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[SalmonGod]

I'm not normally one to chime in with this, but it seems someone else needs to repeat it.  An extended abortion debate would not be good for this thread.

[Trollheiming]

Abortion stuff

you can talk out your ass all you want, but there's piles of scientific literature on the subject. I guess you just "know better" than all the experts.

Back on topic, Barack Obama says the Navy doesn't need more ships, but the Navy itself says that it needs at least 30 more ships to fulfill the obligations tasked to it. Which is the expert on naval strategy, and which is the snarky know-nothing fast approaching retirement?

[SealyStar]

I've never quite understood the "incest" part of that, unless it's ALSO rape. If you've got a consensual thing going on, I'm not sure why they would deserve an abortion more than any other couple.

This actually would be the eugenics argument, I believe. Not wanting eleven-toed children or something.

[Rose]

And which is the overly bloated entity that...

Oh wait, it's you talking, nevermind, I'm not gonna bother.

[kaijyuu]

I've never quite understood the "incest" part of that, unless it's ALSO rape. If you've got a consensual thing going on, I'm not sure why they would deserve an abortion more than any other couple.

This actually would be the eugenics argument, I believe. Not wanting eleven-toed children or something.

For it to be "eugenics" that would require assuming the fetus is worthy of personhood. Otherwise, it's still solidly in the position of "prevention."

IE we're back to square 1.

[Lord Shonus]

Abortion stuff

you can talk out your ass all you want, but there's piles of scientific literature on the subject. I guess you just "know better" than all the experts.

Back on topic, Barack Obama says the Navy doesn't need more ships, but the Navy itself says that it needs at least 30 more ships to fulfill the obligations tasked to it. Which is the expert on naval strategy, and which is the snarky know-nothing fast approaching retirement?

Obama's correct. Many of the obligations the Navy is task with now exist only on paper, such as guarding convoys to Europe from attacks by the Soviet Russian bomber and submarine fleet. The Navy is still required to keep ships in readiness for that purpose, even though having to supply a European army is unlikely in the extreme and Russia doesn't have that much to shoot at one anyway. The ships being built are for the purpose of replacing ships as they are decommissioned, rather than augmenting the fleet.

[Strife26]

I guess that I'll play devil on military downsizing, eh?

On the other hand, I'd certainly contend that there's still no small value in America keeping utter dominance of blue water power, and keeping the ability to transport and protect stuff overseas is kinda a really important part of that. Moving real equipment by air is really inefficient, once you're into serious needs. Moreover, it's a helluva lot easier to keep stuff up than to try to crash rebuild a navy when it looks like we need it.

[Eagle_eye]

I guess that I'll play devil on military downsizing, eh?

On the other hand, I'd certainly contend that there's still no small value in America keeping utter dominance of blue water power, and keeping the ability to transport and protect stuff overseas is kinda a really important part of that. Moving real equipment by air is really inefficient, once you're into serious needs. Moreover, it's a helluva lot easier to keep stuff up than to try to crash rebuild a navy when it looks like we need it.

We have aircraft carriers. Doesn't that basically make all other crafts except anti-sub ships and submarines obsolete?

[Trollheiming]

And which is the overly bloated entity that...

Oh wait, it's you talking, nevermind, I'm not gonna bother.

Typical liberal. When something pops your cocoon, plug your ears and chant "I'm not listening!" over and over.

Obama wants to move plastic aircraft carriers around on the strategic map in his White House, but in the real world aircraft carriers go nowhere without destroyer screens and support ships like Aegis cruisers. If an aircraft carrier is unprotected, a single $1000 missile can destroy it.

Obama's correct. Many of the obligations the Navy is task with now exist only on paper, such as guarding convoys to Europe from attacks by the Soviet Russian bomber and submarine fleet. The Navy is still required to keep ships in readiness for that purpose, even though having to supply a European army is unlikely in the extreme and Russia doesn't have that much to shoot at one anyway. The ships being built are for the purpose of replacing ships as they are decommissioned, rather than augmenting the fleet.

Weakness attracts predators. Russia did invade Georgia a few years ago. Don't tell me you think they're more cuddly now just because they aren't Soviet. Do you really think Russia is peaceful?

We have aircraft carriers. Doesn't that basically make all other crafts except anti-sub ships and submarines obsolete?

Obama is a goof. Don't rely on him for military strategy. Any aircraft carrier that travels without a large taskforce of supporting ships is a sitting duck. The navy needs other smaller ships precisely because it does have large and extremely high-value assets floating around. Carriers are glass cannons.

[SealyStar]

Obama's correct. Many of the obligations the Navy is task with now exist only on paper, such as guarding convoys to Europe from attacks by the Soviet Russian bomber and submarine fleet. The Navy is still required to keep ships in readiness for that purpose, even though having to supply a European army is unlikely in the extreme and Russia doesn't have that much to shoot at one anyway. The ships being built are for the purpose of replacing ships as they are decommissioned, rather than augmenting the fleet.

Weakness attracts predators. Russia did invade Georgia a few years ago. Don't tell me you think they're more cuddly now just because they aren't Soviet. Do you really think Russia is peaceful?

I actually agree with you. Russia isn't any better without "Soviet". It's still a corrupt dictatorship and a serious threat to the rest of the industrialized world.

[Reelya]

http://bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2012/10/23/size-navy-thrust-forefront-campaign/Lm0WxYRAYTggln0VG58qgN/story.html

“Our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917,” the former Massachusetts governor repeated in the debate with Obama on Monday. “The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission. We’re now at under 285. We’re headed down to the low 200s if we go through [planned defense cuts]. That’s unacceptable to me.”

The current fleet is actually slightly larger than it was during the Bush administration, when ship numbers dropped to 278 in 2007.

Since it was actually weakest during Bush Jnr, that makes Romney's line a pants-on-fire lie.

According to its 30-year shipbuilding plan, released in March, the Navy is set to grow to about 300 ships by 2019 and average about 298 ships each year through 2042. That assumes the defense budget remains at its current rate of growth and the second round of cuts passed by Congress and set to go into effect next year is overturned.

The cuts were passed by the Republican congress, naval numbers are actually already up from the Bush years, and the navy already planned to expand numbers significantly, but that's under threat because of the sequestration passed by the votes of Paul Ryan & co.

http://www.topix.com/forum/city/london-ky/TDH47Q9VSH5QH667E

Paul Ryan Holds Event Criticizing The Military Spending Sequester He Voted For |

At a round table discussion in North Carolina Thursday, vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan tried to pin the blame for the budget sequester squarely on the shoulders of President Obama, despite the fact that Ryan himself voted in favor of the sequester. The bill triggers automatic spending cuts to a variety of government programs including military spending if Congress cannot pass a budget by January first.

Remember, this only kicks in if Congress cannot pass a budget. and who exactly is in control of Congress at the moment?

[kaenneth]

Well it's illegal, taboo, against religious principles, and then you have the scientific aspect where you have a much higher chance of birth defects. The birth defects one, to me, makes it more scientifically logical that you'd always abort in these cases than rape cases. There's no extra chance of having seriously deformed children because it was rape.

The mothers stress and depression hormones beg to differ. (not obviously seriously deformed, but having serious problems later in life)

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1710248,00.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092500962.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-458916/Stress-mothers-affects-unborn-babies.html

etc. etc. Being conceived by rape would likely be the peak of fetal stress effects.

On a side topic, I also think the origins of Astrology, specifically the idea that your personality type is determined when you are born might have a basis in the diets available in different seasons to the mother when she was pregnant; someone born in Winter would have been nourished by fresh vegetables the mother ate the previous spring and summer; while those born in Summer receive nutrition from fall crops (gourds, grains) and food preserved for the winter.

On a side-side note, My answer to if "Have you ever been to Disneyland?" hinges on the abortion debate, as I was born 9 months after my parents took my older siblings on vacation there.

[Strife26]

I guess that I'll play devil on military downsizing, eh?

On the other hand, I'd certainly contend that there's still no small value in America keeping utter dominance of blue water power, and keeping the ability to transport and protect stuff overseas is kinda a really important part of that. Moving real equipment by air is really inefficient, once you're into serious needs. Moreover, it's a helluva lot easier to keep stuff up than to try to crash rebuild a navy when it looks like we need it.

We have aircraft carriers. Doesn't that basically make all other crafts except anti-sub ships and submarines obsolete?

Long story short, not at all.

We have aircraft carrier groups, which is to say carriers and cruisers and destroyers and other destroyers and supply ships and all sorts of other stuff. I mean, the common quote is that we've got more carriers than the rest of the world, but a carrier can't sail alone, or one lucky Algerian with an Exocet's a reaaaally dangerous threat to a really expensive boat.


Now, do we need enough ships to fight all the other nations in the world? Maybe, maybe not. Are our current ships in the fleet going to be enough to maintain the favorable balance of power in the coming years? Hell, how many of them are still going to be floating? I saw USS Memphis tied up and being deactivated a few months ago. Kinda scary to think about the amount of combat power that's no longer in the oceans in just one sub, you know?

[Trollheiming]

The cuts were passed by the Republican congress, naval numbers are actually already up from the Bush years, and the navy already planned to expand numbers significantly, but that's under threat because of the sequestration passed by the votes of Paul Ryan & co.

Obama advanced the idea of sequestration. Wahington Post reporter Bob Woodward is pretty clear on that point. Furthermore, despite vowing to stop sequestration in front of millions of viewers during the last debate, within 24 hours he was telling the Des Moines Register that he had a plan to reduce the deficit... and then proceeded specifically to call out and to factor in the savings of a sequestration that one night ago he pledged to stop happening.

 "So when you combine the Bush tax cuts expiring, the sequester in place, the commitment of both myself and my opponent ... in the first six months we are going to solve that [deficit]."

He at first demanded that this interview be off-the-record, for obvious reasons. Within 24 hours, saying a completely different thing.

[Reelya]

So you favor extending the tax cuts, increasing spending, and you also favor cutting the deficit?

how's all that meant to work?

And with this magical austerity package, somehow it'll grow the economy rather than causing a double-dip recession, like in every other country which ever implemented an austerity package (i.e. Europe right now) because "America".