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Now there would be an interesting place to live. Especially if you don't limit it to a few tracks of rail. Roads are a must, 6 lanes on each side, with 10 lanes of rail traffic going each way in the centre, and places for people to stop off and look down at the ocean,, getting a feel for how narrow the thing they're standing on is... of course, the stations employees aren't going to drive 200km to work everyday, so we can put housing underneath...
Use what is abundant and build to last
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That's why you have service stations. Because anything, even service stations, become awesome when suspended in the middle of the north atlantic.
On a more serious note, you can always have drive on railcars for the bridge stretches.
Use what is abundant and build to last
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That would be the way to go imo. And while that would be incredibly awesome (for ships as well, perhaps, to restock), it might not be practical. Maybe it should be a floating bridge? Or perhaps drive the pylons all the way to the bottom of the ocean?
-Josh
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One would build a bridge across the narrowest part of the Ocean, as that would involve the least cost, thus it would be between Alaska and Siberia, thus linking 5 continents together. North America, South America, Asia, Europe, and Africa!
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That would certainly be a good idea from the perspective of China/Russia-Americas trade, but the EU is still our largest trading partner so that if the rather more extensive bridging project is possible it would be desirable.
-Josh
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the EU is still our largest trading partner
Nope. It's still Canada. The United States does more trade with Canada than any other country. Has for as long as I've seen statistics; probably before World War 2. Canada also does more trade with the United States than any other country; it goes both ways.
Top Ten Countries with which the U.S. Trades - from the US Census Bureau
For the month of April 2013
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The values given are for Imports and Exports added together.
These Countries represent 67.26% of U.S. Imports, and 60.74% of U.S. Exports in goods.
Year To Date
Total in Total in
Billions Billions
Country Name of U.S. $ of U.S. $
Canada 54.75 208.98
Mexico 44.24 164.53
China 42.09 167.43
Japan 17.04 67.11
Germany 13.62 51.55
Korea, South 8.79 34.23
United Kingdom 7.81 32.58
France 6.75 24.20
Switzerland 6.32 19.55
India 5.73 20.56
Last edited by RobertDyck (2014-03-17 14:27:40)
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Well I stand corrected. Second largest, then. Largest overseas trading partner, if you'd like.
Nothing seems to annoy Canadians quite so much as Americans' continued refusal to remember that you exist. My apologies!
-Josh
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Just remember that both in 1914 & 1939, France was Germany's 1st economic partner - and Germany was France's one. When things go sour, rationality is thrown away.
Fortunately, for a war like WWI to happen, both sides must be willing to fight, & noone in the west seems willing to die(or send professionals to die) for Crimea.
[i]"I promise not to exclude from consideration any idea based on its source, but to consider ideas across schools and heritages in order to find the ones that best suit the current situation."[/i] (Alistair Cockburn, Oath of Non-Allegiance)
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Russia partitioned and annexed part of Georgia a few years ago. The same thing is happening to Ukraine right now. There's a few others the west doesn't care enough about to go to war over. But, there's the 3 small countries on the Baltic Sea, and there's Poland. All are part of NATO, which is sworn to defend them. All have direct borders with Russia, and to one extent or another were either part of, or vassal to, the old Soviet Union.
If Putin messes with a member of NATO, war will ensue. The question is, how strong is his dream to rebuild the old Soviet Union? How strong is his desire to confront and win over the west, particularly the US? How willing is he to sacrifice other people's lives to reach his dreams? The parallel with Hitler's Nazi expansion in the 1930's is unnerving. We all know how that ended up.
Once again, the personality characteristics of a single dictator could determine war versus peace. And I do not like what I see in Putin.
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2014-03-19 09:32:34)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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In 1914, Austria-Hungary and Russia postured over who controlled Bosnia. Russia wanted a Mediteranean port. On 28 June 1914, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand visited Sarajevo. He was assassinated. That started WW1. Yesterday the president of Ukraine authorized Ukranian solders to fire in self defence. After a Ukranian soldier was shot and killed. Today, Crimean forces stormed Ukraine's navy headquarters. It's ugly, we're on the brink.
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I fully expect that Ukraine will go to war with Russia. Who knows if any western armies will intervene.
The good news is that, given a conventional war, there is no question that NATO will best Russian forces. The bad news is that, in a WW3 scenario, everyone loses.
Putin, of course, had every expectation that the West would not respond to an invasion of Crimea. We care too much about Russian money. The minute we get serious about stopping Putin's geopolitical ambitions, we can cripple the Russian economy by forcing a withdrawal of Western money.
-Josh
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Russia partitioned and annexed part of Georgia a few years ago. The same thing is happening to Ukraine right now. There's a few others the west doesn't care enough about to go to war over. But, there's the 3 small countries on the Baltic Sea, and there's Poland. All are part of NATO, which is sworn to defend them. All have direct borders with Russia, and to one extent or another were either part of, or vassal to, the old Soviet Union.
If Putin messes with a member of NATO, war will ensue. The question is, how strong is his dream to rebuild the old Soviet Union? How strong is his desire to confront and win over the west, particularly the US? How willing is he to sacrifice other people's lives to reach his dreams? The parallel with Hitler's Nazi expansion in the 1930's is unnerving. We all know how that ended up.
Once again, the personality characteristics of a single dictator could determine war versus peace. And I do not like what I see in Putin.
GW
Poland has some history in the Ukraine. For instance, before World War II Poland's border was further to the east than it is now, part of that old Polish territory is now in the Ukraine. Now if Russia invades Western Ukraine, is Poland going to let Russia take its pre-World War II territory, or is it going to move its troops eastward as Ukraine collapses and assert that pre-World War II border in Ukraine? That piece of land would give Poland a border with Romania for example, as of right now Poland doesn't share a border with Romania, but with the demise of Ukraine by Russia, there is an opportunity for Poland to reclaim that land before Russia occupies all of it.
If one goes further back in time, Poland included what is now Western Ukraine, and had some shoreline in the Black Sea. Now if Poland asserts old Polish territories and moves Polish troops into them before Russian forces can get there, what is Russia going to do. If it combats Polish forces, it would be engaging with NATO and risking World War III. Ukraine might even give Poland permission to move its forces into Ukraine, as it will need all the help it can get, and if Russia bests them, Polish forces might decide to defend part of old Polish territory rather than the modern Post World War II Polish border After all Poland was forced to give up territory to a country that no longer exists, and if a country that was part of that former Soviet Union ceases to exist, Poland might feel that it is entitled to get that lost land back from it, as it never officially went to Russia in the first place, and Poland didn't start World War II, so why shouldn't it get its land back if the country that holds it collapses. of course as a matter of custom Ukrainians living in those territories would become automatically Polish citizens, and if there is a large chunk of Ukraine that falls into Polish hands, the remains of the Ukrainian Army could retreat behind it. Refuge camps could be set up in the new Polish territory for displaced Ukrainians, and so long as that territory is part of Poland, it falls under the NATO alliance. Depending on how much Poland claims, Putin may or may not be tempted to risk starting World War III by combatting the Poles. It all depends on whether the Western Alliance views the prior Soviet action of forcibly moving Poland Westward as legitimate., but in the 16th century Poland held a much wider swath of territory that's now part of Ukraine. Poland might try to gobble up all of Ukraine that is primarily inhabited by ethnic Ukrainians rather than ethnic Russians, this would basically be a partition, the legal fiction of a Polish border might stop the Russians where a Ukrainian border which is not part of NATO might not. What do you think of this?
This will give you an idea of what Poland used to look like:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c … 35.svg.png
Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2014-03-19 14:09:41)
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Well either Ukraine has to apply for NATO membership and if there are some reluctant NATO members, Poland could simply expand its borders with Ukraine's permission if its going to collapse anyway and NATO isn't going to send help. Poland simply asserts its expanded territory based on this history, and could argue that it is simply reclaiming old Polish land before the Russians get it again. Sound reasonable?
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Guys, Russia isn't invading the Ukraine, they're merely defending what is now part of Russia. Sure, the election wasn't open, and there was probably much ballot stuffing going on, but remember, you don't need a majority of support to do stuff like that, as America proved... anyway, it seems that most Crimeans are in favour, though perhaps not the amount recorded.
Use what is abundant and build to last
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And Germany did not invade Czechoslovakia in 1938! Remember those Sudetenland Germans living in Czechoslovakia that Hitler said he had to protect from those evil nasty Czechoslovakians?
Terraformer, should we then take Baja, California by that method? lots of Americans have vacation homes in Baja, California, and in case you don't know, that is part of Mexico. So the technique is to create a local majority in some country and then have them vote on secession and then joining the sponsoring nation, so if Russia can get away with this, should the United States? I studied the history that led right up to World War II, and it seems to me that Putin is going by Hitler's playbook, and Hillary Clinton agrees with me on this.
Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2014-03-19 16:59:38)
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The difference being that most residents of Baja California still want to be part of Mexico, and Terraformer's point presumably being that this insanity and barbarism is what happens when you divide people up into different countries.
-Josh
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No, not even remotely reasonable. Not even a little bit, at all.
Why not so. Either Ukraine gets NATO membership pronto to deter further Russian aggression, or if it doesn't Ukraine follows the example of East Germany when it got reunited with West Germany, in a sense Ukraine is "East Poland", its just that the timescale when it was part of Poland is much farther back in history, but Ukrainians might find being part of Poland preferable to being part of Russia. For one thing Poland is a democracy and Russia is not. With Russian citizenship comes no representation in Moscow as there is a dictator their called Putin. Another factor is Poles can't send dissident Ukrainians to Siberia as Poland doesn't own Siberia. Also under democratic rules, half of the new Polish government would represent the Ukrainains, about half the following Polish Prime Ministers and Presidents would be Ukrainian, thus the new nation would belong just as much to the Ukrainians as it does to the Poles, and neither would be subjects as they would if they became part of Russia, that is why I think that would be a reasonable arrangement, also their is precident for this, the Union of Czechoslovakia was a union of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, it didn't last, but the idea was to form a big enough country so as to deter aggression. Unite Poland and Ukraine and what you end you end up with is the largest and most populous nation in Western Europe, even larger than Germany, an one without the war guilt, nothing stopping it from building up its own armed forces and perhaps even acquiring nuclear weapons, since Russia is helping Iran gets nukes, I'd say its only fair that some additional western country gets nukes to balance that out, and the country of Poland-Ukraine would be a much better country for that than would Germany, and situated as it is between Russia and the rest of Europe, it would be perfect. And I'm all for a Europe that can defend itself from Russia than one that depends on the United States coming to its rescue!
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The difference being that most residents of Baja California still want to be part of Mexico, and Terraformer's point presumably being that this insanity and barbarism is what happens when you divide people up into different countries.
Lots of Americans live in Mexico, presumably they have rights too. Tell me how does what Putin is doing differ from what Hitler did with Czechoslovakia in 1938, after all it was Hillary Clinton that brought it up, not myself?
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The difference being that most residents of Baja California still want to be part of Mexico, and Terraformer's point presumably being that this insanity and barbarism is what happens when you divide people up into different countries.
Nikita Khrushchev gave Crimea to Ukraine, the other part was originally Ukraine its just that Russian citizens moved it when it was forced to become part of the Soviet Union, this is very much like what Israel did with the West Bank to make it theirs. So this is all part of Russian Imperialism, part of it is demographic Russification. Also democracy in Russia isn't democracy, that is why Putin keeps on getting reelected over and over again, that is the pattern of a dictatorship! The US meanwhile only had one President that served for more than two terms, Putin in various forms was leader of Russia since 2000, that is 14 years! Cuba has "elections" all the time, but you can tell that they are not real by the simple fact that Cuba has had only two presidents since 1959, and how many Presidents has the US had in that same period? 1. Eisenhower, 2. Kennedy, 3. Johnson, 4. Nixon, 5. Ford, 6. Carter, 7. Reagan, 8. Bush H. W., 9. Clinton, 10. Bush W., 11. Obama. Cuba 2, USA 11, does something look suspicious about Cuban "Democracy"? I think so.
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Tom, what gives "sovereign" states the "rights" to particular areas of land, *especially* when most people there don't want to be part of that state? If Texas voted to become an independent country, would you support sending the US Army there to make sure they can't?
Just one of many reasons why the state is a terrible idea - it's not just horribly immoral, but it's also horribly illogical and fuzzy. Just have an agreed upon law - personally, I support natural law theory, but there are many different ways to arrive at a similar law, and then let anyone who wants to set up a court to enforce it. The courts can keep each other honest - you *could* let off criminals and accept bribes, but then you'll find yourself on trial at another court for your crimes. How do we discern what the law should be? Well, I propose a constitutional convention, attended by anyone who wants to make the effort to contribute, and with each article being ratified by a supermajority (90+%) or, ideally, consensus. If more than 90% of people are in favour of something that is fundamentally evil, then we've already lost, and encoding it in a constitution won't make things any worse. Maybe even make it 95%, as a nod to science. Or 99%, as a nod to the occupy movement. Enshrine as one of the base rules that everyone must be equal before the law. Have a new convention every decade or so, or perhaps every 25 years, to revise and, if needed, update it, but with the possibility of calling an emergency one (for if, say, we manage to create sentient AI, or prove that pigs are sapient beings and thus bacon is murder).
As an aside, this reminds me why the no-politics rule was put in in the first place...
Use what is abundant and build to last
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