Fuck!

The Core RPGC Main Forum
41

I hold things with a more scientific perspective. I don’t just do something and stare at it to see if it’ll work. If it fails, esp if its something as serious as a nuke, you get a clusterfuck of astronomical proportions. Example: you don’t want one of these nukes to miss also, as you mentionned cities.

The major problem here (other than what these are) is that these weapons are going to be developped on the assumption that they’ll work as they should and that they should therefore be made. There is hint that people want to make sure this’ll really be effective.

42

Oh shit… not good. I can only imagine the damage that will be done if nuclear war occurs, definately not good. What’s worse fucking Blair will lick Bush’s ass all the way, and I’m fucking sick of us English being labeled butchers, I dont need a nuclear war, Britain doesn’t need a nuclear war, the whole goddamn world doesn’t need a nuclear war.

43

Well, the Adams one I believe is incorrect. At that point, it was whoever received a majority of the electoral vote was Prez and the runner-up in the EC was Veep (state legislatures chose the electors at that point, not popular vote). There’s some other weird thing about how Veep was chosen. Let’s just say the 12th Amendment made it MUCH better. Adams outright beat Jefferson in the Electoral College, so Jeffy was Veep. Then Jefferson outright beat Adams in 1800, but there were some weird happenings involving who the electors meant to choose to be Veep, so that led to 12th Amendment (ratified in 1804). Basically, the EC voted for Prez and Veep seperately, and the people got to vote for the electors.

Next big election thingy was John Quincy Adams. Jackson won the popular vote, but no man got a majority of the electoral vote. So, in accordance with the Constitution, the election went to the House of Representatives. Now, in the House, the Reps have to choose from the top three or five (can’t really remember) candidates, but each state only gets one vote. There were some backdoor dealings involving JQA and Henry Clay (I think). Clay supporters threw their support to JQA, and he became Prez. Whoever was his running mate became Veep. Clay got Secretary of State. Jackson got shafted. Jackson won in the next election.

Elections went along rather well for the next few years with the only noteable thing being how Polk won the Democratic nomination, but we’ll skip that. Next came 1860. Whole lot of mess going on that I don’t care to talk about. There were roughly 5 major nominees for Prez. Lincoln, Buchanan, Douglas, and a few others. Anyway, this was a VERY regional election. Lincoln won the EC outright by winning only Northern states. He got about 30% of the popular vote, a plurality at the time. I just like this election.

Next big election crisis was 1876. Tilden had a majority of the popular vote, and Rutherford B. Hayes had a minority. However, Ruthy won the EC. He went to bed thinking he had lost the election, but there were contested votes in Louisiana, South Carolina, and, yep, Florida. Congress set up a Electoral Commission to determine who got the electoral votes. The Commission ruled, 8 to 7, that ALL of the votes went to Hayes. If just a single vote went to Tilden, he would have won. Final vote? 185 Hayes, 184 Tilden. Hayes had promised before the election to serve only one term, and he did just that. He did not run in 1880.

There were probably some other instances along the way where no person won a majority of the popular vote but won the EC, but I don’t know all of them. (The dead did rise to vote in 1960 though. :P) The next one I recall is 1992. Clinton won aobut 42% of the popular vote. Bush got about 35%. The rest went almost exclusively to Perot. Anyway, Clinton won a majority of the EC, so he was Prez. In 1996, it was Clinton 47%, Dole 30 something, Perot the rest. Once again, no majority in the popular vote, but he won the EC.

Next came the biggie. 2000. Gore won a majority of the popular vote (500,000 more than Bush, I think). However, he did not have a majority of the EC. Bush did not have a majority of the EC with Florida still being contested. So, Florida was really close after the first vote (Bush won it by a few hundred). Florida law mandated a state wide recount. Bush won that one. In all honesty, it should have stopped there. However, the Gore campaign wanted to win. They selected a few counties, heavily Democratic, to recount AGAIN. I don’t remember all of it, but the Florida Supreme Court somehow got involved stating something along the lines that Secretary of State Catherine Harris and the Florida State Legislature had no authority to set a deadline for when the recount had to end (of the four or so counties that were recounting, only one actually made this deadline). The Bush campaign felt the Florida Supreme Court was overstepping its boundaries, so it took it to the US Supreme Court. The SC sent it back down to the FSC with basically a note saying “This is a state business, re-rule” with the implication of “change your minds and rule the other way.” FSC ruled the same way. It went back to the SC. SC ruled 7-2 on one issue and 5-4 on another. One issue was whether or not the recount had to be stopped by a certain date, December 4th I think, that the Constitution mandated. The other issue was whether or not selective recounting of just certain counties was a violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause. Anyway, yeah, there’s now some deadline for recounts, and if there’s going to be a recount, it has to be of the whole state, not just a few counties. And before anyone asks, I feel that was the right decision. I truly do think the Gore campaign was trying to steal Florida. However, I will also state that if my political views (which ain’t Republican) were the exact same, but the 2000 election were reversed with Gore having won all of the counts and recounts and Bush kept trying to recount heavily Republican counties, I would feel Bush was trying to steal the election.

And Steve, just dismissing the EC system as something you don’t like and think it’s stupid really shows no understanding of why the system was first put into place, but this post has gone on long enough, so I’ll just say it was a political balancing act between the rights of large and small states in a vein similar to the bicameral Congress. It was actually a pretty smart way of dealing with that issue. You’ll probably say something like “well I don’t think states should exist,” and I’ll point you to the fact that the Framers were worried about too centralized of power. The states were a way of decentralizing power and spreading authority in a way they hoped would protect people’s rights from tyranny. DeToqueville, while a damn dirty Frenchie and not a Framer, wrote a brilliant essay on the notion of why the state system was such a great idea of being able to protect liberty from internal and external threats.

44

Originally posted by Curtis
>
Those ideas might be speculative, but its the reasoning behind the development of these nukes. Some could argue that in war nothing is certain, and that we have to remain on the cutting edge of technology and strategy, even if it means taking chances. I’m sure that there were a few new things tried out in Iraq that weren’t certain and that might not have worked. Of course, messing with nukes can have big consequences, but these things haven’t actually been created yet, and I’m sure the government is going to test and retest them time and time again to see just how much above-ground damage and fallout there really is. These bunker busters alone don’t worry me, but what does worry me is that its the first step towards using tactical nukes against cities and armies.

Personally I think that is being far too casual about peoples lifes…

and: the only nation in the world that has EVER used a nuclear bomb in war: America… a nation that shouldn’t complain: America

I know that it isn’t the same people that live today as the ones that lived back then, but again… It’s like painting things black and white

45

Oy, gevalt. -_-

46

Originally posted by Infonick
[b]One of the reasons nukes shouldn’t even be considered is that 60 years later Japan is still sort of recovering from the bombings. The affects fo nuclear bombs last too long.

How is keeping it a secret being smart about it? Last I checked, the people hate it when President’s keep secrets from them. Besides, when dealing with such a major issue, it is very bad to keep it hidden. By keeping it hidden, he’s just doing what he accuses Iraq and Korea of doing. Bush it keeping it quiet since he knows that most people will disapprove. Bye doing this, Bush is becoming no better than those who he is accusing of being part of an “Axis of Evil”. [/b]

I never said it was a good thing he was doing so. I’m just saying at least he had the smarts not to let it be known by everyone, it seems the only thing he really thinks about is how to keep something that could make him look like hypocrite No. 1 a secret. But that seems to run with most presidents.

47

Originally posted by Kain
and: the only nation in the world that has EVER used a nuclear bomb in war: America… a nation that shouldn’t complain: America

That isn’t really a fair statement since it happened 60 years ago. Part of that attack did lead us into oru new view of nuclear weapons and the disarmament treaties we’ve signed. That’s be like saying that Germany should still be occupied by the workld to prevent any attacks. Since you know how prone Germany is to invading and going after world domination. Besides, if not watched they’ll start killing people they don’t like. That was a long time ago and Germany is much different and has taken measures to help prevent things such as themselves in WW2. The same with America and nuclear weapons. Granted Bush is seriously fucking things up, but ignoring him, America has been very good about nuclear weapons since WW2. Bottomline, you can’t hold somebody, especially an entire nation, accountable for somethign that happened such a long time ago, espeically with how fast the world is developing and moving now. Heck, we might as well start a war with Japan since they have a history fo bombing America by surprise, desptie it happening sucha lognt iem ago and Japan being a very different nation.

48

…Okay, now I will get off my soap box…Bush is an assshole!

gasp,gasp,gasp

There, I said it.

49

Yet another reason not to vote for Bush.

I don’t see the point of nuclear “bunker-busters.” How would a nuclear warhead allow greater penetration into a bunker than a convential explosive? Nukes in general are completely pointless from a civilized standpoint. They are terror weapons. Conventional payloads can deliver nearly as much destructive power without harmful fallout afterwards.

50

Originally posted by Megaman984
And Steve, just dismissing the EC system as something you don’t like and think it’s stupid really shows no understanding of why the system was first put into place, but this post has gone on long enough, so I’ll just say it was a political balancing act between the rights of large and small states in a vein similar to the bicameral Congress. It was actually a pretty smart way of dealing with that issue. You’ll probably say something like “well I don’t think states should exist,” and I’ll point you to the fact that the Framers were worried about too centralized of power. The states were a way of decentralizing power and spreading authority in a way they hoped would protect people’s rights from tyranny. DeToqueville, while a damn dirty Frenchie and not a Framer, wrote a brilliant essay on the notion of why the state system was such a great idea of being able to protect liberty from internal and external threats.

“States shouldn’t exist”? :stuck_out_tongue:
C’mon man, you know I’m not that stupid :stuck_out_tongue:
I was under the impression (from many of my history teachers) that the EC was imposed because the American people “weren’t responsible enough to vote for themselves” or some such.

51

We are responsible enough as it turns out.

52

I would say the evidence for such a claim, Steve, is actually that the state legislatures originally chose the electors, not the people. That changed very early on in our history though. The actual system really seems, at least to me, as being a way of balancing power and rights among the states. Without it, you could very well have something like a President being elected solely by California and New York. As it stands now, you need California, New York, AND Texas. :stuck_out_tongue: (Joke people, you’re meant to laugh).

53

The electoral system was a compromise between ‘nationalism’(the national government, meaning the President, Congress, and Supreme Court, have all the power), and ‘federalism’(the governments of each individual state have more power over their own affairs than the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court). Like 984 said, I think that a lot of the power that the states were given by the electoral system was somehow lost.

demigod: The blast from nuclear weapons would reach deeper and cover a wider underground area than the blast from conventional weapons. This is important because the coordinates of hidden command centers or weapons stashes are often not precise enough for conventional weapons(or so the leadership of this country believes), so with a nuclear bunker buster you would drop it in a general area where you think the target is and it would destroy the entire general underground area, even if its precise drop location was wrong. For instance, say a conventional bomb only destroys everything within 50 meters, and its dropped 75 meters away from the target. Now say a nuke destroys everything within 200 meters, and is also dropped 75 meters away, the nuke still gets the target. Those measurements are probably unrealistic but you get the idea. Supporters say that the above ground damage and radiation fallout would not be that bad; opponents say that it would be very bad, and that making more nuclear weapons, even if in theory they’re not to be used against cities or armies, will make everyone paranoid - especially nukes designed in part to disable other countries’ nuclear capabilities.

It should also be pointed out that the article Sinistral posted said that the first step will be research to see if these things will work, and how much destruction they would cause above ground. Its the research itself that’s making other countries paranoid. We haven’t actually started making these things, let alone begun designing them.

54

Originally posted by demigod
I don’t see the point of nuclear “bunker-busters.” How would a nuclear warhead allow greater penetration into a bunker than a convential explosive?

Well, I’m also curious as to how we need a different nuclear weapon to get into a bunker. I thought a Nuclear weapon would blow up pretty much anything and everything?

55

Read above, unless you’re referring to actually destroying the walls in the bunker, in which case I don’t remember that being cited anywhere as being an advantage of nukes…

56

The US has done enough tests to figure out how much damage they can do underground with a single nuclear blast. They don’t do “atmospheric” nuclear tests anymore for a variety of reasons. The purpose of the bunker buster is to simply create a reinforced missible that can deliver a nuclear pay load. Even if you affect a greater area, you have no guarantee you hit your target with the nuclear strike since you’re shooting blind and on top of it, its not very clear if you can actually disable someone’s facilities significantly, esp if you shot blind. This doesn’t even start to go into details of contamination and malfunctions.

57

“The US has done enough tests to figure out how much damage they can do underground with a single nuclear blast.”

I assume the design of the weapon, and how much its carrying, could alter how much damage is done underground. More importantly, they’ll try to design something that minimizes above ground damage. And I don’t think they’ve done tests as deep as they’re proposing these missiles to go(this is another assumption). Like I said, they are beginning to research this so they can see if they can make something that works the way they want it to. The reasons I have given are what Bush and his cronies want these missiles to do.

58

No matter how precise a nuclear weapon may be in delivering a blast, it produces terrible effects when employed, not only destroying through its blast, but also through contamination of ecosystems from the radioactive waste which it causes to spread through earth, air and water. As a proponent of environmentalism (as well as social justice and peace), I hope to participate in one or more forthcoming protests against this military programme. Most likely, the UBC (University of British Columbia) Social Justice Centre and Student Environment Centre (I am a member of the latter) shall soon organise a protest of some sort, so I shall most likely participate in that.

59

Heres how I see it:

  1. As many people have said Bush is and asshole and idiot for doing what he always does.
  2. But there is also the other point that what if we do need these someday. What if we arent the ones who start the nuclear war, Bush might already know that another country is planning on using nuclear weapons. Then these bunker-busters will be a great help to us, mostly because like us other countries keep their nukes way down below the surface. The bombs would thus help in the destroying of these.
  3. Then there is the whole “What the hell is Bush thinking!!!” in which I agree with that. By bluntly saying that they are soon going to start with the reusing of nukes, he is just asking for a nuclear war. He will be the death of us all.:noway:
60

I’m starting to think this country has gone into a thatcher era.