I don't necessarily disagree with where you're going here, but can you elaborate on this:

I've worked at government contractors that had real air-gaps for things like their databases, but that does not seem to be the norm for the rest of the world. How would ordinary businesses make use of their databases if they are not network accessible under any circumstances, printed reports? Some sort of unidirectional transmission? What sort of data ingress are they using?

I ask this because I have been involved in the transfer of data in highly regulated, air-gapped systems, and they are incredibly expensive. Are you really indicating that true air-gap databases will be ubiquitous (or at least commonplace) in the forseeable future?

It's a cool idea and they stand for a lot of great ideals, but laptops are incredibly hard to get right, drivers are hard to get right, and they are a small team trying to support a large number of possible configurations. Hardware gets more complicated by the year: forget the CPU and various GPUs, just look at how many other devices in a modern computer have a full-on processor, e.g. fancy touchbars, displays, even hard drives! Hell, your CPU probably has its own secondary general-purpose processors for things like security, and our CPUs themselves get firmware updates now to change how their instructions function. They are doing great work, but the deck is so stacked against them that it's not funny.

Most space launch companies are inefficient and ineffective. SpaceX has the margin to pay these taxes, those unfortunates don't. If you want to kill competition in an industry, tax it enough that only the large corporations can survive the loss, and add some complicated regulations in for extra effect. No one else has anything close to what Starship may become, and further reduction in margins will ensure that SpaceX will have a defacto monopoly on non-military space launches while their competitors are strangled paying for FAA services that is disproportionately benefit owners of private jets and charter flights for the rich.

The idea that software not signed by some entity in the country that they represent is installed any high-level official's phone is absurd. How did the world get this way?

I've been using this site for over twenty years, and it's a been most of a decade since I've commented. This is the best thing I've seen on here since then. Whatever you do, keep drumming up the fight against ignorance and propaganda, and the people who've fallen victims of it. I don't want to get personal, but lets just say that I know from intimate experience what brainwashing does to a person, and the tremendous cost of clawing one's way out of it. Division in modern society is inevitable--and we must fight against those who seek to destroy rational thought!--but without empathy for those infected by bad ideas, shortchanged by their personal experiences, we'll end up punishing and alientating those victimized by bad actors exploiting cognitive vulnerabilities that every one of us has, we will push them out of sheer self-defense into voting in the people who will undo us.

Not the person you're responding to, but I'm pretty sure their less-than-polite phrasing meant "biological female who has ever been involved in jetpack development or *jetpack* flying".

Everyone knows Amelia Earhart was a big part of aviation history in that era, but I strongly suspect that she didn't moonlight as the Rocketeer.

Indeed, people should take in the full context here, not just platitudes. They should look at how China has interacted with Europe and the US in the context of world wars, trade wars, cultural exchange and economic interdependence. ...then they should call Xi on his tantrums and fragility. He chooses to be this way.

They did. The OPCW (the group tasked with verifying chemical weapons claims and enforcing the chemical weapons treaty) verified that Syria and Russia removed its chemical weapons.

Be careful not to conflate the multiple US/NATO claims (Novichok nerve agent in the UK spy case).

The chemical weapon used in the claimed Douma attack was chlorine. Every country on the planet has significant quantities of chlorine. Chlorine is used in many industrial processes, in swimming pools, and in most every city and town on the planet which has a water treatment plant has enough chlorine to make a chemical weapon. And industrial chlorine is easy to "weaponize" -- and it's pretty safe to do to (as opposed to nerve agent, for example).

Also note, in 2016 Amnesty International bluntly stated, "Syria: armed opposition group committing war crimes in Aleppo - new evidence. The Aleppo Conquest armed groups may have used chemical weapons, as well as ‘hell cannon’ gas canister munitions."

That our government start being a semi-honest democratic republic and not some war-loving empire out trying to conquer the world and making enemies that rightfully hate the United States. That'd be a start.

Then we can prosecute our torturers and war criminals and pay repartitions to the many countries we have attacked.

That'd be nice. For our sycophantic mass media to stop unquestioningly reprinting the lies, propaganda and talking points of our evil government would be nice too.

cid=56442457 Here it is.

It seems that the US story is falling apart fast. The Pentagon claims that all missiles hit their target and the Syrian claim of shooting down ~3/4 of the missiles is nonsense. But there are online videos of missiles being shot down and the Pentagon now says they're going to study the attack. Trump is using the issue of chemical weapons to flip-flop and now refuses to pull out the thousands of US troops who presently occupy/control 28% of Syria.

The Pentagon has bluntly said:

Q: General McKenzie, the three targets that you struck, were those manufacturing or researching chlorine or sarin?

GEN. MCKENZIE: A little of both. And particularly in the Barzeh target, but there’s a little of both. (source)

But the OPCW, the int'l org which is responsible for enforcing the chemical weapons treaty, inspected the Barzeh site in mid-March and said they saw no evidence of chemical weapons there. (Their PDF report point 8 on page 2.)

When Bush told his lies about Iraq's chemical weapons, at least the BS story held up for a couple of months. :(

I want evidence the video is actually real.

In 2016 Amnesty International bluntly stated, "Syria: armed opposition group committing war crimes in Aleppo - new evidence. The Aleppo Conquest armed groups may have used chemical weapons, as well as ‘hell cannon’ gas canister munitions."

Russia says that the video was faked and they blame the UK and our proxy rebel forces. The US and UK have a track record of lying through their teeth about chemical weapons (e.g. Iraq) and and the US routinely makes up wild, moralistic propaganda claims (e.g. Nurse Nayirah), so it's clear no one should believe them.

At this point no reasonable, thinking person should be sure of anything.

Syria and Russia are demanding that independent, third-party investigators be sent to investigate the site and chemical weapons claims. The US refused, at one time falsely claimed that Russia was refusing the inspectors (they may have backtracked from that position by now), and either way, Trump's illegal attacks on Syria render that position moot.

The chemical weapons treaty mandates protocols and procedures when someone claims a chemical attack. Like it or not, Russia is following that. Currently, the independent, third-party experts from the OPCW are on the scene in Syria.

My guess is that in a week or so they'll issue a finding that there is no evidence of an attack and US/NATO mass media will ridicule the findings, scream cover-up, and then bury the story. Let's hope I'm wrong.

I'll ignore your paranoid, McCarthy-ite, ad hominem smears to just ask one question:

So the post I put in this thread full of media links about US propaganda and trolling is not "proof"?

If you see my reply to that comment, you'll see I provided a half-dozen or so links to the fact that the US gov't wages propaganda wars on the Internet and uses trolls to propagandize both Americans and foreign people. There is simply no doubt in that: the US gov't wages propaganda wars against the American people.

Exactly! You see, I live in a country where I am supposed to have freedom, free speech and a non-oppressive government. I'm supposed to be free to make up my own mind about what is "fake news" and what is not.

As such, I do not want my corrupt government passing laws to force me to pay taxes so the gov't can wage propaganda wars against me, my family, friends and countrymen. It used to be we had laws outlawing such things because in the past the CIA and other parts of the government was found to have been wildly abusing their power. But no more.

If the Russian people want to waste their money on Internet propaganda, that's their problem, not mine.

My problem is my government forcing me to pay taxes to spread lies and propaganda to be used against me.

It doesn't seem strange to me. It's simple demonization. It's political suppression through oppression. It doesn't matter if your are using raw nationalism and fear to shout down and suppress communists, or "islamofascists" or "Russian trolls" -- it's all the same mindless militarism and nationalism.

They placed 2nd in the recent Russian elections for president. Of course Putin, wildly popular in Russia and winning something like 70 or 80% of the vote, crushed the communists.

It's the 21st century. Since communism has been removed as a specter, anti-communism has been replaced with anti-Muslim mindlessness. Since Americans didn't believe Al Qaeda or ISIS was a real, existential threat to the US, now we've moved on to using North Korea or Russia to generate the fear to ensure the Pentagon and military-industrial complex's budgets are safe.

Rather than the House Un-American Activities Committee leading the charge, today it's corporations talking about suppressing "fake news," Google removing progressive web sites and foreign media sources from their news and searches -- all while claiming they love the 1st Amendment and free speech, and all for purposes of nationalism and militarism.

It's simply a case of meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

And since in today's America it's almost required, a couple of links for you from RT:

The West? Trolling foreign states for over a decade â" former MI5 agent
Pentagon bots in your comments? US Army wants AI tool for social networks

There. Now if anyone wants, feel free to trash me with McCarthy-era red-baiting about how I'm a Russian troll or bot. /s