till then go buy a yagi antenna from Radio Shack and enjoy real HDTV
Absolutely right. $100 or less and most people can get outstanding HD off the networks, free. OTA is the best thing HD has going right now, except for Sunday Ticket.:-)
HD and digital cable are merely an incremental upgrade
Have you ever actually seen HDTV? It's not an incremental upgrade - it's as close to a paradigm shift as you can get without a scratch-n-sniff panel on the TV so you can smell the rotting corpses on CSI.
Why would Joe Sixpack need composite, optical digital, DVI and Svideo outputs?
Because when Joe Sixpack sees his first NFL game in high definition, he'll need a 12pack's worth of beer-goggles to make watching football in SD tolerable.
Seriously, once you've seen a live sporting event in 16:9 HDTV, or a broadcast HD movie with 5.1 surround, there's just no going back. The NFL is HDTV's killer app in the US. It's already happening. Compare last year's Sunday Ticket HD lineup to this year's; look at the satellites DirecTV is launching just so they'll be able to add HD locals in every market.
try explaining to your average Walmart shopper the difference between 480p, 720i, and 1080p
Nah. The average Walmart shopper would have no trouble plugging in a new HDTV and STB. Just a couple of cables, and they're even color coded.
So you feel that being arrested trying to serve papers on the CPD far outweighs any platform issues that you might prefer over Bush's/Kerry's?
If feel that choosing that time to serve papers was obviously done for the publicity, not to just serve the papers.
So you're OK with the PATRIOT Act? The War on (Some) Drugs? The war in Iraq? Because if you aren't, why are you voting for Bush or Kerry?
No, no, yes.
I'll vote for Kerry because I don't want Bush back, and any vote for a 3rd party candidate is wasted.
No matter how many times you say it isn't, it is wasted if you have a preference between the R/D candidates. Even if it's just a lesser of two evils preference.
People argue that third parties shouldn't run for president, but I say it gets them more exposure than running the "smaller" races, which they already have candidates slotted for.
They don't need the exposure that.05% of the vote in the presidential election gets. They need to spend those resources on winning US and state Senate and House seats.
We're running a full slate of statewide candidates in Missouri, for instance. In Texas, Michael Badnarik's home state, the LP has candidates in all Congressional districts except for Ron Paul's, who ran as the LP presidential candidate back 92 or 96 I believe.
That's great. No, really, I'm happy to see 3rd party candidates running for office. Get back to me when you win some of them, and have a non-negligible presence in Congress.
Until you do, your presidential candidate will be nothing more than a waste of your party's resources and insult to its credibility.
heres a list of the 200+ green party members who have been elected into public offices.
... the vast majority of whom sit on school boards, sanitary districts, and city councils. Not a single Senator (state or federal) or member of the US House of Representatives. They've got one member of a state House.
Yippee. Color me impressed.
These people need to win some seats in the US Congress before they jump to the head of the line. They need to quit throwing away money and credibility in hopeless presidential bids, and get a few people elected to federal positions.
And really, the only way for these third parties to be considered serious is for those same third parties to have a base of representatives who have succeeded 1) on the local level, 2) on the statewide level (i.e. state legislature), and 3) on the national level (i.e. Congress). Neither of these parties have done that.
Agree completely. All politics is local.
Running for president is an absolute waste of the their parties' resources. The only way either could win is if both Kerry and Bush are exposed as an Al Queda sleeper cell on November 1st. Why don't these guys run for the House or Senate in their home state first? Is it ego? They seem to think that publicity and outraged civil-disobedience martyrdom is more important than actually holding office.
I'd love to support a 3rd party candidate, but these knuckleheads have only earned my contempt.
I'm just wondering why didn't Bush and company use your argument instead of saying "we are 100% certain they've got WMD"?
First, because I don't think my argument would have convinced enough Americans that invading was necessary. I believe it was, but I'm in that small pro-invasion, anti-Bush, WMD-were-a-distracting-tangent crowd.
I also think they were so far into the neocon dream that they thought winning the peace would be as easy as winning the war, and that the sight of Saddam in jail and a free/gleeful/prosperous Iraqi populace would make the question of WMD unimportant in most minds. IOW, I think that they thought it wouldn't matter if WMD were found or not, so why not play up the threat to rally support? Fear is a powerful motivator.
Why did they lie, Can we trust them not to lie again - these are the real questions.
Well, those are fine lines between spin and willful ignorance and lies...
Honestly, the spin he put on the WMD issue doesn't bother me nearly as much as the spectacularly incompetent manner in which his administration has handled Iraq. I'm used to politicians slanting facts; I dislike it, but I tolerate it. Tolerating stupidity and incompetence is another matter.
Also, his failure to demand Rumsfeld's resignation over Abu Graib alone is enough for me to check the Anyone-But-Bush box. I think that, as much as anything else, shows that his "I lead, I take responsibility, the buck stops here" act is, well, just an act.
I'm voting against Bush not because I think invading Iraq was wrong, but because he's shown that he's a terrible leader who's surrounded by incompetent advisors.
we tried that for OVER A DECADE and it wasn't working
Did we find any WMDs? NO! This sounds like success to me. How to justify this comment ("it wasn't working") of yours?
For examples of countries that are genuinely disarming, renouncing WMD, one only has to look at South Africa or Libya. Demonstrating that you are dismantling your WMD programs is easy if you are really doing it.
At one point in the mid-90s, Iraq admitted to having 10,000+ liters of anthrax. They have no records of what happened to it. Are you telling me that a regime that was so pathologically obsessive about record keeping that they took before-&-after photos of torture victims simply forgot what happened to its anthrax stockpile? You don't just drive out in the desert and spill 10,000 L of a biowarfare agent and then forget where you put it!
Just what were we supposed to think he was really doing?
The burden of proof was on Saddam Hussein, and the continuous games he played with inspections and shots he fired at aircraft patrolling UN-imposed no-fly zones clearly demonstrated that he was not cooperating.
Now, you can argue that invading Iraq how and when we did was the wrong course of action, and I'd partly agree with you. But if you actually believe that the weapons inspection process was a success, you're just being willfully ignorant.
The reason why Europe is so drastically outperformed by the USA in terms of military capabilities is that European armies are mostly (UK is an exception --- not surprising, since it is shielded by sea) cold-war style, prepared to fight a large scale land war against the Russian invasion.
No real disagreement with most of your post, but thought I'd throw in a couple of comments.
The US military is also largely designed to fight a Cold War style conflict. This is part of why it's difficult for us to shift gears and fight an adversary like Al Queda. Europe and the US both spent the latter half of the 1900s preparing to stop Soviet tanks in Europe.
A more significant reason why there's such a gap between the EU and US militaries, is that the "EU military" is less than the sum of its parts. It's hard enough for the US Army and the US Marine Corps to work together efficiently. Expecting various European forces to seamlessly combine into an effective "EU military", when they speak different languages, use different equipment, rarely train together, have widely varied doctrine, and have overlapping command structures... that's a huge handicap.
Also, as another poster pointed out, the US had to prepare to fight wars an ocean away, so we developed a highly mobile military in the first place. That, as much as the above, is the reason why the US can project power, and the EU can not. We've been doing it for the last 100 years. Europe has been fighting at home
If we lowered ourself just to the level of Britain and France, hardly small armies, we'd save 50 billion a year.
Oh, yes, by all means, let's aspire to be France's military equal...
Reach for those stars, eh?
And if you want crazy boondongles- lets talk about the comanche. How many billions, and in the end we don't even have a prototype?
You could point to other expensive, cancelled proograms, too. But you'd be ignoring the fact that spending money on R&D is a gamble that sometimes
a) has enormous payoffs (the first atomic bomb, stealth technology, etc)
b) doesn't pay off
c) pays off in unexpected ways
Do you put Reagan's SDI dollars in b or c? I'd say c - we sure learned a lot about lasers, for one thing, and that knowledge has found applications in other areas. Do you put the Commanche in b or c? Maybe b, but who knows how much of that research will find its way into other aircraft? How about the Crusader artillery system?
Have you, by any chance, done the same sort of %GDP comparison for military R&D spending? I'll save you the bother - the gap between the US and other nations is even wider there. And that's simply because we recognize that the one of the two things that have made our military the most effective in the world is our commitment to R&D (the other thing being training and doctrine).
So whine about that helicopter "boondongle" if you will, but consider that it's hard to tell the difference between a "boondongle" and a breakthrough in advance.
[Higher TB infection rates in the US compared to NW Europe] may be a result of higher rates of prescription of antibiotics in the USA
...
Thus being prescribed antibiotics for a cold (which will not help the cold) may convey immunity to a class of antibiotics on bacteria in your gut. It is possible for these to exchange plasmoids with TB bacteria.
With respect, this is nonsense.
Nobody uses INH, rifampin, ethambutol, or any other anti-TB drug to treat common infections. TB isn't becoming more resistant to INH because someone took a Z-Pak for a viral upper respiratory infection. INH & rifampin are rarely used. (Practically the only time I ever prescribe rifampin is to treat documented cases of methicillin resistant staph aureus. And I've neve prescribed INH for anything other than latent or active TB.)
TB is becoming resistant to the antibiotics we use to treat it because many people don't take the drugs for the prescribed duration. Period. This is most often because the drugs aren't available, because they can't afford them, or because they're irresponsible and noncompliant with treatment.
Another reason TB is making a comeback is because of the HIV epidemic. We've got a lot more immunocompromised people running around these days than we used to, and TB that might have remained latent in a healthy person will blossom in someone with AIDs. In developing nations, where HIV is underdiagnosed and mostly untreated, it's an even bigger problem. Remember, HIV doesn't kill people - opportunistic infections kill people with AIDS.
HIV, and drug resistance caused by inadequate treatment (not overuse of common antibiotics), are the two factors most responsible for the resurgence of TB.
It's been a few months (April) since I've been able to watch the DirecTV HD package. Has it improved at all?
At that time,
ESPN
Sucked. 90% of their programming was SD upconverts. Worse, they streeeeetched the image to 16:9 which distorted the picture and made it physically painful to watch. They had some nicely done Sunday night football games last year.
Discovery HD
Nice, but incredibly repetitive. The channel was on a 4 hour loop most of the time.
HDMovies (Movie channel showing various movies from classics to recent favorites)
Sucked in a major way. 90%+ old retread movies. Sure, "Endless Summer" was cool to watch, the first of the 7,312 times they broadcast it.
HDNet - pretty much a worthless channel showing repeats of recent Nascar Races, Horse, Races, and concerts. They also have some original series on it (I think).
Good for MLS games, if you're into that, which I am.
Now they've added BravoHD to the $10.99 HD package, which was part of a deal they had with NBC over the Olympics. Rumor has it they're going to push some SciFi channel programming onto Bravo, which would be cool.
CBSHD - I live in Utah and they allow me to pick up the CBS HD feed from LA. This is great because I can watch my shows an hour later in HD without needing the off air ant.
Don't knock OTA antennas, if you can get a signal. A one-time expense of under $100 and a few hours installing an antenna in my attic got me perfect recepton of ABC, CBS, and NBC digital broadcast. The picture from local stations is typically compressed less than DBS signals, and it's free.
It's too bad that getting a waiver from a local station, even if you can't get their signal, is a nightmare most places. I can't get Fox, at all, and I'm not real hopeful about being able to get it over DirecTV, even when they start offering it.
I also enjoy watching Golf in High def on the weekends. You can tell a HUGE DIFFERENCE between the shows in HD and regular shows. People come over and just say WOW to the sporting events. Movies are not that much different.
I agree, HD is incredible. I could watch paint dry in HD, but I'm not sure if I could make myself watch golf.:-)
Cons:
No STINKING TIVO!!!!!! I can't wait for the HDTivo to be affordable.
Agreed. They need a standalone HD DVR model that doesn't force us to hock our existing HD STBs on eBay.
AT BEST, with your HDTV OTA card you will get marginal quality from a handful of HDTV channels.
Bah. Have you ever actually watched OTA HDTV?
The quality is consistently better than cable or satellite HDTV, since the signal is uncompressed. Furthermore, the majority of original new content is through the big three networks, all of which are available in most areas, free, OTA. Even Fox is jumping on the HDTV bandwagon.
We used to subscribe to DirecTV's HDTV package - Discovery HD, HDNet, HDNet Movies, ESPNHD (worthless - it's 95% 4:3 -> 16:9 distorted upconverts of their SD broadcast). We cancelled the $11/month package because the content was so obscenely repetitive that we rarely watched it.
In contrast, we'd tune in to fantastic picture quality and original programming daily from OTA network broadcasts.
Many of the Humvees in Irag are still not armored, the "homebrewed" armor plating isn't effective against RPGs.
I think you're misunderstanding the point of uparmored Humvees. They're not designed to withstand an RPG (it's only 1/4" of steel plate, after all).
They're designed to improve survivability of the crew when an IED blows up nearby - and at this task, they're reasonably effective. IEDs, not RPGs, are the threat being countered with the uparmor kits.
I work at a Veteran's Affairs Clinic and have seen in patient charts "Vet has been exposed to high levels of depleted uranium from [combat in some location]." Doctors then go on to suggest that it may play a part in the following symptoms that the Vet is experiencing, and they have a long list...
My disclaimer and credential: I'm a doctor in the military. While I'm not an expert in this area, I do get asked about DU from time to time by my patients, and I've put a lot of effort into educating myself as objectively as possible. I have no agenda beyond what's best for the people under my care.
First of all, the toxicity of depleted uranium, if it's clinically significant at all, is related to its chemical and not radiologic properties. This raises the question: if fear of DU isn't irrational, why don't we hear any outcry about the many other chemically toxic battlefield by-products?
Studies on US personnel who were victims of friendly fire incidents in 1991, including people who to this day have retained fragments of DU in their bodies, have not demonstrated adverse health effects.
Surveillance of depleted uranium exposed Gulf War veterans: health effects observed in an enlarged "friendly fire" cohort. McDiarmid MA - J Occup Environ Med - 01-DEC-2001; 43(12): 991-1000. "DU-exposed Gulf War veterans with retained metal shrapnel fragments were excreting elevated levels of urine uranium 8 years after their first exposure [...] Clinical laboratory outcomes, including renal functioning, were essentially normal. Neurocognitive measures showing subtle differences between high and low uranium exposure groups, seen previously, have since diminished."
Depleted uranium--is it really a health issue?
Lee HA - Lancet Oncol - 01-APR-2001; 2(4): 197. "... epidemiological investigation going back over 50 years has not revealed any more than minor renal disorders from occupational exposures, and only transient renal damage after large accidental exposures."
I could go on, but I feel like I'm already wasting my time.
There's another dense, chemically-toxic metal in widespread use for munitions: lead. Where's the outrage about lead?
Fear of DU is irrational.
(Of course, I'm well aware that arguing this point is like trying to have an objective, well-informed debate with an environmentalist about nuclear power. They're just not interested. They hear the N-word and that's all they need to know.)
While we were stationed in Iraq, we bought a Direcway system from one of the locals. It was about $3k for the equipment and another $300-400/mo for the service.
This sounds about in line with a system we're looking at from a UK company - Bentley Telecom sells a hardware package for about $1700 (1.2 m dish & receiver) plus about $300/month for a business class 512/128 connection.
If you're in Bagram or Kabul, you should be able to find a "local contractor" who will be willing to deal with you. Unfortunatly, most of them only deal in cash.
The problem with using a local contractor is that when we move, we can't count on them to come to us. (And we want to use the same system in Iraq next year.) We want to buy the hardware, pay for the service, and do everything else ourselves.
3: You can use any of the numerous aiming programs out there. To see the signal strengths on the modem itself you need a F-F null modem serial cable, so either buy two of them and splice or get the appropriate adaptors. The menu system, once you connect is pretty self expanitory. Get your TX and RX to at least 90 and tighten your bolts carefully.
This is the only thing holding us up. Realistically, how hard is this? I'm not an engineer - while I'm fairly computer literate (longtime Linux user, competent c programmer, able to set up firewalls & web proxy servers, etc) I have never pointed a dish in my life.
Is this something that I, as a "pretty smart" guy, can reasonably expect to do? The disastrous scenario in the back of my mind is that we plonk down $2500 for everything and can't figure out where to point the dish. The comm guys at our (battalion) level don't have experience with this sort of thing. I have their blessing and encouragement, but I'm on my own.
Which of the aiming programs do you recommend?
4: You'll have to handle throttling yourself. Our system came with about 10 IPs, but we used a single IP as firewwall/NAT just to be safe.
I'm not too worried about this. We have few enough users that I think an informal courtesy policy, coupled with voluntary use of download managers that can throttle speed (like GetRight), will work OK.
Service was OK.
Anything that works consistently at speeds over.5K/s will be light years ahead of what we have now.;-)
You're correct on all counts. We have authorization from our command. Existing phone calls and internet access are more or less unmonitored.
In addition, a nearby Marine unit has already set up a privately-funded satellite link. However, they went through a local company based in Kabul, who did the installation and charged an enormous sum of money for a system to support 130+ people. We want something cheaper, for fewer people, with greater portabitity (this Kabul-based company won't make house calls to Iraq next year).
We ensure the ability of the weakest genes to survive and procreate - increasing the number of weak genes and polluters - creating more desease, war, famine, and additional work for doctors)
Doctors cause war? Eh?
Except for that, you're sort of correct but completely oblivious to the point:
Medicine doesn't make so-called bad genes a bigger problem. Medicine makes these genes irrelevant.
Also, keep in mind that many if not most of the benefits of modern medicine are realized well after childbearing age, and therefore can not have evolutionary effects.
This is challenging - but doctoring does not affect the quality of life as much as (for example) good plumbing.
Respectfully disagree.
You can't tell me that "good plumbing" has improved our quality of life more than eradicating smallpox or inventing bubble-gum flavored amoxicillin or supplemental oxygen for people with emphysema.
The tooth is a healthy living organ requiring nutrients. You can remove this but than the tooth starts turning black
A more signficant issue is that a dead tooth (ie, post root canal) tends to become brittle over time, and much more likely to suddenly break when stressed.
I'm not suggesting that they're bad. The point is that it is hard to forge an effective alliance out of military units that rarely if ever work together, speak different languages, use different and often incompatible equipment, follow different doctrines...
There's a reason why Europe is essentially incapable of projecting power. It's not that they're incompetent - it's that the pieces weren't designed to work together.
Believing that Europe's combined military might can somehow compare to the better funded, completely integrated US military is naive ignorance at best.
You know, some countries here even have compulsory military service.
This is not an advantage.
US reservists are far behind their active duty counterparts in almost every respect (there's only so much one weekend a month and two weeks a year can do), and I'll take a reservist over a draftee any day.
And yeah, if we fought a united (!) Europe, we could probably be beaten.
I doubt it. Don't overestimate the ability of a bunch of relatively small, poorly funded armies who rarely (or never!) train together to put up an effective defense. (The notable exception to Europe's military mediocrity is Britain.)
None of the above is intended to insult or slight Europe. But the reality is that Europe's collective military might isn't just the sum of its parts.
Slashdot Mirror
No way is the cable company going to allow an HD channel to consume 18X the bandwidth than a regular channel, so they trhottle the heck of of them.
...
t hreadid=443890
:-)
True
Gonna be a while before this resolves itself,
Less than a year: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&
till then go buy a yagi antenna from Radio Shack and enjoy real HDTV
Absolutely right. $100 or less and most people can get outstanding HD off the networks, free. OTA is the best thing HD has going right now, except for Sunday Ticket.
HD and digital cable are merely an incremental upgrade
Have you ever actually seen HDTV? It's not an incremental upgrade - it's as close to a paradigm shift as you can get without a scratch-n-sniff panel on the TV so you can smell the rotting corpses on CSI.
Why would Joe Sixpack need composite, optical digital, DVI and Svideo outputs?
Because when Joe Sixpack sees his first NFL game in high definition, he'll need a 12pack's worth of beer-goggles to make watching football in SD tolerable.
Seriously, once you've seen a live sporting event in 16:9 HDTV, or a broadcast HD movie with 5.1 surround, there's just no going back. The NFL is HDTV's killer app in the US. It's already happening. Compare last year's Sunday Ticket HD lineup to this year's; look at the satellites DirecTV is launching just so they'll be able to add HD locals in every market.
try explaining to your average Walmart shopper the difference between 480p, 720i, and 1080p
Nah. The average Walmart shopper would have no trouble plugging in a new HDTV and STB. Just a couple of cables, and they're even color coded.
BTW, it's 720p and 1080i.
So you feel that being arrested trying to serve papers on the CPD far outweighs any platform issues that you might prefer over Bush's/Kerry's?
.05% of the vote in the presidential election gets. They need to spend those resources on winning US and state Senate and House seats.
If feel that choosing that time to serve papers was obviously done for the publicity, not to just serve the papers.
So you're OK with the PATRIOT Act? The War on (Some) Drugs? The war in Iraq? Because if you aren't, why are you voting for Bush or Kerry?
No, no, yes.
I'll vote for Kerry because I don't want Bush back, and any vote for a 3rd party candidate is wasted.
No matter how many times you say it isn't, it is wasted if you have a preference between the R/D candidates. Even if it's just a lesser of two evils preference.
People argue that third parties shouldn't run for president, but I say it gets them more exposure than running the "smaller" races, which they already have candidates slotted for.
They don't need the exposure that
We're running a full slate of statewide candidates in Missouri, for instance. In Texas, Michael Badnarik's home state, the LP has candidates in all Congressional districts except for Ron Paul's, who ran as the LP presidential candidate back 92 or 96 I believe.
That's great. No, really, I'm happy to see 3rd party candidates running for office. Get back to me when you win some of them, and have a non-negligible presence in Congress.
Until you do, your presidential candidate will be nothing more than a waste of your party's resources and insult to its credibility.
heres a list of the 200+ green party members who have been elected into public offices.
... the vast majority of whom sit on school boards, sanitary districts, and city councils. Not a single Senator (state or federal) or member of the US House of Representatives. They've got one member of a state House.
Yippee. Color me impressed.
These people need to win some seats in the US Congress before they jump to the head of the line. They need to quit throwing away money and credibility in hopeless presidential bids, and get a few people elected to federal positions.
And really, the only way for these third parties to be considered serious is for those same third parties to have a base of representatives who have succeeded 1) on the local level, 2) on the statewide level (i.e. state legislature), and 3) on the national level (i.e. Congress). Neither of these parties have done that.
Agree completely. All politics is local.
Running for president is an absolute waste of the their parties' resources. The only way either could win is if both Kerry and Bush are exposed as an Al Queda sleeper cell on November 1st. Why don't these guys run for the House or Senate in their home state first? Is it ego? They seem to think that publicity and outraged civil-disobedience martyrdom is more important than actually holding office.
I'd love to support a 3rd party candidate, but these knuckleheads have only earned my contempt.
I'm just wondering why didn't Bush and company use your argument instead of saying "we are 100% certain they've got WMD"?
...
First, because I don't think my argument would have convinced enough Americans that invading was necessary. I believe it was, but I'm in that small pro-invasion, anti-Bush, WMD-were-a-distracting-tangent crowd.
I also think they were so far into the neocon dream that they thought winning the peace would be as easy as winning the war, and that the sight of Saddam in jail and a free/gleeful/prosperous Iraqi populace would make the question of WMD unimportant in most minds. IOW, I think that they thought it wouldn't matter if WMD were found or not, so why not play up the threat to rally support? Fear is a powerful motivator.
Why did they lie, Can we trust them not to lie again - these are the real questions.
Well, those are fine lines between spin and willful ignorance and lies
Honestly, the spin he put on the WMD issue doesn't bother me nearly as much as the spectacularly incompetent manner in which his administration has handled Iraq. I'm used to politicians slanting facts; I dislike it, but I tolerate it. Tolerating stupidity and incompetence is another matter.
Also, his failure to demand Rumsfeld's resignation over Abu Graib alone is enough for me to check the Anyone-But-Bush box. I think that, as much as anything else, shows that his "I lead, I take responsibility, the buck stops here" act is, well, just an act.
I'm voting against Bush not because I think invading Iraq was wrong, but because he's shown that he's a terrible leader who's surrounded by incompetent advisors.
You shouldn't expect consistency from a power-mad dictator.
And you shouldn't expect the world to tolerate the existence of such a person.
when we let Saddam off the hook in '91, one of the conditions was that he would have to prove that he had no weapons.
How do you prove that something doesn't exist?
Ask South Africa.
I'm pretty comfortable saying that they don't have nuclear weapons any more.
See also Libya for a more recent example of a nation willing to renounce WMD and prove it.
we tried that for OVER A DECADE and it wasn't working
Did we find any WMDs? NO! This sounds like success to me. How to justify this comment ("it wasn't working") of yours?
For examples of countries that are genuinely disarming, renouncing WMD, one only has to look at South Africa or Libya. Demonstrating that you are dismantling your WMD programs is easy if you are really doing it.
At one point in the mid-90s, Iraq admitted to having 10,000+ liters of anthrax. They have no records of what happened to it. Are you telling me that a regime that was so pathologically obsessive about record keeping that they took before-&-after photos of torture victims simply forgot what happened to its anthrax stockpile? You don't just drive out in the desert and spill 10,000 L of a biowarfare agent and then forget where you put it!
Just what were we supposed to think he was really doing?
The burden of proof was on Saddam Hussein, and the continuous games he played with inspections and shots he fired at aircraft patrolling UN-imposed no-fly zones clearly demonstrated that he was not cooperating.
Now, you can argue that invading Iraq how and when we did was the wrong course of action, and I'd partly agree with you. But if you actually believe that the weapons inspection process was a success, you're just being willfully ignorant.
The reason why Europe is so drastically outperformed by the USA in terms of military capabilities is that European armies are mostly (UK is an exception --- not surprising, since it is shielded by sea) cold-war style, prepared to fight a large scale land war against the Russian invasion.
... that's a huge handicap.
No real disagreement with most of your post, but thought I'd throw in a couple of comments.
The US military is also largely designed to fight a Cold War style conflict. This is part of why it's difficult for us to shift gears and fight an adversary like Al Queda. Europe and the US both spent the latter half of the 1900s preparing to stop Soviet tanks in Europe.
A more significant reason why there's such a gap between the EU and US militaries, is that the "EU military" is less than the sum of its parts. It's hard enough for the US Army and the US Marine Corps to work together efficiently. Expecting various European forces to seamlessly combine into an effective "EU military", when they speak different languages, use different equipment, rarely train together, have widely varied doctrine, and have overlapping command structures
Also, as another poster pointed out, the US had to prepare to fight wars an ocean away, so we developed a highly mobile military in the first place. That, as much as the above, is the reason why the US can project power, and the EU can not. We've been doing it for the last 100 years. Europe has been fighting at home
If we lowered ourself just to the level of Britain and France, hardly small armies, we'd save 50 billion a year.
...
Oh, yes, by all means, let's aspire to be France's military equal
Reach for those stars, eh?
And if you want crazy boondongles- lets talk about the comanche. How many billions, and in the end we don't even have a prototype?
You could point to other expensive, cancelled proograms, too. But you'd be ignoring the fact that spending money on R&D is a gamble that sometimes
a) has enormous payoffs (the first atomic bomb, stealth technology, etc)
b) doesn't pay off
c) pays off in unexpected ways
Do you put Reagan's SDI dollars in b or c? I'd say c - we sure learned a lot about lasers, for one thing, and that knowledge has found applications in other areas. Do you put the Commanche in b or c? Maybe b, but who knows how much of that research will find its way into other aircraft? How about the Crusader artillery system?
Have you, by any chance, done the same sort of %GDP comparison for military R&D spending? I'll save you the bother - the gap between the US and other nations is even wider there. And that's simply because we recognize that the one of the two things that have made our military the most effective in the world is our commitment to R&D (the other thing being training and doctrine).
So whine about that helicopter "boondongle" if you will, but consider that it's hard to tell the difference between a "boondongle" and a breakthrough in advance.
[Higher TB infection rates in the US compared to NW Europe] may be a result of higher rates of prescription of antibiotics in the USA
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Thus being prescribed antibiotics for a cold (which will not help the cold) may convey immunity to a class of antibiotics on bacteria in your gut. It is possible for these to exchange plasmoids with TB bacteria.
With respect, this is nonsense.
Nobody uses INH, rifampin, ethambutol, or any other anti-TB drug to treat common infections. TB isn't becoming more resistant to INH because someone took a Z-Pak for a viral upper respiratory infection. INH & rifampin are rarely used. (Practically the only time I ever prescribe rifampin is to treat documented cases of methicillin resistant staph aureus. And I've neve prescribed INH for anything other than latent or active TB.)
TB is becoming resistant to the antibiotics we use to treat it because many people don't take the drugs for the prescribed duration. Period. This is most often because the drugs aren't available, because they can't afford them, or because they're irresponsible and noncompliant with treatment.
Another reason TB is making a comeback is because of the HIV epidemic. We've got a lot more immunocompromised people running around these days than we used to, and TB that might have remained latent in a healthy person will blossom in someone with AIDs. In developing nations, where HIV is underdiagnosed and mostly untreated, it's an even bigger problem. Remember, HIV doesn't kill people - opportunistic infections kill people with AIDS.
HIV, and drug resistance caused by inadequate treatment (not overuse of common antibiotics), are the two factors most responsible for the resurgence of TB.
It's been a few months (April) since I've been able to watch the DirecTV HD package. Has it improved at all?
:-)
At that time,
ESPN
Sucked. 90% of their programming was SD upconverts. Worse, they streeeeetched the image to 16:9 which distorted the picture and made it physically painful to watch. They had some nicely done Sunday night football games last year.
Discovery HD
Nice, but incredibly repetitive. The channel was on a 4 hour loop most of the time.
HDMovies (Movie channel showing various movies from classics to recent favorites)
Sucked in a major way. 90%+ old retread movies. Sure, "Endless Summer" was cool to watch, the first of the 7,312 times they broadcast it.
HDNet - pretty much a worthless channel showing repeats of recent Nascar Races, Horse, Races, and concerts. They also have some original series on it (I think).
Good for MLS games, if you're into that, which I am.
Now they've added BravoHD to the $10.99 HD package, which was part of a deal they had with NBC over the Olympics. Rumor has it they're going to push some SciFi channel programming onto Bravo, which would be cool.
CBSHD - I live in Utah and they allow me to pick up the CBS HD feed from LA. This is great because I can watch my shows an hour later in HD without needing the off air ant.
Don't knock OTA antennas, if you can get a signal. A one-time expense of under $100 and a few hours installing an antenna in my attic got me perfect recepton of ABC, CBS, and NBC digital broadcast. The picture from local stations is typically compressed less than DBS signals, and it's free.
It's too bad that getting a waiver from a local station, even if you can't get their signal, is a nightmare most places. I can't get Fox, at all, and I'm not real hopeful about being able to get it over DirecTV, even when they start offering it.
I also enjoy watching Golf in High def on the weekends. You can tell a HUGE DIFFERENCE between the shows in HD and regular shows. People come over and just say WOW to the sporting events. Movies are not that much different.
I agree, HD is incredible. I could watch paint dry in HD, but I'm not sure if I could make myself watch golf.
Cons:
No STINKING TIVO!!!!!! I can't wait for the HDTivo to be affordable.
Agreed. They need a standalone HD DVR model that doesn't force us to hock our existing HD STBs on eBay.
AT BEST, with your HDTV OTA card you will get marginal quality from a handful of HDTV channels.
Bah. Have you ever actually watched OTA HDTV?
The quality is consistently better than cable or satellite HDTV, since the signal is uncompressed. Furthermore, the majority of original new content is through the big three networks, all of which are available in most areas, free, OTA. Even Fox is jumping on the HDTV bandwagon.
We used to subscribe to DirecTV's HDTV package - Discovery HD, HDNet, HDNet Movies, ESPNHD (worthless - it's 95% 4:3 -> 16:9 distorted upconverts of their SD broadcast). We cancelled the $11/month package because the content was so obscenely repetitive that we rarely watched it.
In contrast, we'd tune in to fantastic picture quality and original programming daily from OTA network broadcasts.
Many of the Humvees in Irag are still not armored, the "homebrewed" armor plating isn't effective against RPGs.
I think you're misunderstanding the point of uparmored Humvees. They're not designed to withstand an RPG (it's only 1/4" of steel plate, after all).
They're designed to improve survivability of the crew when an IED blows up nearby - and at this task, they're reasonably effective. IEDs, not RPGs, are the threat being countered with the uparmor kits.
Or maybe I misunderstood your post.
I work at a Veteran's Affairs Clinic and have seen in patient charts "Vet has been exposed to high levels of depleted uranium from [combat in some location]." Doctors then go on to suggest that it may play a part in the following symptoms that the Vet is experiencing, and they have a long list...
My disclaimer and credential: I'm a doctor in the military. While I'm not an expert in this area, I do get asked about DU from time to time by my patients, and I've put a lot of effort into educating myself as objectively as possible. I have no agenda beyond what's best for the people under my care.
First of all, the toxicity of depleted uranium, if it's clinically significant at all, is related to its chemical and not radiologic properties. This raises the question: if fear of DU isn't irrational, why don't we hear any outcry about the many other chemically toxic battlefield by-products?
Studies on US personnel who were victims of friendly fire incidents in 1991, including people who to this day have retained fragments of DU in their bodies, have not demonstrated adverse health effects.
Surveillance of depleted uranium exposed Gulf War veterans: health effects observed in an enlarged "friendly fire" cohort. McDiarmid MA - J Occup Environ Med - 01-DEC-2001; 43(12): 991-1000. "DU-exposed Gulf War veterans with retained metal shrapnel fragments were excreting elevated levels of urine uranium 8 years after their first exposure [...] Clinical laboratory outcomes, including renal functioning, were essentially normal. Neurocognitive measures showing subtle differences between high and low uranium exposure groups, seen previously, have since diminished."
Depleted uranium--is it really a health issue? Lee HA - Lancet Oncol - 01-APR-2001; 2(4): 197. "... epidemiological investigation going back over 50 years has not revealed any more than minor renal disorders from occupational exposures, and only transient renal damage after large accidental exposures."
I could go on, but I feel like I'm already wasting my time.
There's another dense, chemically-toxic metal in widespread use for munitions: lead. Where's the outrage about lead?
Fear of DU is irrational.
(Of course, I'm well aware that arguing this point is like trying to have an objective, well-informed debate with an environmentalist about nuclear power. They're just not interested. They hear the N-word and that's all they need to know.)
Their IPT Mil Suitcase looks perfect for our needs, but I suspect anything that cool is going to be at least an order of magnitude too expensive.
But I sent off an inquiry to them anyway. Thanks for the link.
While we were stationed in Iraq, we bought a Direcway system from one of the locals. It was about $3k for the equipment and another $300-400/mo for the service.
.5K/s will be light years ahead of what we have now. ;-)
This sounds about in line with a system we're looking at from a UK company - Bentley Telecom sells a hardware package for about $1700 (1.2 m dish & receiver) plus about $300/month for a business class 512/128 connection.
If you're in Bagram or Kabul, you should be able to find a "local contractor" who will be willing to deal with you. Unfortunatly, most of them only deal in cash.
The problem with using a local contractor is that when we move, we can't count on them to come to us. (And we want to use the same system in Iraq next year.) We want to buy the hardware, pay for the service, and do everything else ourselves.
3: You can use any of the numerous aiming programs out there. To see the signal strengths on the modem itself you need a F-F null modem serial cable, so either buy two of them and splice or get the appropriate adaptors. The menu system, once you connect is pretty self expanitory. Get your TX and RX to at least 90 and tighten your bolts carefully.
This is the only thing holding us up. Realistically, how hard is this? I'm not an engineer - while I'm fairly computer literate (longtime Linux user, competent c programmer, able to set up firewalls & web proxy servers, etc) I have never pointed a dish in my life.
Is this something that I, as a "pretty smart" guy, can reasonably expect to do? The disastrous scenario in the back of my mind is that we plonk down $2500 for everything and can't figure out where to point the dish. The comm guys at our (battalion) level don't have experience with this sort of thing. I have their blessing and encouragement, but I'm on my own.
Which of the aiming programs do you recommend?
4: You'll have to handle throttling yourself. Our system came with about 10 IPs, but we used a single IP as firewwall/NAT just to be safe.
I'm not too worried about this. We have few enough users that I think an informal courtesy policy, coupled with voluntary use of download managers that can throttle speed (like GetRight), will work OK.
Service was OK.
Anything that works consistently at speeds over
Many thanks for your input.
Because the hardware is going to cost $2000+ at a minimum ... and it'd be foolish not to look at the possibility of taking it with us.
You're correct on all counts. We have authorization from our command. Existing phone calls and internet access are more or less unmonitored.
In addition, a nearby Marine unit has already set up a privately-funded satellite link. However, they went through a local company based in Kabul, who did the installation and charged an enormous sum of money for a system to support 130+ people. We want something cheaper, for fewer people, with greater portabitity (this Kabul-based company won't make house calls to Iraq next year).
We ensure the ability of the weakest genes to survive and procreate - increasing the number of weak genes and polluters - creating more desease, war, famine, and additional work for doctors)
Doctors cause war? Eh?
Except for that, you're sort of correct but completely oblivious to the point:
Medicine doesn't make so-called bad genes a bigger problem. Medicine makes these genes irrelevant.
Also, keep in mind that many if not most of the benefits of modern medicine are realized well after childbearing age, and therefore can not have evolutionary effects.
This is challenging - but doctoring does not affect the quality of life as much as (for example) good plumbing. Respectfully disagree.
You can't tell me that "good plumbing" has improved our quality of life more than eradicating smallpox or inventing bubble-gum flavored amoxicillin or supplemental oxygen for people with emphysema.
The tooth is a healthy living organ requiring nutrients. You can remove this but than the tooth starts turning black
A more signficant issue is that a dead tooth (ie, post root canal) tends to become brittle over time, and much more likely to suddenly break when stressed.
Europe's armies are better than their image.
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I'm not suggesting that they're bad. The point is that it is hard to forge an effective alliance out of military units that rarely if ever work together, speak different languages, use different and often incompatible equipment, follow different doctrines
There's a reason why Europe is essentially incapable of projecting power. It's not that they're incompetent - it's that the pieces weren't designed to work together.
Believing that Europe's combined military might can somehow compare to the better funded, completely integrated US military is naive ignorance at best.
You know, some countries here even have compulsory military service.
This is not an advantage.
US reservists are far behind their active duty counterparts in almost every respect (there's only so much one weekend a month and two weeks a year can do), and I'll take a reservist over a draftee any day.
And yeah, if we fought a united (!) Europe, we could probably be beaten.
I doubt it. Don't overestimate the ability of a bunch of relatively small, poorly funded armies who rarely (or never!) train together to put up an effective defense. (The notable exception to Europe's military mediocrity is Britain.)
None of the above is intended to insult or slight Europe. But the reality is that Europe's collective military might isn't just the sum of its parts.