Blowing a sizable satellite that's in a well-tracked orbit into small chunks that could go into orbits already populated by other satellites doesn't sound so smart to me.
The satellite is already falling out of orbit. If you smash it to pieces, the pieces will continue to fall out of orbit.
The original Chinese test was widely interpreted IIRC as an implicit threat against the military use of GPS
Unlikely. Anti-satellite missiles only reach altitudes equivalent to Low Earth Orbit -- from the edge of space to 2000 km. GPS satellites are an order of magnitude higher, around 20,000 km. You can shoot down an object in LEO with a missile that doesn't achieve orbit itself, but I doubt you can do so with MEO.
Barring a perfect intercept (and the resultant fallout of our doing what we yelled at China for doing, and pissing off more people as we try to tell the world [by our deeds] that we keep two sets of rules),
The Chinese hit a satellite in orbit, which means that's where the debris are going to stay. The US is planning to hit an object falling out of orbit, which means the debris will continue to fall to Earth (the missile doesn't have enough KE to knock anything to a stable orbit), only in smaller pieces that will burn up upon reentry. Completely different animals.
I don't know why you guys are arguing with Sean about minorities when it's already been done all over the stfnal newsgroups.
"All over"? I've been posting to Usenet for eleven years, and your link shows a grand total of ten posts:
-Two discussing whether Star Wars was racist (I said yes)
-One response to James Nicoll lamenting the state of Canadian politics, in which I jokingly compare it to Zimbabwe.
-One in which I correct James' claim that the black lady on "Lost" has mystical powers.
-One music discussion in which I criticize RATM for their Free Mumia stance.
-One in which I say I'm against the death penalty because it's applied disproportionately against minorities.
-One about a news story involving suburban parents not wanting to name a school after Martin Luther King because they think only inner-city schools are named after him.
-A debate about Iraq.
-One discussion of affirmative action in the Star Trek universe where I point out US immigration policy (under Clinton, mind you) was more liberal than in the 19th Century.
-A post in which I explain to someone that the FBI used to consider involvement in the civil rights movements subversive.
@Teresa: Please, explain to me how the Democrats are a good party -- not merely better than the Republicans, but actively good. If you think I'm too stupid to understand, please, feel free to use little words.
Frankly, I find it a bit counterintuitive that someone who has the strained right-wing talking point on the voter identification case at their fingertips isn't fully aware of what the arguments are on the other side.
Unresponsive. I repeat: How do voter-ID laws disenfranchise minorities. The poor I can understand, but poor=/=minority.
But I would like to ask you... do you have any concerns about McCain being able to, over the next eight years, appoint Supreme Court Justices along the lines of Alito and Roberts?
No, actually I don't. The Dems are almost certainly going to expand their control of the Senate this year to the point that anyone McCain appoints will have to be a compromise candidate. They'll have that margin for at least two years, and all the way to the next Presidential election if they don't screw up royally. If the liberal justices resign within that period, the court shouldn't shift significantly to the right, and if Scalia resigns in that time, it could even move closer to the center.
@Xopher: If you want me to take your arguments seriously, stop using childish phrases like "Rethuglican". It makes you sound like Rush Limbaugh.
Justices Alito and Roberts are confidently expected to provide the margin of victory for requiring federal ID in order to vote, effectively disenfranchising not a few people, disproportionately old and minority, in response to a "threat" of fraudulent voting which the government has conceded hasn't resulted in any actual fraudulent voting.
You mean the case brought by a woman registered to vote in two states?
Also, how does requiring an ID inconvenience minorities?
And yet your purported future vote treats them that way.
I don't shop at Wal-Mart because the merchandise is shoddy. I don't shop at Best Buy because the merchandise is overpriced. Are you saying that I'm treating them as though there's no difference between them?
No, you're a horrible person for supporting the collective and demonstrated incompetence, greed, ignorance, viciousness, and arguable evilness that makes up the current controlling political party, the Republicans.
Yes, saying that I'll consider voting for a Republican who is broadly disliked by the conservative base of the party is an endoresment of the party.
Hmm, this is clearly a really stupid strategy, but since it's taking your vote away from Romney, not from Clinton or Obama, I guess I encourage you to do so. I generally object to people uselessly discarding their votes, but since yours is clearly a Republican vote, my heart isn't in telling you not to.
Don't jump to conclusions. I'm philosophically a libertarian and not registered with any political party. I've never voted for a Republican in a Presidential election (I did vote McCain in the 2000 primary, and Dean in 2004).
And the claim that people are throwing away their vote if they go for a third party candidate is pure sophistry. Unless you live in a swing state, your vote doesn't make a bit of difference anyway. By your logic, I'd be throwing away my vote even if I went for Clinton or Obama because there's no chance either of them will win Virginia.
I was going to say that there aren't words to describe how wrong you are, but it occurs to me that there is indeed such a word: "privileged". You don't seem to have the misfortune to belong to any of the unprivileged groups who see the difference very clearly; none of those things affect YOU, so of course there's no difference.
I would greatly appreciate it if you ceased putting words in my mouth. Nowhere have I ever said that there's no difference between the Democrats and Republicans. They are quite different. And they're both equally wrong, and their policies have the effect of screwing people over, even if in completely different ways. I'm willing to give McCain a chance because I think he'll screw people over within acceptable tolerances.
Furthermore, you're willing to sell the birthrights of your fellow citizens for a mess of ideology. Ptui.
Yes, I'm a horrible person for not supporting your candidate. That argument is really going to win me to your side.
"Bomb bomb Iran" McCain? Wingnut.
I don't see that as significantly different from Reagan joking, "The bombing starts in five minutes." Now, if you want to tell me Reagan was a wingnut, go ahead, but don't expect me to take you seriously.
Surely, this time around, everyone will recognize that there are differences that matter between the Democrats and the Republicans?
Yes, they disagree about the best way to screw us over. The fact that one party might possibly maybe screw us over less than the other isn't a compelling reason to vote for them.
Now the fact that the Republicans look to be nominating someone who isn't a complete wingnut could tempt me to vote for McCain, but if it's Romney vs Clinton or Obama, I'll choose a raving loon like Nader.
Given that Onion stories have been picked up by legitimate news media before -- there was a case a few years ago where they did a story about Congress wanting to install a retractable dome on the Capitol, which got picked up by the Chinese press -- I don't think it's entirely stupid to warn people that it's a joke.
Just how bad is Huckabee? Even hardcore conservatives are saying they'd rather see Hillary Clinton as President.
Because we all know that polls about hypothetical matchups taken in January are accurate reflections of actual matchups in November.
I wouldn't predict a Democratic victory until we see what Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and Hannity can do to the nominee.
Maybe you should switch to the #1 ISP in the nation -- Linksys.
Don't worry, I'm sure Tucker Carlson will spend his entire show tomorrow talking about what a great showing Paul had, and chiding everyone for ignoring him.
The Department of Education was created in 1979.
You are technically correct (the best kind of correct). However, what happened in 1979 wasn't the creation of a brand new department but a reorganization of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (which was created in 1953) into two departments, Health & Human Services, and Education.
The whole 'he's a liberal republican' logic has been a head-scratcher to me ever since I learned his position on abortion.
Libertarian Republican. Completely different animal.
A textual clue that Dumbledore was gay: his favorite candies are sherbet lemons ("lemon drops" in the American translation).
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2008 | 17 |
| 2007 | 3 |
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