M99, aka etorphine. I enjoyed that show and had to look it up to see if it's real. It is.

Interesting. I had the same experience with one of the oxycodone + NSAID combos. I forget which one. Might have been vicodin. Anyway, I had a severe toothache that was going to be a Monday morning root canal. Oxycodone over the weekend was the pain management plan. I found it was less effective than the 600 mg of ibuprofin, so I quit using the oxycodone and went back to the IB. I was still in pain, but less pain.

Then every patron with a brain and a spine says "No thanks, I'll take my chances. I won't hold you liable if I lose it, which you wouldn't be anyway." Granted, there aren't many people these days with both, but I'll tell you where to shove your bus before I hand over my phone.

They probably cut science class one too many times and never took the make-up tests.

Exactly.

We should at the very least stop enabling the endless price hikes by putting the university's skin in the game. As it stands now, you can take out huge loans for college. The university gets their cash before you even enter the classroom. If they sell you a degree that is worthless, they don' t have to care (much). They still get paid. If you can't pay the loan, they don't care, they already got paid. You also can't generally default on the loan through bankruptcy, so those loaning you the money don't care if you ever make a dime back on the degree, either. They'll still get theirs.

Room and board is usually a separate line item on the bill, so tuition is not going up because students want (or get) individual rooms.

Won't help. The primary impediment to travel is other cars. If you can get everyone else to buy ice tires, or hell, just teach them to drive on snow, I'd be fine.

Not even that. 50.5 million people voted for Dubya, or about 16% of Americans. If you want to cut to a more reasonable "Americans eligible to vote", then 26% of that 194 million voted for him (or Gore, for whom 51 million voted). There were 129.5 million registered voters, so 39.4% of them voted for Gore and 39% for Bush.

Even if you go to people who actually voted in the election, Gore got about 48 1/2 %. Still not a majority.

Exactly. $BOSS is an idiot. Everyone and everything has an error rate. Software development is well known not to be a perfect process. Even the very best developers create bugs. Your boss didn't hire some theoretical perfect developer, he hired you. If he's not happy with your error rate, he can fire you, but he can't require you to work for free just because you aren't as good as some theoretical perfect developer.

Based on my experience with these things at a beach, yes, they're very bright at night, and far, far brighter than instrument lights. I'm not talking $5 laser pointer, but $30 higher output (still tens of mW) toys.

I'm curious. Has anyone ever actually caused harm in US airspace with a laser pointer yet? Or are we creating a crime around something that has never caused harm?

Has anyone ever caused harm on US highways with a laser pointer? If not, is it ok if they hang around on your route home and shine it in your eyes as you drive by? Again, based on my experience at the beach, having these things shined in my eyes as I'm driving would be a problem and a hazard. Does someone actually have to be hurt or killed before we say stop?

This is very definitely a good idea, however I don't mind also taking morons who are deliberately messing with a vehicle carrying dozens to hundreds of live human beings and giving them a time out in a cell to think about why that's a stupid thing to do.

What height exactly? The height of an airplane taking off isn't really that high. Who says they're using average laser pointers? A beach I frequent sells those higher powered pointers. Some idiot was waving one around 1/4 to 1/2 mile away on the beach, and when it crossed my eyeball, it was a damned bright FLASH.

Everyone else will be using conventional sub-sonic missiles.

I was replying to this. Everyone else will NOT be using conventional sub-sonic missiles, unless they're using them in the 1940s or earlier. Everyone has supersonic missiles now, and has for a long, long time.

Conventional missiles have been supersonic for oh, 60 years or so now.

But yeah, I agree, the question is a stupid one. No, missile defense isn't obsolete, it'll just have to evolve to handle faster targets. Dare I say it...it's an arms race, and always will be.

This is absolutely true, but with one caveat: NASA shouldn't either write an RFP asking for "one size fits all" proposals, or shouldn't award the contract to a vendor who proposes doing that if that's not what they want. From the report, it sounds like that's what happened.