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[Frumple]

Not quite what I'd call a related subject, since I don't think vets are military surplus being sold to non-military organizations, but yeah, it's been said. Probably more an argument against releasing the surplus again, though. Just highlights most of who'd be using them haven't been particularly trained for it, heh.

Any case, I'd like to think there aren't any circumstances where the use of explosive rounds would be authorized, too... but I'd much rather the option just not be on the table. Think folks have mentioned, trouble with that stuff seems always that the people acquiring them feel the need to justify the price of procurement and maintenance. Cops seem to have an unfortunate habit of trying to find a way, with the occasional wildly less than optimal results

Better just to make sure the kit they have is sufficient for what they deal with without much needing to tap leftover miljunk, and maybe spend the money that'd go to getting and keep military grade stuff on training or somethin' instead.

[martinuzz]

I'm a left anarchist, Libertarians are close to right anarchists. Democrats are vile hateful things that literally only show up as lesser evils when contrasted with republicans.

I'd say I'm a libertarian socialist, with a slight aversy to decentralizing too much, but that's mostly from a 'if it's not broken, don't fix it' perspective.
Dutch government has been decentralizing healthcare from national to town level, and it's created a mess, budget deficiencies on city budgets,  inequality based on living area, and tons of overhead costs (now ever city needs a well paid healthcare manager, and team of insurance lobbyists, instead of just once at national level) and bureaucratic clogging of the apparatus, because city governments weren't prepared for the job (as a result, waiting lists for special care / psychiatric care / youth care have started taking lives).
So yeah, public works that function effectively and efficiently at national level should not be decentralized.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism

Libertarianism has been giving libertarianism a bad name lately though, so I've gotten into the habit of telling people who ask me what political philosophy I adhere, that I'm a Cynic.
Sadly, cynicism has been giving Cynicism a bad name lately, and living naked in a barrel and telling the king to sod off is illegal nowadays. And cold. The Netherlands isn't Athens, you know. But at least people don't think I'm a Libertarian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(philosophy)

[nenjin]

Testing.

This test was brought to you by the Trump Foundation's Initiative For Better Goodness.

[martinuzz]

One two three

[smjjames]

testing on chrome

[Enemy post]

Testing Safari.

[ChairmanPoo]

Testing Safari.

Testing Rastafari

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[smjjames]

This has gotta be like, one of the most random derails, heh.

Anyways, in an attempt to rerail it, Trumps silly reason/excuse for doing the pardon in the middle of the hurricane: "Trump: I pardoned Arpaio during hurricane because I thought TV ratings would be higher."

Just a case of 'politician says silly reason/excuse for why they did x'.

[smjjames]

Yeep! NK just launched a missile that flew over Japan, not many details on it atm.

[inteuniso]

Yeep! NK just launched a missile that flew over Japan, not many details on it atm.

Ohhhhhhh shit please don't start nothing please nothing please nothing please nothing.

Here's an article that was updated two minutes ago as of this post.

[smjjames]

At least they shot it northwards. Even if it ends up falling into the water further downrange and doesn't hit Japan itself, it's a pretty damn clear provocation.

Even so, I wonder how Trump would react....

[Draignean]

At least they shot it northwards. Even if it ends up falling into the water further downrange and doesn't hit Japan itself, it's a pretty damn clear provocation.

Even so, I wonder how Trump would react....

He'll probably pardon Harvey and announce that the boy scouts can now purchase claymore mines.

[martinuzz]

If it was aimed at Japan it clearly was a miss isle.

EDIT: if it did fly straight over Japan though, it makes you wonder why no attempt was made to intercept it.
No capability to? Not wanting to show capability? Or does the western military intelligence apparatus know for sure that it wasn't live?

[smjjames]

If they had their reasons for not trying to shoot it down, they certainly aren't going to tell people. Not wanting to show capability, or perhaps, the lack of capability, is certainly a logical reason if they saw that it wasn't likely to hit land, but still....

Also, not sure why they (the initial reports) always say 'unidentified projectile', what else could it be, a javelin? A giant flying glob of spit?

[Lord Shonus]

The general impact area of a ballistic missile (with the exception of a FOBS system) can be pretty accurately determined shortly after launch based on speed and direction. This means that the people in charge of a shoot-no-shoot decision would have been pretty confident that the missile was not a physical threat. As for why they didn't shoot it down just in case, there are a number of good reasons that could have played a factor.

1. Shooting down a ballistic missile is hard. While shooting this one down would have been a powerful statement, trying and failing to do so would cost the US a lot of face, and potentially encourage North Korea to keep on their aggressive course.

2. The thing about anti-ballistic missiles is that they look a hell of a lot like ballistic missile launches when you fire them, due to the extreme amount of acceleration they need - this only lasts for a few seconds, but that can be enough for things to get Very Bad. A very, very slim possibility exists that shooting at this probably-harmless missile might have been mistaken for a retaliatory nuclear strike against NK and lead to China deciding to retaliate against what they thought was a disproportionate US retaliation.

3. There have been unconfirmed reports in the open press that Russia's nuclear launch detection has become very spotty in the last decade or so. If the Pentagon has the same reports and puts stock in them, there would be a very real fear that Russia might detect the counter-missile launches (see 2. above) without detecting North Korea's launch - potentially making them think that the US was exercising a first-strike option.

tl:dr  - there was little potential gain from shooting it down, and the risks of doing so are quite real, however remote they might be.