strategic bombing
 

It's so hard to tell sometimes whether you are trying to mislead, or merely ignorant.

strategic bombing
 

strategic bombing
 

So then he's not the vacuum cleaner guy?

strategic bombing
 

to post here, do I have to accept the strained fantasies in the books you quote, or can I keep my views?

strategic bombing
 

For things like Freeman Dyson's bio. If you run a Google search, that's the first result.

strategic bombing
 

You still have the memories, huh?

I knew you were old, but didn't realize you were a Brit.

strategic bombing
 

It's so hard to tell sometimes whether you are trying to mislead, or merely ignorant. The fact that recruitment centers are still good targets show who is winning. Hint- if them, there would be so many people to kill lined up to sign up.

60,000 wakadoos
 

Thanks. Hi!. (Starbucks wifi, working vpn tunnel, laptop battery up - seldom do all things converge so!)

strategic bombing
 

Your refutation of Dyson's work would be more credible if you had been showing any sign over the last day that you knew who he was.

Or the boxer.

strategic bombing
 

German, sonny. And I learned from those early mistakes . . .

strategic bombing
 

Like a stopped clock, sooner or later that line is going to work for you. Keep with it.

strategic bombing
 

As you noted, Dyson was talking about the costs of the bombing campaign, particularly in terms of lost planes and pilots. That was hardly the case in Iraq. You are trying to equate two things that are not nearly equal.

I believe that the bombing campaign in Iraq was very effective, and a big part of why the Iraqi army collapsed. The "shock and awe" campaign was not, but attacks on the infrastructure and military targets were. Unfortunately that conventional war was never the real challenge -- the post-war insurgency was. But I don't believe that insurgency was made any worse by the bombing; I think the invasion alone was enough to guarantee an insurgency and that the bombing campaign didn't make much difference. (Or maybe an errant cruise missle blew up the stockpiles of flowers and candy that Rumsfeld was anticipating?)

strategic bombing
 

Sorry I'd forgotten him. Only one physicist sticks in my mind these days!

http://superstringtheory.com/people/gifs/evas.jpg
Eva Silverstein with her favorite equations

And PS- WWII era physicists are all extremelly anti-war. they created nuclear weapons then realized that might not have been such a good idea.

60,000 wakadoos
 

You can't be serious with this example. The woman can get pregnant either place. Putting people to work is not going to make them stop having sex. Only contraception is going to prevent pregnancy.

It has been my experience, as someone who is actively involved in the Republican party, that the most zealous pro-life advocates are also the most zealous anti- condom advocates. There is also a strong correlation between pro-life politicians and anti-sex education and anti-condom distribution politicians. The Pro-Life pro-condom and pro-sex education politician is a rare thing in the Republican party.

strategic bombing
 

I'm sorry if my point is obscure. I was posting about strategic bombing because in a conversation that grew out of discussing torture several days ago, we found ourselves talking about the effectiveness -- or relative lack thereof -- of strategic bombing during WWII. Dyson was speaking directly to that point.

Another point that I've made before is that its proponents have always oversold the impact of strategic bombing, both because they expect civilian populations to give up when bombed -- but see London during The Blitz, or Germany during WWII, per Dyson, or the Vietnamese, etc. -- and because the military results are oversold.

Let's distinguish between tactical and strategic bombing. The former has been very, very useful, in WWII and in Iraq. The latter, not so much. Unfortunately, the Air Force does not like bombing tanks in support of the Army -- it would much rather win the war on its own -- and so it seeks to defund planes like the A-10 in favor of bigger, faster, long-range equipment.

The bombing probably has made the insurgency worse, for the reason that civilians who get bombed tend to hold it against the bombers.

60,000 wakadoos
 

Actually all developed countries have a low birth rate. The reason for this is that in third world countries children are seen as a form of social security. The more children you have the more likely someone will be around to take care of you when you are older. In developed countries, children are seen as a drain on resources, making ones retirment more frugal.

60,000 wakadoos
 

As I have said before many times - Norplant as a condition of welfare or other governmental aid.

60,000 wakadoos
 

I wanna work where you work.

strategic bombing
 

Some, like Leo Szilard, realized the threat posed by nuclear weapons long before they were first built. Some, like Robert Oppenheimer, had something of the change of heart you describe. Some, like Edward Teller, didn't.

There were very few -- physicists and otherwise -- who worked in the Allied war effort but who were "anti-war." Dyson's point is that strategic bombing was a waste of money and lives, not that he didn't want to be fighting Hitler.

60,000 wakadoos
 

Your wife is probably still making time for sex, even though you aren't.

60,000 wakadoos
 

and this is the only charity I donate to - http://www.projectprevention.org/program/

60,000 wakadoos
 

I am very serious with this example. As I noted sometime in the last 2 days, abortions are supposedly down 40% in the last 10 years or something like that. What exactly do you think that correlates with anyway?

I'll answer that. When the government instituted welfare reform, it did all kinds of things that reduced all kinds of risky behavior. As a free-market type, you of all people should be not only accepting this argument, but advocating it with me!

60,000 wakadoos
 

I can count the number of times I've seen my wife in my office naked on the fingers on one foot.

60,000 wakadoos
 

So you are saying right before the child is born the mother can end it, but if anyone else does it is murder. But right after the birth, anyone who ends the life is a murderer (including the mother). And husbands shouldn't always be able to terminate thier wife's life. Correct? So when can a close person to you terminate your life? It is tough to draw the line, and where you draw it has huge consequences. That is why the Pro-Life crowd chooses not to draw it at all. No matter where you draw the line, injustice occurs and people get hurt. That is why I would prefer to have my fingernails pulled out rather than become a judge or elected official. Who the hell wants to make these kind of decisions? That is also why I feel guilty whenever I recruit people to run for office, because deep down I know I am ruining their lives.

strategic bombing
 

Curtis LeMay said after the bombing runs on Tokyo, that if we lost the war he would been tried for war crimes. This guy became the Air Force Chief of Staff and during the Cuban missile crisis her urged Kennedy to invade Cuba.

60,000 wakadoos
 

Sigh. I was so, so making the effort to bilmore. If you never leave your office . . . which brings the thought, if we only brought back sex-segregated workhouses, we'd have a lot fewer children. I think. Maybe.

60,000 wakadoos
 

That's cheaper than your condom bill?

strategic bombing
 

Actually, in the beginning of the battle for Britain, the Luftwaffe was only bombing and attacking RAF bases. And it was working. But then England bombed Berlin and so Hitler, for revenge, directed Goering to bomb London. During the blitz the RAF was able to recover and turn the tide of the war.

60,000 wakadoos
 

It's a verb now?

In other news, Andy Sullivan rejoices at the new pope:

": "How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking… The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves – thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching', looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today's standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires." - Pope Benedict XVI, yesterday. And what is the creed of the Church? That is for the Grand Inquisitor to decide. Everything else - especially faithful attempts to question and understand the faith itself - is "human trickery." It would be hard to over-state the radicalism of this decision. It's not simply a continuation of John Paul II. It's a full-scale attack on the reformist wing of the church. The swiftness of the decision and the polarizing nature of this selection foretell a coming civil war within Catholicism. The space for dissidence, previously tiny, is now extinct. And the attack on individual political freedom is just beginning."

Ahh, to be young and Catholic and . . . totally screwed.

60,000 wakadoos
 

The reasons tend to be a little more complicated than that, but my point holds regardless -- if Hello was serious about the "ending welfare will end unwanted births" argument, then he's a wackadoo.

strategic bombing
 

It worked against Serbia

60,000 wakadoos
 

I sadly have to concur. I have raised the argument that the first step to fighting abortion is making birth control easily available for all - if not free. The right wingers always offer some claptrap about how we have to "get back to responsibility." These conservatives are not morons - they realize such an argument is tantamount to saying "we must put the milk back in the bottle," yet they say it with a straight face. I am reasonable on this issue. I think sensible minds can work together and really reduce abortions substantially. But how can I work with these conservatives who espouse illogic? I mean, really, what the hell am I supposed to say to someone who makes a ridiculous argument and refuses to compromise? How can I have a meeting of the minds with a person who'd cut off his nose to spite his face?

Why do these right wing people persist in being impossible?

strategic bombing
 

Bombing a weapons factory, a power plant, or the house where you think the opposing leader is staying -- is that strategic or tactical? I would define that as strategic, and effective.

As for WWII, I can certainly think of two strategic bombing attacks that were extremely effective, and many, many tactical bombing attacks that were not.

But rather than elaborate, let me propose a new Board Motto: Where bombs are the new tanks.

strategic bombing
 

Didn't he also theorize about the Dyson sphere? The one Captain Picard came across? Or am I confusing him with someone else? To bad they killed the Orion project.

60,000 wakadoos
 

This depresses me, and I don't even practice anymore.

OTOH,

An e-mail from a progressive nun to her niece:

• Given the name chosen we believe that this is a short term interim pope. He has often spoken of retiring as cardinal when he reached 80. We think you may retire as pope at 85. In his earlier years he was quite progressive and became the watch dog for the faith at the request of John Paul 2.
  He may be surprising in the long haul.

strategic bombing
 

Indeed, Dyson theorized about the Dyson Sphere. Which is one of those awesome coincidences you run across every now and then. It's like Lou Gehrig getting that disease -- what are the chances?

strategic bombing
 

Stop posting pictures of people that are younger, smarter and better looking than me. It's depressing.

strategic bombing
 

Is that true? Really? I knew there was inter-service rivalry but that is just plain stupid. So what they are saying is that lets go bomb strategic and tactical targets that may or may not help us win the war in the long run insteading of destroying tanks that are just about to kill our own soldiers.

Pope in a Pizza
 

One gets the feeling that the only acceptable choice for Sully would have been this guy:

http://home.earthlink.net/~sarasohn/images/guido1.gif

60,000 wakadoos
 

I support welfare reform, but correlating a relationship between welfare reform and reduced abortions seems a stretch. I have never heard this argument before. Who did this study?