The thing is, most Republicans hate government control more than they hate the left-wing slant of the news.
Anyway, for those who insist that the news is "right wing" or "corporate controlled", I'd love to see you explain why the coverage of the Iraq war is so negative. If you were right, we'd get nothing but pictures of smiling kids, rebuilt schools, and IP graduation ceremonies. Instead we get nothing but suicide bombings, beheading, and predictions of failure. No matter what your opinion on the war itself, the coverage of it by US media should demonstrate pretty clearly that they are for the most part not in fact either corporate controlled or "right-wing".
Hey, a semi-useful suggestion from an AC! Will wonders never cease.
I know you were being sarcastic, but there are actually ways this could be done without radiation. Even better, instead of kicking up dust, we could build a large diffuser in space, and set it on a solar orbit that keeps it constantly between the earth and the sun.
Ofcourse, assuming that we really are the cause of global warming, it'd make more sense to prevent it, and it would be cheaper in the long run. However, one of the reasons I don't buy into all this hysteria is because even if over the next 50 years the climate really goes to shit, we've got the technology to fix it.
HD rips have been available on torrent networks for a while now, and they're much more reasonably sized. In about 1 minute of looking I found the following high-def movies available for download:
The size for these average about 4.4 gigabytes, which is a hell of a lot better than a 20 gig rip. Out of curiosity I downloaded a sample file from one of these, and the quality is excellent. I haven't actually seen an HD-DVD yet, but I doubt the quality on them would be much better. Which leads to the question - if you're going to pirate, why waste your time downloading a 20 gig rip when you can get the same quality at a quarter of the size?
That's not really true. This technology for instance could be easily adapted to propel icebergs. In addition to that, Ocean currents could also be utilized. Granted the iceberg won't move very fast, but what's the hurry? Even if you lose a third of it's mass along the way, that's still a hell of a lot of fresh water for the nations that need it, and a net decrease in the amount that the oceans will rise in the future. And this is assuming that you decide to latch on to massive icebergs. There's also the option of harvesting the ice in place and using large tankers to transport it. In fact, this is already done in northern parts of Canada in order to produce bottled water. We're just talking about a much larger scale.
It seems that the two biggest gloom-and-doom scenarios these days (aside from global warming itself) is that the ice will melt causing the oceans to rise, and that we're going to run out of fresh water.
Anyone else seeing a way to kill two birds with one stone here?
Why not start creating man-made lakes, and towing icebergs into 'em? Yes it's a lot of work, but if we're going to need the water anyway, and we don't want to lose too much of our shoreline...well, why the hell not? It'd be extremely easy to do in north america, and much of northern europe and asia. And if we're feeling really charitable, we could start towing the southern ice-caps up to africa and the middle-east. They could certainly use some fresh-water.
Yeah I see where you're coming from. My main problem with the definition is that you still have civil authority, AND there's no clearly defined lines for division. You say it's ethnic/religious which is true to an extent, but you've got people of the same ethnicity/religion killing eachother, so it's not quite so clear cut. We'll probably just have to agree to disagree.
Right, congratulations, you managed to avoid making even a single factual or marginally logical statement in that entire post. I don't really know where to start, and I don't feel like wasting my time, so I'll just make it a quick blurb:
Heco bastion isn't sandbags, you're a bigoted prick, propaganda != lies (look it up), mortars (especially larger ones) generally don't fire 30 rpm, accuracy matters.
As for your anti-mil mindset, well, you're an idiot. The US army's lost 3,000 soldiers over 4 years, while achieving objectives which 20 years ago would have required a force 5 times their size. This is the difference between a military and a civilian perspective - those who have served understand just how impressive the US achievements in Iraq are. Those who have not see only the negative aspects. It's yet another example of why you should refrain from commenting on military matters.
Anyway, any rational individuals who would like clarification on any of the points, feel free to leave me a message. I'm not wasting my time on this clown any more.
You're still not getting it. Civil war generally consists of two factions fighting for control of the nation by killing as many people on the other side as necessary. They DON'T involve an elected government attempting to crush 20-30 separate factions, while attempting to protect the civilian populace. Maybe if the IP and ING went around killing civilians who were part of "the other side", then you'd have a case. Otherwise? Well, you're welcome to call it whatever you want, but you're just plain wrong. There's some resemblance to a civil war, sure, but that's like saying that an x86 PC has some resemblance to a mac. At the root, they're fundamentally different.
Need I remind you that it is the Iraq "civvies" who are currently kicking the US armies ass?
Need I remind you that it was the Vietnamese "civvies" who kicked the US armies ass?
You don't actually believe that crap, do you?
Listen, from your writing it's pretty obvious that you're RTFO, but I'll explain this to you anyway: it is impossible for the US to lose the war in Iraq. There's only 3 options:
1) They stay, finish the job, and assure victory.
2) They run away.
3) They stay, and Iran and Syria get involved, thereby expanding the war past Iraq's borders.
So far it looks like most of the civs are pushing for option 2. Make no mistake about it though - the military CAN win the war, it's the civs that want to lose it.
Why is it that military types don't understand rudimentary surveying techniques? Didn't military school teach you historical ways of determining distance? Were you all sucked in by the innovative technology salesman? Did he tell you that all the old ways of determining distance were now redundant and your enemy would be at a disadvantage because they didn't have the new improved faster working innovative GPS live enabled morter round?
In order to use surveying techniques you require a line of sight to your target. This is where hesco bastion and other type of walls come in. Once again you showcase your arrogance for all to see. Trust me asshole, if you can think of it, we've thought of it already. Knowing that your life is on the line has a wonderful way of focusing the mind.
While it is an advantage to be able to send one mortar with great accuracy, a similar effect can be achieved by raining down a dozen slightly inaccurate mortars... Dresden?
Except we can triangulate the launch site, meaning within a couple minutes we can have artillery coming down on the guy's mortar tube. And ours is a lot more accurate.
The optimum strategy for terrorists has always been to pre-plan the attack, drive up to a fairly well concealed location, set up the mortar quickly, fire off a couple rounds, and then run away as fast as possible. Without accuracy this technique is like a big game of russian roulette. WITH accuracy, it becomes a viable technique for inflicting heavy casualties.
Like I said, why do idiots like you keep trying to teach me things that you're utterly clueless about? Is it a genetic disorder? Lack of medication? What exactly makes you think you're qualified to comment?
"Your honour, I know that the officers who raided my house managed to find 500 kilos of cocaine, 20lbs of RDX, two surface to air missiles, and a gaggle of Tainwanese sex slaves, however, I left my door unlocked when I went to volunteer at the soup kitchen down the street. CLEARLY someone is trying to frame me!"
Sorry, but you're wrong. Read up on the battle for Mossul. Initially the "insurgents" simply wiped out all the police stations, thereby dissolving any semblance of government control. The Army moved in, and initially the battle consisted solely of insurgents-vs-soldiers regular kinetic warfare. Some civilians got killed, but that was largely accidental. THEN the Iraqi Police force started re-forming, and, with American training, started taking the fight to the enemy. That's when the insurgents started going ballistic. If you were a cop, had considered being a cop, or had, at some point, said "hello" to a cop, you were in their eyes a fair target. Fortunately, even though they were getting slaughtered, more and more people kept volunteering for the police, and the ING started making a comeback too. All of this had a galvanizing effect on the population, who could see that government control was being restored, and that the insurgency was declining. More tips started arriving, and people in general were more willing to talk to the military and police, even if it was just to chat. Eventually though, once it became obvious even to the insurgents that they were getting slaughtered, they started intentionally targeting children. In one case, a suicide bomber followed a Stryker patrol for a good 10 blocks, waited for the vehicle to be surrounded by children, and THEN detonated his VBIED. Maybe before that point you could argue that they were just a "resistance" or "an insurgency", and I might even agree. But the moment they blew up a crowd of children, they became terrorists. And luckily it had the exact opposite effect to what they intended. Iraqi people love their children, but they are a proud people, and are more likely to react with force that submissiveness. When the terrorists started attacking children, new applicants swelled the ranks of the IP and ING forces, and tips started flowing in like crazy. If you'd have been reading reports coming out of Mosul at the time, you would have noticed that it seemed like every second day they were capturing a new "top Zarqawi Lieutenant". That's because the bastards were being killed or captured so fast that the replacements would only have a few days to figure out their job before they too were captured.
As for the civil war aspect of it, it's simply not the case, at least not in Mosul. The police force and ING are composed of both Shia and Sunni, and from different tribes as well. The people calling in with tips were from varied religious beliefs as well. While the terrorists doing the actual fighting were a fairly homogeneous bunch, that is not too surprising, however it takes two distinct factions to form a civil war, and in Mosul they just weren't present. Moreover, you also need the systematic elimination or displacement of one faction by the other, and this isn't present either. The scenario is more akin to police and national guard fighting Al Capone, only with Capone trying to terrorize the general population into supporting him.
A 5 bedroom house in Canada? Sure, maybe in Tuktiyucktuk, North West Territories, Canada. Here in Toronto it'll get you anywhere between a 3 bedroom house and a 2 bedroom condominium, depending on the exact location. My mother sold her 2 bedroom townhouse for $330,000 a year ago, and it's already worth about $10,000 more.
Ok, this will probably be a "D'oh!" moment for you, so I'll try to ask nicely:
Don't you think there's something faulty in your methodology when you're comparing houses which survived for 100 years to the cheapest houses built today?
Put another way: how many other houses have collapsed or been torn down over that 100 years?
I used to work a lot on an army base that's founded on farm-land which was seized around WW1. The training area is littered with old ruins - there must have been well over 100 buildings there - yet not a single one is still standing. In fact only two are still recognizable as houses, and they're both large old "manour house" type designs. On top of that, judging by the size of the rest, most would have been small even for bachelor pads, let alone for a family of 12.
Now, would it not seem reasonable to assume that the houses which survived for 100 years were:
a) The few that were built well. and b) The few that people actually LIKED, and therefore lived in, and maintained.
What do you think? Seems like a logical proposition. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee you that 100 years from now, some guy will be living in a house which is being built today, as we speak, for some rich lawyer. I can also guarantee you that this person will take great pleasure in talking on Slashdot2100.xxx about how wonderful his 100 year old house is, and how horrible these new 22nd century building techniques are.
You're linking to RIVERBEND??? Are you serious? What's next, an expose from Jamil Hussein?
The ironic thing is, if the US troops DO leave before finishing the job, that bitch will grow increasingly more shrill over the next year....yet suddenly nobody will care. Nor will anyone notice when she, along with all the other Iraqi bloggers, suddenly disappears from the net. People will shrug their shoulders, look away, and find something American to bitch about. Maybe 10 years down the road, someone somewhere will do a small story on the "2007 Slaughter", documenting the million Iraqis killed and executed following the US pullout, yet still very few people anywhere will notice that it's not Americas penchant for starting wars that causes genocides, but their refusal to finish them.
Ah, yes. Perhaps while they're doing that, you could walk around your house and prepare it for any event that could ever take place. Better get started on that concrete and titanium roof, you never know when an airplane might come tumbling out of the sky. Might want to reinforce your car too while you're at it. Reactive armour's pricey, but it'll do wonders against that guy down the street who's admiring his brand new RPG.
"Look at what has happened. Bush has always said we are leaving once Iraq is stable and can stand on it's own."
I've always found it amazing that these same people will believe Ahmedajinad when he says that he doesn't REALLY want to kill the Jews, but won't believe Bush when he says that all we want to do is stabilize the place and get the frack out.
You'd understand the answer to this question the very moment one of these "resistance members" blew up your kids school, without a single foreign soldier around. Or the day they came around to your house and executed your wife for the crime of talking to the newly re-constructed UK police force. You'd stop calling them "the resistance" because it would shatter your starwars induced vision of the glorious rebel alliance fighting against the brutal emperor. You'd start to wonder why the emperor's soldiers bothered treating the survivors of the explosion at your kids school, and then got attacked a few days later while trying to rebuild it. Who knows, perhaps one day reality might even pierce the thick walls of your skull, and you might start calling "the resistance" by their real name - terrorists.
"and what stops someone from doing this in the first place?"
Guard towers, perimeter patrols, and hesco bastion walls.
"Grid references, so the enemy is using GPS guided missiles now?"
No, there's really cool thing called "math" which, when combined with those grid coordinates, can tell you the exact angle and deflection at which to aim your mortar tube in order to hit a friggin' porta-shitter at 1000 meters.
Why do civies consider themselves qualified to comment on military matters? You certainly won't see me talking about quantum physics, so why is every fucking anti-war nut an armchair tactician? Is it just that you take Djohn Karriey's comments literally, and assume that with the vast storehouse of processing power contained within your cranial housing, you MUST be better able to understand these things? Or are you just too stupid to understand how ignorant you are?
Sure, no problem. And just to make things fair, anyone who votes not to go to war gets auto-drafted for a one-year stay in said third world nation. Help you gain a new perspective. Then we'll have a new vote a year later.
Oh, and in case you haven't noticed asshole, every person serving in the military today is a volunteer. Not a single one of them signed up without knowing for a fact that their nation was at war. We've already voted, and voted with our boots. You've just been too stoned to notice.
Not exactly my point. I wasn't trying to say everybody should be lining up to buy one of these monstrocities. How about a Toyota Prius or Honda Insight instead? I also think the Tesla roadster is pretty groovy, albeit way, way, way out of my price range.
Your exact statement was:
"the American people are just as much to blame for being a bunch of homophobic, phallo-centric, self conscious, self proclaimed "manly" men, that won't drive anything with less than 200HP lest people find out they have small penises"
That's such a horrid generalization that I had just assumed you were referring only to the refusal to drive this ugly piece of shit. I didn't think you were actually ignorant enough to suggest that "the American people" won't drive other hybrids or fuel efficient vehicles. More than 251,000 hybrids were sold in 2006 alone. That's only about 3-4 percent of all new auto sales, but considering that there's only a few models available and that they've only been around for a few years, it's not bad at all.
There are multiple reasons why people might not have the option of driving such a small vehicle. Take me for example. I travel a lot, and need to carry large quantities of personal belongings with me. I need a large car to fit all my stuff in. On the upshoot - when I'm not carrying massive quantities of my own belongings, I can (and do) carpool with others, and have a lot more room for taking passengers with me. Same goes for all the families with mini-vans and SUV's - they need the extra space for their families. For most families, the ideal solution would be having one large vehicle and one small one, however, this isn't an option for poor families, and it's not an option for most bachelors.
There are so many factors which influence a persons decision of what vehicle to buy that you could write a 20 page essay about it, yet you, in your limitless wisdom, chose to blame homophobia and machismo. I think you need to take your own advice, and "get over yourself".
With that said, when you're not being a bigoted prick, you actually put out some quality writing. Your reply to my reply was bang on. It's only the initial post which I take offence to. And I too would love to own a Tesla roadster, but would need to also have a bigger vehicle, for the reasons which I listed above. No matter how much I might like the Tesla, even without considering the price tag I know that it's not an option for the type of driving I do.
Right, which is why the idea of the replicator is so silly in the first place. Do you have any idea how much energy it'd require to create, say, Rikers steak dinner? I can't do the exact math, but I'm pretty sure it'd be enough energy to power modern-day North America for a month or so. So the only way it makes sense to use the replicator is if you basically have unlimited energy. And if you have unlimited energy, well, we're back to square one - you may as well replicate the latinum.
Another poster pointed out that "latinum can't be synthesized", which is just another way of saying "the writers needed to plug a hole". They can turn a human body into energy, beam it across hundreds of thousands of kilometres, and re-assemble it properly on the other end, but they can't synthesize "latinum"? Sure. Pull the other one.
Slashdot Mirror
The thing is, most Republicans hate government control more than they hate the left-wing slant of the news.
Anyway, for those who insist that the news is "right wing" or "corporate controlled", I'd love to see you explain why the coverage of the Iraq war is so negative. If you were right, we'd get nothing but pictures of smiling kids, rebuilt schools, and IP graduation ceremonies. Instead we get nothing but suicide bombings, beheading, and predictions of failure. No matter what your opinion on the war itself, the coverage of it by US media should demonstrate pretty clearly that they are for the most part not in fact either corporate controlled or "right-wing".
Hey, a semi-useful suggestion from an AC! Will wonders never cease.
I know you were being sarcastic, but there are actually ways this could be done without radiation. Even better, instead of kicking up dust, we could build a large diffuser in space, and set it on a solar orbit that keeps it constantly between the earth and the sun.
Ofcourse, assuming that we really are the cause of global warming, it'd make more sense to prevent it, and it would be cheaper in the long run. However, one of the reasons I don't buy into all this hysteria is because even if over the next 50 years the climate really goes to shit, we've got the technology to fix it.
HD rips have been available on torrent networks for a while now, and they're much more reasonably sized. In about 1 minute of looking I found the following high-def movies available for download:
Sin.City.2005.720p.HDTV.DTS.x264-THOR
Snatch.HD.720p.x264
Resident.Evil.Apocalypse.2004.720p.HDTV.x2...
War.Of.The.Worlds.2005.720p.HDTV.x264-ESiR
The.Island.2005.720p.HDTV.x264-ESiR
Independence.Day.720p.OAR.HDTV.x264-ESiR
Sin City.HDTV.720p.SPANISH.x264
Terminator 3.HDTV.720p.x264
Conan.The.Barbarian.720p.x264.DD5.1-HINT
Dragonheart.1996.720p.HDTV.x264-ESiR
Ice.Age.2.2006.720p.HDTV.DTS.x264-ESiR
Underworld.Evolution.2006.720p.x264-ESiR
Alien.vs.Predator.720p.OAR.HDTV.DTS.x264-E...
The size for these average about 4.4 gigabytes, which is a hell of a lot better than a 20 gig rip. Out of curiosity I downloaded a sample file from one of these, and the quality is excellent. I haven't actually seen an HD-DVD yet, but I doubt the quality on them would be much better. Which leads to the question - if you're going to pirate, why waste your time downloading a 20 gig rip when you can get the same quality at a quarter of the size?
That's not really true. This technology for instance could be easily adapted to propel icebergs. In addition to that, Ocean currents could also be utilized. Granted the iceberg won't move very fast, but what's the hurry? Even if you lose a third of it's mass along the way, that's still a hell of a lot of fresh water for the nations that need it, and a net decrease in the amount that the oceans will rise in the future. And this is assuming that you decide to latch on to massive icebergs. There's also the option of harvesting the ice in place and using large tankers to transport it. In fact, this is already done in northern parts of Canada in order to produce bottled water. We're just talking about a much larger scale.
Ah, yes, well, THERE's a good way to win people over!
"You're all too stupid to understand what I'm saying. So, like, I KNOW I'm right, and I'm gonna ignore all you stupid people. Because you're stupid."
Way to go buds. That beautiful mind of yours is really working overtime today.
It seems that the two biggest gloom-and-doom scenarios these days (aside from global warming itself) is that the ice will melt causing the oceans to rise, and that we're going to run out of fresh water.
Anyone else seeing a way to kill two birds with one stone here?
Why not start creating man-made lakes, and towing icebergs into 'em? Yes it's a lot of work, but if we're going to need the water anyway, and we don't want to lose too much of our shoreline...well, why the hell not? It'd be extremely easy to do in north america, and much of northern europe and asia. And if we're feeling really charitable, we could start towing the southern ice-caps up to africa and the middle-east. They could certainly use some fresh-water.
Yeah I see where you're coming from. My main problem with the definition is that you still have civil authority, AND there's no clearly defined lines for division. You say it's ethnic/religious which is true to an extent, but you've got people of the same ethnicity/religion killing eachother, so it's not quite so clear cut. We'll probably just have to agree to disagree.
Right, congratulations, you managed to avoid making even a single factual or marginally logical statement in that entire post. I don't really know where to start, and I don't feel like wasting my time, so I'll just make it a quick blurb:
Heco bastion isn't sandbags, you're a bigoted prick, propaganda != lies (look it up), mortars (especially larger ones) generally don't fire 30 rpm, accuracy matters.
As for your anti-mil mindset, well, you're an idiot. The US army's lost 3,000 soldiers over 4 years, while achieving objectives which 20 years ago would have required a force 5 times their size. This is the difference between a military and a civilian perspective - those who have served understand just how impressive the US achievements in Iraq are. Those who have not see only the negative aspects. It's yet another example of why you should refrain from commenting on military matters.
Anyway, any rational individuals who would like clarification on any of the points, feel free to leave me a message. I'm not wasting my time on this clown any more.
You're still not getting it. Civil war generally consists of two factions fighting for control of the nation by killing as many people on the other side as necessary. They DON'T involve an elected government attempting to crush 20-30 separate factions, while attempting to protect the civilian populace. Maybe if the IP and ING went around killing civilians who were part of "the other side", then you'd have a case. Otherwise? Well, you're welcome to call it whatever you want, but you're just plain wrong. There's some resemblance to a civil war, sure, but that's like saying that an x86 PC has some resemblance to a mac. At the root, they're fundamentally different.
Listen, from your writing it's pretty obvious that you're RTFO, but I'll explain this to you anyway: it is impossible for the US to lose the war in Iraq. There's only 3 options:
1) They stay, finish the job, and assure victory. 2) They run away. 3) They stay, and Iran and Syria get involved, thereby expanding the war past Iraq's borders.
So far it looks like most of the civs are pushing for option 2. Make no mistake about it though - the military CAN win the war, it's the civs that want to lose it.
In order to use surveying techniques you require a line of sight to your target. This is where hesco bastion and other type of walls come in. Once again you showcase your arrogance for all to see. Trust me asshole, if you can think of it, we've thought of it already. Knowing that your life is on the line has a wonderful way of focusing the mind.
Except we can triangulate the launch site, meaning within a couple minutes we can have artillery coming down on the guy's mortar tube. And ours is a lot more accurate.
The optimum strategy for terrorists has always been to pre-plan the attack, drive up to a fairly well concealed location, set up the mortar quickly, fire off a couple rounds, and then run away as fast as possible. Without accuracy this technique is like a big game of russian roulette. WITH accuracy, it becomes a viable technique for inflicting heavy casualties.
Like I said, why do idiots like you keep trying to teach me things that you're utterly clueless about? Is it a genetic disorder? Lack of medication? What exactly makes you think you're qualified to comment?
I'll have to try that line of defence some time!
"Your honour, I know that the officers who raided my house managed to find 500 kilos of cocaine, 20lbs of RDX, two surface to air missiles, and a gaggle of Tainwanese sex slaves, however, I left my door unlocked when I went to volunteer at the soup kitchen down the street. CLEARLY someone is trying to frame me!"
Sorry, but you're wrong. Read up on the battle for Mossul. Initially the "insurgents" simply wiped out all the police stations, thereby dissolving any semblance of government control. The Army moved in, and initially the battle consisted solely of insurgents-vs-soldiers regular kinetic warfare. Some civilians got killed, but that was largely accidental. THEN the Iraqi Police force started re-forming, and, with American training, started taking the fight to the enemy. That's when the insurgents started going ballistic. If you were a cop, had considered being a cop, or had, at some point, said "hello" to a cop, you were in their eyes a fair target. Fortunately, even though they were getting slaughtered, more and more people kept volunteering for the police, and the ING started making a comeback too. All of this had a galvanizing effect on the population, who could see that government control was being restored, and that the insurgency was declining. More tips started arriving, and people in general were more willing to talk to the military and police, even if it was just to chat. Eventually though, once it became obvious even to the insurgents that they were getting slaughtered, they started intentionally targeting children. In one case, a suicide bomber followed a Stryker patrol for a good 10 blocks, waited for the vehicle to be surrounded by children, and THEN detonated his VBIED. Maybe before that point you could argue that they were just a "resistance" or "an insurgency", and I might even agree. But the moment they blew up a crowd of children, they became terrorists. And luckily it had the exact opposite effect to what they intended. Iraqi people love their children, but they are a proud people, and are more likely to react with force that submissiveness. When the terrorists started attacking children, new applicants swelled the ranks of the IP and ING forces, and tips started flowing in like crazy. If you'd have been reading reports coming out of Mosul at the time, you would have noticed that it seemed like every second day they were capturing a new "top Zarqawi Lieutenant". That's because the bastards were being killed or captured so fast that the replacements would only have a few days to figure out their job before they too were captured.
As for the civil war aspect of it, it's simply not the case, at least not in Mosul. The police force and ING are composed of both Shia and Sunni, and from different tribes as well. The people calling in with tips were from varied religious beliefs as well. While the terrorists doing the actual fighting were a fairly homogeneous bunch, that is not too surprising, however it takes two distinct factions to form a civil war, and in Mosul they just weren't present. Moreover, you also need the systematic elimination or displacement of one faction by the other, and this isn't present either. The scenario is more akin to police and national guard fighting Al Capone, only with Capone trying to terrorize the general population into supporting him.
A 5 bedroom house in Canada? Sure, maybe in Tuktiyucktuk, North West Territories, Canada. Here in Toronto it'll get you anywhere between a 3 bedroom house and a 2 bedroom condominium, depending on the exact location. My mother sold her 2 bedroom townhouse for $330,000 a year ago, and it's already worth about $10,000 more.
Ok, this will probably be a "D'oh!" moment for you, so I'll try to ask nicely:
Don't you think there's something faulty in your methodology when you're comparing houses which survived for 100 years to the cheapest houses built today?
Put another way: how many other houses have collapsed or been torn down over that 100 years?
I used to work a lot on an army base that's founded on farm-land which was seized around WW1. The training area is littered with old ruins - there must have been well over 100 buildings there - yet not a single one is still standing. In fact only two are still recognizable as houses, and they're both large old "manour house" type designs. On top of that, judging by the size of the rest, most would have been small even for bachelor pads, let alone for a family of 12.
Now, would it not seem reasonable to assume that the houses which survived for 100 years were:
a) The few that were built well.
and
b) The few that people actually LIKED, and therefore lived in, and maintained.
What do you think? Seems like a logical proposition. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee you that 100 years from now, some guy will be living in a house which is being built today, as we speak, for some rich lawyer. I can also guarantee you that this person will take great pleasure in talking on Slashdot2100.xxx about how wonderful his 100 year old house is, and how horrible these new 22nd century building techniques are.
You're linking to RIVERBEND??? Are you serious? What's next, an expose from Jamil Hussein?
The ironic thing is, if the US troops DO leave before finishing the job, that bitch will grow increasingly more shrill over the next year....yet suddenly nobody will care. Nor will anyone notice when she, along with all the other Iraqi bloggers, suddenly disappears from the net. People will shrug their shoulders, look away, and find something American to bitch about. Maybe 10 years down the road, someone somewhere will do a small story on the "2007 Slaughter", documenting the million Iraqis killed and executed following the US pullout, yet still very few people anywhere will notice that it's not Americas penchant for starting wars that causes genocides, but their refusal to finish them.
Ah, yes. Perhaps while they're doing that, you could walk around your house and prepare it for any event that could ever take place. Better get started on that concrete and titanium roof, you never know when an airplane might come tumbling out of the sky. Might want to reinforce your car too while you're at it. Reactive armour's pricey, but it'll do wonders against that guy down the street who's admiring his brand new RPG.
"Look at what has happened. Bush has always said we are leaving once Iraq is stable and can stand on it's own."
I've always found it amazing that these same people will believe Ahmedajinad when he says that he doesn't REALLY want to kill the Jews, but won't believe Bush when he says that all we want to do is stabilize the place and get the frack out.
You'd understand the answer to this question the very moment one of these "resistance members" blew up your kids school, without a single foreign soldier around. Or the day they came around to your house and executed your wife for the crime of talking to the newly re-constructed UK police force. You'd stop calling them "the resistance" because it would shatter your starwars induced vision of the glorious rebel alliance fighting against the brutal emperor. You'd start to wonder why the emperor's soldiers bothered treating the survivors of the explosion at your kids school, and then got attacked a few days later while trying to rebuild it. Who knows, perhaps one day reality might even pierce the thick walls of your skull, and you might start calling "the resistance" by their real name - terrorists.
"and what stops someone from doing this in the first place?"
Guard towers, perimeter patrols, and hesco bastion walls.
"Grid references, so the enemy is using GPS guided missiles now?"
No, there's really cool thing called "math" which, when combined with those grid coordinates, can tell you the exact angle and deflection at which to aim your mortar tube in order to hit a friggin' porta-shitter at 1000 meters.
Why do civies consider themselves qualified to comment on military matters? You certainly won't see me talking about quantum physics, so why is every fucking anti-war nut an armchair tactician? Is it just that you take Djohn Karriey's comments literally, and assume that with the vast storehouse of processing power contained within your cranial housing, you MUST be better able to understand these things? Or are you just too stupid to understand how ignorant you are?
It's people like you that make me loose all hope in the human race actually starting to learn from it's past mistakes.
Sure, no problem. And just to make things fair, anyone who votes not to go to war gets auto-drafted for a one-year stay in said third world nation. Help you gain a new perspective. Then we'll have a new vote a year later.
Oh, and in case you haven't noticed asshole, every person serving in the military today is a volunteer. Not a single one of them signed up without knowing for a fact that their nation was at war. We've already voted, and voted with our boots. You've just been too stoned to notice.
"the American people are just as much to blame for being a bunch of homophobic, phallo-centric, self conscious, self proclaimed "manly" men, that won't drive anything with less than 200HP lest people find out they have small penises"
That's such a horrid generalization that I had just assumed you were referring only to the refusal to drive this ugly piece of shit. I didn't think you were actually ignorant enough to suggest that "the American people" won't drive other hybrids or fuel efficient vehicles. More than 251,000 hybrids were sold in 2006 alone. That's only about 3-4 percent of all new auto sales, but considering that there's only a few models available and that they've only been around for a few years, it's not bad at all.
There are multiple reasons why people might not have the option of driving such a small vehicle. Take me for example. I travel a lot, and need to carry large quantities of personal belongings with me. I need a large car to fit all my stuff in. On the upshoot - when I'm not carrying massive quantities of my own belongings, I can (and do) carpool with others, and have a lot more room for taking passengers with me. Same goes for all the families with mini-vans and SUV's - they need the extra space for their families. For most families, the ideal solution would be having one large vehicle and one small one, however, this isn't an option for poor families, and it's not an option for most bachelors.
There are so many factors which influence a persons decision of what vehicle to buy that you could write a 20 page essay about it, yet you, in your limitless wisdom, chose to blame homophobia and machismo. I think you need to take your own advice, and "get over yourself".
With that said, when you're not being a bigoted prick, you actually put out some quality writing. Your reply to my reply was bang on. It's only the initial post which I take offence to. And I too would love to own a Tesla roadster, but would need to also have a bigger vehicle, for the reasons which I listed above. No matter how much I might like the Tesla, even without considering the price tag I know that it's not an option for the type of driving I do.
Perhaps we could just rename Jeremiah Cornelius to "troll".
No problem: I'll agree to drive one of these to work every day, if you agree to wear a clown suit to work every day. Deal?
Right, which is why the idea of the replicator is so silly in the first place. Do you have any idea how much energy it'd require to create, say, Rikers steak dinner? I can't do the exact math, but I'm pretty sure it'd be enough energy to power modern-day North America for a month or so. So the only way it makes sense to use the replicator is if you basically have unlimited energy. And if you have unlimited energy, well, we're back to square one - you may as well replicate the latinum.
Another poster pointed out that "latinum can't be synthesized", which is just another way of saying "the writers needed to plug a hole". They can turn a human body into energy, beam it across hundreds of thousands of kilometres, and re-assemble it properly on the other end, but they can't synthesize "latinum"? Sure. Pull the other one.