[quote]Astounding! If President Bush said the sky was blue most of you people would deny it to give all the reasons why it's actually green. Don't let your personal hatred for the man blind you to reality.

Personal hatred??? I don't "hate" anyone. As for Bush, I never met the man. I understand he's a good guy.

I do find it very interesting that whenever a criticism of Bush's policies and failures are pointed out, "you people" (to borrow your term, Qui-Gon) immediately attribute it to a "personal hatred" of the former President. I've even heard Rush Limbaugh claim that "liberals" (defined as anyone who doesn't hold the same views as Rush Limbaugh) are "hateful". To quote the sage Misfit, "bullocks!".

What makes you think I was talking about you? Anyway, I find it interesting that whenever a criticism of Obamas's policies and failures are pointed out, "you people" (not you personally, rebest) immediately respond with the most illogical, unsubstantiated guesses about the blunder. You (not you personally, rebest) are clearly blind to the significance of the evidence before you (not you personally, rebest . . . well, maybe a little).

It doesn't take a genius to see the connection between giving up their European missile shield and Iran testing missiles that can hit Europe.

That's one possibility. Another is the Iran felt compelled to do some chest pounding after the US, UK, and France announced the development of the secret nuclear facility near Qom. We caught them with their pants down in front of the entire world (while Ahmadinejad was giving an interview, no less). Iran is also positioning themselves for the meeting with the US, France, UK, China, Russia and Germany (P+1) that starts Thursday.

Wait, so you're saying that Iran, having been caught in what looks like an attempt to hide nuclear facilities (the assumption being these facilities are for weapons development) decided to do some "chest pounding" by launching missiles that could carry the very weapons everyone is afraid they are developing? Even Ahmadinejad would shake his head at that logic. But, you believe what you want.

The Iranians say their nuclear program is peaceful. I don't believe what they say, but apparently many of you take their words at face value.

I don't trust them at all. They have been lying for years. In my opinion, they are actively working on nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them.

However, I don't believe that the ABM system proposed for eastern Europe would either deter Iran or adequately protect us or Europe from missiles launched in Iran.

Where is your evidence that an anti-missile system that has never been put in place would not work? Just supposition? Your belief is baseless.

[quote]Astounding! If President Bush said the sky was blue most of you people would deny it to give all the reasons why it's actually green. Don't let your personal hatred for the man blind you to reality.

Personal hatred??? I don't "hate" anyone. As for Bush, I never met the man. I understand he's a good guy.

I do find it very interesting that whenever a criticism of Bush's policies and failures are pointed out, "you people" (to borrow your term, Qui-Gon) immediately attribute it to a "personal hatred" of the former President. I've even heard Rush Limbaugh claim that "liberals" (defined as anyone who doesn't hold the same views as Rush Limbaugh) are "hateful". To quote the sage Misfit, "bullocks!".

What makes you think I was talking about you? Anyway, I find it interesting that whenever a criticism of Obamas's policies and failures are pointed out, "you people" (not you personally, rebest) immediately respond with the most illogical, unsubstantiated guesses about the blunder. You (not you personally, rebest) are clearly blind to the significance of the evidence before you (not you personally, rebest . . . well, maybe a little).

It doesn't take a genius to see the connection between giving up their European missile shield and Iran testing missiles that can hit Europe.

That's one possibility. Another is the Iran felt compelled to do some chest pounding after the US, UK, and France announced the development of the secret nuclear facility near Qom. We caught them with their pants down in front of the entire world (while Ahmadinejad was giving an interview, no less). Iran is also positioning themselves for the meeting with the US, France, UK, China, Russia and Germany (P+1) that starts Thursday.

Wait, so you're saying that Iran, having been caught in what looks like an attempt to hide nuclear facilities (the assumption being these facilities are for weapons development) decided to do some "chest pounding" by launching missiles that could carry the very weapons everyone is afraid they are developing? Even Ahmadinejad would shake his head at that logic. But, you believe what you want.

The Iranians say their nuclear program is peaceful. I don't believe what they say, but apparently many of you take their words at face value.

I don't trust them at all. They have been lying for years. In my opinion, they are actively working on nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them.

However, I don't believe that the ABM system proposed for eastern Europe would either deter Iran or adequately protect us or Europe from missiles launched in Iran.

Where is your evidence that an anti-missile system that has never been put in place would not work? Just supposition? Your belief is baseless.

Well then, by all means please share your "evidence" that Iran's missile tests were directly related to the announcement that a missile defense system - that doesn't exist - will not be built in Europe.

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Join the PACK!

I hereby demand the title Volunteer sage

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me@rescam.org

Well then, by all means please share your "evidence" that Iran's missile tests were directly related to the announcement that a missile defense system - that doesn't exist - will not be built in Europe.

Exactly.

You got it right.

That's is what I have been saying.

I hereby demand the title Volunteer sage

That title is unavailable. Court jester is open. I was going to take it but will gladly sacrifice (there's that word again) it for you. :)

Edit: it comes with a nifty hat that has three little jingle bells attached!

Obama, his Republican Secretary of Defense, and Republican-appointed Joint Chiefs concluded that placing ground-based, anti-ballistic missiles on one site and radar on another in Europe was not the best defense. There has been significant progress in the development of the sea-based Aegis BMD systems and the next generation of highly mobile Patriot BMD systems.

The Navy currently has 3 Ticonderoga class cruisers and 15 Arleigh Burke class destroyers upgraded with the Aegis BMD capability with three more ships scheduled to be upgraded for the Atlantic Fleet. Patriot systems can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the world. Expect many more to be built.

I see we are a bit geographically challenged. Look at a great circle route from the close corner of Iran to Europe. Now to Spain it does cross the Mediterranean Sea, but to most of the rest of Europe it is overland. Just how is the Navy going to sail a destroyer on land? Or were you perhaps thinking the Secretary of the Navy could get permission from the Russians to sail on the Black Sea? Were you thinking the USA would put it on land under foreign security and have a foreign agent copy the software so someone could find a bug and exploit it?

The issue with intercepting the warheads on the way down, rather than from Turkey on the way up, is those warheads have now armed. They are moving faster. They are harder to target. They have deployed countermeasures. They will detonate. There will be EMP. There will be wide spread radiation sickness. True they won't kill like a ground blast. They are also spread out over more square miles, meaning you need many many more inceptors at a higher cost.

If you hit them on the way up, they haven't armed, you have the remaining fuel in the rocket as an added kick to damage the warhead, they are moving slower so they are easier to target, they are in a concentrated area ...

The designers of the system knew what they were doing. The Ruskie's knew too. And not thinking like capitalists didn't just sell Iran a pile more but fought it and lowered their profits.

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I hereby demand the title Volunteer sage

That title is unavailable. Court jester is open. I was going to take it but will gladly sacrifice (there's that word again) it for you. :)

Edit: it comes with a nifty hat that has three little jingle bells attached!

Isn't that the origin of the word Geek? I think I'll pass. I prefer the Class Clown

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me@rescam.org

Obama, his Republican Secretary of Defense, and Republican-appointed Joint Chiefs concluded that placing ground-based, anti-ballistic missiles on one site and radar on another in Europe was not the best defense. There has been significant progress in the development of the sea-based Aegis BMD systems and the next generation of highly mobile Patriot BMD systems.

The Navy currently has 3 Ticonderoga class cruisers and 15 Arleigh Burke class destroyers upgraded with the Aegis BMD capability with three more ships scheduled to be upgraded for the Atlantic Fleet. Patriot systems can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the world. Expect many more to be built.

I see we are a bit geographically challenged. Look at a great circle route from the close corner of Iran to Europe. Now to Spain it does cross the Mediterranean Sea, but to most of the rest of Europe it is overland. Just how is the Navy going to sail a destroyer on land? Or were you perhaps thinking the Secretary of the Navy could get permission from the Russians to sail on the Black Sea? Were you thinking the USA would put it on land under foreign security and have a foreign agent copy the software so someone could find a bug and exploit it?

The issue with intercepting the warheads on the way down, rather than from Turkey on the way up, is those warheads have now armed. They are moving faster. They are harder to target. They have deployed countermeasures. They will detonate. There will be EMP. There will be wide spread radiation sickness. True they won't kill like a ground blast. They are also spread out over more square miles, meaning you need many many more inceptors at a higher cost.

If you hit them on the way up, they haven't armed, you have the remaining fuel in the rocket as an added kick to damage the warhead, they are moving slower so they are easier to target, they are in a concentrated area ...

The designers of the system knew what they were doing. The Ruskie's knew too. And not thinking like capitalists didn't just sell Iran a pile more but fought it and lowered their profits.

I highly recommend you read about the mechanics of missile defense systems before explaining them, because almost the entire post is completely and factually inaccurate in regard to warheads and missile defense systems.

The best place for missile defense is at the target location. Missiles are hit on the way down. The Patriot with a range of only 99 miles and an 11 second burn time cannot chase a Mach 5+ missile down, and the more reliable Arrow missile used by Israel has an even smaller range of about 60 miles. It must intercept perpendicular to the incoming missile.

Arming is done at multiple levels. Some are armed right before impact, some in mid flight. Doesn't matter, with conventional ordinance, a successful intercept means that the missile doesn't hit its target. With nuclear weapons, it's highly unlikely to go off at all as thermonuclear devices need pristine conditions in order to detonate in the first place. It's standard practice to put missile defense systems at the target site as this has the best chance for success.

For missiles entering low earth orbit, different systems are used, but optimal intercept occurs midflight with an x-ray burst that destroys nuclear ordinance.

Point is, putting missile defense in Eastern Europe to protect Israel from Iranian aggression is beyond wasteful; it's impossible.

watched an episode of future weapons. saw a demonstration of a long range intercepor missile. this system does not have an explosive device onboard. Its means of destroying the incoming missile is by impact alone. It has a much longer range than previous missle defense weapons.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Probably against ICBM. Not aware of any ground based US ABMs other than the Patriot in service right now with the exception of those that take out ICBMs in orbit which are old.

But Futureweapons is about future weapons :) Would be good to know the name of the missile. I like that show myself.

A missile shield being ground based in Poland and the Czech Republic cannot protect Israel from Iranian missiles.

I believe it was THAAD I recall them showing the circling movement as a means to burn off fuel because the target was not 100's of miles away and they didnt want a potential explosion down range if the missle failed to hit its target. It hit its target

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Cool, thanks for the link.

Well, the THAAD's range is 125 miles which makes it ineffective from Eastern Europe for stopping Iranian missiles en route to Israel. It can reach an altitude of 93 miles though which is good for ICBMs (it's primary purpose) although it would only have real chance for success if placed at the target site.

Bring Polanski to justice

By Eugene Robinson
THE WASHINGTON POST

October 1, 2009

Hasn't Roman Polanski suffered enough? Didn't he endure all those cool, gray, rainy Paris winters? Wasn't he forced — well, not forced, but strongly enticed — to subsist all those years on overpriced fare served up by haughty waiters in Michelin-starred restaurants? Didn't he survive for decades having his vacation options limited, essentially, to the grim monotony of the South of France?

I've got a better question: Shouldn't Polanski and his many apologists give us a break?

I'm a huge fan of Polanski's work. “Chinatown” is one of my favorite movies of all time, “Rosemary's Baby” is a masterpiece, and he richly deserved the Oscar he won as best director for “The Pianist.” He's a great artist. Maybe his next film will be a prison movie.

Brilliant auteur or no, Polanski has been a fugitive from U.S. justice since 1978. And there was certainly no artistic merit in the crime he acknowledged committing: During a photo shoot at the Los Angeles home of his friend and “Chinatown” star Jack Nicholson, Polanski plied a 13-year-old girl with champagne and drugs and had sex with her.

That is grotesque. In general, I agree with the European view that Americans tend to be prudish and hypocritical about sex. But a grown man drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl? That's not remotely a close call. It's wrong in any moral universe — and deserves harsher punishment than three decades of gilded exile.

Polanski went on the lam after pleading guilty to the crime. He had a deal with prosecutors under which he would essentially walk out of the courtroom a free man — he had spent 42 days in prison undergoing psychiatric evaluation, and the arrangement was that he would be sentenced to time served. But Polanski got wind that the judge in the case, said to be something of a publicity hound, was going to refuse to honor the plea bargain and instead impose a prison term. So the director skipped town and surfaced in France, where authorities ruled that his crime wasn't covered by extradition treaties with the United States.

He was arrested Sunday in Zurich, where he had traveled to accept an award — and where the extradition treaty does cover his crime. Assuming that Polanski puts up a legal fight, it could be months or even years before he is sent back to the United States.

The Justice Department was right to have Polanski nabbed at the Zurich airport and should pursue the case to the end. We've waited this long; we can wait a little longer.

Polanski has dual French-Polish citizenship, and officials in Paris and Warsaw are outraged. Which makes me outraged. What's their beef? That Polanski is 76? That he makes great movies? That he only fled to escape what might well have been an unjust sentence? Sorry, mes amis, but none of this matters. If you decide to become a fugitive, you accept the risk that someday you might get caught.

Much has been made of the fact that Polanski's victim, now 45, has said she no longer feels any anger toward him and does not want to see him jailed. But it's irrelevant what the victim thinks and feels as a grown woman. What's important is what she thought and felt at age 13, when the crime was committed. Those who argue that there's something unjust about Polanski's arrest are essentially accepting his argument that it's possible for a 13-year-old girl, under the influence of alcohol and drugs, to “consent” to sex with a man in his 40s. Or maybe his defenders are saying that drugging and raping a child is simply not such a big deal.

As far as I'm concerned, it's a huge deal. Even in France, it should be a big deal. This isn't about a genius who is being hounded for flouting society's hidebound conventions. It's about a rich and powerful man who used his fame and position to assault — in every sense, to violate — an innocent child.

And it's about a man who ran away rather than face the consequences of his actions. Before any sentence could be imposed, he absconded like a weasel to live a princely life in France.

That's the sort of protagonist, a great director like Polanski must realize, who doesn't deserve a happy ending.

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me@rescam.org

Cool, thanks for the link.

Well, the THAAD's range is 125 miles which makes it ineffective from Eastern Europe for stopping Iranian missiles en route to Israel. It can reach an altitude of 93 miles though which is good for ICBMs (it's primary purpose) although it would only have real chance for success if placed at the target site.

This missile is intended to be used on a ICBM in midflight so it wouldnt really need to go far down range only straight up. though it is fairly maneuverable as the demostration on the site has shown

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Cool, thanks for the link.

Well, the THAAD's range is 125 miles which makes it ineffective from Eastern Europe for stopping Iranian missiles en route to Israel. It can reach an altitude of 93 miles though which is good for ICBMs (it's primary purpose) although it would only have real chance for success if placed at the target site.

This missile is intended to be used on a ICBM in midflight so it wouldnt really need to go far down range only straight up. though it is fairly maneuverable as the demostration on the site has shown

Mid flight? So they are going to base them on the ice pack?

At 125 miles range is it only a scud killer. Idiotic to even think that if they were deployed in Europe they were for the protection of Israel. To protect Israel they would need to be deployed in Jordan and Syria or maybe Iraq.

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Cool, thanks for the link.

Well, the THAAD's range is 125 miles which makes it ineffective from Eastern Europe for stopping Iranian missiles en route to Israel. It can reach an altitude of 93 miles though which is good for ICBMs (it's primary purpose) although it would only have real chance for success if placed at the target site.

This missile is intended to be used on a ICBM in midflight so it wouldnt really need to go far down range only straight up. though it is fairly maneuverable as the demostration on the site has shown

Which means they're best utilized by placing them at the incoming missile's destination which in this case happens to be out of Iran's range.

NEW YORK – You know the title, now see the cover of Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue."

The former Alaska governor's memoir, a top-seller online weeks before publication, will feature an outdoor shot of Palin, wearing an American flag pin on her red fleece top, eyes turned slightly from the camera as she smiles confidently into the horizon, a patchwork of Alaska blue sky and clouds behind her.

The image was released Thursday by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins.

The book, originally planned for next spring, is coming out Nov. 17 with an announced first printing of 1.5 million copies. Palin and collaborator Lynn Vincent finished "Going Rogue" just two months after Palin's resignation as governor.

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me@rescam.org

are you sure thats not Tina Fey

BTW the RED state ..err outfit she's in certainly is a bargain compared to the nameplates she was wearing during her VP run.
She looks like shes doing an ad for lenscrafters now.
Also, aren't we over the flag pin thing yet? We know where we live and wearing a pin does not denote increased patriotism. It does imply a deep insecurity or a need to constantly be reminded what flag she likes

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

are you sure thats not Tina Fey

BTW the RED state ..err outfit she's in certainly is a bargain compared to the nameplates she was wearing during her VP run.
She looks like shes doing an ad for lenscrafters now.
Also, aren't we over the flag pin thing yet? We know where we live and wearing a pin does not denote increased patriotism. It does imply a deep insecurity or a need to constantly be reminded what flag she likes

I wear a flag pin every day. Not out of insecurity, but out of honor and respect for my country.