So you're suggesting that putting a little funding into things like alternative gravity theories such as MOND/TeVeS that might have a chance at explaining the universe while doing away with the ugly artifact of dark matter needed by current theories of the universe, and which we can't find, will lead to the Caliphate or something? I see its pub hours in Oz. Are you a cot case?
The described state of biomedical research doesn't sound terribly different from descriptions of the state of climate science I've read. The funding process tends to assume global warming and therefore the funding channels research along those lines. A similar thing goes on in space science. The big assumption is dark matter is the key and alternative approaches wither on the vine for lack of funding needed to flesh them out or work through problems.
I wonder if we wouldn't be better off with a 90/10 or 80/20 where the 90 or 80 is the percentage of resources devoted to mainstream ideas and the remainder goes to alternatives or groundbreaking stuff. Of course I wonder how many researchers would line up to pursue possible dead-ends or unusual lines of investigation? Competition for academic or research positions can be pretty tough and there might be a prejudice against that sort of thing and taking time away from the mainstream.
Major financial institutions, academic institutions, security companies, and IT companies don't force us under penalty of law to use their wares and put our personal confidential information at risk. Furthermore, few if any of them have managed to create something of such colossal expense, enormous failure, corruption, and risk we see now.
Nothing personal, but that notion you are pursuing doesn't survive the level of scrutiny of simply reading to the end of the paragraph. And that is before you start considering the contextual and other corroborating information. That you equate the two of them is quite astonishing, but hey, they were both Russian.
I hope you aren't among the poor lost souls so accustomed to looking to Moscow for inspiration and guidance in Soviet times that the habit still survives despite the rise of fascism in Russia.
If Russia does not help them, then the US will just bomb them, and their families, to death. I suppose everyone in the world is just supposed to lay down and die when the US commands it.
The US isn't fighting or bombing in Ukraine, and it isn't "commanding" people to lay down and die. If you really believe that then you are either terribly misinformed or there is something wrong with you. You should consider seeking help.
(Reuters) - More than 100 Russian soldiers were killed in eastern Ukraine in a single battle this month while helping pro-Russian separatists fight Ukrainian troops, two members of the Russian presidential human rights council said on Thursday, citing accounts from eyewitnesses and relatives of the dead.
Ella Polyakova and Sergei Krivenko, both members of the council - an advisory body with no legal powers and an uneasy relationship with the Kremlin - said around 300 people were wounded in the same incident on Aug. 13 near the town of Snizhnye, when a column of trucks they were driving, full of ammunition, was hit by a sustained volley of Grad missiles.
NATO sees the Russian military fighting in Ukraine. Ukraine sees the Russian military fighting in Ukraine. The rebels admit the Russians are helping them. Russian NGOs state Russian military are being sent to Ukraine and killed. But you "don't believe." At this point I think if you still "don't believe" it is really not a question of evidence but rather your motivation.
Russia had a sort of "agreement" regarding the naval bases in Crimea.
So what makes it an "agreement" instead of an agreement? Russia had a treaty negotiated between two nations that were formerly Soviet republics.
Our government has simply dismissed any Russian claims, and Russian loyalties of the people. In our pursuit of "US interests" we act as if nothing else matters.
The people with those Russian loyalties are living in another country. Is there any limit to the claims that Russia can make based on the fact that some of the population of another country had ancestors that lived in Russia? Or are they simply entitled to annex other countries based on that fact? Does that work for other countries too? There are many Germans that live in Russia and Eastern Europe. Can Germany just start annexing those areas and countries? Is there a lower limit to the percentage of people with Russian ancestry that you would accept Russia annexing territory? 50%? 25%? 10%? 1%?
I am embarrassed at the arrogant, pompous jackasses running our government, here in the US.
But you don't see similar flaws in the Russian government and their handling of events, including repeated annexation of the territory if its neighbors by armed force over the last decade?
We put a puppet in charge of Kiev, and he is behaving badly. Porko, the misbehaving puppet, sparked this revolution, after all. You can expect that sort of thing when you stage a coup.... Stage a coup, install a neo-fascist as your puppet, and some of those loyalties to Mother Russia are going to be reawakened.
I get that you are basically anti-American government and highly suspicious of them, but that doesn't constitute proof. Do you have actual proof of this asserted coup? Are you quite sure this isn't the will of the Ukrainian people asserting itself? The fact that some international organizations or pro-democracy organizations were present and working in Ukraine doesn't really constitute evidence in that regard. Something a bit more concrete is needed. Or are you just assuming that a coup by the US took place?
How are those petty little sanctions working, anyway? Has Wall Street come to understand yet, that Russia can and will feed her people, despite our impotent leadership's saber rattling?
So, do you prefer war? Or should Russia be able to annex whatever territory it chooses in Europe without consequence? What makes you think that there is an attempt to starve Russia going on?
You seem to have a few chips on your shoulder, but it isn't clear why.
There are no formed Russian military units pouring over the border. There are some Russian soldiers who are on leave and using their personal time to help the separatist movement in Ukraine, but there is absolutely NO ORGANIZED RUSSIAN EFFORT here.
NATO has pictures of Russian artillery units operating in Ukraine. Russian soldiers on leave might bring a uniform, they wouldn't bring artillery and ammunition for it. Your post is total BS.
They are adding the new while making the previous behavior accessible. FTA:
Classic Quake Live isn't being abandoned
While these changes are part of the new default Quake Live ruleset, the majority of them can be avoided by opting for Classic ruleset games. All the public Duel servers will run in Classic mode, and Create Match will let subscribers pick from Quake Live, Classic and Turbo rulesets. That's another thing – PQL (Promode Quake Live) is now called Turbo. As the Quake Live team explain it: "We hope that running our FFA [Free For All] and Teamplay servers with these new, fun, and accessible mechanics that we can begin to build a larger base of players who could then try their luck at the Classic Duel experience."
LAKE SELIGER, Russia — President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia's armed forces, backed by its nuclear arsenal, were ready to meet any aggression, declaring at a pro-Kremlin youth camp that foreign states should understand: "It's best not to mess with us."
Not really any different from the other stories. The reason why is that international relations are conducted by nations and heads of state according to various norms. If you don't understand those norms then you will miss the significance of various statements or events.
It was made during a verbal question and answer session some days ago. You can read a transcript of the full thing, without western media's blatantly selective quoting and bias, right here [kremlin.ru]. Do go read it for yourself. The press has been having a field day with taking individual sentences out of context, in many cases not even mentioning that Putin was responding to questions from Russian citizens, to make it look like he's issuing press releases about Ukraine specifically. It's the most amazingly dangerous set of selective quotations I've ever seen. In this case Putin wasn't even talking about Ukraine!
The Moscow Times relates the same meaning as reported in the other stories. The problem isn't that the reporting is wrong in this case but that you reject it. International relations by nations and heads of state are conducted according to various norms, and Putin's statement has to be understood in that context. If you don't understand that then you are trying to make judgments about things for which you have no measure, no guide. As a result you are prone to make misjudgments as you apparently have.
LAKE SELIGER, Russia — President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia's armed forces, backed by its nuclear arsenal, were ready to meet any aggression, declaring at a pro-Kremlin youth camp that foreign states should understand: "It's best not to mess with us."
Putin should have more control over the "rebels" since there are plenty of Spetsnaz among them, not to mention Russian army units assisting them with tanks, artillery, and infantry.
The diplomatic solution Putin is seeking is for everyone to agree that Russia gets what it wants. Russia is preparing to slice up Ukraine and take adjacent territories.
"Old news"? The main link was from today at a major Australian news site. The others were only a couple of days ago. That isn't "old news," especially when it hasn't been covered by Slashdot before. I find that a bit disingenuous. But it does fit nicely with an agenda to strip out the contextual information from the news which would tend to trivialize it.
By the way, do tell - what do you think my motives are since you think they are "pretty obvious"?
Yes, that is just what the US has always wanted - a Black Sea port. Do you really believe that nonsense?
these would have ended up transitioning over the next few decades to either other European countries or to the US as having Russian bases in a NATO country wouldn't be acceptable to NATO or Russia.
Why? If Russia acted like an ally and friend, who would care?
Certainly your conclusions are your own, but they apparently aren't very useful since they apparently aren't informed by an understanding of how countries and heads of state conduct foreign policy.
Of course I am willing to be persuaded. Maybe you could explain how your understanding is better or more complete than that of the journalists at the Moscow Times or the other major media outlets that have carried the story?
Not forced into a corner exactly, but there are a lot of people who regard themselves as Russian living there and who he is expected to defend. Their government, whatever you think of it, was overthrown and they wanted to go back to Russian rule. Particularly in Crimea they were Russian citizens until not that long ago, and all of it was under Soviet rule until the late 80s.
The people living in Crimean and Ukraine are Ukrainian citizens, not Russian citizens. Some of them are of Russian heritage. That is a totally different question. Before you commit to Russia being entitled to invading and annexing territory where some of the inhabitants have ancestors that lived in Russia you might want to see if there is a lower limit to that since there are probably few countries on the planet without some Russians living in them. Is Russian entitled to annex them all?
Besides that, Russia hadn't ruled the Ukraine since 1917. It was the Soviet Union that ruled after than until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Very few people living in Ukraine were ever ruled by Russia.
There is massive propaganda on both sides, but what can't be doubted is that Russia is making serious efforts to get a political dialogue going between the separatists and Ukrainian government.
Actually that can be doubted since Russian has hundreds of armored vehicles fighting in Ukraine on the side of the separatists. That isn't how you facilitate "political dialog."
Russia was at risk of losing access to a vital military facility
Not really. Russia and Ukraine and recently renewed Russia's lease for the naval base. This is about Russian prestige and self-image, not a genuine threat.
Slashdot Mirror
So you're suggesting that putting a little funding into things like alternative gravity theories such as MOND/TeVeS that might have a chance at explaining the universe while doing away with the ugly artifact of dark matter needed by current theories of the universe, and which we can't find, will lead to the Caliphate or something? I see its pub hours in Oz. Are you a cot case?
The described state of biomedical research doesn't sound terribly different from descriptions of the state of climate science I've read. The funding process tends to assume global warming and therefore the funding channels research along those lines. A similar thing goes on in space science. The big assumption is dark matter is the key and alternative approaches wither on the vine for lack of funding needed to flesh them out or work through problems.
I wonder if we wouldn't be better off with a 90/10 or 80/20 where the 90 or 80 is the percentage of resources devoted to mainstream ideas and the remainder goes to alternatives or groundbreaking stuff. Of course I wonder how many researchers would line up to pursue possible dead-ends or unusual lines of investigation? Competition for academic or research positions can be pretty tough and there might be a prejudice against that sort of thing and taking time away from the mainstream.
Yes I'm sure this has never happened to a private company or multiple major financial institutions, or academic institutions, or security companies or IT companies.
Major financial institutions, academic institutions, security companies, and IT companies don't force us under penalty of law to use their wares and put our personal confidential information at risk. Furthermore, few if any of them have managed to create something of such colossal expense, enormous failure, corruption, and risk we see now.
So you couldn't make it through to the end of a paragraph?
Nothing personal, but that notion you are pursuing doesn't survive the level of scrutiny of simply reading to the end of the paragraph. And that is before you start considering the contextual and other corroborating information. That you equate the two of them is quite astonishing, but hey, they were both Russian.
And how do you think that applies?
The operative question here is, "Are Russian military units operating in Ukraine?" The answer is yes.
New Satellite Imagery Exposes Russian Combat Troops Inside Ukraine
Are you concerned about Russian aggression at all?
What about Russian fascists and neo-Nazis attacking Ukraine? Have you any concern about them?
The Involvement of Russian Ultra-Nationalists in the Donbas Conflict
Ukraine Crisis: Who Are the Russian Neo-Nazi Groups Fighting with Separatists?
I hope you aren't among the poor lost souls so accustomed to looking to Moscow for inspiration and guidance in Soviet times that the habit still survives despite the rise of fascism in Russia.
"Yes, we have exactly one picture from NATO"
LOL. Sorry, but no.
New Satellite Imagery Exposes Russian Combat Troops Inside Ukraine
If Russia does not help them, then the US will just bomb them, and their families, to death. I suppose everyone in the world is just supposed to lay down and die when the US commands it.
The US isn't fighting or bombing in Ukraine, and it isn't "commanding" people to lay down and die. If you really believe that then you are either terribly misinformed or there is something wrong with you. You should consider seeking help.
Russian military.
Exclusive: Over 100 Russian soldiers killed in single Ukraine battle - Russian rights activists
(Reuters) - More than 100 Russian soldiers were killed in eastern Ukraine in a single battle this month while helping pro-Russian separatists fight Ukrainian troops, two members of the Russian presidential human rights council said on Thursday, citing accounts from eyewitnesses and relatives of the dead.
Ella Polyakova and Sergei Krivenko, both members of the council - an advisory body with no legal powers and an uneasy relationship with the Kremlin - said around 300 people were wounded in the same incident on Aug. 13 near the town of Snizhnye, when a column of trucks they were driving, full of ammunition, was hit by a sustained volley of Grad missiles.
Update: SHAPE confirms Russian forces fighting in Ukraine
NATO sees the Russian military fighting in Ukraine.
Ukraine sees the Russian military fighting in Ukraine.
The rebels admit the Russians are helping them.
Russian NGOs state Russian military are being sent to Ukraine and killed.
But you "don't believe." At this point I think if you still "don't believe" it is really not a question of evidence but rather your motivation.
Russia had a sort of "agreement" regarding the naval bases in Crimea.
So what makes it an "agreement" instead of an agreement? Russia had a treaty negotiated between two nations that were formerly Soviet republics.
Our government has simply dismissed any Russian claims, and Russian loyalties of the people. In our pursuit of "US interests" we act as if nothing else matters.
The people with those Russian loyalties are living in another country. Is there any limit to the claims that Russia can make based on the fact that some of the population of another country had ancestors that lived in Russia? Or are they simply entitled to annex other countries based on that fact? Does that work for other countries too? There are many Germans that live in Russia and Eastern Europe. Can Germany just start annexing those areas and countries? Is there a lower limit to the percentage of people with Russian ancestry that you would accept Russia annexing territory? 50%? 25%? 10%? 1%?
I am embarrassed at the arrogant, pompous jackasses running our government, here in the US.
But you don't see similar flaws in the Russian government and their handling of events, including repeated annexation of the territory if its neighbors by armed force over the last decade?
We put a puppet in charge of Kiev, and he is behaving badly. Porko, the misbehaving puppet, sparked this revolution, after all. You can expect that sort of thing when you stage a coup. ... Stage a coup, install a neo-fascist as your puppet, and some of those loyalties to Mother Russia are going to be reawakened.
I get that you are basically anti-American government and highly suspicious of them, but that doesn't constitute proof. Do you have actual proof of this asserted coup? Are you quite sure this isn't the will of the Ukrainian people asserting itself? The fact that some international organizations or pro-democracy organizations were present and working in Ukraine doesn't really constitute evidence in that regard. Something a bit more concrete is needed. Or are you just assuming that a coup by the US took place?
How are those petty little sanctions working, anyway? Has Wall Street come to understand yet, that Russia can and will feed her people, despite our impotent leadership's saber rattling?
So, do you prefer war? Or should Russia be able to annex whatever territory it chooses in Europe without consequence? What makes you think that there is an attempt to starve Russia going on?
You seem to have a few chips on your shoulder, but it isn't clear why.
There are no formed Russian military units pouring over the border. There are some Russian soldiers who are on leave and using their personal time to help the separatist movement in Ukraine, but there is absolutely NO ORGANIZED RUSSIAN EFFORT here.
NATO has pictures of Russian artillery units operating in Ukraine. Russian soldiers on leave might bring a uniform, they wouldn't bring artillery and ammunition for it. Your post is total BS.
NATO Satellites Show Russian Troops, Armored Vehicles Inside Ukraine
NATO has pictures of Russian units operating in Ukraine
http://www.newsweek.com/nato-s...
Rebel forces admit the Russians are fighting with them.
The Ukrainian government says Russian forces are in their country fighting them.
Russia and Ukraine have swapped prisoners, including Russian airborne soldiers captured in Ukraine.
Exactly what sort of proof were you looking for that this isn't enough?
They are adding the new while making the previous behavior accessible. FTA:
Classic Quake Live isn't being abandoned
While these changes are part of the new default Quake Live ruleset, the majority of them can be avoided by opting for Classic ruleset games. All the public Duel servers will run in Classic mode, and Create Match will let subscribers pick from Quake Live, Classic and Turbo rulesets. That's another thing – PQL (Promode Quake Live) is now called Turbo. As the Quake Live team explain it: "We hope that running our FFA [Free For All] and Teamplay servers with these new, fun, and accessible mechanics that we can begin to build a larger base of players who could then try their luck at the Classic Duel experience."
And here is a link to how the Moscow Times reported on the story:
Don't Mess With Nuclear Russia, Putin Warns at Youth Camp
LAKE SELIGER, Russia — President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia's armed forces, backed by its nuclear arsenal, were ready to meet any aggression, declaring at a pro-Kremlin youth camp that foreign states should understand: "It's best not to mess with us."
Not really any different from the other stories. The reason why is that international relations are conducted by nations and heads of state according to various norms. If you don't understand those norms then you will miss the significance of various statements or events.
It was made during a verbal question and answer session some days ago. You can read a transcript of the full thing, without western media's blatantly selective quoting and bias, right here [kremlin.ru]. Do go read it for yourself. The press has been having a field day with taking individual sentences out of context, in many cases not even mentioning that Putin was responding to questions from Russian citizens, to make it look like he's issuing press releases about Ukraine specifically. It's the most amazingly dangerous set of selective quotations I've ever seen. In this case Putin wasn't even talking about Ukraine!
The Moscow Times relates the same meaning as reported in the other stories. The problem isn't that the reporting is wrong in this case but that you reject it. International relations by nations and heads of state are conducted according to various norms, and Putin's statement has to be understood in that context. If you don't understand that then you are trying to make judgments about things for which you have no measure, no guide. As a result you are prone to make misjudgments as you apparently have.
Don't Mess With Nuclear Russia, Putin Warns at Youth Camp
LAKE SELIGER, Russia — President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia's armed forces, backed by its nuclear arsenal, were ready to meet any aggression, declaring at a pro-Kremlin youth camp that foreign states should understand: "It's best not to mess with us."
Putin should have more control over the "rebels" since there are plenty of Spetsnaz among them, not to mention Russian army units assisting them with tanks, artillery, and infantry.
The diplomatic solution Putin is seeking is for everyone to agree that Russia gets what it wants. Russia is preparing to slice up Ukraine and take adjacent territories.
War in Europe is not a hysterical idea
The stories linked to were at:
News.com.au
CNN
Newsweek
Those are hardly obscure names in the world of journalism.
The pattern I see is that that you won't go to where the stories are posted and try to manufacture a controversy from it.
"Old news"? The main link was from today at a major Australian news site. The others were only a couple of days ago. That isn't "old news," especially when it hasn't been covered by Slashdot before. I find that a bit disingenuous. But it does fit nicely with an agenda to strip out the contextual information from the news which would tend to trivialize it.
By the way, do tell - what do you think my motives are since you think they are "pretty obvious"?
You may wish to avoid detailed reporting on diplomacy and international relations as it may leave you feeling confused and distressed.
You're not really building a case there. Do you have one, or will it be snark all the way down?
Yes, that is just what the US has always wanted - a Black Sea port. Do you really believe that nonsense?
these would have ended up transitioning over the next few decades to either other European countries or to the US as having Russian bases in a NATO country wouldn't be acceptable to NATO or Russia.
Why? If Russia acted like an ally and friend, who would care?
Certainly your conclusions are your own, but they apparently aren't very useful since they apparently aren't informed by an understanding of how countries and heads of state conduct foreign policy.
Of course I am willing to be persuaded. Maybe you could explain how your understanding is better or more complete than that of the journalists at the Moscow Times or the other major media outlets that have carried the story?
Not forced into a corner exactly, but there are a lot of people who regard themselves as Russian living there and who he is expected to defend. Their government, whatever you think of it, was overthrown and they wanted to go back to Russian rule. Particularly in Crimea they were Russian citizens until not that long ago, and all of it was under Soviet rule until the late 80s.
The people living in Crimean and Ukraine are Ukrainian citizens, not Russian citizens. Some of them are of Russian heritage. That is a totally different question. Before you commit to Russia being entitled to invading and annexing territory where some of the inhabitants have ancestors that lived in Russia you might want to see if there is a lower limit to that since there are probably few countries on the planet without some Russians living in them. Is Russian entitled to annex them all?
Besides that, Russia hadn't ruled the Ukraine since 1917. It was the Soviet Union that ruled after than until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Very few people living in Ukraine were ever ruled by Russia.
There is massive propaganda on both sides, but what can't be doubted is that Russia is making serious efforts to get a political dialogue going between the separatists and Ukrainian government.
Actually that can be doubted since Russian has hundreds of armored vehicles fighting in Ukraine on the side of the separatists. That isn't how you facilitate "political dialog."
Russia was at risk of losing access to a vital military facility
Not really. Russia and Ukraine and recently renewed Russia's lease for the naval base. This is about Russian prestige and self-image, not a genuine threat.