We free the not-stupid ones. Makes our job way easier.

Even if most condiment manufacturers find it more cost-effective to skip on the coating (for whatever reason), there are bound to be at least a few that use it to set themselves apart as a superior product.

I think you're both arguing different things.

Science lies in the realm of that which we can observe and measure. The things that are by definition unobservable and thus unprovable must be articles of faith; even if argued logically they must require an irrational link somewhere. As a man of science and faith, I find it a tragic mistake to conflate the two.

I can neither confirm nor deny that Justin Bieber was only in prototype form during the 2007 surge, and its use was a grey area in terms of the Geneva Conventions.

I did a AMA on Reddit about this last year.

It most certainly did, though I was just a guy on the ground. Bucca was a "temporary" solution that became too permanent for its own good - it was oringinally a UK POW camp set up for the invasion that was slated to be closed until the Abu Ghraib fiasco. For most of these facilities, the prisoners weren't legally prisoners but detainees that were being held until they could be sent to the Iraqi civilian courts for trial or simply released based on intelligence. By '07 most detainees' families were actually receiving stipends from the US government for lost income. A shitty situation to be in, nonetheless.

Most of the "bum city" pictures you see were from when the camp was re-opened around '05. By the time I arrived in '07 there were permanent structures in my compound - big caravans (sheds) with industrial-sized air conditioning. During Ramadan a few of our detainees were upset that we moved known insurgents to another compound...so they burned down their caravans (rubber bullets, tear gas and LRAD definitely did not stop them from pulling that off). They loved doing this when we would re-build the caravans after a big riot...but that time around, we decided that maybe they wanted tents after all.

Most of those "army types" you see smacking down protesters are paramilitary police - armed to the teeth, more trigger happy and less disciplined than actual fighting forces.

Bread and circuses.

The LRAD is hardly experimental, and I'd rather listen to it up-close-and-personal again than get pepper sprayed again. If the law enforcement types over there have any sense they won't subject peaceful protesters to this (knowing most cops, they probably will). Of course, if I were a protester I'd have a camera (or CCTV, it is London after all) on hand and be ready to capitalize on any perceived police brutality to further my cause.

It was at Camp Bucca, where the vast majority of the compounds were open-air and larger than a football field. The LRAD's effective footprint was only a small part of an entire compound, and I do believe a hundred rioting detainees qualifies as a crowd-sized target.

Depending on the hearing protection used the LRAD would have to be much closer to really have any disorienting effect. What it will probably do is cause all those without earplugs to scatter away from those that do, if directed at a spot in a crowd like that.

Anything that loud can cause hearing damage. It won't fuck your eardrums up like an actual shock wave from an explosion or flashbang, but standing in the beam without earplugs (we never used it for more than 30s or so at a time) sure won't help your tinnitus - my ears rang briefly after someone in my compound accidentally pointed an LRAD in my direction, but there was no lasting hearing loss. It's annoyingly loud outside the beam, but in my experience not deafeningly loud like an rock concert.

...while conducting detainee operations (prison guard) in Iraq. It's basically a five-hundred watt directional speaker shaped like a big flat disc that can play back a shrieking wave (sounds like a modulated sawtooth from what I can remember) that's so loud that you'll feel your bones rattle if it's pointed at you - even from a hundred meters away. While we usually used it as a big megaphone, the disruptive tone was really only effective in surprise or as a threat. In compounds where certain idiots used the LRAD repeatedly, the detainees eventually learned to ignore it.