Why should the people of Dubai care what Senator Obama thinks?
See, and here I thought Obama was more like Morpheus, who would lead the revolution and find The One, but that ultimately the Real Deal would be a pasty white guy who honestly isn't nearly as cool.
Every deep space journey needs to have at least one person go batshit insane. It's textbook.
Of course, everyone knows that. What they're trying to do is ensure that there is only the minimum one case of Space Madness per ship. It's much easier to isolate the crazy person and repair whatever sabotage they committed if there aren't multiple crazies running around.
Yeah, Newton's 3rd Law. So the 20 story building experiences an amount of deceleration equivalent to the amount of force required to destroy the single floor underneath it, i.e. a microsecond of deceleration, followed by more acceleration due to that other great theory of Newton's, gravity.
So yes, it absolutely can be "anywhere close" to free fall.
No, it's not baloney, and it was a civil engineer who designed tall buildings that was telling me this. A side impact from a jet liner is nothing compared to the impact of a large 20 story building falling on top of it, okay? Once it starts to fall, the lower floors would fail instantly, because as over-engineered as it was for the task of supporting a building, it wasn't anywhere close to being built to withstand that. As the engineer who had in fact done the math, using actual specialized domain knowledge said, once it starts to fail that seemingly strong steel structure was going to be more like toothpicks.
No demolition company has ever turned up on site and said "Oh, we'll burn five storeys in the top half of this fifty storey building and it will all go down". The entire building needs to be accounted for.
Yes, because no demolition company has ever been asked to destroy a skyscraper in such a manner that numerous buildings around it would destroyed or damaged by falling debris. That is why controlled demolition is so difficult, and why if this was supposed to be a controlled demolition it was the worst one ever.
You've offered no explanation as to how all the floors, most of which were completely untouched, below the few floors that were affected by fire became so structurally unsound that they were able to collapse in. Unless this happens, you simply don't have enough energy to precipitate a full collapse from the action of a few floors at the top of the building collapsing into those below. You will still get at least some of the building intact.
It's called kinetic energy. The floors below don't need to be structurally unsound at all. Because at their full sky-scraper supporting strength, they are nowhere near strong enough to withstand the impact of a 15-20 story building being dropped on them from 10 feet. As soon as the core near the top was weakened enough by the fire that the floors above the impact point began to fall, that was it. The floor beneath could not possibly survive and would be driven down with the already falling mass, meaning the next floor is experiencing at minimum the energy of all the previous floors plus one accelerating for ten feet, but realistically the falling floors would not be greatly decelerated at all as they continued to pulverize floors beneath them, adding to the mass and energy being exerted on lower floors.
It may intuitively seem like the steel structures of a skyscraper are extremely strong and it's unlikely they could be destroyed that easily. The fact is that they are extremely strong, they must be simply to do the job of countering the gravitational force on all the mass above it. But once part fails, and all that mass starts to accelerate, the forces that would have to be withstood to decelerate it would be orders of magnitude past what the structure was designed for in the worst case. Immediate and complete failure of each successive level is exactly what would be expected, and by the time that stack hit the ground it would have so much energy that much of it would in fact be pulverized.
You are severely underestimating the strength of massive steel structural beams that were designed to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 and still keep the building upright.
Nobody is. It withstood the impact. What it did not withstand is the dozen stories above it falling down. A 707 is tiny and more importantly feather-light (aluminum vs concrete and steel) compared to a fifteen story building. The steel core of the building was not built to withstand having another building dropped on it.
Here's a link to a picture of a pancake collapse. The floors remain fairly recognizable stacked one on top of another. There is rubble but there is no pulverization.
If you really think a 5-story building collapsing is at all comparable to a 100-story building collapsing, then there's seriously no hope for you. Do you have any idea how much energy was contained in that falling building? Obviously not, but suffice to say that you're very very wrong and the complete pulverization of a great deal of the building was inevitable.
Another big reason large buildings tend to fall straight down is that is the direction gravity is pulling them. Anything much bigger than three or four stories is going to come apart very soon after leaving vertical, and the pieces come straight down.
Yeah, you really have to keep in mind just how big these structures are. With the two main towers, there were dozens of floors above the impact point. It's already a phenomenal engineering feat to hold up that amount of weight. Then consider once the frame becomes weakened. Once any point in the structure starts to give, all those floors above start to move, the weak point is going to buckle. Just think about the amount of kinetic energy all that building gains after accelerating only a few feet. There's no way the structure underneath can survive that even if was completely undamaged. Thus why it seemed as though the towers went into free-fall, the amount of downward force being exerted simply tore through everything like it was cray paper, which then itself fell adding to the mass.
Super Catching, allowing him to safely decelerate objects he catches, is just one of his lesser-known powers, along with Super Ventriloquism and Super Hunches.
He has an unrelated power which is also called Super Catching, but we won't talk about that.
Sorry, but the idea that the Bush adminstration wasn't at least fairly positive there were WMD's in Iraq when they said so is ludicrous, or I can't believe they wouldn't have worked in a way to cover their butts by planting something. Not that I think Bush is above that sort of action, but it didn't happen.
Why is it ludicrous? They had decided they wanted to invade Iraq two days after 9/11. Then they came up with a reason why, and decided WMDs would sell to the public best. They asked for intelligence that showed Iraq had WMDs -- they did not ask for all intelligence in order to make a decision, just what supported their pre-decided case. It is conceivable that after two years of hearing nothing but what they wanted to hear, that they ended up actually believing it to an extent, but how they went about showing that intel and combating anyone who tried to tell the truth shows they were well aware of the need to spin it.
And after all their failures, why is a failure to cover their butts so ludicrous? Maybe it's harder to sneak WMD materials into a place than you think, and the consequences for getting caught quite severe. They certainly grasped at any straw they could -- remember the Trailers of Mass Destruction? And in the end, all they needed WMDs for was to convince the people to go to war, after that they could switch to any of their other reasons to justify continuing. And it worked -- Bush got his second term, didn't he? So where exactly is the problem?
Of course, there's also the still not-entirely discredited theory that Saddam shipped WMD-related equipment (not functional WMD's, however) forbidden by the Gulf War treaty to Syria.
Not entirely discredited? Forgive me, but I'm more interested in whether this theory has been credited in any way, or is it still simply the dream of those who think that ultimately Bush's WMD BS will be vindicated with no evidence behind it at all?
Also, the invasion was not soley predicated on the existance of WMD's or an active WMD program
No shit, and I never said it was. WMDs were the primary thing they kept harping on, because it resonated best with the American people who didn't give much of a crap about UN resolutions or any of that other stuff.
But since you obviously didn't notice, what we were talking about was how the invasion of Iraq may affected Iran and Pakistan, with the one I was talking to theorizing that it at least demonstrates that we will invade a country with WMDs. I'm saying it doesn't, they knew damn well we invaded Iraq because they were weak and non-threatening. We were not discussing the "Rational for the Iraq War" issue. Try to keep up.
Regime change, mind you (which does not necessarily require force)was an official US policy that came from the Clinton administration, and was furthermore part of the Bush administration's election platform (now that's a tidbit you won't see mentioned in most mainstream discussions of the invasion!).
So what. Regime change in Cuba has been the official policy for fifty years now, and since Kennedy who has taken any direct action? Obviously we wanted regime change in Iraq, but there was no move to actually do it. Hell, in early 2001, Colin Powell was giving speeches about how harmless Iraq was, how well they'd been contained and how well the sanctions were working. You remember that little tidbit?
I'm not a vocal supporter of the invasion. It was at best half-justified in my opinion, but it bothers me to no end to continuously see at least 99% of the discussions about it twist basic facts about something that happened only 5 years ago.
Since you didn't even know what the conversation was about or what facts were being put forward, I'm guessing 99% of the time it's you who is twisted.
The real and quite reasonable fear of Western governments is that if Iran possessed nuclear weapon's, this would shift power in the middle East very much against their own interests. From the perspective of Iran, on the other hand, this is one of the main motivations to have a nuclear weapon's programme.
That's it in a nutshell. MAD will still work with Iran, but we really don't want to enter into MAD politics with Iran, and they of course would see this as much better than being under threat of invasion.
You cannot bomb universities and plants forever.
Eh, you may have a hard time convincing Israel of that.
Ha ha, you discover lie, but joke is on you! What BAI really said when I called them was "Of course you can get your nuclear plant today, Comrade! No charge; we give according to your need in order to defeat capitalist pig-dogs! But don't let pig-dogs know we can ship plants so quickly." So I say it takes three to five days since capitalists too impatient to wait that long and so never have glorious free energy.
You were not supposed to know truth. I will have to be telling BAI that someone there is telling secrets to pig-dogs. They will probably be sent to Canada, Siberia of the West. In meantime, in spirit of sportsmanship for your clever discovery, I will warn you that when your nuclear plant arrives and does not work, do not open panel to see what is wrong. There is no uranium or electronics inside, only angry bear. Little joke we play.
But it did demonstrate American will to deploy far more forces than needed to conquer Iraq(enough to militarily conquer Iran or Pakistan in fact), if WMD ever got in the hands of someone like Saddam who was willing to use them.
The thing is, I doubt Iran and Pakistan believed the ludicrous WMD lies, so all we really proved is that we're willing to invade a country that doesn't have them. Which I think is the major reason why Iran wants them, to deter us from attacking (this being even before Iraq). Pakistan already had nukes for years; they aren't worried about us invading them. Their change of heart came after 9/11 when they suddenly became our buddies in the War on Terror. I've seen no evidence that the invasion of Iraq has lessened the relationship between the ISP and the Taliban.
I mean, it's possible that Iraq at least showed that we were willing to mobilize a lot of troops, I'm just not sure what that actually could have bought us.
But that's alot of speculation. I think we are largely agreed that Bush/Cheney are either dangerously incompetent or dangerously corrupt, or both. But even with that, the leadership in Iran and Pakistan is a much greater threat and orders of magnitude more frightening.
I'm quite certain of their extreme incompetence, and confident of a fair measure of corruption by Cheney and company just from their Nixon/Regan days. Of course they aren't much of a threat any more, their damage has been done, and soon they'll be out. The only danger left, then, is that we repeat the same stupid mistake by which we let them back into power after getting rid of them before. Obviously Iran is a bigger threat than these neocon losers.
2. After Musharraf and the Pakistan military co-operated with the US to crack down on Islamic extremism, there is a virtual civil war going on in Pakistan. On one side is the corrupt military that controls most of the country by force. Scarily, those are the 'good' guys. The other side are the religous mullahs. They aren't the moderate muslim leaders we have over here. They are pro-bin laden jihadists who we really wouldn't like to see in control of the nuclear weapons that AQ Khan built for Pakistan. The Best part is they control the region the Taliban and Al-Qaeda retreated so completely the military is scared to go there and it would be suicide for the police to enter it.
Don't forget when our only real choice for a "good guy", a moderate and a reformer loved by the people, willing to work with the West, and aligned with neither the jihadists nor the military, was assassinated on the campaign trail. What a sad day that was.
Frankly, that all scares the willies out of me.
No kidding.
but ignore the real world, lets worry about the Bush Dynasty and it's heinous attempts at holding a free election in Iraq.
Hey now. Not that Bush is actually the greatest danger in the world (I mean, he's a short-timer and lame duck at this point), don't sugar coat the massively stupid fuck-up that was the invasion, and it's effects on the situation. I mean aside from strengthening Iran, how fucking insane is it that because our military is so entangled in Iraq that we can't field enough forces in Afghanistan to hold onto bases and cities we'd previously taken from the Taliban? And forget about being able to do what the Pakistanis can't and go into the northern regions where the Taliban retreats to every winter! There's a real battle with real fronts against our real enemy going on, but we can't do the needful because we're stuck in a pointless quagmire!
The frightening situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan is exactly why invading Iraq was the stupidest fucking thing we could have done.
The only way to win against North Korea is not to play, and wait for it to collapse... but our predictions of "collapse within this decade" are repeatedly pushed back.
Yeah, Kim is kinda like Castro that way. Only with a more messed up country, but more artillery and thus better bargaining power for aid to extend his rule.
Unfortunately, Iran is heavily involved in fueling both sides of the insurgency in Iraq, in order to kick US influence out of the region and keep the government from being too pro-US, which in turn means anti-Iran. I don't know about Afghanistan, but I'm sure Iran is involved in the same way with the Taliban as they are with various players in Iraq.
Iran is definitely involved with the Iraqi insurgency, but I don't think they have much if any influence over the Sunni part. But they're doing just fine fueling both "sides" of the Shia insurgency. SIIC (ne SCIRI) and its militia the Badr Brigade and al Sadr's party and Madhi Army militia are heavily influenced by Iran; the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq was actually founded in Iran by Iraqi ex-patriots. It's funny how now that the Badr Brigade has been largely absorbed into/become the Iraqi Army and is thus the "good guys", we totally played up the Iranian connection to Sadr when the army went after him, but ignored the even deeper connection to the ruling party. But reality is, whichever side of the insurgency wins, it's a win for Iran. The whole Iraq war is a huge win for Iran.
As far as the Taliban, I doubt Iran has much influence over them. As the hardest of hard-core Pushtun Sunnis, the Taliban hate Iran, and Iran hates them as much as they hated Saddam. But that's okay. Getting rid of one hated enemy and replacing it with a sympathetic government on one side, and getting rid of another hated enemy and merely replacing it with a weak government on the other is more than enough.
I have very mixed feelings about the invasion of Iraq, intended to be a easy operation over quickly but marred by incompetent civilian leadership. It is extremely unfortunate that we simply can't respond to other problem states in the world due to the smaller-scale MAD circumstances that exist.
Well thanks to all our forces being focused on Iraq, we can't respond period. It was never going to be an easy operation, it was never going to be quick, but the very fact that the idiots in charge thought otherwise made it so, so much worse than it would have been. It's mind boggling how badly we've shot ourselves in the foot.
I'm not even going to argue with your characterization of Muslims. There are certainly some that more or less fit your description, and while I may think they are an extremely small percentage, that isn't the point.
The point is, no matter how crazy and suicidal you imagine the average Iranian, their leaders certainly are neither. Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, and all the ruling clerics didn't go to the trouble to acquire all that power just to lose it in a nuclear blast over Tehran. Like all politicians, whether superficially religious or not, they're after power and control not a glorious death. Who is it that you think goes on the suicide bombing missions? It ain't the leaders, it's the grunts. The leaders want to stay home and be safe and gain more wealth and power. Promises of virgins are for the ones who don't have anything better to look forward to in this life.
So what I'm saying is, MAD will work, just like it worked against the Russians. Iran's leaders aren't crazy, and they're actually quite intelligent. Losing the Islamic Republic is not acceptable to them. They will not launch a preemptive nuclear strike, because they know that no matter what they accomplished in that strike they would be annihilated, Iran would be destroyed, and all their plans and schemes would be for naught. So unless our or Israeli nukes are in the air, or tanks are rolling over the border, then they aren't going to use their bomb.
No, the fact is that MAD will work, and that's why Iran wants the bomb. Because MAD works both ways, and once they have the bomb then they get to join the Nobody Fucks With You Country Club. Those neo-con dreams of invading Iran would be out the window, permanently. And at that point, they can work on whatever their regional ambitions for their non-nuclear neighbors are, and not have to worry about a U.S. or other world power response more severe than our response to Russia in Georgia.
That's plenty of reason to not want Iran to go nuclear. You don't need to imagine a mushroom cloud in NYC or Tel Aviv (which won't happen) to be concerned.
Wouldn't it be poetic justice and just a tad ironic if the US spent all this time and money on the "boogey man in Iraq", then like the boy who cried wolf, is criticized and ignored over Iran?
I guess. I knew that was going to be the score from the second Bush uttered the words "Axis of Evil". I knew damn well that the actually dangerous countries, Iran and North Korea, would be left more or less alone while the weak and harmless one was going to be invaded. That it was going to be the one invaded exactly because it was harmless. I mean, we wouldn't invade a country if we really thought they could retaliate with nukes. So NK and Iran, the ones with real nuclear programs, get all the diplomacy while Saddam got the U.S. Armed Forces Steamroll.
If it makes you feel any better, lots of countries are worried about Iran's nuclear program. They agree with the U.S. even if they aren't listening to U.S. "intelligence" any more. Just don't expect them to invade any time soon; even the Bush admin realizes how nasty and terrible that would be.
There is no reason why we all can't have safe little nuclear power plants in our backyard, today.
Actually, there is. Inspired by your post, I called up Backyard Atomics Inc. and asked them if I could get a nuclear plant in my backyard today. They said no, it takes 3-5 days for shipping. So already I was disappointed. Then I decided to see if you were at least partly right, and asked if they would get plants to everyone in 3-5 days. They said no, that would require their full production capacity through at least next February.
So I appreciate the spirit of your post, but please get your facts right next time. It's either "There is no reason why some of us can't have safe little nuclear power plants in our backyard, next week" or "There is no reason we all can't have safe little nuclear power plants in our backyard, next year."
On a serious note, it is sort of sad that Vista has performed so poorly. I mean, I really enjoy Linux, but on my gaming desktop I'd like to have the best OS for the job (with DX10 if it's used). As a gamer, the whole thing put a sour taste in my mouth. I guess I can say I'm happy with Linux, but a bit sad that nothing useful came out of Microsoft's work, except for being able to lord it over them.
Yeah, it's really kinda sad. I mean, I don't use Windows at all, I don't play games that won't run in Linux (wine/cedega count). And while I have absolutely no love lost for Microsoft, I certainly think typical users deserve a good operating system regardless of who it comes from. I don't expect them to all switch to Linux, and it would be nice if the new operating system they will use was actually better than the old -- and in some ways it certainly is. Yet if everyone is reverting back because of problems, then the benefits don't matter. They're ending up with the same thing they had (plus service packs) in 2001.
At the same time though this is hardly unexpected. All the signs were there. Long before it was released it was obvious that if Windows NT was the IBM 7000 series, then Vista was its System 360. Plus a whole host of managerial issues that were evident beyond the Second System Syndrome. I feel bad for consumers, because once again Microsoft has failed them.
Re:Dude, it's made from leggos, it is nerd news
on
Beijing 2008 In Lego
·
· Score: 5, Funny
On a side note, I have my doubts about a Hong Kong team building it. If the Chinese really built it, they would have conscripted their entire population to build a lego model up to scale:).
Well if it makes you feel better about the story's credibility, the members of the HK Lego User's Group were taken from their parents at the age of 3 to undergo years of rigorous Lego construction training.
Slashdot Mirror
Why should the people of Dubai care what Senator Obama thinks?
See, and here I thought Obama was more like Morpheus, who would lead the revolution and find The One, but that ultimately the Real Deal would be a pasty white guy who honestly isn't nearly as cool.
Every deep space journey needs to have at least one person go batshit insane. It's textbook.
Of course, everyone knows that. What they're trying to do is ensure that there is only the minimum one case of Space Madness per ship. It's much easier to isolate the crazy person and repair whatever sabotage they committed if there aren't multiple crazies running around.
You forgot to get the opinion of the savior, The One himself, as to what he thinks of these Ziggurats.
Neo: Whoa!
So there ya have it.
Yeah, Newton's 3rd Law. So the 20 story building experiences an amount of deceleration equivalent to the amount of force required to destroy the single floor underneath it, i.e. a microsecond of deceleration, followed by more acceleration due to that other great theory of Newton's, gravity.
So yes, it absolutely can be "anywhere close" to free fall.
No, it's not baloney, and it was a civil engineer who designed tall buildings that was telling me this. A side impact from a jet liner is nothing compared to the impact of a large 20 story building falling on top of it, okay? Once it starts to fall, the lower floors would fail instantly, because as over-engineered as it was for the task of supporting a building, it wasn't anywhere close to being built to withstand that. As the engineer who had in fact done the math, using actual specialized domain knowledge said, once it starts to fail that seemingly strong steel structure was going to be more like toothpicks.
No demolition company has ever turned up on site and said "Oh, we'll burn five storeys in the top half of this fifty storey building and it will all go down". The entire building needs to be accounted for.
Yes, because no demolition company has ever been asked to destroy a skyscraper in such a manner that numerous buildings around it would destroyed or damaged by falling debris. That is why controlled demolition is so difficult, and why if this was supposed to be a controlled demolition it was the worst one ever.
You've offered no explanation as to how all the floors, most of which were completely untouched, below the few floors that were affected by fire became so structurally unsound that they were able to collapse in. Unless this happens, you simply don't have enough energy to precipitate a full collapse from the action of a few floors at the top of the building collapsing into those below. You will still get at least some of the building intact.
It's called kinetic energy. The floors below don't need to be structurally unsound at all. Because at their full sky-scraper supporting strength, they are nowhere near strong enough to withstand the impact of a 15-20 story building being dropped on them from 10 feet. As soon as the core near the top was weakened enough by the fire that the floors above the impact point began to fall, that was it. The floor beneath could not possibly survive and would be driven down with the already falling mass, meaning the next floor is experiencing at minimum the energy of all the previous floors plus one accelerating for ten feet, but realistically the falling floors would not be greatly decelerated at all as they continued to pulverize floors beneath them, adding to the mass and energy being exerted on lower floors.
It may intuitively seem like the steel structures of a skyscraper are extremely strong and it's unlikely they could be destroyed that easily. The fact is that they are extremely strong, they must be simply to do the job of countering the gravitational force on all the mass above it. But once part fails, and all that mass starts to accelerate, the forces that would have to be withstood to decelerate it would be orders of magnitude past what the structure was designed for in the worst case. Immediate and complete failure of each successive level is exactly what would be expected, and by the time that stack hit the ground it would have so much energy that much of it would in fact be pulverized.
You are severely underestimating the strength of massive steel structural beams that were designed to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 and still keep the building upright.
Nobody is. It withstood the impact. What it did not withstand is the dozen stories above it falling down. A 707 is tiny and more importantly feather-light (aluminum vs concrete and steel) compared to a fifteen story building. The steel core of the building was not built to withstand having another building dropped on it.
Here's a link to a picture of a pancake collapse. The floors remain fairly recognizable stacked one on top of another. There is rubble but there is no pulverization.
If you really think a 5-story building collapsing is at all comparable to a 100-story building collapsing, then there's seriously no hope for you. Do you have any idea how much energy was contained in that falling building? Obviously not, but suffice to say that you're very very wrong and the complete pulverization of a great deal of the building was inevitable.
Another big reason large buildings tend to fall straight down is that is the direction gravity is pulling them. Anything much bigger than three or four stories is going to come apart very soon after leaving vertical, and the pieces come straight down.
Yeah, you really have to keep in mind just how big these structures are. With the two main towers, there were dozens of floors above the impact point. It's already a phenomenal engineering feat to hold up that amount of weight. Then consider once the frame becomes weakened. Once any point in the structure starts to give, all those floors above start to move, the weak point is going to buckle. Just think about the amount of kinetic energy all that building gains after accelerating only a few feet. There's no way the structure underneath can survive that even if was completely undamaged. Thus why it seemed as though the towers went into free-fall, the amount of downward force being exerted simply tore through everything like it was cray paper, which then itself fell adding to the mass.
What exactly is the implant for? My guess is squeezing another couple grand out of scared rich folk.
You just don't know enough about Superman.
Super Catching, allowing him to safely decelerate objects he catches, is just one of his lesser-known powers, along with Super Ventriloquism and Super Hunches.
He has an unrelated power which is also called Super Catching, but we won't talk about that.
Yeah, well the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor every December 7th, 1941, so that's pretty predictable too.
No, don't send me to Canada!
Sorry, but the idea that the Bush adminstration wasn't at least fairly positive there were WMD's in Iraq when they said so is ludicrous, or I can't believe they wouldn't have worked in a way to cover their butts by planting something. Not that I think Bush is above that sort of action, but it didn't happen.
Why is it ludicrous? They had decided they wanted to invade Iraq two days after 9/11. Then they came up with a reason why, and decided WMDs would sell to the public best. They asked for intelligence that showed Iraq had WMDs -- they did not ask for all intelligence in order to make a decision, just what supported their pre-decided case. It is conceivable that after two years of hearing nothing but what they wanted to hear, that they ended up actually believing it to an extent, but how they went about showing that intel and combating anyone who tried to tell the truth shows they were well aware of the need to spin it.
And after all their failures, why is a failure to cover their butts so ludicrous? Maybe it's harder to sneak WMD materials into a place than you think, and the consequences for getting caught quite severe. They certainly grasped at any straw they could -- remember the Trailers of Mass Destruction? And in the end, all they needed WMDs for was to convince the people to go to war, after that they could switch to any of their other reasons to justify continuing. And it worked -- Bush got his second term, didn't he? So where exactly is the problem?
Of course, there's also the still not-entirely discredited theory that Saddam shipped WMD-related equipment (not functional WMD's, however) forbidden by the Gulf War treaty to Syria.
Not entirely discredited? Forgive me, but I'm more interested in whether this theory has been credited in any way, or is it still simply the dream of those who think that ultimately Bush's WMD BS will be vindicated with no evidence behind it at all?
Also, the invasion was not soley predicated on the existance of WMD's or an active WMD program
No shit, and I never said it was. WMDs were the primary thing they kept harping on, because it resonated best with the American people who didn't give much of a crap about UN resolutions or any of that other stuff.
But since you obviously didn't notice, what we were talking about was how the invasion of Iraq may affected Iran and Pakistan, with the one I was talking to theorizing that it at least demonstrates that we will invade a country with WMDs. I'm saying it doesn't, they knew damn well we invaded Iraq because they were weak and non-threatening. We were not discussing the "Rational for the Iraq War" issue. Try to keep up.
Regime change, mind you (which does not necessarily require force)was an official US policy that came from the Clinton administration, and was furthermore part of the Bush administration's election platform (now that's a tidbit you won't see mentioned in most mainstream discussions of the invasion!).
So what. Regime change in Cuba has been the official policy for fifty years now, and since Kennedy who has taken any direct action? Obviously we wanted regime change in Iraq, but there was no move to actually do it. Hell, in early 2001, Colin Powell was giving speeches about how harmless Iraq was, how well they'd been contained and how well the sanctions were working. You remember that little tidbit?
I'm not a vocal supporter of the invasion. It was at best half-justified in my opinion, but it bothers me to no end to continuously see at least 99% of the discussions about it twist basic facts about something that happened only 5 years ago.
Since you didn't even know what the conversation was about or what facts were being put forward, I'm guessing 99% of the time it's you who is twisted.
The real and quite reasonable fear of Western governments is that if Iran possessed nuclear weapon's, this would shift power in the middle East very much against their own interests. From the perspective of Iran, on the other hand, this is one of the main motivations to have a nuclear weapon's programme.
That's it in a nutshell. MAD will still work with Iran, but we really don't want to enter into MAD politics with Iran, and they of course would see this as much better than being under threat of invasion.
You cannot bomb universities and plants forever.
Eh, you may have a hard time convincing Israel of that.
Ha ha, you discover lie, but joke is on you! What BAI really said when I called them was "Of course you can get your nuclear plant today, Comrade! No charge; we give according to your need in order to defeat capitalist pig-dogs! But don't let pig-dogs know we can ship plants so quickly." So I say it takes three to five days since capitalists too impatient to wait that long and so never have glorious free energy.
You were not supposed to know truth. I will have to be telling BAI that someone there is telling secrets to pig-dogs. They will probably be sent to Canada, Siberia of the West. In meantime, in spirit of sportsmanship for your clever discovery, I will warn you that when your nuclear plant arrives and does not work, do not open panel to see what is wrong. There is no uranium or electronics inside, only angry bear. Little joke we play.
But it did demonstrate American will to deploy far more forces than needed to conquer Iraq(enough to militarily conquer Iran or Pakistan in fact), if WMD ever got in the hands of someone like Saddam who was willing to use them.
The thing is, I doubt Iran and Pakistan believed the ludicrous WMD lies, so all we really proved is that we're willing to invade a country that doesn't have them. Which I think is the major reason why Iran wants them, to deter us from attacking (this being even before Iraq). Pakistan already had nukes for years; they aren't worried about us invading them. Their change of heart came after 9/11 when they suddenly became our buddies in the War on Terror. I've seen no evidence that the invasion of Iraq has lessened the relationship between the ISP and the Taliban.
I mean, it's possible that Iraq at least showed that we were willing to mobilize a lot of troops, I'm just not sure what that actually could have bought us.
But that's alot of speculation. I think we are largely agreed that Bush/Cheney are either dangerously incompetent or dangerously corrupt, or both. But even with that, the leadership in Iran and Pakistan is a much greater threat and orders of magnitude more frightening.
I'm quite certain of their extreme incompetence, and confident of a fair measure of corruption by Cheney and company just from their Nixon/Regan days. Of course they aren't much of a threat any more, their damage has been done, and soon they'll be out. The only danger left, then, is that we repeat the same stupid mistake by which we let them back into power after getting rid of them before. Obviously Iran is a bigger threat than these neocon losers.
2. After Musharraf and the Pakistan military co-operated with the US to crack down on Islamic extremism, there is a virtual civil war going on in Pakistan. On one side is the corrupt military that controls most of the country by force. Scarily, those are the 'good' guys. The other side are the religous mullahs. They aren't the moderate muslim leaders we have over here. They are pro-bin laden jihadists who we really wouldn't like to see in control of the nuclear weapons that AQ Khan built for Pakistan. The Best part is they control the region the Taliban and Al-Qaeda retreated so completely the military is scared to go there and it would be suicide for the police to enter it.
Don't forget when our only real choice for a "good guy", a moderate and a reformer loved by the people, willing to work with the West, and aligned with neither the jihadists nor the military, was assassinated on the campaign trail. What a sad day that was.
Frankly, that all scares the willies out of me.
No kidding.
but ignore the real world, lets worry about the Bush Dynasty and it's heinous attempts at holding a free election in Iraq.
Hey now. Not that Bush is actually the greatest danger in the world (I mean, he's a short-timer and lame duck at this point), don't sugar coat the massively stupid fuck-up that was the invasion, and it's effects on the situation. I mean aside from strengthening Iran, how fucking insane is it that because our military is so entangled in Iraq that we can't field enough forces in Afghanistan to hold onto bases and cities we'd previously taken from the Taliban? And forget about being able to do what the Pakistanis can't and go into the northern regions where the Taliban retreats to every winter! There's a real battle with real fronts against our real enemy going on, but we can't do the needful because we're stuck in a pointless quagmire!
The frightening situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan is exactly why invading Iraq was the stupidest fucking thing we could have done.
The only way to win against North Korea is not to play, and wait for it to collapse... but our predictions of "collapse within this decade" are repeatedly pushed back.
Yeah, Kim is kinda like Castro that way. Only with a more messed up country, but more artillery and thus better bargaining power for aid to extend his rule.
Unfortunately, Iran is heavily involved in fueling both sides of the insurgency in Iraq, in order to kick US influence out of the region and keep the government from being too pro-US, which in turn means anti-Iran. I don't know about Afghanistan, but I'm sure Iran is involved in the same way with the Taliban as they are with various players in Iraq.
Iran is definitely involved with the Iraqi insurgency, but I don't think they have much if any influence over the Sunni part. But they're doing just fine fueling both "sides" of the Shia insurgency. SIIC (ne SCIRI) and its militia the Badr Brigade and al Sadr's party and Madhi Army militia are heavily influenced by Iran; the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq was actually founded in Iran by Iraqi ex-patriots. It's funny how now that the Badr Brigade has been largely absorbed into/become the Iraqi Army and is thus the "good guys", we totally played up the Iranian connection to Sadr when the army went after him, but ignored the even deeper connection to the ruling party. But reality is, whichever side of the insurgency wins, it's a win for Iran. The whole Iraq war is a huge win for Iran.
As far as the Taliban, I doubt Iran has much influence over them. As the hardest of hard-core Pushtun Sunnis, the Taliban hate Iran, and Iran hates them as much as they hated Saddam. But that's okay. Getting rid of one hated enemy and replacing it with a sympathetic government on one side, and getting rid of another hated enemy and merely replacing it with a weak government on the other is more than enough.
I have very mixed feelings about the invasion of Iraq, intended to be a easy operation over quickly but marred by incompetent civilian leadership. It is extremely unfortunate that we simply can't respond to other problem states in the world due to the smaller-scale MAD circumstances that exist.
Well thanks to all our forces being focused on Iraq, we can't respond period. It was never going to be an easy operation, it was never going to be quick, but the very fact that the idiots in charge thought otherwise made it so, so much worse than it would have been. It's mind boggling how badly we've shot ourselves in the foot.
I'm not even going to argue with your characterization of Muslims. There are certainly some that more or less fit your description, and while I may think they are an extremely small percentage, that isn't the point.
The point is, no matter how crazy and suicidal you imagine the average Iranian, their leaders certainly are neither. Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, and all the ruling clerics didn't go to the trouble to acquire all that power just to lose it in a nuclear blast over Tehran. Like all politicians, whether superficially religious or not, they're after power and control not a glorious death. Who is it that you think goes on the suicide bombing missions? It ain't the leaders, it's the grunts. The leaders want to stay home and be safe and gain more wealth and power. Promises of virgins are for the ones who don't have anything better to look forward to in this life.
So what I'm saying is, MAD will work, just like it worked against the Russians. Iran's leaders aren't crazy, and they're actually quite intelligent. Losing the Islamic Republic is not acceptable to them. They will not launch a preemptive nuclear strike, because they know that no matter what they accomplished in that strike they would be annihilated, Iran would be destroyed, and all their plans and schemes would be for naught. So unless our or Israeli nukes are in the air, or tanks are rolling over the border, then they aren't going to use their bomb.
No, the fact is that MAD will work, and that's why Iran wants the bomb. Because MAD works both ways, and once they have the bomb then they get to join the Nobody Fucks With You Country Club. Those neo-con dreams of invading Iran would be out the window, permanently. And at that point, they can work on whatever their regional ambitions for their non-nuclear neighbors are, and not have to worry about a U.S. or other world power response more severe than our response to Russia in Georgia.
That's plenty of reason to not want Iran to go nuclear. You don't need to imagine a mushroom cloud in NYC or Tel Aviv (which won't happen) to be concerned.
I think you need to get out more.
He can't afford to, if he's going to continue being constantly useful!
Wouldn't it be poetic justice and just a tad ironic if the US spent all this time and money on the "boogey man in Iraq", then like the boy who cried wolf, is criticized and ignored over Iran?
I guess. I knew that was going to be the score from the second Bush uttered the words "Axis of Evil". I knew damn well that the actually dangerous countries, Iran and North Korea, would be left more or less alone while the weak and harmless one was going to be invaded. That it was going to be the one invaded exactly because it was harmless. I mean, we wouldn't invade a country if we really thought they could retaliate with nukes. So NK and Iran, the ones with real nuclear programs, get all the diplomacy while Saddam got the U.S. Armed Forces Steamroll.
If it makes you feel any better, lots of countries are worried about Iran's nuclear program. They agree with the U.S. even if they aren't listening to U.S. "intelligence" any more. Just don't expect them to invade any time soon; even the Bush admin realizes how nasty and terrible that would be.
There is no reason why we all can't have safe little nuclear power plants in our backyard, today.
Actually, there is. Inspired by your post, I called up Backyard Atomics Inc. and asked them if I could get a nuclear plant in my backyard today. They said no, it takes 3-5 days for shipping. So already I was disappointed. Then I decided to see if you were at least partly right, and asked if they would get plants to everyone in 3-5 days. They said no, that would require their full production capacity through at least next February.
So I appreciate the spirit of your post, but please get your facts right next time. It's either "There is no reason why some of us can't have safe little nuclear power plants in our backyard, next week" or "There is no reason we all can't have safe little nuclear power plants in our backyard, next year."
Er... Thanks for the advice, but as I said, I don't use windows any more.
On a serious note, it is sort of sad that Vista has performed so poorly. I mean, I really enjoy Linux, but on my gaming desktop I'd like to have the best OS for the job (with DX10 if it's used). As a gamer, the whole thing put a sour taste in my mouth. I guess I can say I'm happy with Linux, but a bit sad that nothing useful came out of Microsoft's work, except for being able to lord it over them.
Yeah, it's really kinda sad. I mean, I don't use Windows at all, I don't play games that won't run in Linux (wine/cedega count). And while I have absolutely no love lost for Microsoft, I certainly think typical users deserve a good operating system regardless of who it comes from. I don't expect them to all switch to Linux, and it would be nice if the new operating system they will use was actually better than the old -- and in some ways it certainly is. Yet if everyone is reverting back because of problems, then the benefits don't matter. They're ending up with the same thing they had (plus service packs) in 2001.
At the same time though this is hardly unexpected. All the signs were there. Long before it was released it was obvious that if Windows NT was the IBM 7000 series, then Vista was its System 360. Plus a whole host of managerial issues that were evident beyond the Second System Syndrome. I feel bad for consumers, because once again Microsoft has failed them.
On a side note, I have my doubts about a Hong Kong team building it. If the Chinese really built it, they would have conscripted their entire population to build a lego model up to scale :).
Well if it makes you feel better about the story's credibility, the members of the HK Lego User's Group were taken from their parents at the age of 3 to undergo years of rigorous Lego construction training.