I've got a bat. Feel like going on a road trip to play a little baseball?

...and no other galaxy wants to be in the room.

Naw, it's millions of people checking to see if Ashton Kutcher is wiping his butt.

Heaven forbid a government finding new and innovative ways to deliver services to its people. Maybe the iPhone is not the best platform, but at least they are trying.

And the sooner the world figures this out the better we'll all be.

Good on you.

I'm a self employed computer technician, and in addition to being in a dying field, the amount of bullshit I have to put up with is astounding. They tell me, "But I really need it this afternoon!" So I flex nuts and get it ready that afternoon and then they freak out when I hand them the bill. I once had a dude threaten me with death because it was going to take a week to get the parts to fix his hunk of crap laptop. They lose it when I tell them their hard drive is toast and all their data is gone. I ask them about their backups and they say they have none. What am I supposed to do?

Society in general has developed a rather unhealthy obsession with always available computer technology, but yet are unwilling to pay for it. Women seem to have a better bullshit filter than men, so I'm not surprised they are giving up on this field. I should have quit long ago and become a plumber or something.

No seriously! There's radiation!

Dunno about solar physicists, but astrophysicists did get their Top Gun movie. It was called "Contact".

I disagree.

Sure there is a lot of waste in a government funded system, but I'll bet that is balanced out nicely because the government never intends to make a profit. Space X intends to make a profit. Is there even profit to be made going into space? Right now, not really. A profit opportunity exists for them, not because of anything valuable up there we can get to, but because we need to keep the ISS going.

Another reason why NASA has blown through so much money over the years is they were inventing, from the ground up, the entire technological base to get humans into space. Not cheap.

Space X has done what exactly? Create a LEO capable rocket. Yay! Something NASA pulled off in the 50s. NASA had man-rated boosters by 1960 and had people on the moon by '69. They also came up with the STS, which is so far beyond anything the private sector can possibly fund.

I'm not saying that having private contractors do the space thing is bad, but I'll bet even if you handed over all of the plans for a Space Shuttle or an Apollo system the mission costs would be similar.

Foo and Bar, only names you need. Besides, Foo is a pretty name for a girl!

If they are willing to go to the trouble of a polygraph test it means they've got some dirt on you or are looking to get some more, or whatever they think is more. Truth is not the goal, only verifiability, and the little wiggles on the paper supply this.

It would be interesting to take one of these and consistently lie throughout to see how well the examiners do.

The real problem is the U.S., for all its military might, doesn't have the stomach for war. The insurgents do. They are willing to go all the way for their cause, as twisted as it might seem to us. It's the same problem as Vietnam. That war was half a dozen nukes away from being solved. Afghanistan and Iraq are easy to solve too: nuke the place until everyone you don't like is dead. Or everyone is dead. Al Qaeda would do it if they could.

But oh we can't use those horrid nukes, etc, etc... OK, fine, this shows upstanding moral character and this is commendable, but it then begs a more pertinent question: "if you weren't willing to utterly exterminate your enemies with the resources you have, why did you bother to invade in the first place? Why not just stay home?"

...just saying.

Like wars in strange lands far away who are no threat to you? 1 trillion dollars buys a lot of space program. Oh, but wait, space programs don't make rich people richer...