@ Takuan:

The Chairmen were relieved that nobody was injured in the incident and that the risk from radioactivity from the 0.25 grams of plutonium was very low. However, the Chairmen were troubled that the details of the incident have changed since the Committee was initially briefed on June 10th.

Why Takuan, if I didn't know better that would almost sound like someone tried to lie about the incident. Surely that's not the case; we must simply be looking at it through the lens of our dogmatic ideological purity and luddism.

Skullhunter, you're implying that spent nuclear fuel is being spread about like fertilizer.

I implied no such thing. I said that those producing the waste don't seem to have the ability to adequately and safely deal with the waste produced by their industry.

Can you show me where any significant amount has been released into the environment? kthx.

Why do I get the feeling that the question involves possibly moving goalposts? For instance, I could mention that the Hanford Nuclear Reservation has been contaminating the area around itself for decades with both accidental and intentional releases. I'm sure the follow up would be something along the lines of "well that's from weapons production", as if nobody could ever then manage to cock up the storage of waste from power production.

I could also mention the contamination caused by uranium mining in the American Southwest, but I get the impression I'd be told "that's in the past, we're smarter now" or some such.

For the record, I'm not as much anti-technology as I am a realist about the ability of human beings to screw up in dangerous fashions and the tendency of industry to both enable and cover up said screwups. But that is a lovely strawman you've built, making people out to be either fanatics or just plain stupid and uneducated for questioning the safety of nuclear power. Recognizing that industry has a pretty solid track record of putting profit ahead of safety (both worker and consumer) isn't anti-science fanaticism or ill-educated knee-jerking. It's realizing that usually when the same kind of people responsible for a current problem come to you shouting "I have the solution for the current problem and it's quick and easy and readily available!" usually they're full of shit and they'd like you to buy some of it.

Wow, so far it looks like anyone who doesn't accept that nuclear power is absolutely safe as houses and poses no real threat of any kind is being labeled as some sort of wide-eyed babbling Luddite.

So does anyone know exactly when the "greening" of nuclear power began? How exactly did it come about that an industry that still can't adequately provide containment for the waste it's made up until now suddenly become the hope for an environmentally friendly future?

I wonder if COYOTERED would volunteer to be handcuffed and then drive-stunned five or six times by hostile officers who don't know him from Adam instead of being hit just once while in a controlled environment surrounded by friendlies. Then he could tell us how safe it is under real-world conditions instead of the safe and planned setup he describes.

"The Ride" you're talking about, COYOTERED, is like comparing a bike with training wheels and Daddy standing by to catch you when you fall to laying a motorcycle down on a dirt road at 60mph. We, the regular folks you SERVE, don't get coddled like you did. We don't get checked to see if we're okay. We don't fall down onto gym mats and we don't get carefully helped back up. Come back and talk to us about the ride after you have some fellow officer run you face-first into the concrete with his knee in your back and then drive-stuns you when you scream because you're "non-compliant".

Now taking bets on when the "you're not a cop so you don't understand what it's like" stuff begins.

Since nobody's said it yet, I'm going to mention The Zone from S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl. The place has just completely sucked me in to the point that I've started modding again after years. Even the stock game has some great atmosphere; I still remember vividly being stuck deep in the Zone near a particularly nasty installation called the Brain Scorcher, a device that turned anyone who got too close to it into mindless and violent shambling wrecks. Night had fallen, I had no night vision, the area was pocked with anomalies (localized distortions in reality that ranged from painful to instantly lethal) and areas of high radiation, so I took shelter in a guard tower overlooking the road ahead rather than risk stumbling around in the dark. I sat there in the darkness, with the antenna array of the Scorcher lighting the clouds in the distance, watching the road through the scope of my rifle, for hours while I waited for dawn. Every time a flash of lightning would light up the area, I'd wonder if I just saw something moving towards my hideout. What was that, behind that truck, or that stack of concrete blocks? A mutant? Another zombie? Enemy soldiers? Did they see me? Every lightning flash, my heart would jump. Drew me right in. :)

Teresa's got the right of it.

The Fibbies know what they want and they're going to keep pushing people for it until someone plays along and says "Oh yeah, they're planning on bombing the RNC" or somesuch. They don't want "No, these people aren't up to anything sinister", so they're certainly not going to pay for that information.

Also, someone mentioned the ALF/ELF earlier. "Ecoterrorists" do seem to be a rather high priority for the feds even though the right-wing terror groups infesting this country have racked up a much higher body count. But, this is the same country where one man stockpiling sodium cyanide and a massive arsenal with plans to use them against civilians gets 11 years with possibility of parole while another man torches a car lot and gets 28 years with no parole. Interesting priorities, yes?

Terry,

I thank you for the compliment and feel likewise. That may just have been the problem, simple personality collision. At any rate, I seriously don't think we're on opposite sides here, just approaching problems from different directions. Cheers.

Guys, this is Greg London. He's got a major personal commitment to Lawful Good, but sometimes his wordcounts increase exponentially when he feels like he isn't getting something across.

I think you folks have noticed I suffer from a similar affliction. I chalk it up to too much coffee and RPGs.

I'm not sure how this all went the way it did either. Speaking only for myself, perhaps I became overly agitated because I felt like what I was saying and what others perceived I was saying became two radically different things. Unfortunately stating and restating it didn't help, it just seemed to make matters worse. Such is the way of the internet I suppose.

Anyways, for what it's worth, I don't see anyone involved as a bad person. I don't feel hated nor do I hate anyone here since it'd be a pretty damn silly reason to hate anyone. Hopefully future interactions will be more pleasant. And Teresa, you take care of yourself first. Apparently we've got Antinous ready to knock us back in line if need be. :)

That's my bit for now, I have to run and put in an application so I can perhaps leave my tourist industry job behind before the season starts. Talk at you folks later.

@30

I can't stop thinking about how much he looks like one of the Controller mutants from the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. Especially the fact that there's almost no visible neck on that guy, like he has a headneck or something. Of course the Controllers don't wear little spandex shorts, which I'm now eternally grateful for.

Well you know, sometimes to make an omlette you have to, um, employ heavy moving machinery?

Thanks BoingBoing. One more thing I can't ever unsee.

Antinous, sorry if I've derailed the thread. It wasn't my intention but sometimes I can't leave some things unanswered despite myself. I'll knock it off.

I think troll or not is up to the administrators of the site. If they want to smoke my IP, that's entirely their right to do so, it's their sandbox after all and we're here at their indulgence. I don't seem them speaking to me about it just yet. If and when they do, I'll accept their decision. From you it's a bit on the empty threat side.

Honestly I think you're too busy seeing red to realize how badly you've mischaracterized my posts. Not to mention that you've managed to work in a nice collection of logical fallacies as well as making a lot of assertions that neither you nor I can prove or disprove ie. "Ha! I'd wager you haven't done a single thing that inconvenienced your daily routine." which of course if I answered in any fashion other than to agree with you, you'd no doubt claim I was lying. You ask for proof of things you either don't really want or that you'll make more hay out of by claiming it's verification of what a bad little troll I am. Whether I give you the answer you ask for or not, you'll claim it's a victory for you.

So far I've had people tell me I'm wrong but they haven't backed it up with anything but bile and a lot of personal bullshit that's justified with the well-reasoned "Well you started it!" and "Yeah well you're not doing anything either 'cause I say so!" responses. That and a lot of simplifying of what I've said and trying to catch me out like this is some sort of contest.

And seriously, "sonny"? Wow. I don't know if I can hold my own against that kind of debating style. Well at least this post was shorter than the others, do I at least make the grade there?

Skullhunter: Before Greg mentioned it, I'd dismissed you.

And now you've chosen to address me again. How honored I feel.

Why? Because I've heard that song before. The sweeping generalities, the sense of self-righteousness, the air of being above it all; of seeing, "The Truth" which the masses have not the wit to comprehend.

Because saying someone is speaking nonsense, dangerous nonsense and then not even deigning to explain why before summarily ignoring me as not worth your time isn't self-righteous at all, nor does it carry with it any sense of superiority. Above it all? Bullshit. I'm down here with everybody else. I don't know anything that anyone else can't figure out for themselves given some time and a little effort. I'm not special, unusual or gifted in that fashion at all nor have I claimed to be. If the song bores you so much, listen to something else and cease engaging me. I'm fairly certain no one's forcing you to.

Add the supercilious tone that you tossed in to dismiss the people in the service as lackies and dimwits;

I've never done any such thing. People in the service are, as I've all ready said, human and therefore subject to the same failings as the rest of us. The world is full of brilliant people who will nevertheless go along to get along rather than risk conflict. You don't have to be an idiot to be a sucker. Sometimes all it takes is wanting to believe something so badly that you'll ignore the little tickle of instinct that tells you you're going in the wrong direction. Ordinarily decent people can be made to do terrible things simply by being given a convincingly good reason for doing so. They can ignore and excuse terrible things if given a good reason to do so. They don't have to be morons. They don't have to be evil. They just have to be sold on the idea that they're in the right and once that's done you've got the groundwork for the next pogrom or the next Inquisition or the next Holocaust or the next Mai Lai. Most people just don't enthusiastically do wrong to other people in the knowledge that what they're doing is wrong.

with the aggrieved air of world weary knowledge (about how badly the gov't has mis-used the army).

Yeah, I am a bit weary of that. I'm tired of people who send others to die for their ambition and their profit. I'm tired of people putting the rest of us in harm's way by their bullying about the planet like a drunk in a bar. I guess it's another one of my personal failings.

So what. You excuse yourself by saying it's the job of the intelligent members of the service to fix it. Well, no. It's not. Maybe in Burma, or Pinochet's Chile, or some other place where the Army runs things.

Which sounds an awful lot like "It's not our fault, we don't run things, you do, we're just following orders".

But here; for all our present flaws, that's not the way it works. The politicians we elect are the one's who set the policies. Abdicating that, in favor of someone on "the inside" is a moral failing.

The politicians we elect are the ones who set the policies and we get their ear after they're done listening to all the people who paid for their campaign, arranged their photo opportunities, spoke on their behalf in the media and generally give them a lot more than votes. They give us $600 "incentives" and talk about gas tax vacations while they give multi-million dollar no-bid contracts to their corporate friends and relax environmental and workplace safety regulations. The idea that the average voter has more pull with a politician than the average corporation is laughable. Maybe if we weren't so fractured along social, class, racial and other lines. We are. And I don't think we're asking you to fix it all yourself, we're asking you for some godsdamn help from the inside, not "Sorry, your job, I'm just a cog in the machine you know", not "it's a military thing, you wouldn't understand".

As to whether or not we like you, and how you feel about that... again, so what? I don't care if you want to be liked. Honestly, it smacks of more posing, of you, the Brave Idealist who will "speak truth to power," thought it gain nothing but mockery.

Oh you done found me out. Your keen, incisive wit has seen through to the truth of me; I'm just putting up a false front of not caring if I'm liked so that people will end up liking me.

I'm going to step back for a minute so I can truly appreciate how fracking silly that is. Posing for who? The pixels? Chances are I'll never meet 99.9% of the people who read or post here. I wouldn't know them on the street nor would they know me. The absolute best I could hope for is that my occasional rants end up archived in some dusty corner of the internet, somewhere below the badly captioned cats and a walrus with a bucket. Most folks will forget this whole rant tomorrow if they even read it in the first place. I have a very good sense of my place here and my relative lack of importance. Mostly I prefer it that way. But I am most definitely not some brave iconoclast speaking truth to power no matter the cost nor do I see myself as such. Those people, by and large, do not exist and the world is a poorer place for it. The ones that do exist are a lot better with their words and deeds than I am.

Well, I didn't insult you. I called out your ideas for what they are, nonsense. As you flesh them out, they rise to the level of dangerous nonsense (because you seem to want the foxes guarding the henhouse).

What's nonsense is the idea that the military is composed of anything but mainly average people. You're NOT foxes. You don't have some sort of genetic impulse that none of us possess that prevents you from policing your own behavior. I don't want you to be the stewards of our whole society, just yourselves. I'm sorry if that's too much to ask.

If, however, as you say; the purpose of your screeds is to educate and influence, then how we perceive you does matter. Because if the eyes glaze over, and the page down button is put to use, you've wasted the time to write those pithy truths, and well-crafted bon mots.

If it happens, it happens. Can't make everybody happy. Waste of time to try anyway, you always end up pissing someone off in the end. But odds are I run about the same chance of inducing eye-glaze and a desperate clicking on the scrollbar with my pithy truths and well-crafted bon mots as you do with your dismissals and your cries of "Nonsense! Dangerous nonsense!". I know I don't have you. I'll take my chances with letting everybody else make up their own minds.

Wow, tilt at the wrong windmill and some folks just get all kinds of hostile.

Greg, there is nothing simple or black-and-white about the situation. I'm pretty sure I was saying the exact opposite. There's no overpowering supernatural evil involved here, no massive shadowy conspiracy, no one thing we can do away with and then say "The day is saved, good job everybody!". Our nature as social animals and willingness to "go along to get along", to avoid conflict in order to remain within the perceived safety of the group, is being used against us by those in power. Soldiers try not to buck the system because there are mechanisms in place to make them feel that they are betraying their fellow soldiers and even their country if they do so while those who stand fast with the group are shielded and praised for doing so. Civilians try not to buck the system because they also don't want to be ostracized, to be seen as outsiders or to cross a line that causes them to become separate from the group. The divide in the treatment of Second Lieutenant William Calley and Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson regarding the Mai Lai Massacre is a perfect example of that for both the military AND civilian response to people who go against the dominant behavior patterns in our society. One man is held up as a martyred hero and has songs composed in his honor, the other gets death threats and has dead animals deposited on his doorstep. Which man followed orders given and which followed the dictates of his conscience?

As far as the military being subservient to civilian authority according to the Constitution, I think we all ready know how those in power feel regarding that particular document. The Constitution is how things should be; the reality we're living in is how things are. The old saw about a civilian outranking any soldier sounds nice but doesn't wash; they're not bound to listen to us unless what we say coincides with or doesn't conflict with what they're ordered to do by their superiors.

Am I absolving myself from blame? How? I consume, just like everybody else. Whether I like it or not, my entire life I've benefited from just about everything this nation has done abroad whether it's the cheap consumer goods I buy that are made possible by my government paving the way into other countries for American corporations, the food I eat while other countries face famine or even the maintenance done around my apartment complex by people who've had to abandon their home country because of dwindling opportunities for them caused by trade imbalances with America. I benefit. We ALL benefit. I don't see myself as powerless either. I introduce people to new ideas whenever I can. I teach my kids about things they won't learn in history class. I work to try and reduce the dependence we have on this nation's ill-gotten gains. I understand that this is how things are right now, I do not accept that they must stay this way. We can be better than this. We have to, if we'd like to retain our viability as a species and not end up another archaeological footnote in this planet's history.

I would, however, submit that when it comes to the military, someone who's actually part of the structure itself has a much better chance of effecting change within it that a college dropout with a service industry job.

Look, if you folks want to personalize the argument, that's fine with me. Ask me why I haven't single-handedly cleaned up the entire planet and cured all its ills with a wave of my hand. Finger-point and say "Well you're part of the problem too!". I'm sure that'll help. And while we're all clawing at each other in the mud, soldiers still die, bombs still fall, people still get renditioned, sabers keep being rattled to start the process all over again afresh.

Let me put it this way. I don't care if you like me. I don't care if you think I'm worth your time or someone else's time or that I can't be saved by the shining light of an intellect far greater than my own. I'm not here to make friends. This isn't a frakking popularity contest. It's not high school. This is pixels on a screen. That's what I am here, that's what you are here. I'm not going to sit around on here worrying about what the pixels will think of me if I offend their delicate sensibilities or take a jab at the wrong sacred cow, but I'm not going to go out of my way to do either of those because I want a reaction or because it would be "fun" to get people bent out of shape. I will apologize if I am demonstrably wrong on some point of fact but I will not apologize for who I am or how I speak just so I can be subsumed in the comforting warmth of the group, whatever that group might be. As long as our government continues to project its force outwards without caring what happens to those in the path of that force or those who apply that force, none of our comfort levels really matter worth a damn.

You know, something ScottFree just said back there a bit helped me figure out how to articulate something I couldn't find earlier.

The problem is not that the military is composed of aberrant psychotics or that most of them or even a decent number of them are trained to be aberrant psychotics. The problem is that they're mainly perfectly normal average people who either believe they're doing the right thing or who believe there's nothing terribly wrong with how the military works or how the military is utilized by our government.

I understand that people in the military are human. I understand that they're not all slavering psychotics out to maim and kill everyone they see. Life isn't an action movie or a comic book; there's no clearly-defined costume scheme, cheesy accent or anything else to easily delineate villain from hero. In the really real world, perfectly normal average people are quite capable of doing perfectly horrible things to other perfectly normal average people under the auspices of "following orders" or PTSD or whatever other valid or invalid reasons that can be cited. They may afterwards either feel no remorse or they may feel sorrow and regret. Unfortunately either way the tortured don't become untortured and the dead remain silent in their graves. Limbs aren't regrown, disfigurements don't vanish. All the academic regret and heartfelt soul-searching isn't fixing the problem.

Part of the problem is we have a government that uses its military from time to time to project its force onto the rest of the world when other nations don't get with the program regarding American business or security interests, sovereignty of those other nations be damned. Even a knowledge-lacking ill-named peon like myself can figure that one out. Fortunately for my lackwitted self, I've somehow managed to learn to read despite my obvious mental and social failings and thus have this thing called history to refer to. That history doesn't seem to involve a hell of a lot of altruism and good deeds done with no expectation of renumeration and does seem to involve a lot of toppling governments, training thugs and torturers, invasions, aerial bombardments and general miserable behavior towards anyone who has something our government wants.

The other part of the problem is the people who still believe in their heart of hearts that the military is still intrinsically good and noble, that it just needs to be gently guided back to the right path. Sorry, but it left that path a long time before any of us were born. Any good it does is purely coincidental to the designs of the people who ultimately call the shots. Sure, American soldiers are saving lives as well as taking them. They're saving lives that are endangered not just by terrorists and sectarian violence but by policies enacted by the very people who've sent them where they are now. Just like a firearm, the military isn't inherently good or evil, it's a tool put to whatever task the wielder decides upon, but with one important exception. A firearm can't refuse to be aimed and fired.

You don't have to convince me of the humanity of those in the military, Terry. I'm aware of it. Lack of humanity isn't the problem. It's a lack of the will to stand up to institutionalized inhumanity rather than reflexively defend that institution because you happen to belong to it.

There are behavioral constraints built into the program, and the ROE are pounded into everyone.

Rules of engagement that are still violated, altered or just plain ignored and then either excused or covered-up with the complicity of the command structure. Surely I can't be the only one who remembers how the story went regarding Fallujah and the use of white phosphorus weapons? Or the idea of setting "bomb making materials" out in the open, watched over by snipers assigned to kill anyone attempting to take them?

Some may be more aggressive than others, but the number of intelligent, thinking; and reflective, people in service is higher than usually believed.

And yet still the military continues to be used as a tool of capitalist and imperialist designs. Apparently the intelligence level isn't high enough to make an actual difference where it matters, just enough so that some people can act self-congratulatory about how truly smart the members of the military are. As long as you're still being used like this, you'll excuse me if my estimation of your collective intelligence is a bit off from what you think it should be

As to the whole "try saying this to a soldier" argument? I never made that argument. I said "serve their country", which can mean a variety of things, and this school would teach a lot of those careers.

Yes, of course, it can mean a variety of things. Even though the primary focus here seems to be on the military aspect. Even though MrFitz was talking about people trained in warfare. Even though you felt the need to respond to MrFitz by saying that all the people you know who've served in the military think for themselves and aren't just unswervingly obedient. Obviously you weren't talking about soldiers when you said "I know a lot of people who serve or have served in the military", you must've been talking about schoolteachers or EMTs.

However, it very much irritates me when people assume the military is nothing more that a death squad.

Welcome to the internet. People here may say things you don't agree with, like hearing, or want to hear. Your irritation is inconsequential beyond the extent that it may or may not be entertaining.

Nobody said "death squad". I guess that's what you keep hearing whenever someone makes the outrageous suggestion that people who have the ability to kill without legal sanction as part of their job should be held to some higher standard of conduct. Additionally, the idea that anyone should be automatically granted respect simply due to the position they hold in society or the uniform they wear is the mentality of the servile.

However it very much amuses me when someone says in a huff that they're quitting the discussion only to reappear a few posts later.

@49:
Antinous - actually, I was thinking you'd get more of a verbal ass-kicking than a physical one.

Because, you know, that's how rational people act.

Irrational people just resort to violence or ASSUME people will resort to violence.

Funny, I wasn't aware that the recruits these days were getting trained in reasoned debate and conflict resolution.

Cutting through all the Patriotically Correct nonsense, the average combat soldier is trained to resolve conflicts through use of physical force, they are trained to accept orders to use that force almost without question and they are steeped in a culture that says their country can do no wrong or that when it does that wrong is vastly outweighed by all the good it supposedly does.

This is not conducive to a mindset that can tolerate direct verbal criticism without feeling an instinctive need to smash the source of said criticism. I personally wouldn't take my chances with those odds. I'm also fairly certain that a "verbal ass-kicking" is not the outcome you'd be hoping for in such a situation. The "why don't you try saying that to a soldier" shtick is very dated and the implication behind it is pretty clear: Please say this to a soldier so they'll hopefully do you the harm you richly deserve, you un-American hippie commie pinko.

But I'm sure you were just engaging in satire. That is the usual excuse isn't it?

@#210:

"However,unlike pretty much everyone rallying against it, I've actually played every game in the series, and loved every last one. There actually is some pretty smart humor buried in all the dick and boob jokes, and the sex and violence outside of the missions is entirely optional."

Played through every one since GTA3 myself, excepting the current one. The smart humor has gotten buried deeper and deeper under dick, boob and gay jokes. Love the qualification of "sex and violence OUTSIDE of the missions" being optional. San Andreas had a mission that was integral to advancement in the game that involved the player running a car off the road that contained a priest being serviced by a prostitute. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember there being an option to let her bail out first. That's just one off the top of my head, I'm sure more could be easily found by perusing any of the walkthroughs available for the games in the series.

"And a lot of you seem to be missing the point. The GTA series is basically an homage to "gangster films" of all types, with all of the excessive violence and misogyny that comes with the genre."

I find myself wondering at what point "homage" simultaneously becomes a weasel word excuse to depict said violence and misogyny at a far greater level of repulsiveness than any of the "gangster films" supposedly being paid tribute to and a "you just don't get it because you're an unhip dullard" slam against anyone who criticizes said "homage".

"If that type of entertainment isn't your thing then that's your business, but don't act like Rockstar invented misogyny or gratuitous violence."

No, they didn't invent it, no one here is claiming they did and saying anyone is acting like they did is very subjective and ultimately unprovable. However, Rockstar is turning a profit on it. They're perfectly free to do so. We're perfectly free to speak critically of it.

I have to say I liked the previous entries in the series but I won't be playing this one. They're forsaking their smart humor for stuff that mainly appeals to people who laugh at the mere mention of the word "dick" and use "gay" as a pejorative. Fortunately there's plenty of other games both available and pending that are still capable of being engrossing without having to pander to the lowest common denominator.

Hemidemisemiquaver,

I don't see it as a cause so much as a symptom. Unfortunately it's a symptom that's become a marketing demographic. Rockstar has figured out that they can make a lot of money pandering to this attitude, therefore they do. They also know they'll have loads of people who'll rally around the flag of "political incorrectness", bravely standing side-by-side with the strong majority against the terror of the weak minority.

Irony: petulant posting about how "There's not a patriarchy and there never was so shut up about it all ready", written by a guy.

Seriously. I'm a guy, and you other guys who keep pissing and moaning about how feminists are all man-hating harpies who just want to symbolically or actually castrate you all for the crime of being male are a sincere embarrassment to those of us who don't think buying feminine products for our partners or watching a "chick flick" are emasculating experiences from which one can never recover.

Equally tiresome is the excuse of "It's satire and if you don't get that it's obviously because you're a humorless dolt". Putting women in the position of being a disposable commodity isn't "satire". It's mirroring how our society has viewed them for generations. It's mirroring how some people STILL view them.

It's okay guys, honestly, you can criticize stuff like this and be in no danger of having your genitals shrink or fall off.