Why get hot and bothered about something when you can make a mockery of it?

It is usually more effective too.

It won't stop them being defeated by a the burglar wearing a hoodie.

Taking pride on one's work died round about the time that job security and pay that wasn't "How low can we get away with?" did.

I take it you are unemployed. If you are in full time education or work, in the depths of winter you will get up and be in the office/classroom in the dark before coming home in the dark having not seen natural sunlight all day. This is extremely depressing and has even been even proposed as a reason why people in the far north of a country have comparatively higher suicide rate than those in similar situations and backgrounds in more southerly locations. Anything that can stave this fate off for a few weeks in the year is most welcome.

Who most likely doesn't live in the North. I like seeing daylight every now and then.

There is a great difference between somebody who had a great idea, but was overlooked and somebody who blew it.

Babbage was the latter.

When he showed people a small prototype of his difference engine, they knew exactly what kind of potential it had. The TFA even said that the government backed him. I'll stop the press and let that sink in. The British government knew at the time just what a game changer this could have been. What TFA article doesn't say is the extent to which they backed him. In the prices of the day, they invested the equivalent of a fully kitted out and manned battleship in the project. A battleship. What happened?

Babbage squandered the money, fell out with every metal-smith in the country capable of building the difference engine and committed the ultimate crime of changing his mind and plans time and time and time again. Sure, he had a lot of plans for the Analytical engine, but he couldn't stay focused/act civilly enough to build the machine everybody wanted to begin with. After such an investment and nothing to show for it, nobody would give him the time of day, let alone commission him to build an even more complex machine with an unfinished design.

It could be said, rather than a man who had a great idea that wasn't realised. Babbage had a great idea that he killed so badly via his own incompetence, nobody touched it for another 100 years.

There are a few reasons I suspect and not all of them are about how awesome and useful they are as most of the posts above would have you believe. If technical skill was all that was required, why are there not more chemists?

From personal experiences only, I would say it is the fundamental difference in mindset required to practice a science over engineering. Self doubt and questioning are par for the course in the physical sciences, indeed it would be extremely difficult to do the job without the question "Are you sure?" running through your head every 15 min. Engineers on the other hand tend to deal in absolutes, laws carved in stone, it works or it doesn't, black and white. This does appeal to those with a predisposition to ignore shades of gray and are exactly the same traits as those of a fundamentalist of any persuasion, making them the ideal recruiting target.

This can be summed up by saying engineers tend to have a "I'm right. I'm right. I'M FUCKING RIGHT!" attitude to their work and life in general and woe betide anybody who tells them otherwise.

Disclaimer.... I openly accept that there is variability in any population, I made sweeping generalizations etc. This was done to stop the post turning into a monty python sketch listing all the exemptions. But the very fact I'm writing this disclaimer is a dead give-away that I am not an engineer.

As a Scot, I feel the need to explain a few things regarding the al-Megrahi compassionate release.

The Lockerbie bomber was tried and imprisoned under Scots Law. And under Scots law, if you are imprisoned, no longer seen as a threat to the public and in the medical opinion of the Scottish Prison Service 3 months to live you are eligible compassionate for release. In the vast majority of cases this is granted. That is The Law, no if's, no buts, no exemptions. No matter how much sickening it may be to do so.

While I am an Atheist, the laws of my country (like many in the west), have a heavy basis in the Christian Bible. As a result, lots of eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth but also the increasing unpopular notions of forgiveness and turning the other cheek. What benefit is there in letting a dying man, no matter how heinous the crime, spend his last days in prison? Is that a desire for justice or is it vengeance? Yes, he denied that fate to so many others. But that is no excuse to compromise these principles, doubly so when the state makes the decision. For if we do not show our values in the face of our enemies, how different are we from them?

It should be pointed out that the Doctor at the center of the "Ten years or more" life expectancy claim was not part of the medical opinion that formed the basis of his compassionate release, and has appeared on the TV saying he was misquoted. This opinion at the time of release was al-Megrahi has a 50% chance of passing away in the next 3 months, with the percentage decreasing to about 1% chance he will live 10 years.
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/187126-lockerbie-doctor-speaks-out-over-megrahi-comments/

The Scottish Government has already released all the records (Bar those the US and UK government has asked to with hold) regarding his release long before these senators trying to get themselves re-elected started this. Have a look for yourself.

Maybe, just maybe, the official position is the truth and the conspiracy is just that?

Could it be that 3 independent enquires came to a conclusion, upon examining the evidence, that did not validate your gut reaction?

"No Buck Rogers, no bucks."

I think that answers your question.

But you have to remember something. The way the US treated the political class of both Britain and France after world war two, your two best buddies in the whole wide world at the time, directly resulted in them developing independent nuclear deterrents.

Even you have to admit that insulting the British foreign minister to the point where a generally anti-nuclear democratic socialist cabinet will spend a significant portion of a wreaked economy by going for the bomb takes some doing.