The Pentagon doesn't want to be dragged into another unwinnable shiatfest in the giant litter box. I'm shocked.

tankjr: NEWJERSEYFARKTAG: Zero Kelven, right?!?

I have a friend, smart guy otherwise, who refuses to believe that Zero Kelvin is the proper syntax. He just won't let go of 'degrees'. Guy's a schoolteacher too. /sadface

Kelvin is measured in degrees as well isn't it? It's just a different scale than F or C.

Sure the old guard is war weary, but soon enough there will be new brass, and new suits salivating for a chance to flex some muscle, and try out some new toys, and the drums will beat again.

They will have to use cryocopters then. Ideally they would want to have at least four plus the air power upgrade to freeze things faster.

You'd think there would be a way the GOP candidates could pander to both the Likudniks and the Fundamentalist Christians without inching us towards WWIII. When the Pentagon has to reign in your rhetoric... you know your crazy train is off the rails. Seriously GOP morons, relax.

Thank you. Just got my husband home. He's been deployed probably 60% of our 7 year marriage. Let them rattle their sabres in the sand, keep a discrete eye on them and let's worry about us (US) for a spell. Any of you chomping at the bit to kick A-rab ass? You've got plenty of time to enlist and get trained up before the next GOP deferral-master comes into power.

Xarian0: Interesting fact: the 'degree' notation is only used when you are talking about a scale of numbers that goes between two specific reference points.

Fahrenheit (the guy) originally set the 0 point by using the freezing point of a solution of ammonium chloride, and he set the point at 90 to be human body temperature. That got adjusted over time based on the freezing point of water and the actual average human body temperature, ending up with the reference points at 32 and 212 degrees. I guess they figured that using the boiling point of water was smarter than using the average human body temperature at some point.

Celsius, of course, just used 0 and 100 degrees based on the freezing and boiling points of pure water, rather than pulling it out of somebody's arse.

This also makes sense when you think about angular measurements (degrees vs radians). Kelvin and Rankine only have the lower reference point, with 0K and 0R being absolute zero; i.e. no heat at all, and the lowest temperature possible.

Never knew why Kelvin didn't use º. Thank you for this explanation!

Let's just stay out of there. Besides, Iran so far away.

Gunther: It must make you unimaginably nervous, looking at people like Perry and Santorum from Iran, and realizing there's a pretty large contingent of the American political caste that would invade you if they came into power.

No, not really.

From an Iranian perspective, you have to keep in mind the GOP and US military are still doctrinally and strategically stuck in the Cold War. They've built for, and expect, a symmetrical war against a major power despite the decades' worth of evidence that shiat just doesn't work in "giant litterbox"-es as A Dark Evil Omen put it and assorted other various third-world shiatholes.

To make things worse, Iran unlike the US has paid attention to the developments of the last decade and prepared their military accordingly. To put it simply, the Iranians have been developing their military doctrine, training and equipment specifically to counter the West. And that's in the initial phases of a potential open conflict between Iran and the US, before the Iranians would withdraw to wage a protracted asymmetrical war against the US which would be forced to occupy the country (and they will).

Also, keep in mind that while Iran may not have nuclear weapons yet, they're known to possess stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and you can add Iran's newly-found capacity to build and stockpile radiological weapons to that. And they're all too willing to deploy them if pushed to it.

What Perry, Gingrich, Santorum, Romney et al don't understand, which the Pentagon does and all too well, is that we'd get our clocks cleaned in a war against Iran. And, it'd be the deathblow to our already-failing economy, just like Afghanistan was to the Soviets. So, it's no wonder at all the Pentagon is being the one pushing for caution and diplomacy here.