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Sort of a shame they've pussied out on Gaza at least twice now though. I mean I'm sure there are reasons and I don't let it bother me but it deserves more than just a small bit at the top of every episode.
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Jul 29, 2014 00:33
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Bown posted:Sort of a shame they've pussied out on Gaza at least twice now though. I mean I'm sure there are reasons and I don't let it bother me but it deserves more than just a small bit at the top of every episode. If the conflict sees further escalation, as Netanyahu is suggesting, I think it would be disappointing, indeed, since this is precisely the kind of complicated, intractable issue that Oliver has (rapidly) made a name for himself by tackling.
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Jul 29, 2014 00:48
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One of the pictures in the intro is an Israeli flag with the fake Latin suggesting it's a complicated issue. I'm hoping it means they're giving themselves time to get it right before they do a full segment.
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Jul 29, 2014 01:29
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It would have fit with their nukes piece though, considering I think Israel is probably the most likely state actor to use theirs other than Pakistan losing one.
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Jul 29, 2014 01:45
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comes along bort posted:We're still flying B-52s carrying nukes too. In their case though it's more because they're really cheap to maintain. The Air Force's nuclear mission is becoming outmoded and obsolete with each passing year. The Minuteman IV has been permanently shelved in lieu of just continuing to maintain/upgrade the existing Minuteman IIIs, and without the AGM-129, the only nuclear cruise missiles the Air Force [legally] has left at its disposal are the 80s-era AGM-86s, a good deal of which were converted to *conventional* versions in the 90s because the Navy was getting too much funding for their Tomahawks, and if there's anything that'll spur the Air Force to action, it's the Navy getting more funding than them for wanton destruction. The only thing else they've got a monopoly on is nuclear gravity bombs (as technically carriers aren't carrying them along anymore - just keeping them within supply range at all times), and in this day and age, not even the B-2 will likely be able to get through the air defense screen of China and/or Russia, which means they're an asset that can only be utilized quite some time *after* the initial ICBM/SLBM exchange. The Russians and Chinese have learned that stationary missiles sitting in silos is dumb. That's why the bulk of their strategic funding is going into mobile ICBMs and ballistic missile subs. China *still* hasn't bothered with strategic bombers (they still fly copies of the 50s-era Tu-16), and the Russians are basically paying their bomber force lip service. But we have to keep ~The Triad~ going because lobbyists and there are still enough assholes in Congress that remember the glory of the McNamara era of grandiose defense spending (and the easy votes that came along with it). IRQ posted:It would have fit with their nukes piece though, considering I think Israel is probably the most likely state actor to use theirs other than Pakistan losing one. India/Pakistan is still the most likely. If/when Pakistan's 'secular' government falls, the Indians will have ~30-60 minutes in which to decide whether or not to launch a preemptive strike on strategic assets in Pakistan that they *know* about, before the fundamentalists start looking for the codes and/or breaking locks on the bunkers. This leaves the deployed/hidden assets (most of Pakistan's nukes are road-mobile) free to act on what's called 'fail-deadly' orders, meaning that in the event of certain criteria being met (no contact with their command authority, witnessing detonations in the distance, etc.), they've orders to fire on their designated targets (probably cities as none of their missiles have very decent accuracy). Obviously it's never been confirmed that Pakistan operates under such orders, but given the proximity of both countries to each other, it's a logical conclusion seeing as the flight time for an SRBM or MRBM even fired from the tip of the Indian peninsula to Islamabad would have a flight time of ~10 minutes maximum. Fun Fact: we offered fail-safe technology to Pakistan shortly after they exploded their first bomb, in hopes of giving them a way to secure their warheads against potential hostiles. They turned us down because they were afraid we'd engineer a backdoor into whatever we gave them. And let's face it, we would have. The next nuclear exchange will happen while most of us are sleeping. We'll wake up and find out ~2-300 million people will have died, just to start. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 11:41 on Jul 29, 2014 |
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Jul 29, 2014 08:07
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Leb posted:If the conflict sees further escalation, as Netanyahu is suggesting, I think it would be disappointing, indeed, since this is precisely the kind of complicated, intractable issue that Oliver has (rapidly) made a name for himself by tackling. Haha, Oliver would never touch this. His segments thus far have taken a position that most of his audience — 18-36 year olds who lean left — would agree with him on. There is no way he commits himself to an issue that transcends political parties like Israeli politics.
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Jul 29, 2014 16:20
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JohnSherman posted:Haha, Oliver would never touch this. His segments thus far have taken a position that most of his audience — 18-36 year olds who lean left — would agree with him on. There is no way he commits himself to an issue that transcends political parties like Israeli politics. He might go for it but just dedicate himself to clearing up all the facts amongst the bullshit from both sides rather than taking a firm stance like he does on most issues.
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Jul 29, 2014 17:47
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I was surprised he was so wary of discussing the death penalty. I completely understand him not wanting to talk Israel. The US is loving creepy about it. Journalists lose jobs all the time for having an opinion on that poo poo. It's like unquestioning support of Israel was in the constitution, or the bible (hah).
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Jul 29, 2014 18:18
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You think people go crazy over the death penalty? They go even crazier over guns. The craziness over guns is not even close to the craziness Israel brings out.
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Jul 29, 2014 18:20
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BIG HEADLINE posted:The Air Force's nuclear mission is becoming outmoded and obsolete with each passing year. The Minuteman IV has been permanently shelved in lieu of just continuing to maintain/upgrade the existing Minuteman IIIs, and without the AGM-129, the only nuclear cruise missiles the Air Force [legally] has left at its disposal are the 80s-era AGM-86s, a good deal of which were converted to *conventional* versions in the 90s because the Navy was getting too much funding for their Tomahawks, and if there's anything that'll spur the Air Force to action, it's the Navy getting more funding than them for wanton destruction. The only thing else they've got a monopoly on is nuclear gravity bombs (as technically carriers aren't carrying them along anymore - just keeping them within supply range at all times), and in this day and age, not even the B-2 will likely be able to get through the air defense screen of China and/or Russia, which means they're an asset that can only be utilized quite some time *after* the initial ICBM/SLBM exchange.
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Jul 29, 2014 18:38
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At a certain point, a show like this has to tell the audience to turn on the loving news. Discussing human shields, blockades, and two sides blaming each other for the explosion at a refugee shelter is really not what celebrity guest cameos, punchlines, song parodies, etc are really for. Now if you find the content in that news to be rubbish, that's what TDS is for.
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Jul 30, 2014 08:07
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JohnSherman posted:Haha, Oliver would never touch this. His segments thus far have taken a position that most of his audience — 18-36 year olds who lean left — would agree with him on. There is no way he commits himself to an issue that transcends political parties like Israeli politics. Oliver's covered a lot of topics that transcends political parties, probably because there isn't enough interest in it for a party to take a position. His international background lets him cover events from perspective that's actually shared by most of the world -and he's been doing it for a long time on his podcast. ...how does Israel transcend party politics anyway 
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Jul 30, 2014 08:08
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rapeface posted:...how does Israel transcend party politics anyway There's basically no politician in the US that is gonna touch Israel. It's a huge political quagmire of lobbying and misappropriated religious feelings. If you voice an opinion even mildly anti-Israel, you end up disappeared from the conversation like Helen Thomas.
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Jul 30, 2014 08:24
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ultramiraculous posted:There's basically no politician in the US that is gonna touch Israel. It's a huge political quagmire of lobbying and misappropriated religious feelings. If you voice an opinion even mildly anti-Israel, you end up disappeared from the conversation like Helen Thomas. Hmm, I get that he might not cover it because it's controversial but I don't think he wouldn't cover it just because it doesn't pander to the left though! I'm still hopeful that he unloads a hate deluge on Benjamin Netanyahu on television. I was also under the impression that even though U.S. politicians don't discuss it, the general consensus of most educated people (especially the left leaning) is that Israel is the aggressor. Is this not the case?
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Jul 30, 2014 08:40
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rapeface posted:I was also under the impression that even though U.S. politicians don't discuss it, the general consensus of most educated people (especially the left leaning) is that Israel is the aggressor. Is this not the case?
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Jul 30, 2014 09:30
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ultramiraculous posted:There's basically no politician in the US that is gonna touch Israel. It's a huge political quagmire of lobbying and misappropriated religious feelings. If you voice an opinion even mildly anti-Israel, you end up disappeared from the conversation like Helen Thomas. It's still scary just how quickly and completely Helen Thomas was silenced after a few decidedly indelicate remarks. I trust that if John were to attempt to address the issue, he'd be very, very careful at every step along the way.
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Jul 30, 2014 09:53
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Jul 30, 2014 11:18
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rapeface posted:I was also under the impression that even though U.S. politicians don't discuss it, the general consensus of most educated people (especially the left leaning) is that Israel is the aggressor. Is this not the case? As the chart above kind of suggests, the breakdown correlates more to age than to education level. Young people are much more likely to believe that the literal children that make up a good portion of Gaza's population shouldn't have to suffer for the past misdeeds of the PLO and Hamas. Though it's important to point out that this is uniquely an American problem. Even in other countries where the politicians are afraid to touch Israel, like the UK and Germany, the majority of people are more sympathetic to Palestine. I hope they roll the dice and tackle this subject, but I'll understand why if they don't. Suggesting Israel is even partially to blame will convince a lot of otherwise reasonable people that John is an anti-semite. hcreight fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Jul 30, 2014 |
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Jul 30, 2014 15:08
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On the nuclear situation http://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/334501037/to-stop-cheating-nuclear-officers-ditch-the-grades?sc=tw
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Jul 30, 2014 18:42
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:On the nuclear situation I swear to god I really don't understand the cheating thing because in the real world literally everyone has reference manuals on their desks or nearby or maybe an internal wiki or something so why does it have to be this weird thing? Can you not use reference material at that job?
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Jul 30, 2014 19:10
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I'm required to carry around a manual with everything related to my job in it and I'm encouraged to reference it on the job when necessary. Every year I have to take a two day training course covering stuff I could already find in the book and I'm tested at the end of it. It's always a boring 2 days because I know my poo poo but I don't think requiring people to know their job is all that strange otherwise you could just hire anybody and tell them to read the book.
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Jul 30, 2014 19:27
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Drifter posted:I swear to god I really don't understand the cheating thing because in the real world literally everyone has reference manuals on their desks or nearby or maybe an internal wiki or something so why does it have to be this weird thing? I guess the theory is: what if the russians send in weevils to eat all the reference books, what now?
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Jul 30, 2014 19:44
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Timett posted:It's always a boring 2 days because I know my poo poo but I don't think requiring people to know their job is all that strange otherwise you could just hire anybody and tell them to read the book. Right? But I'm saying like, you're not learning NEW things taking care of a loving 40 year old missile silo or whatever. Are these people so loving worthless that over the course of drills throughout the weeks and months and years they still have to cheat on a drat test about things they have been theoretically doing every day of their working life? If I know one thing about the military it's that they love their drills and practice procedures. Bah. And yes, if you hire someone and tell them to read the books then after a while they're going to know what's in those books. That's the point of having reference and training material. military jobs, man.
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Jul 30, 2014 20:06
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After watching many many Jimmy Kimmel episodes where people just make answers up to anything on the spot, every time I see a poll about anything I always want wish they had a line Excluding people who probably don't know what the gently caress we are talking about but give their opinion anyway ---
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Jul 30, 2014 20:51
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In that event where the missiles are going to be launched, you can't have your loving officers farting around with up to 35 year old documentation with equally aged equipment. If something fails as you prep for launch, you have probably minutes before bombs start falling in your general area to fix it. You need to know what to do without consulting the manual. The missiles need to launch when told to, basically. I can get that. This isn't a case where almost any other job might show leniency, you're talking about not just ending your side of the planet, but the other guy's too, and you don't have any time at all with ICBM travel time to gently caress around referencing the manuals to your archaic equipment. It sucks that the job is dead-end and boring, the equipment is old and lovely, and missile silos are outdated and a bad idea compared to mobile weapon platforms, but when handling world-ending explosives I expect the guys to be competent and know what they're doing on a moment's notice, all other things off the table.
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Jul 30, 2014 21:00
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hemophilia posted:In that event where the missiles are going to be launched, you can't have your loving officers farting around with up to 35 year old documentation with equally aged equipment. If something fails as you prep for launch, you have probably minutes before bombs start falling in your general area to fix it. You need to know what to do without consulting the manual. The missiles need to launch when told to, basically. I can get that. This isn't a case where almost any other job might show leniency, you're talking about not just ending your side of the planet, but the other guy's too, and you don't have any time at all with ICBM travel time to gently caress around referencing the manuals to your archaic equipment. Ahh, the good ol' Israeli Hail Mary.
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Jul 30, 2014 21:33
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Drifter posted:Can you not use reference material at that job? What that reference material actually is is a huge book of checklists. If you're manning a nuclear missile silo, you have a checklist for absolutely everything, even taking breaks. And there are hundreds of them compiled into a huge book. That is what the tests are mainly about; knowing your checklists. And the cheating wasn't being done to pass the test, it was to get perfect scores, because they were necessary for promotions. http://www.npr.org/2014/03/12/289423404/ex-missile-crew-members-say-cheating-is-part-of-the-culture
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Jul 30, 2014 22:44
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hemophilia posted:In that event where the missiles are going to be launched, you can't have your loving officers farting around with up to 35 year old documentation with equally aged equipment. If something fails as you prep for launch, you have probably minutes before bombs start falling in your general area to fix it. You need to know what to do without consulting the manual. The missiles need to launch when told to, basically. I can get that. This isn't a case where almost any other job might show leniency, you're talking about not just ending your side of the planet, but the other guy's too, and you don't have any time at all with ICBM travel time to gently caress around referencing the manuals to your archaic equipment. The technology is old and lovely because it's proven, purpose built, and bug free (or at least it's quirks are all known). Upgrading introduces new bugs. It is shocking at first how old the technology on the space shuttle was near the end of the program, but that was the reason.
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Jul 31, 2014 01:57
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GutBomb posted:The technology is old and lovely because it's proven, purpose built, and bug free (or at least it's quirks are all known). Upgrading introduces new bugs. There are points where updates might be a good idea, like where the software is shown to load from 8 inch floppy disks. I'm not saying gut the whole system because you shouldn't fix what isn't broken but 8 inch floppy disks are pretty busted.
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Jul 31, 2014 05:34
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Yeah, even at their best, 8 inch floppies are unreliable as hell. Space Shuttle's a special case because hardening and verifying chips against cosmic rays is a whole other thing and takes a very very long time to process that.
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Jul 31, 2014 05:40
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rapeface posted:I was also under the impression that even though U.S. politicians don't discuss it, the general consensus of most educated people (especially the left leaning) is that Israel is the aggressor. Is this not the case? Israel is a specifically touchy issue for a few reasons: 1) there is an incredible amount of lobbying for letting Israel do their thing without obstruction and supporting them 100%. GOP overlord Sheldon Adelson is a one-issue guy, and guess what his issue is? He's got contemporaries in the other party, too. 2) The loudest and most commonly expressed criticism of Israel comes from crazy people. This also transcends parties. Ten years ago, the protest movement against Bush's wars often had a fringe element that was spreading angry rhetoric about Israel, and right wing blogs loved to take pictures of it. In 2010, an incumbent Republican thrown out by the Tea Party (I think it was Bob Bennett) described meeting with Tea Partiers and watching their racism quickly descend into Jewish conspiracy theories. So not only is there a lot of influence toward fully supporting Israel, but not supporting Israel can align you with crazies. So, mainstream opinion varies between a belief that Israel is fully justified, to disagreement with certain policies such as settlements but still believing they're defending themselves. I think few would call them the aggressor, because they fight like a modern military, while the other side is a guerilla army that does things considered amoral like putting civilians between themselves and Israel's guns.
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Jul 31, 2014 07:38
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Seeing as his point on wealth inequality began with an impassioned defense of inequality in principle, I don't see why anyone should assume that LWT would take the left's perspective on Israel. Maybe after a lot of decrying Hamas rockets and terrorism and Israel's right to exist.
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Jul 31, 2014 10:54
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nuzak posted:Seeing as his point on wealth inequality began with an impassioned defense of inequality in principle, I don't see why anyone should assume that LWT would take the left's perspective on Israel. Maybe after a lot of decrying Hamas rockets and terrorism and Israel's right to exist. I wouldn't really call John's defense 'impassioned', when he compared it to cinnamon 'adding a bit of spice' to life, and then followed it up by lampooning how the severity of the wealth gap could be - and pretty much is - a problem that needs serious curbing before it gets already more out of hand than it already has, and how many people's optimism that the system being so heavily rigged doesn't matter so long as they're one of the lucky ones really isn't helping. As to him commentating on Israel or not, I wouldn't be surprised if his views were more in the realms of criticising it (certainly Israel doesn't see as much love here in the UK, when you have men like Jon Snow ripping in the Israeli spokesperson right on the air, and opinions of it were 72% negative as of a 2013 bbc world service poll), but he may be careful on trying to directly address it. After all, it pretty much involves a quandary of hot button topics (the middle east, US involvement, a US ally, terrorism, anti-semitism, military support, etc, etc) that even Oliver may be a bit cautious in how many he dares to press at once - which is made harder when seemingly all the buttons are hotwired to go off at once.
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Jul 31, 2014 11:52
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Craptacular! posted:Israel is a specifically touchy issue for a few reasons: Of course, these two things are related. When there's a massive lobbying effort in favor of Israel, people with career hopes inside of the mainstream are not going to touch that issue if they can help it, and if you don't really care about the I/P conflict, being pro-Israel is a free way to boost your political career. Being outright pro-Palestinian is generally political suicide in the US, on a national level, which is kind of crazy.
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Aug 4, 2014 03:39
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That seriously was a warship?
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Aug 4, 2014 04:14
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BigRed0427 posted:That seriously was a warship? The USS constitution is still technically a comissioned warship in the US navy. The argentinian navy does still have actual ships, it's not like that's what they use to defend their country.
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Aug 4, 2014 06:07
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Powershift posted:The USS Constitution is still technically a comissioned warship in the US Navy. Yep. Old Ironsides. In service since 1798; currently staffed by 60 officers and sailors.
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Aug 4, 2014 06:10
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Glad he covered the Argentina story because good lord people need to get it beat into their heads that hedge funds are absurdly powerful in the modern world.
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Aug 4, 2014 06:42
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Relentlessboredomm posted:Glad he covered the Argentina story because good lord people need to get it beat into their heads that hedge funds are absurdly powerful in the modern world. I'm pretty sure it's in people's heads. The problem is those hedge funds have more power over their representatives than they do, and have enough money and influence to corrupt anybody that gets elected.
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Aug 4, 2014 08:01
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Powershift posted:I'm pretty sure it's in people's heads. The problem is those hedge funds have more power over their representatives than they do, and have enough money and influence to corrupt anybody that gets elected. I can assure you it is pretty much not in people's heads. Try asking the average person what a hedge fund is, most people don't know what they are other than something with Wall St.
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Aug 4, 2014 19:46
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