Comment Re:Sanctions have started. (Score 1) 439
[Snowden] will be shown to be a hero, this decade's Cindy Sheehan.
Huh. Interesting. I must've missed the "Cindy Sheehan is a hero" memo. At least one of us is out of touch.
[Snowden] will be shown to be a hero, this decade's Cindy Sheehan.
Huh. Interesting. I must've missed the "Cindy Sheehan is a hero" memo. At least one of us is out of touch.
4 decades ago the US landed a man on the moon. They couldn't do that today - heck we couldn't even get a man into low earth orbit today. So being 4 decades behind the US space program doesn't sound like a bad thing.
The US could put a man on the moon fairly easily, and soon.
We just choose not to, because it's expensive, and as a nation we've judged that there's no point in going there for an afternoon of tourism. Especially considering our reduced tolerance for the risk of a blow'd up spacecraft and messily killed astronauts, risks that were easily accepted in the 1960s.
China's still in the "tourism is a useful learning experience" stage with expendable human cargo.
I know it's Slashdot-fashionable to downplay US abilities and stature in the world, but don't conflate the different goals and attitudes into a statement on capability.
It continues to astonish me to hear (presumably) smart people parrot this damn lie of statistics.
"The US has worse infant mortality than Cuba" and variations of that theme.
Never mind that a premature infant that dies within 24 hours in Cuba is marked in the "stillbirth" column. Never mind that a 25 week preemie who dies despite extraordinary NICU care in a US hospital is marked in the "infant death" column.
Yeah, our "infant mortality" is worse - because we count them as infants and not stillbirths!
Never mind reality. Never mind facts. Let's just parrot the same statistical LIE that advances whatever argument you emotionally favor.
Squaaawk! Infant mortality! Ssquaaak! Cuba! Squaaaaaaaaawk!
Machines have less problems. I'd like to be a machine. -- Andy Warhol