Maybe they cut something out that would have better explained his decision to crash the plane into the ice. To be honest, I would have prefered the Ultimates version, where he grabs on to a rocket with a nuclear warhead, about to launch, headed for the US, and basically disables it from the inside, and it crashes on the north pole. THAT way, there was really nothing he could have done.

To me it is incredible that out of the 2,000+ explosions, only 2 were fired "in anger", and those were the 2nd and 3rd events.

There is absolutely no arguing that a full-on nuclear war would be terrible, devastating, and horrendous. However, I think it would be pretty difficult for it to be end-of-humanity apocalyptic. From some quick googling, it looks like a high yield modern nuclear warhead has a blast radius of 6-7 miles, so probably under 150 square miles of area (not counting fallout, lesser blast damage outside of the center, etc.)

So, if every nuclear explosion in history was from an extremely high-yield modern bomb, and they had all been fired at once with the targets spread out to destroy the largest possible total area, they could have utterly destroyed an area a bit bigger than Texas.

I guess that is a pretty grim way to look on the bright side...

Once one removes 'fear' and 'racism' from conservative playbooks, one removes 90% of what conservatives have to talk about. Mr. Pennypacker and Mr. Quantumushroom are easy examples of this concept. Last night, we say a republican unconscously lash out to the president, on something that was not true to begin with. The individual in question, has since asked for an apology. Most likely threaten by his congressional superiors, since no one seemed to come to his side. Even though THIS, is the subject they seem to promote in the conservative styled ads on tv, and the talk show hosts.

Two thumbs up to Diogenes for putting up the information.

And yes, Mr. Bush lied about a great number of things. Back in 1999, then Gov. Bush of Texas was saying 'as president, I will not conduct nation building on foreign soil'. Yeah, we all know that was a lie. And the one in 2003, about promoting fair and honest business trade, was over shadowed when he had the leading energy giants together, behind closed doors and off the record, to talk about the energy crisis at the time. Finally, my personal favorite: WMDs. Maybe Mr. Pennypacker or Mr. Quantumushroom could point out to us all those weapons of mass destruction we were suppose to find in Iraq. You know, the 'massive stockpiles' of 'WMDs', like nuclear warheads we (the USA) accussed Saddam of having? Yeah, defend Bush, go ahead, I dare you.

Immediately after the President gave his speak, a Republican rebutal was made. This idiot said, Republicans are ready to come to the table in a biparistan fashion, to work on health care reform. I say "To bad", they had their chance, and just like with EVERYTHING else they have had to deal with in the last two decades, they pissed away opportunity to serve the public good. They had their chance, and they blew it off, and NOW, they get to pay for it.

The President has some really good ideas. He explains them as a professor would on an issue. He uses education, decency, patience, and fairness. Its to bad his Republican opponents behave like children so often. But then again, are we to expect Republicans behaving any other way anymore?

For some reason it reminded me of this event:

The 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident occurred at Minot Air Force Base and Barksdale Air Force Base on August 29–30, 2007. Six AGM-129 ACM cruise missiles, each loaded with a W80-1 variable yield nuclear warhead, were mistakenly loaded on a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52H heavy bomber at Minot and transported to Barksdale. The nuclear warheads in the missiles were supposed to have been removed before taking the missiles from their storage bunker. The missiles with the nuclear warheads were not reported missing and remained mounted to the aircraft at both Minot and Barksdale for a period of 36 hours. During this period, the warheads were not protected by the various mandatory security precautions required for nuclear weapons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_Air_Force_nuclear_weapons_incident

>> ^maximillian:
No fireworks at the end???


Nope. Replaced by the more appropriate blowing up of the castle. It is Norris after all.

Chuck Norris employs C4 in his fireworks displays, and nuclear warheads for the finale.

Littledragon hit it on the head: the conglomeration of news outlets is a serious sickness in our democracy.

Take for example General Electric, and their holdings, specifically NBC, and a defense contractor that manufactures nuclear warheads. In order to keep demand up for their warhead business, why wouldn't they air stories designed to keep the US population in a perpetual state of panic?

And don't get me started on our for-profit health care system. Capitalism fails the sick and the diseased left and right. No one wants to develop "orphan drugs," that is, cures for serious diseases. The real money is in prolonged treatment. No company part of the American Cancer Society is putting any money towards finding a cure, they all make more money with lengthy and painful cancer treatment. Lifestyle drugs like Viagra and Rogaine rule the market.

>> ^jwray:
Good luck getting enough money to build roads, put out fires, and catch murderers with only voluntary donations. Governments exist to moderate individual selfishness for the greatest good of the greatest number of people.


Sorry to interrupt your pointless argument with anarchists, but government does have a legitimate duty. A voluntary system works on paper for these things, the problem is that it can't last because other nations won't do the same. If you have ZERO taxation for national defense, you will be bowled over by a country that does. Charity can work for minor problems, but you can't privatize nuclear warheads and so forth. Libertarians like myself understand this and recognize that the government has legitimate duties for protecting the infringement of rights (police/fire/environment), non-preemptive national defense (some roads, military), and offering recourse for disputes (courts).

Most of the people on this site are soft socialists. Where socialists (called liberals or neo-cons today) go wrong, is the belief in policies going beyond this, particularly when it comes to the markets. Good intentions but terrible results because they're not fully understood by the people enacting them. A socialist might say allowing government to bail out bankruptcy is a good thing. A libertarian would say that by sparing true consequence and rewarding risky behavior, you get more of it: that the fear of bankruptcy is one of the pillars of an efficient economy. And the socialist will say: but look, we never bailed them out before and they still took insane risk, therefore we need regulation. And the libertarian will say: the market got drunk, yes, but it was BECAUSE of another socialist policy, thus you cannot justify further socialism based on problems other socialist policies create. Central banking is a socialist policy. If the market got drunk, it was The Federal Reserve that provided the liquor and egged them on. Because of their ability to set interest rates far lower than where the market wanted them, they sent a false signal to profit-driven markets that created enormous artificial demand for housing during what was supposed to be an interest-hiking recession/correction in 2000 when the last bubble they birthed collapsed, the NASDAQ bubble.

Thus, you can see how socialism builds on itself until eventual all-out collapse. Since no one understands economics, and no one wants the pain of a recession, they don't see how a socialist enablement (the central bank) under either party and not the free market was the actual root cause of the problem. So a politician gets on a pedestal and promises to make this impossible by abolishing the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and returning to a full gold standard (Paul), and loses, while a person who promises to bail everyone out with inflation and ease people's fears with even more Federal Reserve powers wins. People want the easy answer, and it will result in hyperinflationary collapse like every other fiat currency before it. It's inevitable, the powers you gave these benevolent dictators can't help but be abused.

Let's try another one: subsidies. I hear it all the time, "big bad corporations. It's the corporations. Their greed is the problem and we need to regulate it through government." And yet, these same people support subsidies. What is a subsidy? A subsidy is forced payment (tax) by government, which is then dished out by a politician who didn't earn it, to whichever company financed his/her campaign the most. Since it's a bidding contest, the largest companies always beat the smaller ones. The end result is that individuals and small businesses are effectively subsidizing larger ones, eroding the competitive pillar that makes free markets produce better and cheaper products. The idealist objective behind this is, of course, the academic argument that intellectuals in government can decide a product better than the market. In reality, politicians are just as greedy if not moreso than regular individuals, and when given the opportunity to make such a choice, it rarely gets made with any logic or thrift, because it wasn't their hard-earned money being spent. Why would you be thrifty with stolen money? It's true that the companies are doing some bribing here, but it's made possible by subsidies. You can't bribe a politician for a special privilege if that power is made illegal.

Let's try another one: Social Security. The flaws are endless in this one. It started at 2% of wages and has worked its way up to 12%. The retirement age has continually been increased so that more people are dying before they can get anything back. People from one generation were made to pay for existing recipients, creating a weird dependency gap reminiscent of ponzi schemes now that the trust fund annually raided. I'll just post a few videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh-NqdmEDq4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS2fI2p9iVs

Enough said. And again, Ron Paul in one of the debates said that the problem gets worse as time goes on, and it should be phased out immediately in favor of private savings not controlled by government. But no, that would be the "radical" thing to do, say the socialists. Meanwhile, they commit their grandchildren to possibly 30% of wages and a recipient age of 80 as a way of keeping it "solvent."

>> ^shuac:
How could a Sagan fan not be aware of the Cosmos series? It's like a Darwin fan not ever hearing of the Theory of Evolution. Or something like that.
I acquired the 7-disc set myself recently because we watched it originally in my 7th grade science class. I don't remember how things were, politically, back then (aside from the Iran hostages thing), but in re-watching the Cosmos DVDs, Carl Sagan seems very despondent and fearful about the future of man. More than once, he goes on about the likelihood of self-destruction. Only in the added material, shot in 1990, does he seem "happier."
Anyone else notice this? Was Carl Sagan depressed?


No, his fears were very justified. In 1982 nuclear proliferation was in full swing. By 1986 the world had over 60,000 nuclear warheads. These numbers didn't start to fall until around 1988 or so. The amount of nuclear firepower that was pointed at us was mind numbingly huge. It still is, actually.

Lurch... ok... here goes:

"Spoco2, it's not about "needing" a gun to feel safe. It's about not allowing the government to have a say in whether you can or not. That's it. By the same logic, you shouldn't "need" guns to be banned to feel safe.

But you're going from one extreme to another, by suggesting that the government has no say in you owning a gun or not, because, well, you just should be able to dangit. Then surely you should also be allowed to own a grenade launcher? Or a nuclear warhead? Where is your line?

See the quote above. Accidental deaths? Hell, drowing is the second leading cause of accidental death according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Six people accidentally drown in pools every day according to the CDC. You don't see an outcry for the government to legislate you out of owning a pool. Granted it's a poor comparison in terms of a firearm to a pool, but it's following the same reasoning if you want something removed because you fear it or it can kill you accidentally. Firearm deaths are way down the list of leading causes of accidental death.

Well, actually... I think in the US you have no pool fencing laws (at least that's what I thought when I saw Transformers and saw the little girl standing by the pool. In Australia it's LAW that you have any pool safety fenced. Problem by and large solved right there... kids can't wander in. So yes, we don't outlaw pools, but we DO enforce that they be a lot safer, and as such a lot less drownings occur.

Accidental firearm deaths were beat out by motor vehicles, drowning, poisoning, falls, fires, medical complications, and many others. Motor vehicle accidents alone cause between 50% - 80% of deaths in every age group while accidental firearm deaths are barely a fraction of 1%. This information is coming from the National Vital Statistics report in 2005.

BUT... deaths from things like car accidents come about from a USEFUL object that CAN be dangerous if not treated correctly. You can't just outlaw cars because how would people get around? But guns, what practical purpose do they have in the average person's home? Sweet bugger all, I get along perfectly well with no deadly firearm in my home as does EVERYONE else I know.

You can't save everyone from themselves. It's not the governments job to place us in a bubble without choice for our own protection when it's specifically stated in the constitution that the "right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." What would be nice is if instead of focusing on scaring everyone with arguments about how we'll all either die and be raped without guns, or die in killing sprees with them, people should start thinking about what it means to open the door for the government to become your babysitter."

It's such a convenient argument to say that the government banning guns is a Nanny State or babysitting you, while ignoring all the other things that are illegal that you find to be perfectly reasonable. Outlawing guns is removing something that has no reasonable, practical purpose in a normal home. In Australia if you work on a farm or other occupation where a gun is useful for rabbit/fox control or the like, then yes, you can have a gun (but not an automatic or semi-automatic), but those of us in metro housing, there is NO NEED TO HAVE A GUN... hence we don't feel nannied or deprived because they're illegal.

Are crime rates higher in Australia because we all can't defend ourselves against all these criminals who 'will get a gun illegally while us poor citizens can't buy one'? Nope... We're doing just fine without everyone and their dog being armed thanks, and THAT law does not make us a nanny state.

Aww, that's the *cutest nuclear warhead I've ever seen! And the research facility looks scrumptious!

Do the villagers know they don't just have to attack him one at a time?

He looks like MacGyver -- he should have been able to throw together a nuclear warhead out of discarded farm implements and wipe out the whole village.

Still, I guess he did ok.

Wow the two people I despise the most talking about bullshit fear mongering dogma using liberal buzzwords. I can't think of a better place to have a nuclear warhead hit.

Nuclear weapons were mentioned in TOS of Star Trek. I specifically recall the Romulan Commander in "Balance of Terror" dropping a nuclear warhead into fake debris and almost taking out the Enterprise.