Hey man, if you think a communist dictatorship is better, feel free to move to China. Anyone who doesn't appreciate the advantages afforded to them by a democratic nation can certainly benefit from trying out the alternative. Assuming you survive that is.
Me, I was born in a commie country, and I've had more than enough of it, thank you very much. You can't imagine how amazing it was to move to a free, democratic nation. It was like entering the garden of eden after a decade of stumbling through the desert. Do I think our system of government is perfect? No. But only a total ignoramus could draw any parallels between our system of government and an oppresive dictatorship, let alone actualy state that the two are one and the same, as you have.
This isn't intended to spot specific plans, rather it's a measure to monitor global trends. For instance, the current cartoon uproar is quite probably a concerted effort by certain factions to undermine the Danish in their upcoming role as lead of the UN security council. Then again it might not be. Better intelligence gathering methods and statistical models would be able to give us a better pisture as to wtf is going on exactly.
Will it aid greatly in the war on terror? Maybe, maybe not. But it will provide a better overall model of global events, which certainly can't hurt.
As to it being an invasion of privacy, that's a load of crap. Once you make something publicly available you can't argue that it's an invasion of privacy for others to look at it. If you don't want people looking at it, don't publish it.
After all your little "democrating system", forces you into work daily to survive unless you're uber rich or wish to live on next to nothing/the street. This is just as bad as any system you want to look at.
Imagine that, having to work to make a living. Quelle Horreur! We are quite obviously all back-asswards. Nature never intended us to have to work! In nature, food and water appeared just by wishing for them, and there were never any predators to protect yourself from! It's only our evil capitalist ways that have created this dog-eat-dog world.
Damn commie.
You're quite clearly living on your own little planet if you truly beleive that "all the people" in a dictatorship "wish to have it that way". Even in the Soviet Socialist Paradise, the vast majority were unhappy with the way everything was being run. That's why the USSR fell appart, and it's why Russia is today a democracy. Because ultimately democracy is the only system which allows people to CHOSE how their government is run. Without democracy and basic human rights, you can't even accurately judge wether the majority are happy or unhappy with their form of government, but it's a pretty safe bet that most people ANYWHERE aren't happy about not being able to speak freely.
By that reasoning, arresting a murderer who happens to oppose the Bush administration is also "arresting a dissident". Once again: nonsense. She wasn't arrested for "being a dissident", she was arrested for trespassing. Big difference. Nowhere does the universal decleration of rights state that you have the right to trespass.
As for the other woman, I don't know her situation. I didn't follow the story closely enough. Suffice it to say that either she left when asked to do so, or the authorities exercised their right to be selective. I worked as a security gaurd a long, long time ago, so I know perfectly well how it works. Generaly, if I had to remove someone from the property, I would try to avoid arresting them because it creates more paperwork and effort than it's worth. However, if it was obvious that the individual was going to be a repeat offender, I'd deffinitely arrest him/her. So Cindy's been a major pain in the ass, and it's quite obvious she's going to keep pulling stunts like these (ie. breaking the law). That's reason enough to toss her in cuffs. Whereas the other woman may have been a first-time offender and just taking her out and having a good talk with her may deter her from doing it in the future. Like I said, I don't know the exact circumstances, and they're irrelevant anyway.
At the same time, what do you think would happen if EVERY western corporation and government said "hey, guess what, untill you change your human rights record, we're outta here"? All it would take is for, say, NATO countries to sit down and draw up an agreement to pass laws within their own borders implementing a boycott of China. Or, if the corporations were willing to be responsible for a change, they could do it on their own, one by one. It wouldn't be long before China decided that arresting disidents is no longer viable.
Gowen already made an excellent reply, but I had to add my own bit:
The clear difference here being that it was quite clear from the outset that the Chinese government planned on arresting this journalist for exercising his freedom of expression. Whereas there is no indication that the US government plans on making any arrests based on the google information, and, in fact there is every reason to beleive otherwise because no arrests have been made based on similar information already released by MSN and Yahoo.
Going to jail for breaking the law is not a human rights violation.
What sort of idiotic statement is that? So if tomorrow we make a law saying women have to wear a Burka or be gang-raped and then stoned to death, that wouldn't be a human rights violation?
Alright, granted, you did say "going to jail", but your argument can just as easily be used for "alternative punishment", ESPECIALY considering the state of Chinese prisons, and the fact that those who end up in them very often subsequently end up being executed. However, even if we just judge your argument exactly as stated, it's STILL a gross violation of human rights. Arresting people for exercising freedom of thought or freedom of expression is a human rights violation because it removes from the people a basic right which we hold sacred. The fact that their government don't see is it that way is irrelevant.
As much as everyone hates that woman, she's perfectly free to dissent all she likes. Nobody's arrested her for opposing the president, protesting outside his ranch, giving speeches calling for his impeachment, etc, etc. How far do you think she would have gotten in China?
So with that said, the reason she was arrested is because she was trespassing. Every country has trespass laws, and they're all fairly similar. If you enter onto private property without invitation, or after being invited are asked to leave and refuse, you are guilty of trespassing and upon conviction are liable to...yadda yadda yadda. The case for government property is similar, the only difference being that generaly you don't have to be invited to enter, however, any time you are asked to leave you do so or risk imprisonment. Little Miss Cindy had every opportunity to leave under her own power and continue her protest outside. Instead she chose to be a bitch about it. Fine, slap the cuffs on her and drag her away. Everyone involved was quite happy that she gave them a reason to arrest her; there would have been a lot of dissapointed SS guys if she'd walked out wilingly.
I understand what you're saying, but you're still wrong. Even if we change "unmanned aircraft" to "unmanned vehicles", it doesn't make a difference. The vast majority of soldiers killed on the battlefield are always going to be infantry. Logistics personnel supply a good percentage of the body-count too due to the ability of guerrila forces to ambush convoys, however, supply convoys could never be fully autmated due to the fact that, realisticaly, you would end up supplying the enemy. All they'd have to do is set up road blocks and they could seize convoys and all their supplys without a shot being fired. So even assuming we automate resupply vehicles, they'd need a mechanized infantry escort, meaning you're still placing soldiers in danger.
You can also try automating tanks and fire-support vehicles, however, it's been shown over and over that a live crew is neccesary in order to have proper situational awareness. Automating all ground-combat vehicles will only result in more vehicles lost, which leads to less fire support available to the troops, and probably more blue-on-blue incidents to boot.
Anyone who knows anything about warfare can tell you that you ALWAYS need boots on the ground if you expect to win. Clintons air-raid style of warfare is only good for blowing billions of dollars and seriously pissing off the locals. Without infantry on the ground, you cannot win a war. So the majority of combat deaths will ALWAYS be infantry. The only thing that automated vehicles will do is tilt the ratio even more, because it'll remove non-combat-arms personnel from the front line. Which is a good thing in general because it means we're only placing troops who are trained for combat in harms way. Causes a few less deaths, and ensures that those who have to fight are the ones best trained for it.
End result? Asuming we automate every vehicle capable of being automated you're looking at maybe a 10% decrease in deaths. Automation isn't meant to remove people from danger - rather, it's meant to increase the capabilities of the vehicles, and provide better support for the soldiers who ARE on the ground. For instance, an unanned aircraft can pull G's that would turn a human pilot to jelly, meaning better chances of evading enemy missiles, and a better chance of actually accomplishing the mission. An unmanned tank could have double the armour and double the ammunition capacity, while having a lower profile, once again providing better survivability and more support for the infantry. Etc. But, untill we develop the T-1000, combat is always going to be geared around supporting the soldiers on the ground, which will always mean bodybags soldiers coming home in bodybags.
And as far as the politics behind your argument, you're totaly ignoring the fact that PR as regaurding civilian deaths is more important these days than how many bodybags get flown back to us. In modern warfare image is just as important as any other mission objective, which is why we've dedicated so much time and effort to training soldiers in the geneva conventions and why we develop such complex rules of engagement. You forget that one of the main reasons that the first Gulf War ended when it did is because of the massacre on the highway of death, which got televized across the globe. So even if all soldiers could somehow magicaly be replaced by machines, avoiding civilian deaths and atrocities would be just as important as it is today, if not more so.
in WW2, an airstrike would have taken 20 times the ammo, and would have resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties. these days we do a targeted strike and get shit on for killing 5 "civilians" who were having afternoon tea with the terrorists.
Are you being intentionaly obtuse? Take a look at historical figures of civilians vs military losses in past conflicts.
Well, technicaly speaking, the US system of govenrment was never intended to support public broadcasting or diabetese research. The federal government is only supposed to be responsbile for a few things, and external defence is their one major responsibility. If you want a more socialist society, move somewhere else.
And what the hell is so "horrific" and "terrifying" about unmanned drones and transport blimps?
The titanic wasn't meant to take an impact of that type. The ironic part is that if they had hit head-on, it may even have survived. Nobody ever invisioned a ship getting torn open over that large of an area though.
So MY point is that while the Titanic COULD have been designed to survive the type of impact it took, it WASN'T. The problem wasn't behind the design, it was with the simple fact that nobody suspected a collision of that type was even possible. It was one of those one-in-a-million occurences that never seems like a problem untill it actually happens.
There is little concern for all the Iraqis killed in air strikes. If you can automate the military, you remove most of the political repercussions of war. No US Soldiers dead, just lots of automated robots killing people in another country, who no-one cares about.
It's people like you that give the left wing a bad name. If the US were only interested in "killing people in another country", they would have nuked the middle east and called it a day. What you fail to note is that with every generation of technology we are focusing more and more on targeted strike capabilities.
Even our infantry doctrine has evolved to include selective targeting in most circumstances rather than area-neutralization. Prior to the current wars in the ME, our doctrine (and by our I mean all western nations) was to clear a room by tossing in a granade, and then having two guys rush in and spray about 60 rounds into anything and everything there. That was status-quo during WW2, and as late as the cold war; nobody ever questioned it. NOW we' training every infantry soldier to think and act like a member of a SWAT team, employing distraction devices and selectively neutralizing targets while being able to protect civilians. It takes a hell of a lot of ignorance to claim that the US doesn't care about civilian dead, and is only worried about their own soldiers, and there is absolutely NO evidence to support such a premise. All evidence, in fact, points to the contrary, as western soldiers are constantly placed at more risk than is neccesary in order to avoid causing civilian deaths.
eh? Exactly how many pilots has the US lost in recent years? 5? 6 maybe? More pilots have been killed testing the Osprey than have been shot down in combat!
the Titanic idea would have worked just fine except that it managed to have just the right combination of factors to sink it. If the collision had made a smaller hole (as usualy happens), the ship would have survived. If the bulkheads between sections had been complete, it could have survived. Unfortiunately it didn't. That wasn't due to poor design though, so much as bad luck. There's no such thing as an unsinkable ship anyway - if the Titanic had been hit by a strategic nuclear strike it would have sank just fine too, and then you wouldn't be poking fun at it the way you are now.
Anyway, that has nothing to do with the airship. A cellular internal structure would protect it from anything short of a sustained assault, or several proximity-fuse missiles. Obviously, nothing's going to protect it 100%, but that's not a realistic expectation of ANY aircraft. Keep in mind these blimps are designed for transport and logistics, meaning 99% of the time they'll be flying over friendly territory, and the rest of the time they'll have air superiority and either an escort, or fighters on standby.
See, Jews, despite what the palestinians would have you think, DO have fully developed brains.
Wether the subject can feel pain or not is irrelevant. We're talking about self-awareness. An embryo does not have a brain. It can not think. It is not self aware. It is no more human than your sperm, so by your logic we could argue that you commit genocide every time you masturbate. I'd love to see Bush run on THAT platform.
Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of the human hands....committing mass-murder through self-pleasuring.
31 Jan 2006
C6gunner sues NYTimes for "reckless endangerment".
C6gunner, claiming that by releasing classified information during a time of war the New York Times has knowingly endangered the lives of not just Americans, but all residents of North America, has launched a class-action lawsuit demanding $10,000 for every individual legaly residing on the North American continent.
Whether the ammount requested was in Canadian or US currency was unclear.
There's been plenty of debate on that already. The concensus - at least, amongst those actualy qualified to examine the controversy - has been that the president did nothing illegal. Even Wikipedia , which has a tendency to be left-leaning, states that "an actual evaluation of FISA reveals that the President does have the legal authority to order electronic surveillance without court order, even on conversations taking place between folks inside of the US and folks outside of the US".
Even if by some miracle you could show that what the government did was illegal, how does suing AT&T help? If the government DID do something illegal, then AT&T was a victim of fraud. If the government didn't do anything illegal, then neither did AT&T. Either way, the lawsuit is frivolous.
Arugments like these always give me a good laugh. I suppose if you live in a fantasy world, it makes perfect sense to assume that Oil Companies have large quantities of assasins looking to cap anyone who comes up with a fuel efficient car.
Meanwhile, in the Real-World (tm), basic economics dictates that anyone able to produce a more fuel efficient car with similar performance to todays models, or better yet a high-efficiency alternate-fuel vehicle with a convinient power-source, this person or comany would "make a killing" as it were. Just like in any other industry, providing the customer with better value for their money increases sales, thereby generating larger profits.
Back in fantasy land, the president of Exxon Mobile is currently issuing orders for the president of Ford to be disembowled because he had the nerve to increase fuel efficiency by 5 miles per galon.
"There was a time when engineers and trailblazers were popular heroes. But a lot of damage was done in the 1980s and 1990s"
so far, so good...
"when there was a culture of outright greed and everybody's dream was to be a fat-cat manager. Education reflected this, and children were trained to be capable pen-pushers, perhaps also possesing relational and organisational skills."
Easy there. No, the Freemasons are not out to get you, have some prozac.
Education has nothing to do with it. Popular figures, however, DO. Look at todays idols and icons. They're not trailblazers or inventors or engineers or explorers. They're singers, and movie stars; gangsters, thugs, alcoholics and drug abusers. When we glorify what - in any sane culture would be - the dredges of our society, what sort of impact do you expect it to have?
it'd explaint the socialist attitude. See, in Europe NTP would get loads and loads of money for doing nothing more than sitting on their asses. That's the idea behind socialism, right? "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his laziness".
Unfortiunately in our Evil Capitalist world, comapnies have to actually create something to make money. RIM did. NTP didn't. If the judges on the case have any common sense, they'll tell NTP to crawl back under the rock they emerged from.
Slashdot Mirror
More like Ride of the Valkyries. Complete with rotor-noises and machine-gun bursts.
Hey man, if you think a communist dictatorship is better, feel free to move to China. Anyone who doesn't appreciate the advantages afforded to them by a democratic nation can certainly benefit from trying out the alternative. Assuming you survive that is.
Me, I was born in a commie country, and I've had more than enough of it, thank you very much. You can't imagine how amazing it was to move to a free, democratic nation. It was like entering the garden of eden after a decade of stumbling through the desert. Do I think our system of government is perfect? No. But only a total ignoramus could draw any parallels between our system of government and an oppresive dictatorship, let alone actualy state that the two are one and the same, as you have.
This isn't intended to spot specific plans, rather it's a measure to monitor global trends. For instance, the current cartoon uproar is quite probably a concerted effort by certain factions to undermine the Danish in their upcoming role as lead of the UN security council. Then again it might not be. Better intelligence gathering methods and statistical models would be able to give us a better pisture as to wtf is going on exactly.
Will it aid greatly in the war on terror? Maybe, maybe not. But it will provide a better overall model of global events, which certainly can't hurt.
As to it being an invasion of privacy, that's a load of crap. Once you make something publicly available you can't argue that it's an invasion of privacy for others to look at it. If you don't want people looking at it, don't publish it.
Let's not be silly here.
Yes, it is. The congresswoman is also an invited guest. She can be asked to leave just as easily, and could also be arrested for refusing.
If you're having a party and your guest brings a guest, does that in any way stop you from asking either, or both, to leave?
It never ceases to amaze me how ignorant most people are of basic legal concepts.
After all your little "democrating system", forces you into work daily to survive unless you're uber rich or wish to live on next to nothing/the street. This is just as bad as any system you want to look at.
Imagine that, having to work to make a living. Quelle Horreur! We are quite obviously all back-asswards. Nature never intended us to have to work! In nature, food and water appeared just by wishing for them, and there were never any predators to protect yourself from! It's only our evil capitalist ways that have created this dog-eat-dog world.
Damn commie.
You're quite clearly living on your own little planet if you truly beleive that "all the people" in a dictatorship "wish to have it that way". Even in the Soviet Socialist Paradise, the vast majority were unhappy with the way everything was being run. That's why the USSR fell appart, and it's why Russia is today a democracy. Because ultimately democracy is the only system which allows people to CHOSE how their government is run. Without democracy and basic human rights, you can't even accurately judge wether the majority are happy or unhappy with their form of government, but it's a pretty safe bet that most people ANYWHERE aren't happy about not being able to speak freely.
By that reasoning, arresting a murderer who happens to oppose the Bush administration is also "arresting a dissident". Once again: nonsense. She wasn't arrested for "being a dissident", she was arrested for trespassing. Big difference. Nowhere does the universal decleration of rights state that you have the right to trespass.
As for the other woman, I don't know her situation. I didn't follow the story closely enough. Suffice it to say that either she left when asked to do so, or the authorities exercised their right to be selective. I worked as a security gaurd a long, long time ago, so I know perfectly well how it works. Generaly, if I had to remove someone from the property, I would try to avoid arresting them because it creates more paperwork and effort than it's worth. However, if it was obvious that the individual was going to be a repeat offender, I'd deffinitely arrest him/her. So Cindy's been a major pain in the ass, and it's quite obvious she's going to keep pulling stunts like these (ie. breaking the law). That's reason enough to toss her in cuffs. Whereas the other woman may have been a first-time offender and just taking her out and having a good talk with her may deter her from doing it in the future. Like I said, I don't know the exact circumstances, and they're irrelevant anyway.
At the same time, what do you think would happen if EVERY western corporation and government said "hey, guess what, untill you change your human rights record, we're outta here"? All it would take is for, say, NATO countries to sit down and draw up an agreement to pass laws within their own borders implementing a boycott of China. Or, if the corporations were willing to be responsible for a change, they could do it on their own, one by one. It wouldn't be long before China decided that arresting disidents is no longer viable.
Gowen already made an excellent reply, but I had to add my own bit:
The clear difference here being that it was quite clear from the outset that the Chinese government planned on arresting this journalist for exercising his freedom of expression. Whereas there is no indication that the US government plans on making any arrests based on the google information, and, in fact there is every reason to beleive otherwise because no arrests have been made based on similar information already released by MSN and Yahoo.
You're comparing apples and oranges.
Going to jail for breaking the law is not a human rights violation.
What sort of idiotic statement is that? So if tomorrow we make a law saying women have to wear a Burka or be gang-raped and then stoned to death, that wouldn't be a human rights violation?
Alright, granted, you did say "going to jail", but your argument can just as easily be used for "alternative punishment", ESPECIALY considering the state of Chinese prisons, and the fact that those who end up in them very often subsequently end up being executed. However, even if we just judge your argument exactly as stated, it's STILL a gross violation of human rights. Arresting people for exercising freedom of thought or freedom of expression is a human rights violation because it removes from the people a basic right which we hold sacred. The fact that their government don't see is it that way is irrelevant.
As much as everyone hates that woman, she's perfectly free to dissent all she likes. Nobody's arrested her for opposing the president, protesting outside his ranch, giving speeches calling for his impeachment, etc, etc. How far do you think she would have gotten in China?
So with that said, the reason she was arrested is because she was trespassing. Every country has trespass laws, and they're all fairly similar. If you enter onto private property without invitation, or after being invited are asked to leave and refuse, you are guilty of trespassing and upon conviction are liable to...yadda yadda yadda. The case for government property is similar, the only difference being that generaly you don't have to be invited to enter, however, any time you are asked to leave you do so or risk imprisonment. Little Miss Cindy had every opportunity to leave under her own power and continue her protest outside. Instead she chose to be a bitch about it. Fine, slap the cuffs on her and drag her away. Everyone involved was quite happy that she gave them a reason to arrest her; there would have been a lot of dissapointed SS guys if she'd walked out wilingly.
it's war. get over it.
I understand what you're saying, but you're still wrong. Even if we change "unmanned aircraft" to "unmanned vehicles", it doesn't make a difference. The vast majority of soldiers killed on the battlefield are always going to be infantry. Logistics personnel supply a good percentage of the body-count too due to the ability of guerrila forces to ambush convoys, however, supply convoys could never be fully autmated due to the fact that, realisticaly, you would end up supplying the enemy. All they'd have to do is set up road blocks and they could seize convoys and all their supplys without a shot being fired. So even assuming we automate resupply vehicles, they'd need a mechanized infantry escort, meaning you're still placing soldiers in danger.
You can also try automating tanks and fire-support vehicles, however, it's been shown over and over that a live crew is neccesary in order to have proper situational awareness. Automating all ground-combat vehicles will only result in more vehicles lost, which leads to less fire support available to the troops, and probably more blue-on-blue incidents to boot.
Anyone who knows anything about warfare can tell you that you ALWAYS need boots on the ground if you expect to win. Clintons air-raid style of warfare is only good for blowing billions of dollars and seriously pissing off the locals. Without infantry on the ground, you cannot win a war. So the majority of combat deaths will ALWAYS be infantry. The only thing that automated vehicles will do is tilt the ratio even more, because it'll remove non-combat-arms personnel from the front line. Which is a good thing in general because it means we're only placing troops who are trained for combat in harms way. Causes a few less deaths, and ensures that those who have to fight are the ones best trained for it.
End result? Asuming we automate every vehicle capable of being automated you're looking at maybe a 10% decrease in deaths. Automation isn't meant to remove people from danger - rather, it's meant to increase the capabilities of the vehicles, and provide better support for the soldiers who ARE on the ground. For instance, an unanned aircraft can pull G's that would turn a human pilot to jelly, meaning better chances of evading enemy missiles, and a better chance of actually accomplishing the mission. An unmanned tank could have double the armour and double the ammunition capacity, while having a lower profile, once again providing better survivability and more support for the infantry. Etc. But, untill we develop the T-1000, combat is always going to be geared around supporting the soldiers on the ground, which will always mean bodybags soldiers coming home in bodybags.
And as far as the politics behind your argument, you're totaly ignoring the fact that PR as regaurding civilian deaths is more important these days than how many bodybags get flown back to us. In modern warfare image is just as important as any other mission objective, which is why we've dedicated so much time and effort to training soldiers in the geneva conventions and why we develop such complex rules of engagement. You forget that one of the main reasons that the first Gulf War ended when it did is because of the massacre on the highway of death, which got televized across the globe. So even if all soldiers could somehow magicaly be replaced by machines, avoiding civilian deaths and atrocities would be just as important as it is today, if not more so.
in WW2, an airstrike would have taken 20 times the ammo, and would have resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties. these days we do a targeted strike and get shit on for killing 5 "civilians" who were having afternoon tea with the terrorists.
Are you being intentionaly obtuse? Take a look at historical figures of civilians vs military losses in past conflicts.
Well, technicaly speaking, the US system of govenrment was never intended to support public broadcasting or diabetese research. The federal government is only supposed to be responsbile for a few things, and external defence is their one major responsibility. If you want a more socialist society, move somewhere else.
And what the hell is so "horrific" and "terrifying" about unmanned drones and transport blimps?
The titanic wasn't meant to take an impact of that type. The ironic part is that if they had hit head-on, it may even have survived. Nobody ever invisioned a ship getting torn open over that large of an area though.
So MY point is that while the Titanic COULD have been designed to survive the type of impact it took, it WASN'T. The problem wasn't behind the design, it was with the simple fact that nobody suspected a collision of that type was even possible. It was one of those one-in-a-million occurences that never seems like a problem untill it actually happens.
There is little concern for all the Iraqis killed in air strikes. If you can automate the military, you remove most of the political repercussions of war. No US Soldiers dead, just lots of automated robots killing people in another country, who no-one cares about.
It's people like you that give the left wing a bad name. If the US were only interested in "killing people in another country", they would have nuked the middle east and called it a day. What you fail to note is that with every generation of technology we are focusing more and more on targeted strike capabilities.
Even our infantry doctrine has evolved to include selective targeting in most circumstances rather than area-neutralization. Prior to the current wars in the ME, our doctrine (and by our I mean all western nations) was to clear a room by tossing in a granade, and then having two guys rush in and spray about 60 rounds into anything and everything there. That was status-quo during WW2, and as late as the cold war; nobody ever questioned it. NOW we' training every infantry soldier to think and act like a member of a SWAT team, employing distraction devices and selectively neutralizing targets while being able to protect civilians. It takes a hell of a lot of ignorance to claim that the US doesn't care about civilian dead, and is only worried about their own soldiers, and there is absolutely NO evidence to support such a premise. All evidence, in fact, points to the contrary, as western soldiers are constantly placed at more risk than is neccesary in order to avoid causing civilian deaths.
eh? Exactly how many pilots has the US lost in recent years? 5? 6 maybe? More pilots have been killed testing the Osprey than have been shot down in combat!
Put some thought into your comments.
the Titanic idea would have worked just fine except that it managed to have just the right combination of factors to sink it. If the collision had made a smaller hole (as usualy happens), the ship would have survived. If the bulkheads between sections had been complete, it could have survived. Unfortiunately it didn't. That wasn't due to poor design though, so much as bad luck. There's no such thing as an unsinkable ship anyway - if the Titanic had been hit by a strategic nuclear strike it would have sank just fine too, and then you wouldn't be poking fun at it the way you are now.
Anyway, that has nothing to do with the airship. A cellular internal structure would protect it from anything short of a sustained assault, or several proximity-fuse missiles. Obviously, nothing's going to protect it 100%, but that's not a realistic expectation of ANY aircraft. Keep in mind these blimps are designed for transport and logistics, meaning 99% of the time they'll be flying over friendly territory, and the rest of the time they'll have air superiority and either an escort, or fighters on standby.
See, Jews, despite what the palestinians would have you think, DO have fully developed brains.
Wether the subject can feel pain or not is irrelevant. We're talking about self-awareness. An embryo does not have a brain. It can not think. It is not self aware. It is no more human than your sperm, so by your logic we could argue that you commit genocide every time you masturbate. I'd love to see Bush run on THAT platform.
Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of the human hands....committing mass-murder through self-pleasuring.
31 Jan 2006
C6gunner sues NYTimes for "reckless endangerment".
C6gunner, claiming that by releasing classified information during a time of war the New York Times has knowingly endangered the lives of not just Americans, but all residents of North America, has launched a class-action lawsuit demanding $10,000 for every individual legaly residing on the North American continent.
Whether the ammount requested was in Canadian or US currency was unclear.
Film at 11.
There's been plenty of debate on that already. The concensus - at least, amongst those actualy qualified to examine the controversy - has been that the president did nothing illegal. Even Wikipedia , which has a tendency to be left-leaning, states that "an actual evaluation of FISA reveals that the President does have the legal authority to order electronic surveillance without court order, even on conversations taking place between folks inside of the US and folks outside of the US".
Even if by some miracle you could show that what the government did was illegal, how does suing AT&T help? If the government DID do something illegal, then AT&T was a victim of fraud. If the government didn't do anything illegal, then neither did AT&T. Either way, the lawsuit is frivolous.
Arugments like these always give me a good laugh. I suppose if you live in a fantasy world, it makes perfect sense to assume that Oil Companies have large quantities of assasins looking to cap anyone who comes up with a fuel efficient car.
Meanwhile, in the Real-World (tm), basic economics dictates that anyone able to produce a more fuel efficient car with similar performance to todays models, or better yet a high-efficiency alternate-fuel vehicle with a convinient power-source, this person or comany would "make a killing" as it were. Just like in any other industry, providing the customer with better value for their money increases sales, thereby generating larger profits.
Back in fantasy land, the president of Exxon Mobile is currently issuing orders for the president of Ford to be disembowled because he had the nerve to increase fuel efficiency by 5 miles per galon.
Or rather, you got it part right:
"There was a time when engineers and trailblazers were popular heroes. But a lot of damage was done in the 1980s and 1990s"
so far, so good...
"when there was a culture of outright greed and everybody's dream was to be a fat-cat manager. Education reflected this, and children were trained to be capable pen-pushers, perhaps also possesing relational and organisational skills."
Easy there. No, the Freemasons are not out to get you, have some prozac.
Education has nothing to do with it. Popular figures, however, DO. Look at todays idols and icons. They're not trailblazers or inventors or engineers or explorers. They're singers, and movie stars; gangsters, thugs, alcoholics and drug abusers. When we glorify what - in any sane culture would be - the dredges of our society, what sort of impact do you expect it to have?
What the hell? Isn't there a "paranoid" category for moderating?
Maybe that's another sign of falling literacy rates. No kids, "insightful" and "paranoid" are NOT the same thing....
it'd explaint the socialist attitude. See, in Europe NTP would get loads and loads of money for doing nothing more than sitting on their asses. That's the idea behind socialism, right? "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his laziness".
Unfortiunately in our Evil Capitalist world, comapnies have to actually create something to make money. RIM did. NTP didn't. If the judges on the case have any common sense, they'll tell NTP to crawl back under the rock they emerged from.