David L

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• Commented on The language of alienation
  That's non-portable as it is; I have no idea what a "graduating senior" is, and on this land mass, a college is not a university (although if you're at one of a small number of universities you may be in...
• Commented on The language of alienation
  With all this, it's unclear whether it's worth going to college/university in the US, because in many fields you can get at least as good an education online, possibly for free, and it's becoming possible to get credit from your...
• Commented on Admin notice: server crash
  Any idea of the root cause? Just a nosey nerd being curious....
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  Until Russia, which proves to be a far more robust state and capable of mobilising far greater resources than anyone had imagined. It's amazing what a country can do if you have a large population and decide the only way...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  Had the Allies chosen to conquer Germany in 1918/19, and to accept only an unconditional surrender, then tens perhaps hundreds of thousands more soldiers and civilians on both sides would have died - but it might have prevented a second,...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  I very much doubt that Okinawa was the best representation of Japan that the US had. But you also can't apply Okinawa numbers to the whole of Japan. The invasion was to be in the south against one island initially....
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  Back to the original point of this post. While I can see a debate about the US keeping it's nuclear deterrent I see no real justification for boomers carrying 24x4 warheads on a patrol. This is just inertia....
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  Now, consider this: Litte Boy and Fat Man were the only two nuclear warheads in the US inventory; the next ones were months away, and the output would still have been a trickle. Ah, NO. I used to believe this...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  as for precision bombing, you do not do that with B-29s. They are not made for that. But you can with carrier-based bombers. In 1945, there were US carriers sailing so ridiculously close to Japan that USS "Franklin" was almost...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  Again, the Americans could read Japanese communications. Their lack of understanding of Japanese officials is just weird; I'm constantly amazed how people think that 20/20 hindsight should give the same results as "head of the moment" analysis. Especially between two...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  So, to answer about Japan, the Allies could have seated with the Japanese, carry out precision strikes to make points and obliterate the remaining assets of Japan Precision strikes were tried. They didn't work. Fighters could not escort bombers to...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  While I agree that racism isn't confined to the South, I think it's dishonest to say that southern politicians are simply mouthing what everyone feels. Try providing some evidence before smearing the rest of us with that, um, stuff. Okay?...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  well, the problem with albert speer is i wouldn't trust him as far as i could throw göring on his fat morphine junkie days. for starters, he was involved with the kz worker system and still said he knew nothing...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  Institutional racism: we have it. Maybe not on the level of the American deep south I don't know if you know it or not. The major regional differences in racism in the US were that in the south the...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  One good question is, what "should" the Japanese have done? Aside from not arranging for a treaty right after Pearl Harbor as Yamamoto had suggested, They SHOULD have launched the rest of the attack and bombed the fuel depot and...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  To understand the reason why, it is necessary to examin the origins of that myth of Western purity. I never ever have argued that the west was pure in any endevors. All I've felt is once you're in a war...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  I said: Whereas the US started the switch to all possible production to military needs around December 8th or 9th of 1941. You said: The US did not switch instantly to munitions production. We kept producing consumer goods while we...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  stating that the Hague Convention defines basic Human behaviour that one is not to dispense with on mere technicalities; apparently this is true for Germany but not the USA. Well since the allies one they got to define who was...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  It was more than just Spear not getting the needed resources. Speer simply didn't have the resources to effectively go anywhere with an atomic bomb project. There were several more or less independent German projects competing for what resources there...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  Regarding the end of the Second World War in the Pacific: the Japanese wanted to capitulate, i.e. negociate their surrender against some concessions from the Allies. To the Americans, this was unacceptable: they wanted Japan to surrender unconditionnally From everything...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  Understood, but here in the U.K. we have lots of this really excellent " Sea " stuff not far from the land and indeed we do have expertise in off shore installations of all kinds. But that was the point....
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  I would think it was part of anti-terrorist doctrine to find out *where the hijacked aircraft was* and send fighters to escort it. They didn't even manage to do that. Costs. Given the speed at which airliners fly the number...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  I hate to think what the US or Russian equivalent security forces are equipped with. AFAIK loaded M16s and bunkers near every entrance so they can shoot from protected positions. Of course the bunkers are ADA compliant due to federal...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  And to top it off the calutrons were a dead end and didn't really work at a practical level. :)...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  As to Germany vs. the US nuclear programs in WWII. The US decided to DO IT NO MATTER WHAT and the Germans didn't. The efforts at Oak Ridge, Hanford, and Los Almos were each in their own right incredibly massive...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  Let's remember, folks: the A-bomb is 1940s technology. But that translates into 10,000 pound bombs. It requires real smarts to make them small. And reliable. I imagine the only thing worse for NK than dropping a nuke on SK would...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  but does that situation still hold if you give up the weapons but retain(and maintain, and regularly review) the blueprints, the tooling, the procedures documentation, the training manuals etc, etc along with at least a core team with the practical...
• Commented on The Curious Experience of Middle Age
  Retirement, from what I've seen of it, looks boring. Sitting around in death's waiting room. Yep. My dad died a year after they found his spine and chest full of tumors from decades of smoking. He was 76. The summer...
• Commented on The Curious Experience of Middle Age
  At age 48 the whole middle-aged thing is looming very close in my rear-view mirror. Ahem. Just how far past 100 do you plan to live? At 59 in a week I have trouble with the though that I'm almost...
• Commented on PSA: Ignore the news
  As to following big even news when there's little real information. Pick a morning and evening news source. Catch them and ignore the rest. You'll be able to see what's new without hearing the few known details repeated endlessly....