StarDestroyer.Net BBS

good. we got obama! we also fucked up the chance of proper vaccine programs in Pakistan, but hey, that' won't kill people will it? I might keep track of the deaths from polio onwards, to see when we surpass the world trade center. Actually, according to the WHO the biggest problem with eradication ...

Personally, I suspect both countries are quite happy to have this tension to serve as a distraction and unifying factor internally. I just hope some poor conscripts don't get chewed up because of it, but there's a long tradition of wars to reduce 'bare branches' (young men without hope of marriage)...

Real doctors, etc. are not involved in executions in the US because it is viewed as unethical and a violation of professional norms. Any doctor or nurse involved in an execution in the US will have his or her license pulled and will probably never practice legitimate medicine ever again, even if th...

Regarding knife vs fist: Bruce Lee went on record stating that if he ever were to need to protect his life he'd take a gun over anything, from what I've heard. Formless is quite right about your odds against a knife when you have no weapon. Even if you have a knife against their knife you're probab...

Hm. Putting an algorithm into the Constitution seems a little strange. But maybe it shouldn't be. But that's kinda a separate issue, as it gets into the issue of constitutionality that arises from such questions as "If one person equals one vote, and peoples mean more than map lines or district...

- Term limits for the House and the Senate. Just to pull a number I'd say five for Reps and three for Senators. - Public funding for elections with a prohibition on outside money being spent. - Keep the Electoral College or something like it, but assign electoral votes in proportion to how the state...

My pet theory on that: a lot of it has to do with the increasing use of electronics, particularly integrated circuits. In your father's time (and mine), things like engine timing were controlled mechanically and could be adjusted with a good set of wrenches. Brakes were pretty much just cable runs a...

Not satisfied with the legal conclusion of the DOJ, the Obama administration found other in-house lawyers willing to declare a bomb dropped from a drone is not 'hostile'.

I have never felt Shroom's absence so keenly as I do right now.

Hey, what about a standing UN resolution about chemical weapons? A sort of "if you deploy X, Y, or Z then the response will be A, B, and C"? If everyone is so goddamned serious about not being the first to use this shit then they shouldn't mind such a thing, right? You launch chemical wea...

Opening for Kara Thrace and Her Special Destiny.

The problem I have with the budget is that it misses one of the biggest things I didn't understand when I entered the workforce: payroll taxes and how they affect take-home pay. In the US, each worker's share of Social Security and Medicare taxes is automatically deducted from their paychecks. So in...

That's a thought, actually. This popgun's just given governments an excellent excuse to ban 3D printers, which have the potential to break a lot of long-established business models and therefore cause a lot of very influential people to lose money. That's actually the scenario I worry about the mos...

The fear itself is relevant. I have literally no fear in my life of gun violence, or really any violence directed randomly toward me; I can either run away or punch people who don't have guns. This is because there are few guns suitable for crimes around. If any random sad face suddenly has access ...

Methinks Stark has a point. The simple fact is that America is pretty much swimming in guns, and if you want one you can probably get one that'll do better than a single .38 round, legally or otherwise. Even if we repealed the Second Amendment and went full-confiscation tomorrow that probably wouldn...

Glad they got the guy alive. I'd rather see him tried than dead, and I admit part of me really, really wants to know what this was all about.

Don't think 18 is old enough, fine, raise the minimum age of enlistment, don't send soldiers to die in a war when every chance to stop or start it was in someone else's hands. What was even worse was that, because of the way the Army chose to fight Vietnam, the typical soldier in that war was draft...

Unless the police say it in a new conference, I'd be real skeptical of any no source information appearing for a good many hours and days. Remember when 30,000 people were reported dead at the World Trade Center? Yeah, I'm not even repeating anything until I see it somewhere solid. I'd expect suspi...

Are you joking? Tax day would have a great deal of significance to a radical conservative. Of course we don't know that's who was behind this. But it certainly could have significance. No mate, I wasn't joking. I just don't know that much about the intricacies of US politics and society, I'm afraid...

Shit. That's my hometown. Now I'm really hoping my friends decided to give the 'thon a miss. :-/

North Korea can't count on support from China. The PRC is backing away from the DPRK like a tourist from an angry rhino. Russia wouldn't help them at all 'cause they know what happens when you mess with the USA. Also, China doesn't want to risk us cutting off our trade with them. You're looking at ...

All very informative Skimmer! What would it take for Japan to make pre-emptive missile-strikes on North Korean missile positions? A complete reversal of nearly 70 years of strict, non-interventionalist, self defence Japanese policy, to say nothing of them committing political suicide in the Asian r...

Found an interesting analysis at this site that suggests at least one of the sites is exclusively an SSM site. Point taken though. Granted, it's a primitive ABM capability, but the threat they're facing also has pretty primitive missiles, so I suppose it balances out. The Norks still have some H-5 b...

Ack, I thought Block IV had made it into limited production. Thanks for the correction Skimmer.

And thanks for the maps. But you've gotta be kidding me- the ROK still has Nike Hercules in service?

When considering matters ABM-related it's actually better to think in terms of delta-V budgets rather than ranges. The SM-3 was used to shoot down a satellite, but that was with the ship more or less shooting straight "up" at the target. The more of your energy budget you use for horizonta...

Not surprised at all by the above. There's a reason Japan's been the #3 anti-missile spender in the world for quite a while now (behind the US and Israel). They're all too aware of just who's downrange from Pyongyang, and they're going to be watching the trajectory on that missile veeeeeery carefull...