H1B is a total disaster for America. The reason is that it is being used to bring down wages and simply outsource jobs.
Far better to offer visas for those with the needed skills, but require that they be paid at prevailing wages.

Spot on taco. Spot on. Besides, they get to bring their family. Their immediate family. The problem comes when it is extended and they have no skills.

You miss the point. By putting in small reactors there and getting cheap energy flowing, they can:
1) make profits that are used to shut down the old reactors.
2) later on, with thorium reactor, the site can burn up about 95% of the old waste, leaving just a fraction to be shipped out or stored deep. And it will be safe within 200 years.
3) Far better to have the utility pay for this with on-going operations, than the customers, who then still have to buy electricity from other sources.

Other than mPower, none of those are going anywhere. Sux, esp for flibe.

As to the reason to go to SMR, I like it for other reasons. Far easier to put it along roads, rails, etc. In addition, with say 100 MWe system being small enough to locate in small towns, they can make use of the waste heat. Right now, everybody stays away from large reactors since they require large amounts of space.

no, they don't. Thorium will burn up 95% of it and the remaining 5% is safe after 200 years. That is why many of use keep pushing this.

Hmm.
Actually, I think that the real reason for putin to go after Crimea and Eastern Ukraine is that is where large quantities of oil/nat gas is. Enough that it would enable Europe to quit Russia.

Europe really needs to get off that imported energy.

Actually, not just ATK, but all of the companies connected to those republicans that I listed earlier. All of them are on the take for the SLS. Of course, the dems helped push the SLS through as well, but it is house neo-cons/tea* (not the real republicans) that are trying to gut private space.

Fair enough.
BUT, W wanted to leave a large number of troops in there. O did not. So, they are gone.

Actually, the F9 has 100% success with 8 flights.

No. Again, texas joined the US. While Mexico really did not own this land, there is no way for large entities other than the US to have taken on their military. Hence the Alamo.

Oh, I agreed with Canada on that one. Personally, I think that what W/neo-cons did was horribly destructive. I was opposed to how he handled Afghanistan, AQ, Iraq, etc.
BUT, while the west hates that we do this, Russia did not care, or actually enjoyed the fact that we were doing this.

And yet, they continue to have issues with the rocket that launches both the Soyuz and Progress. It is called, just a matter of time.
Regardless, SpaceX is at 100% success with their F9.

No, Ares I was SCHEDULED by 2014, but it was already exteneded out to 2017.

No, I prefer to have a large number of launch vehicles available, then to leave it to the whims of a bunch of DOD companies that are rapping and pillaging.
Look, back in the 60's, we had a large number of companies that competed. Now, they find it far more profitable to work together and keep the price up high.
And no, the SLS is NOT an option. We really already have muttiple options. We have Falcon 9, shortly to have Falcon Heavy. We have Atlas V, though that is about to stop. We have Delta IV. We have OSC with multiple rockets. And if we kill the SLS now, we can have a new COTS for say 2 SHLVs (realy SHs at say 150 tonnes, not this 70 tonne joke).
In addition, both Europe and Japan have launch systems. So, building the SLS does not buy us a thing. In fact, it simply is a waste of money.

Actually, if house republicans will quit gutting private space funding, and even increase it a bit, SpaceX can be ready to launch before the end of this year. And with just 1-2 months worth of work, they can be used as a return vehicle.
Of course, it all depends on funding.