"the pax Americana has been a great cost avoidance for the European social welfare states, who can maintain smaller, localized defense forces, knowing that the 800lb gorilla is there."

Sure the short term incentive for them is clear, but why should the US taxpayer be expected to go along with this?

Back in the day, it was because the Soviet Union was considered a credible and common threat. The Russian Federation is neither, yet the bill for confronting him only increases.

"Let's not be surprised at any of these unsurprising developments."

Not surprised at all, I caught onto the racket years ago. Just disappointed at how little the oath of office seems to mean these days.

You might actually want to look up that McCain claim as you are wrong on it.

Of course if you did that, you might appear as if you know what you are talking about. But then your racism argument falls apart until you invent something else.

Here is a hint, McCain's eligability was challenged at the same time Obama's was by a hillary supporter. McCain put it all on the table and it was dropped quickly. Obama resisted and created useful idiots. And yes, i'm lumping you into the same group of manipulated tools as the birthers

So science is Amway and not a religion for some?

I have never heard the denial argument that the earth has never changed. It seems the most popular one is that the earth is always changing so stop the fearmongering.

How about pointing us to some of those claims

And you appear to have just lied. Ardis is an independent.

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

Might you be a Democrat?

Is that really the best you can do in understanding the issue? Or are you simply trolling?

IIUC, his lawyers requested that certain materials not be produced, and in doing so quoted a section of the state law which exhempted a particular category of material from being required to be produced. If you don't like the phrasing, talk to the people who wrote the law. His lawyers were just doing their job, and making it easy for the judge.

I don't think they count as science...until the make predictions that match the later observed results. Then they do.

Unfortunately, as you pointed out actually recreating the simulation can be absurdly difficult. And if it's not reproducable, then it's not science.

That said, when I worked at a transportation study commission, we used models all the time. We never deceived ourselves that they were correct, but they were a lot better than just guessing. Policies were built based around their 20-year projections. Often we'd have several very different 20-year projections based on different assumptions about what would be done in between. (Would this transit project be successful? Would that bridge be built? What effect would building the other highway have on journey-to-work times?) The results were never accurate. They were subject to political manipulation...but so was what projects would be built. It was a lot better than just guessing, but it sure was a lot short of science.

I think of this frequently when I read about the models, and the problems that people have with accepting their projections. Usually the problems aren't based in plausibility, but rather in what beliefs make them comfortable. And in those cases I tend to believe the models. But I sure don't think of them as "sound science".

OTOH: Do you trust the "Four Color Theorum"? It's a mathematical proof that any map can be colored with four colors, with no two adjacent patches having the same color except at a single point. The proof is so complex that no human can follow it. Do you trust it? Would you trust it if a lot of money was riding on the result?

Even math is less than certain. Complex proofs are only as trustworthy as every step in them multiplied, and both people and computers make mistakes. There are lots of illusions that prove that people will frequently dependably make the same mistake. So you can't really trust math. But just try to find something more trustworthy. You need to learn to live with less than certainty, because certainty is always an illusion.

Who's going to tell the judge no? Who's going to enforce it?

Sometimes a judge will be so egregiously corrupt that the higher courts will discipline them, but it's quite infrequent, and I've never heard of it happening when he was acting to support the local politicos. (And even then the "discipline" is generally trivial in comparison to the offense.)

Are you certain about the "state secrets act"? It seems to me that National Security Letters cover the same ground...and then some.

The Republicans who were responsible for emancipation (as an act of war against the rebellious South) is only vaguely related to the current Republican party. The Democrats have a closer link, and again, the civil rights movement was a political attack against the Dixiecrats, who pretended to be Democrats, but actually had an independent agenda.

P.S.: Given what the Federal Govt. has become, are you so sure states' rights was a bad idea? You can trace the current Federal Govt. back to the centralization imposed (by both sides!) during the Civil War.

P.P.S.: Under privitization, prisons have become defacto sources of slave labor. So don't claim that slavery has been eliminated. It's nature has been changed, but it isn't gone.

Just because you are convinced a particular technology is going to succeed doesn't mean that you want it to do so. Betting can, thus, be better than investing.

I disagree: the Model S was the right car to do first. All electric cars before it were simply crap. Worthless, horrible rides that only a hippie would drive. Yech. The Tesla is fine for many uses, and the main thing is: it's overpriced in a market where it's normal to be overpriced; it's overweight in a market where it's fine to be overweight (the S class was 3 tons not that long ago). It's a nice car, nicer than a Camry, where instead of the refinement of a luxury car for the price difference, you get the novelty of an electric car. And at that price range, you probably also have a gas car (or if not, you can rent one as needed).

Electric car tech simply isn't ready yet for low-margin vehicles. High margin cars, where intangible value is a big part of price, they work fine. It makes perfect sense to me to start there, and gradually come downmarket as they get the hang of it.

Also, most US families have 2+ cars, so one short range car isn't a problem I don't, so I'm skipping the Model S for now, but I'd love a similar car with a 50 HP gas generator under the hood. It doesn't need to provide enough power to run on, just enough to recharge given a few hours in the parking lot. None of this fancy, sure-to-break, parallel hybrid nonsense, but the great "fixie" Tesla drivetrain with a purely separate generator so I can recharge using gasoline as needed.

Any language except C has classes that prevent buffer overruns. Heck, I did assembly programming for 5 years, and the natural way to move data around avoided buffer overruns (mainframe assembly). The tools are right there, people just don't pick them up.

It's not about the language, and it's certainly not about "don't screw up", it's about a coding style that's not amenable to the mistake, and that's practical is most any language except C, really.

(Really, C and Managed aren't the only choices out there.)

I don't know what you think you're responding to, but that I do not favor Democrats most certainly does not mean I'm a Republican. The GOP is only marginally more conservative than the DNC, and only on some issues. They are all the party of big government and statism, and both parties are rotting from within from graft and corruption. But the trope about Texas being a haven of racist, ignorant rednecks is most certainly a Democrat thing that the OP obviously bought. (It's amusing to watch, considering how intensely racists so many Democrats are.) It's bad enough to have to deal with Rick Perry-style crony Republicanism here in Texas. A bunchy of left-wing Democrats who want even bigger government would only make things worse, so the OP is free to stay wherever he is. He won't be missed.