I’m off to see Stoke City play a friendly with the Philly Union. Find something to talk about.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Recent Posts
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been catching up on Comic Con panels from last week.
Any X-Men movie/comic fans on BT? Well if so, then the next X-Men First Class movie looks like it’s gonna be epic!!! Not one, but 2 Xavier (young and old) but 2 Magnetos (young and old), Kitty Pryde, Wolverine (allegedly) and mutha-fruckin’ SENTINELS!!!! Can’t wait for this! This is a “commercial” for TRASK industries. This shit look like a REAL commercial!!!
http://youtu.be/92YBR9gEyYI
here’s the thing too cuz…check out the website for TRASK industries! It’s a LIVE website, like it’s a read company…lol
http://www.trask-industries.com/#/genetics
We will continue to raise carbon levels until Mother Nature drowns half the planet. She is analogous to untethered capitalism in that the cure is a nightmare.
In both cases we treat closed systems as if they were open systems. Any mathematical physicist knows that is a fatal error in analysis except for the very local in time and space. For instance, you can treat the world as flat and gravity as a constant unidirectional force. That works for shooting medieval cannons at castles. It doesn’t work for shooting ICBM’s and it is totally useless for sending a probe to Jupiter. In fact, modeling gravity as a simple inverse square radial force aimed at the center of the Earth fails for the Jupiter shot.
What?
Sorry, your question is too general to answer. I’d be glad to expound on a more specific question.
Perhaps my reply to TarHeelDem just below will help.
No believe me its not you fault. 🙂
The only thing that allows the Earth to be modeled as an open system is the incoming solar flux and a few meterorites.
Economies are totally closed systems; what goes around comes around. Any attempt to bottle up the flow in hoarding in one place creates shortages elsewhere. Extracting like crazy from the soil or mining is equivalent to squandering your inheritance. Modeling a firm making a profit is like modeling a medieval artillery piece shooting in a straight line. You can’t extend that to operations on distant parts of the system.
That’s what I said. Capitalism models an open economic system. It ignores that the workers are also consumers so the less you pay, the less the consumers can buy.
Similarly we treat the Earth as an unending bottomless garbage can. We throw gases into the air and let the wind blow them away, ignoring that their is an upwind neighbor doing the same thing.
There were National Park rangers walking around in their “tacticals” – camo and kevlar and whatnot – at the Lowell Folk Festival.
That’s how crowd events are after the marathon.
Shakes head.
Just had to show off the new threads, eh. A little security theater to calm down the folks.
It’s sweet that you think it’s for show.
Explain to me exactly how the way that the rangers were dressed increases the actual security of the event for the folks who were there.
Let me make sure I’m understanding your question:
You’re asking me to explain to you how police equipped for gun battles make people safer in a situation in which there is a possibility of an attack.
Have I got that right?
Actually I was asking how camos and obvious kevlar was going to make people safer than normal uniforms and kevlar undergarments. What armaments did they have besides a service pistol?
And how do they know that it’s a gun battle they are looking for?
Just what sort of threat should people be on the lookout for?
Or should they just be fearful?
Or trust that because the rangers are here, everything is OK? If it’s this, service pistols and Smokey uniforms are sufficient.
Actually I was asking how camos and obvious kevlar was going to make people safer than normal uniforms and kevlar undergarments.
You can wear a lot more kevlar on top of your clothes than under them, making your safer.
And how do they know that it’s a gun battle they are looking for?
This would be a relevant question if the kevlar was the only security measure in place for the event, instead of one item among many.
Just what sort of threat should people be on the lookout for?
There are a number of different threats security should be on the lookout for. Not just one.
Another point of view, from Bruce Schneier.
In Praise of Security Theater
In my opinion, it’s much better to have places actually be safer than their appearances.
The rangers had protection. No one else did. Logic finds that interesting. The crowd there likely didn’t think about it much at all.
When traveling in Europe in the 80s, I noticed a lot of very young male guards with automatic weapons stationed around government buildings in some cities. It had the effect on me of feeling quite a bit less secure.
This.
Having people walking around in tacticals doesn’t make people feel safer; it’s a reminder of the threat.
Which, despite being exactly the opposite of Tarheel’s argument, no doubt is central to his point.
The crowd there likely didn’t think about it much at all.
The crowd there didn’t seem to have a problem with it.
You assume you know much, much more than you actually do.
Just how much more screwed can Anthony Wiener’s campaign get?
His communications director wants to find out!
This isn’t some thing like Mitt Romney getting caught on tape talking about the 47%. One of Wiener’s aides said this to a reporter on the record, and on purpose.
she also dropped a C-bomb.
She was definitely communicating.