Cool. Gotta love that, pass judgement on something you haven't seen. Why don't you watch it. If you are a geek, engineer or space enthusiast its infinitely more interesting and worthwhile than the contrived reality garbage TV everyone else is watching. After you've seen it please drop back by and say you're sorry for bad mouthing it.
They were mostly filming right before, during and after each of the milestone flights. They were emotionally charged times by nature, the documentary crew didn't really need to pump it, especially in the control room when there were serious malfunctions.
They were dangerous flights and Melville and his wife show their anxiety. Rutan and Melville are life long friends and their closeness appears genuine.
It was a band of "amateurs" putting a man into space for 20 some millions dollars which is something NASA is currently incapable of doing with billions of dollars at their disposal. Its shows a small band of free spirits can still push back frontiers without having the life sucked out of them in a bureaucracy.
Read Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars series. He does a pretty good job of outlining a possible route for establishing plant life on Mars, though he does make a number gigantic leaps of faith to achieve success. Its not an action packed adventure series exactly though there is some action in it. He did spend way to much time thinking about colonizing mars and that does make it an interesting series for geeks.
As I recall he started with lichens or some similar life form you find on rocks above the timberline. Mars is a pretty harsh environment, very low atmospheric pressure and there is probably water that isn't either underground or trapped in ice at the polls.
There is a big difference between planning to do and planning for planning's sake because you aren't doing and don't plan to do. Rutan plans and does. NASA plans and mostly doesn't do, to put it another way ALL NASA does is plan. You just have to look at the history of the ISS and the staggering number of extraordinarily expensive redesigns(plans) and now in the end it does very little useful and would probably be completely abandoned were it not for the Russians keeping it alive(they actually want to do a space station and the ISS is all they have since they were arm twisted in to abandoning MIR). Someone can now start screaming about how all those redesigns were the fault of politicians, well they are just another part of the same bureaucracy gone wrong. Whatever and whomever caused it the ISS is an obvious, undeniable failure in the end and that is all that counts in the end.
Not sure you've ever worked in a bureaucracy but they are mostly a bunch of civil servents climbing the GS pay scale ladder, lording it over an army of contractors who are mostly there for the pay checks and because the work is cooler than you find in the private sector and somewhat less psychicly destructive than working for the DOD building things to kill people. There are probably some idealist and people who still dream of Apollo and Mars in their ranks but that system will crush your dreams.
Civil servents judge their success by the size of their annual budget, how many papers their team publishes, how coll their dog and pony shows are and how many civil servents and contractors they have working for them.
A prime directive is you must spend all the money Congress budgeted you whether you really need to or not. If you don't you risk getting your budget cut so if you can't spend it constructively you squander it on toys(often computers). There is zero incentive in this system to spend money wisely or efficiently.
There is also very little incentive in the civil servent or contractor ranks for breakthrough success. You are better off going through the motions year in year out than you are in sticking your neck out, taking chances to do something bold, potentially failing and having your head chopped off. It is a classic CYA (Cover Your Ass) environment.
Another big difference between Rutan's team and NASA. His chief test pilot is a high school drop out, seat of the pants flier and all heart. Compare him to the current NASA astronaut core and you will see they are all academic overachievers who've spent all their lives playing the system, jumping through hoops and checking boxes to build the resume to get in to the astronaut core. Problem is they end up with no heart and an inability to challenge the system, inability to challenge the system is a fatal weakness in these people, so they suck as adventurers and pioneers.
I should qualify that JPL seems to have mostly escaped this syndrome which is why they still do so much useful work in spite of the complete collapse of NASA's manned space program.
An empty fluff piece is kind of a metaphor for NASA's manned space program these days. They spend lots of money on make work programs, research lots of things, many trivial like this, none of which seem to involve bending metal, putting humans into space or sending them back to the moon or on to mars. Its really turned in to a high tech welfare system and jobs program. They've become so obsessed with making space flight safe they won't fly until its safe. Since they can't make it safe they don't fly but they keep spending money just as they were and waste time and money on the ground like this.
I really wish they'd just shut it down and give all the money to Burt Rutan in no strings attached grants.
The Discover channel has been running a great multi part documentary on Burt's team, "Black Sky: The Race For Space". The thing that really impresses you is the fact they still have lots of emotion about their endeavors and are clearly a no nonsense, seat of the pants, group of engineers and pilots doing thing they believe in, and doing it on a shoestring.
Burt has lots of CAD drawings and sketches for his concept of an entire private space program including orbital vehicles, space stations and vehicles to get out of LEO. He really reminds me a lot of Kelly Johnson the genius behind the Lockheed Skunk Works, the SR-71 etc.
If he had a fraction of the money NASA is wasting year in year out on its manned space program, and not even launching anything, he could build a space program that would capture people's, especially young people's, imagination again like Apollo did.
"I wonder if human neurons would be more effective?"
I'm shocked you should suggest such a thing. If you proceed along these lines the Bush administration will be compelled to sweep in and shut this down and strip the University of Florida of all Federal funding(which will be exceptionally inconvenient since the University of Florida is in his brother's fiefdom).
This is an ethical and moral dilemma, this is an ethical balancing act, you are tampering with life, life is sacred. What is ethically and morally right to do? We need to be really very delicate about it.
If you give those human brain cells life you will be compelled to find them a good home, preferably adoption by a good born again Christian couple who will raise them to be a good Christian and an upstanding member of the community.
"is that red blob holding 'something' a policeman or an insurgent preparing to launch an ambush?"
I'm pretty sure the U.S. has solved this problem. You assume all red blobs are insurgents, you kill them and put them out in your press release as "insurgents" killed. The terms "body count" and "free fire zone" haven't come back in to vogue yet, they had a bad connotation in Vietnam, but the military in Iraq is doing "body counts" again is heading towards urban free fire zone in places like Fallujah. Every red blob killed is counted as an insurgent by the military and they never admit they may have been civilians, often women and children.
On the other hand if you go to Arab networks there is a steady stream of gruesome footage of dead women and children who were red blobs often killed by precision weapons. Amazingly precision weapons kill civilian red blobs just as precisely as insurgent red blobs if the red blobs aren't accurately discriminated.
There was some discussion of this in the British House of Commons when they were debating the move of British troops in to the Sunni triangle. Some British politicians made astute observations American politicians don't. America's heavy handed approach in Iraq is almost certainly fueling the insurgency and Iraqi support for it not defeating it. Using precision weapons dropped from aircraft against poorly identified red blobs is not the way to win an urban guerilla war. When you kill someone's wife or child this way you instantly spawn a new insurgent.
I mostly agree with your excellent post though I think it should be pointed out that it will probably work quite well for headquarters, the Air Force and Navy. They have the extensive comm systems and computers to make this work and they aren't in the mud and dust. I wager the fact this works so well for the Air Force and Navy is a reason they are trying to foist it on the Army and the Marines and thats where its likely to fail.
But now that you have the Boeing and SAIC backing it and no doubt buying Congressmen wholesale to support it, and Republcan's hanging their hat on "transformation", it will have a life of its own and you probably wont be able to kill it. All the failures in Iraq will just be an excuse to spend more billions to "fix" the problems. The obvious major fix here is you have to spend a ton of money on satellite links, or comm links to orbiting aircraft/blimps. Using ground based line of sight microwave was the obviously insane part of the system as outlined in the article, and whomever thought that was OK should be walked outside and shot so he doesn't get any more soldiers killed.
As for the future of tanks/bradleys versus Stryker's if you are going to be invading a lot of countries or fighting a major war with China or Russia I'm pretty sure you need the tanks. If you are fighting an insurgency which is probably going to dominate the Army's future Stryker seem like the better choice for guarding convoys and patrolling dangerous streets depending on how they stand up to heavy machine guns, IED's and RPG's and that apparently is still in doubt since there initial armor was rated as inadequate for this.
Tracked vehicles really suck for convoy duty on pavement. They are slow and they wear out really fast. The Army was barely able to keep their Bradleys in tracks soon after the invasion as I recall.
"Iran and Libya have been scared into stopping their nuclear programs"
Libya turned in a bunch of junk in order to get sanctions lifted. Its highly questionable if they had any WMD program at the time which had as its goal actually producing WMD's.
I'm not sure if Bush/Blair were just dumb and fell for it or they were smart and wanted the propaganda points they got by claiming they had some huge win when Libya turned in its WMD junk. I suspect it was the latter. It also had the added benefit of making it politically easy to lift sanctions on Libya and I assure you Bush/Cheney and Blair were overjoyed at doing that. Halliburton, in particular, really wants to be able to move in to Libya's oil fields without having to use foreign shells to bypass sanctions as they usually do. It also should allows increasing Libya's oil production which is desperately needed on world markets right now and is also probably high on the todo list of Bush/Cheney, oilmen that they are.
So next time you hear Bush/Cheney touting Libya's WMD program just remember it is propaganda. You aren't any safer from being nuked, gassed or infected in your cozy little American home because Qaddafi but some WMD junk to turn over to the U.S.
As someone said the massive threat America is leveling at Iran is probably causing them to accelerate their nuclear program not slow or stop it. Iran knows quite well if they have the bomb, and especially one on a missile that will reach Israel, the U.S. will be deterred from invading them. If they don't have the bomb its pretty obvious from recent experience in Iraq the U.S. might contrive an excuse to invade them at the drop of a hat. The most dangerous phase for Iran is the current one where they are rushing to develop a bomb, and are bringing a reactor online next year, with the high probability the U.S. or Israel will attack them next year to stop it and another major crisis will ensue (unless the European's negotiate a deal).
So you could argue that Iran just needs to abandon their program and all would be well. Well unfortunately its not because its been proven the U.S. may continue to level accusations of WMD development against a country it wants to invade and its impossible for a country to prove it doesn't have a secret WMD program. The difference between Iran and Libya in this regard is the neocons want to invade Iran to further protect Israel, and consolidate its control of the biggest oil fields, and don't much care about invading Libya. Iran knows the U.S. is building 14 permanent bases in Iraq that will permanently threaten Iran until the current government is toppled.
"If America was really pro-war, the troops would get more equipment, and our enemy's moral would break sooner."
Thats ridiculous. The American military and troops are getting staggering sums of money and the best gold plated equipment money can buy. The U.S. spends more on its military than the rest of the world put together. The U.S. was anti war from the end of Vietnam until Reagan. Reagan started returning the U.S. to pro war and pro military, and now since 9/11, Bush/Cheney and preemptive agressive warfare it is obviously very pro war at least in the halls of power and with everyone who watches Fox News.
When America was antiwar in the late 60's and 70's it was because they saw Vietnam and what kind of a complete screw up it was. If you don't recall the U.S. was fighting a war there that it had no plan to win and where the Pentagon was perpetually lieing to everyone (reference Gulf of Tonkin, Cambodia and the Pentagon Papers). In that respect it is very similar to Iraq. If American citizens hadn't turned against the war it would have gone on forever, killed millions and cost trillions. You would have never broke the enemy's moral in Vietnam, primarily because the U.S. was propping up a string of corrupt, ruthless dictators that were as bad or worse than the communists so they never had popular support.
Here is the rub. You seem to be arguing that American's have to back any war no matter how wrong or how big a mistake. American's need to back wars where America is threatened and fight them to win. When America's government loses its marbles and launches wars that aren't protecting America(and may actually be making it less safe), are costing American tax payers billions and getting America's sons and daughters killed it is totally American and patriotic to oppose it to the hilt. You see governments and politicians aren't infallible as much as George Bush thinks he is thanks to his divine guidance. They are fallible and they do make mistakes, often really bad ones.
So can you admit some wars are wrong and mistakes?
In particular once they settle in to insurgencies which have a critical mass of support from the local population they are unlikely to ever end and you aren't going to break the enemy's morale. When people are fighting for their country against an invading occupation army and nationalism has kicked in you are unlikely to break them (reference France in Algeria, the U.S.S.R in Afghanistan, Russia in Chechnya and the U.S. in Vietnam). Once the occupying force kills, arrests and tortures enough innocents and humiliated enough people with roadblocks and by breaking down their doors in the middle of the night the population will hate you in perituity and they will support the insurgency till the bitter end.
If you want to fault anyone for not supplying the troops, blame the White House, Pentagon and its contractor minions over multiple administrations. You need look no further than the article in this submission, 30 million lines of software. That is going to cost a fortune to develop, it will probably never be debugged to a usable state, much of it will fail in the chaos of battle outlined in this article. It will work great at headquarters, for the Air Force and the Navy, but putting all these computers and networks on the backs of the Army and Marines, in the mud in combat, is going to be a disaster as was outlined in this article.
For example, there is a level of insanity in thinking you are going to use line of site microwave to communicate to ground forces in combat. You would have figured they would have at least burned a few billion on satellite links.
The Pentagon wastes hundreds of billions of dollars on misguided, failed, overruning, canceled projects that end up mostly being pork for big defense contractors (reference the Boeing tanker deal for an example of corruption too), and jobs programs for programmers writing millions of lines of code that may or may not ever work.
"...we needed approximately 3 times as many troops to secure the country."
This apparent discrepancy is interesting since both sides are right.
The U.S. did need 3 times as many troops for one thing, to suppress the looting and lawless chaos immediately following the invasion. In that Shinseki was correct. Obviously they also needed more MP's as they started mass round up of mostly innocent Iraqi's (though of course the better approach would have been to not arrest anyone you didn't know to be dangerous since it helped fuel the insurgency when Americans were breaking down doors everynight and rounding up people for no particularly good reason most of the time).
But if you look at the invasion itself and the current insurgency its questionable if more troops would have helped or will helped.
For the invasion it would have dramatically delayed the war, increased its cost, placed even more stress on supply lines and wouldn't have made the invasion any more successful. You can argue that delaying the war might have been a good thing, maybe cooler heads would have prevailed and it wouldn't have happened, but the Bush administration was in an extreme rush, they had the country whipped in to a frenzy and were still riding 9/11 so they had to do it fast. Thats how they do most things that are ultimately bad... Iraq, the Patriot Act, Medicare Reform and now the National Intelligence reform Act. They rush them through before any opposition can build or the American people can come to their senses.
As for the insurgency it is again very dubious to say putting more troops on the ground would improve the situation. More troops mean more targets for insurgents and especially more supply convoys to shoot up. It also increases the footprint and the feel of occupation which is the thing that fuels insurgency. Having a couple hundred thousand teenage Americans with raging hormones and frequent poor judgement isn't going to make the people in the occupied country happier. If you don't have the intelligence to find and engage the insurgents having more troops is of dubious value. They would end up acting as police, would be bad at since they don't speak the language or understand the culture, and mostly they would just be more targets to shoot at.
That said, its obvious the U.S. Army and Marines are stretched thin, especially if they are going to have to fight a series of ugly urban battles in Fallujah, Sadr City and elsewhere. It is a sign of "stretched thin" that Britain's Black Watch is being sent into the Sunni triangle to free up U.S. troops for a major battle, or if you are a cynic to get some British troops killed so it doesn't look like a coalition where only Americans and Iraqis are dieing.
That stretched thin look and collapsing coalition is going to get worse when "Don't Forget Poland" and Italy pull out right after the elections. Apparently Fiji did contribute a hundred or so troops to defend the UN election effort which makes up for it...sic.
It was interesting to watch the Commons debate on the Blackwatch deployment. In the UK there are plenty of smart politicians that state the obvious that you don't hear at all in the U.S. media. America's propensity for dropping precision guided bombs to fight an urban insurgency is ultimately self defeating. Occasionally they might hit a real target but a fair percentage of the time they are killing women and children in densely populated urban areas. Everytime that happens you create gruesome footage of dead civilians that doesn't air in the U.S. for the most part but is all over the Arab networks and is pouring gasoline on the insurgency. Even the DOD admits it no with estimates of the number of insurgents doubling and charges of massive funding for it from Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran.
The British are in an obviously less challenge zone in Iraq but from what I've seen of their leadership and rules of engagement I'm betting their low key approach is far more likely to succeed than the massively heavy
Needless to say its a good idea to renew your passport now, since you can have some confidence they wont try to recall the ones already out in the field. That is the easy way to postpone having to put up with this nightmare until 2014, though not a sure one.
I really want federal agents to be able to ID me any place, any time, assuming I'm carrying a passport and am foolish enough to not buy a shield which most people wont.
Its been a long standing tradition in this country, formerly known as the land of the free, that you don't let public officials see your ID unless you know about it. Based on recent cases its obviously open to debate whether you can or cant be compelled to show that ID, but at a minimum you should now when you are ID'ed and by whom, as in they have to show you their ID too.
If RFID's become common you can be confident pervasive RFID readers wont be far behind. Think how pervasive video cameras already are in finding out who is where when. Now take it to the level so you can be instantly identified and your whereabouts logged or reported to the authorities. Some/.'er will now argue that if you don't do anything wrong you have nothing to fear. Well you are wrong. Criminals and terrorists will be on the top of the list of people tracked. Political dissidents, demonstrators and opponents of the people in power are always next on the list or sometimes at the top of the list.
Does anyone know what happened to the National ID the Republican's were trying to shove through as part of the National Intelligence reform act? They were trying to slip it through when no onw is watching last I heard. The worst case scenario, which I doubt will happen in the near term, is they government will mandate a national ID, including for children, mandate that you carry it, mandate and RFID tag in it and make it a crime to shield it so authorities can locate and ID you any place, anytime. Far fetched, well who thought the U.S. would authorize sneak and peek searches where so the FBI needs to train agents in the fine art of breaking and entering so they can search your home or business without your knowledge. Or who would have thought in America, the land of the free, you could be arrested and detained, indefinitely, without access to a lawyer, family or any due process.
Be very afraid of that National Intelligence reform act. Its going to be Patriot Act 3 and completely finish destroying any delusion you had of privacy or civil liberties in the name of making us all "Safe". Just think of all the best of the CIA, FBI, DOD, NSA and NRO all rolled in to one all powerful agency with a huge budget to spy on everyone and under the control of a political hack like Porter Goss who will abuse it at the whim of Bush and Cheney.
I wish I could say you could vote Bush/Cheney out and put an end to this but I wager Kerry and the Dems will do exactly the same thing if not worse if they get in, Kerry being a former prosecutor and liking things that make the job of the prosecutor easier and only playing lip service to the persecuted.
Turbo10 did appear to have some innovative ideas with the deep net concept, in particular going deeper into online databases most search engines were passing over. Not sure where they are on the success curve though.
They tended to fail in my book because:
- their web page are ugly and complicated, dark purple yuck - You have to have javascript enabled - Web page doesn't work in Konqueror so I stopped using it.
They generally made searching a little to complicated when everyone is just used to typing in keywords and getting pretty good answers from Google.
This post doesn't deserve any kind of positive mod. It was established at the time the FBI was involved in this seizure. All the stuff here just said no UK agency was involved which tends to suggest the FBI bypassed the law enforcement agencies that had jurisdiction in the UK which make this especially reprehensible and scary.
The FBI is with each passing day trying to make itself in to a global police force with or without the cooperation of the rest of the the world. They brag about their globalization on their web site. They now how have hundreds of agents spread around the globe. Its is just one more manifestation of America's unilateral move to establishing a global empire based on a triad, military, law enforcement and economy.
It sure would be interesting to know exactly how the FBI pulled off trampling international borders. I'm guessing they threatened Rackspace in the U.S. and made their U.K. office roll over when clearly they had no obligation to and without getting UK law enforcement involved at all. I wonder what threats the FBI used that made ratting on Indymedia the desirable of the two available options for Rackspace.
I'm guessing you are trolling here but I'll bite though I'm afraid you really didn't make a coherent point here.
Are you saying you want all cars to have governors to prevent you from speeding or monitors so if you ever exceed the speed limit you can be automatically ticketed You want cell phone jammers in cars to prevent anyone from using a cell phone in car? How are going to stop people eating or drinking, randomly sampled video cameras and operators that will kill your engine, in traffic, if they catch you nibbling or sipping.
I can agree that range finders, correlated to speed to prevent tail gating and some collisions would be nice, assuming you could actually implement them safely and they didn't make driving massively annoying and unpredictable. That is not a particularly intrusive measure though, it is just a safety enhancement.
I really don't see how GM having a closed source satellite link in to my car which they control and which they can abuse as they see fit results in safer highways unless it turns into a really annoying and hated nanny. I'm to old to want or need a nanny.
You seem to be basically proposing classic big brotherism, we need more control over you to make you "safe". Its kind of the same rhetoric the Republican's have been making since 9/11. We need you to sign over all your civil liberties so we can make you "safe". They also keep saying you need to keep electing them in perpetuity because if you elect their opponents you and your children will surely die. Unfortunately its doubtful that they made anyone "safe". Its possible they made some people "safer", in particular by rounding up a thousand or more people and locking them up indefinitely without access to a lawyer, their families or due process. Maybe they did nab 10 terrorists in the process at the price of destroying the lives of a thousand innocent people.
I guess you have your right to your world but me I would rather have personal freedoms with the associated risks and personal responsibility instead of an all powerful government regulating every minute of my life, and in the process making life not worth living. Put in improved safety measures in cars sure, but having them watching and vetoing my every move, no.
P.S.
This brand of government thinking is why NASA has ceased to have a viable manned space program though they still spend billions on one each year. They can't fly unless its "safe" and they are incapable of making space flight "safe".
I think they are making a rather bold statement there. Cars are turning in to complex interconnected systems. There isn't anything stopping manufacturers from connecting engine controls, brakes etc into a central computer, so it can, for example, warn you of failures or needed maintenance. I'm pretty sure brakes are intimately tied in to the computers in hybrids in particular.
Most experienced software engineers can tell you when you develop complex systems with a lot of interconnects and multiple computers unexpected shit can happen.
Me, I am doing a studious job of maintaining my 1997 largely computer free car. Having a computer in it would be nice, especially for maps, but I really dont want to pay an arm and a leg for it and get a very closed Windows computer that has more control over me than I have over it.
I especially don't want a satellite link/GPS, like OnStar, which gives OnStar more control over my car than me and that makes it relatively easy for the police state to track my every move, and disable my car at their whim. Its kind of like giving up your right to bear arms, you are giving big brother another huge step towards complete control over your life. Chances are my car would never be used against me, but the fact that the potential is there is....disturbing.
If they are selling a cup of coffee for $4-5 who needs to sell books. Coffee is almost all profit and a lot easier than lugging heavy books from warehouse to reatailer.
"You are mistaken. The electoral council in Venezuela didn't allow the counting of the paper trail. In fact, there was at least a voting site where the operators (called table members in Venezuela) were arrested by the military just for opening the boxes with the votes in order to count them."
Could you provide a reputable source supporting this, ideally not one of the hatchet jobs like Thor Halversson's for the opposition. The odds are pretty slim of Chavez losing an election.
Here is a writeup from the Carter Foundation on their take on the Venezuelan election. If nothing else it gives you a taste of the issues trying to audit evoting when there are paper trails. The Venezualan recall wasn't great but the U.S. election with evoting is certain to be worse. At least they did have an audit trail and did do some audits in Venezuala. Audits aren't even an option with many U.S. electronic voting machines. There are also going to be very, very few independent observers doing the kinds of checks the Carter foundation did in Venezuela. States like Florida, last I heard had pretty much banned independent observers, presumably because they have to much to hide.
I'd agreee evoting should be done away with in general but if you are going to keep it you have to have a paper trail and do truly random audits.
I don't think voter intellect is really the issue with evoting. They do in fact make it pretty hard to make a mistake.
Early indications are the tech savvy of the poll workers setting up systems with a lot of interconnects and make everything work under pressure is certainly a concern. I'm not sure but you get the impression Florida in particular is relying on a working internet connection to the home office which seems insane, problem plagued and wildly insecure, at least the guy they showed on the news was rambling about not being able the machines not being able to connect to the "mainframe".
But system design would certainly fix that if you insist on using them. First off these machines should need nothing more than a power plug. They should be setup in a central location under nonpartisan supervision, locked and sealed, taken to the poll and then when done transported back to a central, secure, location to unload the results.
But the damning thing about evoting is there HAS TO BE A PAPER TRAIL. There is an interesting case study in Venezuela which recently had an election involving Hugo Chavez, who is reviled by the Bush administration, and was under constant accusation of trying to rig elections. They used all or mostly evoting machines, BUT they all had printers and a paper trail. The opposition tried to levy charges of election rigging but they simply didn't stick.
Now turn to the U.S., bastion of democracy, who spends tons of time and money telling the rest of the world how to vote. It appears all or most of the evoting machines have NO PAPER TRAIL. A glitch happens and people's votes disappear. Worse its ridiculously easy to rig the election. The U.S. really is turning in to a laughing stock for the rest of the world, and a shining example of a democracy gone bad.
Another serious flaw was pointed out by Jimmy Carter on Larry King last night (you can revile him all you want but he does know good and bad electoral process). The U.S. and assorted other international election monitors push hard for elections to be run by impartial, nonpartisan officials. In the U.S. the are almost universally turned over to very partisan hacks who have huge biases, think Katherine Harris in Florida or any election official appointed by biased governors(for example the brother of one of the candidates). You give these people complete control of the election machinery, and you give them electronic voting machines with no paper trail, and no chance of a recount or audit. It will be a miracle if they can resist the temptation to steal the election because it is SO EASY.
"I'd just like to add that the idea that their aren't Americans with ideals, morals, or scruples is just preposterous."
Didn't say there weren't. What I did say was the American system actively, actively works against these traits in people.
In the majority of Americans they come after money and power on the priority list. For example you don't find any of these positive traits in car salesman, at least while they are on the job. They are kind of the worst case but they are what the capitalist system turns people in to in most fields.
You aren't likely to find these values at all in most for profit work places other than in obligatory "charity" drives especially around Christmas. These also happen to be a tax writeoff and good for business. You want your business to look like it values community and charity over making money when really they are just designed to improve your business. Its a form of marketing.
If you work in a for profit company that hands out promotions, bonuses and options you probably should realize the people you work with, who you consider friends, will probably climb over your broken body to get ahead of you on the corporate ladder.
Idealists and moralists tend to be confined to people who are very young, very old, very rich or willing to live life in near poverty. For example Ralph Nader has lived a spartan life. The problem is he is the consumate adversary of the American system which is why he lives that way. Most American's strive to make money first, buy things and not live a spartan life.
When Americans have their FU money then yes they very often turn to be charitable, perhaps to compensate for the guilt about the things they did to get it. When they no longer have to work to survive, and they realize they really can't take it with them, then yes they often turn idealistic and charitable.
Of course, depending on how far back you go, it was also a time when your Sunday morning options were "Meet the Press", "Face the Nation", church and I remember wrestling being an option for a while where I lived.
Today these shows are vying for an audience against 100+ TV channels, DVD's, the Internet and video games just to name a few. Its pretty obvious they have to do something to garner attention which nearly inevitably leads to news turning to theater, comedy, scandal and sporting event to draw an audience.
Well yes you are. The bulk of your post seems to suggest you are unaware you are living in a capitalist system, a jungle where survival of the fittest rules the day. You have to be very young or old, idealistic and or naive to value public service over making money in such a system. You are talking like you want to be in a true socialist system where everyone is out to serve the common good. Nothing wrong with that, but that is not what America is all about, by design.
"I'm suggesting that, sometimes, it's better to do the right thing and be less successful."
I hate to break it to you but that runs counter to everything Americans are taught and have drilled in to them from day one.
If you are telling people if they want to be a journalist they have to be scrupulously ethical, then fail and then starve, exactly what caliber of people are you going to attract.
Almost nobody in the U.S. is a public servent. Pretty much everybody is looking out for #1. There sure as hell isn't anyone in the private sector where those journalists get their pay check who have much of a twinge of public service in them, especially if costs them money.
Network journalists have to rise through a dog eat dog system, starting in small markets and fight tooth and nail all their lives to make it to a major network and then fight tooth and nail to stay there. That entails climbing over the bodies of their peers. They are fixated on their ratings all the way through the process because if you don't have them you are you aren't going to get to the next rung on the ladder. If they make it to the top and their ratings crater, while they are being scrupulously ethical, honest and boring, they end up being honest in South Dakota. That is a system designed to promote "journalists" like O'Reilly and Rush, self promoters who are looking out for #1 not the public good.
There is maybe one exception I can think of Walter Cronkite. He reached the top, and then he decided to be a public servant and, for example, denounced the war in Vietnam and almost single handedly collapsed support for it. Of course he also retired early and didn't stay in network journalism long after that. Perhaps he found being a public servent inherently at odds with network journalism.
I think that qualifies as backward looking. Toyota has already passed Ford as the #2 car maker and I wouldn't be surprised if Toyota and Honda ultimately dominate the automotive sector.
Airbus is demolishing Boeing in commercial airliners lately.
Exactly how many American brands do you see on the electronics shelf outside of Ipod and computers most of which are built in Asia and just have an American brand stamped on them.
How much stuff in Walmart is actually made in the U.S., so its got a GE brand on it, not sure stamping GE on a Chinese built phone qualifies as any real economic achievement.
Not sure fast food, convenience stores and increasingly bad movies and music are really brands you can hang your hat on with pride.
Not sure you were aware but "Lord of the Rings" was produced in New Zealand. A LOT of top flight movie production is happening in Canada, Australia and New Zealand now. Aussie actors are doing pretty well at the box office too.
Canada dominates animation software development.
I guess there's Microsoft but I'm not sure that monopoly is a badge of honor either and I wager the world outside the U.S. will abandon it in favor of Linux.
"American is the best nation in the world!"
Again backward looking. Charlie Rose recently did a show on future American competitiveness. Again he cited Weta Studios and Peter Jackson's confidence he could put together a better top flight studio in New Zealand that would out compete the "distractions" in LA. Lord of the Rings proved that he did to and it didn't hurt that there is a big currency advantage there as there is in Canada and Australia.
There is apparently a flood of applications from the top flight graduate students coming in to places like Oxford and the University of Toronto. Its partially because its turned incredibly hard to get visas to study or work in the U.S. thanks to "Homeland Security". They are apaprently doing a great job of hassling top graduate students trying to get in the country while there is still a flood of illegals pouring across the border which would be the easy route for a terrorist to get in to the U.S. now.
The U.S. is also now considered somewhat dangerous for foreign students since the U.S. began arresting and detaining people for long periods without access to a lawyer, family or a trial and often sending them to foreign powers to be tortu..er..interrogated.
And of course the U.S. is just a really expensive place to start any company thanks to skyrocketing insurance costs, cost of living, payroll taxes, etc.
All in all if you are forward looking I'm not sure you can say it is the greatest nation any more in any category other than military dominance. It is #1 in that department and in health care costs. Unfortunately those tend to sap the life out of a robust economy not enhance it.
Dont think I really agree. Russert does a pretty decent job most of the time. He's done a pretty good lately of holding people feet to the fire when they say one thing and then do or say something that completely contradicts it. I'd say he's head and shoulders above O'Reilly and Wolf Blitzer. Don't know about you but if you go from Russert to Wolf on Sunday morning I can't last more than a couple minutes on Wolf before I HAVE to hit the mute button.
How do you reconcile Americans supposed fondness for "Nationalism" with the current trend among American government and business to sell America down the river in the name of "Globalization". Globalization is a death knell for "Nationalism".
You could argue thats the government and not the people, yet the people who are supporting Bush are in supporting an administration who is openly infatuated with the globalization that will ultimately trump their nationalism. Not sure the Dems aren't just as infatuated with it but at least they are backpeddling on it a little now.
Or are you thinking that American's can maintain their "Patriotism" and "Nationalism" on a military, social and a political level while they abandon it on economic level?
"Miller (who leans right and is quite proud of it) square off."
Maybe its just perception but I don't actually remember Miller leanly right before 9/11 at least as publicly as he does now. Maybe he did he just wasn't obvious about it or I missed it. It seems to me that as soon as 9/11 happened he knew he could lean right in public and actually advance his career instead of wreck it so he did and it appears it worked very well.
"Indeed, it has become a crime to be successful."
If you are successful because you are ruthlessly exploiting other people, yes. If thousands of people are getting killing so you can be successful then, yes. For example war profiteering has always been a pretty good road to success. Is war profiteering a noble avenue to success in your book?
If you do something of value to people and they give you money because they like what you did then, no that is certainly not a crime.
Unfortunately many of the people in George's base are advancing their fortunes with tax dollars coming out of the rest of our pockets (Medicare "Reform", no bid contracts in Iraq, tax cuts for the wealthy that are being paid for with massive debt).
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Cool. Gotta love that, pass judgement on something you haven't seen. Why don't you watch it. If you are a geek, engineer or space enthusiast its infinitely more interesting and worthwhile than the contrived reality garbage TV everyone else is watching. After you've seen it please drop back by and say you're sorry for bad mouthing it.
They were mostly filming right before, during and after each of the milestone flights. They were emotionally charged times by nature, the documentary crew didn't really need to pump it, especially in the control room when there were serious malfunctions.
They were dangerous flights and Melville and his wife show their anxiety. Rutan and Melville are life long friends and their closeness appears genuine.
It was a band of "amateurs" putting a man into space for 20 some millions dollars which is something NASA is currently incapable of doing with billions of dollars at their disposal. Its shows a small band of free spirits can still push back frontiers without having the life sucked out of them in a bureaucracy.
Read Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars series. He does a pretty good job of outlining a possible route for establishing plant life on Mars, though he does make a number gigantic leaps of faith to achieve success. Its not an action packed adventure series exactly though there is some action in it. He did spend way to much time thinking about colonizing mars and that does make it an interesting series for geeks.
As I recall he started with lichens or some similar life form you find on rocks above the timberline. Mars is a pretty harsh environment, very low atmospheric pressure and there is probably water that isn't either underground or trapped in ice at the polls.
There is a big difference between planning to do and planning for planning's sake because you aren't doing and don't plan to do. Rutan plans and does. NASA plans and mostly doesn't do, to put it another way ALL NASA does is plan. You just have to look at the history of the ISS and the staggering number of extraordinarily expensive redesigns(plans) and now in the end it does very little useful and would probably be completely abandoned were it not for the Russians keeping it alive(they actually want to do a space station and the ISS is all they have since they were arm twisted in to abandoning MIR). Someone can now start screaming about how all those redesigns were the fault of politicians, well they are just another part of the same bureaucracy gone wrong. Whatever and whomever caused it the ISS is an obvious, undeniable failure in the end and that is all that counts in the end.
Not sure you've ever worked in a bureaucracy but they are mostly a bunch of civil servents climbing the GS pay scale ladder, lording it over an army of contractors who are mostly there for the pay checks and because the work is cooler than you find in the private sector and somewhat less psychicly destructive than working for the DOD building things to kill people. There are probably some idealist and people who still dream of Apollo and Mars in their ranks but that system will crush your dreams.
Civil servents judge their success by the size of their annual budget, how many papers their team publishes, how coll their dog and pony shows are and how many civil servents and contractors they have working for them.
A prime directive is you must spend all the money Congress budgeted you whether you really need to or not. If you don't you risk getting your budget cut so if you can't spend it constructively you squander it on toys(often computers). There is zero incentive in this system to spend money wisely or efficiently.
There is also very little incentive in the civil servent or contractor ranks for breakthrough success. You are better off going through the motions year in year out than you are in sticking your neck out, taking chances to do something bold, potentially failing and having your head chopped off. It is a classic CYA (Cover Your Ass) environment.
Another big difference between Rutan's team and NASA. His chief test pilot is a high school drop out, seat of the pants flier and all heart. Compare him to the current NASA astronaut core and you will see they are all academic overachievers who've spent all their lives playing the system, jumping through hoops and checking boxes to build the resume to get in to the astronaut core. Problem is they end up with no heart and an inability to challenge the system, inability to challenge the system is a fatal weakness in these people, so they suck as adventurers and pioneers.
I should qualify that JPL seems to have mostly escaped this syndrome which is why they still do so much useful work in spite of the complete collapse of NASA's manned space program.
An empty fluff piece is kind of a metaphor for NASA's manned space program these days. They spend lots of money on make work programs, research lots of things, many trivial like this, none of which seem to involve bending metal, putting humans into space or sending them back to the moon or on to mars. Its really turned in to a high tech welfare system and jobs program. They've become so obsessed with making space flight safe they won't fly until its safe. Since they can't make it safe they don't fly but they keep spending money just as they were and waste time and money on the ground like this.
I really wish they'd just shut it down and give all the money to Burt Rutan in no strings attached grants.
The Discover channel has been running a great multi part documentary on Burt's team, "Black Sky: The Race For Space". The thing that really impresses you is the fact they still have lots of emotion about their endeavors and are clearly a no nonsense, seat of the pants, group of engineers and pilots doing thing they believe in, and doing it on a shoestring.
Burt has lots of CAD drawings and sketches for his concept of an entire private space program including orbital vehicles, space stations and vehicles to get out of LEO. He really reminds me a lot of Kelly Johnson the genius behind the Lockheed Skunk Works, the SR-71 etc.
If he had a fraction of the money NASA is wasting year in year out on its manned space program, and not even launching anything, he could build a space program that would capture people's, especially young people's, imagination again like Apollo did.
"I wonder if human neurons would be more effective?"
I'm shocked you should suggest such a thing. If you proceed along these lines the Bush administration will be compelled to sweep in and shut this down and strip the University of Florida of all Federal funding(which will be exceptionally inconvenient since the University of Florida is in his brother's fiefdom).
This is an ethical and moral dilemma, this is an ethical balancing act, you are tampering with life, life is sacred. What is ethically and morally right to do? We need to be really very delicate about it.
If you give those human brain cells life you will be compelled to find them a good home, preferably adoption by a good born again Christian couple who will raise them to be a good Christian and an upstanding member of the community.
"is that red blob holding 'something' a policeman or an insurgent preparing to launch an ambush?"
I'm pretty sure the U.S. has solved this problem. You assume all red blobs are insurgents, you kill them and put them out in your press release as "insurgents" killed. The terms "body count" and "free fire zone" haven't come back in to vogue yet, they had a bad connotation in Vietnam, but the military in Iraq is doing "body counts" again is heading towards urban free fire zone in places like Fallujah. Every red blob killed is counted as an insurgent by the military and they never admit they may have been civilians, often women and children.
On the other hand if you go to Arab networks there is a steady stream of gruesome footage of dead women and children who were red blobs often killed by precision weapons. Amazingly precision weapons kill civilian red blobs just as precisely as insurgent red blobs if the red blobs aren't accurately discriminated.
There was some discussion of this in the British House of Commons when they were debating the move of British troops in to the Sunni triangle. Some British politicians made astute observations American politicians don't. America's heavy handed approach in Iraq is almost certainly fueling the insurgency and Iraqi support for it not defeating it. Using precision weapons dropped from aircraft against poorly identified red blobs is not the way to win an urban guerilla war. When you kill someone's wife or child this way you instantly spawn a new insurgent.
"but will probably never really work in practice"
I mostly agree with your excellent post though I think it should be pointed out that it will probably work quite well for headquarters, the Air Force and Navy. They have the extensive comm systems and computers to make this work and they aren't in the mud and dust. I wager the fact this works so well for the Air Force and Navy is a reason they are trying to foist it on the Army and the Marines and thats where its likely to fail.
But now that you have the Boeing and SAIC backing it and no doubt buying Congressmen wholesale to support it, and Republcan's hanging their hat on "transformation", it will have a life of its own and you probably wont be able to kill it. All the failures in Iraq will just be an excuse to spend more billions to "fix" the problems. The obvious major fix here is you have to spend a ton of money on satellite links, or comm links to orbiting aircraft/blimps. Using ground based line of sight microwave was the obviously insane part of the system as outlined in the article, and whomever thought that was OK should be walked outside and shot so he doesn't get any more soldiers killed.
As for the future of tanks/bradleys versus Stryker's if you are going to be invading a lot of countries or fighting a major war with China or Russia I'm pretty sure you need the tanks. If you are fighting an insurgency which is probably going to dominate the Army's future Stryker seem like the better choice for guarding convoys and patrolling dangerous streets depending on how they stand up to heavy machine guns, IED's and RPG's and that apparently is still in doubt since there initial armor was rated as inadequate for this.
Tracked vehicles really suck for convoy duty on pavement. They are slow and they wear out really fast. The Army was barely able to keep their Bradleys in tracks soon after the invasion as I recall.
"Iran and Libya have been scared into stopping their nuclear programs"
Libya turned in a bunch of junk in order to get sanctions lifted. Its highly questionable if they had any WMD program at the time which had as its goal actually producing WMD's.
I'm not sure if Bush/Blair were just dumb and fell for it or they were smart and wanted the propaganda points they got by claiming they had some huge win when Libya turned in its WMD junk. I suspect it was the latter. It also had the added benefit of making it politically easy to lift sanctions on Libya and I assure you Bush/Cheney and Blair were overjoyed at doing that. Halliburton, in particular, really wants to be able to move in to Libya's oil fields without having to use foreign shells to bypass sanctions as they usually do. It also should allows increasing Libya's oil production which is desperately needed on world markets right now and is also probably high on the todo list of Bush/Cheney, oilmen that they are.
So next time you hear Bush/Cheney touting Libya's WMD program just remember it is propaganda. You aren't any safer from being nuked, gassed or infected in your cozy little American home because Qaddafi but some WMD junk to turn over to the U.S.
As someone said the massive threat America is leveling at Iran is probably causing them to accelerate their nuclear program not slow or stop it. Iran knows quite well if they have the bomb, and especially one on a missile that will reach Israel, the U.S. will be deterred from invading them. If they don't have the bomb its pretty obvious from recent experience in Iraq the U.S. might contrive an excuse to invade them at the drop of a hat. The most dangerous phase for Iran is the current one where they are rushing to develop a bomb, and are bringing a reactor online next year, with the high probability the U.S. or Israel will attack them next year to stop it and another major crisis will ensue (unless the European's negotiate a deal).
So you could argue that Iran just needs to abandon their program and all would be well. Well unfortunately its not because its been proven the U.S. may continue to level accusations of WMD development against a country it wants to invade and its impossible for a country to prove it doesn't have a secret WMD program. The difference between Iran and Libya in this regard is the neocons want to invade Iran to further protect Israel, and consolidate its control of the biggest oil fields, and don't much care about invading Libya. Iran knows the U.S. is building 14 permanent bases in Iraq that will permanently threaten Iran until the current government is toppled.
"If America was really pro-war, the troops would get more equipment, and our enemy's moral would break sooner."
Thats ridiculous. The American military and troops are getting staggering sums of money and the best gold plated equipment money can buy. The U.S. spends more on its military than the rest of the world put together. The U.S. was anti war from the end of Vietnam until Reagan. Reagan started returning the U.S. to pro war and pro military, and now since 9/11, Bush/Cheney and preemptive agressive warfare it is obviously very pro war at least in the halls of power and with everyone who watches Fox News.
When America was antiwar in the late 60's and 70's it was because they saw Vietnam and what kind of a complete screw up it was. If you don't recall the U.S. was fighting a war there that it had no plan to win and where the Pentagon was perpetually lieing to everyone (reference Gulf of Tonkin, Cambodia and the Pentagon Papers). In that respect it is very similar to Iraq. If American citizens hadn't turned against the war it would have gone on forever, killed millions and cost trillions. You would have never broke the enemy's moral in Vietnam, primarily because the U.S. was propping up a string of corrupt, ruthless dictators that were as bad or worse than the communists so they never had popular support.
Here is the rub. You seem to be arguing that American's have to back any war no matter how wrong or how big a mistake. American's need to back wars where America is threatened and fight them to win. When America's government loses its marbles and launches wars that aren't protecting America(and may actually be making it less safe), are costing American tax payers billions and getting America's sons and daughters killed it is totally American and patriotic to oppose it to the hilt. You see governments and politicians aren't infallible as much as George Bush thinks he is thanks to his divine guidance. They are fallible and they do make mistakes, often really bad ones.
So can you admit some wars are wrong and mistakes?
In particular once they settle in to insurgencies which have a critical mass of support from the local population they are unlikely to ever end and you aren't going to break the enemy's morale. When people are fighting for their country against an invading occupation army and nationalism has kicked in you are unlikely to break them (reference France in Algeria, the U.S.S.R in Afghanistan, Russia in Chechnya and the U.S. in Vietnam). Once the occupying force kills, arrests and tortures enough innocents and humiliated enough people with roadblocks and by breaking down their doors in the middle of the night the population will hate you in perituity and they will support the insurgency till the bitter end.
If you want to fault anyone for not supplying the troops, blame the White House, Pentagon and its contractor minions over multiple administrations. You need look no further than the article in this submission, 30 million lines of software. That is going to cost a fortune to develop, it will probably never be debugged to a usable state, much of it will fail in the chaos of battle outlined in this article. It will work great at headquarters, for the Air Force and the Navy, but putting all these computers and networks on the backs of the Army and Marines, in the mud in combat, is going to be a disaster as was outlined in this article.
For example, there is a level of insanity in thinking you are going to use line of site microwave to communicate to ground forces in combat. You would have figured they would have at least burned a few billion on satellite links.
The Pentagon wastes hundreds of billions of dollars on misguided, failed, overruning, canceled projects that end up mostly being pork for big defense contractors (reference the Boeing tanker deal for an example of corruption too), and jobs programs for programmers writing millions of lines of code that may or may not ever work.
If you peeled off a tiny fraction of the w
"...we needed approximately 3 times as many troops to secure the country."
This apparent discrepancy is interesting since both sides are right.
The U.S. did need 3 times as many troops for one thing, to suppress the looting and lawless chaos immediately following the invasion. In that Shinseki was correct. Obviously they also needed more MP's as they started mass round up of mostly innocent Iraqi's (though of course the better approach would have been to not arrest anyone you didn't know to be dangerous since it helped fuel the insurgency when Americans were breaking down doors everynight and rounding up people for no particularly good reason most of the time).
But if you look at the invasion itself and the current insurgency its questionable if more troops would have helped or will helped.
For the invasion it would have dramatically delayed the war, increased its cost, placed even more stress on supply lines and wouldn't have made the invasion any more successful. You can argue that delaying the war might have been a good thing, maybe cooler heads would have prevailed and it wouldn't have happened, but the Bush administration was in an extreme rush, they had the country whipped in to a frenzy and were still riding 9/11 so they had to do it fast. Thats how they do most things that are ultimately bad... Iraq, the Patriot Act, Medicare Reform and now the National Intelligence reform Act. They rush them through before any opposition can build or the American people can come to their senses.
As for the insurgency it is again very dubious to say putting more troops on the ground would improve the situation. More troops mean more targets for insurgents and especially more supply convoys to shoot up. It also increases the footprint and the feel of occupation which is the thing that fuels insurgency. Having a couple hundred thousand teenage Americans with raging hormones and frequent poor judgement isn't going to make the people in the occupied country happier. If you don't have the intelligence to find and engage the insurgents having more troops is of dubious value. They would end up acting as police, would be bad at since they don't speak the language or understand the culture, and mostly they would just be more targets to shoot at.
That said, its obvious the U.S. Army and Marines are stretched thin, especially if they are going to have to fight a series of ugly urban battles in Fallujah, Sadr City and elsewhere. It is a sign of "stretched thin" that Britain's Black Watch is being sent into the Sunni triangle to free up U.S. troops for a major battle, or if you are a cynic to get some British troops killed so it doesn't look like a coalition where only Americans and Iraqis are dieing.
That stretched thin look and collapsing coalition is going to get worse when "Don't Forget Poland" and Italy pull out right after the elections. Apparently Fiji did contribute a hundred or so troops to defend the UN election effort which makes up for it...sic.
It was interesting to watch the Commons debate on the Blackwatch deployment. In the UK there are plenty of smart politicians that state the obvious that you don't hear at all in the U.S. media. America's propensity for dropping precision guided bombs to fight an urban insurgency is ultimately self defeating. Occasionally they might hit a real target but a fair percentage of the time they are killing women and children in densely populated urban areas. Everytime that happens you create gruesome footage of dead civilians that doesn't air in the U.S. for the most part but is all over the Arab networks and is pouring gasoline on the insurgency. Even the DOD admits it no with estimates of the number of insurgents doubling and charges of massive funding for it from Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran.
The British are in an obviously less challenge zone in Iraq but from what I've seen of their leadership and rules of engagement I'm betting their low key approach is far more likely to succeed than the massively heavy
Needless to say its a good idea to renew your passport now, since you can have some confidence they wont try to recall the ones already out in the field. That is the easy way to postpone having to put up with this nightmare until 2014, though not a sure one.
/.'er will now argue that if you don't do anything wrong you have nothing to fear. Well you are wrong. Criminals and terrorists will be on the top of the list of people tracked. Political dissidents, demonstrators and opponents of the people in power are always next on the list or sometimes at the top of the list.
I really want federal agents to be able to ID me any place, any time, assuming I'm carrying a passport and am foolish enough to not buy a shield which most people wont.
Its been a long standing tradition in this country, formerly known as the land of the free, that you don't let public officials see your ID unless you know about it. Based on recent cases its obviously open to debate whether you can or cant be compelled to show that ID, but at a minimum you should now when you are ID'ed and by whom, as in they have to show you their ID too.
If RFID's become common you can be confident pervasive RFID readers wont be far behind. Think how pervasive video cameras already are in finding out who is where when. Now take it to the level so you can be instantly identified and your whereabouts logged or reported to the authorities. Some
Does anyone know what happened to the National ID the Republican's were trying to shove through as part of the National Intelligence reform act? They were trying to slip it through when no onw is watching last I heard. The worst case scenario, which I doubt will happen in the near term, is they government will mandate a national ID, including for children, mandate that you carry it, mandate and RFID tag in it and make it a crime to shield it so authorities can locate and ID you any place, anytime. Far fetched, well who thought the U.S. would authorize sneak and peek searches where so the FBI needs to train agents in the fine art of breaking and entering so they can search your home or business without your knowledge. Or who would have thought in America, the land of the free, you could be arrested and detained, indefinitely, without access to a lawyer, family or any due process.
Be very afraid of that National Intelligence reform act. Its going to be Patriot Act 3 and completely finish destroying any delusion you had of privacy or civil liberties in the name of making us all "Safe". Just think of all the best of the CIA, FBI, DOD, NSA and NRO all rolled in to one all powerful agency with a huge budget to spy on everyone and under the control of a political hack like Porter Goss who will abuse it at the whim of Bush and Cheney.
I wish I could say you could vote Bush/Cheney out and put an end to this but I wager Kerry and the Dems will do exactly the same thing if not worse if they get in, Kerry being a former prosecutor and liking things that make the job of the prosecutor easier and only playing lip service to the persecuted.
Turbo10 did appear to have some innovative ideas with the deep net concept, in particular going deeper into online databases most search engines were passing over. Not sure where they are on the success curve though.
They tended to fail in my book because:
- their web page are ugly and complicated, dark purple yuck
- You have to have javascript enabled
- Web page doesn't work in Konqueror so I stopped using it.
They generally made searching a little to complicated when everyone is just used to typing in keywords and getting pretty good answers from Google.
This post doesn't deserve any kind of positive mod. It was established at the time the FBI was involved in this seizure. All the stuff here just said no UK agency was involved which tends to suggest the FBI bypassed the law enforcement agencies that had jurisdiction in the UK which make this especially reprehensible and scary.
The FBI is with each passing day trying to make itself in to a global police force with or without the cooperation of the rest of the the world. They brag about their globalization on their web site. They now how have hundreds of agents spread around the globe. Its is just one more manifestation of America's unilateral move to establishing a global empire based on a triad, military, law enforcement and economy.
It sure would be interesting to know exactly how the FBI pulled off trampling international borders. I'm guessing they threatened Rackspace in the U.S. and made their U.K. office roll over when clearly they had no obligation to and without getting UK law enforcement involved at all. I wonder what threats the FBI used that made ratting on Indymedia the desirable of the two available options for Rackspace.
I'm guessing you are trolling here but I'll bite though I'm afraid you really didn't make a coherent point here.
Are you saying you want all cars to have governors to prevent you from speeding or monitors so if you ever exceed the speed limit you can be automatically ticketed You want cell phone jammers in cars to prevent anyone from using a cell phone in car? How are going to stop people eating or drinking, randomly sampled video cameras and operators that will kill your engine, in traffic, if they catch you nibbling or sipping.
I can agree that range finders, correlated to speed to prevent tail gating and some collisions would be nice, assuming you could actually implement them safely and they didn't make driving massively annoying and unpredictable. That is not a particularly intrusive measure though, it is just a safety enhancement.
I really don't see how GM having a closed source satellite link in to my car which they control and which they can abuse as they see fit results in safer highways unless it turns into a really annoying and hated nanny. I'm to old to want or need a nanny.
You seem to be basically proposing classic big brotherism, we need more control over you to make you "safe". Its kind of the same rhetoric the Republican's have been making since 9/11. We need you to sign over all your civil liberties so we can make you "safe". They also keep saying you need to keep electing them in perpetuity because if you elect their opponents you and your children will surely die. Unfortunately its doubtful that they made anyone "safe". Its possible they made some people "safer", in particular by rounding up a thousand or more people and locking them up indefinitely without access to a lawyer, their families or due process. Maybe they did nab 10 terrorists in the process at the price of destroying the lives of a thousand innocent people.
I guess you have your right to your world but me I would rather have personal freedoms with the associated risks and personal responsibility instead of an all powerful government regulating every minute of my life, and in the process making life not worth living. Put in improved safety measures in cars sure, but having them watching and vetoing my every move, no.
P.S.
This brand of government thinking is why NASA has ceased to have a viable manned space program though they still spend billions on one each year. They can't fly unless its "safe" and they are incapable of making space flight "safe".
I think they are making a rather bold statement there. Cars are turning in to complex interconnected systems. There isn't anything stopping manufacturers from connecting engine controls, brakes etc into a central computer, so it can, for example, warn you of failures or needed maintenance. I'm pretty sure brakes are intimately tied in to the computers in hybrids in particular.
Most experienced software engineers can tell you when you develop complex systems with a lot of interconnects and multiple computers unexpected shit can happen.
Me, I am doing a studious job of maintaining my 1997 largely computer free car. Having a computer in it would be nice, especially for maps, but I really dont want to pay an arm and a leg for it and get a very closed Windows computer that has more control over me than I have over it.
I especially don't want a satellite link/GPS, like OnStar, which gives OnStar more control over my car than me and that makes it relatively easy for the police state to track my every move, and disable my car at their whim. Its kind of like giving up your right to bear arms, you are giving big brother another huge step towards complete control over your life. Chances are my car would never be used against me, but the fact that the potential is there is....disturbing.
If they are selling a cup of coffee for $4-5 who needs to sell books. Coffee is almost all profit and a lot easier than lugging heavy books from warehouse to reatailer.
"You are mistaken. The electoral council in Venezuela didn't allow the counting of the paper trail. In fact, there was at least a voting site where the operators (called table members in Venezuela) were arrested by the military just for opening the boxes with the votes in order to count them."
Could you provide a reputable source supporting this, ideally not one of the hatchet jobs like Thor Halversson's for the opposition. The odds are pretty slim of Chavez losing an election.
Here is a writeup from the Carter Foundation on their take on the Venezuelan election. If nothing else it gives you a taste of the issues trying to audit evoting when there are paper trails. The Venezualan recall wasn't great but the U.S. election with evoting is certain to be worse. At least they did have an audit trail and did do some audits in Venezuala. Audits aren't even an option with many U.S. electronic voting machines. There are also going to be very, very few independent observers doing the kinds of checks the Carter foundation did in Venezuela. States like Florida, last I heard had pretty much banned independent observers, presumably because they have to much to hide.
I'd agreee evoting should be done away with in general but if you are going to keep it you have to have a paper trail and do truly random audits.
I don't think voter intellect is really the issue with evoting. They do in fact make it pretty hard to make a mistake.
Early indications are the tech savvy of the poll workers setting up systems with a lot of interconnects and make everything work under pressure is certainly a concern. I'm not sure but you get the impression Florida in particular is relying on a working internet connection to the home office which seems insane, problem plagued and wildly insecure, at least the guy they showed on the news was rambling about not being able the machines not being able to connect to the "mainframe".
But system design would certainly fix that if you insist on using them. First off these machines should need nothing more than a power plug. They should be setup in a central location under nonpartisan supervision, locked and sealed, taken to the poll and then when done transported back to a central, secure, location to unload the results.
But the damning thing about evoting is there HAS TO BE A PAPER TRAIL. There is an interesting case study in Venezuela which recently had an election involving Hugo Chavez, who is reviled by the Bush administration, and was under constant accusation of trying to rig elections. They used all or mostly evoting machines, BUT they all had printers and a paper trail. The opposition tried to levy charges of election rigging but they simply didn't stick.
Now turn to the U.S., bastion of democracy, who spends tons of time and money telling the rest of the world how to vote. It appears all or most of the evoting machines have NO PAPER TRAIL. A glitch happens and people's votes disappear. Worse its ridiculously easy to rig the election. The U.S. really is turning in to a laughing stock for the rest of the world, and a shining example of a democracy gone bad.
Another serious flaw was pointed out by Jimmy Carter on Larry King last night (you can revile him all you want but he does know good and bad electoral process). The U.S. and assorted other international election monitors push hard for elections to be run by impartial, nonpartisan officials. In the U.S. the are almost universally turned over to very partisan hacks who have huge biases, think Katherine Harris in Florida or any election official appointed by biased governors(for example the brother of one of the candidates). You give these people complete control of the election machinery, and you give them electronic voting machines with no paper trail, and no chance of a recount or audit. It will be a miracle if they can resist the temptation to steal the election because it is SO EASY.
"I'd just like to add that the idea that their aren't Americans with ideals, morals, or scruples is just preposterous."
Didn't say there weren't. What I did say was the American system actively, actively works against these traits in people.
In the majority of Americans they come after money and power on the priority list. For example you don't find any of these positive traits in car salesman, at least while they are on the job. They are kind of the worst case but they are what the capitalist system turns people in to in most fields.
You aren't likely to find these values at all in most for profit work places other than in obligatory "charity" drives especially around Christmas. These also happen to be a tax writeoff and good for business. You want your business to look like it values community and charity over making money when really they are just designed to improve your business. Its a form of marketing.
If you work in a for profit company that hands out promotions, bonuses and options you probably should realize the people you work with, who you consider friends, will probably climb over your broken body to get ahead of you on the corporate ladder.
Idealists and moralists tend to be confined to people who are very young, very old, very rich or willing to live life in near poverty. For example Ralph Nader has lived a spartan life. The problem is he is the consumate adversary of the American system which is why he lives that way. Most American's strive to make money first, buy things and not live a spartan life.
When Americans have their FU money then yes they very often turn to be charitable, perhaps to compensate for the guilt about the things they did to get it. When they no longer have to work to survive, and they realize they really can't take it with them, then yes they often turn idealistic and charitable.
Of course, depending on how far back you go, it was also a time when your Sunday morning options were "Meet the Press", "Face the Nation", church and I remember wrestling being an option for a while where I lived.
Today these shows are vying for an audience against 100+ TV channels, DVD's, the Internet and video games just to name a few. Its pretty obvious they have to do something to garner attention which nearly inevitably leads to news turning to theater, comedy, scandal and sporting event to draw an audience.
"Listen, I'm not so naive as you're supposing."
Well yes you are. The bulk of your post seems to suggest you are unaware you are living in a capitalist system, a jungle where survival of the fittest rules the day. You have to be very young or old, idealistic and or naive to value public service over making money in such a system. You are talking like you want to be in a true socialist system where everyone is out to serve the common good. Nothing wrong with that, but that is not what America is all about, by design.
"I'm suggesting that, sometimes, it's better to do the right thing and be less successful."
I hate to break it to you but that runs counter to everything Americans are taught and have drilled in to them from day one.
If you are telling people if they want to be a journalist they have to be scrupulously ethical, then fail and then starve, exactly what caliber of people are you going to attract.
Almost nobody in the U.S. is a public servent. Pretty much everybody is looking out for #1. There sure as hell isn't anyone in the private sector where those journalists get their pay check who have much of a twinge of public service in them, especially if costs them money.
Network journalists have to rise through a dog eat dog system, starting in small markets and fight tooth and nail all their lives to make it to a major network and then fight tooth and nail to stay there. That entails climbing over the bodies of their peers. They are fixated on their ratings all the way through the process because if you don't have them you are you aren't going to get to the next rung on the ladder. If they make it to the top and their ratings crater, while they are being scrupulously ethical, honest and boring, they end up being honest in South Dakota. That is a system designed to promote "journalists" like O'Reilly and Rush, self promoters who are looking out for #1 not the public good.
There is maybe one exception I can think of Walter Cronkite. He reached the top, and then he decided to be a public servant and, for example, denounced the war in Vietnam and almost single handedly collapsed support for it. Of course he also retired early and didn't stay in network journalism long after that. Perhaps he found being a public servent inherently at odds with network journalism.
"The American "brand" is dominant"
I think that qualifies as backward looking. Toyota has already passed Ford as the #2 car maker and I wouldn't be surprised if Toyota and Honda ultimately dominate the automotive sector.
Airbus is demolishing Boeing in commercial airliners lately.
Exactly how many American brands do you see on the electronics shelf outside of Ipod and computers most of which are built in Asia and just have an American brand stamped on them.
How much stuff in Walmart is actually made in the U.S., so its got a GE brand on it, not sure stamping GE on a Chinese built phone qualifies as any real economic achievement.
Not sure fast food, convenience stores and increasingly bad movies and music are really brands you can hang your hat on with pride.
Not sure you were aware but "Lord of the Rings" was produced in New Zealand. A LOT of top flight movie production is happening in Canada, Australia and New Zealand now. Aussie actors are doing pretty well at the box office too.
Canada dominates animation software development.
I guess there's Microsoft but I'm not sure that monopoly is a badge of honor either and I wager the world outside the U.S. will abandon it in favor of Linux.
"American is the best nation in the world!"
Again backward looking. Charlie Rose recently did a show on future American competitiveness. Again he cited Weta Studios and Peter Jackson's confidence he could put together a better top flight studio in New Zealand that would out compete the "distractions" in LA. Lord of the Rings proved that he did to and it didn't hurt that there is a big currency advantage there as there is in Canada and Australia.
There is apparently a flood of applications from the top flight graduate students coming in to places like Oxford and the University of Toronto. Its partially because its turned incredibly hard to get visas to study or work in the U.S. thanks to "Homeland Security". They are apaprently doing a great job of hassling top graduate students trying to get in the country while there is still a flood of illegals pouring across the border which would be the easy route for a terrorist to get in to the U.S. now.
The U.S. is also now considered somewhat dangerous for foreign students since the U.S. began arresting and detaining people for long periods without access to a lawyer, family or a trial and often sending them to foreign powers to be tortu..er..interrogated.
And of course the U.S. is just a really expensive place to start any company thanks to skyrocketing insurance costs, cost of living, payroll taxes, etc.
All in all if you are forward looking I'm not sure you can say it is the greatest nation any more in any category other than military dominance. It is #1 in that department and in health care costs. Unfortunately those tend to sap the life out of a robust economy not enhance it.
"Shows like "Meet the Press" started fading,"
Dont think I really agree. Russert does a pretty decent job most of the time. He's done a pretty good lately of holding people feet to the fire when they say one thing and then do or say something that completely contradicts it. I'd say he's head and shoulders above O'Reilly and Wolf Blitzer. Don't know about you but if you go from Russert to Wolf on Sunday morning I can't last more than a couple minutes on Wolf before I HAVE to hit the mute button.
""Patriotism" and "Nationalism""
How do you reconcile Americans supposed fondness for "Nationalism" with the current trend among American government and business to sell America down the river in the name of "Globalization". Globalization is a death knell for "Nationalism".
You could argue thats the government and not the people, yet the people who are supporting Bush are in supporting an administration who is openly infatuated with the globalization that will ultimately trump their nationalism. Not sure the Dems aren't just as infatuated with it but at least they are backpeddling on it a little now.
Or are you thinking that American's can maintain their "Patriotism" and "Nationalism" on a military, social and a political level while they abandon it on economic level?
"Miller (who leans right and is quite proud of it) square off."
Maybe its just perception but I don't actually remember Miller leanly right before 9/11 at least as publicly as he does now. Maybe he did he just wasn't obvious about it or I missed it. It seems to me that as soon as 9/11 happened he knew he could lean right in public and actually advance his career instead of wreck it so he did and it appears it worked very well.
"Indeed, it has become a crime to be successful."
If you are successful because you are ruthlessly exploiting other people, yes. If thousands of people are getting killing so you can be successful then, yes. For example war profiteering has always been a pretty good road to success. Is war profiteering a noble avenue to success in your book?
If you do something of value to people and they give you money because they like what you did then, no that is certainly not a crime.
Unfortunately many of the people in George's base are advancing their fortunes with tax dollars coming out of the rest of our pockets (Medicare "Reform", no bid contracts in Iraq, tax cuts for the wealthy that are being paid for with massive debt).