If you're too close to a chemical weapon you die. If you're far enough away you live and suffer no ill effects. If the ash concentration is low enough, it will be safe to fly through.

In real life a 747 engine restart is not dependent on having enough battery or generator power. The limiting factor is the amount of sky to glide through.

It will only kill an engine when sufficient amounts have built up to cause enough airflow disruption. Such an amount is easily observable after each flight. The engines can have maintenance done at the appropriate time. Presently large amounts of European airspace have very small concentrations of ash between certain latitudes. Jetliners can fly below this layer as well as above it at 38,000 feet. They can take off and if deemed necessary, fly several hundred miles under the layer to a thinner area, ascend through it, and cruise above it.

How do you know that? Are you connected with the NTSB? Which should not be confused with the FAA, who I don't have nearly as much respect for.

The abrasion isn't the problem and isn't what caused engines to go out in the previous incidents. Maintenance schedules can be adjusted. I don't suppose you know the MD-80 series, MD-90 series, and Boeing 717 series all have an elevator that does not have a redundant system? The elevator is adjusted using a three foot long screw and electric motor. In the 90s Alaska Airlines cut back their maintenance so much that the screws weren't getting greased often enough. On flight 261 the now-dry screw stripped the housing threads out resulting in a loss of control that killed all 88 people on board. There have been no further accidents caused by that screw because of maintenance is being followed now.

Some bullies can be educated. Kids need adults to make them think about what they're doing why they're doing it.

You missed the parenthesis. The OP is correct. A human life is priceless to someone, not to everyone.

I think if you re-read Cope's thoughts, you'll see he's saying something different. He's saying that to some degree or another we're all standing on the shoulders of giants. We're all influenced by past music and sounds. That knowledge can be programmed. What you've heard is influencing your music even if you don't want it to or don't think it is. What you think is random playing on the keyboard isn't as random as you wish it were, unless you've got a random number generator determining the notes for you.

So if the USA cuts military spending over eight years, that gives Britain and France eight years to raise their spending, if they still want the protection. We stop cutting as they raise theirs to meet ours.

We don't need to go to the Moon immediately to practice AI and robotics in a dusty zero-g environment. We still need to fund better technologies to get payloads into space and around it.

It sounds like you're in the minority of console gamers who never has moments like "holy shit that looks amazing!" Better graphics make that possible.

Social networking sites are not designed for privacy, they are designed to do open social networking. If you don't want to do that, don't use the site, or limit what you put on the site to things you are comfortable sharing in that fashion.

Multiply.com is a cross between social networking and livejournal. It's always given users control over who can read postings. Posts can be read by everyone, or limited by relationships, such as family, friends, online buddies, professional contacts, a list of specific users, etc. This is what facebook has now added. Users can put their friends into lists based on the nature of the relationships, and control which users and lists can read what is posted.

The analogy in the real world is I can tell my best friends something and other people won't find out unless he's sloppy or someone gets him drunk or uses social engineering tricks. In facebook that means mentioning it online to others or letting other people use the computer where he's logged into facebook and they snoop.

E-mail is just as vulnerable because people leave themselves logged in or can be sloppy and mention data to others. If something is so personal there can't be a record of it but must be told, phone calls or in person are the ways to go.

If they really want the civilians to act like civilians, don't program them to run into the scene from adjacent rooms in the direction of the killers.

For roasts it's handy to use a meat thermometer to know how hot the inside has gotten. So cooking a roast to 160F is an example.

We'll be able to help you in some ways.