The assumption from TFA is that we could only manage to keep an asteroid of that size in earth orbit for a couple years before it breaks away and drifts off. Considering $25 trillion is a bit less than half of the world's current annual GDP, I'm not sure you could feasibly invest in and develop an enterprise that could mine off that much raw material within the couple years we have it. And even then, it's unlikely to be worth the investment if you have to redirect the majority of the world's resources just to pull it off.

So by your interpretation, god allowed the part about creating other humans to be omitted from his book, thereby misleading the vast majority of people reading it into thinking that the earliest humans were highly incestuous. Then, upon realizing this fatal mistake, he decided to outlaw incest altogether.

If this dude has a master plan, he's certainly half-assing it.

It's also worth noting that the land was actually traded for several thousand dollars (in that time, not today's) worth of beads, firearms, cookware, and other manufactured goods (the bulk of which was NOT the beads).

It's especially worth noting that the natives who sold the land didn't live there. They actually sold a neighboring tribe's land. The rest is violent force and cooties.

You realize this says "taxes and interest" under income, right? Social security contribution from the American people only come through a tax... why would the word "interest" be under income?

Because social security 'invests' its money into federal securities, which the federal government then uses to finance other programs (this and similar IOUs to trust funds make up about 4+ trillion of the current debt). The intention is, of course, to pay off the necessary securities before the social security payments need to be sent.

Now, the federal government could choose to pay those obligations and default on something else. Not all of the debt has to go bad at once, but this is a delicate balance. Do you pay your overseas creditors? Do you pay your employees? Do you pay your debts that you owe to yourself (social security)? As far as protecting the credit rating goes, it's probably wisest to pay outside creditors first. The fact is we already hit the debt ceiling in May, and we are holding on until August 2nd by not investing in certain federal pension and retirement programs with the excuse "we'll make it up later once we get a higher debt limit". This is at least a slight bit of evidence that we are more likely to prioritize outside creditors, and therefore default on something like social security or federal wages.

But it all remains to be seen... The fact is I'm a little surprised the Treasury hasn't released a plan with its payment priorities already, or at least I haven't been able to find one.

Can't reach TFA due to high traffic right now but from TFS it doesn't really say whether anything they stole was that expensive, just that there was "One Gigabyte" of it.

It could just be cafeteria menus.

It'll be a dark day when NATO's enemies hear about next Tuesday's Salisbury steak.

There's a $40 fee for that service.

Too bad they can't since that gesture is patented.

Fixed that for you.