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BIG HORNY COW posted:VX is just about as bad as it gets. An aerial bombing or artillery barrage has the potential to kill several thousand people in a very short time. So do regular bombs, especially in crowded areas.
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Dec 4, 2012 01:31
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The nature of how they kill is what makes them WMDs, it's not the mere body count. That's what I'm saying. You just want to kill people, you drop a bunch of bombs. You want to terrorize your victims you use chemical weapons. Randarkman posted:EDIT: Also I doubt a gas mask or chemical protection overalls are common possessions for a Syrian household, and I also doubt that many are properly trained to put one on quickly and correctly enough to survive an attack. I also don't know if the improvised gas masks used by WWI soldiers (piss on a rag wear it over your face) would do much good, or if people would be able to think of it fast enough. And none of them have fuckin' bomb shelters or "survive buried under the rubble of a building" masks. Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Dec 4, 2012 |
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Dec 4, 2012 02:01
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Exactly. Using chemcial weapons when you already have conventional weaponry is nothing more than a way to be even more evil about your killing. You do it because you want people to suffer. You do it to terrorize. They're about the cruelty.
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Dec 5, 2012 02:38
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Young Freud posted:Kinda like "fagot", which was used for the Russians' guided anti-tank missile. Which is also a valid word that didn't become exclusively a slur until a while after.
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Dec 13, 2012 07:10
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Exploding a bomb with unprocessed Uranium in it is going to do little to make the area radioactive, most of it is just going to be a problem because it's a somewhat poisonous heavy metal. If they're able to make some plutonium out of it first then yeah that could start causing issues but even then it's actually relatively easy to deal with unless you have a whole lot. Deploying chemical weapons is a far more likely and damaging thing in this case.
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Jan 9, 2013 21:48
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Muffiner posted:I still don't understand how that phone's compass is working correctly while sitting on so much iron. Just having a lump of iron around isn't enough, it must be magnetized to really interfere with a compass.
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Feb 25, 2013 22:05
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Chronojam posted:A lot of developing nations have widespread mobile phone use. The US is in a weird situation with fractured networks and decades of inertia to overcome regarding cell phone service. There is nothing weird about having multiple networks or anything else really. And i don't know what inertia you're talking about but there's a few million more active mobile phone subscriptions in the US than there are people plus smartphones and regular cell phones are about average affordability globally.
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Feb 25, 2013 22:40
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Radbot posted:Uh, did I express surprise that the primitives were using technology? No. I was surprised that they were using a top-of-the-line smartphone in one of the more impoverished places on Earth. Kinda like I'd be surprised seeing a technical made out of a 2012 BMW M5. Those things go for about $250 used in that condition. Even less depending on where you look, especially over in the mideast.
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Feb 25, 2013 23:54
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Radbot posted:I know you're just being contrarian like always, but please feel free to show me a link where I can buy that for $250. A scratched up Galaxy S III? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-Gal...=p2047675.l2557 There's one that sold for $120. For a fully working one with working touch screen although the display is cracked. And the cracking doesn't really matter to using it in these situations. It's not exactly hard to find one of the best selling smartphones of 2012 for cheap as long as you're willing to accept cosmetic damage.
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Feb 26, 2013 00:03
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Yeah no food that has an expiration date is really unsafe to eat on that date.. they have to be stamped a good deal ahead of when they go bad for safety reasons.
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Mar 15, 2013 02:47
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Charliegrs posted:Yeah you are exactly right. However, in the US we have never had an actual Christian government so its hard to say what it would be like. Most of the colonies were explicitly Christian and of a specific denomination at that, and furthermore throughout the 19th century a lot of states were de facto Christian governments, because seperation of church and state wasn't taken very seriously at all.
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Mar 17, 2013 05:12
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Brown Blitzkrieg posted:subservience to your white masters and willingness to go into vat for them. You bring shame on all people of colour. I honestly can't tell if you're trolling here.
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Mar 30, 2013 03:16
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GreenCard78 posted:Not having read the Qu'ran or most of either testaments, I'm surprised that's the case. It makes perfect sense though.
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May 13, 2013 04:33
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vickser posted:What is the generational/age breakdown of Turkey? It seems that the country's young population is so secular a lot of this is probably due in part to what they feel like is an oppressive society. Just today hundreds in Ankara held "kissing protests" in defiance of PDA moralism.  Here ya go. The CIA World Factbook is a great source for this kind of data. For comparison purposes:   
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Jun 2, 2013 01:53
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Vladimir Putin posted:I don't see what the endgame is here. If its true that Erdogan has been democratically elected, it would be absolute chaos to overthrow him. Most countries that are democracies simply wait for unpopular leaders' term to be up and then vote in somebody new. That's how the exchange of power is supposed to work. Either that or the person steps down. It's a parliamentary democracy, Erdogan wasn't elected to his position, he's simply the Prime Minister and as such could step down in favor of someone else in the ruling party, or a vote of no confidence could be held, and so on. Anyone know if the current Deputy Prime Minister is also a jerk?
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Jun 3, 2013 19:13
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Zengi posted:This comes up again and again but there is nothing preventing other parties from doing the same. In fact in the last elections CHP promised straight up cash to people. Why havent their votes ballooned? When the poorest classes are favoring a conservative ultra capitalist over "social democrat" parties maybe it is time for the social democrats to engage in a little introspection, no? My understanding of the situation is that Erdoğan's party, "Justice and Development Party", actually organized local volunteers across the rural areas of Turkey to give out actual food or coal; essentially like a big charity thing. Think of it like if someone who was running for mayor in your city organized people to give everyone in the city 3 days worth of groceries and a few gallons of gas. Meanwhile the other parties just said they would give people cash, but I don't think they ever did it upfront. One of those is way more likely to get people to like you then the other, obviously. Here's an article that mentions coal distributions: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2009/0105/p06s01-wogn.html Here's someone's thesis paper that mentions "free coal, free food, and free primary school textbooks": http://www.academia.edu/2071712/Intellectual_Hegemony_of_Justice_and_Development_Party_in_Turkey_A_Gramscian_Perspective Essentially, the party pays for ongoing charity things like this.
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Jun 3, 2013 23:13
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Vladimir Putin posted:Yes, but was it explicitly a quid pro quo? If not then the charge of 'buying votes' really doesn't have merit. I'm just explaining what the party actually did, and also what the other parties supposedly tried to do. The interesting thing is that the ruling party has continued to provide the free coal/food/textbooks stuff entirely through the party, instead of passing legislation to have it handled by the government as a whole. I don't know about you, but I'd think that would come off a lot less suspicious to a lot of people.
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Jun 3, 2013 23:57
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Best Friends posted:If poo poo is so hosed that people can get bribed by coal, a meal, and schoolbooks for their kids, that would in a sane situation offer tremendous potential for gaining votes in democratic means by promising to alleviate that poverty. Instead, it seems like all the anger is directed at the bribes, rather than the poverty enabling the bribes. Within Turkey, it seems a lot of the anger at the party's policy is directed at the fact that after doing those handouts on a constant basis for the past 2 or 3 election cycles, there's still no laws or directives from the government that actually solve the problems that necessitate the handouts. Which would also help all the poor folks who that party isn't providing aid to.
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Jun 4, 2013 03:17
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VikingSkull posted:I have to wonder if the PKK calming down in Turkey is just a way to position forces for something else. Turkey is clearly the strongest country in the region, and the other countries' weaknesses means they have a very reasonable shot of getting their own country finally, likely as a result of the demolishing of archaic post WWI borders. It's not even really a question of force or taking it by military means either. Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Jun 6, 2013 |
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Jun 6, 2013 04:24
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Libluini posted:Holy poo poo, 2,5% of our optical fiber cables came out of Egypt? I'm honestly surprised. There's hopefully a lot of growth left in that and other, related fields. Egypt could become our refuge if China ever decides to stop building our computer parts! That's "2.5% of Egypt's exports are optical fiber cables" not "2.5% of fiber optic cables used in any one country or the world at large are from Egypt".
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Jul 4, 2013 18:09
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LP97S posted:It's amazing how many people do not realize this, I mean the whole economic plan was basically "Free markets for ever!" which is why I'm perplexed at why so many Republicans (US) hated them. "Muslim Brotherhood" might as well be "Nazi Communists" to your typical Republican.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:28
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For people unaware about the situation of Western Sahara: And this is a satellite image of the area, for comparison when you're considering what the walls are enclosing:  "Useful Triangle" is the Moroccans' term, because it's the area of WS with the most resources, and also the most population and infrastructure as of 1982 - the Moroccans have brought in settlement and infrastructure to further coastal areas as they enclosed more of the territory, though most remains in that "triangle". Most of those settlements interior of the coast are well under 10,000 people. Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Jul 8, 2013 |
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Jul 8, 2013 00:35
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The Biggest Jerk posted:The thread about ramadan in the general forums brings up a question that I've always wondered but forgot to ask. For people in conflict zones like Syria or with all that people that need the energy for stuff like protesting etc., is it generally ok to not fast during ramadan? Religious fasting always has exceptions for exigent circumstances.
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Jul 9, 2013 02:15
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It's not like redirecting our Egypt Military Aid payment this year to Egypt Civil Aid wouldn't still be going to the military after all.
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Jul 9, 2013 21:23
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I believe I've seen reports before about the proceeds of ongoing insurance fraud scams being used to finance terrorists, as well as financing other criminal schemes.
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Jul 19, 2013 00:55
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Regardless of how much oil is actually there, Australia needs to build up the infrastructure and industry to start tapping it and most importantly to export it, before it will really affect the global oil market and have real consequences for middle east petrostates.
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Jul 22, 2013 15:38
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ReV VAdAUL posted:Whereas in America people living in bad areas or in lovely conditions have all sorts of ways to live somewhere better such as They don't have to directly trade living locations with someone in the area they're moving to. You can, for example, move to Chicago from Milwaukee without having to find someone from Chicago to move to your place in Milwaukee.
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Jul 24, 2013 20:24
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Ardennes posted:Assuming you are able to find an affordable safe place to live if your poor. The current system guarantees housing for people in Cuba, they can't be evicted like the United States. Getting "a bigger/better place to live" is a luxury compared to providing enough housing for everyone. Affordability or safety is irrelevant. Cuba does have slums and bad parts of town too. It should not be the responsibility of the dude who wants to move elsewhere in Cuba to find someone else to take his place where he is now, the government should just take care of that for them. Ideally with a system where new places simply get openings and you don't have to guarantee that the guy in Havana need move to your place in Cienfuegos. Because perhaps there is someone in Holguin who wants to move to Santa Clara, and there's someone in Santa Clara who wants to move into your place in Cienfuegos and the dude in Havana is looking to move to Holguin - you see?
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Jul 24, 2013 21:03
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Ardennes posted:I think the point is to make sure all housing is maximized and if someone moves from Santa Clara without someone to replace him, you suddenly have a vacant place in Santa Clara. There needs to be creation of public housing in high demand areas (probably Havana) but by allowing people to just leave their housing from elsewhere predictable problems of under supply in high demand areas. You say that the "government should take care of it" but what is the government going to do? Force someone from their house in Havana to live in Santa Clara at gunpoint because the Santa Clara guy wanted to move? Like I said, more public housing is the solution but Cuba clearly as a revenue issue because of the embargo even though they are desperately trying to get around it through tourism (ie hotels). Like I said, it's as simple as having people register their intent to move from place A to place B and then when there's proper opening they get allowed without it having to be getting someone from place B to move to place A. Becuase there's probably other demand for B to C and C to A and it all works out fairer. The situation I described where you essentially have 5 people who could all be served by shifting one over, but none of them wants to move to the place of the person who's moving into theirs for example. It doesn't involve any need to force people out of their homes, and doesn't result in vacated premises going to waste either. It's not like undersupply doesn't already exist. The "you must directly swap with someone symmetrically" system is all well and great as a solution for Cuba in its early years when things were really in the shitter and there wasn't the capability to match up people for multi-way swaps. But Cuba is actually doing pretty well these days and could implement it, if I remember right the Soviet Union even had a similar thing figured out for moving around workers who wanted a transfer.
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Jul 24, 2013 22:18
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McDowell posted:Isn't there increasing scientific skepticism about polygraphs? But because the technology is so well established the psuedoscientific component is handwaved? Polygraphs were ruled too unreliable to be admissible in court decades ago. They do record a bunch of stuff correctly, but they have little to no use in really determining if someone's lying, other than that hooking someone up to them can trick them into thinking they'd be found it. It's kinda like arresting two guys, and telling the one you interrogate that the other guy already told all he knew - even though he hasn't spoken yet. You might pull something out you wouldn't otherwise.
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Aug 2, 2013 02:01
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TheBalor posted:The US generally seems to love the idea of technological magic-bullet solutions to problems. See how we develop byzantine systems like PRISM instead of cultivating serious human intelligence. Er, PRISM is just "ask other people to hand us stuff they already have". It's possibly the least complex system in the current US intelligence system.
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Aug 2, 2013 23:33
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President Kucinich posted:
There's currently very little any other group could offer to splits from it.
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Aug 14, 2013 19:20
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-neutrino- posted:Not that I am an expert, but not enough food/fuel is the definition of instability, though it can happen for other reasons. Uh, no, not enough fuel/food is a tragedy but has no inherent unstability for the regime and country at large.
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Aug 20, 2013 06:07
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Just The Facts posted:Isn't Syria's AA network fairly good even without the newer systems from Russia? A fairly good AA network isn't going to do poo poo against massively overfunded Western militaries with plenty of missile support, if that's what you're asking.
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Aug 21, 2013 21:21
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I wonder if the US would dare enlist Israel to spearhead a joint invasion with Turkey.
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Aug 24, 2013 01:21
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New Division posted:Everyone who becomes president pretty much instantly decides the War Powers Act doesn't apply to them, even if they criticized executive initiated wars in the past. It's one of the dark powers of the office. Well, it basically doesn't apply because any attempt to enforce it would probably end with it destroyed in court. It's all around not quite thought out.
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Aug 24, 2013 01:48
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Just voting that intervention would be ok does not require the UK to commit forces.
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Aug 30, 2013 03:16
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Tezzor posted:Again, it's baffling to see this stated as just a fact of life and not something outrageous and damning. The President is not above the law, he is in violation of it. The President has no right to ignore acts of Congress that override his veto. The President is a criminal who is skirting the law. You can't be in violation of an illegal, unenforceable, unconstitutional law which everyone in power is fully aware is all of those things. The WPR is a symbolic statement, and would probably have been better off passed as a non-binding opinion resolution. It would require a full on constitutional amendment to make a WPR that could actually take effect, in much the same way that the Establishment of an Established State Church would also require an amendment.
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Aug 31, 2013 16:34
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FBH991 posted:And? Nuclear weapons are an old technology now. The bar is going to steadily lower to have them. I for one would prefer that most states not feel that they're one riot away from US invasion, because the obvious counter to this is to get a nuclear bomb. In all honesty having a single nuclear bomb isn't going to be enough to protect you from invasion. Especially if you don't also have a delivery system capable of getting it to the US mainland. If one looks back at the history of what countries have ever had nuclear weapons it goes like this: United States with allied nations: France, United Kingdom, Israel, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Turkey, South Africa Soviet Union with successor nations who still had them for a time after collapse: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine China India & Pakistan - where India isn't exactly an ally of the other 3 major powers, but isn't an enemy; and where Pakistan became an erstwhile ally of the US before they gained nuclear capability And the odd man out of North Korea (which doesn't have any way to actually deploy poo poo and whose bombs apparently just barely managed to work in tests) -Troika- posted:Iran's not after a bomb. The technologies they're currently pursuing are sufficient to make reactor-grade materials only-- they have no real plutonium production capability. I believe the report is that North Korea's successful bomb test involved a uranium bomb... but it was obviously not really movable at all.
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Sep 1, 2013 20:37
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FBH991 posted:
Wrong. North Korea's bomb doesn't deter us in any way because they do not even have the capability to get the bomb over the fence to South Korea, let alone anywhere else. China's the one who's really holding people back from doing stuff in North Korea, and that's mainly because they don't want to deal with North Korean refugees (South Korea doesn't have to worry about that so much, since there's that whole land mine filled potential death strip serving as the border). FBH991 posted:Most of those didn't need their own nukes because they were under the umbrellas of other powers. I'm not quite sure what your point is ont his part. The reason no country with a nuke has been invaded has a shitload more to do with the fact that every last one who's had one so far was either a superpower/ great power themselves, or were closely allied with one of them. Even North Korea is still nominally under China's "protection" despite that particular relationship souring over time. A country with one nuke or only a few nukes is a dangerous thing that anyone with a lot more can feel free to invade in the name of security, assuming it doesn't have big friends behind it. It's when that country gets enough nukes to have credible MAD that it stops being an invasion target. Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Sep 1, 2013 |
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Sep 1, 2013 20:57
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