Sen.Blutarsky

Does not compare favorably with Ron Barrilito brand rum, which is the best I’ve ever had and I’m rather fond of rum. Try some Barrilito, dude, you can buy it stateside. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

You mean rights like those once believed held by Mr. Korematsu? Americans seldom bother to examine the true extent to which their fundamental rights can be circumscribed given relatively minor pretexts. This Administration has been pushing the envelope but the smart money is betting they prevail. Not that I’m claiming W isn’t an “asshole” in your parlance, but I do have reason to believe W is advised by competent counsel. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

You can't afford my retainer. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

What, and miss spending quality time here with you? I would regret that Mr. Cunning-Ming-Us. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

And why does Mrs. Blutarsky keep pestering The Senator in the middle of the night for more “attention” when they both have a big day ahead of them and he at least needs to sleep? Science had better produce an answer quickly or else I’m going to begin seriously scrutinizing all that money we’ve been directing to NSF and others. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Else it could have been the case that in order to prevent possible future attacks by Padilla’s organization the investigators felt compelled to share with Padilla some of our national means we employed to collect intelligence about he and his colleagues and there was legitimate concern on the part of the Administration that Padilla might communicate this information to others in a way which could comprise ongoing collection efforts. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

http://www.cubaweb.cu/ Now release this thread as we have complied with your demand! Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

What does "due process" mean given the facts alleged in this case? Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Bush hasn't provided any fodder in the past several days. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

I don't see why not. Our society has apparently come to worship the mental midgets in Hollywood. Remind me again what it was that Randy Newman had to say about "short people"? Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Yep. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

We spend more on our military because (1) we _can_ spend more to pursue our perceived national self interests, (2) our national ethos would rather build expensive machines and not witness large numbers of our warrior class get destroyed for political expediency, (3) whenever humans devise new tools, including novel instruments of national power, there is natural impetus by those in control to utilize them, (4) our business and political leaders sense the personal opportunities a grotesquely bloated military budget presents, (5) our political processes were designed to be inefficient, (6) if we withdraw as the central driving force in world political economy other powers will fill the void we leave quite possibly to our detriment, and (7) scarcity exists in the world and we need to deal with “bad” actors in order to stay relatively rich and influential. Since 1945 none of the countries you listed has attacked the mainland U.S. despite the almost desparate desire on the part of some of their leadership to attack us, as shown by the historical record, because these leaders have feared the likely overwhelming U.S. military response against them. Unfortunately this means that some countries will attempt to bring us down by proxy in furtherance of their own perceived self interests and we will continue to be confronted with asymmetric warfare because that’s all that weak powers can manage. We employed asymmetric warfare when our nation was relatively weak but we’ve never been very successful at countering it, hopefully we are improving in our ability to address this form of challenge while at the same time we eventually tackle the greater challenges presented by human nature and scarcity. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

The new U.K. carriers are being designed with ski ramp launch and not catapults. “No catapult or arresters will be fitted in the initial build but the carrier will be built to accommodate a future back-fit. The carrier will be fitted with a steam catapult or electromagnetic launch system and arrester gear, if the option to convert the carrier to the conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) variant proceeds.” See http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/cvf/. FYI the U.K. MOD is notorious for never following up with planned retrofits. In respect of the U.K. version F-35, “[t]he JSF is being built in three variants: a conventional take-off and landing aircraft (CTOL) for the US Air Force; a carrier based variant (CV) for the US Navy; and a short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft for the US Marine Corps and the Royal Navy.” Although the design for new U.S. carriers hasn’t been finalized the U.S. Navy has no plans to acquire a VSTOL version of the F-35. See above. Exactly which country do you hale from? Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Of course. It's a basic tenet of our platform. We even have a faction which advocates a reverse Prohibition amendment to the Constitution wherein all voters must test over a minimum blood alcohol threshold in order to be admitted at the polling station. The faction feels this could attract Ted Kennedy's constituency to affiliate with us. Our image consultants are studying their proposal as I write this. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

The politicos on both sides share the same arch plan: (1) hold power and (2) feather your nest. All their other plans are remotely secondary. The people need to starve them into practicality and making the hard choices our nation faces. At least that's the current position of us Blutarskyites. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Your original question to which I responded was “How would aircraft carriers have helped Canada in Kosovo?” Now you’re restating the aircraft carrier question in terms of being a requirement for participation in peace keeping operations, which you are free to do. Just don’t attempt to attribute your criterion to me please. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

They could have given Canada organic tactical airpower and airlift capability instead of Canada having to rely on U.S. air support when Canadian troops got encircled and were nearly crushed, as has happened several times. Read for yourself: http://members.shaw.ca/canadaunderattack There have been major attacks on Canadian forces who were conducting peace keeping operations in various parts of the world and the troops were saved only because some other nation intervened. There have been major incursions into Canadian waters by other nations fleets poaching Canadian fisheries and the Canadians have been powerless to stop them. Canadian military personnel are routinely killed by their own equipment because the government of Canada hasn’t seen fit to provide adequate funding for maintaining the equipment. That’s your characterization of events and you are entitled to it. Most commentators I respect believe that if the U.S. returns to isolationism another power will fill the vacuum and the consequences for the world could be dire. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Canada's military is in shambles. They haven't had any aircraft carrier to sell after Trudeau set the spending trend there. I feel sorry for Canadian soldiers because they're tasked with peace keeping operations and they aren't given the proper tools. Large losses of Canadian soldiers, who are excellent warriors, were narrowly averted in Kosovo and Afghanistan only because other countries stepped in and covered them. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Probably you were thinking F-35, there is no VSTOL version of the F-22 nor has the latter aircraft been approved for export yet (too much technology transfer) and it isn’t suitable for carrier deployments (the airframe isn’t robust enough for repeated deck landings without incurring permanent damage; any “tailhook” on the F-22 will be for emergency arrests on land only). The U.S. Navy version of the F-35 is optimized for catapult launches and it isn’t VSTOL (it lacks the vertical fan). The Marines and Air Force have each announced plans to acquire some VSTOL F-35s but now the Air Force is backtracking due to budgetary contraints. A separate navalized version of the F-35 has been designed with a VSTOL configuration but it’s an export version intended for the U.K. and some other nations that operate small “ski jump” type carriers similar to U.S. assault ships operated by the Marines. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

I fired my law firm. The one I was a full equity partner in. They dissolved immediately thereafter and have had to accept in-house positions while I’m selectively entertaining negotiations with other firms and consultancies. 2006 is looking to my best year in a long, long time on a number of levels. Free advice to potential looters: Never pee in your own drinking well, it can poison you if you don’t respect it. Blutarsky 2006. No Prisoners!

We’re still a far cry from catching up with the rest of the developed world but, with high gas prices, it’s possible that the Wi Fi-enabled Wolverine, Pier Marquette and smEl trains I’ve been taking for the past ~25 years are portents of good things to come. Provided we wisely choose to prepare for the inevitable strikes by transit workers that is … For speed on rails, make it Michigan 95 m.p.h. trains zoom there, not in Illinois By Jon Hilkevitch Chicago Tribune December 27, 2005 DOWAGIAC, Mich. -- The Midwest's first high-speed passenger trains are nipping along at speeds of almost 100 miles per hour on Amtrak's Wolverine service in Michigan, while technology hang-ups are sidetracking progress on similar efforts in Illinois. Michigan got a five-year jump on Illinois. It partnered in 1995 with the federal government and the railroad industry to develop a train-control system that assures safety at up to 110 m.p.h., which is how fast Amtrak trains will operate in part of Michigan beginning in 2006. Since the fall, the top speed is 95 m.p.h. The system can slow down or even stop the train if the engineer doesn't follow speed and track rules. The National Transportation Safety Board has strongly recommended similar systems, called "positive train control," for passenger and freight trains nationwide. Two recent Metra derailments involving trains violating slow-zone speed limits could have been prevented if the control system were installed on the commuter railroad, the board said. But the system is expensive and has not been deployed in the U.S. except for on a portion of the East Coast and in small areas of Michigan and Illinois. The Illinois train-control system is being installed on tracks between Chicago and St. Louis. The program didn't leave the station until 2000 and costs have ballooned to $106 million. Illinois transportation officials say they don't know how long it will be before Amtrak trains in the state will travel above the current 79 m.p.h. speed limit. Quickly and reliably communicating satellite-generated data that track train locations on the Illinois high-speed corridor has been a struggle for Lockheed Martin, contractor on the Illinois train-control project. System failures have resulted in trains sometimes being "lost" for minutes at a time by the command center monitoring rail activity. Lockheed Martin has also experienced problems making sure the Illinois train-control system's wireless components activate railroad crossing gates, flashers and bells every time a train blows through a vehicle crossing. "We have to know precisely where the train is and we have to know it every time without fail because this is a safety issue," said John Schwalbach, chief of the Bureau of Railroads in the Illinois Department of Transportation. "Most of the time is not good enough." A trip onboard the Amtrak Wolverine demonstrated the possibilities and advantages that train travel offers--but has never before delivered in the U.S. except on Amtrak's Northeast corridor where Acela trains crank it up to 150 m.p.h. Shortly after entering Michigan on a recent run from Chicago to Detroit, Amtrak engineer Herman Gibson advances the throttle knob on the controls of the diesel locomotive, delivering more power to big electric motors that make the wheels rotate faster. The four-car train accelerates to a top speed of 95 m.p.h., gliding over tracks that were overhauled to handle higher speeds on a 45-mile test bed between the Indiana-Michigan state line and Kalamazoo, Mich. The feeling is like riding on air. Out the window to the side of the tracks, stands of trees become a blur. "Ninety-five mile an hour ain't bad. It's sort of fun," laughs Gibson, who started working for Amtrak 17 years ago washing dishes in dining cars. The speed will be stepped up to 110 m.p.h. next year on the 45-mile stretch between Niles, Mich., and Kalamazoo in southwest Michigan that has been under development since 1996, the year after federal funding started flowing. The segment of track is part of the approximately 300-mile rail corridor from Chicago to Detroit, and $39 million has been spent to date. Running at 110 m.p.h. except for in congested urban areas would shave at least an hour, maybe two, off the approximately 5 1/2-hour trip between the two cities, Amtrak officials said. "There are a bunch of medium-sized markets between Chicago and Detroit--in Kalamazoo, Battle Creek and Jackson, Mich.--where people would flock to improved Amtrak service," said Rick Harnish, executive director of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association. "It has been disappointing the process hasn't moved much more quickly and that there isn't a real commitment at the federal level to make high-speed systems work. You could fill up trains that hold more people than 747 airplanes." The higher speeds on the Wolverine are part of Amtrak and Michigan's plan to expand service and cut travel times on the first fast trains operating outside of Amtrak's express corridor between Boston, New York and Washington, where the railroad's Acela service runs at a 150 m.p.h. top speed. Trains elsewhere in the Amtrak system are limited to 79 m.p.h., including Illinois, where the technological setbacks have delayed deployment of higher-speed service on Amtrak's Chicago-to-St. Louis corridor. Positive train control is the key to safely operating high-speed trains on tracks shared with slower-moving freight trains, as well as through railroad crossings where vehicle traffic goes over the tracks. Positive train control uses global-positioning system technology to locate trains at any point on a route. It also determines whether barriers and warning lights at rail crossings are working properly. "If something might not be right, the system tells me to slow down the train or stop. And if I don't act in time, it will stop the train on its own. I like that. It's like my co-worker sitting here," said Gibson, 43, of Chicago. While the engineer still operates the train, positive train control provides a critical safety backup to the crew at the higher speeds. It can prevent collisions between trains, provide warnings about hazards on the tracks and enforce track speed limits. "The system radios the track signals into the locomotive cab. The information basically tells the engineer what the red, yellow and green speed-code signals at trackside mean to him in terms of a speed limit," said Jeff Baker, business unit leader for GE Transportation's Incremental Train Control System in Michigan. Instead of an engineer waiting until he or she drives by a signal to see what the indication says--then having to remember it for the next 5 miles of track--positive train control technology provides the crew with updated information every 5 seconds, Baker said. Approaching a crossing near Dowagiac, Mich., Gibson looks up the track to see several cars, a school bus and a pickup truck stopped behind the gates next to signs at the side of the road warning motorists, "High speed trains." If the gates or the crossing's flashing lights failed to work when the train got close to the crossing, the newly developed train-control system feeding data to the locomotive would have alerted Gibson to give him the time and distance needed to stop. The system also would apply the brakes automatically if the engineer did not respond to a countdown clock giving him a designated number of seconds and specific number of feet to begin to slow down. John Anderson, a veteran Amtrak road train master, said positive train control has made engineers feel more confident and protected against situations that might be coming up. Meanwhile, Illinois and Lockheed Martin, the state's main contractor on positive train control, are wrestling to solve at least 40 different types of computer software glitches on a portion of the 125-mile test track between Springfield and Mazonia. The errors are responsible for problems in tracking train locations and maintaining data communications between locomotives and railroad crossing and signaling equipment, Schwalbach said. Thirty-six other software problems have been fixed since February on the North American Joint Positive Train Control system built by Lockheed, Schwalbach said. But because any problem could create a safety risk, the testing is being conducted in a passive mode using Union Pacific freight trains traveling less than 79 m.p.h., instead of Amtrak trains, he said. The Union Pacific Railroad owns the track between Chicago and St. Louis. The investment in the Illinois positive train control project totals $106 million to date, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. The federal government has funded more than $70 million and Illinois' share to date is about $15 million. The Association of American Railroads contributed about $20 million. Although the Illinois and Michigan projects use similar technology, there are fundamental differences in design that may account for the problems here. The Michigan system is focused at trackside. It uses wayside radio base stations and data ports that feed information to computers on board the locomotive. In the Lockheed system, all data about track and signaling conditions are radioed to Union Pacific's dispatching headquarters in Omaha. The data are processed by a central computer and sent back to the train. The data exchange has resulted in unacceptably long lag times--often exceeding 20 seconds, officials said. "One of the things that surprised Lockheed is the amount of data that needs to be collected, absorbed and distributed to Omaha," said Michael Franke, senior director of corridor development at Amtrak. "I can understand that because Lockheed hasn't been in the railroad business very long." The Illinois high-speed project is the first venture by Lockheed into railroad signaling. Lockheed Martin officials said they are committed to completing the project. But Illinois Transportation Secretary Tim Martin is running short on patience. "We are anxiously awaiting additional testing next year. If it's not going to work, the question becomes when do you pull the plug and go to something that is a little more proven," Martin said. "There are nice things about being cutting edge, but if it is not going to work we have to go with something different." Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-0512270090dec27,1,5806171.story?coll=chi-newslocalchicago-hed Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

A three-hour night time Christmas sleigh ride across the Hohe Tauern near Gasteinenrle Austria with my sweetie. Barely lighted stars and candle lit huts and shrines to mountaineers illuminated the clouds beneath us as well as the deep snow on the trails and tall fir trees. Gurgling brooks, geysers, creaking wooden bridges, the labors of our horses, the jingling bells, wildlife and our breathing were the only sounds to be heard. This time machine was a magical gift and one of my best Christmas presents ever. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

I simply wish to pay proper homage to your genius. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Whilst you’re on your high chair I rather imagine that your feet are planted on the top step firmly facing inward and you, sir, are all bent over and bracing for the inner contributions which you desire by layered mind. God’s Will accepting, the right wing pity you and bother with the axle grease, as you have demonstrated an unquenchable desire for harsh easements and violent disgorgements, ho, dane sailor of camouflaged opportunity. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Well, did Clinton obtain independent opinions from his AG and his counsel before he launched a U.S. missile attack which destroyed a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory that was only producing medicines for the poor of Sub-Saharan Africa? Or did he rely on advice from Mrs. Clinton instead? Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!