Doped pilots

[Doped pilots]

And since he was riding on speed, those 80 seconds have felt like 80 hours to him.

[Doped pilots]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Renagade @ Jan. 15 2003,20:52)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">well what happened if there was a drug without the bad side effects.

Why does the screwy spider webs have any bearing on this argument,all it proves is that spiders get screwed up on caffine and last time i checked ppl arne`t much like spiders maybe getting ppl on drugs to ddraw spiders webs would of been better <span id='postcolor'>

There will not be a stimulant drug without the bad side-effects, not ever. See, the whole point of stimulants is to make your brain fire faster. And like it or not, making your brain fire faster also impairs your judgement and makes you jittery. You cannot separate the bad effects from the good effects, since they are essentially two sides of the same thing.

Spider webs have bearing on this argument, since human and spider DNA are 70-90% identical. Furthermore, human and spider neurons operate on the same principle and are constructed almost the same way.

[U.s. military prepping for virtual warfare]

I checked and there seems to be no increase in the rate of cancer or other illnesses in the areas with military shooting ranges for heavy weapons.

[Doped pilots]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (theavonlady @ Jan. 15 2003,12:09)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">That must have been one tiny joint! <span id='postcolor'>

[U.s. military prepping for virtual warfare]

Emm, why doesn't U.S. Navy just conduct live fire exercises on U.S. soil? There must be uninhabited areas on U.S. coast that can be used for such things.

I mean our navy fires on special areas reserved for just that and these areas are part of our country.

[Doped pilots]

Here are some spider webs made by spiders on different drugs:

Notice how caffeine really messes up the insect. Of course ephedrine is still more kicking than caffeine.

So far, the best way to avoid falling to sleep when you're flying a combat mission is to get a hefty amount of sleep before the mission.

[Doped pilots]

No Doze and similar drugs contain caffeine, ephedrine and such stimulants. These give you jitters and shakes, so I don't think doping fighter pilots with those is an answer either.

[Do u believe people are basically good?]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bart.Jan @ Jan. 15 2003,00:54)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I think there is a stability in whole nature (I think it's called "nature life cycle" - I learned about it on grammar school yars ago) and inteligent human behaviour is ruining that stability. There are some local nature disasters - forest fires, volcano eruptions etc. But that are only LOCAL disasters - same species lives in other areas and when disaster area became suitable for living it moves back. The same thing can be when some species eats all its avaible food in its area. That species localy dissaper, but after time same species moves back from other areas and there is stability again. It's peramnent disaster, and species die out, only when some of these disasters happen on small isolated island that is only living area for that species.

But humans are destroying its environment permanently and the Earth can be considered as small isolated island because there is no way for humans how to move to another area with suitable living conditions. Disasters made by humans are big and on many areas. If there are many local disasters it shoud mean permanent damage. Many species died out because human behaviour. I don't know about case in which one animal species permanently killed all individuals of another species or damaged living environment of another species so badly that the all indivudals of that species dyed out.

Similar stability is in every living body. Try to harm your body stability with big dose of medicines (medicines are good, right ? - do not try this ! ). When efect of this medicines destroys, for example, your kidneys you'll die. And only because you destroyed small part of your body stability your own body products kill you.

In my definition of good-evil these animals are good. Nothing can be "innocent" or "neutral" in my definition, maybe some artifical things but I doubt.

Can you give me some example of animal that pollutes enviroment ? As far as I know all animal feces and even their dead bodies are living enviroment or food for another species - bacterias, insects, and carrion-eaters. All these species are food for another species. No part of animal pollute enviroment.<span id='postcolor'>

The natural "stability" is really just an equilibrium in great flux. Every now and then, there are global catastrophes (Ellies or ELEs or Extinction Level Events), which kill of most species on earth. Examples of ellies are ice-ages, big asteroid/comet impacts and some say even the polarity flips of Earth's magnetic field.

Then there are the ocassional animals which evolve sufficiently to cause global catastrophic effects. Humans of course belong to this category, but there have been others in the past. Let me give an example: Long ago all life was just single-celled and energy was harvested with oxidation reactions of soluble inorganic ions and anaerobic fermentation reactions. To these organisms, oxygen was poison. Actually, oxygen in great enough amounts is dangerous to all life, because of massive firestorms it causes. Eventually some species evolved, which could photosynthesize. This was a great method of survival: Harvest energy directly from the light of the sun. The drawback was that photosynthesis produced oxygen. Photosynthesizing organisms multiplied and finally managed to poison Earth's atmosphere with oxygen. There were mass extinctions and gigantic fires raged across the globe. Luckily some organisms evolved the ability to utilize oxygen for energy production, restoring balance to the world. Thus plants as they emerged, nearly destroyed the world.

Extinction of singular species is still more common throughout the history, even without human intervention. It is how nature culls unfit experiments.

Currently there are other global polluters in the world in addition to humans. Cows and other such herbivores are one example, since their digestion process produces methane, which is a greenhouse gas. In fact, most of the methane in the atmosphere is the result of cows farting.

[Do u believe people are basically good?]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (KingBeast @ Jan. 14 2003,21:06)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">As for our default state? I would say we are born bad. That is, bad as deemed by our great society. As has already been said in so many words, we have to be taught right from wrong when growing up. Children may pull the legs off of daddy long legs' (crane flies i think, for the Americans and others)  and watch them suffer. While this seems cruel (well i think so) what exactly is the childs understanding of cruelty or kindness? Its all good fun to them.<span id='postcolor'>

Or maybe children are inherently curious and just want to see what happens when you pull the legs off of an insect? Maybe they don't associate it with cruelty yet, but I don't think they're "bad" because of it. Remember, we adults kill e.g. flies just like that, only because they piss us off and that's not considered cruel or "bad".

[Do u believe people are basically good?]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bernadotte @ Jan. 14 2003,14:21)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I really don't care what you think.  In fact, I seriously doubt if a single member of this forum cares at all about anything you have to say.

Ok... now ask yourself how you feel about what I've just written, which isn't at all true, by the way.  Most people would be troubled by those words, especially if they would come from someone they knew, liked or respected.  It's quite "normal" to care about what others think of you.  Our words and deeds are constantly being judged by others and, to varying degrees, it matters to each of us.

In your opinion, why did humans evolve a need to explain away the basic rules needed to preserve the maximum competitive prowess of the pack (or society)?  Why could these rules not remain unexplained?  And why do 80% of the worlds people still cling to that need?<span id='postcolor'>

Honestly, when I read the first sentence you wrote, I thought: "Now that's quite a rude thing to say. Luckily I don't give a fuck what he thinks." So maybe I did care a bit, but quickly dismissed that caring? I must have experienced some intense trauma to develop that kind of defence mechanism.

Anyways, you're most likely correct when you say that "normal" people care a lot about what other people think of them. Maybe it's because it is important to keep others thinking happy thoughts of you, if you want to keep your status and place in the hierarchy of the pack?

First of all, the religious instinct has even been mapped to the human brain: Certain areas light up when a person experiences a religious feeling, be it from meditation in Buddhism or a pious prayer in christianity. Therefore it is not important how or who you worship as long as you worship. We are clearly talking about a basic instinct, hardwired to a human brain.

Everybody knows that humans are a very curious people, you need only to observe children asking their endless questions: why, where, how? People would eventually ask: Why cannot we kill each other just like that? I don't think "In order to maximize the survival fitness of our pack in respect to others" is a comprehencible answer to a prehistoric human. Thus it is easier to reason it: "Because gods told us to." And since humans also have a hardwired instinct to obey authority, it works out just fine.

However, I don't know whether this is the ultimate reason for why we have a religious intinct or just an additional benefit. As you understand, these kind of things are very hard to explain and still harder to prove experimentally.

Of course 80% of people cling to religiousness, because instincts are very hard to shake off.

[Do u believe people are basically good?]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bernadotte @ Jan. 14 2003,13:25)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I strongly believe that a need to be judged has evolved within all modern humans.  <span id='postcolor'>

A need to be judged, right. There must be something wrong in me, since being judged by others is the most repugnant thing I can think of.

I think humans have evolved a tendency to believe in divine things in order to explain away the basic rules needed to preserve the maximum competitive prowess of the pack (or society). However, now that we (at least some of us) have actually culturally evolved adequately to understand ourselves from a somewhat detached perspective, religious instincts are no longer needed.

[Do u believe people are basically good?]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bernadotte @ Jan. 14 2003,10:29)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">But it was meant to be complete crap, spoken by the film's main antagonist.  I wouldn't worry that the ideology of Agent Smith has amassed any significant following.

What do you mean by rising above the limitations of nature?  I would say that the vast majority of the planet's population is no longer controlled by natural limitations such as disease and famine.

I disagree.  According to your statement, the countries with the most food should have the highest population growth.  That's just not true.  Germany's population has been shrinking for decades and will probably continue to shrink regardless of what they eat.<span id='postcolor'>

I don't know about following Agent Smith's ideology, but this virus-crap has suddenly surfaced in many ocassions. I'm glad that YOU don't believe it.

The human population on the planet is definitely controlled by such natural limitations as disease and famine. But currently this population is still in the growth phase and only local shortages of food occur. However, as we continue to multiply, a cataclysmic failure in our ability to support this population will occur at some point, regardless of what we eat, beef or plants. Then there will be famine and plaque, globally.

As for Germany, they have adopted the western style of voluntary curfewing of population size. This is a step in the right direction, but of course only a small fraction of humanity has adopted it.

The most alarming thing in human behaviour, however, is our tendency to use whatever means available to push our population support capability and living standards upwards. This causes depletion or resources and permanent harm to the environment. Thus our capacity to support a population will seriously weaken in the future. Combine this to a soaring population and it is easy to see that there will be trouble. Eating solely plants will not solve it, though.

[Do u believe people are basically good?]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bart.Jan @ Jan. 13 2003,19:54)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">On the other side "civilized" society can be considered as evil because it accepts virus behaviour - people lives at cost of dying nature (rainforests, global warming, sometimes almost poison water and air) and it's acceptable for society.<span id='postcolor'>

I hate it what effect the Matrix (the movie) has had on popular culture thinking, since some "truths" proclaimed in that movie are completely false. The most unfortunate such "truth" is the infamous "All animals except humans develop a balance with their environment. But humans multiply until they destroy everything. There is only one other group of organisms that behaves like that: viruses." -quote. This statement is complete crap.

All animals solely aim to multiply. There is no instinct to "develop a balance". It's just that animals do not have such things as medicine and agriculture. Therefore after a busy multiplying session, a population of animals will suffer plaques and famines, which curfew further population growth. Furthermore, for example herbivores can eat their environment so empty of their food plants that they cause a local extinction of the food plant and thus their own demise as well. Compare this to human impact to the environment and you see the similarity.

Humans behave just like other animals, we multiply. But we're also so smart that we have developed efficient weapons to combat famine and plaques. Thus we have managed to press our population limits upwards and our impact on the environment has been the greatest of the animals of our time. But we have still not managed to raise above the limitations of nature, just look at the famines blooming around the world. Those famines are nothing but nature curfewing human population growth. Also remember that the vegetarian argument of "We should only eat plants so could feed everyone on the planet." is also wrong. Even if we only ate plants, human populations would multiply until there would be enough of us to suffer famines even with everybody on flora-diets.

Viruses on the other hand have developed a brilliant way to survive, being essentially mere hard-shelled pods of DNA, able to survive almost indefinitely in the soil and water of our environment. There they wait, until a sufficient host goes by, which they infect. The poor host produces a score of new viruses, before it dies. The new virus particles then resume waiting for new hosts and believe me, they are more patient than anything else in this world. Viruses have secured the proliferation and preservation of their DNA code way more efficiently than we have so far managed.

I also doubt that polluting the environment is somehow "evil" in the absolute sense of the word. After all, even "innocent" animals do it all the time. However, polluting is of course quite detrimental for our survival.

[Do u believe people are basically good?]

Each of us is walking a razor's edge, when it comes to "good" and "bad". Each of us is constantly tugged between choosing altruism or selfishness. Humankind as a collective structure could not function, if a certain degree of altruism was not exercised by each member. Individuals could not rise up to extraordinary acts (thus benefiting the society also), if certain amount of selfishness was not exercised by each individual.

Thus as a species, humans are typical pack animals.

Each of us struggles to advance themselves. It depends on genetic background and educational background how much of our energy we devote on altruism and how much on selfishness. As in everything, the middle road is the best for yourself and your fellow man.

Ironically the so called "terrorists" are very altruistic people, willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of their families, friends and society, as they perceive it. Mother Theresa was also a very altruistic person. So I ask, which is good, altruism or selfishness? Which is bad, altruism or selfishness?

[Greenhouse gases bill introduced]

It's funny how people called "environmentalists" are the only ones concerned about pollution. Do the people opposed to environmentalists honestly believe that pollution will have no effect on the world whatsoever? Do they believe that god will save us or what?

["declaration of war"]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (RalphWiggum @ Jan. 10 2003,08:35)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">wrong thread guys... it's about NK here.<span id='postcolor'>

Oops. We kind of drifted...

["declaration of war"]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Blake @ Jan. 10 2003,08:23)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Iraq's conscription army, based on previous Gulf War experience, are at least very prone to surrender in masses.

Anyway, many will die but I'd also expect mass surrenders rather than fighting to the last.

Not all of them are conscripts/reservists, especially officers and members of his Republican Guard. They don't deserve to die anymore than conscripts but will probably fight harder because they consider themselves elite and are more loyal to Saddam. Ordinary conscripts (as which I also served years back in a different army) have no llusions of Iraqi armed forces capabilities nor they share much desire to die for Saddam's regime - they are the ones probably surrendering before hard fighting even begins.<span id='postcolor'>

Somehow I have a feeling that you served in the same army as I did.

Anyway, the officers of the conscript troops are probably quite loyal to Saddam, since the officers are usually the ones with the greatest "ideals". They are also very likely to motivate their men with random executions.

Bush and Saddam are playing their games and innocent people get hurt. Kill one and you're a murderer, who will be executed in US and in Iraq, but kill thousands and you're a GREAT PRESIDENT.

[Carry a cap gun and win a trip to jail]

Luckily I just bought a Diana air rifle with a 370 m/s muzzle velocity, paid for in cash, no ID shown. Now if they ban then, I already own one, so I don't care, because I am not giving it back.

Anyway, when it comes to home defence, I think my glass-fibre laminate bow and katana sword will do. If the government assholes ban guns, you'll just have to think creatively. In cramped indoors spaces, a sword has much nicer engagement properties than a gun.

[Patton vs. monty]

I don't know about his strategic skills, but I'd never ever want to serve under Patton. That man was a megalomaniac and an egoist. Remember his great idea of attacking russians after german surrender? Now there was an idea which would have resulted in some serious slapping of US and UK.

["declaration of war"]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Blake @ Jan. 09 2003,13:57)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I think US has plenty of supporters at the Gulf already and the cold breeze with US-Saudi relations will be only temporary and already showing things of warming up. It was just that Saudi's showed impotence in controlling their homn-grown fundamentalist terrorism that had US on it's toes. Also many of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. But Saudi-Arabia has shown signs of falling in line again. I don't believe Iraq will become a limp puppet in US hands IF Saddam is removed with force - they will probably just elect new government which is pro-west but no way it will be as controllable as current Afgan regime. Kurds might get some sort of autonomy (which is de-facto already) but doubt situation in post-war Iraq will be as chaotic as in Afganistan which is mostly a tribe-controlled country.

Most of us know Saddam's sinister history, including his Arab neighbors and gladly would like to see him go even though they don't approve forceful methods. In this conflict anyway oil has much lesser importance than in the previous one altough it is a factor of course - it's more about politics this time. What comes to Georgia, of course US now has a nice strategic base considering the Caucasus oil reserves, but I think oil is a bit overrated motive issue on many occasions.

Having reasonably capable US-equipped and trained Georgian Army is better than having a power vacuum which potential terrorists could exploit.<span id='postcolor'>

Interestingly I just read from the Time-magazine that US has made plans to strike and destroy the nuclear weapon manufacturing sites in North Korea, but the plans were deemed unexecutable, because destroying the sites might contaminate the Korean peninsula and parts of China. So there is another proof for my statement: "Get nuclear weapons and external armed intervention is prevented."

I guess that our opinions on post-war Iraq just differ then, since I cannot possibly see any other outcome than a puppet regime installed by US. Now don't get me wrong, of course all efforts will be made to make the new government LOOK democratic and legitimate, but behind the scenes it will be US pulling the strings. Why else would they spend enormous amounts of dollars to oust a pesky old dictator?

I am with you when you say that Saddam is a bad ruler and that he has to go. But I do not agree with the methods. Saddam has a conscription army and so what a war will mostly do is kill innocent conscripts. A lot of families will have fathers no more. The reason I feel so strongly about this is because I have been to a conscription army and I know they do not ask you whether you want to defend your country or not. They'll just draft you and throw you into the meat grinder.

Saddam is an old bastard and he'll die of old age eventually.

Hhmh. Letting Russia be the sole controlling pivot of the Caucasian oil reserves is far worse than some pesky terrorists.

["declaration of war"]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Blake @ Jan. 09 2003,12:29)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">OK just one scenario. But points out that the stopping the spreading of nukes is important now as ever. If dictators in some small banana republics want to gamble and get nukes just to get some kind of fake immunity against the world they're mistaken and it will turn strongly against them in the form of entire international community.

I don't see that current US policy is encouraging nations to get nukes - facing the isolationist fate Iraq and North Korea during the years is hardly tempting to anyone and guarantees permanent place on the black list of the world. That is more the case today than earlier, now that most of the civilized world is commited against terrorism and potential nuclear weapon production. The only faction that has nothing to lose are the terrorists - they just want to spread death and destruction and certainly they will do anything possible to get nukes from so-called rogue nations. So in my opinion strict policies in form of political pressure or possible intervention against countries which could potentially threaten their neighbors with nuclear weapons or provide WMDs to terrorists is the only way to contain problems. This applies to Iraq and North Korea especially. What other choice there is? Just sit back and wait?

But I still not support that US should rush head-long to war with Iraq - there is little hard evidence yet and operation might be costly. It's still at the moment best to maintain strict inspections to keep Saddam at bay. Yet he is never to be trusted on these matters.

North-Korea keeps talking hard but eventually their saber-rattling policy will end up into some kind of settlement. They have always been peculiar as in the 90s - suddenly at brink of war, then the best of friends with South Korea. So they will get over it with time.<span id='postcolor'>

Crazy dictators with a few nukes are hardly in a position to blackmail US. All they get with their nukes is a protection against armed intervention, since US or any other western mediatocracy cannot absorb losses inflicted by a tactical nuke. "Bad press", you know. This immunity is in no way fake.

If there ever is a terror strike with nuclear weapons in the world, the source of the weapon is sure to be traced. And after that, the source will be blasted to bits. This should be a deterrent enough so that nobody will sell nukes to "terrorists".

Containment of WMDs is simply impossible.

North Korea will naturally yield to some settlement, but they will certainly not give up (all of) their nukes.

The real reason US wants to attack Iraq is their urge to establish a friendly puppet government in the gulf area, because Saudi Arabia cannot be trusted anymore as an ally. As an added bonus they get lucrative deals for their oil companies. And what comes to war on terror, well, it offers a very nice excuse to establish a military presence in the backyard of Russia, just like the yanks have done in Georgia for example.

["declaration of war"]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Blake @ Jan. 09 2003,11:33)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">But what makes you now think that these so called evil dictators all over the world now quickly arm themselves with nukes to shield themselves against US attack? If they now try to get nukes US will most certainly put up fierce counter-measures before they manage to obtain them. Trying to obtain nukes now would be plain stupid and put UN & US inspectors up their ass. NK, Iraq and supposedly Iran have had their WMD programs up years before september 11th events. Current situation is just tightening the ring on global WMD control which should have been enforced much earlier.

I'm certain current situation wouldn't encourage even the most foolish dictator to obtain nuclear weapons. Granted, NK is blackmailing with nukes but I believe US will try it's best to contain the situation.

Of course weapons that kill are problem, whatever conventional or nuclear. The point is: The latter one the world has some reasonable chance of containing. I refuse to be so idealistic and say that conventional weapons will vanish from hot spots with a few goodwill agreements. They are here to stay. Nukes are fortunately - I say again: not YET.

Nukes have killed people after WW2 of course. but were are dealing with the possibility of nuclear detonation(s) aimed to kill thousands if not millions here which is a whole different context.<span id='postcolor'>

As far as crazy rulers go, I'd imagine (since I am not one) that their main concern is power and how to retain it. They have this nice domain set up. They're nicely in control. But eternally over their heads will hang the damoclean sword of external intervention. I'm sure Milosevich is cursing that external intervention to hell right now.

The only way to avoid external intervention is to set up WMDs. It increases your risk of dethronal in the short run, but in the long run you become untouchable to external intervention. "It's worth the risk", the rogue rulers are saying: "Having nukes will make us untouchable, unless we actually use the nukes."

And what do you know. Here comes US with their schoolyard politics, encouraging the pattern of thought above.

Besides, there has not been any proof of Iraqi WMDs yet. Still us seems hell bent on attacking. NK on the contrary has directly admitted that they have WMDs, but all they get is smoothtalking. Funky.

["declaration of war"]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Blake @ Jan. 09 2003,10:27)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">NK has been allowed to stay 'evil' and 'stalinist' for the past 50 years why would US suddenly attack them? Pjongjang regime is just creating ghosts of US and South Korea to scare and brainwash it's people. Saddam has been allowed to stay on his throne despite murdering and gassing thousands of his citizens, not mentioning attacking Iran and Kuwait. Recent terror events have increased US sensitivity to any mass destruction threat which led to current escalation of Iraqi crisis. I think US is rather telling "If you're an evil dictator, stop developing nukes & WMD stuff or prepare to be dethroned". I don't see anything in that what shouldn't have been said decades earlier.

Yes but that is the unfortunate fact of life, if US stops selling weapons (which they now sell with more consideratio,n especially hi-tech stuff) they simply buy them from Russians, French, UK, etc. Conventional weapons are big concern but there is little to do from preventing people getting them from countless of sources. Even if big powers stop selling them, assault rifles can be manufactured in 3rd world countries where most killings occur with simple machinery whenever needed. BUT we still can do something to stop nuclear weapons from spreading all over the world and being easily accessible to any powermonger/terrorist. I'd say nobody has died from nukes since WW2 - YET.<span id='postcolor'>

Iraq has been allowed to stay 'evil' and 'bad' for a long time, why would US suddenly attack them? And if recent terror events have increased US sensitivity to mass destruction threats, why should US not attack NK which, as you said, is a stalinist state and might sell nukes to bad evil naughty terrorist men, just like Iraq might do. Hell, both countries are members of the Axis of Evil.

I say again: Since NK has nukes, US dares not to attack. The message US is sending is: "If you're weak (no nukes), you will be crushed."

Remember it was you who claimed that conventional weapons are not the problem. They clearly are.

Some people have been killed by nukes since WWII. I only need to mention the French nuclear testing in Mururoa, where some native residents got radiation poisoning and croaked. Also back in the day some japanese fishermen were killed by radiation from a US nuclear test, without forgetting the US servicemen who were killed by nuclear tests, because they were not warned about radiation. I don't know any specific incidents, but I'm sure also russian nuclear tests have killed a hefty amount of people.

["declaration of war"]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (theavonlady @ Jan. 09 2003,09:30)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Wondeful world we live in when folks start calling long range, nuclear and bio capable Scud missiles "conventional".<span id='postcolor'>

Scud missiles themselves are completely conventional. It's only what you load them with that can be something else.

Hell, according to your reasoning I could call you "bio-capable", since you can be infected with smallpox and then sent out to the world to infect your fellow humans, thus acting as a "delivery system". Clearly all animals are WMDs.

["declaration of war"]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Blake @ Jan. 09 2003,08:43)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I'm certain that US would never sell nuclear weapons to anyone, that is the big difference. IF it has sold nuclear weapons or technology it has been bought by at least seemingly responsible West-European NATO allies. I believe Israel has nukes but most likely it has developed without any large-scale US support. Anyway, I'm more comfortable with the idea of them having nukes than countries like Iraq, Syria or Iran.

US selling conventional weapons? Sure. But they're always bought from somebody and are not the main concern in today's world.

An economically ruined starving and desparate Stalinist state would more likely to sell nukes to terrorists or other irresponsible hands. Don't you think somebody should at least verbally try to restrain them from doing that? It's not a question of dictation but rather common sense. I bet US will not give damn if NK sells 1,000,000 AK-47s to Iran, they are not the threat.

But, let's forget that. It's always more trendy to criticise US.<span id='postcolor'>

Of course U.S. would never sell nuclear weapons to anyone but her allies, because that would jeopardize her nuclear edge over the rest of the world. However, U.S. is currently sending out a strong message: "If you're an evil dictator, develop nukes fast or be invaded and dethroned." Isn't that a little destabilizing message to send?

In today's world, conventional weapons kill the most if not all people killed violently. I don't recall anybody dying of WMDs for a long time. Furthermore, nobody has died of nukes since Hiroshima, discounting the native deaths associated with nuclear testing. I'd say conventional weapons are a very big concern, at least for those doing the dying.

Stalinist states would not necessarily sell nukes to anybody, since if that somebody then blew the nuke up, it would surely mean the demise of the stalinist state. Even the rulers of stalinist states want to survive. Let's say that I trust the stalinist states not to sell nukes as much as I trust U.S. not to train and arm the next Osama bin Laden.

By the way, NK tried to sell some conventional weapons to palestinians or was it Iraqis and U.S. did stop them in the gulf. So U.S. does blockade even conventional arms trading by NK.

It's not that it is trendy to criticise U.S. It's just that I don't trust U.S. statements any more than I trust statements by Iraq, North Korea, Russia, Israel or Uganda. Everybody just plays to maximize their own profit. Some more aggressively than others. It is needless to camouflage it with good intentions.