Iznogoud
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Posts posted by Iznogoud
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On 1/25/2019 at 7:36 PM, bush_cheney2004 said:
And I think you are missing the point.....high speed rail is not and has not ever been a high priority in the United States.
The United States has almost double the OECD average for passenger miles travel per year, leading all OECD nations by far:
That is a pointless statistic. The USA is larger than most of those nations so even if its rail system is obsolete by modern standards it is going to have high mileage. The only nations similar in area are Australia (with a very low population) and Brazil and China, both of which are developing nations. A more meaningful stat is the amount of high speed rail each nation has and the US does not show well there. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/highspeedrail.html?tid=grpromo
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20 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
That is the entire point of the graph....much higher spending levels are associated with early construction of the massive U.S. interstate highway system, which is now funded by a Highway Trust Fund from fuel taxes that also go to fund transit.
Transit now has a permanent funding piece that takes resources away from other projects and maintenance. My own metro area now has three light rail commuter lines that did not exist 20 years ago, and another is planned/funded to start building next year.
I think you are missing the point. One of the infrastructure problems listed was the lack of maintenance on bridges and highways. Apparently the level of spending is simply not enough to deal with all of the deterioration of the system. And transit in the US still lags behind of other industrialized nations, especially in high speed rail.
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23 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
Nope...the United States actually spends more on infrastructure than many other nations in the world, and has done so fairly consistently since the bulk of the interstate highway system was competed in the early 1970's.
https://www.enotrans.org/article/70-year-trend-federal-infrastructure-spending/
Ahh, but does it spend enough? The US can easily outspend nations like Italy or Germany which are only a fraction of its size and population but still be lacking in many areas. From your graph it appears that infrastructure spending in the US peaked about 50 years ago. Given the fact that this infrastructure is now very old and outmoded why aren't there higher levels of spending? Mind you I will concede that a good deal of modern infrastructure spending in the US seems to be coming from the private sector, especially in the realm of green tech.
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On 1/23/2019 at 9:41 PM, JamesHackerMP said:
That's likely because we're the remaining global superpower. When they were a superpower the Soviets did the same thing, spending to maintain their global presence to check the United States.
The USSR was completely outgunned in the arms race. At one time it was spending over 20% of its GDP in an attempt to keep up with the US while the US never went higher than 6%. The nuclear arms race itself never did make much sense - it was purely a contest of terror. With tens of thousands of weapons on each side the overkill factor was ridiculous. By comparison Britain and France stopped at just a few hundred, believing that was a sufficient deterrent.
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5 minutes ago, JamesHackerMP said:
I just said I agreed with you about the decaying infrastructure.
Not to get off topic, but yes there is waste in the defense budget (e.g., the F-35). How much would you slash the defense budget, then?
I think that rather than attempting to get NATO allies to increase their spending to US levels I would be more in favour of gradually decreasing it to the NATO average. A great deal of US spending goes into maintaining a global presence; something that none of its rivals even attempt and its military R&D alone is almost greater than the entire military budget of nations like Russia and China.
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5 minutes ago, JamesHackerMP said:
Defense spending is 12% of the federal budget, and 4% of GDP, give or take. However, I agree with you about the infrastructure decay.
Even so, that 4% of GDP is almost 600 billion. A lot of bridges could be repaired with just half that money.
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1 minute ago, Dougie93 said:
Classically liberal, which is well to the right of the Commune and associated Terror, see; John Locke, Adam Smith, David Hume, Edmund Burke, etcetera
Yes, I have noticed that classical liberalism, which actually resembles modern conservatism, is often confused with modern liberalism, which leans toward democratic socialism.
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20 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
No, it proves nothing. The United States isn't more or less "wrong" because it has or has not maintained its infrastructure to your liking, just like any other nation.
U.S. federal, state, and local jurisdictions fund projects based on many different criteria and priorities.
It proves one of my my many points exactly, which thanks to overspending on defence and a lack of planning, the US is literally falling apart in many areas. Eventually something will have to be done about its decaying infrastructure, but having delayed so long in so many areas it is going to be much more expensive.
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12 hours ago, DogOnPorch said:
Actually, Tewa led to another dead end design called the B41...the only three stage weapon deployed by the USA.
The success story of Redwing was the development of the B28 which was a multi-yield device...used by Canada even.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B41_nuclear_bomb
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B28_nuclear_bomb
Yes, indeed.
Trinity is a good introduction for anybody interested in nuclear weapons. But it doesn't cover a lot of details, unfortunately. Nor does it cover non-American designs.
Joe 4, for example...the Soviet's first boosted weapon...not quite an H-Bomb. Test 6 was Red China's... Grapple Y was Great Britain's...etc.
Yes, its focus was entirely on the US-USSR arms race, but it had an interesting twist at the end with China's first nuclear test. Of course the French continued testing right into the 90s, much to the disgust of the rest of the world.
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1 hour ago, DogOnPorch said:
Test Shot Redwing Navajo (Bikini Atoll, June 1956: 4.5 megatons or 300 Hiroshimas)
One of the 'cleanest' detonations at 95% fusion...but also a good example of what was known as a 'dead-end design' in the H-Bomb building business. It couldn't be made smaller...and smaller was the objective.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W21
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Redwing
Ever Watch "Trinity and Beyond?" It is an illuminating documentary on the nuclear arms race up to the 1960s. It is available on Youtube.
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On 1/21/2019 at 11:31 PM, bush_cheney2004 said:
The topic has been addressed at the state and federal level for decades, with inspections and risk protocols already in place. They don't need your input.
Interesting these problems have been discussed, but nothing has been done about them. Sort of proves a couple of my points doesn't it?
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On 1/20/2019 at 9:53 PM, bush_cheney2004 said:
No, it clearly frames your "problems" in a far more practical context....nobody emigrates to ride a "bullet train".
Typical stupid answer, but once again a complete failure to address the topic. But here, I'll give you a chance. Refute just one of these problems.
https://www.businessinsider.com/asce-gives-us-infrastructure-a-d-2017-3#energy-d-5
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Sorry, but you failed to address a single point with that post. That is like claiming the Dominican Republic is perfect because Haitians try to sneak into the country.
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/08/13/between-hope-hate-help-haitians-in-the-dominican-republic/
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8 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
There are those who watch...and those who do.
Thanks - I fit into both categories. Too bad you don't.
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No intelligent comment yet. Keep trying.
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22 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
What ? This doesn't even make any sense. All those other nations have lost population to emigres who have fled to the USA....#1 destination in the world. I guess bullet trains did not impress them very much.
Don't care if you agree or not....you are wrong on many points...in this thread.
Except, rather sadly, you have yet to refute any of them. Post again if and when you can actually think of an intelligent comment.
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22 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
If such matters are so common, then they are not problems at all. Not once in my life have I lamented the lack of a "bullet train". Is my life in America less because of this gaping transportation void ? I guess I will just have to fly on modern turbofan powered aircraft...such a hardship !
You seem to be a perfect example of another problem that afflicts the US; that of the smug attitude that is the US doesn't have it then it is not needed. The UK long held the same attitude as it slowly went down the drain. Enjoy watching the rest of the world pass you by.
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20 hours ago, DogOnPorch said:
The question isn't really 'are nuclear weapons good'.
As for Japan being innocent, they started the war. They were also guilty of very heinous war crimes that I doubt you're aware of.
Here's a minor example that was repeated many times across the Pacific & Indian oceans...
https://www.armed-guard.com/ag87.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_submarine_I-8
I am fully conversant with World War II. In fact I have lost track of the number of books I have read and the number of videos I have watched on the topic. A case could easily be made that if any nation deserved a couple of nuclear bombs it was Japan. Ironically, it is these nuclear attacks that seemed to force Japan out of the war, probably saving Japan from an even worse fate at the hands of conventional weapons.
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16 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
Ergo, that's why nuclear weapons will continue to exist...to prevent exactly that.
Tell me something else I knew more than 50 years ago.
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13 hours ago, Dougie93 said:
Not actually the case, there are strategic weapons, there are intermediate weapons, and there are tactical weapons, you've simply conflated countervalue strategic with nuclear weapons writ large.
You're also viewing an illusion projected by the pax Americana, making it seem like interstate wars have gone away forever and war is imperial policing and nothing else, but really that's just King Dollah paying everybody to get along.
I have a full understanding of nuclear arsenals. My point is that despite the huge numbers of nuclear weapons not a single one has been used in any war since Nagasaki and due to the reasons I suggested in my post such use is unlikely. This is interesting given that pretty much every other weapon in existence has been used in the numerous conflicts since 1945. Fear of a nuclear attack appears to be something drummed up the the media on a slow news day.
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9 hours ago, Argus said:
How are they supposed to 'manifest themselves' when Brexit hasn't happened yet?
I think you're one of those people who sees racism under every bed and in every closet, so I doubt there's much point. Labour supporter, right?
Such intolerance is universal. English intolerance is considerably less than what you would find in most countries outside of the West.
Do any of them include burning foreigners alive, burning down their homes, beating them to death in mass mobs, burning down their churches? That's how non-Western countries show their xenophobia.
But at least they'll be able to choose who these immigrants are.
I'm not interested in the bleating of the remain side bent on scaring people into staying as a colony of the EU and surrendering all their national sovereignty in the name of cheaper sausages and more banking jobs.
Sorry but none of those arguments in any way refuter my OP which simply stated that Brexit appears to be an utter failure. But that was to be expected given the pie in the sky promises made by those who promoted the leave side. The latest estimates regarding a "successful" Brexit is that the UK's GDP will drop by at least 3%. In a worst case scenario a 9% drop is predicted, and those are UK government estimates.
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1 minute ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
What ? This doesn't even make any sense. All those other nations have lost population to emigres who have fled to the USA....#1 destination in the world. I guess bullet trains did not impress them very much.
Don't care if you agree or not....you are wrong on many points...in this thread.
Except that despite your trolling you have failed to refute a single point. All you have managed to do is note that some nations have similar problems, which disproves nothing in my OP. You appear like many Americans to be adopting a stick your head in the sand attitude.
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Nuclear weapons have to be one of the most useless weapons ever invented. They can only be used if the other side doesn't have any; and any such use would result in a massive worldwide backlash and probably complete rejection of any government that used them from its own population. As an example there are many who actually believe that Japan was the victimized nation in World War II despite immense evidence to the contrary. Not only that, but in an all out nuclear war both sides would be completely destroyed.
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3 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
It was fantastic confirmation of "Fake News".
Dream on. Your idol is about to have a nightmare.
What is Wrong With the United State?
in Federal Politics in the United States
Posted
Forget it. I just dropped out of this forum. Believe it or not I was warned about not trimming my posts.. A forum that is that weak on bandwidth isn't worth attending.