MY first car was a 1980 Bronco (that I got in the early 2000s). I loved that thing. Went from that to an Infiniti I30, from that to a 2006 Tundra, and now I'm back to a 2014 Focus. I'm hoping my next one (in about 7-10 years) will be a Jeep. It really is kind of cyclical.

I used to drive a pickup with a foldable/removeable bed cover. It allowed me to carry more than I could in a SUV and allowed me to transport stuff in bad weather. It was very handy while I was in college (about 400 miles from where I lived) and whenI was moving around in grad school. My friends in grad school also solicited my help for moves several times as well.

I drive 40 miles each way on my commute. Up until September of last year I was driving a paid off 2006 Tundra, averaged probably 17mpg. While gas was high I was spending $75-100 a week. In September I traded it in and got a new Focus which averages around 33mpg. It now costs me about $20 to fill up, and I use roughly $25 worth of gas a week. I went from spending $100 a week to $100 a month on gas, and the savings more than cover the monthly payment ($125 a month for 36 months). Why spend significantly more for a hybrid/electric when this saves me plenty of money already? Especially considering the range issues of many hybrids (since a full tank gets me roughly 320 miles at $20 a tank).

Did the representatives wave their hands as they made that statement?

Ok, this is a nice plan and all, but there is one little problem: how do you keep the sharks alive in a vacuum?

Interpol doesn't choose what crimes to get involved in. If a state makes a request to Interpol for a red notice then Interpol sends it out. It's not like the movie Hitman with a squad of armed agents roaming all over a country looking for 1 person; they simply facilitate requests and notices between agencies of different states.

Sure. I played football from elementary school all the way through college. My wife knows nothing about the sport but I want her to watch it with me. I don't start talking about different offensive formations like pistol, shotgun, spread, or when to use a 4-3 instead of a 3-4 defense. I start with basics, give her a rough idea of who everyone is and what they do so she can follow along while I can pay more attention to the "tactics" of the game. I fail to see how this is a bad thing (or "massaging my ego"-nice ad hominen by the way), and is precisely how you go about bringing in people that are completely unfamiliar with a topic. If you tailor a tv show about science to the people with a Master's degree or higher level of understanding then you miss out on a lot of people.

They aren't. This is an idiot trying to make a joke after the report from the FAA came out the other day.

These kinds of shows aren't for people who fall asleep every night listening to lectures. These kinds of shows are for the people who think Taylor Swift is the greatest singer/songwriter of all time, or can name everyone in the newest season of Dancing with the Stars but can't name the top people in government. The idea is to get people who aren't normally interested in science to at least think about it, to develop a rudimentary understanding of how science works (scientific theory, how scientists think, etc) and why the world around them is the way it is. Even a simplistic understadning is better than no understanding at all.

Must be a bunch of glory hounds

Sounds like they would have better luck going for corporate tax breaks.

Was the blockade of the South during the Civil War an attempt at Genocide? How about blockading Germany during WWI/WWII? That's not an example of genocide, that's trying to defeat an enemy by targeting their ability to wage war (can't fight without food). As I said, it was more a low intensity guerrilla war than it was a genocide.

The Crusades were an attempt by a European noble class that was declining in wealth and power to find a way for their population to target their frustrations on an outside threat rather than enslavers/rulers and claim more land for themselves. When Christians would sack a town they would usually slaughter all inhabitants-man, woman, child, Christian, Muslim, or Jew (easier to loot from the dead). Muslims usually let Christians and Jews live-they might pressure them to convert or force them to pay a tax, but they still got to live.

I didn't say they didn't kill a lot of people. The definition of a genocide is the systemic and premeditated eradication of a people based upon ethnicity/religion/other intrinsic characteristics. But it is not to just take over their land-that's simply war.

That's a bit of a stretch. The aim of the US western expansion wasn't to kill all traces of Native American peoples and culture, it was to gain control of their land. While there certainly were numerous instances of massacres, they seemed to be more due to individual ignorance, prejudice, or misunderstanding than any systemic attempt to wipe out all Indians. Not even considering all the treaties and reservations set up (the quality-or lack thereof-of the land provided on the reservations can again I think be attributed mostly to apathy or ignorance as opposed to outright malice), the numerous attempts at integrating and Westernizing Native Americans shows a (misguided perhaps) desire to help them and make them become "Americans". In reality, the Western expansion was in effect a protracted, low-intensity guerrilla war, and there are plenty of cases of these types of conflicts to show that they very often lead to instances of overreactions of force, excessive non-combatant casualties, and mass killings.