Free trade is fine. When you have oppression, then it’s ugly. for
instance, coffee growers are often paid next to nothing, while th
econsumer in the West pays high proces for the beans. Who’s to
blame???

Often, people blame the “giant, western corperations”, that refuse to
pay fair prices. Well, they’re only part to blame. In South america,
many of the local growers dont’ sell to large companies, they sell to local
dealers, who have a monopoly on the local sales. they force the
growers to sell them at too-low prices. In turn , they sell to the Western
companies at low prices.

The companies are nto doign anything “bad” directly, but they enable the
process by buying. If they don’t buy, they go out of buisness.

The real problem are the corrupt dealers that price fix the cost of
coffee. Corrupt governemnts in these countries don’t help, and the
buying companies have NO financial reason to do anything… so the
poor farmers lose out.

some companies realize the problem, and are now making a killing on
fair trade coffee. Ironically, these coffees that pay the farmers fair prices
are considered premium, and ends up being more profitable than the
cheap stuff! So, the market, supply and demand, etc. has made it
MORE profitable for retailers and coffee companies in the US to deal in
fair trade coffee. Of course, the majority of their profits come from the
cheap stuff that takes advantade of poor growers situations, but that’ll
change. Have faith in the market.

I’m telling you guys – pics and videos don’t do this thing justice. We get
helicopters flying all over the place at my parent’s house – everythign the
US Army and Marine Corps fly, flies over our house: From little birds,
to Kiowas, to apache’s, Cobras Chinooks, blackhawks and whatever
the really big ones are… and Osprey’s.

You hear them from miles away. And you can see them for a long
time. Loud and slow. Typical helicopter stuff.

Ospreys, on the other hand, are more like planes. You hear a turbine
sound for a few seconds, see the osprey for a few, and it’s gone in no
time. Totally different story. It is not a helicopter, nor could it be
replaced by one.

This thing is capable of carrying out missions that we can’t do
otherwise. It enables us to accomplish things that we can’t do right now,
which will open up many oppurtunities in warfare. Saying that it’ll never
save as many lives as have been lost is foolish.

I think they should mount a large turret ( maybe 30mm) on the thing, so
it can fire in a wide arc, off to the side, maybe like an AC-130. That
would be useful. Fly in, drop off the guys, and take off, able to do
covering fire while circling above.

Absolutly – people have come to believe hollow point bullets are these
evil, super lethal bullets. In fact, they are safer for the average person to
us. They tend to impart more energy on the target, reducing
overpenetration and potential “shoot through” injuries. they are also
more likely to fragment, further reducing collateral risks. Most of all,
they have greater knock down power, and are more damaging to the
human target. If you’re pointing a gun at someone, let alone pulling the
trigger, you better have a good enough reason to do so. That being
said, you want to kill them as effectivly as possibly, and hollow points
are better for the job.

Also making their rounds are “saftey slugs”, which are plastic bullets
filled with many small shot. They will not overpenetrate, and shatter
(almost) harmlessly if they strike a hard surface.

Frangible ammo is also similar, though instead of a mass of small balls of
shot, it’s a dense metal that fragments on impact.

All of these are much safer to use in urban areas, and they are all much
more effective at knocking down a target.

We’ve got a different train of thought over here in the US. We dont’
want our cops to be put into a situation where they are unable to do
anything. Different place, different culture, different criminals.

Hard to imagine a police officer without at least a sidearm.

but then, over there, I bet it’s just as hard to imagine taking a trip to a
gun show, and walking out with an AR-15, SKS, M-14, or a FAL, a
few thousand rounds of ammo, and die, caps, and powder to reload the
brass…

Braveheart was one of the greatest films ever. Action, romance,
violence, great hero, great villian… pretty ladies. Horses getting
impaled, people who really really deserve something bad happening to
them getting it.

Great movie.

And that’s it.

It’s a movie inspired by actual historical events.

I could see how an englishman could be predisposed to hating it, being
that Edward I is portrayed as a real evil SOB.

Watch the DVD, with the commentary. Mel Gibson points out a lot of
the stuff that’s made up. Very interesting.

It’s all about checks and balances. Just as it is possible to make a tank impervious to anti tank rounds, it’ll be possible to make a vehcile impervious to lasers.

Of course, a tank with enough armor to take a 120mm hit is going to be so slow, it’ll HAVE to be able to take multiple 120mm hits!

Similarly, a vehicle equipped with a device that can reflect laser radiation (or even direct it back) is going to compromise in other areas. I can tell you mirrors don’t do much for stealthieness, and tend to make it easy to visually spot a target.

things balance out.

Lasers will have countermeasures, of course, but that’s all part of the game. FORCE them to develop and implement countermeasures that compromise their development and/or implementation of other technologies.

A tank can have armor that works best against HEAT, but not so well against APFSDS. Dield a new type of weapon, make the enemy expend resources to counter it.

Whe nlasers are fielded, other nations wil have to develop counters. Will it be complete? of course not. I see ablative coatings on sensative areas, especially in aircraft, reflective surfaces with ablative coatings around sensative areas on soft skinned vehicles, etc.

Lasers probabyl won’t take out tanks, unless they take out optics and such.

First of all, please mind your tongue when you call 3rd world countries “hell hole”. Even though one would say that your view is understood i dont think you suggest even in a minute way that suddenly civilisations can stop reading and watching the media of any country. Although i do support the media on this issue and respect there freedom of speech and expression, as i said before the first paper to publish these was possibly not experienced enough and did not know what they risked of fueling. As i said again before, they were in there full rights to publish it but they should have seen the other end of the stick. As much as the reaction on this issue was sickening i still suggest you stop labelling the third world as a hell hole, just thank your lucky stars you were born in the “western civilisation”.

Ah, Lighten up. You have the same sense of humor as the people rioting in the streets, threatening genocide of innocents because of a cartoon.

“Third world hellhole” is intended as an ironic statement. If they HATE western civilization so much, why are they HERE? Obviously they see benifits of “our” culture and society, otherwise, they would have remained in their home countries. If they disparage Western civilization so much, and yet flock to it, their homeland MUST have been really bad!

These groups rioting are pretty much scum of the earth, and obviously not representitive of even the local population. When you’re oppressed, miserable and forbidden to speak out against your opressive dictator, you seize every oppurtunity to erupt in rage and frustration, no matter who/what it’s directed at.

It sickens me, and I hope it serves as a wake up call to people about how there are people that want to destroy our civilization. however, it’s really just a few thousand crazy idiots, running wild, and not a major revolution. What needs to be assured, is that it DOES NOt become anything bigger. then we’re in for a nasty situation.

Hey, if SOME muslims have a problem with the ways of Western civilization – STAY in your 3rd world hellhole.

If you want freedom and liberty in life, you have to, at the very least, tolerate some of the freedom and liberty of others. Drinking an occational beer, women in shorts, women in jobs, offensive cartoons, etc. Big freaking deal. I refuse to walk on eggshells just because a couple of religious nutcases (“nutters”) is threatening to estroy civilization over a freaking pen and ink drawing! Sure, we shoudl “be understanding and sensitive to their beliefs” – but this is a two way street. If we’re going to have a few muslims blowing stuff up and taking prosoners over an offensive cartoon, how can we integrate them into our society – we can’t.

now, if you dont’ want freedom, and you dont’ want liberty…

and

Like THESE guys…

stay away from western civilization. Don’t read our newspapers, ignore our scientific advances, and don’t come into our cities. You know, you’re perfectly welcome to take part in our civilization, as long as you understand and tolerate us. As it stands, this sort of behavior is unacceptable.

All practical lasers are IR, unless they’re used for spotting. Outputting a
visible beam is not as effecient, and results in a lower power beam.
These 532nm green beam laseres are made from invisible beam IR
lasers. They use a crystal to actually change the wavelength, squeezing it
down to 532, a more visible light to us.

The green beams we work on output less than 5mW, but average about
3. What’s telling, is they use an IR diode that output’s over 10mW. by
the time the wavelength is decreased, and a green beam produced, you
lose over half the power output.

I’m sure these crystals are more effecient, however.

With IR lasers, you dont’ see it. The only indication of a beam is the
pain in your retina, and the resulting damage. With a visible (green
especially ) beam, it’s so bright, you will likely shut your eyes reflexivly
even before the beam hits your retina.

You can temporarily blind someone (the USAF likes the term “dazzle”)
with a visible beam without doing any real damage – it’s just like being in
a dark room, having dialated pupils, and someone turns the lights on –
you’re blind for a second as your eyes are overloaded. High power IR
lasers will just fry your retinas.