No, we didn't come from a single, common ancestor. However, that doesn't mean we aren't related to each other.

Think about it this way: You have two parents, four grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, etc. If you go back just a few dozen generations, you will reach a number that exceeds the population of the world. Obviously, you couldn't have that many individual ancestors at that generation. Instead, some of your ancestors were related to each other.

Geneticists have done a study of the smallest possible population of humans that could give rise to the current amount of diversity. Based on their study, the smallest population possible was a few 10s of thousands a few million years ago IIRC.

I argue that Al Gore had more votes. Your counter argument is something rather orthogonal to that. You're trying to argue whether one should vote for him (I'm guessing...). What does that have to do with him winning more votes?

I'm not sure that's any better. Many elections lately have been close enough that a single state could throw the result.

With a standard, national election system both parties would be interested in fairness. With each state in charge of their election with a member of one party or the other in charge of the election process, they have incentives and the ability to tamper with ballots.

They don't have mail-in ballots where you live? In Colorado, it's pretty easy to get your ballot mailed to you. Then you can either mail it back or drop it off. A heck of a lot more convenient than waiting in line to vote.

You seem to be forgetting about Thomas Edison, the most prolific inventor in American history. Or the Wright Brothers and their rather handy invention. Einstein was greeted as a hero when he first visited the US in 1921 and was more than welcome to immigrate here later. The US certainly wasn't anti-science then.

They also didn't view it as a conflict between religion and science except for evolution. Many of the original NASA astronauts and engineers were deeply religious. That didn't stop them from figuring out how to make multi-stage rockets capable of landing on the moon.

If you go back enough generations, everyone is related to everyone else. The claim I found (but couldn't confirm) is that Obama is George Washington's 2nd cousin, 9 times removed. Their common ancestor is 12 generations back, George Washington's great grandparents. Do you know how many 2nd cousins, 9 times removed you have? I estimated it to be nearly 300,000. The population of the US around the time George Washington was born was less than 3 million, giving Obama a 10% chance of being related to him.

Those are very rough odds, but it hopefully gives you an idea that having such a distant relationship isn't improbable at all. Also, the source I found for that information isn't reliable, it's possible they aren't related (or at least, their relation is even more distant). We are all Nth cousins, Y times removed from each other after all.

Al Gore had more votes nationwide. Bush won because we have an archaic, balkanized voting system.

Alas, it's the same for me. I've never bought an Apple product and never will. Most people who would buy Apple products probably couldn't care less about how many people commit suicide in their factories in China or how underhanded they are in anti-competitive practices elsewhere. They are the model corporation (in the worst possible sense), yet I bet more than a few people in the occupy movement love to use Apple products.

They are very similar to the European Galileo satellites. They are similar to GPS, but use different frequencies than GPS.

Originally, China was involved with the development of the Galileo constellation. They backed out because they didn't feel like they had a big enough voice in its development.

The Chinese constellation, Compass, is intended to be as accurate as GPS. They will almost certainly have their constellation fully deployed long before Europe gets their act together and finishes the Galileo system.

By the way, GPS doesn't only provide positioning service. Each satellite also has a detector for nuclear explosions and can quickly locate the position of any nuke going off on, or above, the surface.

Who does the US rely on for GPS? Only themselves of course, so this isn't exactly a good example.

Within 10-15 years, China will be deeply effected by their housing bubble as Japan was in the 90s. Unlike Japan, the primary thing maintaining social stability in China is continued economic growth. Without this, China will be facing very serious internal problems.

I recently read a Chinese article about how many celebrities in China have dual citizenship so that they can leave the country quickly. Many politically connected families send their girls overseas for college and the rich send both their boys and girls overseas. While this gives them an advantage for jobs within China, it also makes it easier for them to leave China in an emergency. They are very worried about social unrest, and I don't blame them.

I think you're right, but it has a big effect. Almost anyone who has much to lose won't take chances of being openly critical of the government online. Students, youth and people who don't have government jobs may feel safer criticizing the government. But people with high government jobs or who are related to someone with a job like that seem to be more cautious.

My wife was from a politically connected family in Beijing. She saw first-hand some of the awful corruption there, but would never post anything about it online for fear of getting her family in trouble.

I don't know if they actually would get in trouble, but she was certainly cowed by the Chinese government and I'm sure she isn't the only one.

America is very different than China. But simply having more online freedom than China shouldn't be a goal of course.

In America, content can be removed capriciously online. Sometimes people are sued by corporations. In the worst case scenario where you're caught red-handed sharing a movie online that hasn't been released in the theaters yet, you could be sent to jail for 2 years.

In China, you can write something online that offends a government official. You will then be summoned or taken to a police station. You could then spend the next 8-10 years at a labor camp and many other bad things can (and would) happen to you. On the plus side, you can upload as many movies as you want without repercussion over there. That's not a very good trade in my opinion.

That volcano isn't too active. We already have a couple of observatories on top of it.

There's also a limit to how much an ablative heat shield can endure. After a certain point, the contents behind the heat shield will bake.

It would be best if the mountain was near water so that if there's a launch failure there's less danger of ground casualties and it also gives a splashdown option for the astronauts.

Perhaps Mauna Kea in Hawaii would be a good spot for such a launch. It's near the equator too so there would be a little extra velocity from the rotation of the earth for a prograde orbit.

America is still a very rich country. Even if we paid $10/gallon at the pump, we'd still be paying lower taxes than Germans (no VAT here and lower income and property tax). We paid very high taxes during WWII and certainly didn't 'dismantle' our modern civilization, quite the opposite actually.

That money doesn't just go 'poof'. In Germany, you can get a free college education (and by 'you', I literally mean you if you are fluent in German regardless of where you're from). They also have high-speed rail, a substantial industrial sector (largest in Europe), and relatively low unemployment.

If gas prices went up, consumption of gas would surely go down, meaning more money would stay in the American economy rather than going overseas.

No doubt it would be painful, but there's no painless way of digging out of the huge debt the US is already in.