This is crazy

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Highlander999
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Re: This is crazy

Post by Highlander999 »

I don't do politics!!! :-P

Actually I do now, as I got a letter today saying I can legally vote :D
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Re: This is crazy

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Halliburton didn't start the Iraq war. The stockholders are the owners of Halliburton, not Cheney. I could go on, but I don't think your assertion about Halliburton starting the Iraq war is a serious attempt at analysis. I think it's just convenient shorthand for some vague concept you have which you are not articulating. Remember that Democrats supported the war, and when it started the American people supported it. Those are rather inconvenient concepts to deal with, and they make the analysis difficult.

U.S. is not building the capacity to neutralize China or Russia nuclear capability, so your analogy is inapt.

My ROFLMAO is because you are talking about scaring people that suicide bomb all the time. I can't control his fear, but I can shoot down his missiles. I can't imagine how you think hoping he is afraid is safer than shooting down his missile.

The Soviet economy was not communist so it can't be the case that communism not working caused the collapse. The economy was owned and controlled by a small percentage of the whole population, and not by the people as a whole. Even Marx envisioned communism as a final destination, but one that would require non-communist intermediate phases which is at best what the Soviet Union was, but probably it was never on a truly communist path.
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Re: This is crazy

Post by rufio_eht »

[quote=""Cyclohexane""]In the event that China decides to mobilize it's 1.2 million man standing army against the U.S., I take some comfort knowing that we, at the present, have the ability to turn them into a crispy #42 with rice. [/quote]

if i hadnt read soccers post on texas terminology, i would say this is the funniest thing ive read in years. well said on the rest of the post as well.

i agree with you also on china indy.

soccer u make a good point that some of our summer of love european friends tend to overlook constantly.

i think we can probably survive without our generic meds, lead covered gi joe toys, and discount pillow cases.
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Re: This is crazy

Post by Soccerman771 »

[quote=""luukje""] We can all see what that got the US: an utterly aimless and useless war. [/quote]

I disagree whole-heartedly with this statement. This is not an utterly aimless and useless war. We freed people from tyranny and Saddam will never use chemical weapons on anyone ever again. Look at the past wars. The death toll is not even close. War happens. It has since the dawn of our existence and it always will. Take away the guns and we'd use rocks to kill each other. It's in our nature.

That being said, we need a missle defense system to keep people from TRYING to nuke the US. Why do people want us to do that to us? Why do governments plot against the US, Israel, and our allies?
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Re: This is crazy

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[quote=""rufio_eht""][quote=""Cyclohexane""]In the event that China decides to mobilize it's 1.2 million man standing army against the U.S., I take some comfort knowing that we, at the present, have the ability to turn them into a crispy #42 with rice. [/quote]

if i hadnt read soccers post on texas terminology, i would say this is the funniest thing ive read in years.

[/quote]

I find it sad that the funniest thing you've read in years makes light of butchering a million fellow human beings...but then again a million deaths is just a statistic.......
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Re: This is crazy

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id say if anything the biggest thing that irked me about what he said was the bit about banning the development of nuclear materials...that gets rid of a significant amount of energy production that is the most efficient to date.

for those who say that nuclear energy isnt safe, it is completely. most reactions are fusion reactions that are based of of heat. these heat reactions reach 1000's of degrees through inserting a electron or a neutron into the nucleus of a uranium-235 atom. most of the time the problem with a "melt down" (notice melt...high temps) is from the containment and control rods not being of a suitable material. additionally there has yet to an incident involving a melt down since Chernobyl and because of Chernobyl there are many evacuation plans that are mostly exagerated.

if a common fusion reactor broke down, the zone of radiation would only cover a 1-2 mile radius, would not affect the air or the water, presenting a much easier clean up than what is mostly assumed.

cutting funding for this would raise electric bills and force people to pay more for already increasing energy costs due to the dependency on fossil fuels, further on that, it would place an addition lets say 20% reliance on fossil fuels, increasing their cost and putting more fuel to the fire. it would enter us into a hole

cyclo correct me on my physics stuff, its not really fresh in my mind anymore lol

also im pretty sure that some part of NASA has a hand in everything technological that happens, considdering NASA has a job for everyone
Last edited by blayzer13 on Fri May 30, 2008 5:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: This is crazy

Post by Cyclohexane »

[quote=""IndyBrit""]@luukje,
I would cut NASA funding, and not research anything else. I don't view research as the job of the government.
[/quote]

[quote=""LaZy""] I also disagree with the cut in funding but dont think theres a direct return on investment.[/quote]

Call it an indirect return on investment if it makes you feel better. NASA (i.e. the tax payer) provides competitive contracts to small business that could not get funding by any other means. These small businesses then turn a profit which stimulates the economy. The majority of NASA is contractors, not underpaid civil servants. In the 50 years NASA has been in business, America has benifited greatly and helped shape the country into a world power. Not the role to research, invest, and educate? What about public schools? Also not the role?

There are literally thousands of spin off technologies in the areas of aerospace, medical, cryogenics, propulsion, power tools, etc. etc. It is too long to list, but I don’t have to, it is well documented (link below). Some very popular spin offs are wireless communication (for astronauts), wireless power tools (for astronauts), heart pumps (save thousands of lives), computer-chip miniaturization, batteries, aviation technology (also saving lives and benefiting transportation), etc.

How big is the cell phone market? How about computers? How about air planes? How about when you go to the doctor? I’m sure it would have been invented eventually, but NASA helped push it along. Don’t believe me, then read this database of articles published since 1976: Spinoff Database

I do believe it is the government’s job to protect its citizens. NASA does that by stimulating the economy directly and indirectly. Directly in a couple examples above and indirectly with educational outreach programs. How many children are inspired to become scientists, engineers, and astronauts because of NASA? Tough to say, but I know of three that live in my home (including myself). I prefer that over the American Idol craze…

Can you list any other company responsible for saving so many lives and benifiting the world economically and technologically? Any? How many private companies (or corporations) are going to make the investments required to get back to the Moon / Mars? Do you even realize how profitable a permanent presence on the Moon would be? Do you know that we have another lander searching for possible life on Mars that just landed last week? I guess these type things are not important to some polititians (or many small minded thinkers). Do you realize that Americans spend more money on beer and cigarettes than the NASA budget!

Science and education are the key to our future and until the government can make it economical for small businesses to go into space, no company is going to attempt it. NASA is providing funding right now as we speak to small businesses to help privatize the space industry.


One more thing to add, NASA is the smallest budget of any government agency already (about 17 billion comparred to the 40 billion war on drugs). If we do not do it, another country will. China is pushing their space programs and want to establish a lunar base in the next few decades. Don't think it's the governments responsibility to aquire resources for it's citizens? Space is full of them!


[quote=""luukje""] Why do you feel the need to be able to take on the rest of the world while you only have 2 neighbours, canada and mexico, who are not exactly military minded?[/quote]
Remember WWI and WWII?

[quote=""luukje""] Maybe, just maybe, Obama is talking about spending just a little less and not making the shareholders of the military industrial complex so happy? [/quote]
Maybe he is a liberal extremist secretly funded by oversea interests. I know that’s crazy, but the point is, we can’t deal in maybes.

[quote=""luukje""] Maybe a little less weapons on the world wouldnt hurt anyone? a weapon never made, cant be used. Look at all those conflicts being fought with cold war leftovers: somalia, congo, ...?
4. Dont you realise a missile shield frighten other states like Russia en China?
5. Weapons lead to war.
Im not saying, disarm. No you need firepower to back up your words. But US allready has got more guns then any other nation. Isnt enough enough?[/quote]

Weapons do not lead to war. Without weapons, we’d be killing each other with our bare hands. People lead to war and weapons are needed to fight against evil nations. I’d love to think that all people are generally good but I think people that believe that need to watch some WWII footage of German concentration camps. People are generally neutral . Their genes and environment determine the rest.

Unfortunately it is not enough for the reasons you listed. You invent a way to shoot down ballistic missiles and they come up with other techniques to deliver them. You invent the cannon, they invent the culverin. Get it?


[quote=""lordandcount""]By the way, why would China attack the US, it's even more devastating if they won't ship anything anymore to them (including money)[/quote]

I admit it, that was my knee-jerk reaction to listening to this moron. But do not underestimate China and do not get warm feelings of a dictatorship just because they are hosting the Olympics. Here is a good article:
China speeds pace of military buildup

There are thousands more like them if you do the research. It’s not the fact that China is building up a huge army, it is the fact that their governments human rights violations is atrocious and the government is a small group of powerful individuals. At least in America, there are still checks and balances. The war in Iraq was passed with a large majority of Congress. Liberals here make such a big deal over admittedly horrible civilian casualties. I agree, it’s horrible, but it is nothing in comparison. If you read the Art of War, China is doing exactly that. They are using American dollars via interest to build their military. Ironic…


[quote=""blayzer13""]id say if anything the biggest thing that irked me about what he said was the bit about banning the development of nuclear materials...that gets rid of a significant amount of energy production that is the most efficient to date.

...

cyclo correct me on my physics stuff, its not really fresh in my mind anymore lol

also im pretty sure that some part of NASA has a hand in everything technological that happens, considdering NASA has a job for everyone[/quote]

McCain has proposed building 100 new nuclear reactors in the US. Yes there are problems but they can be over come. Nuclear is definately one of the many different enegy techniques we should invest in (safe and environmentally friendly). It will take a number of things to get us off our dependence of foreign powers.

I'm not a nuclear engineer so I would have to research your questions, but I do know that it is theorized that Helium 3 (in the lunar regolith), could be used as a nuclear fuel. I would have to read more about this because it has been a long time, but yes, that is one more thing NASA engineers are looking into and no, NASA does not have it's hands in everything.
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Re: This is crazy

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I think St. Reagan gets way too much credit. Though he gave a good speech at the Berlin Wall in between his naps and funneling arms to Iran, Pink Floyd was a much better performance. In reality, Jimmy Carter did much more to destabilize the Soviet Union and it's hold on the Eastern Block. His reaction to the invasion of Afghanistan weakened the USSR and emboldened it's satellites to struggle towards freedom. On the other hand, Carter created the Rapid Deployment Force in order to project US power into the Middle East, which I thought was a mistake at the time because the US would eventually get entangled in war in that region.

It's well documented that The USSR's capabilities were also much overrated in the aftermath of it's fall, which some attribute to bad intelligence and others attribute to justifification for large military spending programs.

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Re: This is crazy

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@blayzer: Your physics is not quite right. We do not have producing fusion reactors, which would be virtually as innocuous as you say. However, nuclear power is very safe, and unfortunately Chernobyl has poisoned the watering hole, so to speak. Disposal of the spent fuel remains the greatest challenge. If you reprocess the fuel into military grade fuel, you greatly reduce the amount of really bad stuff, and you can use that military grade fuel for power instead of weapons. This is where Obama falls off a bit - but just because he doesn't really know anything. He mentioned NOT doing this, but I'm sure he said it without realizing the enormous practical benefits of reprocessing. I see that comment as very similar to Bush's regulating CO2 comment during the 2000 election. This is what we get since we don't elect scientists, or maybe they don't run.

@cyclohexane: Quite right - I would certainly kill public education - at the Federal level in any case. For maybe 7% of educational funding, the Feds grab 100% of the control - and screw it up as far as I'm concerned. People talk about an educated electorate being the key to a vibrant democracy. However, if the people are taught by the government, what will they learn except to perpetuate that government? To use an example some seem to sympathize with around here - would you trust Halliburton to train your children to be skeptical of Halliburton?

Did you ever notice that our middle and high schools, which are free, are middle of the pack (at best) in the developed world, but our universities - where students pay a much more significant fraction of the cost - remain the top institutions in the world?

Walk me through how a lunar base pays off. There would be spinoff technologies, no doubt, but even if we could pick up gold nuggets on the moon it wouldn't be worth it to ship them home. The spin off argument is weak, also. There is no question we have had spin off technologies, but where is the evidence that accidental byproducts of space projects are more efficient than directly researching better technologies? You still have the whole space craft to pay for, and many of the technologies, being designed for space, don't have much practical application here. We may be able to steer mineral-rich asteroids into the earth relatively cost-effectively, but who is going to play catcher?

"We spend more on beer and cigarettes than the NASA budget." Exactly. Space is not prohibitive for the private sector. There are offshore oil rigs that cost over $2 BB each. We can go to Mars for 5 offshore oil rigs, and have a Mars probe for maybe 1/4 offshore oil rig. Not exactly out of reach. If the offshoot technologies really did pay off, then GE or any other number of big companies would develop these projects and sell the offshoot technologies for a profit. We can't know if they would ever do this, though, because NASA preempts the field and ensures that only one model (governmental) will be attempted.
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Re: This is crazy

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[quote=""IndyBrit""]

We may be able to steer mineral-rich asteroids into the earth relatively cost-effectively, but who is going to play catcher?

[/quote]

LOL, Great idea! What could go wrong?

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Re: This is crazy

Post by blayzer13 »

well at least my point got across =D that removing the technology would be bad lol
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Re: This is crazy

Post by rufio_eht »

[/quote]

I find it sad that the funniest thing you've read in years makes light of butchering a million fellow human beings...but then again a million deaths is just a statistic.......[/quote]

I'm not quite sure I would call what i was referring to as butchering. what i was referring to would be what i perceived as the death of 1.2 million armed soldiers coming to kill me and my friends like you, Chris. I too find war quite disgusting in my better moments, and while I hold that no one is innocent, there are those, such as those with the intent to kill for gain or hatred, that I feel less worse about passing away than those who peacefully go about their lives.
Last edited by rufio_eht on Fri May 30, 2008 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: This is crazy

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[quote=""IndyBrit"] There is no question we have had spin off technologies, but where is the evidence that accidental byproducts of space projects are more efficient than directly researching better technologies?

i have a theory but i dont really want to say it here....never know who might be looking. message me in game sometime, i think its a pretty good theory.

ah too many movies, got me looking over my shoulder 8O

rofl
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Re: This is crazy

Post by rufio_eht »

[quote=""Macabee""][quote=""IndyBrit""]

We may be able to steer mineral-rich asteroids into the earth relatively cost-effectively, but who is going to play catcher?

[/quote]

LOL, Great idea! What could go wrong?

Mac[/quote]

we could kill two, maybe even three birds with one stone (no pun int) if we direct it at russia's miles of ice covering those massive oil deposits

man, i should be the next president, you guys can be my advisers since i couldnt have pulled this one out withoutchya.
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Re: This is crazy

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@ indybrit: You know what I mean but I just dont have the time to write down my thoughts as organised and articulated as you. Maybe in dutch I could.

I'm not saying halliburton started the war. But they were part of the George Bush SR en JNR inner circle. Where a combination of old Saddam grudge, persian gulf oil interests and a tendency to military action got you a war. An inner circle that jumped on the 9/11 events to start this war.

Yes maybe some democrats believed in the war because they were desinformed by your own intelligence agency or they just went with the flow. Yes armericans supported the war, but sometimes politicians have to look beyond that. In the 1930s France, the UK and the US population didnt want a war so politicians let Hitler get his way.

What have the US got out of the war? Freed a country from a dictatorship? There a dozens of countries with even worse regimes. Are you gonna take them all on? Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Kabila in Congo, Israel in Gaza, Syria, N.Korea?

What have Iraq got out of the war? They are in ruins, divided by religious and etnical differences. I would rather live in Iraq with saddam than in present Iraq where you dont know if the your neigbours wife is pregnant or carrying boms. Maybe in 20 years, maybe.... Just lets hope something changes.

Fear isnt important? Without fear for nukes we might have had WW3 about cuba in 1963. Maybe you think it isnt to neutralise China and Russia. But if you are chinese, you know N. Koera doenst have missiles to hit the US. Neither has Syria. Or Al Quada. But wait a minute, we have missiles that can hit the US....

You cant bring fear to suicide bombers. But they dont have ballistic missiles.

@soccerman: yes you are correct: humans are violent from nature. So lets not make to many weapons. I rather have a fist fight than two polical leaders fighting with strategic nuclear weapons. We are a violent race, so lets not make to many weapons.
It's just so crazy.

My neighbour has a knife, so I will buy a gun.
My neighbour has a gun, So I will need a bigger gun.
Ok then I will buy a bazooka.
Ok then I will buy a Tank.
Just crazy. More weapons doenst mean you are safer.

Yes you need to be able to defend yourself.

But The US are military wise head and shoulders above all the rest.
The whole discussion was about Obama questionning the level of military spending. Does it need to be that much. Not about putting all military in the trash can. Im pretty sure the US will remain the number 1 military force the next 20 years.

@cyclo: WWI and II were fought over here, not in your backyard. Yes, the US speeded up the end of WW I and who knows what would have happened in WW II. We would all be speaking german probably.

But read a bit further, Im not questionning the ability of the US to defend itself and even more, to be able to intervene in conflict zones.

So you must ask yourself: do you really believe Obama will deliberately weaken US military so China and co can take advantage of it. Do you really believe that's what he is saying. Or is he just talking about cutting a little budget from the overfunding by bush?
Or do you prefer a president that will obviously follow the george w. path and get you into another war is he feels that's the way to do it?

People are violent yes. But I rather have a leader that questions the need for thousands of cannons and culverins, than a leader that is interested in using those cannons and culverins.

Somebody mentionned your president Wilson, the guy who negiotated versailles as the type of leader you dont want. Well it was the french leaders that wanted to humiliate germany after WW1 and wrote a treaty that caused another WW. If only maybe they would have listened to wilson.

I dont have any trust in the leadership of China, thats true. But somehow, I put them on the same level of george w. I dont trust him either.

alawys nice discussing with you guys
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