Donward

Glocks need as many redundant safety features as you can slather on them given their taste for their owner's blood.

As the documentary "Red Dawn" even states, we had 600 million screaming Chinamen on our side. Americans have been bred for decades to view everything as a bilateral conflict of us versus them, good versus evil, white hat against black hat. NATO vs Warsaw Pact in the Cold War, Allies vs Axis, North vs South, Redcoats vs Continentals. We have a two party system of politics that pits Republicans vs Democrats. Our favorite pop culture movies follow the same theme (Star Wars, Avengers, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings). Now to be fair to 'MURICA, this isn't a trait found just in ourselves but has permeated Western culture for centuries (Crusades, Napoleonic Wars, Reformation) and is no doubt a result of our collective Judeo Christian worldview. Nor is it surprising that "sophisticated" terms like Byzantine and the alleged Arabic proverb "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" are ascribed to foreign races from the "Orient". Conflicts with multiple and competing factions are a clusterfuck. As one of you said, one need only look at the belligerents table on the Syrian Civil War Wikipedia article. Getting back to Asia, it is difficult to make heads, tails and middles out of the 21st Century edition of The Great Game, with China, Russia, North Korea, Vietnam, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, the other Stans, Myanmar, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines all thrown in the mix. The latter four entities are what I personally care about. And now that UBL has achieved room temperature, Afghanistan has zero strategic value (contrary to popular opinion) and should have been vacated two years ago. I'm somewhat more pessimistic on the longer term. China is building itself to be the regional hegemony, reversing five centuries of decline. If I were a neighboring country without a nuclear program I'd be very concerned. Even if I were a country like India, I'd be looking to rapidly mobilize given the number of border incursions committed by the ChiComs. As for the US we are at (or past) the transition stage where we are so confident that no one will mess with us (and our friends) because our military is so Skookum. Instead we are relying on the logic that surely it wouldn't be in the best interest of China to start a conflict, why we're trading partners and we owe them so much debt. As we've seen throughout history, countries often act illogically, irrationally and in ways that are counter to their GDP when it comes to foreign policy. If our economy gets hurt twice as much as China's as the side-effect of a trade/shooting war, isn't that a net win for the People's Republic? To end this meandering length of text, I'm always for being militarily prepared, a show of force being cheaper than actually using force in the long run. Plus it allows us nerds a chance to drool and debate over new airplanes, tanks and ships.

Sadly anything medical is mostly outside of my pay grade which is compounded since so many members of my extended family have medical training, I've lucked out on relying on them and have focused my attention elsewhere. I am glad about antibiotics, being given a dose for a bout of pneumonia that I had two winters ago. Although it does play havoc with the stomach critters, I've found that the inclusion of good yoghurt in the diet got my system back on an even keel.

History is full of real major fuck ups.

As concerning as the military resurgence of the Middle Kingdom is for the United States and it's Asian allies, I can't imagine what it must be like for India, given its geographic location.

In rural Alaska, especially among the native villages, Tang is a big thing. You know there's something important going on when they announce over the radio that they'll be serving coffee AND Tang.

On one hand I am glad that the Star Wars EU is destroyed. On the other hand we have the next sequels being run by the guy who has destroyed all of the Star Trek canon.

I'm glad you posted a tribute because I was about to. I woke up to watch the launch scrubbed yesterday but I couldn't justify getting up at 4 am PST twice in a row. The replays on the NASA channel are neat. Also I dig the retro feel of the mission.

What? You'll go a runnin' off to that half-mad German git? He'll be too busy talking to trees! Why I have more Royal Blood in my left gonad than the entire Royal Family put together! No, I'm serious! Given that I'm related in a round about way to King Edward IV (the most battle winningest, sex havingest of the English monarchs) and the recent paternity issues that have cropped up after the discovery of Richard III.

Why don't you move to Paris and hang out with the Girondists if you don't like the way things are done here!

I'm more interested in the concept of not-a-fanfiction.

I don't know, maybe I'm old-fashioned but I just want the President to act in a manner as proscribed by the Constitution.

Part of the issue is environmentalists have been pushing the idea of indicator species as a way to affect action in terms of "protecting" the planet. You see this with polar bears and global warming where we're lead to believe that the Coke Christmas mascot will go extinct unless we stop driving SUVs. This is despite the fact that the species is increasing in population annually and has survived periods of climatic temperatures much higher than today. It also presupposes that all extinctions of animals are related to human activity. This came to play with the sub-species of the Northern Spotted Owl in my neck of the woods. It was theorized that the Northern Spotted Owl populations were declining because of logging in old growth forests on - mostly - federal property. There's no need to go into the details but after much media attention and after many "Spotted Owl Tastes Just Like Chicken" bumper-stickers were put on trucks, the owl became protected, logging was prohibited on vast swathes of public land and communities like Hoquiam and Aberdeen (Union and Democrat voters btw) became ghost towns (later to spawn Kurt Cobain, Nirvana and Grunge). It turns out later, that Northern Spotted Owls don't necessarily need old growth forests to nest. Also, the reason for their decline is because they were being out-competed by the Barred Owl.

Like I said. I was informed quite succinctly by my friend who has tested the rockets used by NASA to drop bits of equipment on comets and planets that the major reason Pluto is not a "planet" is its irregular orbit and the fact that its gravitational pull hasn't cleared out the interstellar objects from its orbit. I'm taking his word for it. Sorry. Ultimately it really boils down to a world's tallest midget contest and it really doesn't matter in the great scheme of things if we call it a small planet, dwarf planet or planetary object. It's still there. It's much like the nonsense surrounding the brontosaurus vs apatosaurus debate. Someone screwed up in the past the creature everyone knew as a brontosaurus is suddenly supposed to be called an apatosaurus. Another great win for the pedantic among us.

As most of you know, during the summer I work in an industry where conservation and stewardship of a natural resource is vital for that industry's continued survival. The Bristol Bay sockeye run is the largest and last natural run of its kind in the world with roughly 25-35 million fish returning to spawn each season. This has been made possible in part because the Bristol Bay region is largely devoid of human development. It's also because it is highly regulated with a limited entry permit system and rules in place stating when and where we can fish, with what gear, how big of boats, etc. They are (mostly) good rules. If they weren't in place fishermen would (by economic necessity) destroy the run in ten years, something that most responsible fishermen don't want to see happen. We've also - so far - successfully fought measures to build the Pebble Mine - which would be the largest open pit copper and gold mine in the world - located smack dab in the middle of the region. To me this is good environmental stewardship. For the rest of the year I live near Seattle in the Pacific Northwest which used to have the largest salmon runs in the world. The advent of 10 million people living cheek-and-jowl next to riparian streams, overfishing, pollution, hydroelectric dams, agriculture and meddling with farm and hatchery fish has caused the runs to dwindle to a fraction of their former glory although runs have been increasing of late. I've witnessed the debacles of the environmental movement here first-hand, watching dairy farms in Western Washington go belly up because they aren't allowed to graze their heifers near any creek, stream or ditch because of "pollution". The farmers then sold their land to developers who paid the state to let them build "Master-Planned Developments" with Mc-Mansions which they sell to California liberals who now are clamoring for locally produced farm produce and want to "Save the Salmon". Such is the chaos inherent in the system. Back in my days as a newspaper reporter I covered a story where a Seattle environmental group was suing farmers (Apple and Pear orchards) and their irrigation district for killing salmon in Chelan County, Wash. A hundred years ago, farmers built diversion dams in nearby streams and channeled some of the water to their fields. These dams were usually 2-4 feet high. A local do-gooder had found dead salmon in front of the dam and got this group on the case since the group had been bullying other irrigation districts with the same tactic. The farmers opted to fight the lawsuit. It turned out some plucky reporter found out that the dead salmon were actually left-over hatchery salmon that had been dumped there by the Washington Dept. Of Fish and Wildlife to help enrich the stream. The diversion dam wasn't killing salmon after all. I left before the story's conclusion, but the upshot is the farmers caved, agreed to modernize their canal (which they had planned to do anyway) while agreeing to pay "scientists" from the environmental group to monitor their progress. To me this is bad science. But good organized crime.

Oh come on now. Animation Domination has some funny - juvenile albeit - videos. And it's mostly making fun of creationists and American culture. A lot of this is just arbitrary arguing over taxonomy and lexicon that has been leftover from the days when scientists thought Latin and Greek were pure languages and finding the "Missing Link" was going to change everything. Whether Pluto is classified as a planet, planetoid object, dwarf planet or the Roman god of the Underworld doesn't change the fact that there is a largish chunk of rock with an irregular orbit around the sun in the Keiper belt that has a moon and hasn't gravitationally cleared its orbit of interstellar debris. What we call it is the least interesting thing to me about Pluto. I think it's a planet but my friend who test rocket engines that have been used on all the NASA missions you've seen in the news assures me it's not. Either way it doesn't matter when you really think about. It's like defining an "assault weapon". The taxonomy of living creatures falls under the same category and most folks are walking around with the outdated kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species terminology derived from the good old days when it was a demonstrable fact that White Anglo Saxon Protestants were superior to Catholics who were superior to Chinamen, Eskimos and Bushmen.

Relevant Dinosaurs are green! (Sorry. Can't embed on iPhone or figure out how)

Isolationism is tough, yo.

I get rather nervous when my hometown Senator Patty Murray touts a weapon system like the LCS while doing nothing when the F22 gets shut down. When I asked her directly about this, she gave a rather definitive non answer.

No. I meant a multi-billion dollar pork barrel boondoggle.

I'm not sure anything is comparable to the LCS...

American foreign policy these past six years has been rudderless to the point that it makes George W. Bush seem almost Churchillian in comparison. I am being very kind and circumspect here but it seems the Administration is more interested in style over substance. By meeting with the leader of India it looks like they're doing cool President stuff. Besides, it's all a distraction from social engineering here at home. In short it is the Cadillac Escalade of diplomacy, lowered with the oversize spinner wheels, ground effects and obnoxious sound system blaring, oblivious of what the other foreign heads of state think. It doesn't matter that it is high-centered and stuck on a speed bump because they all about that swag. The unfortunate thing is the other players in the game have a good read on our President and have been acting accordingly.

We tried to teach Tyr the Cat how to walk with a leash. He got bored with it after the second try.

There's too much bad fiction and bad extended universe series for me to ignore, there's not enough time in my day to ignore fan fiction too.

Yes. Yes. Yes. But at some stage the fulcrum tipping point is reached. 45-70 Government is certainly not "SCHV".