So here we have four scientists who somehow discount the fact that we have no need for a larger population either locally or world wide. Further they assume that we need a lot more industry and further assume that the new industry will consume a lot of energy.
                      It makes me wonder just how scientific they are being and if not why.
                      We can pass and enforce strict birth control laws. We can also halt all immigration which will do something to limit the size of population in the US and probably in other nations as well. We can also enforce programs to make industry, business and homes more energy efficient.
                        It must be obvious at this point that resistance to change is suicide. With unchecked population and unchecked growth no amount of nuclear power plants or anything else will help us one bit. I am saying it flat out. COMPLY or die.

I try to keep an open mind about surveillance and data farming. The benefits could be substantial although the potential for abuse is also very real. Many people only consider terrorism in relation to spying. But we may have the potential to stop almost all crime in its tracks. Whether it is illegal narcotics traffic or being able to quickly find a missing child the possibilities are almost endless. And these systems could also apply to large businesses such that the financials are constantly studied to detect fraud, bribery and deceit.
                  Think about it a bit. Most people carry a cell phone these days and that means their movements can be tracked. Yet most people do not feel threatened just because the government can easily know where they are. All in all we simply do not understand the many benefits we might enjoy in a society that has very dense surveillance of us at all times.

Are you serious? The Germans are hardly short on technology. Any nation that has long winters with brutal, cold weather, tends to have a surplus of uber-geeks. After all they can hardly be outdoors playing volleyball when it is minus 30 degrees F. over there. We found out in WWII that a tiny nation like Germany is capable of all kinds of bleeding edge tech.
                  And it is naive to think that economic advantage as well as economic harm are not part of the spy game. How many ideas and trade secrets are stolen by such spy work by governments? And if you start to develop a product that the government feels endangers the big boys wallets you just might suddenly pass away. Evil seems to distribute itself rather easily in all governments.

Snowden is a hero but he is making a mistake to expect sane behavior by the US government. Frankly we owe him a debt of gratitude but I suggest that he stay beyond the reach of US law regardless of any offers or so called agreements.

Ok, give me a trophy. Call me a really negative idiot or whatever. But seriously folks over population is an urgent and overwhelming issue. If you want a healthier world, a more employable population, less diseases, wars and poverty then the last thing you want to do is save lives. Saving lives is only valuable when you have firm control over birth rates. For those with very short memories the population bomb is real, it is here now, and it is eating us alive. If you think thing suck now wait until another twenty years passes and the world population doubles again.
              The trap is that although science is wonderful it is down right ignorant to assume that breakthrough after breakthrough can prevent a total collapse of our system and a a day of reckoning unlike any cluster of horrors we have ever faced before. And it is coming rather quickly.

As it stands every little thing seems to attract a tax. We even do things that are counter to our announced intentions just to find a new source to tax. For example some states now apply a special tax to electric vehicles under the excuse that they don't pay gasoline taxes. You can bet that some governmental idiot is thinking about taxing bicycles as they also pay no gasoline taxes. That makes as much sense as taxing people who walk rather than drive as they also do not pay gasoline taxes and after all cause the city to build those annoying sidewalks.
                  We do need a Robin Hood tax that taxes financial transactions as that industry gets away with economic murder. For example if your spiffy computer system can trade stocks 1000 times a second maybe a tax on each transaction would stop that kind of nonsense stock sales.
                    However, other than financial services taxes we need a no new tax law as well as laws that halt all increases in tax rates. We also need to fix the value of a dollar in such a way as inflation does not effectively create a new tax rate for the government.
   

Quad copters seem to be all the rage right now. Perhaps large quad copters could carry all kinds of weaponry both fer defense and aggression that could be kept airborne during moments of great danger. Lasers are only one tool. Small missiles that can take down enemy planes or missiles would have quite an edge if launched from a decent altitude. Ground troops could also be dealt with by hovering platforms hovering directly above. Weapons such as tanks might be rather useless against such a system.

Usually i would advise people to avoid anything considered knowledge in Florida. After all, if you can't even run fair elections how smart can you be? But one thing that we in Florida do know is hurricanes. And having just watched national new showing Breezy Point in the area smacked by Sandy it is obvious that they are screwing up big time.
                      First stick built homes are no good in hurricanes. Any home in a storm zone needs lots of really good concrete. You do not put an overhang on a roof more than a few inches. In order too keep a roof on a home you simply must not have much overhang. Items like large double doors are a disaster as are large windows. The windows that you do have should be made of storm proof glass . Doors should be small and strong. The sand barriers they are packing up between them and the sea will often be as much of a negative as a positive. We see homes filled to the ceiling with sand after storms. With large waves the sand simply adds to the weight of the wave. If there is anything left of the sand barrier after a few waves it may well stop water from draining back into the sea.
                    The beach area is probably best built with a lower floor designed to blow out in a storm which leaves the second floor standing on concrete supports. I noted that several home owners elevated their new homes by 14 feet. Frankly 20 feet would be better and 30 feet better yet. We have seen storms where people floated out of third floor windows when a storm surge strikes.
                    I have lived in Florida for 60 years and went though many storms. One mistake is to think that you know about storms. Storms are each unique and can do things you would never think they can do. But i can tell you that the storm that hit Breezy Point was so mild by our standards that when younger I actually enjoyed motorcycling and even bicycle rides in stronger winds. Until winds get above 130 mph I rarely pay any attention at all and usually enjoy the heavy rains.

Obviously funding is a huge part of success. We see the same issue with Wall Mart. Small book sellers need to be aware that if they can not achieve superior funding they certainly had best have some outstanding quality to gain customer support. Companies like Amazon self fund at a certain point and most small sellers can not do that. However it is not a monopoly when others are allowed to gather funds if they can and enter the market as a very well funded entity. France is a bit quirky in their thinking.

My feeling is that the NSA will study your email no matter what service you use. Being that they are a very well funded spy agency with some high dollar talent you can bet they crack into just about everything they want to. With the recent revelations that NSA has broken into 35 different governments and studied their data for years that should tell us that they have a very strong cracking ability. After all, all of the governments that NSA penetrated had security services in place and probably set up by experts who had just a bit less training or less dollars to work with. So no worries, you'll be spied upon just like everyone else.

We have had quite a few presidents and other politicians asking all of us to save fuel and not pollute. Now is the hour to put the money on the line. Sure charging stations will be needed but since buying an electric car is a huge service to our nation shouldn't the charging be free of costs? Already we see states that want electric cars to pay an extra tax as they no longer pay tax on gasoline. So what it the real truth about government wanting to encourage real, energy efficient cars?
                  As a matter of fact if we add a big tax to gas and diesel it would push people towards electric cars and start to wind down gas and oil production. So do we want to placate the rich companies and give them tax money to keep poisoning all of us? We might as well declare that our nation is severely mentally ill and we really don't have a clue as to what we really want or need to do.

Some states now have clearance in passing regulations where a car driver can get tickets for coming too close to a bicycle. With cams in place this could be a huge revenue source for a city..
                In other states same lane passing is flat out illegal. Any car that is partially in your lane when on a bike can be ticketed. And if there is a yellow line in the center of the road passing a bicycle is illegal under any conditions.
                Making cars illegal in cities would help.

If an employer has the right to spy on me then I certainly have the right to spy on an employer. Notice that the equality under law for all people does not change with ownership or status of an individual. Frankly my experience has been that when employers use covert tactics that employees tend to catch on and find many ways to exact revenge. One foreman I knew, in a machine shop, was taking very expensive products and throwing them in the dumpster in an effort to bankrupt his company. He had been told that his future with the company was in doubt as his abilities and respect for others limited his potential for any promotions.
                  I wonder if some of these shooters that go nuts and walk in to their job site blasting away are victims of unwarranted surveillance.

You are not far from the truth. Public boat launches often have fees these days. If you want to back down the ramp and float your john boat it's ten bucks for the privilege. And that is after the town zoning department allowed private owners to buy all the waterfronts effectively leaving the boat ramp as your only possible choice.

Drones have an ability to make truth more evident. Not only people but governments do not like it when truth is available. Any effort to make good use of drones will be met with huge resistance. For example we are willing to spend billions of dollars on a border control as long as it does not work. Imagine what a fleet of drones could do to halt illegal immigration. Now tell me just how likely it is that drones will be heavily used to patrol our borders. I have seen this same phenomena in police work where a couple of cops came up with a great way to curtail drunk driving. Two cops simply waited outside popular bars and stopped drivers who pulled out of the parking lot late at night. Almost 100% of the stops resulted in a valid drunk driving arrest. The city quickly halted the practice. The problem was that the town bordered another town and when word got out people simply drove a few hundred yards to get drunk in the next town's bars. In other words the real working policy of the city was to make a show of stopping drunk driving while making sure that they really did not stop drunk driving.
                Drones work too well. By using drones we can expose situations and that endangers all kinds of social institutions. With a good swarm of drones on patrol we could really knock out almost all home burglaries at night. But how many companies and jobs depend on a busy criminal justice system? Society really is that perverted.