No. It's a non profit, licence funded public organisation. Slightly differnt but the difference matters.

The licence fee may be considered a "tax", but it goes straight to the BBCthe BBC. It doesn't go into the general tax pool.

It is explicitly separate from government and while it's impossible to keep them completely isolated from each other, this separation is taken very seriously. The BBC has no qualms about upsetting the government, and any government that tries to exert pressure will be very unpopular.

Mind you - a good chunk of this would be across Siberia and another chunk through Alaska and a sparsely populated chunk of Canada. Can't imagine the Irkutz - Fairbanks stretch being all that popular and there's really not a lot between them - about the same distance as London-NY.

Essentially our big problem with going the short way round is that silly puddle between Europe and America.

I've heard that in Britain, our telecoms monopoly (BT) is obliged to provide service for a standard connection fee. There are occasional remote locations that they've been obliged to connect for a nominal fee of £130 or so.

It's not a complaint. It's simply an observation that perceived wisdom isn't always correct.

Let's build some robots first, and if they start interfering with the operation of each other come up with protocols that handle actual situations rather than hypotheticals.

Real world data is really useful!

No, the alternative was to wait.

It should be noted that:
  - The Japanese, like the Germans, had their own nuclear weapons program in progress. (That was how they were able to recognize the nuclear bombs for what they were: Bombs were SOME of the possibilities they were pursuing.)
  - While they thought nuclear-reaction bombs were hard but doable, they were actively working on the immanent bombardment of the West Coast of the Untied States with radiological weapons - "dirty bombs" spreading fatal levels of radioactive material. (Remember that much of the US war infrastructure, including nuclear laboratories such as Livermore and the Navy's Pacific fleet construction and supply lines, were on or very near the west coast. The prevailing winds are from the west and able to carry fallout blankets to them.)
  - The primary reason for using TWO bombs, only a few days apart, was to create the impression that the US could keep this up. The Japanese had an idea that making the bombs took so much resource that the US could only have a very few. And they were right.

As I understand it went something like this: There was enough material for no more than two or three more, then there'd have been about a year of infrastructure construction and ramp-up, after which the US could have started with monthly bombs and worked up to weekly or so. If the US could have gotten to that point unmolested, Japan was doomed. But a LOT can happen over that time in a total war - and big projects can get hamstrung when the bulk of the industrial output and manpower has to be used to fight off conventional attacks meanwhile. The idea was to give the Japanese the impression the US was ALREADY that far along.

12 grand with the air conditinoer and some unspecified options that don't prevent it from being stacked up like coffee cups?

For only a couple grand more I purchased, new, an 19 foot travel trailer, with kitchen, (propane stove, micrwave, propane/electric refrigerator) beds for five (if one is a kid) and two are friendlly - six if two are infants), which double as a daytime couch and bedding storage cabinet, TV antenna and prewire, air conditioner, bathroom with enclosed shower, closet, white grey and black water storage for two days if everybody showers daily, a week if they conserve, all hookablel to water and sewer if available, air conditinoier and furnace, lots of gear storage, two nights of battery power (though the microwave and air conditioner need shore power - the furnace runs on the batteries/power conditioner), hitch, dual-axle with tires, awning, etc.

This looks like a very pricey, very heavy, hardshell tent - with some lights, cots, and a big-brother computer monitoring system.

But I bet agencies would love the monitoring system.

Best suggestion I heard for thow the series should end was Chris carter, with a flip chart, expaining how everything fits together.

Yeah, I probably could have put that better. You absolutely can have a romantic interest as a fully developed character. It's one of the problems with the test.

But there are movies where the only thing that the female character is for is as motivation. The character could be replaced by a favourite pet or even an inanimate object that the protagonist happens to value, with minimal changes. Willie Scott from Temple of Doom could have been replaced by Indy's hat without affecting the plot!

"Firearms" is a vague term. At the very least, there are multiple interpretations and usages of it, some which have it cover just about any weapon that produces fire or fire-like heat. Thus, nukes could qualify under such a reading.

Someday a politician may promise "A chicken in every pot, and a nuke in every garage".

I meant before.

Over time we seem to be generally learning that our planet is rather unique in terms of our moon size, formation steps, and specific position in the "right kind" of galaxy per heavier elements and stellar explosion danger.

However, the flip side is that we've been learning how tenacious and flexible life is.

Thus, while matches to our particular circumstances may be rare, there may also be more than one path to sophisticated life.

For example, large Earth-sized moons of gas giants, oceans of mid-sized gas giants, and tidally-locked rocky planets around red dwarfs may also be able to harbor complex life.

Which one would get me jailed there?

Angle 1: "Your claim is a steaming pile of shit!"

Angle 2: "Your logic resembles the quickly-disintegrating chemical bonds as found in recently-emerging solid waste products of typical mammals."

Why not just a warning light and/or sound for the driver? Having it directly control the speed is both extra cost and extra risk.

Fat Client = Fat Holes. Fat luck fixing em all.