Sturgeon

Again. I'm not going to defend or attack Chris Kyle. The umbrage I take is this comment. "When you go "volunteer" military, you actually get the dregs for the most part" which is rather demonstrably untrue considering that most recruits are high school graduates who come from suburban and rural locales who then use their GI Bill to go on and get a college education, learn a trade or settle down to raise a family after their enlistment is up.
 
Nor do I disagree that there are individuals in the military who are "neo-Nazis". In a governmental bureaucracy that employs hundreds of thousands of individuals, there are bound to be some bad apples that slip through. Hell, they let a damn radical Muslim shoot up Fort Hood, for Christ's sake. So how many neo-Nazis are in the military? One? Four? A dozen? A hundred? Statistically that number falls rather well below the "Dregs for the most part" number. 
 
I also keep track of hate groups on the Southern Poverty Center website and "for the most part", these are organizations that are marginalized and irrelevant and who are lucky if they are able to scrape together a dozen guys to hold a "parade" or hand out flyers. That these groups somehow then have the wherewithal to infiltrate the U.S. military in a Hydra-like plot where "most" of those who serve are secretly neo-Nazis who are one order away from staging a military revolt stretches the imagination.
 
But who knows? Maybe this is actually the case. But given the absurdity of the claim, it behooves the person making that assertion to back it up. And I'm talking more than just a a book whose sole source seems to be a dude who has some pictures of a bunch of guys in their early 20s acting stupid.
 
I hate using the term Occam's Razor but in this case it seems rather more likely that there are a group of folks with a political leaning opposite that of the majority of troops who enlist and who have little actual real contact with military culture. And given that the majority of those who enlist come from congressional districts that are conservative or at least lean Republican, it's no wonder that a large number of (rich) liberals in New York or San Francisco have a loathing of the military and its culture. At any rate, is far easier to throw around terms like "racist" when confronted with someone who has a different opinion.
 
I suppose the real question is why more liberals don't enlist in the military? 

I saw it.  Wasn't overly impressed. Was hollywooded up a bit more than I would have liked. Does draw attention to the abysmal treatment of american vets returning home, so there is that.  How western countries treat returning combat troops is shameful.  Probably my single biggest beef with the Harper Gov't is how they have completely and utterly failed our vets coming home from 'stan.  I view it as a national disgrace and a violation of the covenent between service memebers and the government. 

And yet we tend to want to argue when our emotions are touched by a topic...
 
I'm going to second the call for proof of some sort to back up assertions (unless you are explicitly providing something as a personal opinion and therefore expecting it to carry no persuasive value), but will also call to extend this approach to the wider discourse.
 
We should not be afraid to have our ideas and assertions tested by others: only bad ideas fail when they get hammered on a bit. We should also try to be patient with each other. It can take a lot of effort to understand a position you do not agree with, because our ape brains seem to be wired to think that understanding an idea is the same as endorsing it.
 
I'm inviting Zin to have another go, here. And not just because I've made some of the same arguments myself

Wow, things getting a bit intense here.  In Zinegata's defense, there does seem to be some legitimate controversy regarding Chris Kyle.  Since he wrote a book and put himself out there as a public figure, he is fair game.  As to the bigger issue of US troops and the volunteer army, I really don't have much to say.  I know some really amazing people that have served, and some that are not so impressive.  So in that regard it's not much different than most other organizations.  I have a friend that served from the late 90's until 2006.  He is a very sharp guy, recently ran for city commissioner (he lost, unfortunately).  I asked him once about the quality of the individuals in the US Army.  He said that in the late 90's when he started, it was pretty high.  He then said that by the time he left in 2006, they were, and this is an exact quote "letting in mutants." So there you go.

Chester isn't taken to "Cowboy Action Shooting" competitions where fat idjits in cowboy hats treat grandpa's lever gun like a squad automatic weapon. Nor do I try to hand-load rounds that are on the cusp of its tolerance. Nor do I live in a swamp with Yoda.
 
Quarter of a century and everything seems good.

This is Chester. He is my first rifle which I got on my fourteenth birthday. He is a Winchester Ranger Model 94 chambered in 30-30. For years I dreamed about having a Winchester rifle, looking longingly at the printed advertisements in the Big-5 flyer that came in the mailbox once a week, tracing my finger of the pixilated photo that advertised Chester for just $199.99.
 

 
He has been with me on multiple adventures including each of my trips up to Bristol Bay, every hunting trip, my honeymoon and multiple instances when something went bump or howl in the night.
 
After nearly a quarter of a century that he's been with me, I can think of few circumstances where Chester wouldn't be more than a match for what I'd need to ask of him.
 
Also Bonus Book-aki 

Going to see them in May, actually.

Now wait for it to become a breed standard and for the BLOOD PURITY to begin.

This is the first time I've seen someone asian associated with the phrase "heavy beard".

So I'm the kid who was in high school in and around the Seattle area who didn't really care about grunge. I mean yeah, some of the songs are OK and Nirvana came from Aberdeen and whatnot. But what was annoying was all of the out-of-state grunge fans who moved to Seattle and started messing with the way things were. Worse they stayed. Worse yet, they made Seattle "cool" which attracted the rich Californians looking for cheap real estate after they had swindled their investors in some dot.com. Worse they stayed. Worse yet they started hiring hipsters and white collar douches to work at these companies, driving up real estate even more, clogging the highways, paving over and destroying all the good old places and making Seattle totally lame.
If I could go back in time, I would show Kurt Cobain the destruction that he helped bring upon Seattle. Or perhaps, someone already did travel back in time but got there five years too late.
*A shotgun blast is heard*
*Roll credits*

Welp, if I don't post it, colli will:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTNp6L8Zd9I#t=667

Mostly proof that 7.62x39 is not a great round for full auto fire, actually.
 
Also, Brandon Novotny is a very cool guy, very ernest and easy to talk to. I do think their MK 47 will find a place in the market. It's different from other AK-magazine using non-AK rifles in that it is properly set up to accept AK mags. Most other rifles do not have the proper support in the magwell, but the MK 47 does.

GIB BUK ME

I hate peasant journalism so much.
 
In the entire article they make literally three correct claims:
 
1)  That thorium MOX has a higher melting point than UO2
2)  That thorium MOX has a higher thermal conductivity than UO2
3)  That there is a company in Norway called Thor Energy that is using thorium MOX in reactors.
 
Literally everything else they say is wrong.
 
Thorium 231 is not fissile.  While it's true that fissile isotopes are usually odd-numbered, not all odd-numbered actinide isotopes are fissile.
 
Obviously, thorium MOX does not "do away with uranium" BECAUSE THORIUM HAS TO BE BRED INTO URANIUM 233 IN ORDER TO PRODUCE FISSION AND I WILL KEEP SAYING THIS OVER AND OVER UNTIL THE FILTHY, MUD-LOVING FILTHY PEASANT SCUM IN THE POP SCIENCE JOURNALISM INDUSTRY UNDERSTAND THIS INCREDIBLY OBVIOUS AND SIMPLE FACT OH GOD I HATE PEASANTS SO MUCH I HATE THEM AND I HATE THE MUD THAT THEY WALLOW IN WHY CAN'T WE HAVE CLEAN MUD ALL THESE GODDAMN PEASANTS ARE POLLUTING THE MUD!
 
Yeah, read the whole thing, or don't.  It's horrible.  I hate peasants.  I hate hippies.  I hate them all.

Posted on the WOT forums, our very own Zinegata weighs in on the issue:
 
 
 
I wish that the US presidency were a sham institution, concealing a king.  Tell me when elections are suspended and whoever the hell is in the big seat starts having big posters of themselves put up in urban centers and having Congress machine-gunned down.  Twentieth Century history has plenty of examples of what happens when a country slides into despotism, and it doesn't look like this.
 
The US presidency was probably best summed up by that great sage of our times, Hunter S. Thompson:
 
 
The US president is basically a celebrity, with all the prestige and mind-altering amounts of attention that go with it.  He has slightly more say in the legislative process than a typical celebrity, which is itself highly ceremonial legacy institution, but this is barely worth mentioning.  Rather, the president is constantly surrounded by people who act like he is an important individual, and the sort of person who tends to succeed in politics tends not to be the sort of person who's savvy enough to figure out the essentially theatrical nature of the whole thing. 
 
You can tell it's a scam pretty easily.  Nixon campaigned on the grounds that he would "clean up the mess in Washington," only to oversee an enormous expansion of the same.  Nixon had been a hard-line anti-communist as a senator, and would go on to normalize relations with the People's Republic of China.  I seem to recall a certain governor of Texas campaigning for a "humbler" US foreign policy, and I think we all know how that ended.
 
 Clinton may have been an exception, as Clinton was an unusually high-functioning president, but generally speaking the poor dumb bastards don't figure out the scam until it's too late and twenty years have been sucked out of their lives.
 
Twentieth Century history also has plenty of examples of what a country looks like when it slides into militarism, and it's not like this either.  For one thing we'd use all those beautiful nuclear weapons that are just collecting dust. 
 
The US military doesn't decide to go on ill-advised adventures to bring freedom to remote corners of the world that frankly don't want it.  That would be the State Department's job, although within living memory the CIA did this sort of thing also.  The US military isn't a quasi-jail for undesirables who can't hack it elsewhere.  There have been armies that have operated on this model; the Prussians come to mind, and they've all had revolting and horrifying standards of discipline.  See the French and Spanish Foreign Legions for other instructive examples.  Further, the idea that recent combat experience is creating an entire class of dangerously unhinged, traumatized vets is beloved of the media, but not particularly well-supported by evidence.
 
The US military exists primarily to waste money.  This is so it has a larger budget to waste the next year.  Occasionally they do spend money on useful things, but since inflating the budget by wasting money is easier than inflating the budget by buying useful things, a much greater percentage of the money goes towards waste.  In this way it is similar, perhaps indistinguishable, from any other US government agency.
 
The military does have an unusual relationship with the so-called "private sector."  There are basically entire sectors of the American economy that act as the retirement plans for officers.  Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, GDLS and their ilk are the most obvious ones, but speak to any officer in the US military and you'll hear of companies that largely employ officers and make all of their money by selling things to the US military.  They need US military officers to help them navigate the byzantine regulations regarding tendering to the US military, of course.  You may have heard the phrase "self-licking ice cream cone."  This is it.
 
Now, this essentially incestuous relationship is by no means unique among US government organizations; it's just very well developed in the US military (the SEC probably runs a close second).
 
A rather small portion of the military does fighting.  Part of this is reflective of the realities of modern combat; the logistical shaft of the spear is much larger than the spearhead.  Part of this is a result of years of bureaucratic decay; it's easier to waste money arbitrarily than it is to waste money equipping people to go fight.

Yeah. When Zinegata gets it wrong, he really gets it wrong. Like cartoon baseball player swinging at a Bugs Bunny change-up wrong.
To call the guys and gals who volunteer for America's armed services "dregs" is not just insulting but wrong if you look at the actual demographics of folks who join.
Yeah. There are a lot of fucktards who shouldn't be allowed near a sharp plastic fork, let alone grenade launchers and automatic weaponry. But most of the guys are pretty alright, they join for altruistic purposes and they go on to lead productive lives outside of the service.
It's the same lazy prejudice that generalizes all sports athletes as spend-thrift, gang-banging, rapey, wife-beaters because a handful of individuals in the league are idjits.
So bullshit, I call. And respectfully so.

Truckfighters are indeed awesome, and yes sadly Frank Zappa qualifies as overrated. This shouldn't be a black mark on the man's work, however.

Truckfighters are indeed awesome, and yes sadly Frank Zappa qualifies as overrated. This shouldn't be a black mark on the man's work, however.

Truckfighters are pretty bitchin'. 

The pictures of the St. Michael HE test article (name retroactive) are fascinating.

Link for download.

Glamour pics of your new computers and none of them have Sturgeon's House as default? The shame!

Seven posts in, and nobody's mentioned Sparky. Good job, everybody!

...Shit.

Well, we've gotten to the point that the Palestinian Authority is trying to get on the UN International Criminal Court so they can bring up "war crimes" charges against Israel. So the term "genocide" has really lost much of its original meaning.
 
But since I'm a terrible person, I just wanted to share that when I first saw Unstart's post about "What is Genocide", the first thing that jumped into my mind was this...
 
http://youtu.be/xhrBDcQq2DM

Looks like it has finally topped out at 435.