If you kept the Japanese sovereignty, government and military intact in 1945 then what would have changed there? Would you have ended up with a misgoverned, starving populace like Germany after WWI, so just setting the stage for Great Pacific War II by about 1965, or a glorious Socialist revolution by about 1955? One problem with the end of WWI is that the allies did not occupy Germany afterwards -- for that reason the German people could be told by their leaders later that they had not lost WWI -- that traitors in the German forces had given up. I know it sounds patronizing, but occupying post-war Japan was best, especially for the Japanese populace. The post-war Japanese democracy has turned out quite well for everybody. As far as putting a quick end to the war -- the Soviets were already invading Japan from the north -- it would have been bad news if they had gotten very far and it had ended up with a partitioned Japan like Germany (and later on Korea and Vietnam -- those didn't work out well). So Japan in 1945 is probably one of the very few examples where 'nation building' after defeat in a war worked well. It wouldn't have happened without post-war occupation.

If you go through the link you posted to one more deep you get this statement, "The administration of President Barack Obama asked for $20 million for the Pu-238 program in 2012, split evenly between NASA and the Energy Department. Lawmakers also denied funding for the program in the Energy Department’s 2010 and 2011 budgets."

Two comments:
1) You say, "Combined, axioms 3 and 4 state that elementary particles do not experience any passing of time". The unstable elementary particles (most of them) seem to experience time in that they can decay with no interaction with any other (real) particles, just the passage of time.

2) At risk of showing my complete ignorance of the philosophy of science -- I don't think this deep physics makes a statement as to the absolute "reality" of any concepts such as space and time, just that the concepts themselves provide a mathematical framework to make predictions about future observations. Any axioms or models which lead to the same predictions are mathematically equivalent and so are indistinguishable as far as "reality" is concerned.

" the states take away the right of the parties to handle their own nominations and the right of the ruling party to draw the districting lines, this isn't likely to change" -- as you probably know, California, the most populous state in the nation, effectively did that in 2010 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Citizens_Redistricting_Commission) so maybe there is hope. Cue the CA bashers but I can't see them (legitimately) spin this recent electoral reform in a bad way.

Damn, I hate to wade into this, but -- does anyone think that the US response to the 9/11 attacks would have been to invade Iraq if Gore had been president? That's one example of a huge difference between the candidates we were offered at the time. Sure, there are issues where the major parties are close, but there are occasional big differences also.

Going off topic, but -- "Obama is ok because Bush did the same" depends on the conversation and issue. If it's NSA misdeeds or something else that he should have fixed then, yes, we didn't vote for that. But if it's some ignorant right wing talking point like, "Obama issued an executive order! He's becoming a dictator!" (I've gotten plenty of those emails from my relatives), then it is legitimate to point out that executive orders are a standard action by every other president, so they can STFU on that one.

"Gold at the Starbow's End" -- one of my favorite novellas (and still is) as it was originally published in "Analog" in 1972; I have Mr. Pohl's autograph on my copy of that one. When he expanded it to book length and it was published stand alone -- I didn't like it at all; maybe I'll take another look, but I was very disappointed.

First of all, thanks for the comment. I've been working on one for a few days which basically says that despite the outrage on Slashdot, the general public doesn't really care about all this NSA stuff. Though I think you feel that the "powerful agents" over us have manipulated the public more directly and effectively than I think they have. I think the public really doesn't care and doesn't care to be informed, either. This was brought home to me last night as I surveyed the fare offered by the major TV networks in prime time -- "reality" and game shows. Sadly, those are the people we live with, if we don't like it we have to move -- where, I don't know. One more point I think you (and many others) have missed -- your "interesting times" comment -- it has been "interesting times" at least through the entire 20th century. This latest government overreach isn't new compared to the FBI under Hoover. Now we say -- "the government could ruin people's lives through this spying", well during the Red Scare of the '50s, it did ruin many peoples lives through spying and paranoid accusations of Communist influences. The biggest corps and media have always been mostly (not all) corrupt, too. I don't know what to do about it but it isn't all that new...

thrich81 here -- I kind of went off on you not exactly sticking to the argument you were making. Slashdot rage, I guess. The economists all say that eliminating trade barriers increases economic activity -- right about that. I'm not sure that necessarily leads to better circumstances for all or even most individuals, though. What is 'best' for a set of people is more complicated than maximum economic output overall.

One of the powers the US Constitution explicitly grants the federal government is the power to regulate interstate commerce to prevent trade barriers between States, cities, etc in the USA. Thus the States are free to poach jobs and industry from each other. US residents are also free to move without restriction to the states they like to follow those jobs. As far as the other countries are concerned, they can make their own gigantic market with no barriers to movement if they don't like the rules of access to that of the US. Soon China will have the biggest economy in the world -- don't like selling your product in the US market -- fine, go sell it in China, or the EU or whatever other bastion of free enterprise and free trade there is out there. As far as Smoot Hawley is concerned -- does that example really still apply when the economy of California alone now is probably larger than that of the entire world in 1929?

Hussein was delivered to justice only because the air strike on the Presidential Palace in Baghdad on 19 March 2003, which was intended to kill him, missed. This preceeded the actual invasion by regular forces by 4 days. I noticed that Hussein's heinous sons didn't get "delivered to justice". If I were in a country harboring terrorist leaders wanted by an outside major power, I'd rather they come after them with a drone than with an invasion -- much less risk to me personally. Actually my opinion would be that it wouldn't be a good idea to provide those guys safe harbor in the first place. The options of just letting them go about their business or asking them to turn themselves in doesn't seem realistic.

"Big rockets were needed for big nukes." -- at least this was factually incorrect by the time NASA came around in 1958. The military originally developed the Saturn I, predecessor to Apollo's Saturn IB and Saturn V in the late 50's/early 60's but gave it up to NASA when they determined that they had no military use for a rocket that big -- the nukes were coming down nicely in size. When the military later needed boosters bigger than their biggest ICBM (Titan II) they independently developed the Titan III and its successors which were cheaper than the Saturns. I've also heard the "Skylab Spy Station" theory before but don't buy it because the Air Force had their own spy station in the works (Manned Orbiting Laboratory) pretty far along in the 60's with astronauts and everything then gave it up because their unmanned spy satellites were doing the job.

According to the airline, a senior colleague with more experience landing 777s, including at San Francisco, sat beside him as co-pilot.
and "Ultimately, it’s the trainer pilot who is responsible for the flight,” Mr. Yoon, the Asiana president, said, referring to Lee Jeong-min, 49, the more experienced pilot who sat in the co-pilot’s seat when Lee Kang-guk was landing the plane. He had 3,220 hours of flying time with 777s.
These are from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/world/asia/asiana-airlines-san-francisco-plane-crash.html?_r=0

How about, "Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes."
and, "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
Both from Lincoln's second inaugural address. The whole thing is worth a read. Which American (or any other nation's) leader would you consider profound if Lincoln doesn't make it into that class?

I did something similar -- flew tactical jets for 10 years then went into Engineering (electrical/computer). My first bit of advice is:
Stay in the military and complete 20 years of service. Military salaries for mid-grade officers and above are competitive with engineering salaries once the untaxed benefits are figured in. If you really want to get over towards engineering, work your way over to the Systems Commands (Naval Air Systems Command for USN, USAF has something similar). You will be doing an engineering job there, systems and engineering management, but that's what mid-career engineering mostly is anyway. If you are like me, you will miss the military, especially the aircraft, stay in the cockpit as long as you can; it will feel strange looking back in as a civilian especially if you end up in a defense company. I was very happy to get back into the military cockpit for a couple of years on a recall to active duty after seven years out. Unless you just have to get out for some reason, the advantages of staying in for 20 years are compelling, and starting something new in your early 40's isn't that much different from doing it in your mid-30s. As far as getting going again when you get out -- I don't know if its feasible for you but I went straight into grad school for a Master's degree. Once in the civilian world, I found that my jet fighter experience was an interesting novelty but it didn't really count for a whole lot, even in the defense companies. Military experience in the Systems Commands would be better. Or just go fly for the airlines.