High-Tech War Games Help Save Lives 142
An anonymous reader writes "CNN is reporting on the new training mannequins being used by the United States military. Advances in technology have allowed the training dummies to become ultra-realistic. From the article: 'New battery-operated, remote-controlled mannequins can simulate bleeding and breathing, and they have blinking eyes that dilate. Medics can test their skills on these life-like mannequins. The new units, which are packed with technology, are used at 23 US Army Medical Simulation Training Centers as part of a program to teach lifesaving techniques to medics and nonmedical personnel. A Pentagon study says the training program has saved 1,000 soldiers' lives in combat, said Lt. Col. Wilson Ariza, manager of the US Army Medical Simulation Project.'"
Who the heck is "samzenpus" and why cant I read (Score:5, Interesting)
Who the heck is "samzenpus" and why can't I read his stories when logged in? This has been happening every Sun/Mon now for about three weeks. I've emailed cmdrtaco and robmalda and gotten zero response from them. Why is Samzenpus flagged as unreadable when logged in, but if I log out I can comment annonomously? I don't have particular editors censored in my settings.
Re:Who the heck is "samzenpus" and why cant I read (Score:4, Interesting)
I have no idea, but it's not working for me either. I have to log out, copy the URL, and then log in and paste it in manually because samzenpus stories don't show up for me manually. Just like you, this started happening 3 weeks ago.
Re:Who the heck is "samzenpus" and why cant I read (Score:5, Interesting)
It's particularly annoying, because samzenpus seems to be the only person who posts any stories at all for 24 hour stretches, as if it's some sort of half-broken story editor robot (insert bad slashdot editor jokes here). I'm pretty sure samzenpus is just a story releasing script that CmdrTaco enables from his iPhone when all the editors go on a saturday night bender and know they'll be too hung over to do their jobs on Sundays. Good job on automating your jobs, but fix the hidden story bug please(!)
Sensationalized Headline, much? (Score:4, Interesting)
Medical training dummy = high tech war game?
s/Save Lives/Save our soldiers' lives (Score:2, Interesting)
Or they could just shoot pigs. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not getting into pointless wars saves lives, to (Score:2, Interesting)
Good try, but history sometimes is pretty black-and-white (at least compared to most history).
Gandhi was fighting a British state that was pretty much ready to give up their colonies anyway. Look at Canada, they just kinda let them go. I'm not saying that what he did wasn't important, significant, or difficult - I'm sure it was. But Britain wasn't exactly convinced anymore that they needed their colonies by that time - though in 1776 they fought like hell to keep the new States. You're also forgetting that the American colonists were largely British anyway - the native Americans, even by then, were pretty much subdued (regrettably). The Indians (from India) were absolutely *not* from Britain. The occupying force dynamic is much, much different than the "but we're British!" thing the Americans had. And Gandhi wasn't exactly a diplomat... he used force, but an entirely different kind of force.
You've got the Civil War turned on its head here. The South seceded after Lincoln was elected, like they said they would. They also largely didn't vote in his Presidential election - funny that he won, isn't it? It'd be like if the Northeast and California just didn't vote in 2004. But in any case, the South fired the first shot (at Fort Sumter) and started the war. Not exactly Lincoln's political motivation at work, but he was perfectly willing, and expecting it, so you might count that. I'm not quite sure how you compare Iraq to the Civil War. What if Texas said "we're our own state" then started shooting us for good measure? Responding to an insurrection is absolutely different than going on some snipe hunt justified by lies. And for the record, the Civil War was *absolutely* about slaves, at least to the South. Read some of their declarations - they're full of "they're infringing on our right to keep slaves" or "they think slaves count as too much of a person" or so on. To the North (or Lincoln at least), the South hadn't seceded because that was impossible, so in his mind it was really a war against the "states currently in rebellion" as he put it. So it wasn't a war about slavery to Lincoln, it probably was to most of the North (though they may have agreed with Lincoln), and it definitely was for the South.
What happened to the Germans at WWII was quite unfair, and there's a good case that Hitler wouldn't have found the necessary public support (he got elected) were there not so much anti-everyone sentiment, not to mention fear of the Communists next door. But, according to you, shouldn't he have sought remedy through diplomatic channels instead of engaging in lebensraum? And before you talk about the Munich agreement and "peace for our time", that wasn't exactly diplomacy since Hitler wasn't acting in good faith. But disregarding WWI for a moment, and assuming that the situation sprang into being (of course not true), how else could you deal with it?
Your view of history has been twisted by your ideology. Don't worry, that happens pretty commonly - it's really the origin of a lot of quotes about history, really. But you've turned the Civil War, in particular, on its head. I suggest you read a number of different takes on history, from different viewpoints. It's fascinating stuff.
Re:Not getting into pointless wars saves lives, to (Score:1, Interesting)
In World War II, Jehovah's Witnesses refused to take up arms on any and all sides of the conflict. This is because Jehovah's Witnesses endeavor to do like the first century Christians; Jesus said that his followers were "no part of the world" and that "all those who take the sword will perish by the sword."(John 15:19 [watchtower.org]; Matthew 26:52 [watchtower.org]). During the second World War, this earned them persecution from many of the countries involved.
This though, is not to say that they are pacifists, because they recognize God's right to wage war. They do not participate in wars because they realize that only Jehovah has the solution for all of the problems on the Earth, as well as the Power to accomplish that. More to the point of this issue, I'd like to quote directly this scripture, which shows God's means for cleaning the Earth of wickedness:
Jeremiah 25:31-33
31 “‘A noise will certainly come clear to the farthest part of the earth, for there is a controversy that Jehovah has with the nations. He must personally put himself in judgment with all flesh. As regards the wicked ones, he must give them to the sword,’ is the utterance of Jehovah.
32 “This is what Jehovah of armies has said, ‘Look! A calamity is going forth from nation to nation, and a great tempest itself will be roused up from the remotest parts of the earth. 33 And those slain by Jehovah will certainly come to be in that day from one end of the earth clear to the other end of the earth. They will not be bewailed, neither will they be gathered up or be buried. As manure on the surface of the ground they will become.’
Note: As a resource for this comment, I used the May 8, 1997 Awake Magazine. Also, I'm willing to provide further notation/sources on request.