Well yeah, but at what point does this observation just become rationalization? You can answer ANY question of why someone did something with "because it was in their self interest", because otherwise why would they have done it? It's a bit of a circular definition, no?

...and as someone who contributed to the shipping software on it, I'd like to be the first to say THANK GOD FINALLY! It was a long, hard road to completion, but I think the plane's going to do really well.

You assume that Tea Partiers are something other than moderately extreme Republicans. They are not.

Yes, he did! Which is why you said it had already been done.

Have you already forgotten the Scopes monkey trial? Come on, that was only 90 years ago, versus your examples.

"To rationalize looting"? You seriously think that? Lemme guess, you also think that taxes are slavery, right?

Man, the entitlement sense some people have! You don't even realize how many benefits you get from having a stable society, do you?

"Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets" makes the acronym CLOD, you insensitive cloud!

Okay, so you're trying to say that "save the people" is not a worthy goal? I, for one, would consider the extinction of the human race to be a Very Bad Thing.

True, one testable, repeatable result is all that is necessary to falsify something. What would you propose? Your definition of science is really really narrow. Is astronomy not science, because we can't perform experiments on black holes at the center of the galaxy? No, because we observe natural phenomena, make theories as to whether they would happen, and then test the implications of those theories by other observations. Just like with AGW.

jmorris: Okay, you falsify AGW by pulling out and sequestering all of the CO2 in the atmosphere that was put there by burning fossil fuels. If the earth does not cool, it's falsified. Difficulty in falsification does not mean it's not science.

I disagree, taking religion out of the equation WOULD change things. If it is harder to muster up the excuse to oppress or attack people, it will happen less frequently. Removal of religion wouldn't be a CURE, but it would have a nonzero effect.

Uh... what? Are you sure? If the asteroid were going to hit the surface of the planet, all its kinetic energy would have been converted to heat anyway, right? Why would it be worse to do that primarily in the upper atmosphere instead? And wouldn't it be worse if a huge dust cloud were raised that plunged us into a several-year winter?

Who blames Carly because she was rude? From all accounts I've heard, the Compaq merger was a huge mistake, as was the spin-off of Agilent and the iPod cross-licensing with Apple. You think that the party thrown when she left was just because she was rude? Why did HP's market cap raise by $8 BILLION when she left? Surely market traders on Wall street wouldn't care whether she was gruff with her employees.

Nope, not even close to 40 man-years, which is good, because think about the prices here.

40 man-years == 40 man crew working for a solid year. Even without ANY materials to build with, that means that you'd be paying 40 people a year's salary to build the house. Even a REALLY CHEAP salary (say $20,000) means you have $800K in labor costs alone. Not plausible.

According to this forum post here, it's anywhere from 2-8 months with a crew of 2-3 guys. So think an upper bound on an average house of about 2 man-years.

Wow, and that's a bog-standard Civic sedan. My '93 VX hatchback GETS (still, at 210K miles) 38-40mpg, and I drive it like it's stolen most of the time. It's all about the 2,095 lb curb weight, tall gear ratios, and a 1.5l VTEC-E engine tuned for efficiency from the factory.