The fact that people can't or won't take "proper care" of their pets has little to do with PETA. PETA was around well before this bad economy and will be around long after its full recovery. In the same vein, PETA's existence does not justify their message, nor is their message the truth behind their actions. As has been pointed out in other posts in this thread, PETA's main goal is not that every animal be happy, it's money and always will be. What does suing people in civil court for defamation have to do with animal rights? Jack squat, that's what. Their only motivation in this is cash (and maybe a dash of petty vindictiveness).

War of the Galaxies.

Don't feed the trolls, geez.

You're argument is completely asinine. Because something is in a movie means that its technology can never become reality? To be a bit more fair to your point, I think a fair paraphrasing with added meaning is "this was futuristic technology in a movie, thus it is not currently nor should be developed as a real technology." The thing about it is that movie techs come from ideas that people have. It's those same ideas that get researched and developed upon in the real world to give us real technologies. There are countless examples of technologies that started as science fiction/movie props and turned into reality. To give you a fairly current example, I'll cite rail guns. The uderlying techs (e.g. maglev) may have already existed, but it took a long time to successfully combine those techs into a new tech. The US Navy is now working on adding this particular tech to their vessels.

We've already had the underlying techs for this type of smart-gun tech for quite a while. There's no good reasons other than short-sighted stubbornness and sheer ignorance to assume that a reliable tech in this area can't be easily developed. While we're on the subject of reliability, I'd like to ask a question: do purely mechanical firearms work reliably 100% of the time? Answer: no, they don't, there's this little thing called misfiring. If you can give me an electronic system that fails less often than a mechanical system misfires, I'll take the electronic system every day of the week. Here's the misconception that will creep in though. When people have smart-guns that mechanically misfire, I guarantee that those misfires will be disproportionately attributed to any electronic system.

While I agree with your sentiment, the Supreme Court does not. They have specifically discussed the phrasing of the 2nd amendment and the "well-regulated militia" phrase, coming to the conclusion that the operative clause (about the right to bear arms being not infringed) is independent of the begining of the sentence. They also try to argue that "well-regulated" really means "disciplined", "well-trained", or something similar.

The most reasoned arguments I've heard or read have explained the phrasing as having the intention to deny the Government means to confiscate weapons from civilians that could form a militia. The purpose being to prevent a military State rule over its people. However, I think we can all agree that military capability has vastly surpassed that of the 18th century. That's where the problems come in. If the Government wanted to institute a military rule today, the people would be powerless to stop it, but that is a good thing. The people could be trusted with comparable military strength of the 18th century, the people cannot be trusted with comparable military strength of the 21st century. As decades continue to pass with Congress refusing to admit that the 2nd amendment requires updating to reflect this change over time, more confusion and cracks through the system will form.

Some people argue that technologies like this or the 3-D printed guns aren't that big of a deal because of how expensive and inaccessible they are right now. Mark my words, if left unchecked, both technologies will be widely used for nefarious purposes in 12-15 years. These are the types of things that we can't afford to be short-sighted on.

This technology is not in and of itself a weapon. It's just another piece of military tech. So yes, if it is not already, it will probably be banned (and probably should be) from use by the general population. You think the secret service has a tough time now? There would be assassinations galore if this tech was made relatively cheaply available and any fool with a couple grand could start sniping people from a mile away.

To start going into what is and isn't specifically mentioned in the 2nd Ammendment is nonsense. Nothing is specifically mentioned. The broadest term I suppose would be "weapon", which of course could be interpreted differently based on the "intended as a weapon" argument that CAN apply to just about any object, chemical, etc.; and the mention in the 2nd Amendment is to "Arms" which is basically a synonym of "weapon". The 2nd Amemendment says nothing about "side-arms" or even "firearms", just the ever ambiguous "Arms". It has been up to the Supreme Court over the years to provide interpretation for the Constitution (and the rest of US Law). Just recently in 2008, a Supreme Court ruling somewhat clarifies that "the right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose". They do not, however, go into detail of where the limits of that right exist other than to say the argument of that case (DC vs. Heller) - the mandatory trigger lock or disassembling of a lawful firearm - imposed on the lawful use of self-defense. Therefore, the inevitable will continue. Congress will be forced to make laws associated with new technologies, and the Court will be forced to hear arguments over whether or not those laws impose beyond the undefined limit of the rights established in the 2nd Ammendment, ambigious as they may be. Ammending the Constitution, of course, would be the obvious way to include some clause relating to defining what are considered reasonable, personal arms versus arms necessary to be only a part of either the "well-regulated militia" or military.

Go on google maps and take a gander pretty much anywhere in the northern portions of Siberia. It looks an awful lot like this.

Imagine how disappointed those people will be when they're dying on Mars and get word that a manned fly-by and return mission has just launched.

They should change the name of that committee officially to the "Committee on Science, Space, and Technology (HAHA, right...)" and each subcommitte should have sarcasm quotes around it's name, you know, the Subcommittee on "Research", the Subcommittee on "Environment", etc.

You wanna talk about being locked to a carrier? Try my situation: grandfathered in to the unlimited text and data, and on a family plan. All I do is pay my parents $40 a month ($10 for extra line, $30 for unlimited text and data). Oh, and I still get the subsidized phone price every two years, on the iPhone S rotation. Yea, I'll only be leaving this if I end up forced to move to a place where AT&T has NO coverage. Maybe someday in the future I can get my number changed to the master on the account and use that family plan for my family. Unlimited data for life!

Since when is Mohammed Ali an Egyptian, much less a Colonel in the Egyptian Navy?

Seeing as how these are actual judges, how does reasonable doubt factor into this? Hell, if I was a judge for this I'd give it to a guy who came in and put his certainty at 99% and had the numbers and statistical analysis to back it up.

Doesn't wikipedia already have something like this spreadsheet? Yes, they do. I guess only people who play video games use Wikipedia.

O'doyle rules