so you don't even know what Georgia did to provoke the response do you?
I honestly think there is enough blame to go around on both sides here (Georgia overreached but Russia hasn't exactly gone out of her way to solve the issues in South Ossetia either) but I get nervous when a large country with a historyofaggression and outright annexation starts to beat up on a small neighbor.
Why don't you ask somebody from Poland, the Baltic States, Finland or Ukraine what they think of recent Russian actions?
Of course if any Westerner started to use "we were helping them" as an excuse for our past aggressions we'd probably be labeled a racist.
I find it ironic that a major part of Chinese thinking revolves around the "unequal treaties" and their own history of abuse at the hands of colonial powers while they are essentially doing the same thing in Tibet. Guess oppressing weaker nations is ok as long as you are the one doing the oppression and not the one being oppressed?
Eh, I'd agree with you that we didn't have a "normal guy" character but I'd make the case that Obi-Wan was actually the most believable and well-rounded character in the prequels. He always struck me as somewhat removed from the Jedi orthodoxy (compared to Yoda.... the supposedly all knowing "perceptive" one who didn't even know that Anakin was getting some) and less wooden than most of the other characters.
Considering that the average lifespan in Tibet has increased pretty dramatically since the Chinese took over from the lamas, then yes, it is better.
So we can conquer countries if we improve the life expectancy after we do so? Hmm, I bet a lot of those countries with oil under them could stand to benefit from American medicine......
In Denmark, if something is charged to your account and its fraudulent or something is amiss with the transaction, the bank is the one carrying the charge, not the customer or company.
So what you are basically saying is that in Denmark the bank charges higher fees to make up for the loss instead of the merchant charging higher fees?
Sounds like the consumer is still paying in the end.....
Eh, as with anything there is an upper limit as to what you can spend. I'll spend a few more bucks to get something locally -- but $45 vs $20? Forget it. I'd get it online in that scenario too.
Like I said, it's difficult to say, if three large pieces of the plane crashed through three different buildings, quite a few people might have been killed. Especially if they were well populated buildings. Remember, this is New York City.
Well the other thing you have to consider is that New York is pretty small geographically speaking. One would hope that the decision to shoot the thing down could be made before it was flying over Midtown. Failing that, there is precdent for aircraft going down in populated areas without killing lots of people.
Shooting down a 747 over New York might very well have caused just as much or even more damage then letting it hit the building did. Difficult to say of course, but large chunks of 747 raining down on the city would definitely have put a damper on someone's day.
Eh, I don't think it would cause "as much or even more" damage if you shot it down. Part of the reason that the strikes on the twin towers were so effective was because of the high speed of the aircraft. Speed == kinetic energy.
Pieces of a shot down aircraft would be coming down at their respective terminal velocities which would be much less than the speed of the aircraft that hit the towers. They'd also have a lot less mass than an intact airplane. Less mass combined with less speed == a lot less energy == a lot less damage on the ground. You might have some injuries/deaths on the ground (people on the ground died after Pam Am 103) but it wouldn't be thousands of deaths.
I'll grant you the point on the lack of time though. It's pretty tough to respond that quickly. In the event that they were able to respond though (or that ground-based defenses could locate and engage the hijacked jet) I would think that shooting it down would be a no brainer.
Not checked at all at any American airport. (The guy at Kansai International outside Osaka asked me to open it and gave it a look and a sniff.)
Isn't it amazing how other countries actually have a sane approach to airport security? When I was in the UK a few years ago they spent almost 15 minutes talking to me -- asked me where I came from, where I was going to, how I liked my trip, what my hometown was like, etc, etc, etc. I suppose I was technically being interrogated (presumably they are watching your facial reactions and listening for inconsistencies in your story?) but they were polite and courteous about it. Overall it was infinitely better than any experience I've ever had in the United States.
I'd bet that they catch more bad guys doing this then we do by filling our airports with minimum wage screeners whom all seem to have chips on their shoulders. I swear most of the TSA people I've interacted with probably got beat up a lot in high school and as a result get off on having a position of authority over people.
You can't get into the area where the planes are without the standard full background check
Yeah, unless you happen to know somebody. I've been out on the tarmac with the planes (passenger and private carrier) without going through security at our regional airport. I used to know one of the Operations Managers up there and got a few behind the scenes tours. All in the post 9/11 world. Walked right past the TSA guys too and was never stopped or waved through the metal detector.
All you know is that radio contact has been lost with a plane and it's veering off course. It could be some failure on board and the crew is trying to do find a suitable spot for an emergency landing.
And in that case the military would intercept the plane and attempt to establish visual communication with the pilots on board and signal them to land. If they don't respond to these attempts then you have a pretty good idea of what their intent is. They wouldn't just shoot down a blip on the radar screen.
Are you going to give the order to kill several hundred people? Do you still think it's such an easy decision? You know what they say about hindsight?
You think that's tough? Imagine having to order a nuclear strike on another country to retaliate for/prevent a strike on your own? Knowing full well that millions of people will die even the strike is limited to military targets.
Bottom line: If you aren't prepared to make those types of decisions you have no business running for President of the United States.
Yeah, if you knew it had been hijacked. Didn't we discover the hijackings on 9/11 because the passengers alerted authorities on the ground?
Reagan National Airport is under 7 kilometers (as the crow flies) from the White House and Capitol. That works out to just about two minutes of flying time at landing speed (approx 200km/h for a 747). Do you really think our esteemed Government could react that fast if the hijacking was successfully kept a secret up until the plane was actually scheduled to land? The same Government that couldn't even manage to locate (let alone shoot-down) Flight 93 before it crashed or defend the headquarters of our entire military from attack on that fateful day?
You have much more faith in the Government than I do.
Maybe you can go across the ocean by tramp steamer... Very romantic.
Yeah but if you do that as opposed to flying you have a pretty decent chance of stealing Kate Winslet from some rich asshole that doesn't appreciate her;) Now that global warming has arrived you don't even have to worry about icebergs ruining your trip;)
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so you don't even know what Georgia did to provoke the response do you?
I honestly think there is enough blame to go around on both sides here (Georgia overreached but Russia hasn't exactly gone out of her way to solve the issues in South Ossetia either) but I get nervous when a large country with a history of aggression and outright annexation starts to beat up on a small neighbor.
Why don't you ask somebody from Poland, the Baltic States, Finland or Ukraine what they think of recent Russian actions?
Sorry man, going to have to disagree with you there. For me the most believe able character was Han
That would be why I qualified it with "Obi-Wan was actually the most believable and well-rounded character in the prequels"
Of course if any Westerner started to use "we were helping them" as an excuse for our past aggressions we'd probably be labeled a racist.
I find it ironic that a major part of Chinese thinking revolves around the "unequal treaties" and their own history of abuse at the hands of colonial powers while they are essentially doing the same thing in Tibet. Guess oppressing weaker nations is ok as long as you are the one doing the oppression and not the one being oppressed?
Eh, I'd agree with you that we didn't have a "normal guy" character but I'd make the case that Obi-Wan was actually the most believable and well-rounded character in the prequels. He always struck me as somewhat removed from the Jedi orthodoxy (compared to Yoda.... the supposedly all knowing "perceptive" one who didn't even know that Anakin was getting some) and less wooden than most of the other characters.
It's one thing to suspend disbelief, but that movie suspends believability
Yeah, cuz all the other Star Wars movies were much more believable ;)
I mean, what kind of self-respecting galactic overlord would have a throne room without a deep reactor pit of death in it?
Considering that the average lifespan in Tibet has increased pretty dramatically since the Chinese took over from the lamas, then yes, it is better.
So we can conquer countries if we improve the life expectancy after we do so? Hmm, I bet a lot of those countries with oil under them could stand to benefit from American medicine......
The usual figure given for the average lifespan of a Tibetan, pre-Chinese-takeover, is 36 years. What does that suggest to you?
I see, so the Chinese were helping them? I didn't know there was a 'Han Burden' to go along with the 'White Man Burden'
They may not have know just how far the National Socialists were going to take things
Yeah, if only one of those National Socialists had written some sort of book outlining everything that they intended to do once they obtained power.
But we forgive you, we elected GWB and then failed to stop him from making an even bigger mess of the Middle East.
Eh, for all his faults GWB didn't scapegoat an entire race and murder ten or twenty million people.
Not trusting them keeps them honest.
Wouldn't that make Microsoft the most honest company ever?
What's wrong with AOL's business model?
Which part? The walled garden part or the part where they would keep charging your credit card after you left them?
Might as well just send in the pikemen...
Be careful, sometimes they can beat battleships ;)
In Denmark, if something is charged to your account and its fraudulent or something is amiss with the transaction, the bank is the one carrying the charge, not the customer or company.
So what you are basically saying is that in Denmark the bank charges higher fees to make up for the loss instead of the merchant charging higher fees?
Sounds like the consumer is still paying in the end.....
Eh, as with anything there is an upper limit as to what you can spend. I'll spend a few more bucks to get something locally -- but $45 vs $20? Forget it. I'd get it online in that scenario too.
Who in their right mind would get in their car just to drive across the street?
Most Americans? ;)
Yeah, like they'd bother to test the CEO or any of the PHB bosses. Different rules apply to them, don't ya know?
You know for all the flak we give the traditional media, at least they don't have headlines like this.
Yeah, they just have headlines like this instead. And they focus on Paris Hilton and/or Britney Spears at a time when our country is at war.
Thank god for PBS.....
Like I said, it's difficult to say, if three large pieces of the plane crashed through three different buildings, quite a few people might have been killed. Especially if they were well populated buildings. Remember, this is New York City.
Well the other thing you have to consider is that New York is pretty small geographically speaking. One would hope that the decision to shoot the thing down could be made before it was flying over Midtown. Failing that, there is precdent for aircraft going down in populated areas without killing lots of people.
Shooting down a 747 over New York might very well have caused just as much or even more damage then letting it hit the building did. Difficult to say of course, but large chunks of 747 raining down on the city would definitely have put a damper on someone's day.
Eh, I don't think it would cause "as much or even more" damage if you shot it down. Part of the reason that the strikes on the twin towers were so effective was because of the high speed of the aircraft. Speed == kinetic energy.
Pieces of a shot down aircraft would be coming down at their respective terminal velocities which would be much less than the speed of the aircraft that hit the towers. They'd also have a lot less mass than an intact airplane. Less mass combined with less speed == a lot less energy == a lot less damage on the ground. You might have some injuries/deaths on the ground (people on the ground died after Pam Am 103) but it wouldn't be thousands of deaths.
I'll grant you the point on the lack of time though. It's pretty tough to respond that quickly. In the event that they were able to respond though (or that ground-based defenses could locate and engage the hijacked jet) I would think that shooting it down would be a no brainer.
Not checked at all at any American airport. (The guy at Kansai International outside Osaka asked me to open it and gave it a look and a sniff.)
Isn't it amazing how other countries actually have a sane approach to airport security? When I was in the UK a few years ago they spent almost 15 minutes talking to me -- asked me where I came from, where I was going to, how I liked my trip, what my hometown was like, etc, etc, etc. I suppose I was technically being interrogated (presumably they are watching your facial reactions and listening for inconsistencies in your story?) but they were polite and courteous about it. Overall it was infinitely better than any experience I've ever had in the United States.
I'd bet that they catch more bad guys doing this then we do by filling our airports with minimum wage screeners whom all seem to have chips on their shoulders. I swear most of the TSA people I've interacted with probably got beat up a lot in high school and as a result get off on having a position of authority over people.
and he said that the alloy they have been using for the last decade or so does not set off detectors like the old surgical steel does
Hmm.... wonder why nobody has thought to use that same alloy to make weapons with?
You can't get into the area where the planes are without the standard full background check
Yeah, unless you happen to know somebody. I've been out on the tarmac with the planes (passenger and private carrier) without going through security at our regional airport. I used to know one of the Operations Managers up there and got a few behind the scenes tours. All in the post 9/11 world. Walked right past the TSA guys too and was never stopped or waved through the metal detector.
All you know is that radio contact has been lost with a plane and it's veering off course. It could be some failure on board and the crew is trying to do find a suitable spot for an emergency landing.
And in that case the military would intercept the plane and attempt to establish visual communication with the pilots on board and signal them to land. If they don't respond to these attempts then you have a pretty good idea of what their intent is. They wouldn't just shoot down a blip on the radar screen.
Are you going to give the order to kill several hundred people? Do you still think it's such an easy decision? You know what they say about hindsight?
You think that's tough? Imagine having to order a nuclear strike on another country to retaliate for/prevent a strike on your own? Knowing full well that millions of people will die even the strike is limited to military targets.
Bottom line: If you aren't prepared to make those types of decisions you have no business running for President of the United States.
Which could easily be shot down.
Yeah, if you knew it had been hijacked. Didn't we discover the hijackings on 9/11 because the passengers alerted authorities on the ground?
Reagan National Airport is under 7 kilometers (as the crow flies) from the White House and Capitol. That works out to just about two minutes of flying time at landing speed (approx 200km/h for a 747). Do you really think our esteemed Government could react that fast if the hijacking was successfully kept a secret up until the plane was actually scheduled to land? The same Government that couldn't even manage to locate (let alone shoot-down) Flight 93 before it crashed or defend the headquarters of our entire military from attack on that fateful day?
You have much more faith in the Government than I do.
but Cheney would probably get away with it
Naw, Cheney wouldn't hijack Air Force One. Not his style. He'd shoot the White House in the face and make it apologize to him afterwards ;)
Maybe you can go across the ocean by tramp steamer... Very romantic.
Yeah but if you do that as opposed to flying you have a pretty decent chance of stealing Kate Winslet from some rich asshole that doesn't appreciate her ;) Now that global warming has arrived you don't even have to worry about icebergs ruining your trip ;)