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El Pared (The Wall)

Is there enough remaining support for the rest of the field for either Cruz of Rubio to catch up to either Trump or Carson?

The simple answer is no. Nationally Trump has 24.8% and Carson has 24.4. That is 49.2% of the vote locked out. It simply doesn't matter how you divide up the rest. If it is divided then the front runners will continue to control the election. For any of the second tier to move up either Trump or Carson has to collapse.

"Gingrich and Cain did it once last time, and it was great, but it did not catch on that cycle."

Position has a lot to do with it this time. When Gingrich and Cain did it they were behind in the polls and the establishment candidate, Romney, was at the top. So the establishment and their friends in the media could always threaten to not let the lower tier candidates into the debates. This time it is the front runners objecting and the establishment candidates running at the back of the pack. Nobody is going to watch a GOP debate without Trump, Carson, Rubio and Cruz on the stage.

Basically the will of the GOP establishment can be ignored because their chosen candidates are already being ignored by the electorate.

You know Turkeys actually makes sense. There was an old WKRP Thanksgiving episode where they throw Turkeys out of a helicopter. The punchline was the idiot station directory saying "With God as my witness I thought turkeys could fly". Now we have the chairman of the RNC saying "With God as my witness we did not know liberals would lie." Unfortunately this time it is not funny, just pitiful.

"I don’t believe the RNC is unhappy with the media at all." No the RNC is just unhappy that the candidates are figuring out that they would be better off without the RNC.

It is ironic that NBC had Trump on 186 episodes of the Apprentice, but now that he is the one trying to convince people to hire him it won’t be on NBC.

We may be witnessing a Whig party moment here. Trump has the popularity, personality, and resources to break the establishment in a way nobody else has had since Reagan took them on back in 1976. In 1979 the party apparatus backed down rather than split the party. But I don’t think that “Team Bush” at the RNC will back down and accept Trump as their leader.

That was also partly driven by their torpedoes. The Japanese Type 93 torpedoes were much larger. In consequence they carried less rounds and had to reserve them for “worthy” targets. The Japanese B1 Submarine carried 17 torpedoes in six tubes while the US Gato class (only about two thirds the size of the B1) carried 24 torpedoes in ten tubes. The class Ro Submarines carried only eight torpedoes in four tubes. Since in World War II you had to fire a spread of torpedoes in order to ensure a hit the Ro class was limited to firing two spreads of torpedoes before it had to head for home. Under such circumstances you need to wait for a very good target.

Yeah, things wear out and are replaced on an as-needed basis, but I see no wholesale splurging or even mini-splurging.

Replacement demand will never make up for the demand of conspicuous consumption. Look at cars. People are not buying a new car ever couple of years any more. The statistics show that cars now go six to eight years before replacement rather than the four year average before 2008. It isn't that cars last longer, it is that people are now going for more years of use after they finish the lasts loan payment. You have effectively halved demand.

Misleading headline. His statement was more along the line that Jesus has already died to save us. There is a big difference between you don't need to be saved, and you already have been saved.

One of the more humorous episodes of “Tales of the Gun”. Almost ever one of them was either poorly designed, poorly made or both. The Type 99 long rifle and Type 99 light machine gun (also in .303) were the only good ones. The Type 99 short (last ditch) was a POS, the SMG was a joke, and their pistols were more dangerous to the user than the target.

There is no need to print a barrel — that can be bought without legal constraints. The only part of the multi-part gun system which is “the firearm” is the lower receiver. That is not exposed to the strong explosive forces that the chamber or barrel see.

And this is the kicker. It will not be making guns from scratch, but making parts to convert one type of gun into another. With the printers you can turn an AR-15 into an M-16. You can convert your AK-47 to full auto. Government won't sell you high capacity magazines, a bit of spring steal and a 3D printer and their ban becomes unenforceable.

Back in World War One the US Army came up with the Pedersen Device, which could convert a bolt action rifle into a sub machine gun. It wouldn't be impossible to make something similar using a 3D printer.

Earth First!

We can mine the asteroids and other planets later.

Second reply; One of the posts above listed the agent as BZ. While not working on exactly the same methods you can think of it as an LSD gas. BZ is a nonlethal incapacitating agent. Assad wouldn’t be worried about using it in the least. It just makes the victims easier to shoot while they wander around absorbed in their hallucinations.

Syria is a small place and the use of WMD’s against an entrenched enemy would likely cause significant collateral damage.

It depends on what agent was used. Some, like Sarin, have very short life spans and can be used to wipe out an entrenched enemy, but break down naturally within a day or two. Others, like VX, can stay toxic for very long periods of time.

The most powerful three words in the English language are “No I Won’t”. Especially when backed by the conviction to accept the consequences. The GOP has finally realized that they will be pilloried in the press no matter what they do. At that point inflexibility is what will eventually bring the other side either to reason or defeat.

The next two years are going to be ugly. I have serious doubts if the GOP leadership has the convictions to make this stick. But in a very real way they have little left to lose through defiance, and nothing to gain by negotiation. They are like the marines on Guadalcanal. There is no place to run, and the other side has made it clear they aren’t taking prisoners, so you may as well dig in and make a fight out of it.

I would tend to disagree with this. The Americans at the beginning of the war had a few phenomenal pilots, and a lot of bad pilots, using bad tactics, flying bad aircraft. One of the only good attributes of early war US aircraft was that they were easy to fly and maintain, and they had to be because of the relatively low quality of the average pilot.

The Japanese had a small number of extremely good pilots. They flew aircraft that were world beaters in the hands of an expert, and which would kill a novice. The A6M is not spectacular in any particular. It is slower than the Bf 109, the Spitfire can match it for maneuverability. Almost anything with US insignia was better armed and more durable. What made the Zero a legend was the men who flew it. Once they died the very nature of the aircraft and its successors meant that there was no way to quickly bring up replacements.

In contrast the Americans brought out planes like the F6F and F4U that could beat the Japanese in every category, and yet were durable enough to allow novice pilots to survive their first missions and become experienced. The average pilot in the late war US Navy and USAAC were vastly better then the men who went to war in 1941. One reason for that was the US tactic of bringing home top aces to teach recruits how to better fight their aircraft. In contrast in Japan and Germany the rule was fly till you die. It did mean that the Axis powers produce super aces like Erich Hartmann, Günther Ral and Saburo Sakai. However it also meant that those super aces were supported by a bunch of guys who didn't know how to set their trim tabs correctly. Quite literally as late in the war Robin Olds shot down one German who was crabbing sideways in his Bf 109 because of failing to reset his trim tabs after takeoff.

There will be elections, but they will be “Chicago Style” elections. If you want to see where the US will be in 16 years look at the state of Illinois today. Back when I was a kid the state had a workable GOP downstate that could offset the Daley machine in Chicago. The GOP kept trying to run consensus candidates and moderates. They threw away all their principles one by one and eventually the only difference between the two parties was who would offer more goodies. That was always the Democrats. Now there is no effective GOP anyplace in the state and no matter how bad things get the Democrats cannot lose, because they are the only ones on the ballot.

That will be the state of the US probably no later than 2020. We are becoming a one party state like Russia, Venezuela or anyplace else the the socialists have taken power and held it for a protracted period. The election of 2012 was the last chance to break the hold of the Democrat machine. By 2016 they will have had a decade to put their people in place in every part of the judiciary and bureaucracy. No matter which party wins the elections after that point, the socialists will be the ones calling the shots.

Even if a solid conservative wins the White House every effort he/she makes will be thwarted by bureaucrats and judges put in place by Obama. No president can survive that level of backstabbing and leaks, especially with a press that is all to eager to support the socialist party's line.

When we do it...that is how we are going to do it.

It is either slow boat to the stars or wait for someone to figure out how to build an Alcubierre drive. The slow boat uses only things we know how to do and physics we understand. The Alcubierre drive requires physics that exist only on a black board (or more likely a super computer) and technology we can't even describe much less build.

A 747 is 100 times faster than a sailing ship. However if in 1492 you had waited for 747s to colonize the new world you would have arrived 460 years late to the party.

Drive lasers and concentrated beams of charged particles operating continuously over months might be a better bet as while the initial acceleration forces are small, overtime the craft will attain enormous velocities at “c” or close to it since acceleration, while tiny in force is continuous until the whole craft is traveling as fast as the photons leaving the drive engines.

There are two problems with the drive lasers. First you have to build them, and that isn't something we know how to do. They require vast amounts of orbital infrastructure (in contrast a city sized Orion could be surfaced launched if you can get it past the EPA). Finally in order to decelerate you need drive lasers on the other end.

Stopping an Orion wouldn't be easy either. Nuclear bombs have a use by date, and after a few hundred years they aren't going to go bang any more. So the ship would need to have some way of reprocessing the tritium pits used to detonate the bombs used for the deceleration phase. A NSW engine would work for deceleration. The problem with those isn't getting them going, it is keeping them under control. If any of the fuel leaks it immediately goes critical. When you remember that we are talking about a corrosive liquid that you need to store for four centuries the problem starts to become clear.

A beamed energy craft may be the answer to intersteller colonization as their top speed is vastly higher than a nuclear salt-water rocket or Orion drive. The top end is actually limited to less than .5 c because since the photon is only going at c it hits with less force as the ship goes faster and faster. In addition when the photon reflects off the sail it carries energy away with it. Still .5 c is a heck of a lot faster than the .035 c that is the limit for an Orion or NSW engine. Considering human life spans a 40 year trip is a lot more attractive than a 400 year trip. You also don't have to share your ship with a portable Chernobyl as you would with a NSW drive.

So when you find someplace you want to go send ahead a robot ship with a laser. Then when it is in place you send the colonists on a much faster light sail craft.