J.F. Kennedy Jr and see why he crashed is airplane.
How do I know this well it should be obvious, I'm a pilot, well not quite yet a student pilot and a good 1/4 of the ground school revolves around weather.
But what has those companies in an uproar is not aviation, naval, or industrial weather reporting, but the weather chanel style weather put out to Joe Blow. The professional version have been avialable online for free for years and before that over the teletype and phone. The only problem is to the lay person they can be difficult to interpret. If they integrate the data into a simplified website the private companies would have a tough time competing.
It's not just proving you had the idea after you left the company, but it may require a length of time as well, since many tech companies have "no compation" clauses in any contracts that keep you from even working for another company or starting one of your own in the same field in some cases up to ten years after you leave them. Again it really depends on what you are willing to give up in order to have access to the resources a company or research group has to offer.
Well you just learned the difference between a worker and an entrepreneur. Sometimes the only thing the entrepreneur provides is money while the workers come up with the ideas and hard work, but it was the entrepreneur that took the bulk of the risk.
While I think any company that doesn't lavishly reward an employee that drops something like that in their lap to be idiots and overly greedy, at the same time it was their lab, their personel, and their money.
Better companies have typically have some sort of idea reward that usually drops 1-10% of the savings or royalties into the pay check of the idea man, the Air Force being one of them. I know of several people who have taken a simple idea and turned it into a $10,000-20,000 bonus. It really comes down to being smart about who you work for and what your motivations are. Nakamura should have really gone and formed his own company if he truly developed this idea on his own.
You have to understand that our media in the US is pretty much full of shit. They ramble on about anything. For example the other day. We're training the Iraqi's to form their own paramilitary special forces/police force to actively hunt down and deal with terrorists, since terrorists tend not to go quietly or willingly most likely it would result in deaths.
So what does the news report? Not that we are finally devoting the resourses to help these people fight their own fight, but that the CIA and the US Military are creating Iragi death squads to kill dissidents. Which is totally off in left field.
More or less the news in the US is not much better than entertainment. Their target audience is pretty much the same waste of human space that pull over at major traffic accidents to take picutes or in hopes of seeing a dead body.
The actual impact in most people's lives is negligable, maybe not for those in the Army and their families, but they represent a very tiny portion of the population. Other than what news flashes up once in a while it's pretty much a dead topic and most people don't even pay much attention to it anymore. Though of course if you believe the hype on the news you'd think 49% of the population wants the President's head on a stake and are out in the streets daily screaming for it. That's so far from the truth that it's pathetic. Right now most of the media is getting it's ass run through the grinder publicly for all the false articles and stories they ran during the election. They have very little credibility at the moment.
The torture thing well yeah we dropped the ball on that one, but if it's any consolation, people do not have fun in military prison and those that will be convicted for their cruelty and stupidity will be enjoying some hard labor for the next decade or two.
The casualty count in Iraq is very sad, but at the same time it's a war there is no such thing as non-combatants when area effect weapons come into play and the insurgents know this, so they tend to hide amongst the general population. At the same time we could go back to the tactics we used in WW II. There has been somewhere over 100,000 casualties including both military and civilian in Iraq, in one fire bombing raid of Tokyo alone killed over 200,000 civilians. The target was not military facilities but was specifically the civilian population of Tokyo. That's even more than both the atomic bomb casualies put together. Pretty much our ultimatum to the Japanese people was surrender or face extermination.
Again as I stated earlier people have very skewed perspective when it comes to the past. If they had the proper one then they'd realize exactly how cautious and gently (I'm not saying the best way) we are treating the situation in the Middle East.
Because if it came down to it, if we really wanted to we could end the conflict in Iraq in the span of 45 minutes. Don't believe me? Then just ask the Japanese what we are capable of...
No that's not how it is. You loose your leg most likely you're done.
You have to understand alot of these people don't want to go home and a surprising large number try to stay in but can't.
Various reasons:
sense of duty - good vs evil God and Country etc
like to blow stuff up - Cool toys, exciting life, and global living
probably the most important friends and an unwilliness to abandon them.
The US armed forces are not conscription based, there is no requirment to serve. People are there because they want to be or because they choose to be there. Don't get me wrong not everyone is happy with their choice or may be surprised to join the guard and end up fighting in a war, but at least some small part of that decission mulled over that risk.
Now back to the whole loose your leg get a fake one and back to the line you go.
The other thing most people don't understand, is in bad situations getting wounded in combat, criminal, medical, legal, financial, and reprimand situations the military will gladely help you pack your bags and show you the door, but if you decide to stay know a few people, have the right attitude and skills, and a strong desire to fight a discharge they will do there best to keep you, and yes if you are able, return to combat even minus a limb.
Err that's how it is now. You only get relieved from duty is when you can no longer do it. You get wounded you goto the hospital you get patched up, you go back to duty. When you're time is up you either re-up or go home.
Now get yourself injured badly enough then you get medical discharge if the military cannot find some sort of lighter duty for you to do to finish out your time.
The real question is, if you get shot in the same leg you already got replace with an artificial one, would you get another purple heart and be listed as a casualty or would it be a battle damage issue?
Err no? Exactly what proportion are you talking about? The number of Americans dying on the roads every month still out numbers the total dead of Iraq and Afganastan put together?
We're talking women and children here not volunteer soldiers. It could be anyone you know anywhere any time. It could be you.
Some how we seem to be managing pretty well, so how does Iraq suddenly become "scary" when it's smaller by a factor of 50?
Really people get a clue and some sense of perspective.
And for the record we are not killing everybody that disagrees with us, just most of them.
I hate to tell but all wars are the result of "failed" policies and this particular one has been brewing for the last 50 years not just the last 5.
As for the small group of the arrogant Washington I think you are being to selective. It would be more like a large group of arrogant gits around the globe are why we are in one of these messes every decade or two.
Wake me when the the terabyte drives come out and then I might be interested. Course I would be nice to have everything I have on 1 drive instead of 4 drives, but I'd still be out of space wouldn't I?
Wow and I thought the power company here in California were a bunch of blood suckers.
That's like charging you an extra hundred dollars because you filled up a second cart (trolly) at the grocery store.
We do have tiered pricing, it get's more expensive the more power you use based on user type, and they do have an option for charges based on peak/none peak usuage, but it's more to encourge solar/wind hook ins and conservation.
That's not to far from the latest research into pulse engines they are developing that use detonation (supersonic combustion) rather than deflageration (sub-sonic combustion) to get thrust from fuel.
Slashdot Mirror
Besided the whole point to Bittorrent is the popularity. If everyone wants it then you get a more robust connection, though not neccessiarly faster one, but once everyone has already gotten it then you get to drink from the fire hose on download and will never will upload a single bit. I'm sure the same thing will be done for a IP-movie service or any others.
Not all movie chains are created equal, only some of the big boys buy 100+ copies of a new release to service the demand for release day. The local video store here still only stocks 5-10 copies so you can forget about getting one for the first week or two.
Any orbital device is just a platform anyway. They can build it in such a way that any number of devices could be mounted on it.
Now as far as dumping the Hubble into the ocean. The the ones screaming the loudest in the science community are the ones that either have a guarenteed time slot for the Hubble or are awaiting their turn and haven't gotten it yet. A new probe would potentially disrupt their cozy little situation and force them to compete for the opportunity to use the new probe or loose their place in line. Sucks for you guys but your parents were supposed to teach you about dealling with dissappointment when you were 5.
For the sake of the unwashed masses that only want to see pretty pictures and are for the most part just have some minor emotional attachment to it, just name the next probe Hubble II, and make sure the public releases keep coming.
I'd rather just pay a couple of bucks and dump the commercials. Of course that was the original draw to cable, till they slowly but surely sneaked those in there too.
There is also a strange culture in this country that turns up it's nose at Associates degrees as something that only people who work full time and enroll in one of those cheesy tech schools where you can get a degree in only 6 months. Personally I'm a little miffed that I listened to my counsler and my parents, else I would have two or three extra associates degrees under my belt.
A 1 or 2 year associates degree is a much more attainable goal for nearly all college students than the soul (and money) sucking 4-5 years many bachelor degrees want. A student can use that time to figure out what they want to do with themselves and in a worse case senario have something to show for their efforts after they drop out of school their Junior year (like I did).
There is also this little word of wisdom about any degrees reguardless of the level. Once you have the piece of paper in hand they can't change the requirements to graduate on you, where as when you just have credits they can play all sorts of games.
We do deserve some grief over some of the trade issues, we have made some nasty mistakes, but those are being taken care of are they not?
Most of those "opposed" to US international agenda are the ones that are unhappy that the Cold War is over and upset that the US actually expects them to fucking knock it off already (France, Germany, Russia, etc, etc etc) and quit selling weapons and nuke tech to every other third world nation.
If you want to get in the nitty gritty of it all. Afganistan is Russia's fault, well wait weren't the Germans there before for them causing trouble, and we cannot forget the French and British colonial ambitions.
Did we make a mess by using the tactic of "The Enemy of my Enemy is a friend" to fight the Communist threat. (Everyone has seemed to conviently forgotten thatt Iraq was an ally in the Cold War with the USSR?) Hell yea we did, but we are paying for it in blood and money, and you know what we are cleaning up said mess, unlike so many countries who tend to be our biggest detracters in addition to being the biggest contributers to the nightmare that is the Middle East today.
If the US had aspirations of global dominancy we would already own the planet. Anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot and has obviously never actually been to the US. (There are plenty of Global International Companies that would like too, but they do not repesent the US people.)
We had the opportunity at total global domination 50 years ago, lets see how that played out. Had control of Europe gave it back. Had control of England or could have gave it back. Had control of the Middle East gave it back Had control of Japan gave it back Had control of portions of Asia gave it back Had Control of portions of Africa gave it back Could have steamrolled Russia (Who made the Nazies look the kind of people you'd let baby sit your kids) we should have but didn't We were the only country not destroyed economically by WWII so what did we do? We poured money to rebuild everyone else, who with a few exceptions never paid us back.
I'm ranting since I'm sick of lets take a stab at the US to some how validate their argument tactics. The UN is a political organization and has no business dealing with what was and still isa primarily a US business venture sponsored by public and private funds. Any country can set up their own internet and tell us to piss off, but if they want to play in our game then they are going to have to play by our rules.
So yeah that it's a little upsetting that Amsterdam didn't get a fair chance at www.freakyanalsex.com, but get over it already. Freakin whaaa people. It's about naming and some basic standards not content... idiot
Of course it's America's fault for not treating them like children and taking care of everything for them, and of course they would have screamed bloodly murder that we were meddling in their affairs if we had.
Then after piles of dead start washing up on the beach, we were being called a bunch of cheap bastards when we didn't start spending billions, which we did, to bail out yet another disaster that could have been avoided for practically nothing.
You know what maybe we should just retain control of the internet, hell Al Gore invented it so it's ours by default. I'm sure he has a patent on the "www" portion of the address. So all you whiners out there owe us a quarter, every time you type in an address.
Actually its not so much a cable, sat, or tv thing (screw those blood suckers) but those making the shows need to start making them available for download either with commercials included or for a subscription fee or even a per episode purchase. On demabd cable or even streaming is not the future of mass media, the download is. The sooner they wake up and realize this they can stop pissing away their profits paying the giant media companies and all the lawyers who send out the threats to someone in another country who happens to not want to wait the better part of a decade to see their favorite show.
There is a simple solution to this as has been for every type of stupid tech solution. Don't buy it.
Beside it won't be long before someone sues. It's pretty much ingrained in civil law. You have no right to privacy while in public.
I can see though it being legal and usefull to companies, the military, and other public/private venues such as concerts to keep people from being able to use their easily concealed digital cameras. Outside these areas I see it as nothing more than an attempt to extend copyright far beyond sane boundaries. Of course it would be funny if they required this technology in all security and police cameras too. So much for evidence and it would be the death to the show "Cops"
try this out, goto the NOAA aviation website and do a TAF (terminal area forecast) aka the local weather. You'll have to put in an airport so try KPMD (Palmdale airport, Palmdale CA) You have two options raw data or translated
Here are the two so you can see the difference.
KPMD 241130Z 241212 23008KT P6SM SKC
FM1500 VRB03KT P6SM SCT200
FM0100 24008KT P6SM BKN100
and translated
Forecast for: KPMD
Text: KPMD 241130Z 241212 23008KT P6SM SKC
Forecast period: 1200 to 1500 UTC 24 January 2005
Forecast type: FROM: standard forecast or significant change
Winds: from the SW (230 degrees) at 9 MPH (8 knots; 4.2 m/s)
Visibility: 6 miles (10 km)
Clouds: clear skies
Weather: no significant weather forecast for this period
Text: FM1500 VRB03KT P6SM SCT200
Forecast period: 1500 UTC 24 January 2005 to 0100 UTC 25 January 2005
Forecast type: FROM: standard forecast or significant change
Winds: variable direction winds at 3 MPH (3 knots; 1.6 m/s)
Visibility: 6 miles (10 km)
Clouds: scattered clouds at 20000 feet AGL
Weather: no significant weather forecast for this period
Text: FM0100 24008KT P6SM BKN100
Forecast period: 0100 to 1200 UTC 25 January 2005
Forecast type: FROM: standard forecast or significant change
Winds: from the WSW (240 degrees) at 9 MPH (8 knots; 4.2 m/s)
Visibility: 6 miles (10 km)
Ceiling: 10000 feet AGL
Clouds: broken clouds at 10000 feet AGL
Weather: no significant weather forecast for this period
The whole point for the coding was for bandwidth since this info use to be sent out by teletype, which by the way is the same information the weather stations use to provide the weather. The only ones that provide better local coveral are the ones that have their own weather radar, but they are far and few between.
You can goto http://www.weather.gov/ to see what they are screaming about it's even simpler than the aviation site.
The cost out of pocket to the tax payers a year is about $3 each and it might cost an extra nickle to provide the automated websites. Money well spent in my book.
The main cause is still the pilot though
Not checking weather
Not turning around when caught in bad weather
Then not being able to control his airplane due to his lack of planning, lack of training, and of course the weather.
You want a high profile example of how weather kills. Do a search for J.F. Kennedy Jr and see why he crashed is airplane.
How do I know this well it should be obvious, I'm a pilot, well not quite yet a student pilot and a good 1/4 of the ground school revolves around weather.
But what has those companies in an uproar is not aviation, naval, or industrial weather reporting, but the weather chanel style weather put out to Joe Blow. The professional version have been avialable online for free for years and before that over the teletype and phone. The only problem is to the lay person they can be difficult to interpret. If they integrate the data into a simplified website the private companies would have a tough time competing.
Check them out. http://www.aviationweather.gov/
ttp:wwwnoaagov
It's not just proving you had the idea after you left the company, but it may require a length of time as well, since many tech companies have "no compation" clauses in any contracts that keep you from even working for another company or starting one of your own in the same field in some cases up to ten years after you leave them. Again it really depends on what you are willing to give up in order to have access to the resources a company or research group has to offer.
While I think any company that doesn't lavishly reward an employee that drops something like that in their lap to be idiots and overly greedy, at the same time it was their lab, their personel, and their money.
Better companies have typically have some sort of idea reward that usually drops 1-10% of the savings or royalties into the pay check of the idea man, the Air Force being one of them. I know of several people who have taken a simple idea and turned it into a $10,000-20,000 bonus. It really comes down to being smart about who you work for and what your motivations are. Nakamura should have really gone and formed his own company if he truly developed this idea on his own.
So what does the news report? Not that we are finally devoting the resourses to help these people fight their own fight, but that the CIA and the US Military are creating Iragi death squads to kill dissidents. Which is totally off in left field.
More or less the news in the US is not much better than entertainment. Their target audience is pretty much the same waste of human space that pull over at major traffic accidents to take picutes or in hopes of seeing a dead body.
The actual impact in most people's lives is negligable, maybe not for those in the Army and their families, but they represent a very tiny portion of the population. Other than what news flashes up once in a while it's pretty much a dead topic and most people don't even pay much attention to it anymore. Though of course if you believe the hype on the news you'd think 49% of the population wants the President's head on a stake and are out in the streets daily screaming for it. That's so far from the truth that it's pathetic. Right now most of the media is getting it's ass run through the grinder publicly for all the false articles and stories they ran during the election. They have very little credibility at the moment.
The torture thing well yeah we dropped the ball on that one, but if it's any consolation, people do not have fun in military prison and those that will be convicted for their cruelty and stupidity will be enjoying some hard labor for the next decade or two.
The casualty count in Iraq is very sad, but at the same time it's a war there is no such thing as non-combatants when area effect weapons come into play and the insurgents know this, so they tend to hide amongst the general population. At the same time we could go back to the tactics we used in WW II. There has been somewhere over 100,000 casualties including both military and civilian in Iraq, in one fire bombing raid of Tokyo alone killed over 200,000 civilians. The target was not military facilities but was specifically the civilian population of Tokyo. That's even more than both the atomic bomb casualies put together. Pretty much our ultimatum to the Japanese people was surrender or face extermination.
Again as I stated earlier people have very skewed perspective when it comes to the past. If they had the proper one then they'd realize exactly how cautious and gently (I'm not saying the best way) we are treating the situation in the Middle East.
Because if it came down to it, if we really wanted to we could end the conflict in Iraq in the span of 45 minutes. Don't believe me? Then just ask the Japanese what we are capable of...
You have to understand alot of these people don't want to go home and a surprising large number try to stay in but can't.
Various reasons:
sense of duty - good vs evil God and Country etc
like to blow stuff up - Cool toys, exciting life, and global living
probably the most important friends and an unwilliness to abandon them.
The US armed forces are not conscription based, there is no requirment to serve. People are there because they want to be or because they choose to be there. Don't get me wrong not everyone is happy with their choice or may be surprised to join the guard and end up fighting in a war, but at least some small part of that decission mulled over that risk.
Now back to the whole loose your leg get a fake one and back to the line you go.
The other thing most people don't understand, is in bad situations getting wounded in combat, criminal, medical, legal, financial, and reprimand situations the military will gladely help you pack your bags and show you the door, but if you decide to stay know a few people, have the right attitude and skills, and a strong desire to fight a discharge they will do there best to keep you, and yes if you are able, return to combat even minus a limb.
Now get yourself injured badly enough then you get medical discharge if the military cannot find some sort of lighter duty for you to do to finish out your time.
Battle damage only happens to equipment ;)
We're talking women and children here not volunteer soldiers. It could be anyone you know anywhere any time. It could be you.
Some how we seem to be managing pretty well, so how does Iraq suddenly become "scary" when it's smaller by a factor of 50?
Really people get a clue and some sense of perspective.
And for the record we are not killing everybody that disagrees with us, just most of them.
As for the small group of the arrogant Washington I think you are being to selective. It would be more like a large group of arrogant gits around the globe are why we are in one of these messes every decade or two.
Would someone who had to many to drink still fall down if he had two of these legs?
Wake me when the the terabyte drives come out and then I might be interested. Course I would be nice to have everything I have on 1 drive instead of 4 drives, but I'd still be out of space wouldn't I?
That's like charging you an extra hundred dollars because you filled up a second cart (trolly) at the grocery store.
We do have tiered pricing, it get's more expensive the more power you use based on user type, and they do have an option for charges based on peak/none peak usuage, but it's more to encourge solar/wind hook ins and conservation.
Check out this site for more info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_detonation_engi ne/