I think this is the only industry where making "copies" has any relevance -- cars, microwave owens, sneakers, blazers, airplanes all look alike if you cover the trademarks -- and I'd venture a guess it's because one actor has business model that depends completely on the "coolness factor". And it's not Samsung.

That'd be somewhat difficult with the every adult citizen being automatically "registered" and average turnout over Europe being in the low to high 60's...

As a pure side note: did you know that the original luddites did not destroy all machines, nor were they against technology? They destroyed machines that made second rate products, or were used without second thoughts in a destructive (for the community) manner.

In that sense, you are a luddite, and should be proud of it! :-)

Then there was this Soviet entry on the Pacific theatre* that had a lot to do with both Japanese surrender and the haste to drop the bombs.

*Matchurian Strategic Offensive Operation, which destroyed the Japanese Kwantung Army of over 1.2 million in a week (capturing +600k POWs).

I understood from the live footage that it was actually the computer on the Falcon that cut off the engines right after ignition, not any engineer or manager. I may be wrong, though.

I also noticed that if SpaceX had to build the launch pad, the infrastructure, the launch control and the flight control centers, they might come up with bigger bill. But then again, NASA wasn't building the earlier rockets either, was it? So what exactly is new in this endeavour?

Since nuclear reactors automatically shut down during an earthquake in Japan, they have always had to have serious backup power for nuclear energy. With what so huge power generation units, even in Europe there has to be backup for maintenance breaks and whatnots -- the grid can't just loose 1200MW at one go for a month or so. IN other words, they have always reliad heavily on carbon power, too.
Anyway, the latest research gives nuclear higher carbon footprint than nuclear, so for all we know, it's good for everybody. Latest, meaning all the easy fuel having been pretty much used up, and having to dig deeper and more cubic miles of the ore to get more fuel to expanding market... all done by oil-based machinery.
See, while coal plants become better at CO2/MW decade by decade, nuclear reactors actually become worse.

It's about Polish and Czech not wanting to deal with their eastern neighbours in a neighbourly manner -- and they may have good reasons not wanting to -- so they are looking for a powerful ally to guarantee their security.
Nobody seriously believes NATO is really worth anything in solving problems or confrontations (there's historical precedents of Western Europe being both unwilling and uncapable of dealing with any Eastern Europe security issue -- why would they give a crap today?).
So you make a direct deal to have so important military installation on your own ground that you actually become somebody's bitch in exhange for some level of security. Wich means you don't have to deal with your suspectible neighbour by yourself.

The fact that you also become the ground zero of the WW3 is just a "security" bonus!

The biggest problem in Europe is the absolute uniformity of it's financial policy to secure Germany's economy no matter what the price is for any other nation in the Europe.

That and the fact that they still -- against any evidence or sense -- think austerity can save an already contracting economy...

What utter and absolute trash! About 99.9% of science is based on trusting someone's conclusions. It's when your results don't agree with earlier results you start to ponder, and then you check, verify and reverify what you did because it's (at least) as likely to be your error.
When you're sure that somebody made mistake, you want to know what mistake, how you can explain the differing results, and in the end hopefully have a better understanding of the phenomena.
Only very, very randomly is there such a new concept, or observation, or hypothesis that it's not based on earlier research. Because science just works.

Here I agree, the sceptics have done no science at any point, so they naturally have no data, no algorithms or even better explanation for observed warming. But then, not doing science is not science, so I don't quite get the point you try to make.

Well, you don't actually want to duplicate anything, but you definately would like to have confirming results from a completely different kind of approach. Doing things precisely the same way time and time again is engineering, not science, so I kinda miss your point, again.

Ahum, regarding new drugs, it's mostly public funding, at best 50-50 split, but then private companies get tax brakes for R&D, so it's basically from the public purse anyway. Just sayin'

Oh, but people aren't allowed back to Fukushima or the surrounding area not because of the tsunami. It's because of the reactors were left without cooling too long.
People are not allowed back to Chernobyl area because, in the end, the reactor was left wihtout cooling for too long.

See a pattern here?

It's not the tsunami's, or crew making 'human errors', it's the inherent nature of the reactors to go critical and melt when left without cooling. And there's more ways for that to happen than any engineer has ever imagined... even algae growth in the seawater used for the secondary system can force the engineers to shut down the reactor before they run out of cooling water...or heat wave that preheats the same water.
So many external parameters completely out of the control of anybody.

Well, to be consistent, you should extend that claim to all the following studies that reached the same conclusion. With different methods, differnet datasets, different observations. By different researchers.

Otherwise you at least also have to admit that Mann actually did a brilliant fabrication, since people have been able to replicate the result with real data.

Anyway, until you tell us what you mean by "hide the decline" fraud (what decline was hidden, from who, and where?) there's not much point continuing. You seem to be the kind of sceptic who can't be convinced otherwise (which, you should know, is very anti-sceptic behaviour).

Meanwhile we could get back to the normal scienctific process, where fabrications and frauds are relatively easy to point out, since they won't stand on their own. If the DA really believes Mann is wrong, he can publish his research and get the Nobel, he don't need all old correspondence of Mann to do that, now. Especially since Mann, so I've been told, fabricated all the data...

Is there any more ways to repeat the same message for you to see the utter undefendability of your position?