Don't know.
There are upright and honourable people in politics. There's black sheep, like everywhere, and maybe politics has more than its fair share of them.

But seeing how the media turn and twist every word you utter, and publish them again completely out of context, I imagine it's difficult to be upright and straightforward.

By the way, in Germany the Pirate Party is very big, at least in the news, these days. Most of them, even those that are in the spotlight, are political amateurs. As such, they dont all always talk ... cautiously with media (also, a lot of the political discussion happens in public fora etc). Recently, news show "Die Tagesschau" made my day when they quoted a party member saying something like "all parties contain 10% idiots". Never before had I heard the rather profane word "idiot" in that show. And I fear I wont hear it again soon ;)

And that's a pity. Because current trends are just that. Current.

I havent. Please explain... what exactly hit me?

The moon-creating impact was my first thought also. But I can imagine that it may also have heated things up a bit on its own, all without significant chaneg of orbit.

No, but the male mind is, or so I've been told.

(emphasis mine)

Not quite. Actually, the Titanic's radio operator ignored it, as well as a previous warning by the Mesaba , being busy transmitting/receiving the passengers' private messenges.

Fiscal year my ass... they're just afraid of Santa's LONC (List Of Naughty Companies)

... and he's a fraud.

I believe you mean Daniel Ellsberg

I would take that as a strong indication that planes are in fact cheaper overall than trains. I don't really know why, though.

Insane, but true: jet fuel is tax-free in most of Europe.

I dont believe they will ever be cheaper. Also, they're not even reaching low earth orbit yet (at the moment they're scraping 110km or something).

Space elevators on the other hand will go up to geostationary at least (as the summary says: 36000km), and they're far more efficient, I suspect (rocket motor spewing stuff all over the place versus electrical lift running up a tether).

world's tallest self-supporting tower

submitter has it wrong. tfa states that it's ONE OF the tallest, with a meagre 600-odd meters.