Obama's Presidential Limo Will Be a 'Rolling Tank With Windows' | Hacker News Reader

Obama's Presidential Limo Will Be a 'Rolling Tank With Windows'

blog.wired.com

22 pointssvjunkie43 comments

The second still shot [1] has the Lightbox2 [2] overlay baked in. Looks like Wired took a screenshot of another site.

[1]: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/images/2009/01/06/car.jpg

[2]: http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/

I'm glad his administration is using online social tools, because physically, this is going to be one of the most isolated presidents we've ever had. He just has to be protected like this.

I don't get why people think Obama is in so much danger of assassination. Why a greater chance than any other president? Is it just that he's young and therefore reminds people of Kennedy?

Obama is the first black President of the United States, and there are a lot of racist idiots who would love to make his tenure as short as possible.

It's slightly sad that racism still has a part in world-wide culture. In some countries, it's even pretty much accepted - I read a Russian newspaper recently saying, "Well, the Americans have finally got themselves what they deserved", implying that nothing is lower than having a black president.

And I was just thinking this was the 21st century.

Not defending the newspaper, but there is a certain image of African Americans created by a) Hollywood, b) history, I guess. 95% of Russians haven't seen any black people ever.

Racism is a difficult thing to discuss. Not only it's sad that racism still has a part in world-wide culture, it's also sad that crazy political correctness becomes a part of the culture. (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None)

Which newspaper?

> Obama is the first black President

If you google something like: black US presidents

You will find out that isn't true. Plus Obama isn't black, if black means African American.

Kenya was in Africa last I checked.

Kenya was in Africa last I checked.

American blacks tend to be (mainly; averaging 83%) Bantu, whereas Barack Obama is (half) Nilote.

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aisteve.blogspot.com+ni...

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/01/east-africas-tall-vs-aver...

The tall black Nilotics generally see themselves as more intelligent than the shorter brown Bantus. Obama's Luo relatives in Kenya told him: "The Luo are intelligent but lazy." The Bantus tend to fear that they will be outsmarted by the Nilotics if they give them a fair shake, so they often treat the tall people like the Jews tend to be treated in Eastern Europe.

The dividing lines between the Nilotics and Bantus are not sharp. There's been lots of interbreeding. (This is Africa, after all.) But, they still exist. The situation is rather like that in Latin American, where after five centuries of interbreeding, the economic elites are still pretty white-looking, and the indigenous masses occasionally organize under demagogues like Hugo Chavez to fight back.

I'm disgusted that they would use a term like "interbreeding" as though they were referring to animals. The correct word is "miscegenation."

as though they were referring to animals

Are humans not animals?

By "animals," I mean that one would only use the term "interbreeding" when referring to wild or domesticated animals mating. It's an inherently zoologic term, much like the word "mating."

interbreeding" [is] an inherently zoologic term

From where did you get that idea?

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22racial+interbreeding%22

1,750 hits.

It's an inherently zoologic term, much like the word "mating."

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22human+matings%22

1390 hits.

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22humans+mate%22

3,370 hits.

And the first result for the second search has the title, "Can humans mate with other animals?" I rest my case.

Edit: Also, Google result tallies for individual search terms is crap evidence, just so you know. If you're going to gather evidence from the interwebs, at least try somewhat. Here's what I came up with:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscegenation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interbreeding (redirects to the "Hybrid (biology)" article!)

From where did you get the idea that interbreeding is an inherently zoologic term? Dictionaries do not seem to mention any such zoological inherency.

Here's what I came up with:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscegenation

Wikipedia also has an article in inbreeding depression, which discusses inbreeding among humans:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbreeding_depression#In_humans

In humans

Although severe inbreeding depression in humans seems to be highly uncommon and not widely known, there have been several cases of apparent forms of inbreeding depression in human populations. As with animals, this phenomenon tends to occur in isolated, rural populations that are cut off to some degree from other areas of civilization. Some notable examples include:

The Vadoma tribe of western Zimbabwe, many of whom carry the trait of having only two toes due to a small gene pool.

The Ulas family of southern Turkey have several members who walk on all fours, due to mental retardation caused by inbreeding.

Inbreeding is not interbreeding. Inbreeding is an accepted term, as in a people being "inbred." But I've had enough, you're clearly coming from a point of ignorance and are just frivolously debating now.

Which has racist overtones

Since when does "miscegenation" have racist overtones? It's a very common term in history and sociology and is the accepted term to refer to the mixing of races. It's certainly better than "interbreeding."

Why don't you look up the lineage of his parents.

OK.

"Obama's father was Barack Obama, Sr., a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya." --Wikipedia

Also: "The Luo (also called Jaluo and Joluo) are an ethnic group in Kenya, eastern Uganda, and northern Tanzania. They are part of a larger group of ethnolinguistically related Luo peoples who inhabit an area including southern Sudan, northern and eastern Uganda, western Kenya, and northern Tanzania."

So what's the problem? No "wikipedia sucks and is unreliable because I could say he's from Jerkwater, East Dakota," please.

> "Obama's father was Barack Obama, Sr., a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya."

And look up his parents next.

Wikipedia doesn't have much information about this, so here:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/02/barak-obama-questio...

If you think this is mistaken, please provide a refutation, or a source giving equally detailed, contradictory claims.

That link says that Barack Obama, Jr.'s non-European half is mainly arabic, and so much so that he is not racially afroid enough to qualify for minority status as a black American. If that were true, wouldn't you think that Steve Sailer would be repeating the same thing, insteading of claiming that Barack Obama, Jr. is fully half Nilotic?

I dunno. Do you have a source that you think is persuasive, or not?

There is this article:

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/081207_rumors.htm

December 07, 2008

Obama Rumors Untrue—And Less Interesting Than The Truth

By Steve Sailer

Many wild rumors have circulated about Barack Obama, such as

That he was really born in Kenya and thus isn’t eligible to be President.

That he isn’t black because his father was 7/8ths Arab.

...

You probably got an email or two asserting that Obama’s father was Arab, not black.

Actually, he was black. Here’s a picture of Barack Obama Sr., with Obama's mother Stanley Ann Dunham.

Obama Sr. might have had a tiny bit of ancestry from an Arab slave trader or two to whom his African ancestors sold captured black slaves, but he sure wasn’t 7/8ths Arab. In his memoir, Obama rightly calls his father "black as pitch" and refers to his father's tribe as "as ink-black Luo". Here's a picture comparing father and son:

That article links to this blogpost:

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/06/obama-is-not-716th-arab.h...

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Obama is not 7/16th Arab

For awhile, a story has been going around that Sen. Barack Obama Jr. isn't really African-American at all, that he's 7/16th Arab and only 1/16th sub-Saharan African. Well, it's not true. Here's a picture of his parents.

It's quite possible that Barack Obama Sr. might have been a little bit Arab, and it's certainly possible that some of Sen. Obama's ancestors sold their fellow black Africans to Arab slavetraders. But this rumor that Barack Obama Sr. was 7/8th Arab is silly.

That is the entire blogpost. It simply contains a picture of Barack Obama's parents, as proof-enough that his father was Nilotic rather than Arabic.

Your argument is that various people look black in pictures? To me that sounds like an admission of not having done proper research into the matter.

Your argument is that various people look black in pictures?

Here's another Obama, Sr. pic:

http://conservablogs.com/velvethammer/wp-content/uploads/200...

Do the nose, lips, or hair look Arabic?

There have been conflicting reports (just Google it a bit), but it appears that the secret service has been notified of significantly many more death threats than usual.

And here I thought he was a Mac guy.

Hardy har har.

He's pretty good at giving people the impression that he's culturally identified with them. The funny thing is, I think he manages to give it to just about everybody at once. Then something like "zomg Obama has touched a Zune" comes out and people feel a sense of personal betrayal.

(Honestly, I think if Obama ever decided for vi or emacs some people I know would suffer psychotic breaks.)

How likely is it there is really any new technology here? If there were new armor technology, wouldn't Bush already be rolling around in the latest?

I think they're jawboning to deter the amateurs. Anybody really determined is going to find a way to get their hands on offensive technologies advanced enough to defeat the armor.

This sounds pretty cool, but it seems like this is a waste of money. I can't remember there ever being an attack on a president while he was in an enclosed limo (but I'm going from memory, haven't looked it up), and the previous one seems to have been enough of a deterrent. Washington, D.C. isn't exactly a warzone that requires a tank.

"Despite the immense secrecy, reports have leaked that the limo also comes with a 10-CD changer . . ."

All that tech in there and he'll only have 10 CDs to choose from? Seems a little dated.

I suspect that these things have a long development cycle.

OTOH, as long as it'll take line-in from an iPod, no problem.

Why even have windows? (Especially at 5 inches thick.) A video camera and some monitors might do the trick.

I'm guessing it's because without windows it would look like a tank too. I can think of at least a couple reasons why having the President rolling around in a tank isn't a good idea, and they obviously don't think it's a good idea either since they've gone through so much trouble to make the President's vehicle look like a regular car.

Looking like a tank would be an improvement. Regular car? Most of what you'd find in a junkyard is more attractive.