[Unknown Target]

Trust me, trying to sleep in a summer night with no A/C is impossible, it may be night but the rooms still contain that good 130F+ temperature from being exposed to the sun all day.
And in my year I spent just about the entire summer sleeping A/C-less nights because of the **** power generators.

Haha, I never said that the troops shouldn't get A/C. The larger point I was trying to make was that this whole war is sucking us dry. I imagine that A/C is not the single largest expenditure of the US military. These sorts of discussions do highlight interesting ways in which we interpret what others say, for those that care to look; I never said half of the stuff people are saying, but they assign it to me because, I think, they must be projecting some sort of internal concern and using me as a podium for said concern. I say that AC for the troops cost a lot, and that advanced technology like this should be researched by NASA, a civilian agency where all it's findings must be available for all, and some people jump on me for saying that military research never benefited civilians or that the troops shouldn't get AC? It's proximity argumentation based on internal fears and preconceptions.


NGTM-1R, do you think that if I said the sky was blue you'd take the stance that it in fact was green?

[NGTM-1R]

NGTM-1R, do you think that if I said the sky was blue you'd take the stance that it in fact was green?

No, I honestly believe that you'd declare it green in an effort to spite me because that's the level of rationality inherent in your comment.

[Thaeris]

On the bright side, the materials technology side of this project is far more interesting, as it should ideally form the basis of a next-generation spaceplane hull. Don't get me wrong, ceramic plates are lovely, but a more uniform, highly durable hull structure is what is needed to ensure a rapid turn-around for ground-to-orbit launches.

[LordPomposity]

These sorts of discussions do highlight interesting ways in which we interpret what others say...

Quite intentionally, I think.

By the way UT, it's been conclusively proven that Obama was born in the USA. You can stop ranting about Kenya now.

[Unknown Target]

These sorts of discussions do highlight interesting ways in which we interpret what others say...

Quite intentionally, I think.

By the way UT, it's been conclusively proven that Obama was born in the USA. You can stop ranting about Kenya now.

Eh? I voted for the guy.

[LordPomposity]

Uh, it was a joke. I responded to a post in which you complained about people ascribing to you positions that you do not actually hold by ascribing to you a particularly absurd position which you do not actually hold.

Lesson, kids: sarcasm really does not survive translation to written media.

[Unknown Target]

Uh, it was a joke. I responded to a post in which you complained about people ascribing to you positions that you do not actually hold by ascribing to you a particularly absurd position which you do not actually hold.

Lesson, kids: sarcasm really does not survive translation to written media.

I thought it might be that but I wasn't sure. Cheers man. We really do need [sarcasm] tags lol.

[Polpolion]

Yeah well, I consider troops not dying of heat stroke and having some level of comfort while they serve halfway around the world to be more important then visiting the moon.  You want to begrudge military expenditures you would do well to look somewhere other then grunts getting a modicum of convenience.

Your argument would be a lot more persuasive if we assume our troops should be there in the first place. If we hadn't gone to the middle east at all we would been able to completely fund NASA at current levels for the next 50 years; the war in Iraq and Afghanistan cost far more than the cumulative budget of NASA since its founding. I'm just thankful that some of the military's bloated budget is being allocated for research and engineering projects that will eventually have practical applications for civilians.

[NGTM-1R]

Your argument would be a lot more persuasive if we assume our troops should be there in the first place. If we hadn't gone to the middle east at all we would been able to completely fund NASA at current levels for the next 50 years; the war in Iraq and Afghanistan cost far more than the cumulative budget of NASA since its founding. I'm just thankful that some of the military's bloated budget is being allocated for research and engineering projects that will eventually have practical applications for civilians.

Yes, we just rewrite the past...

It's a bit late to argue we shouldn't have gone.

[Polpolion]

Your argument would be a lot more persuasive if we assume our troops should be there in the first place. If we hadn't gone to the middle east at all we would been able to completely fund NASA at current levels for the next 50 years; the war in Iraq and Afghanistan cost far more than the cumulative budget of NASA since its founding. I'm just thankful that some of the military's bloated budget is being allocated for research and engineering projects that will eventually have practical applications for civilians.

Yes, we just rewrite the past...

It's a bit late to argue we shouldn't have gone.

Very true, but I can still be mad. 

[LordPomposity]

Edit: on reconsideration, neither myself nor anyone else stands to gain from my completing the process of derailing this thread into an Iraq war argument.

[Luis Dias]

..... the sky isn't green?....

[StarSlayer]

Your argument would be a lot more persuasive if we assume our troops should be there in the first place. If we hadn't gone to the middle east at all we would been able to completely fund NASA at current levels for the next 50 years; the war in Iraq and Afghanistan cost far more than the cumulative budget of NASA since its founding. I'm just thankful that some of the military's bloated budget is being allocated for research and engineering projects that will eventually have practical applications for civilians.

Yes, we just rewrite the past...

It's a bit late to argue we shouldn't have gone.

Very true, but I can still be mad. 

I thought it was a dumb as rocks idea back in 2002 and I too am mad about it.  Suffice to say, we are there and those who serve deserve more then they receive from this nation.  I also certainly appreciate that the military budget is friggen bloated, however, I personally found that the best thing UT could ***** rant about was something as basic as providing a decent standard of living for our troops in the field to be extremely asinine. 

[Unknown Target]

I also wasn't ranting, I was merely providing an example of just how bloated the military budget is. My logic was that something as basic and relatively small as air conditioning, which one would imagine should be a relatively small amount of money, costs more than, well, all of the duties that NASA is charged with.

I could have said something along the lines of how big our spending is on battleships, or how much a B-2 bomber costs (about $1.01 billion each, I don't know if that includes operating costs), but people expect those things to cost a lot, and thus mentioning them really doesn't prove anything other than we have a lot of expensive toys that cost a lot.

However, talking about air conditioning is a great way of showing just how much equipment and how many personnel we have over there. It's a better example because it gets people to notice the cost of things.

[LordPomposity]

I could have said something along the lines of how big our spending is on battleships

I think you'd be surprised at this one.

[Mongoose]

Do you have a concrete source for that A/C figure, UT?  It sounds an awful lot like one of those "$5000 toilets!" sort of things.

[Nuke]

Yea, and guess which one is way less than the other?

Did you know that the air conditioning for troops in Iraq for a single year is more than NASA's annual operating budget?

Yeah well, I consider troops not dying of heat stroke and having some level of comfort while they serve halfway around the world to be more important then visiting the moon.  You want to begrudge military expenditures you would do well to look somewhere other then grunts getting a modicum of convenience.

move to phoenix then. know how many civilians die of heat stroke in that city? seriously if your gonna give the military money, it should be used on weapons so that we can go in, destroy everything that moves and get out as soon as possible, before the effects of heat stroke may take effect. if the rest of the world is gonna call us an evil empire, we should at least act like one.

[LordPomposity]

inb4 glass parking lot

[Nuke]

..... the sky isn't green?....

only when you look at it with a geiger counter. oh wait, that part of my plan hasn't come to fruition yet, my bad.

[jr2]

seriously if your gonna give the military money, it should be used on weapons so that we can go in, destroy everything that moves and get out as soon as possible, before the effects of heat stroke may take effect. if the rest of the world is gonna call us an evil empire, we should at least act like one.

Good point.  I don't agree that we should act like an evil empire, but it would be totally fun to see what the reaction was if we just decided to say "Nahhh, screw it!" and take over.