Good luck and thanks, Rip.  I think for a lot of people it was surprising just how fragile the internet can be - at least it was for me.  Don't think that many of us don't appreciate your efforts, but keep in mind that it is hard to do so if there is little communication about what is happening.  Get some rest.

True and I appreciate that. I am just tired and relieved. Probably a little grumpy. Haven't had anything good to pass along in a few days and too tired to formulate any effectual communication. No time for rest yet, have a day full of hectic work ahead. Maybe tonight.

Rip i have piles of space if you want a place to FTP your OO backup to...how much space do you need?

Last time we tar balled it I think it was about 500MB.

Drat it, just got an e-mail from Cox postponing my fiber install until 5/12/08....sasafrasn...^%$#@(*!@^%#(!

Thanks for the update Rip.  Any chance you can get a simple page up on OO letting folks know what happened?  Gedd has a page ready I think.

I can point the domain if someone can catch it and display the page. Or someone can e-mail it to me and I'll put it up where the navigatorhosting.com is pointing now and point OO there as well. Right now just the default apache page is there. Just got home from another long day and still have a suprising amount of juice left so will be working on getting this data exported to a non-raid drive image and see how the VM conversion goes.

Good luck and thanks, Rip.  I think for a lot of people it was surprising just how fragile the internet can be - at least it was for me.  Don't think that many of us don't appreciate your efforts, but keep in mind that it is hard to do so if there is little communication about what is happening.  Get some rest.

True and I appreciate that. I am just tired and relieved. Probably a little grumpy. Haven't had anything good to pass along in a few days and too tired to formulate any effectual communication. No time for rest yet, have a day full of hectic work ahead. Maybe tonight.

All right I am going to post this before I read what I haven't caught of the thread. I'm fearful that the bitching might bring my mood down. Anyway here is a piece of what I wrote in a PM to SirReal after responding to gracious offers of assistance/resources etc in helping me deal with my current server failure crisis.

Thankfully I just cleared the final hurdle and am about to sprint for the finish. I just hope I still have enough gas. I had almost given up hope in trying to figure out the array striping but just when I was about to slink off to bed for my nightly three hour nap I hit the lottery. My nephew snarl and I just looked on dumbfounded for a few seconds when we saw the directory listing flash onto the screen. I think we were afraid to get our hopes up. But I have browsed the directory structure a little and I think we see light at the end of the tunnel.

I can say almost without a doubt that I have managed to reconstruct the two raid5 arrays that had failed. I won't post much else as I am rather tired, and I want to read the thread before I take a bath and head of to a busy Friday of working on other peoples crisis. If I have the energy I hope to restore the data to a VM and bring it online. All hosting accounts other than OO will resume operation. I will talk to staff about whether OO should come back fully right away or leave it read-only and proceed with the planned migration to a private VM of it's own. That could involve an upgrade to the forum software as well. My new fiber connection is supposed to be installed Monday, so I am looking forward to having a good week for a change.

edit: and then I forgot to press the post button before I went and read the thread. Well at least I had the right idea. Anyway here it is out of order.....

Wow, it's not that it's taking a long time (which it is, given any circumstance I have ever been involved with), it's that there is no news coming out of Ft. Pastor^H^H^H OO-ville.  As others have said, even an "Under construction/where is your God now?" page with an update every so often here would be fine but with this much radio silence, it is indeed worrisome.

Where there isn't news, fear and doubt fill that void.  Even bad news is better than no news.  At least bad news gives people a chance to respond, to take action to make things better one way or the other.   This lack of news tears down the community, with people holding on hoping, not wanting to let go of what was, while the community drifts away at the fringes as people hit their capacity to wait.

I think Austin's comments from earlier today about his communications with Rip pretty much said it all.  Getting OO up is not his highest priority, which is disappointing but as apparently OO is hosted by them at little or no cost to anyone, it's hard to get too upset.  However, the hints that some paying customers are also being ignored really suggests a more serious issue. 

I'm not sure what to say at this point.  The longer the OO community doesn't have its own place, the more likely it is that it will fragment and never come back.  On the other hand, creating another board while we wait when there are at least 3 similar boards (that I'm aware of) for us to hang out in strikes me as perhaps a bit of an overkill.

I think this is where the misunderstanding comes from. All the hosting I have revenues combined with absolutely nothing removed for costs could not buy my family one dinner at Ruth''s Chris. I have this stuff in a multi-million dollar data center because of the work I do for my clients that pay me that many times over a day. If it were about customers and business I would have thrown all my servers out the door years ago. I do the hosting for fun, and I want to do it better and not have an event like this recur. It will never be something I will be able to consider a very profitable endeavor. So I had to take care of the big stuff first. I have been working on recovering the data for the server though with every waking moment I can spare. I doubt I will recall very much of my daughters birthday last weekend because I was beat from trying to recover the data from my server. Because I was unwilling to accept going back to a backup a few months old. I knew there was no damage to the drives and I knew reconstructing them was possible. Sometimes it is like people forget it is just a damn forum, go out and get some fresh air already. I used to work for a telcom carrier and we had peoples phones down for three weeks. Thousands of them. Think anyone went without sleep to get them back on? Fat chance.

and that's about all I gotta say about that.     

Not meant for you but just venting at the massive appreciation for my labors. Geez.

Rip if you need a BIND server or something let me know and I can throw one up on my vps.  At least get a page online with the latest status? Or if you aren't going to host OO anymore, I'm willing to donate server/bandwidth space to do so.. but would need to get a hold of the phpbb files.

Or I could go outside and do a clown dance?

I still plan on hosting. As well as snapshoting to a SAN this time....every hour. I would really like to have somewhere to do a weekly or monthly offsite to though?

OK, things continue to improve. One array has been recovered and I am just looking for the offset for the most important 2nd partition on the second array. The location of the /home folder containing the user content. Things are looking well for a full data recovery. In the meantime my super switch and my SAN have been installed and I am configuring them this weekend. Enjoy your vacation ladies! I will post an addition update Saturday sometime.

Rip out......

Images off to recovery. I've gotten a flurry of other work spur up and I need to tend to that, so I just bit the bullet. Had to drop by from my still extremely long work schedule to note the apparent electability of a McCain-Condi ticket.

But should McCain and Rice team up, the poll suggests the two Republicans would carry New York, defeating a Clinton-Obama ticket by 3 points (49-46 percent) and an Obama-Clinton ticket by 5 points (49-44 percent.)

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/


 

OK time for an update. Looks like I might exceed last nights four hours sleep so I'll spend a few minutes updating the masses. First let me note that this failure has had little financial impact on me so don't feel the need to be concerned about my well being. I and my family are fine no major impact beyond lack of sleep. If anything I am enjoying the experience I am getting in sytem failures, data recovery, and forensics. ANyway on with what you really want to hear.

On friday morning I discovered my shared hosting server housed the control panels not to mention DNS was locked up. I operate it and a few dedicated servers and some co-location stuff under the brand name of Navigatorhosting. The navigatorhosting domains I bought a few years ago once my network consulting business called Byteguru was operating well. I had started it in October 2003 when oportunity came knocking for me finally. But that is another story that I will save for OO when it comes back. It operates in the red, but I always intended it to just be a finger the ocean of hosting. Anyway I noticed that one of the raid 5 rrays had all of the activity lights solid. Tried doing some card swapping with spares, no joy. At some point the array information stored at the start of the drives became corrupted and the drives would remain offline. I have since made raw images of the 7 total disks that were in the system and have been trying to use some raid reconstruction software to allow me to mount them. If I don't have any luck today I intend to send the to Ontrack Data Recovery who I have a partnership agreement with to have the get what is to be gotten. I have looked at the raw images and see the data so I don't expect to lose much if any data.

Anyway on to the future. Just so happens just before this I had decided to put a lot more resources in the hosting among othe areas of my business. SO I have a new Cisco 4948 Layer 3 switch coming in Thursday and sometime this week or next three 2TB SAN units coming in from Leftahnd Networks. Both of course who I also have partnership relationships with. Actaull that is where I went to a school with when I visited MHS and whats his face, not to mention often immitated but never duplicated Chris Grenard or was it Greenard. SO I doubt we will ever play this game again. I am also moving much of my internal computing as a lot of the hosting to VM technology to not allow server hardware to interrupt anything. We have been planning a server move and forum software upgrade for some time, so I will likely try to go right into that as fast as possible if not right away. I also just happen to have a new fiber connection from another carrier being brought into the building. This has been order some two or three weeks ago. We will jump from 3Mbps to 10Mbps. Install is scheduled for the 21st on that. I am upgrading my company so I intend to do the same with OO. I may throw some money/business resources into putting a little polish and chrome on her.

If you guys would like something to do in the mean time, I could use an HTML page to throw up in the mean time. Discuss what you might like the new improved OO to have or look like. I'm sure the staff would love some ideas as we are probably on the verge of getting together for last minute planing decisions with the new knowledge that resources at our disposal will be at an all-time high.

Can someone check Ron's fridge and see if there is a cold one in there?   

I hope you are able to recover Rip.. I see your main website is gone from DNS land too.... Was everything on one system? Anyhow let me know if you need a hand unix/linux wise; you've gotta be getting bagged by now.

Yes, Rip, I would help you too. If you need some advice on RAID arrays, I was a server analyst for Dell and know a lot about it.

Help is always welcome. Even when it comes from the mailman or my mother-in-law. Actually to not tell the whole story yet since I am going to post that as soon as I read the rest of the thread. I am trying to determine what the start sector of the raided drive itself should be on a smart array 4200. I am looking at the images in a utility called raid reconstructor and am trying to figure out the proper metrics otherwise I will likely send the images to Ontrack and let them do it till I can figure it out.

I know many OOers frequent here so I thought I would get the word out. OO will be down for hopefully just a short while. It looks like the old Proliant 6500 is having some smartarray/drive issues. Working now to see if swapping RAID cards or HDDs will resolve the issue. Will post an update when I have time.

Rip

and what do you know. Verification that this isn't a stance we are alone in maintaining.

Russia's military chief of staff said Saturday that Moscow could use nuclear weapons in preventive strikes in case of a major threat, the latest aggressive remarks from increasingly assertive Russian authorities.

"We have no plans to attack anyone, but we consider it necessary for all our partners in the world community to clearly understand ... that to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia and its allies, military forces will be used, including preventively, including with the use of nuclear weapons," Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky said.

The comments from the hawkish Baluyevsky did not appear to mark a policy shift for Russia, whose leaders have stressed the need to maintain a powerful nuclear deterrent and reserved the right to carry out preventive strikes to counter existential threats. But in most of their public remarks about preventive strikes, President Vladimir Putin and other officials have not specifically mentioned the use of nuclear weapons.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,324006,00.html

The only way this works in the conspiracy theory is if the auctions were rigged so that mostly only repubs knew about it / FEMA steered the auction process and sold mostly to republicans.

Why would anyone need to rig the auctions?  You just let your Loyal Bushies know that FEMA will buy back the trailers after the auction.  Then they'll just buy up as many trailers as they can.  No auction rigging required.

That's a little too far fetched unless the whole thing was planned as a way to launder money into republican pockets. It's within the realm of possibility I suppose, but it's nowhere near likelyhood.

Doesn't seem far fetched... or even difficult to arrange.  They already made over $8 Billion disappear in Iraq, and it's still going on.

So any money that has gone missing in Iraq was all part of the plan as well? Shit these guys are more skilled and capable than I ever imagined. Sounds like we should keep them in power.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/06/the_threat_of_bioweapons.html

LOL, OMG...

The American Thinker is a daily conservative internet publication with articles on the topics of national security, economics, diplomacy, culture, and military strategy.[1] The articles published are often mentioned on The Rush Limbaugh Show. The site frequently endorse controversial conservative commentators such as Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh.[2][3]

Anyway... it's pretty obvious Rip isn't even worth addressing.

Anyone want to bet that by the time morning comes, over half his posts will be personal attacks targetting me?  He's already past 1/3.

OK so you would like more sources for the bio threat. You asked for it.

An attack on Iran could trigger horrific retaliation against the U.S. and her allies in the Middle East with chemical and biological weapons including nerve gas, anthrax, and a germ similar to the devastating Ebola virus.


While the U.S. has not overtly threatened to bomb Iran’s burgeoning nuclear facilities, it has warned of using the “military option.” And Iran has countered if attacked it would retaliate.


Western intelligence experts doubt Iran has acquired a nuclear device and suggest she is several years from doing so.

But many agree that Iran has a program for chemical and biological weapons (CBWs) -- one more shrouded in secrecy than her nuclear program. Not only do analysts say the Islamic regime has stockpiles of CBWs, they also suggest that Iran also has the means to deliver the weapons to targets in Israel, Iraq and the United States.

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/Iran_Chemical,_Bio_Weapon/2007/11/07/47636.html

Maybe from Chinese sources.

With relatively little information available elsewhere regarding China's policies, activities, and priorities pertaining to biological weapons nonproliferation, this collection of essays is first and foremost a reflection of the readiness of Chinese experts to discuss and address these extremely important matters. Second, these essays indicate that Chinese views on bioweapons nonproliferation policies and mechanisms are evolving. Third, these essays provide considerable information for their colleagues in the West to contemplate, to appreciate, to agree with, and to contest. These essays, in other words, are seeds for a dialogue between Chinese and Western policy analysts, scientists, and officials about the nature of the biological weapons threat and the tools that can be applied domestically and internationally to reduce the threat of biological weapons proliferation.

Liu Jianfei, PhD, a professor and research fellow at the Institute of International Strategic Studies at the Central Party School, assesses the biological weapons threat from state and non-state actors. Liu sees bioweapons proliferation threat as being high, particularly because of the advances in the life sciences, and he posits that the most likely route to terrorist acquisition of biological weapons would be from states that perceive security threats from other countries and opt to put germ weapons into the hands of terrorists to divert their opponents' attention.

http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/070917.htm

Perhaps the Chinese are Bushies?

The world is largely unaware of, and therefore largely unprepared for, bioterrorist attacks. Bio-weapons threaten thousands of casualties in addition to other disastrous long term consequences. Criminal networks can covertly transport lethal agents across borders and terrorists have already proven that anthrax can be fatally deployed.

Bio-technology is undergoing rapid evolution. This process, and the wide dissemination of developments, is already proving difficult to manage. There is evidence that terrorist organizations have a heightened interest in the use of biological weapons, establishing terrorist support cells in different regions around the world with the ability and motivation to carry out attacks.

http://www.interpol.int/Public/BioTerrorism/default.asp

Biological weapons have been called "the poor man's atom bomb." By any measure, the economic outlay required to develop offensive bioweapons capabilities is significantly less than that of a nuclear program. Less is needed in the way of equipment and infrastructure. The materials themselves are less rare. And less is required in the way of specialized knowledge for the biological aspects, since much of the information can be found in the public domain. Worldwide, trained microbiologists overwhelmingly outnumber nuclear physicists. All these aspects tempt not only nations of concern, but also non-state actors. In fact, it seems far more likely that biological agents will be used by terrorists than by warring nations. Although the terrorist use of bioweapons is likely to occur on a reduced scale, it could have worldwide ramifications under unfavorable circumstances.

http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/14284/page/6

Too late to pull up anymore. I am sure no amount of sourcing will pursuade you anyway.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/06/the_threat_of_bioweapons.html

LOL, OMG...

The American Thinker is a daily conservative internet publication with articles on the topics of national security, economics, diplomacy, culture, and military strategy.[1] The articles published are often mentioned on The Rush Limbaugh Show. The site frequently endorse controversial conservative commentators such as Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh.[2][3]

Anyway... it's pretty obvious Rip isn't even worth addressing.

Anyone want to bet that by the time morning comes, over half his posts will be personal attacks targetting me?  He's already past 1/3.

So bioweapons aren't much of a threat? Everytime I think you can't get farther from reality you prove me wrong.

Yep, you are the expert Unbreakable. Hell I am going to start asking you questions.

We changed the policy to include modern threats after the cold war. The mission is still peace through deterrence.

Yes... I'm sure that's what preemption is all about.

We sure peaced the fuck out of Iraq, didn't we?

You don't even know what you are posting, you just see key words to get alarmed about. None of these documents are talking about B-52s flying alerts with nukes, ICBMs all pointing at Egypt, or subs just waiting for a call from Bush. They included post cold war threats and made plans to deal with them. You can't be so naive to think they don't plan for everything can you?

I already know they don't plan for everything.  They didn't have jack shit in the way of plans for Iraq.  Or rather they DID, the ones that existed before Bush took office, but they just threw them all away and decided to wing it.  Heck, they STILL don't have any plans for Iraq.  Beyond stealing as much money as they possibly can, of course.

They also didn't seem to have a plan for what to do if a hurricane hits a major city.  How many days did it take them to get water to New Orleans?  At least four, wasn't it?

Oh... and how could we forget... "Bin Laden determined to strike in US"?  Yeah, they really prepared for that one too.  Maybe Dumya thought Bin Laden was a union.

They have lots of plans. They have plans to nuc them as well. The quality of the plans or their effectiveness isn't at issue, the fact they have them is undeniable. Well for most people.

[NSPD-17 is sometimes also called the preemption doctrine.]

Sure it does.  He says that my claim that the USA is targetting Iran with our nukular arsenal is "bullshit"... and the article discusses how our policies have been changed.  The article did not, obviously, know what those changes were, because that's "secret".

But if you want more detail... here, knock yourself out.

Or, just google for "USSTRATCOM target iran".  Honestly, it's not that hard to actually be informed.  It's just so few people even bother to try.

And had you actually, you know, read anything people were talking about, you (or Lee, or whoever) may have noticed this:

Three months after NSPD-14, on September 14, 2002, President Bush also signed NSPD-17 (National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction), a directive that articulated a comprehensive strategy to counter nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. NSPD-17 reaffirmed that, if necessary, the United States will use nuclear weapons against anyone using weapons of mass destruction against the United States, its forces abroad, and friends and allies, according to Washington Times. But a top-secret appendix to NSPD 17 specifically named Iran, Syria, North Korea and Libya as being among the countries that are the central focus of the new strategy, and that options included nuclear weapons. Those options were in place with OPLAN 8044 Revision 03. The motivation for the new strategy, one participant in the interagency process that drafted it told Washington Post, was the conclusion that "traditional nonproliferation has failed, and now we’re going into active interdiction." NSPD-17 is sometimes also called the preemption doctrine.

Emphasis mine.

So the translation is, EXACTLY as I've said, that the new to this Bush administration policy has been changed TO a first-strike nuclear attack targetting Iran.  Meaning, America is using it's nuclear arsenal to threaten a non-nuclear armed nation, which is (at the least) in violation of the UN Charter.

That's not something which was done before, it's not routine, etc etc to whatever other justificating spin you try putting on it.

And of course, it gets better from there...

The regional strike plans also found their way into the draft Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations (Joint Publication 3-12), which was under preparation within the military at the time Revision 03 was created. Yet the doctrine showed that planning went beyond retaliation and included preemptive strikes. The second draft from March 2005 listed five scenarios where use of nuclear weapons might be requested:

• To counter an adversary intending to use weapons of mass destruction against U.S., multinational, or allies forces or civilian populations;
• To counter an imminent attack from an adversary’s biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy;
• To attack on adversary installations including weapons of mass destruction, deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons, or the command and control infrastructure required for the adversary to execute a WMD attack against the United States or its friends and allies; [this was probably the "target base" in OPLAN 8044 Revision 03]
• To counter potentially overwhelming adversary conventional forces;
• To demonstrate U.S. intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deter adversary WMD use.

Think a little about those last two, especially:

"To counter potentially overwhelming adversary conventional forces"
"To demonstrate U.S. intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deter adversary WMD use."

Those statements are so vague they can essentially cover any offensive use of nuclear weapons, regardless of whether the nation/organization/whatever they are used against have nuclear weapons or not.

The policy of preemptive nuclear strikes is not new. The only thing that is new was for other forms of WMD to be included in the list of things that would cause this action to be "considered". That isn't even close to your suggestion that "we have nuclear weapons pointed at Iran". Which is tottaly and utterly false!

So I guess you have an equal level of concern when Bush and Cheney start talking about invading Iran, and the fact (FACT) that we are pointing our nuclear arsenal at Iran?

Reference please.

Good point I was aware of the qoutes on 'stablizing' or 'restructuring' Iran, but I had NO idea we were pointing our nuclear arsenal at them...I would like to know the source of that fact as well

He is talking out his ass. Not a single special weapon in our arsenal is loaded with a preprogrammed target. Loading a target requires executive approval of a launch preparation. But of course Lee knows this which is why he called him on it.

Proof?  Or are you invoking your almighty "anonymous dude on intarweb expertise"?


BTW, it's kind of flattering how over 25% of your posts are personal attacks on me.

Don't see any attacks. Just facts.

She said the 500 older U.S. Minuteman III missiles are now aimed at oceans, while the new Trident and Peacekeeper missiles contain no targeting information at all.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/detarget/news/940531-346693.htm

THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA HAVE AGREED THEY WILL NO
LONGER POINT NUCLEAR MISSILES AT EACH OTHER.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/detarget/news/980627-prc.htm

Our forces have been detargeted since 1994. They have not been aimed at any country. That was the -- we detargeted our forces after our agreement with the Russians in 1994.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/detarget/news/t07071998_t0707asd.html

why isnt venezuela on our "to nuke" list?

Because Venezuela has a lot of their oil tied up in sand, which is right on the surface.  Nuking them would make all that radioactive, which is the last thing the Bush Crime Family wants to happen.  It's so much easier to just bribe a few generals and have them turn the country into a dictatorship.

Why bother, we have weapons to kill the people without disturbing the infrastructure? Of course that wouldn't leave to many lucrative Halliburton contracts would it?

i think i missed something.  what did syria do other than open its doors for iraqi refugees?  sponsor terrorism and try to get wmds?  maybe they helped saddam help al qaeda with 9/11...
 
why isnt venezuela on our "to nuke" list?

They are. If the plan for an attack constitutes being on the list, pretty much everyone is on it.

The fact that the goverment is loosening the trigger on the nukes for a broadser set of use, specifically non nuclear threats, is terrifying!

i find it scary too.  and its not just the the government, the politicians running for president on both sides of the isle have lobbed around more than enough hypothetical nukes as well.  the last three or four years have made incredible strides backwards in the field of nonproliferation

I am guessing you don't know how we recently got rid of the Peacekeeper weapon system and converted MMIII to one warhead instead of 3? We also got rid of a ACMs and have converted some other missiles.

Honestly you guys, as far as nukes go, don't believe anything you read. The government doesn't make any of this information public knowledge and the media guesses to fill in the holes. One base I was at the press reported that we shipped our nukes to England. We didn't even have nukes. They just saw bombers land empty and take off with missiles.

Wait a minute...

Are you telling me that there is not a red button next to W's bed that all of the nukes are directly connected too with long copper wires?

The wires are silver. It is a much better conductor and matches the drapes.

So the dems rig elections too but the repubs are better at it?

There have been rigged elections in the past, in an ad hoc manner.  But only the Republicans put forth the effort to become a true criminal conspiracy.

Note how every time a Republican gets thrown in jail for fraud or theft... you will always hear about a contribution to the GOP involved.  It's just like turning in your weekly envelope to Tony Soprano.

I'm sure. So then the dems do it to save us from the repubs rigging it. Like Robin Hoods of politics.

How much longer can it be before you suggest that the Bushies killed Vince Foster to try and fram e the Clintons and they just blundered it? Oh wait and I'm sure they were drugging and hypmotizing Bill to make him lose it and go womanizing in hope of stealing power from the noble democrats. Christ. Is it possible that they killed JFK?

Just because there is a doctrine in place does not mandate that it will be followed.  No theater commander is going to start using nukes without presidential authorization just because his plan book states that it's an option. 

This is what what the military does- they make plans for every possible contingency out there so if whatever worst case scenario should occur then there is at least something already on paper that can be worked from.  The flipside is that if the President wanted to use nuclear weapons then he wouldn't be stopped by someone saying "but,sir, we don't have a plan on paper for that." 

I'm possibly naive here, but the pentagon plans, thats their job, but a creating a policy expanding the usage of nukes beyond direct nuclear repsonse is loosening the trigger. I agree it likely is in response to 2001, but does that make it right that since 9/11 happened we get to throw nukes out the next time we get attacked? I think if we had the option on 9/12 that we do now, its within the realm of possiblity that some commander could have felt justified in a nuclear response.

It is more in response to the growing threat of non-nuclear WMDs. You should be more scared of them then nucs. They can be more dangerous, unpredictable, and hard to predict or prevent. I am far more fearful of a substantial bio weapon than a nuclear explosion.

Biological weapons are among the most dangerous in the world today and can be engineered and disseminated to achieve a more deadly result than a nuclear attack.  Whereas the explosion of a nuclear bomb would cause massive death in a specific location, a biological attack with smallpox could infect multitudes of people across the globe.  With incubation periods of up to 17 days, human disseminators could unwittingly cause widespread exposure before diagnosable symptoms indicate an infection and appropriate quarantine procedures are in place.

Unlike any other type of weapon, bioweapons such as smallpox can replicate and infect a chain of people over an indeterminate amount of time from a single undetectable point of release.  According to science writer and author of The Hot Zone, Richard Preston, "If you took a gram of smallpox, which is highly contagious and lethal, and for which there's no vaccine available globally now, and released it in the air and created about a hundred cases, the chances are excellent that the virus would go global in six weeks as people moved from city to city......the death toll could easily hit the hundreds of millions.....in scale, that's like a nuclear war."[1]   

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/06/the_threat_of_bioweapons.html

prouding through the links there is some indirect statements about new prorities. And a few refrences that get specific such as

"The nuclear strike plans against Iran, North Korea and Syria, however, presumably were carried forward into the next OPLAN 8044 Revision 05 from October 2004, a plan that was still in effect as recently as July 2007."

and
"NSPD-17 reaffirmed that, if necessary, the United States will use nuclear weapons against anyone using weapons of mass destruction against the United States, its forces abroad, and friends and allies, according to Washington Times. But a top-secret appendix to NSPD 17 specifically named Iran, Syria, North Korea and Libya as being among the countries that are the central focus of the new strategy, and that options included nuclear weapons."


So if i understand the subtext several countries (with Iran, Syria, North Korea and Libya being called out) are on our top list for retalation with nuclear weapons, if they attack with what we lossely define as WMDs. That is kind of scary since as far as I can tell that defintion is rather loose. So another plane into a building could be techncailly defined as a WMD and  allow for a nuclear response especially the countries called out in the appendix. That is scary. As a said anyone justifying use of nukes as a good idea under any circustance (except if the rest of the world has already fired there's) makes me think armeggedon is closer than we think.

The definition of WMDs isn't really all that narrow. I can assure you flying planes into buildings wouldn't be classified WMDs, unless they were full of BIO weapons or something like that.

So I guess you have an equal level of concern when Bush and Cheney start talking about invading Iran, and the fact (FACT) that we are pointing our nuclear arsenal at Iran?

Reference please.

Good point I was aware of the qoutes on 'stablizing' or 'restructuring' Iran, but I had NO idea we were pointing our nuclear arsenal at them...I would like to know the source of that fact as well

Its just more bullshit from him - I mean why would we point our long-range ICBMs at Iran when any strike we'd use to cripple them would be accomplished with conventional weapons.

Besides, even if they were going to use nukes they aren't going to use ICBMs that need to be retargeted, they'd use nuclear weapons launched from aircraft carriers or Diego Garcia.

Well you see, this is exactly why I say people who disagree with me are far, far, far less informed on things than I am.  When I state fact... it's "bullshit", but when you voice an ignorant opinion... what is that supposed to be called?  Being "fair and balanced", or "your opinion"?

Having a discussion of important matters, like this one, is generally like having a gun fight with somebody who brought a pair of boxing gloves.

If you can't bother to be informed, you can at least be civil.

[edit] I'll find a better source for that article.  I hate hearing people flame the messanger since they can't be bothered to address the message.

[edit2] I have to find a more specific article, but that should suffice for now.

There are very few nations on earth we don't have nuclear strike plans for. Just like the news media has obituaries already prepared for just about every famous person. In addition the ones who have "WMD" capabilities have preemptive plan alternatives. Non-issue.

So I guess you have an equal level of concern when Bush and Cheney start talking about invading Iran, and the fact (FACT) that we are pointing our nuclear arsenal at Iran?

Reference please.

Good point I was aware of the qoutes on 'stablizing' or 'restructuring' Iran, but I had NO idea we were pointing our nuclear arsenal at them...I would like to know the source of that fact as well

He is talking out his ass. Not a single special weapon in our arsenal is loaded with a preprogrammed target. Loading a target requires executive approval of a launch preparation. But of course Lee knows this which is why he called him on it.

Actually hes right, I saw some trailers in the GSA catalog the other day, but there was a little note at the bottom of the page saying you could only buy them if you were friends of Bush. I thought that was kind of weird, but it all makes sense now. Thanks Unbreakable!

Oh you really messed up now buddy. That is sensitive info you are throwing around there. Better pack your bags for the Artic.

 

Backpedal on what?  Can you read?  Go look at the first post, and quit acting like a jackass.

Resorting to insults?

Edit: Here's an idea Unbreakable since you obviously don't know anything about the GSA, do some research on them! You might learn something.

No, I'm not resorting to insults, since denoginizer has insulted me in each post in this thread.  That was quite literally a request.

Likewise, you are once again dropping by for a hit-and-run, claiming that I somehow don't know anything, but doing absolutely nothing to prove your claim.  This despite your prior claims being disproven by me.

It's really funny- both you and denoginizer claim to be experts, and yet you really don't come across as knowing anything about anything.  And certainly don't put any effort into demonstrating the validity of anything you say.  So rather than actually proving me wrong... you guys just engage in character assassination.  Which is, of course, typical.


So Lee, as an on-topic question, since you know SO much about, well, everything, care to tell us how much of our tax dollars this recent smooth move by FEMA is going to cost us?

Who cares? I don't think anyone would argue that government bureaucracies are usually totally wasteful and inefficient. The issue is that you are putting forth an assumption that this is likely some way of passing down political kickback money to supporters. You haven't however offered a single iota of information to even conclude that such a thing has a probability any higher than the probability that you will soon obtain your Phd from Harvard.

I recall saying "does anyone want to bet...".   That doesn't sound like an accusation to me.

It is kind of interesting how much you've overreacted, though.  Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

So now you backpedal? 

I protest because I am tired of you posting BS conspiracy theories about issues which you nothing about.  I am personally very familiar with this issue so I am calling you out.

Backpedal on what?  Can you read?  Go look at the first post, and quit acting like a jackass.

And you don't SOUND like you know what you are talking about... you sound like someone TRYING to sound like they know what they are talking about.

You never answered my question about the testing you do.  Do you guys check the incoming information against a list of Republican donors... yes or no?

Why in the world would the GSA care about political donations of people buying stuff at auctions? That is just ridiculus. Have you changed tin foil hats recently?

[GSA Chief Is Accused of Playing Politics]

Anyone "could"... so you know that it was a random grouping of people?  Or is this just a knee-jerk defense you are pulling out of your ass?

BTW... I know ad hominem is your preferred method of discourse... but please try keeping it civil.


Also... the GSA seems to have been having credibility issues of it's own.

GSA Chief Is Accused of Playing Politics

Witnesses have told congressional investigators that the chief of the General Services Administration and a deputy in Karl Rove's political affairs office at the White House joined in a videoconference earlier this year with top GSA political appointees, who discussed ways to help Republican candidates.

With GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan and up to 40 regional administrators on hand, J. Scott Jennings, the White House's deputy director of political affairs, gave a PowerPoint presentation on Jan. 26 of polling data about the 2006 elections.
 
When Jennings concluded his presentation to the GSA political appointees, Doan allegedly asked them how they could "help 'our candidates' in the next elections," according to a March 6 letter to Doan from Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Waxman said in the letter that one method suggested was using "targeted public events, such as the opening of federal facilities around the country."

So yeah... I can understand why you might immediately jump to the defense of "Loyal Bushies".

Your lastname isn't Clinton by chance? You sure weild a smear stick like one.

Anyone could buy the trailers through the gsa auctions website. http://gsaauctions.gov/gsaauctions/gsaauctions/
I work for the treasury department and we process payments to GSA Auctions through my department.

It does not ask whether or not you support "Da Bushies" when you register to the site.  Do you have any actual evidence about this one? Or are you just pulling another theory out of your ass?

He's just trolling.

Excellent, another place for the R&P8 to show their domination of thought and reason.

 



 

I'll put a linky up in the metaforums and see if I can get a OO Mod to contact you here

Which got my attention. unfortunately I can't PM yet or I would PM you.  I have activated your account. Make sure the e-mail address is accurate.

The server was shutdown because of issues with getting over the 10 player limit.

It is just an issue with the Internet connection to my datacenter. Should be resolved shortly. I hope :wink:

Rip

You realize, of course, that we were GoneGolders too....

Heck, I didn't even have a console when Ron invited me to join the team.

Well maybe it is just an evolution cycle. GG splits like a cell and creates multiple copies of itself. Each one stronger than the original. I think I will follow any/all websites that rise from the GG ashes. Should be interesting to look back in a year or 2 and see what worked and what didn't. At least now change is inevitable. Could turn out to be the best thing that ever happened.

What do you guys think of this....now this is just a brainstorm so this isn't well thought out or in any way condoned or green-lit.  

What if we hosted the GG forums as an archive?  We lock that shite software down and just make it a searchable archive so the data isn't lost.  If somebody has a wild hair they could move the data, but it'd be accessable if we could get ahold of the data.

Here is the hitch.  Its 30GB.  We'd need someplace to host it and $$ to pay the cost for access.  If those are donated, its free.  If not, we'll have to beat the support drum.  I'm listening....

Just the forum content would be much less, under 15GB

qwas going to say 4 July but remebered..it's 1 July...was in Halifax for both the 1st and 4th once upon a time as a visting submarine...warm welcome and I have quite a soft spot in my heart for Halifax

Oh, a submariner! Do tell. I served on the Jacksonville (SSN-699) and a little time on SSN-662.

300GB?!  :shock:

Yes, at over 12000 hits a day.

Rip

Correction--probably millions of hits/day, 12,000 pages displayed is probably more on target.  12,000 hits/day isn't much.

I'm sorry you are correct hits is poor grammar on my part. 12000 unique visitors is what I should have said.

Rip

300GB?!  :shock:

The last backup was 26GB in size.