My thoughts exactly.
Elysium had the fantasy saviour satellite with technology capable of fixing most of the world's problems just waiting to be ordered to do so. In reality, there is no army of multipurpose robots in shining armor poised to fly down and save humanity from itself.
We don't even have president Camacho.
We are so hosed.

The simple point is that as soon as we realized the capability of the Zero we easily and quickly designed a plane(s) capable of combating it.

The Yak-3 didn't enter the war until 1944, at which point the war had massively turned in Western Theatre. For the bulk of the conflict, they were using the Yak-1.

The Mig 25 and Mig 31 are both interceptors, they are designed to fire from distance and evade. The Su 35 is designed for Air Superiority. We have held the edge in our capabilities for years compared to them.

Every expert I know of is skeptical of China's claimed Railgun weapon. As to why they would bother mounting it and making claims, why not? It is brinkmanship, making us think they have more capabilities than they do.

The laser rifle is a crowd deterrent weapon. It would serve almost no purpose in infantry combat because it cannot kill. Yes, it can burn things and cause pain, but that is all. Again, this was claimed to be far more effective than experts think during our diplomatic arguments over China's use of blinding lasers on aircraft. We have no hard evidence of it's capability.

Yes, Russia could sell such a missile to our enemies versus using it directly against us. The problem is that as soon as they do so, the genie is out of the bottle. It will be reverse engineered quickly and could be USED AGAINST THEM. No country gives or sells away it's absolute top level weaponry except to it's most trusted allies. Allies which, for all intents and purposes, know that using such a weapon against another nation state risks full out retaliation against not only them but the country that sold it to them.

Our carriers are excellent mobile platforms, but they are not our only way of mounting air strikes. If we were somehow in a conventional war situation, we could easily fly over and base our aircraft in allied countries for combat. Most of our nuclear capable aircraft are not carrier launched anyway. Even if somehow all of our carriers were taken out and somehow our SAC bombers were destroyed as well, we would still have more than enough land launched and submarine launched nuclear warheads to easily blanket our enemies.

My points remain:

1. It is in the greatest interest of our enemies to boast about weapon capabilities even if they are not effective yet.

2. Most well regarded experts consider many of these weapons to either be still in the research stage, early production stage (IE not available for years), or they are wildly over hyped.

3. There is no logical reason for our enemies to use these weapons or proliferate them to their closest allies unless the weapons can prevent a nuclear response. Merely mentioning a weapon that would have such a capability creates a situation that could lead to nuclear war, like SDI did. I don't know if you recall, but I do clearly, how massively freaked out the Soviets got over our SDI claims. For two years they started threatening nuclear war as being inevitable if we continued on the path we were, all the while aggressively trying to destabilize our relations with our allies. 1983 to 1985 was pretty fucking tense, not Cuban missile crisis level maybe, but damn scary. Putin has acted similarly over our attempts to set up a missile barrier in former satellite states of Russia, although we still haven't got to the SHTF level of the early 80's.

A big part of the Zero's reputation came from racking up kills in China against a lot of second-rate planes with poorly-trained pilots. After all, there was a reason that the Republic of China hired the American Volunteer Group to help out during the Second Sino-Japanese War – Chinese pilots had a hard time cutting it.

The Wildcat was deficient in many ways versus the Zero, but it still had superior firepower via ammo loadout. The Zero carried very few 20mm rounds, most of it's ammo was 7.7mm. There are records of Japanese pilots unloading all their 7.7mm ammo on a Wildcat and it was still flyable. On the flip side, the Wildcat had an ample supply of .50 cal.

Stanley "Swede" Vejtasa was able to score seven kills against Japanese planes in one day with a Wildcat.

Yes, the discovery of the Akutan Zero helped the United States beat this plane. But MilitaryFactory.com notes that the Hellcat's first flight was on June 26, 1942 – three weeks after the raid on Dutch Harbor that lead to the fateful crash-landing of the Mitsubishi A6M flown by Tadayoshi Koga.

Marine Captain Kenneth Walsh described how he knew to roll to the right at high speed to lose a Zero on his tail. Walsh would end World War II with 17 kills. The Zero also had trouble in dives, thanks to a bad carburetor.

We were behind in technology for many reasons, but once the Hellcat started replacing the Wildcat, the Japanese Air Superiority was over. Even if they had maintained a lead in technology, as Russia showed in WW2, quantity has a quality all of it's own. We were always going to be able to field more pilots and planes than Japan would be able to.

As far as Soviet rockets, once we were stunned by the launch of Sputnik, we kicked into high gear. You can say what you will of reliability, consistency, and dependability, but exactly how many manned Soviet missions landed on the moon and returned? Other than Buran, which was almost a copy of our Space Shuttle, how many shuttles did the USSR field?

The Soviets did build some things that were very sophisticated and were, for a while, better than what we could field. The Mig-31 is a great example. We briefly lagged behind but have a much superior air capability now. The only advantages the Mig and Sukhoi have is speed, they can fire all their missiles and flee. If they are engaged however, they will lose if pilots are equally skilled.

As @newtboy has said, I am sure that Russia and China are working on military advancements, but the technology simply doesn't exist to make a Hypersonic missile possible at this point.

China is fielding a man portable rifle that can inflict pain, not kill, and there is no hard evidence that it works.

There is no proof that the Chinese have figured out the technology for an operational rail gun on land, let alone the sea. We also have created successful railguns, the problem is POWERING them repeatedly, especially onboard a ship. If they figured out a power source that will pull it off, then it is possible, but there is no concrete proof other than a photo of a weapon attached to a ship. Our experts are guessing they might have it functional by 2025, might...

China has shown that long range QEEC is possible. It has been around but they created the first one capable of doing it from space. The problem is, they had to jury rig it. Photons, or light, can only go through about 100 kilometers of optic fiber before getting too dim to reliably carry data. As a result, the signal needs to be relayed by a node, which decrypts and re-encrypts the data before passing it on. This process makes the nodes susceptible to hacking. There are 32 of these nodes for the Beijing-Shanghai quantum link alone.

The main issue with warfare today is that it really doesn't matter unless the battle is between one of the big 3. Which means that ANY action could provoke Nuclear conflict. Is Russia going to hypersonic missile one of our carriers without Nukes become an option on the table as a retaliation? Is China going to railgun a ship and risk nuclear war?

Hell no, no more than we would expect to blow up some major Russian or Chinese piece of military hardware without severe escalation! Which means we can create all the technological terrors we like, because we WON'T use them unless they somehow provide us a defense against nuclear annihilation.

So just like China and Russia steal stuff from us to build military hardware to counter ours, if they create something that is significantly better, we will began trying to duplicate it. The only thing which would screw this system to hell is if one of us actually did begin developing a successful counter measure to nukes. If that happens, both of the other nations are quite likely to threaten IMMEDIATE thermonuclear war to prevent that country from developing enough of the counter measures to break the tie.

The idea that near bankrupted Russia has made a hypersonic missile just because they say they did strains credulity.
Are they possibly technically capable? Sure. Is that all it takes to bring a multi billion dollar ultra secret project to completion with no one noticing? Hardly.

"The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."

-- George Orwell

George Orwell didn't know about global warming, or his quote might have been a little different at the end.

As usual, you're absolutely wrong on all counts.

Manafort was convicted of repeatedly committing felonious frauds with the express purpose of hiding his massive financial ties to Russia and hide the fact that he is a foreign agent working for them and has been for years if not decades.

Paying out of your pocket to women to not say anything in order to help your campaign for president, which Trump did repeatedly (according to his personal lawyer who has released tapes of them discussing it) without disclosing it as a campaign contribution is absolutely a crime, as is making a personal contribution in those amounts.

Lying about it can also be a crime, which is part of why he cannot testify. He knows he'll also be asked about them and all the other women he's screwed and paid, and he doesn't know what they can prove, so has no idea which lie to tell. He also cannot testify about his finances without admitting many more felonious frauds. No blue dress needed when you're talking about an admitted criminal fraud and consummate liar like Trump, and btw, making a blue dress dirty wasn't a crime either....hiding it and lying about it under oath was....and Trump lies 3 times per sentence. He will never survive any interview under oath....he just isn't capable of honesty.

These are high crimes, felonies, not even misdemeanors. If Clinton had 1/10 the ties to Russia you would call her a Putin stooge and be calling for her head, and you know it. If her administration had 1/10 the convictions you would be frothing at the mouth for impeachment and be irate there was any obstruction to the special council or delay in getting her testimony, and claiming the convictions were absolute proof of her guilt. The smoking gun will be found, huh.....now that the multiple decades of investigations are over and she's been cleared of any crimes, and there's no accusations of actual criminal activity forthcoming (if you say pizzagate I'm going to assume you're actually mentally deficient and stop talking to you)...NOW the smoking gun will be found. *facepalm

If there's a log of smolder and smoke on the Clintons, there's a blast furnace on Trump. His entire upper echelon is either convicted of high crimes against the state, fired, both, or at odds with him for unpresidential actions and for trying to politicize the justice system like a despot. So much for his "I have the best people" lie, eh?

You are so blatantly hypocritical it would be funny, if only there weren't tens of thousands of you willing to say any kind of ignorant nonsense if you think it distracts from the overtly and undeniably criminal administration you support. That's pretty damn unpatriotic of y'all.

Well of course - part of "responsible medicine" is not to use vivisection just because it's cheaper - especially when the results aren't as good as using computer models, lab work and training dummies or actual human cadavers - since they're not training doctors to be vets.

I suspect that person is a new vegan, hence the passion, but surely you're not for unnecessary animal suffering? Let alone if it's going to make your doctor less capable when it's your turn to be treated.

Regardless you can't take a random comment and decide that it's a spokes person for the PCRM. That to me suggests you're looking for reasons to dismiss the good advice, that benefits you and the greater world.

I'm not horrified by what was shown in the video. Not in the least. I'm just interested in the gender bias and how it affects application of the law.

With regards to your comment about physical size, what if a young (or just petite) male server weighing 130-140lbs, was groped this way by a heavier woman? Would he then be justified in throwing her down? I suspect the media outcome would still be different and result in the male server being charged. This is gender bias because men are supposed to "suck it up".

As I said, if a man grabs a woman or shoves another man, he should expect to get blasted in the face. I was brought up to never hit a woman (or anyone really) and do believe men need to show more restraint in confrontations with aggressive women because men are typically stronger and, probably on average, more physically capable in a fight.

Getting off topic a bit, but the problem I have with the modern feminist movement is that it is becoming much less about equality between the sexes and more about gaining an upper hand on men. Many modern radical feminists seem to want to be treated equally until it doesn't suit them. So I agree with you that modern society has gone a bit crazy trying to say that there are no differences between men and women. But that is getting off topic.

1) Yes, but that's much more easily said than done, and many people disagree too. I feel that it's far cheaper to pay to educate other people's children (I have none) and have them become far more productive citizens than it is to insist (despite all evidence to the contrary) that hard work overcomes all obstacles, and everyone is capable of doing the work required for success. This theory removes responsibility to help others and puts blame squarely on those who've failed. Convenient, but just wrong.

2) In a vacuum, that makes sense, but not in real life. The refusal to acknowledge the disparities in opportunity to prepare for that singular performance is where the racism lies.
It's actually illegal to use just race over performance merit in most places as I understand it. Ethnicity/gender are usually only one small part of the equation. If they could be replaced with a numerical opportunity score, used to modify performance scores,
I would support that, but good luck figuring that one out to anyone's satisfaction.

3) Yes, people always resent being forced from a position of power. I do think it's important to constantly revisit the issue to insure policy doesn't foster inequities, particularly since that's the point of the policies, eradicating inequities.

4) Predicting the naive would be suckered by a professional con man telling them platitudes, sure, but predicting so many of the educated would go along for short sighted, purely tribal reasoning, that's tougher.

5) Certain groups of people have been claiming white men are the downtrodden powerless whipping boys since the 60's. It's getting closer to true, but we aren't near there yet, it just seems that way to those less socially powerful than their fathers. Sure, there are outliers where the white male gets the shaft due to race, but we still come out well ahead in the balance by any objective set of criteria..

Bob, I'll try to ignore your having just being an ignorant douchbag who rudely dismissed those with far more knowledge and personal experience than you possess, simply because they disagreed with your non- medically based, non-scientific based, thoughtless, inhumane political position and I'll try a different tact.....

How is it that, in 2018, you are advocating slavery more foul than the African slave trade....yes, slavery.

Forcing one person to fulfill all the bodily functions of another, brain dead potential "person" (and make no mistake, a blastocyst is not a person, but for sake of argument and your limited understanding capabilities I'll let you claim it is one this one time)....that's Mengele level inhumanity and slavery.

You claim to believe in individual liberties over vague social responsibility....except when you don't.

Forcing one person to physically support another is so far to the left of full socialism you seem to think it went all the way around to the right. It doesn't work that way.
To add the typical right wing slippery slope argument, if the government can force one person to be life support for another potential person, they can force healthy people to give up organs to the unhealthy, or be consigned to hospitals to be used as human dialysis and so forth.
Until those cells can and have survived on their own without support, and can and have functioned as a mammal (meaning breathed, circulated body fluids, and consumed and evacuated foodstuffs) they have not reached "living human" status, and even if you can't grasp that fact, at no point can there be a requirement that another person acts as their sentient intensive care unit without reinstating legal slavery.

Why do you advocate slavery?

When are you donating your kidney and partial liver, and your children's? If you aren't, by your logic you're at least a double murderer and so are they. Why should I or anyone take morality advice from a double murderer?

Design a procedure where the offending not yet human can be safely removed without any (or at least less than an abortion would cause) risk to the mother, but survive on it's own without an incubator-slave, then come back and we'll talk.... until then forced incubation and forced birth is monstrously draconian socialism of a kind even Mengele would turn away from in disgust.

Edit: I came up with an argument I think might change your mind....how many baby Newtboys would you force on the planet before you decided abortion should be mandatory in some cases?

It's the A-10's gun firing at 4200 rounds per minute, 70 per second:

The General Electric GAU-8/A Avenger is a 30mm hydraulically driven seven-barrel Gatling-type cannon that is typically mounted to the United States Air Force's Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. It is capable of firing 4,200 rounds per minute.

Here is a gun test of the system:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33teK7L4DM4

Yep, a comedian on a comedy tour taking a joke picture pretending to assault a sleeping woman who then quit of his own accord is exactly the same as a long term pedophile who enjoys his parties full support and never backs down or apologizes even after losing, or a philanderer who blackmail his mistress by taking naked pictures of her tied up and threatening to make them public then fights removal.

There is no equivalency. There's not a monopoly on one side, no, but there's absolutely not "every bit as much corruption and dishonesty on the Democrat side of politics as there is on the Republican". Republican dishonesty is about selling the country to Russia and raiding the treasury, and hiding or excusing inexcusable behavior and permeates everything they say. Democratic dishonesty is about which email account an email came from and pretending the leadership has no bias, and bowing to hyper sensitivity and disingenuous faux outrage.

For example...
Asked how his tax plan benefits the rich, he replied....
Trump: "No, I don't benefit. I don't benefit. In fact, very very strongly, as you see, I think there's very little benefit for people of wealth."

When asked about his rich friends....
"They can call me all they want; not going to help," he said Sept. 27, 2017. "I'm doing the right thing and it's not good for me, believe me."

When asked about the Trump zero tolerance plan to tear families apart as a political ploy, Trump claimed the Democrats did it and only they can reverse it, then he reversed his plan himself proving both family destroying lies to be lies.

The consistency, levels, and importance of the dishonesty from Republicans is exponentially greater than that from Democrats, who are far from perfect themselves.

Edit: Btw, Mahr has addressed the issue of him running for office repeatedly, he's capable and intelligent enough to be honest and say he's a horrible politician and would probably never run, and he knows he's far more influential exactly where he is than he might be as a freshman representative.....and he's smart enough to see that a candidate that gets out the vote for the opposition (like Clinton) is a horrendously stupid idea.
And Franken worked out great until he caved to false outrage and quit while pedophiles and abusive philanderers were welcomed into the opposing party feigning the outrage over a funny (but disrespectful) picture.

I don't understand why a-holes like this get so much credence and attention on this site as well as others. If Mahr and his very well heeled cronies are so capable and intelligent, let them run for office like the other comedian - Franken did ... and how did that work out????

And don't take this as support for the Trump Chumps - there is every bit as much corruption and dishonesty on the Democrat side of politics as there is on the Republican - the Democrats just sugarcoat it, and the media drools all over themselves supporting it...

Again,

the pool is surrounded by adults not capable of telling her to stop or contact management to tell her not to.

It's better to film her and laugh at her on the internet, to fuel our pleasure in consuming this as entertainment on her behalf.