Lets limit this to a scenario between the United States and Russia. No other scenario offers the all the actors in question the options that this scenario does.
Lets further limit to a general nuclear war scenario, ie, 'the big balloon'.
The highest priority targets would be C3I, command, control, communications, and intelligence targets: - the National Command Authority (the President and his successors) - NORAD - Offut Air Force Base, Nebraska (HQ for Strategic Command), - early warning radar stations in Greenland, Alaska, and Canada. - emergency relocation centers
#2 priority targets would be nuclear forces themselves: - ICBM HQs - SAC Airbases - Port facilities where nuclear weapons are stationed (ie, SSBN's - ballistic missile submarines - ICBM silos - nuclear weapon storage sites
Most of the above would be hit within the first two hours of hostilities.
#3 priority targets would be conventional warfighting targets: - Army HQ - Military unit locations - military airfields/airbases - military ports
#4 priority targets would be dual use targets: - civilian ports - civilian airfields
The following targets can be attacked at leisure (because they are not going to go anywhere). At leisure here means probably within 24 hours of hostilities.
#5 priority targets would be industrial and economic infrastructure necessary for warfighting: - key factories (aircraft, tanks, ammunition, etc) - electrical power generation facilities - petroleum refineries
#6 priority targets would be other industrial and economic targets: - transportation grid (rail and road hubs) - food processing plants - electrical power substations - petroleum pipelines and storage areas - computing centers - ball bearing factories
Somewhere near the bottom of the list are urban centers in an of themselves (although they may be hit earlier for any of the above reasons).
Whoever told you that there were 500 megaton nukes 'pointed at the most critical targets' either was a dumbass or lied through their teeth.
The largest deployed nukes were single warhead 25 megaton nukes on Soviet SS-18 missiles (the SS-18 also came in a 10 warhead, 550 kiloton per warhead, version).
Optimal detonation height for blast damage varies depending on the yield of the weapon, but generally speaking, we're talking about 2000 feet. When you are looking at it from above (like in T3) it could very well look like it 'exploded' on the ground.
What they captured well, and what I hadn't seen in a movie before (but have seen in actual test footage) was the blast wave's compression of water vapor into clouds.
Alcohol is a wonderful invention. On women it has fairly wonderous side effects like making them take their clothes off. Typically people who drink don't like to be around people who don't. Makes them feel alcoholic.
And face it, your manager (ie, boss) will probably be someone who drank a lot and was chasing girls at frat parties while you were up the wee hours of the night trying to figure out where you had left off the semi-colon to get your program to compile.
Is either choice better than the other? All depends on what you want. Some people work on getting what they want out of machines, some people work on getting what they want out of people.
That may, or may not be true but it comes a hell of a lot closer than alternative economic/political philosophies.
So, lets go down the list brutha: Corporatism != (innovation|democracy|freedom) Communism != (innovation|democracy|freedom) Socialism != (innovation|democracy|freedom) Environmentalism != (innovation|democracy|freedom) Fascism != (innovation|democracy|freedom)
I'm glad you brought up a "fucking econ book", because you should take your own advice. Actually, you should just learn to fucking read.
I never said I was in favor of deficit spending. In fact, we should be cutting entitlement programs left and right.
But deficit spending during a recession is a normal and accepted fiscal policy to respond to recessionary conditions. If you'd read a fucking econ book you might know that. But like most Demonazis, I guess your eyes glaze over when anything with hard numbers and actually having to calculate stuff comes up.
I'm curious as to why people think tax cuts should go to people who don't pay taxes in the first place? As a reward for being indigent?
And, what exactly do you consider fair taxation? Do you think your taxes are too low? Where would you be happy? Not until the "rich" are thrown out of their houses and the workers of the world stomp them underfoot, eh comrade?
I guess this is how ideologically rabid the left has gotten. Republicans, apparently, have a monopoly on corruption, and Democrats (and/or Greens) a monopoly on sainthood. By the way, did you know that John Kerry served in Vietnam?
AFAIK, only lefty Democrats think that by cutting taxes, we are "costing the government money". Get it, not collecting taxes is treated as a government expense. As if they have the right to all of your paycheck, but by the graciousness of their (the Republicans, since the last Democrat to push a tax cut was Kennedy) hearts, they'll "spend" some of your money by giving it back to you.
elitist nonsense - pluribus assumes he has a monopoly on careful consideration and rational anaylsis
Of course I don't assume I have any such monopoly. For all you know, I'm the one flipping the coin.
Gravity is insurmountable. It is directly related to the mass of the planet. While simulation of gravity by "centrifugal force" may be possible in space-craft it is not remotely practical for planet exploration and habitation. Most medical problems experienced by cosmonauts and astronauts are directly related to weak gravity conditions.
But lets get back to that careful consideration and rational analysis thing. While you are semantically correct (gravity is a force), you are totally wrong in concluding that, because Venus is close to 1G, it would make it more suitable for colonization. This is where the idiot comment came in...you obviously don't have a clue. Mars having less gravity is not a problem, it's a benefit. Makes it cheaper to exploit.
Most medical problems experienced by cosmonauts and astronauts are caused by micro or 0-gravity, which is a far cry from what they would experience on Mars. Mars has a high enough gravity where there wouldn't be significant bone degeneration.
Your solutions for Venus are non-starters too. "Solved in the short term by structures that are structurally engineered to resist extreme pressure and heat". And for our next trick we'll have matter transporters and phaser beams. Note, you are trying to go through and awful lot of trouble for 1G. It would be easier, safer, and more economical to build a colony at the bottom of the Marianas trench. Or Mars.
The fact that Venus is tidally locked is also a major problem. It rotates exactly once a year. Meaning, for half a year, one side is dark, and the other side is bathed in perpetual light.
For every person making a vote based off of research, analysis, and careful consideration of the candidates, you have a guy like this flipping the coin and cancelling out your vote.
Why Venus will not be colonized before Mars:
1) Gravity isn't a "big insurmountable". Mars gravity would be just fine for colonists. Venus gravity would make it prohibitively expensive to make orbit.
2) The "solvable" extreme pressure and heat also exists on Jupiter. "Solvable" != economically feasible. How exactly do you propose to "solve" these problems?
3) Venus is not "much more interesting". It's a dead rock. Mars, from the standpoint of history, is much more interesting.
4) You're an idiot.
5) Venus is tidally locked.
Ah, a faith based missile defense. Good description for what we have now. A system where we gamble everything on the faith that no suicidal despot with nuclear weapons won't nuke us in fear of our devastating retaliation. BMD is a step in the right direction...moving away from a "faith based" defense system to one rooted in physics and actually shooting down incoming missiles.
Or maybe you like the little blackmail game North Korea is running, where they are now saying if we stop giving them stuff for free, they will nuke us.
The Patriot is what's known as a THAAD, theater high altitude air defense. The original version was designed to shoot down aircraft, not missiles.
Gulf War 2 was the first life fire demonstration of the Patriot's ability to successfully engage aircraft. Unfortunately, it happened to be friendly aircraft.
It also proved it's ability to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles.
The simple fact is, while there are other means of delivering nuclear weapons, a ballistic missile is the most reliable way. It's also the only manner in which there is, currently, no effective deployed counter measure.
I really don't know how these neo-commies like little boy Timmy can sleep at night denigrating BMD as "SDI" (clue: SDI was in the 80s) all the while North Korea is threatening to nuke the United States if we impose economic sanctions on them.
Folks, the threat is real. If missiles were such an inefficient means of delivery, then why is North Korea, Pakistan, India, Iran, Iraq, and every other would be nuclear power eagerly pursuing the developing of ballistic missiles? After all, don't THEY know that you could more easily deliver a bomb using a shipping container?
Groups like Al Qaeda are fighting to restore the Caliphate, and impose Islam on the 'House of War'.
They hate us quite simply because we are infidels. That hate us even more because we are powerful and stand in the way of them imposing their religious beliefs on the rest of the world.
What, exactly, do you propose as a counter-solution? Embrace Islam and start praying 5 times a day? Adopt the shariah as the Constitution and have all non-Muslims pay a poll tax in order to not be killed by the devout followers of the prophet Mohammed, may peace be upon him?
Again, most terrorism does not come from the wellspring of injustice. It is not about righting wrongs. And the suppression of terrorism by violent means is QUITE effective historically speaking. Historical fact is on my side, not yours. In fact, I challenge you to find a case where accomodating the terrorists ended terrorism. Has yet to work for Northern Ireland, and that's the best case I can think of off the top of my head.
No, the dual use stuff really is dual use. For example, thiodiglycol is a pre-cursor of mustard gas, but it is also used for, among other things, producing ink for ballpoint pens.
A lot of the dual use chemicals we sold to Iraq have legimate uses in the manufacture of pesticides (or in some cases WERE pesticides). Not only are we talking about materials where the civilian use is legitimate, we are also talking about chemicals were the vast bulk of the uses are legimate. It is almost as if you are talking about banning the sale of bathtubs because Yates drowned her children in it.
There have been some legitimate and illegitimate criticisms on Bush's administration on transparency. It seems, among some other things, that Bush is covering up some of the Clinton excesses. I'd like to know why.
Bush isn't claiming protestors are no better than terrorists. And considering these terrorists, er, I mean protestors are claiming that Bush is no better than Hitler, can they really complain? The problem with the left is they think freedom of speech means freedom from criticism (unless they are doing the criticizing). It's a bit hypocritical to call Bush Hitler then get all bent out of shape when someone calls you a terrorist sympathizer. And it's also a bit disengenous. The protestors aren't being muzzled. You see them and their POV on the news every night.
The Santorum thing was a hatchet job. This is what he said:
"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."
Which is ipsofacto true. It is a slippery slope. The same fundamental argument could be applied to incest (assuming we are talking about adults).
What he also said is, the Supreme Court should stay out of it. Whether or not the acts (in this case, sodomy) should be viewed as criminal should be left to the states, not the Supreme Court.
It was a long way from gay bashing, which is what this has been spun into being.
Hey, guess what, I'm an atheist too. But Bush or Ashcroft being religious doesn't bother me. No one has made me go to Church since they've been elected. To be honest, I feel more comfortable with someone like Bush or Ashcroft who believe their might be a reckoning for their actions than I do with someone like Clinton who (despite finding religion at all the right moments), obviously did not.
War Powers Act...well, that piece of legislation was probably un-Constitutional anyway. But, to a degree, you are correct, the judicial and executive branch are taking on more and more power over time. But what do you expect when both parties obstruct the functioning of government in Congress (see judicial nominations being blocked now by democrats..."advise and consent" is the charge given to the Senate, not "filibuster and obstruct")?
with the fact that your dislike of Bush is largely irrational. That doesn't mean you don't have real or even good reasons for disliking him, but like a lot of people that seem to dislike him, if you strip the good or real reasons, you are still left with a large amount of bile.
This is somewhat similar to the way conservatives viewed Clinton, only the Democratic/left hatred of Bush is of substantially greater magnitude...bordering on the black helicopter crowd.
I suggest you do some more research on the US-Iraq relationship. It was never as cozy as the left likes to claim. All of the stuff we gave Iraq that went to their WMD was dual use chemicals, of which the primary purpose was not the production of WMD. We certainly didn't help him in his quest to produce VX. For that, you can blame the Germans.
Back to Bush, what exactly is Bush doing that you fear so much?
For one thing, we weren't taking money "away" from Iraq...just limiting how we would do business with them and what we would sell them.
They could buy all the food and medicine they wanted (and in fact, Iraq imported more food in 2002 than it did pre-Gulf War I).
But I'm curious...were you pro-war or anti-war here? Personally, I think we should've finished the job back in 1991, but I disagree that the Iraqis that Hussein killed after then were somehow "caused by us". No, they were caused by Hussein.
The Kurdish area of Iraq got the same amount of money under the sanctions as the rest of Iraq, yet they had no starvation there, nor did they have the thousands of dead infants. Iraq wasn't short of medicines...in Jordan at pharmacies they would ask if you if you wanted name brand, generic, or Iraqi.
The sanctions didn't kill the Iraqi children...Saddam Hussein did. Rather than channel the aid to people who needed it, he resold it (illegally) and kept the money for himself while starving the Iraqis in the south.
The point of this is, that part of the Iraqi economy that was under the control of the Hussein regime was used to enrich the Hussein regime. This was true before sanctions were ever in place.
The solution to this was NOT to end the sanctions regime.
The solution was the removal of Hussein from power.
There's a good chance it's going to be an idiotic post concerning violations of your "rights", usually by a Republican but sometimes by an evil Corporation.
It's an outdated, Marxist view of conflict as "class struggle".
The fact is the majority of terrorism that exists today is state sponsored and has nothing to do with economics. To steal from Mark Steyn:
As Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah, neatly put it, 'We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.'.
From the horses mouth, that little quote destroys your argument.
Ultimately terrorism isn't about getting money, it's about getting power. After all, terrorism is an expensive business. Terrorists usually aren't poor, and even the foot soldiers (like the ones in the September 11th attacks) usually have good economic prospects.
Terrorists don't attack us because we have 3 TV's per capita and they don't. If you follow that logic to it's logical conclusion, you'll give the terrorists 3 tv's and still have people hating and killing you.
Ultimately the best cure for curing terrorism is killing the terrorists and destroying the infrastructure (states) that support it. There really is no other way.
'If you have a country like Zimbabwe where a third of the population is infected (according to the WHO) then I don't think that 'avoiding prostitutes' is going to protect your average citizen.'
This is a bit disengenous. One of the primary vectors for transmission in Africa has been prostitution.
All the Marxist/Maoist/Communist/Green Party weenies to moderate you down.
Don't you know that capitalism, not Communism is evil? That capitalism, especially global corporatism, is just slavery cloaked in a fancy name? And that Communism is where real freedom is (even if you don't have food to eat, and "loyalty squads" will come beat you if you say anything bad about the regimine like in Cuba).
You would think that after killing over 100 million people over the past century and enslaving close to 2 billion people, the Communists and their sympathizers would have some shame.
"Perhaps we remember those things, but we also remember the current administration constantly implying that we would be welcomed as liberators, that there would be no serious resistance, that the war would be one of days and weeks, not months and years."
Not sure which administration officials you listened to, but I seem to recall them stating it wouldn't be easy, and it wouldn't be fast.
The press and many "talking heads" claimed the above, but that bs wasn't coming out of the administration. A US Army general ten years retired does not represent the current administration.
"Perhaps we're realizing that our administration lied to us. Perhaps we're realizing that the whole war is a lie. Perhaps we're just pissed off because the Bush administration does nothing but tell half truths, regularly lies by omission, and does not allow the media to express controversial opinions. "
Perhaps your "realizations" are hallucinations.
But how many times has "Die Faterland" come down on you?
If you take the stuff the average left-wing nutbag protestor does in the United States, and ship them off to Iraq, it would be a matter of minutes before one of Saddam's thugs took him or her, cut out his or her tongue, then shipped him or her off to prison where he or she would be tortured daily until eventually being executed or pardonned, whichever the local prison warden's whims took him.
People who claim the US is a police state don't have a friggin clue. They get arrested for breaking the window of a Starbucks coffee shop in their little "protest" (read: riot), and they bitch and whine because the food they get served isn't hot or doesn't taste good, the jail bed (that they spend one night in) is uncomfortable, and the policeman stared at them menacingly after they spit in his face and called him a baby killer.
There was a study that came out recently that documented that many protestors are, by participating in large protests, are essentially attempting to make up for social inadequacies experienced in adolescence. This sounds about right. So what inadequacy are you attempting to rectify Jah-Wren?
You don't know much about science at all. Do you really think it's appropriate for you to be spouting out pet environmental theories given your stupendous lack of knowledge of basic mechanisms of energy transfer?
Did you bother to read the article to see how this works? No.
But that sure didn't stop you from rushing out and writing a post about the potential environmental horrors of the release of ammonia gas.
Conservatives and big oil don't have to destroy the environmental movement...their own stupidity is quite sufficient for the task.
Slashdot Mirror
Lets limit this to a scenario between the United States and Russia. No other scenario offers the all the actors in question the options that this scenario does.
Lets further limit to a general nuclear war scenario, ie, 'the big balloon'.
The highest priority targets would be C3I, command, control, communications, and intelligence targets:
- the National Command Authority (the President and his successors)
- NORAD
- Offut Air Force Base, Nebraska (HQ for Strategic Command),
- early warning radar stations in Greenland, Alaska, and Canada.
- emergency relocation centers
#2 priority targets would be nuclear forces themselves:
- ICBM HQs
- SAC Airbases
- Port facilities where nuclear weapons are stationed (ie, SSBN's - ballistic missile submarines
- ICBM silos
- nuclear weapon storage sites
Most of the above would be hit within the first two hours of hostilities.
#3 priority targets would be conventional warfighting targets:
- Army HQ
- Military unit locations
- military airfields/airbases
- military ports
#4 priority targets would be dual use targets:
- civilian ports
- civilian airfields
The following targets can be attacked at leisure (because they are not going to go anywhere). At leisure here means probably within 24 hours of hostilities.
#5 priority targets would be industrial and economic infrastructure necessary for warfighting:
- key factories (aircraft, tanks, ammunition, etc)
- electrical power generation facilities
- petroleum refineries
#6 priority targets would be other industrial and economic targets:
- transportation grid (rail and road hubs)
- food processing plants
- electrical power substations
- petroleum pipelines and storage areas
- computing centers
- ball bearing factories
Somewhere near the bottom of the list are urban centers in an of themselves (although they may be hit earlier for any of the above reasons).
Whoever told you that there were 500 megaton nukes 'pointed at the most critical targets' either was a dumbass or lied through their teeth. The largest deployed nukes were single warhead 25 megaton nukes on Soviet SS-18 missiles (the SS-18 also came in a 10 warhead, 550 kiloton per warhead, version). Optimal detonation height for blast damage varies depending on the yield of the weapon, but generally speaking, we're talking about 2000 feet. When you are looking at it from above (like in T3) it could very well look like it 'exploded' on the ground. What they captured well, and what I hadn't seen in a movie before (but have seen in actual test footage) was the blast wave's compression of water vapor into clouds.
BTW, I don't drink.
Alcohol is a wonderful invention. On women it has fairly wonderous side effects like making them take their clothes off. Typically people who drink don't like to be around people who don't. Makes them feel alcoholic.
And face it, your manager (ie, boss) will probably be someone who drank a lot and was chasing girls at frat parties while you were up the wee hours of the night trying to figure out where you had left off the semi-colon to get your program to compile.
Is either choice better than the other? All depends on what you want. Some people work on getting what they want out of machines, some people work on getting what they want out of people.
Capitalism != (innovation|democracy|freedom)
That may, or may not be true but it comes a hell of a lot closer than alternative economic/political philosophies.
So, lets go down the list brutha:
Corporatism != (innovation|democracy|freedom)
Communism != (innovation|democracy|freedom)
Socialism != (innovation|democracy|freedom)
Environmentalism != (innovation|democracy|freedom)
Fascism != (innovation|democracy|freedom)
But what can you expect from a Sooner.
I'm glad you brought up a "fucking econ book", because you should take your own advice. Actually, you should just learn to fucking read.
I never said I was in favor of deficit spending. In fact, we should be cutting entitlement programs left and right.
But deficit spending during a recession is a normal and accepted fiscal policy to respond to recessionary conditions. If you'd read a fucking econ book you might know that. But like most Demonazis, I guess your eyes glaze over when anything with hard numbers and actually having to calculate stuff comes up.
I'm curious as to why people think tax cuts should go to people who don't pay taxes in the first place? As a reward for being indigent? And, what exactly do you consider fair taxation? Do you think your taxes are too low? Where would you be happy? Not until the "rich" are thrown out of their houses and the workers of the world stomp them underfoot, eh comrade?
"Oh yea, I forgot we still have Republicans"
I guess this is how ideologically rabid the left has gotten. Republicans, apparently, have a monopoly on corruption, and Democrats (and/or Greens) a monopoly on sainthood. By the way, did you know that John Kerry served in Vietnam?
AFAIK, only lefty Democrats think that by cutting taxes, we are "costing the government money". Get it, not collecting taxes is treated as a government expense. As if they have the right to all of your paycheck, but by the graciousness of their (the Republicans, since the last Democrat to push a tax cut was Kennedy) hearts, they'll "spend" some of your money by giving it back to you.
I'm taking antibiotics right now for bronchitis. Wouldn't you know it, I'm starting to grow a third eye on my left palm.
elitist nonsense - pluribus assumes he has a monopoly on careful consideration and rational anaylsis
Of course I don't assume I have any such monopoly. For all you know, I'm the one flipping the coin.
Gravity is insurmountable. It is directly related to the mass of the planet. While simulation of gravity by "centrifugal force" may be possible in space-craft it is not remotely practical for planet exploration and habitation. Most medical problems experienced by cosmonauts and astronauts are directly related to weak gravity conditions.
But lets get back to that careful consideration and rational analysis thing. While you are semantically correct (gravity is a force), you are totally wrong in concluding that, because Venus is close to 1G, it would make it more suitable for colonization. This is where the idiot comment came in...you obviously don't have a clue. Mars having less gravity is not a problem, it's a benefit. Makes it cheaper to exploit.
Most medical problems experienced by cosmonauts and astronauts are caused by micro or 0-gravity, which is a far cry from what they would experience on Mars. Mars has a high enough gravity where there wouldn't be significant bone degeneration.
Your solutions for Venus are non-starters too. "Solved in the short term by structures that are structurally engineered to resist extreme pressure and heat". And for our next trick we'll have matter transporters and phaser beams. Note, you are trying to go through and awful lot of trouble for 1G. It would be easier, safer, and more economical to build a colony at the bottom of the Marianas trench. Or Mars.
The fact that Venus is tidally locked is also a major problem. It rotates exactly once a year. Meaning, for half a year, one side is dark, and the other side is bathed in perpetual light.
For every person making a vote based off of research, analysis, and careful consideration of the candidates, you have a guy like this flipping the coin and cancelling out your vote. Why Venus will not be colonized before Mars: 1) Gravity isn't a "big insurmountable". Mars gravity would be just fine for colonists. Venus gravity would make it prohibitively expensive to make orbit. 2) The "solvable" extreme pressure and heat also exists on Jupiter. "Solvable" != economically feasible. How exactly do you propose to "solve" these problems? 3) Venus is not "much more interesting". It's a dead rock. Mars, from the standpoint of history, is much more interesting. 4) You're an idiot. 5) Venus is tidally locked.
Ah, yes. His faith-based missle (sic) defense.
Ah, a faith based missile defense. Good description for what we have now. A system where we gamble everything on the faith that no suicidal despot with nuclear weapons won't nuke us in fear of our devastating retaliation. BMD is a step in the right direction...moving away from a "faith based" defense system to one rooted in physics and actually shooting down incoming missiles.
Or maybe you like the little blackmail game North Korea is running, where they are now saying if we stop giving them stuff for free, they will nuke us.
The Patriot is what's known as a THAAD, theater high altitude air defense. The original version was designed to shoot down aircraft, not missiles.
Gulf War 2 was the first life fire demonstration of the Patriot's ability to successfully engage aircraft. Unfortunately, it happened to be friendly aircraft.
It also proved it's ability to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles.
The simple fact is, while there are other means of delivering nuclear weapons, a ballistic missile is the most reliable way. It's also the only manner in which there is, currently, no effective deployed counter measure.
I really don't know how these neo-commies like little boy Timmy can sleep at night denigrating BMD as "SDI" (clue: SDI was in the 80s) all the while North Korea is threatening to nuke the United States if we impose economic sanctions on them.
Folks, the threat is real. If missiles were such an inefficient means of delivery, then why is North Korea, Pakistan, India, Iran, Iraq, and every other would be nuclear power eagerly pursuing the developing of ballistic missiles? After all, don't THEY know that you could more easily deliver a bomb using a shipping container?
Groups like Al Qaeda are fighting to restore the Caliphate, and impose Islam on the 'House of War'.
They hate us quite simply because we are infidels. That hate us even more because we are powerful and stand in the way of them imposing their religious beliefs on the rest of the world.
What, exactly, do you propose as a counter-solution? Embrace Islam and start praying 5 times a day? Adopt the shariah as the Constitution and have all non-Muslims pay a poll tax in order to not be killed by the devout followers of the prophet Mohammed, may peace be upon him?
Again, most terrorism does not come from the wellspring of injustice. It is not about righting wrongs. And the suppression of terrorism by violent means is QUITE effective historically speaking. Historical fact is on my side, not yours. In fact, I challenge you to find a case where accomodating the terrorists ended terrorism. Has yet to work for Northern Ireland, and that's the best case I can think of off the top of my head.
Karma bashing...we are probably both safe. I think we've nested far enough down where we are the only ones reading this.
I'd argue that given the liberal tilt of Slashdot, I probably have more to fear than you do.
BTW, enjoyed the debate. Good luck to you.
No, the dual use stuff really is dual use. For example, thiodiglycol is a pre-cursor of mustard gas, but it is also used for, among other things, producing ink for ballpoint pens.
A lot of the dual use chemicals we sold to Iraq have legimate uses in the manufacture of pesticides (or in some cases WERE pesticides). Not only are we talking about materials where the civilian use is legitimate, we are also talking about chemicals were the vast bulk of the uses are legimate. It is almost as if you are talking about banning the sale of bathtubs because Yates drowned her children in it.
There have been some legitimate and illegitimate criticisms on Bush's administration on transparency. It seems, among some other things, that Bush is covering up some of the Clinton excesses. I'd like to know why.
Bush isn't claiming protestors are no better than terrorists. And considering these terrorists, er, I mean protestors are claiming that Bush is no better than Hitler, can they really complain? The problem with the left is they think freedom of speech means freedom from criticism (unless they are doing the criticizing). It's a bit hypocritical to call Bush Hitler then get all bent out of shape when someone calls you a terrorist sympathizer. And it's also a bit disengenous. The protestors aren't being muzzled. You see them and their POV on the news every night.
The Santorum thing was a hatchet job. This is what he said:
"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."
Which is ipsofacto true. It is a slippery slope. The same fundamental argument could be applied to incest (assuming we are talking about adults).
What he also said is, the Supreme Court should stay out of it. Whether or not the acts (in this case, sodomy) should be viewed as criminal should be left to the states, not the Supreme Court.
It was a long way from gay bashing, which is what this has been spun into being.
Hey, guess what, I'm an atheist too. But Bush or Ashcroft being religious doesn't bother me. No one has made me go to Church since they've been elected. To be honest, I feel more comfortable with someone like Bush or Ashcroft who believe their might be a reckoning for their actions than I do with someone like Clinton who (despite finding religion at all the right moments), obviously did not.
War Powers Act...well, that piece of legislation was probably un-Constitutional anyway. But, to a degree, you are correct, the judicial and executive branch are taking on more and more power over time. But what do you expect when both parties obstruct the functioning of government in Congress (see judicial nominations being blocked now by democrats..."advise and consent" is the charge given to the Senate, not "filibuster and obstruct")?
with the fact that your dislike of Bush is largely irrational. That doesn't mean you don't have real or even good reasons for disliking him, but like a lot of people that seem to dislike him, if you strip the good or real reasons, you are still left with a large amount of bile.
This is somewhat similar to the way conservatives viewed Clinton, only the Democratic/left hatred of Bush is of substantially greater magnitude...bordering on the black helicopter crowd.
I suggest you do some more research on the US-Iraq relationship. It was never as cozy as the left likes to claim. All of the stuff we gave Iraq that went to their WMD was dual use chemicals, of which the primary purpose was not the production of WMD. We certainly didn't help him in his quest to produce VX. For that, you can blame the Germans.
Back to Bush, what exactly is Bush doing that you fear so much?
For one thing, we weren't taking money "away" from Iraq...just limiting how we would do business with them and what we would sell them.
They could buy all the food and medicine they wanted (and in fact, Iraq imported more food in 2002 than it did pre-Gulf War I).
But I'm curious...were you pro-war or anti-war here? Personally, I think we should've finished the job back in 1991, but I disagree that the Iraqis that Hussein killed after then were somehow "caused by us". No, they were caused by Hussein.
The Kurdish area of Iraq got the same amount of money under the sanctions as the rest of Iraq, yet they had no starvation there, nor did they have the thousands of dead infants. Iraq wasn't short of medicines...in Jordan at pharmacies they would ask if you if you wanted name brand, generic, or Iraqi.
The sanctions didn't kill the Iraqi children...Saddam Hussein did. Rather than channel the aid to people who needed it, he resold it (illegally) and kept the money for himself while starving the Iraqis in the south.
The point of this is, that part of the Iraqi economy that was under the control of the Hussein regime was used to enrich the Hussein regime. This was true before sanctions were ever in place.
The solution to this was NOT to end the sanctions regime.
The solution was the removal of Hussein from power.
There's a good chance it's going to be an idiotic post concerning violations of your "rights", usually by a Republican but sometimes by an evil Corporation.
It's an outdated, Marxist view of conflict as "class struggle".
The fact is the majority of terrorism that exists today is state sponsored and has nothing to do with economics. To steal from Mark Steyn:
As Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah, neatly put it, 'We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.'.
From the horses mouth, that little quote destroys your argument.
Ultimately terrorism isn't about getting money, it's about getting power. After all, terrorism is an expensive business. Terrorists usually aren't poor, and even the foot soldiers (like the ones in the September 11th attacks) usually have good economic prospects.
Terrorists don't attack us because we have 3 TV's per capita and they don't. If you follow that logic to it's logical conclusion, you'll give the terrorists 3 tv's and still have people hating and killing you.
Ultimately the best cure for curing terrorism is killing the terrorists and destroying the infrastructure (states) that support it. There really is no other way.
'If you have a country like Zimbabwe where a third of the population is infected (according to the WHO) then I don't think that 'avoiding prostitutes' is going to protect your average citizen.'
This is a bit disengenous. One of the primary vectors for transmission in Africa has been prostitution.
Please read a basic grammar book. It is difficult to be credible in claiming scientific expertise if you fall down on basic grammar and spelling.
All the Marxist/Maoist/Communist/Green Party weenies to moderate you down.
Don't you know that capitalism, not Communism is evil? That capitalism, especially global corporatism, is just slavery cloaked in a fancy name? And that Communism is where real freedom is (even if you don't have food to eat, and "loyalty squads" will come beat you if you say anything bad about the regimine like in Cuba).
You would think that after killing over 100 million people over the past century and enslaving close to 2 billion people, the Communists and their sympathizers would have some shame.
"Perhaps we remember those things, but we also remember the current administration constantly implying that we would be welcomed as liberators, that there would be no serious resistance, that the war would be one of days and weeks, not months and years." Not sure which administration officials you listened to, but I seem to recall them stating it wouldn't be easy, and it wouldn't be fast. The press and many "talking heads" claimed the above, but that bs wasn't coming out of the administration. A US Army general ten years retired does not represent the current administration. "Perhaps we're realizing that our administration lied to us. Perhaps we're realizing that the whole war is a lie. Perhaps we're just pissed off because the Bush administration does nothing but tell half truths, regularly lies by omission, and does not allow the media to express controversial opinions. " Perhaps your "realizations" are hallucinations.
But how many times has "Die Faterland" come down on you?
If you take the stuff the average left-wing nutbag protestor does in the United States, and ship them off to Iraq, it would be a matter of minutes before one of Saddam's thugs took him or her, cut out his or her tongue, then shipped him or her off to prison where he or she would be tortured daily until eventually being executed or pardonned, whichever the local prison warden's whims took him.
People who claim the US is a police state don't have a friggin clue. They get arrested for breaking the window of a Starbucks coffee shop in their little "protest" (read: riot), and they bitch and whine because the food they get served isn't hot or doesn't taste good, the jail bed (that they spend one night in) is uncomfortable, and the policeman stared at them menacingly after they spit in his face and called him a baby killer.
There was a study that came out recently that documented that many protestors are, by participating in large protests, are essentially attempting to make up for social inadequacies experienced in adolescence. This sounds about right. So what inadequacy are you attempting to rectify Jah-Wren?
You don't know much about science at all. Do you really think it's appropriate for you to be spouting out pet environmental theories given your stupendous lack of knowledge of basic mechanisms of energy transfer?
Did you bother to read the article to see how this works? No.
But that sure didn't stop you from rushing out and writing a post about the potential environmental horrors of the release of ammonia gas.
Conservatives and big oil don't have to destroy the environmental movement...their own stupidity is quite sufficient for the task.