By that standard, every politician is a phony. The candidate's presentation before any class of the electorate is dictated by what renders the statistically greatest opinions. Most people have IQs floating around the 100 range and apparently by assuming a posture of "I am one of you guys" works best. I don't think you can become President if you're not a phony while campaigning.

I am curious, do you believe Romney is not capable of helping the middle class and improving the economy solely because has always been rich? I hate to point out the obvious, but such a person would naturally have a rich person's notion of an "ugly car." I'm curious if you believe his personality dictates the decisions he would make, or if it's something perhaps you never thought out..? For instance, he's known for pushing universal healthcare in Massachusetts. Does this position follow your assumptions?

Odds are, anyone attaining status of Democratic/Republican Presidential candidate is very likely to be rich, or backed by rich people. This doesn't necessarily mean that person is more concerned with appeasing people of the same class. Such an assumption is likely to leave you disappointed in your options for most elections.

Your last sentence seems to be what is under debate. What is so difficult about arresting a suspect and putting them on trial instead of blowing up everything within a 50ft radius of their location? It'd be nice if we could manage this for all US citizens. Imagine if we could do it for all enemy combatants. If the Chinese were hunting Christian militants known to plot against the Chinese government - hunting them on American soil in cooperation with our government - I'd have a much smaller problem with that if it didn't involve hurling missles all over the 50 states.

I misspoke - meant rockwool, not mineralwool, though it seems some consider the terms interchangeable. Rockwool is unaffected by moisture unlike fiberglass, and it also has higher heat resistance. I wouldn't place fiberglass in that gap due to the potential for moisture intrusion.

Brick is similar to concrete in its durability and fire-resistance, but reinforced concrete is much stronger than brick. Concrete also doesn't require any maintenance, unlike mortared brick/block. Brick also doesn't require forms or concrete trucks to install.

Note the full quote was "use GFRP concrete reinforcement if you want it to last centuries"

That is, use fiberglass reinforcement bars, not steel. Hence, no expanding accumulation of rust to crack apart your concrete.

Good point. You can pay extra to have a deep well drilled, and you can also look at integrating a rain-water harvesting system with a large storage tank.

Reinforced concrete easily beats wood-frame in strength, fire, and flood-induced mold-resistance. Find a specialist to use GFRP concrete reinforcement if you want it to last centuries. Insulate with foam for water resistance, or mineral wool if you can find a contractor for it. Look at composite or metal form deck roofing for concrete strength above your head, too. You probably want a commercial contractor if you're going all out. Find an architect that knows what they're doing. For windows, you'll want them with a minimal length in at least one dimension - short in width or height, to be secure in hurricane conditions. Even then, you'd need a specialty product if you want to resist a 2x4 flying edge-first into the window. And of course, you need high ground, a well, and a generator.

Thinking about it more, key negotiation shouldn't even be necessary.

You need a pre-determined set of sufficiently-large encryption keys on a removable module of sorts, like a USB key. Produce the key-set USB-key in pairs, for transmitter & receiver. Encryption cycles through the key-set at a predetermined schedule. Timing is managed with an internal clock. Imprecision of timing at change-over intervals is handled by simple dual-decryption attempts, and determination of correct sequence by CRC or some such block header data. This is basic smut. Why am I even bothering..

Sorry, this is vaguely true, but dead wrong in practice. Any block of unencrypted data received successfully could have been encrypted byte-for-byte. Only key negotiation requires additional data, and this is a truly miniscule amount relative to a video feed of any resolution (assuming a reasonable renegotiation period)

Added benefit: clean revisions.

Or another cool idea: create a sustained cylindrical shell of low pressure above the craft. Say, you have a ring of high power lasers pointed upward on top of the craft. They fire upward, incinerating all the air for a ways. Air on the inside & outside of the shell rushes to fill the void, and this gives a zone of low pressure above.

Although, I suppose inducing some kind of vortex motion - akin to a tornado - in the overhead cylinder would be the most energy efficient way to develop the zone of low pressure. Hrm.

Perhaps with the flange ring you could somehow tune your emitter to a frequency that the flange material can reflect, thus keeping emissions reflecting within the space and maximizing the efficiency of expended energy.

Ah, how about the craft is round like a frisbee, with a raised flange/edge around the tip. Laser emitters can be around the ring directed toward the center, and where they all cross the air is incinerated. Now you only need to beam a single source of energy to your craft, which may make it a little more practical.

For instance you could have an array of massive lasers on Earth projecting beams that cross just above the craft, incinerating the air and causing a space of low pressure. But you'd likely expend an enormous amount of energy and also have the added feature of accidentally incinerating your craft.

Lighter than air of equivalent volumetric displacement. If only there was a way to displace a large volume of space, bonded to a craft, on-demand. (without expending large sums of energy nor causing unproductive accelerations from momentum)