The US military budget is the same as the next 10 biggest national military budgets put together. Yes, that includes China- and 9 more. Put together. And that's forgetting the fact that the US military isn't just the military of the US- it includes all of the NATO forces (which is fully 5 of the top 10 spenders, and 23 other non-top-10 members), as well as functionally close allies like Japan and South Korea (numbers 5 and 12 in the "top spending" rankings).

The US would be in no great danger if it lopped 5% off of it's military budget. You could cut the budget in half and it would still be larger than numbers 2 and 3 (China and Russia) put together. Again, not even counting NATO.

To put figures on it- the Apollo programme was estimated to have costed $109 billion in 2010 dollar (accounting for inflation). That's for the full 15 year or so programme. The US was estimated to have spent $682 billion in 2013 on the military. So to pay for the entire Apollo programme all over again, you would only need to divert roughly 1.2% of the annual military budget each year.

That would be a considerable extra step for NSA to comply with. If your data is unencrypted, they merely need to scrape the data and away they go- easy mass surveillance of any number of 100's of millions of people.

If they had to take every one of their targets to a secret court (alerting them to their presence while they're at it), mass surveillance would simply not be practical.

The same logic goes for throwing up almost any security barrier. Nothing is unbreakable in the long run, but you can make it so difficult for your opponent that it becomes unprofitable for them to get to you.

Indeed. It is spring in all the waits that actually matter here in the UK- the weather is warm and bright, the cherry blossom is out, the first bumble bees can be seen, and plants are all entering their active growth phase.

Importantly- the weather it's warm. Which from a "need for Russian gas" point of view is all that actually matters.

Crimea is 60% Russian-speakers, 25% or so Ukrainian-speakers, and 15% or so ethnic Tatars. It is fair to assume that most of the ethnic Ukrainians might prefer to be part of Ukraine rather than part of a Russian Federation with zero protection or adoption of their own culture, and Tatars are historically anti-Russian due to the atrocities committed against them during the Soviet era.

Even if you assume that 100% of the Russian-speakers voted to join Russia (which is not guaranteed- a lot of them will have family or cultural ties with the mainland outside of their language), it's extremely difficult to see 97% approval.

As others have pointed out, the last believable poll figures (pre-troubles) on Crimean nationalism had only around 50% of the population for secession. For almost fully half of the population to change their mind in the last 3 months is completely non-credible.

And we shouldn't be surprised. We all know from past experience exactly what effect gun-toting thugs have in the presence of ballot boxes. Even if you're willing to believe there was no "ballot-stuffing" fraud, there's no doubt that it will effect people's confidence to turn up and vote controversially.

Unless my calendar is lying to me, it is now spring and has been for several weeks. The weather is nice, too. If anything, the longer they stall from now the more likely it is that sanctions will spill into next winter.

I don't buy that as the reason for stalling. I think it's just genuine reluctance to go past the point of no return.

If all you wanted was a plane, there would be a lot easier ways to steal one than taking one with 239 people on board that you'd need to "disappear".

If you wanted a plane full of hostages (and it wouldn't be the first time), it doesn't make sense that the group responsible hasn't made themselves known. What's the point in taking hostages if nobody knows your demands? The same can be said of any "terrorism" arguments- what's the point if nobody knows who was responsible and why?

My pet theory (based on nothing more than speculation), is that it was a hostage taking gone wrong. Someone tried to take the plane and fly it somewhere safe before making their announcement and demands. However something goes wrong (not enough fuel to get to safe haven, perhaps) and the plane crashes. The group responsible are now laying low as there's nothing to gain from coming forward, and they're now responsible for 239 deaths.

Oh, and sorry to self-reply, but Google turned this up:
http://www.world-newspapers.co...

I can suggest:
http://www.euronews.com/tag/hu...

Not a huge quantity of Hungary-specific articles, but the journalism is good and generally low-level enough to pick up on things the international English-language services don't.

In a maths-related discussion, that sort of mistake just has to sting.

So you're expecting an outbreak of smallpox any day now then, as soon as the population density hits a certain point?

Measles is highly contagious disease which is preventable with a simple vaccine, and it was getting tantalisingly close to the point of being eradicated. Now less people are getting vaccinated, and the number of cases are on the up. That is not a coincidence.

If we could come up with effective and lasting vaccines for MRSA of H041 Gonorrhea, we could wipe them out with a sufficiently widespread vaccination scheme too. We did it for smallpox, and that was almost 40 years ago. With all our modern technology and with more and more societies becoming wealthier and developed, why not do it again?

1. Andrew Wakefield is unapologetic and still claims that his study was valid. He vocally blames a conspiracy theory for his problems.

2. After so long of playing the "conspiracy" card, if he were to suddenly recant now his followers would most likely decide that he's been "gotten to" by the Illuminati (etc.). It is very unlikely they'd all go "Oh it was a mistake? Good to know, we'll just get off to the GP's for a full round of vaccinations then".

While it's true that he was not published in a criminal court (more's the shame), he was punished to the full extent that the medical establishment can do so- found guilty of professional misconduct and struck off by the GMC, meaning that he is barred from ever working as a doctor again in the UK.

Again, shame that he wasn't brought up on criminal charges. But you can't fault the medical community for their reaction, and I don't think there's any merit to the "protecting his peers" theory as they would already be deeply implicated by his professional misconduct hearing.

Doesn't Airplane Mode deactivate WiFi (and Bluetooth, NFC etc.) as well? (Genuine question, I've not looked that hard at it). If so, I can't see how useful a device it can be without any active radios.

The IAU list has authority because it is the version that actual astronomers and scientists use. Astronomers need SOMEONE to write a catalogue of names down for them so they all know what they're talking about- if not IAU, then who? Would it make you happier if they were 'murica based? Is it just that they are histroically based in France that upsets you?

IAU are simply doing a service to remind people that Uwingu (not to mention "name a star" companies) do not have the right to change the names in the IAU catalogue, so if you "buy a name" from these companies the name you choose will never be used by anyone ever. That's a helpful reminder- they're just trying to "scam bust".

Ultimately, there's nothing stopping anyone starting a new "naming authority" to compete with the IAU. But you'll need to persuade scientists, journals, universities etc. to sign up to using your new scheme instead of the IAU. Seeing as people are happy with the IAU's work, you're unlikely to find many takers.

Put it another way- can you name a single instance, in the long history of aviation, where a fault has taken down first one plane, and then another before the black box was recovered? Just one?

If the answer is "no", then this probably isn't a problem. Most faults do not take down multiple planes because planes are operated under excruciating quality control which remove most "frequent" faults long before they occur. And black boxes are almost always recovered quickly (via conventional means) in any case. So this would only be useful in an extreme minority of crashes- ones with an extremely specific (and rare) variety of fault and where the black box cannot be recovered using its transponder or just by looking for the wreckage.