Since the Cold War, the US has dicked around with cruisers and battleships but now the only large surface combatants left are carriers. The end of the Cold War killed the large surface combatants - the Iowa-class BBs and the California and Virginia-class CGNs were decommissioned as part of the "peace dividend" in the 90's. The U.S. Navy since has focused on strike (Carriers and TLAMs), Amphibious Warfare (LHA/LHD/LPD/etc), AAW/ASW/ASUW (DDG, CG), SPECWAR, Information Operations and Subs (which do everything in varying amounts, except AAW.) Basically, the need to lob large shells inland in support of landing forces got pushed to the side for a decade or so, while technologies like the rail gun and rocket-assisted guided artillery (ERGM/BTERM were being developed. If one day the Navy sees the need to put big artillery (12-18" shells) on ships again, BB/CGs may return, but I'm not holding my breath.
Oh, and the only thing USA exports now is movies. Go to http://tse.export.gov/ to learn about some of the other things the USA exports - over a trillion dollars in export goods, not counting entertainment. And if it'll make you happy, you can bring up the data showing the $800+B trade imbalance.
If you are hit by one of these UAVs, you are probably in the vicinity of a hurricane, well outside of an established flight route or flying in an announced exclusion area. I strongly doubt the FAA would let the UAVs fly into an air corridor. Here's a clip from NOAA lessons learned that should assuage your fears:
1. FAA clearances are a major UAS hurdle that needs to be streamlined. We were able to circumnavigate this issue for our lone Ophelia flight but this was in large part due to the fact Ophelia was stalled for 1-2 days prior to mission initiation. This in turn allowed the complicated flight clearance process to play out. In a nutshell, we were very fortunate. One seeming advantage for future UAS Aerosonde missions is that we fly into regions no commercial aircraft will go near let alone fly directly into (i.e. Hurricane environments). That fact alone should play in our favor when asking for future clearances.
First, an obligatory "Idiocracy" quote:
There are plenty of 'tards out there living really kick ass lives. My first wife was 'tarded. She's a pilot now.
Unmanned != self-guided. For many remote controlled UAV's, if you lose the data link, then it either follows a pre-planned flight route back to base or it drops out of the sky.
Smoking > Video Games > Alcohol, Drugs, War, Poverty, STDs, Pollution
I'm happy about this article. The overstatement of the effect of violent media could only happen in a rich, healthy and peaceful (at least domestically) country. Exploding donkey carts have killed more people in Kabul than have died as a result of "violent media", anywhere, ever. So things are good in the U.S.A. And as bad as lung cancer is, I'd say we have a modicum of control over that issue, whereas child mortality in the developing world due to lack of clean water is a much less controllable issue (technically it's easy; economically, not so easy). I'm content to live in a country which has "violent media" as public enemy #2, rather than live in a place where I get to watch half my children die of dysentery.
The song is "God Bless the U.S.A." by Lee Greenwood, which was released in 1984 (really). It is used as the soundtrack to jingoism and you will only be damaged by repeated listening. In general, don't examine the lyrics in popular country songs... there's nothing to be further excavated in their meaning and you will only end up dumber.
As someone who's heard extreme and ill-informed views from my fellow servicemembers repeatedly since 9/11 on dealing with terrorists/Muslims/Europeans/U.S. Liberals/Mexicans/etc, I apologize for wrongly assuming the worst when you referred to ceasing "pussyfooting".
That said, regarding your plan to convince insurgents to stop their war in Afghanistan, a lot of it is already in place. There is already a policy of killing or capturing "bad guys", and there are methodical sweeps through the hot spots, but there is also a plan to try to build a strong, and just as importantly, visible, central government. Having U.S. or ISAF troops arrest village elders or destroy poppy fields not only weakens the central government it guarantees that the village will not cooperate with, or will actively fight against the GoA, ANA/ANP or coalition forces. Ideally, if there is a village (or 200) in Paktika that is supporting, say, Haqqani, then there would be Afghan government officials to try to sway him the other way, or National Police to walk in and cart the village elder off in chains. If we do it, who do the Afghan's think is in charge?
Hey, boys and girls, want to prevent militarization of the police and stop the "Orwellian madness"? Good luck to you! While you are at it, try to take away police helicopters, ballistic armor, sniper rifles, pistols, radar detectors, laser detectors, night vision goggles... all things that have been passed through military development before being picked up by the police. But before you neuter the police, stop committing crimes already, and, um, solve U.S. poverty and drug dependence while you are at it.
Seriously, the Scan Eagle, or whatever Insitu is calling this UAV, will somewhat fulfill the roll of police helicopter surveillance, only with a lot less cost and risk. It will be good for following a suspect in a car, or giving an overview of a fire or riot, but I can't imagine it turning our cities into panopticons, given its limitations.
What do you mean by pussyfooting - following the rule of law? I hope you are not in the military or in the government.
The enemy - in Iraq, Afghanistan, Jolo, etc - IS already scared to death of Gitmo and fighting in the open against coalition forces. That's why they engage our forces through artillery rockets, mortars, IEDs, snipers and suicide bombers.
And how exactly do you scare a suicide bomber to death, other than sticking him indefinitely in a camp on a sunny Caribbean island with his ilk?
The videos are free, with ads... though all I've seen is about 0.8 seconds of a K-Mart ad and then it stops. Also, no indicator of download/cacheing progress, so the once-potential viewer is left wondering if it's ever going to play. I'll try again in a month or so. The concept is fine, the execution is poor.
I'd throw U2 in as an example of a current 'superband' of the likes of Zep, Stones, etc.
Metallica also comes close, and would be bigger if they had put more effort into creating music and less into fighting music downloading and alienating fans. Guns and Roses was arguably a 'superband', but died out too soon to leave a 'superband' legacy.
Nirvana would have been enormous, but we all know that story.
The only real question I have is along the lines of how many of these things can we put in space before they block to much sun or become a hazard to the others.
To answer your question, geosynchronous orbit slots are allocated to different countries by the ITU, to prevent co-interference. This is a sparse band of small-ish objects moving at about 6900 miles per hour... no way is this going to block "too much sun".
Agree that the U.S. made a mistake in rushing into Iraq, but it did not abandon Afghanistan, it just isn't getting much press. Even with ISAF (NATO and other European partners) taking over most of the country, having recently taken over the volatile south, the U.S. still maintains a large contingent in the eastern provinces.
I'll add that the F-22 will likely never fly over Afghanistan - the battles that happen on a daily basis require Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (mostly Predator) and CAS - Close Air Support (mainly A-10 and AC-130). If Raptor ever flies there or Iraq, it will be to drop a JDAM in a CAS role.
I don't buy the numbers - "about 10%" has been thrown around for decades, based on the 1948 Kinsey study, but other studies point to ranges of 3-6% or even less. Here's the Google Answers report. And I haven't heard about a bell curve - you are either sexually attracted to the same gender or not. (Is there a bell curve for hair, eye or skin color?)
In any case, Iran has homosexuals, otherwise they wouldn't need laws to execute those who commit sodomy.
Supporting a couple high profile artists for speaking out is commendable, but you should also be supporting artists that are, and have always been, truly independent of the corporations.
Are criminals really still communicating over the phone?
Yes, they do. And so does every government and extra-government entity in the world, because at some point they need logistics, and Khaled-the-Camel-Driver isn't going to have encrypted communications. And as far as people who are "off the grid", they have people that call Khaled for them, and eventually, they get rolled up.
Although there may be millions of idiots that believe the moon landing was a hoax, or perhaps worse, could be a hoax since they don't know any better, there are a few intelligent, well-reasoned self-proclaimed scientists who write books, do talks, etc that push the whole sordid matter. I recommend reading Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things to get an ideal why this phenomena happens and help understand how to control it. Don't underestimate the ability for intelligent people to delude themselves!
I think the original poster was attempting to distinguish between weapons that are designed to cause damage to the eye in such a way as to permanently blind the victim, versus the use of light to temporarily "blind" or dazzle the victim. For example, during the cold war, the Soviets were fond of using lasers to attempt to cause permanent retinal damage to western surveillance aircraft crews - this was countered by the use of special-purpose goggles, as surmised by an earlier poster. On the other hand, when you wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and turn on a bright light, the "blinding" effect you experience is more in the league of what I'd imagine this LED flashlight does (though I am intrigued by the "evil color" reference in the story.)
On reading the article, I had a horrible vision of TSA guys milking mothers to keep them under the 3 oz breastmilk limit. Totally irrational vision, but the TSA's "react to yesterday's threat" mentality isn't much better.
Yes, this is the senator who wanted "The Bridge To Nowhere", and he's very likely corrupt (the title "Senator" should be an indication), but having been to Ketchikan, and knowing why they want the bridge, there's been a long term push (think several decades) to get a bridge from the city of Ketchikan across the Tongass narrows to the spit of land they have to use for an airport. The local economy is based on fishing and tourism, which means a small permanent populations but a much larger transient population that needs to use the airport. Here's where things get tricky - what is the cost-benefit analysis on a sinking ferry full of passengers? So, yes, it's a bridge to nowhere, but the "nowhere" is a vital lifeline for the town.
Slashdot Mirror
To truly strike fear into the hearts of all sentient beings, it should be named "President Mike Huckabee".
I'm happy about this article. The overstatement of the effect of violent media could only happen in a rich, healthy and peaceful (at least domestically) country. Exploding donkey carts have killed more people in Kabul than have died as a result of "violent media", anywhere, ever. So things are good in the U.S.A. And as bad as lung cancer is, I'd say we have a modicum of control over that issue, whereas child mortality in the developing world due to lack of clean water is a much less controllable issue (technically it's easy; economically, not so easy). I'm content to live in a country which has "violent media" as public enemy #2, rather than live in a place where I get to watch half my children die of dysentery.
The song is "God Bless the U.S.A." by Lee Greenwood, which was released in 1984 (really). It is used as the soundtrack to jingoism and you will only be damaged by repeated listening. In general, don't examine the lyrics in popular country songs... there's nothing to be further excavated in their meaning and you will only end up dumber.
As someone who's heard extreme and ill-informed views from my fellow servicemembers repeatedly since 9/11 on dealing with terrorists/Muslims/Europeans/U.S. Liberals/Mexicans/etc, I apologize for wrongly assuming the worst when you referred to ceasing "pussyfooting".
That said, regarding your plan to convince insurgents to stop their war in Afghanistan, a lot of it is already in place. There is already a policy of killing or capturing "bad guys", and there are methodical sweeps through the hot spots, but there is also a plan to try to build a strong, and just as importantly, visible, central government. Having U.S. or ISAF troops arrest village elders or destroy poppy fields not only weakens the central government it guarantees that the village will not cooperate with, or will actively fight against the GoA, ANA/ANP or coalition forces. Ideally, if there is a village (or 200) in Paktika that is supporting, say, Haqqani, then there would be Afghan government officials to try to sway him the other way, or National Police to walk in and cart the village elder off in chains. If we do it, who do the Afghan's think is in charge?
Hey, boys and girls, want to prevent militarization of the police and stop the "Orwellian madness"? Good luck to you! While you are at it, try to take away police helicopters, ballistic armor, sniper rifles, pistols, radar detectors, laser detectors, night vision goggles... all things that have been passed through military development before being picked up by the police. But before you neuter the police, stop committing crimes already, and, um, solve U.S. poverty and drug dependence while you are at it.
Seriously, the Scan Eagle, or whatever Insitu is calling this UAV, will somewhat fulfill the roll of police helicopter surveillance, only with a lot less cost and risk. It will be good for following a suspect in a car, or giving an overview of a fire or riot, but I can't imagine it turning our cities into panopticons, given its limitations.
What do you mean by pussyfooting - following the rule of law? I hope you are not in the military or in the government.
The enemy - in Iraq, Afghanistan, Jolo, etc - IS already scared to death of Gitmo and fighting in the open against coalition forces. That's why they engage our forces through artillery rockets, mortars, IEDs, snipers and suicide bombers.
And how exactly do you scare a suicide bomber to death, other than sticking him indefinitely in a camp on a sunny Caribbean island with his ilk?
The videos are free, with ads... though all I've seen is about 0.8 seconds of a K-Mart ad and then it stops. Also, no indicator of download/cacheing progress, so the once-potential viewer is left wondering if it's ever going to play. I'll try again in a month or so. The concept is fine, the execution is poor.
I'd throw U2 in as an example of a current 'superband' of the likes of Zep, Stones, etc.
Metallica also comes close, and would be bigger if they had put more effort into creating music and less into fighting music downloading and alienating fans. Guns and Roses was arguably a 'superband', but died out too soon to leave a 'superband' legacy. Nirvana would have been enormous, but we all know that story.
To answer your question, geosynchronous orbit slots are allocated to different countries by the ITU, to prevent co-interference. This is a sparse band of small-ish objects moving at about 6900 miles per hour... no way is this going to block "too much sun".
Agree that the U.S. made a mistake in rushing into Iraq, but it did not abandon Afghanistan, it just isn't getting much press. Even with ISAF (NATO and other European partners) taking over most of the country, having recently taken over the volatile south, the U.S. still maintains a large contingent in the eastern provinces.
I'll add that the F-22 will likely never fly over Afghanistan - the battles that happen on a daily basis require Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (mostly Predator) and CAS - Close Air Support (mainly A-10 and AC-130). If Raptor ever flies there or Iraq, it will be to drop a JDAM in a CAS role.
In any case, Iran has homosexuals, otherwise they wouldn't need laws to execute those who commit sodomy.
Supporting a couple high profile artists for speaking out is commendable, but you should also be supporting artists that are, and have always been, truly independent of the corporations.
Especially the rats with zippos!
I've been to Cube, and the human rights situation there is deplorable.
In a way it is discouraging students from making meth - you require adequate mathematics skills or your bathroom lab might go kaboom!
Although there may be millions of idiots that believe the moon landing was a hoax, or perhaps worse, could be a hoax since they don't know any better, there are a few intelligent, well-reasoned self-proclaimed scientists who write books, do talks, etc that push the whole sordid matter. I recommend reading Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things to get an ideal why this phenomena happens and help understand how to control it. Don't underestimate the ability for intelligent people to delude themselves!
I think the original poster was attempting to distinguish between weapons that are designed to cause damage to the eye in such a way as to permanently blind the victim, versus the use of light to temporarily "blind" or dazzle the victim. For example, during the cold war, the Soviets were fond of using lasers to attempt to cause permanent retinal damage to western surveillance aircraft crews - this was countered by the use of special-purpose goggles, as surmised by an earlier poster. On the other hand, when you wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and turn on a bright light, the "blinding" effect you experience is more in the league of what I'd imagine this LED flashlight does (though I am intrigued by the "evil color" reference in the story.)
On reading the article, I had a horrible vision of TSA guys milking mothers to keep them under the 3 oz breastmilk limit. Totally irrational vision, but the TSA's "react to yesterday's threat" mentality isn't much better.
Yes, this is the senator who wanted "The Bridge To Nowhere", and he's very likely corrupt (the title "Senator" should be an indication), but having been to Ketchikan, and knowing why they want the bridge, there's been a long term push (think several decades) to get a bridge from the city of Ketchikan across the Tongass narrows to the spit of land they have to use for an airport. The local economy is based on fishing and tourism, which means a small permanent populations but a much larger transient population that needs to use the airport. Here's where things get tricky - what is the cost-benefit analysis on a sinking ferry full of passengers? So, yes, it's a bridge to nowhere, but the "nowhere" is a vital lifeline for the town.