I've found that to be the case most of my life. Well, at least after the internet came along. But then I live in the US. It tends to work that way here. We're a nation of immigrants, except for the extremely small fraction of a percentage of the indigenous population that our ancestors and/or predecessors didn't kill.

I am amazed at how different this is in most other countries though. If you go to the EU there are all these little countries that do a great job of maintaining their national identity. In the US we tend to assimilate just about everything.

Send an MQ-9 Reaper to "deliver" a Hellfire missile to your residence. Obviously if you are offline you have something to hide. And if you have something to hide, you must be a terrorist.

It embiggens the English vocabulary. Do you have any idea how many words William Shakespeare made up? Language evolves. If you don't like it, then start speaking Latin.

If nothing else, it's rather sad that Seth Rogen and James Franco are able to have a bigger impact on North Korea than sanctions and every diplomat and US president since the end of the Korean War.

This sounds like Nobel Peace Prize buzz to me. ;-)

How low do you think their typical operational ceiling will be? These aren't bi-planes flying during WWI. While the F-35 is supposed to be able to take over for the A-10 in close air support, it's not even remotely designed for it, and will never be effective at it. The F-35 is not as robust, cannot fly as slow, nor loiter nearly as long. In the end it either won't be used in that role, or will be discontinued in that role as it will be a miserable failure at close air support. In it's typical operational altitude, smoke will not be and issue.

I know. I was being facetious.

Yes, by today's standards. But you made a comparison to a time when the US actually was willing to, and did use atomic bombs in anger. Do you think the US would have shown the same restraint in January of 1945 if they had an Ohio class sub? My guess is that all 24 Trident II SLBMs would have been MIRVed and every one would have had 8 physics packages. They would have been willing to launch every single one at that point in time. Just as they nuked Nagasaki three days after Hiroshima because the Japanese asked for four conditions to surrender rather than unconditionally.

Imagine that, we had a shitload of active warships and manpower in the US Navy fourteen days prior to the surrender of Japan during WWII. That was almost 4 years after Pearl Harbor. What was the US Navy looking like in 1939? Nowhere near what it was at the end of the Pacific campaign.

And what was the destructive capacity of the Navy in 2006 compared to August 1945? Hell, one Ohio class submarine has more destructive capacity than the entire Navy from 1945. As cool as battleships are, they are a relic and have no real function in the current military. A single carrier group from the current Nimitz class could obliterate all 28 fleet carriers and support ships before they even knew what had happened. Technology has made the requirement for massive amounts of ships meaningless. The amount of manpower is also significantly reduced. You also can't compare the necessary number of ships during a massive multi-year war to post cold war times. Iraq, Afghanistan, etc are regional conflicts at best and not even against the country itself. Massive amounts of firepower are generally not wise when fighting insurgents. You don't carpet bomb an entire village when there are only 4 hostiles in it. .

The cold war is over and the US is not at war with any large governments any longer. Why would you want more men when the ships have become more efficient and have so much more firepower? Look at the number of men in the Iraqi military compared to the US. How did those superior numbers work out for them? In the case of carriers they are also nuclear. You don't need men to shovel coal into boilers any longer either.

Sure they do. But leaving the country and leaving life are often the same in this case. I'm not sure many people would choose to leave. It's my understanding that those people in this group are treated extremely well. Especially compared to the average citizens of North Korea. Plus I'm sure if you have and love your family you're not going to screw it up for them either.

I don't know. I thought when Benedict Cumberbatch introduced himself to Kirk and Spock was freaking hilarious. "My... Name... is,,, Khaaa-na!" Not "Khan Noonien Singh". Just "Khaaa-na"

I so wanted to see Kirk reply. "Nice to meet you Khaaa Nah. I'm Ka-eeeeerk"

Apparently no one else was named Khan in the past 300 years since his disappearance. It would be like Jack the Ripper showing up and introducing himself to someone today at "Jaaa-ck" and expecting them to know who is was.

Who introduces them self that way? I think I'll try that during my next job interview.

Please don't misunderstand me.I was one of those kids who brought home every wounded or orphaned animal I found as a kid and raised or nursed them back to health. I haven't changed much and have kept animals most of my life and feel they should be treated well. But to claim they have a sense of "humanity" is a little strange to me and anthropomorphizes most (if not all) beyond reason.

Did the dog in the example you mentioned not take the flavorless treat because it thought it was "unfair" or because it simply didn't find the treat appealing? Even if it was due to it being unfair, that's hardly a human only trait. My daughter had a pet rat who would turn down treats it liked if it thought you had something else that it liked even better.

Dogs have been domesticated for a very long time. Longer than recorded history. When I was young I read that dogs wagging their tails when they are happy was not something that they naturally did. I never really believed it. But I had a wolf hybrid, when I was in my late teens, who didn't wag his tail. I also found a stray German Shepherd who was on his own for most of the first two years of his life. He never wagged his tail either. I currently have a two year old Doberman who was given virtually no human or animal contact for the first 9 months of her life and was in a shelter for over a year after that. I've had her for close to a year now and she has just recently started wagging her tail(nub) as she's seen our other two dogs doing it.

Dogs are pack animals and have a very strict hierarchy. They protect the pack and, in most cases, their humans are the alphas.

There have been numerous studies that show the color of the light also has a surprising impact on sleep too. Blue light is more disruptive than red or yellow prior to going to sleep.

Well he did say they used an algorithm to make this determination. Apparently it's not a very good one.

Please do enlighten us about the humanity of animals.

Which notes did you have in mind?