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User: tsotha

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Comments · 3,283

  1. Heh heh. Big Pharma must be making a mint off of you.

  2. Re:Okay... on Top Democratic Senator Will Seek Legislation To "Pierce" Through Encryption (dailydot.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, this is the problem. Lots of people are willing to beat their chests and say "fuck you" to the government now, but if, say, Congress passes a law making the use of unapproved encryption punishable by twenty years in the clink, 99.9% of these same people are going to knuckle under without a peep. We need to stop this kind of crap before it becomes law, and not depend on (other) people willing to take big risks.

  3. Re:Anything that devalues minerals... on A New Technique For Creating Diamonds Discovered · · Score: 1

    The way the money supply works right now any investment you do with your savings has no effect. Banks are dying to lend money to credit-worthy borrowers, and there's no limit to the amount of money that can be borrowed.

  4. Re:Oh, for cryin' out loud.... on Eric Schmidt Proposes 'Hate Spell-Checker' For Radical and Terrorist Content (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    In fact, law schools have a word to describe such an argument. It's called "originalist", and it very much involves what "the founding fathers would have thought of the plan".

    No, that's not what an originalist is. The originalist argument says the text should be interpreted as understood by the people who ratified it. What Jefferson and Monroe thought is far less important than the actual words on the paper as they would have been understood by an educated person in 1787. The people who voted on it were ratifying a document, not a Weltanschaung, and it's the ratification that lends it legitimacy.

    Now, you want to address the arguments in the second link, where actual top constitutional and legal scholars debate the constitutionality of Trump's plan?

    I guess I would if they existed. On the one hand you have two guys expressing opinions (the first of which has no substance whatsoever - they just quote him as saying he thinks it's unconstitutional). Tribe's argument doesn't reference any kind of case law either. Then the last half of the article they actually explain the case law. That's my point - regardless of what anybody thinks the emanations of penumbras say, this is settled law.

  5. Re:Oh, for cryin' out loud.... on Eric Schmidt Proposes 'Hate Spell-Checker' For Radical and Terrorist Content (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    If you read the NRO article carefully you'll see Geraghty is basing his opinion not on the constitution, but what he thinks the founding fathers would have thought of the plan. You'd be laughed out of law school for making an argument that weak.

    This is far more cut and dried than people are trying to make it. We have SCOTUS plenary power case law that leaves these kinds of tests entirely in the hands of Congress. That is right in the text. It's always possible the current court could make up a new set of rules, I suppose, but that's more legislating from the bench than any sort of constitutional interpretation.

  6. This just confirms what I've suspected for a long time: Schmidt is a fascist, and that's not hyperbole.

  7. Re:Letâ(TM)s give up on academic freedom on Eric Schmidt Proposes 'Hate Spell-Checker' For Radical and Terrorist Content (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    There's no question the universities have become cesspits of totalitarianism. I didn't expect to see that in my lifetime.

  8. Re:Oh, for cryin' out loud.... on Eric Schmidt Proposes 'Hate Spell-Checker' For Radical and Terrorist Content (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    Just look at all the extremist stuff that's become popular with the ubiquity of the internet: far right-wing "press" here in the US, and the rise of ISIS in the middle east.

    So... you think the government should censor the 'far right-wing "press"' (as if there were such a thing)? If you were actually able to do that, just what do you think conservatives would do when they got back into power? And who could blame them?

  9. Re:Oh, for cryin' out loud.... on Eric Schmidt Proposes 'Hate Spell-Checker' For Radical and Terrorist Content (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    Actually, the part about not allowing foreign citizens who are Muslims into the country is perfectly constitutional. That's not the same thing as saying it's a good idea, of course.

  10. Re:Defense systems? on Largest Destroyer Built For Navy Headed To Sea For Testing (ap.org) · · Score: 1

    You should read "Red Storm Rising" by Tom Clancy. Saturating the missile defenses of a carrier battle group aren't as hard as you think. Squadrons of strategic bombers (Tu-22M and successors) can carry more ASM's than the carrier battle group has SAM's, and they can launch them out of range of carrier-based interceptors.

    I've read that book. Clancy took some liberties with that scene for the drama. It's not that an attack like that is impossible. The problem is it's complex enough you'd never actually pull it off in real life. And you couldn't hide it. Beyond that in his book the bombers didn't attack from out of range of the carrier aircraft. The Russians don't have many missiles with that kind of range. There were two sets of bombers coming from opposite directions, and the first set used decoys to draw off the air cover. IRL you probably wouldn't fool radars that easily.

    I also like how he had the Phalanx guns not attacking a missile because they each thought the other would engage. Maybe in 1986. Speaking of it not being 1986, each MK-41/MK-56 tube can hold 4 ESSMs, so it would take a whole lot more missiles to overwhelm the defenses than it would have taken back then.

    On top of all that, nobody but the US has the huge fleet of heavy bombers Clancy's scenario depends on. Even assuming the Russians could have mounted an attack like that in the '80s, they couldn't do anything like that today. They just don't have that many operational bombers. It's only in the last few years they were able to resume combat patrols at all. And you need heavy bombers to pour out enough missiles for a successful attack.

    And this assumes the SAM's are any good at hitting the incoming missiles. Peacetime testing has been depressingly inconclusive on how effective this defense really is.

    This just isn't true. Standard missile and its associated radars work very well. I would worry about two things as a captain: submarines and ballistic missiles. It's impossible for people not actively involved to know how big the submarine threat is. It may be a big deal, or it may be nothing at all. I doubt the old Kilos and associated Chinese knockoffs are much of a threat, but the new AIP subs might be. Ballistic missiles are probably a real threat, but the only country with anti-ship ballistic missiles is China, and they don't have very many because of the high cost. In theory we could knock them all down, though I wouldn't want to chance it. Ballistic missiles are a big escalation, though, so even in a real shooting war they might not be used. China doesn't want to get nuked because they US mistakenly thought that's what the Chinese were trying to do.

    And even if you don't have enough bombers to carry enough missiles to empty the SAM magazines of a carrier battle group in one mission, those bombers can refuel, rearm, and sortie again in less than a day. The carrier battle group has to put into port to rearm or perform a very vulnerable underway replenishment.

    I'm not sure what you mean by "very vulnerable". Also, you're assuming the attacker doesn't take any losses. In real life, unless the CBG was crippled in the first attack, you can rest assured those bombers would be attacked on the way in, attacked on the way out, and attacked on the ground as they rearmed. And when the second wave was due to take off they might find big craters in the runways they intended to use.

    Further, it's not like the bad guys need to scout for the battle group either. Satellites know where they are 24x7. The carriers can't hide. They can't fight off successive attacks by long-range land-based bombers carrying long-range missiles.

    Sure, you can't hide very well any more. But you're assuming offensive capabilities nobody has. Of course the USN isn't worried about successive attacks by long range bombers. At this point that particular th

  11. Re:Perspective on Largest Destroyer Built For Navy Headed To Sea For Testing (ap.org) · · Score: 1

    Most of the budget goes to the manned program.

  12. Re:Perspective on Largest Destroyer Built For Navy Headed To Sea For Testing (ap.org) · · Score: 1

    Yea, but space exploration didn't really exist when it was written, to be fair...

    Exploration? What are they exploring in LEO?

  13. Re:Perspective on Largest Destroyer Built For Navy Headed To Sea For Testing (ap.org) · · Score: 1

    Wrong ship.

  14. Re:Anything that devalues minerals... on A New Technique For Creating Diamonds Discovered · · Score: 1

    Why? Good idea or no, a lot of decent people have put a large share of their savings in gems and precious metals.

  15. Re:Perspective on Largest Destroyer Built For Navy Headed To Sea For Testing (ap.org) · · Score: 1

    The Hillary investigations aren't going anywhere. If Obama's DoJ was going to file charges it would already have happened. Of course it's always possible she has a heart attack or something, but I'd bet good money Sanders loses to Trump in the general, even assuming Trump is the Republican nominee. And doubt Trump will be the Republican nominee.

  16. Re:Perspective on Largest Destroyer Built For Navy Headed To Sea For Testing (ap.org) · · Score: 1

    Tomahawks. The guns are relatively long range, so I wouldn't rule out artillery shore bombardments, but every war seems to start with a cruise missile barrage. With 80 VLS cells she's well equipped for that.

  17. A rather large "destroyer" on Largest Destroyer Built For Navy Headed To Sea For Testing (ap.org) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The navy has been playing this game where it builds a large ship and call it something smaller, because Congress is willing to build small-sounding ships without checking to see that they're actually small. The Zumwalt, at 14.5k tons, is more than half again as big as Tico-class cruisers at 9.6k tons. "Oh my God, that new destroyer is expensive," say critics. Well, yeah, because by displacement it's really not a destroyer; it's a cruiser. Maybe even a heavy cruiser.

  18. Re:Defense systems? on Largest Destroyer Built For Navy Headed To Sea For Testing (ap.org) · · Score: 1

    50 cruise missiles would likely not be enough if the ship was part of a battle group in blue water. US ships have the capability to coordinate defensive fire, and a carrier battle group has hundreds of anti-air missiles. And that's assuming an adversary can get into range to launch - an early goal of any battle is to take out the launch platforms, and aircraft have a longer reach than anti-ship missiles.

    These sorts of "who would win" questions always depend heavily on the scenario. In open water, far out of range of land-based cruise missiles and strike aircraft, a carrier battle group is very difficult to attack successfully.

    BTW, in recent years the US has added anti-ballistic missile capability to its ships, so nothing is guaranteed, or even easy, from the attacker's perspective.

  19. Re:Hard to hide on Largest Destroyer Built For Navy Headed To Sea For Testing (ap.org) · · Score: 1

    500 missiles plus launching platforms is going to cost much, much more than a destroyer.

  20. Re:Crazy. Naval swarm warfare. on Largest Destroyer Built For Navy Headed To Sea For Testing (ap.org) · · Score: 1

    Phalanx? What an waste of money! A few .50 cals would work just fine.

  21. Re:Boondoggle and can it combat other ships? on Largest Destroyer Built For Navy Headed To Sea For Testing (ap.org) · · Score: 1

    Those 5 inch and 155 mm guns are not for anti-ship warfare; they're for bombardment. If you let an enemy warship into gun range you're probably already dead.

    There's no reason a ship the size of Zumwalt can't have ASW capability, particularly when Harpoon is VLS (Real Soon Now, supposedly).

  22. Re:Boondoggle and can it combat other ships? on Largest Destroyer Built For Navy Headed To Sea For Testing (ap.org) · · Score: 2

    The US navy doesn't really have a ship killing problem. We have enough capability to wipe out every other surface combatant in the world, probably a few times over, because there just aren't that many surface combatants out there. The primary anti-ship platforms are submarines and aircraft, both of which the USN has in spades (comparatively, anyway). USN doctrine has the destroyers and cruisers primarily there to protect the heart of battle group, which is the carrier. The carrier is the offensive platform.

    In an effort to paint the anti-ship SM-6 as some kind of desperation move, the article also neglects to mention earlier versions of Standard Missile could also target ships. But they've never been used that way, as far as I know. This is yet another one of those capabilities they could add by changing software, so they did, because you just never know, right? But you'd have to be pretty desperate to fire an anti-air missile at a ship.

    In any event, Harpoon block III has all the electronic plumbing it needs for VLS, so we'll probably see it go vertical before the second Chinese carrier is operational. Yes, the Harpoon is "venerable". But it's still effective.

  23. Re:Perspective on Largest Destroyer Built For Navy Headed To Sea For Testing (ap.org) · · Score: 2

    Well, sure, I could buy a whole bunch of hammers for the cost of my table saw. But what happens when I need a table saw?

  24. Re:Perspective on Largest Destroyer Built For Navy Headed To Sea For Testing (ap.org) · · Score: 0

    While the Greens may never win in the US, Bernie Sanders has a chance...

    Bernie Sanders has no chance. He has no chance of being nominated by the Democrats, and if he actually were, by some strange twist of fate, he'd be crushed in the general election. There simply aren't that many socialists in the US.

  25. Re:Perspective on Largest Destroyer Built For Navy Headed To Sea For Testing (ap.org) · · Score: 2

    The government got a ship for 4.4 billion and we are supposed to be glad? It will never be used. It is a showpiece. It is a boondoggle. War is a racket.

    On the contrary, that ship will almost certainly see several wars. The odds it will go its entire service life without firing a shot in anger are basically zero.