as someone quoted on their FB page: "April Fools Day used to be a lot more fun when there wasn't year-round attention-driven hoaxes all over the Net."

Obviously you got a 5 Score. Let me add that I'm old enough to recall ever since I've graduated from college in 1980s I have always heard "shortage of engineers!" cry (STEM is now the battle cry these days). What I noticed then and still notice is the ones calling for more STEM are the same types that screamed shortage of engineers. They are all non-engineers (sales, business, journalists, etc.). I don't push STEM as many claim "The Nobelist Of All Professions," but a career choice. And also let them know one can do many great things and also have to deal with hardships (demands of of ever-changing technologies, pulling all-nighters, getting tanked by marketing dept after much hard work developing a product).

it's there but when you speak out, you will get flamed for it as unpatriotic terrist commie pinko. or you get ignored. Getting back to media, nobody knows what is going on in Iraq or Afghanistan. Information is out there but difficult find. i.e. nobody in US knows the difference between a Sunni and a Shia. Or how did ISIS become so strong so quick. Information is out there but many articles either veer toward putting blame on someone (i.e. Obama's or Bush's fault). Or article is very long and very esoteric, will take many years to fully understand. Or what about all that money spent but infrastructure is still very third world country?

150 lives lost is a huge tragedy and no doubt this is a case of mass murder that has effected many others beside those on board. I was highlighting there are many other pilots that could have been hired and this situation would never have occurred. But then humans are unpredictable, as itzly pointed out when someone no longer thinks rationally then normal rules don't apply. It appears next step is the 2-person rule like in other critical positions so if one person goes nutzoid, the other can prevent an irrational action.

There are thousands (and many more) pilots of outstanding skill, character, values, etc. that dream of being an airline pilot. No shortage of pilots, and yet here we have someone that has done something horrible and thrown that opportunity away. Ok so we all have problems, even pilots dealing with many airlines skimping on pay and benefits (that's another story). It reminds me of the unabomber who had top career choice of a math professor at Berkeley but threw away that job to move into the backcountry to build mail bombs.

I think for Korean War it was 1950s and less than 10 years since WWII, there was no counterculture/question authority types during that decade. Also wartime coverage was limited but skyrocketed during Vietnam War. Though video was 16mm film, it quickly be developed and broadcasted on TV (there was less TV sets in homes in early 50s than in 1960s). Also during Vietnam War, media had much free access to battle zones. If there's room in the Huey, a reporter or camera guy can hop on board. Military only denied them on special ops missions. Of course all that had major impact on opinion. Civilians can see what battles are really like (chaos, nobody knows WTF is going on,etc.) and not like choreographed battles in the movies. After Vietnam, military forces realized they need tight control of media. We witnessed that during Falklands campaign which news was sporadic with much unsaid, first Gulf War where CNN kept showing the same footage of a cruise missile impacting a rooftop door but not much on the biggest tank battle since WWII.

I was thinking about how manufacturing is returning to USA but not the jobs. These are done by robots. And also many "high tech" positions have less entry level jobs.

Many facilities back when they were cranking out rockets like sausages, some explode during liftoff. Also lots of test stand activities such as Santa Susana test facility in hills behind Los Angeles, and today like many other places abandoned and contaminated.

There was an article, "Guns, God, and gays" where it talked about wedge issues that are hot button items for some people but really doesn't effect most people like low job prospects and environmental issues.

so far there's no H word so maybe Godwin's Law isn't a law after all.

I'm thinking back in the days when I first got a car so I can go cruising and also for going on dates. With drivers obsolete how would it impact this kind of social behavior? Or young people don't do this kind of thing anymore? Just wondering.

To deal with failures, Apollo program also consisted of a huge infrastructure to deal with failures. Many test stands and test articles were built, a lot of F1 engines were built as one failed after another. I'm sure many a thousands of engineers pulled many allnighters trying to make things work including s-band transmitters. First flight of Saturn V rocket had significant pogo oscillation problems (heck many other rockets had same problems). Immediately many engineers and techs built a test stand to learn how to mitigate pogo oscillations. And there was Apollo 1 capsule fire. Lots of resources were poured into complete redesign and construction. Lots of problems occurred i.e. computer problems on Apollo 11 lunar lander but there were resources of engineers and programmers to attack and solve that problem before it became a disaster. And Apollo 13 but there was a huge infrastructure of people and hardware to come up with contingencies to deal with the situation that allowed crew to safety return.

financial scraps, this is it (really, this dirt change out of total fed budget). And another example of written laws and charters that are interpreted very differently among different people (politicians and various people on the forums).

it seems to me anyone that is member of Republican party has to be anti-climate research. Two examples that stand out are a PBS documentary about congress debating climate research is one longtime congressman that was voted out of office, he is a Republican but voted on a bill to fund a program relating to climate research. Another I was talking about a presentation by Neil DeGrasse Tyson I attended, a friend that shares same interests in space and technology as I do commented "ugh, I'd run out of that theatre as fast as I can." Apparently since NDT promotes climate research but my friend being a Republican has to oppose NDT because conflict with "party requirements." Yes, it's all political but geez you guys. At least collect data and do analysis. You may not like the results. We don't argue about whether E=mc^2 is correct or not.

I second what you say and I want to add the death penalty also prevents learning what motivates murderers and also other despicable people. Psychologists can study these people like Charles Manson. Then there are others that were put to death such as Rosenbergs (sp? the couple accused of selling atomic secrets) so as time goes on and viewpoints change, we miss on what there side of the story is. Saddam Hussein was hanged shortly after US occupation, supposably he really believed he had WMDs because his staff said so out of fear so they propped up this myth. And another was Saddam was more concerned of invasion by Iran instead of US. I also think he could have spilled a lot of dirt on various world leaders including those in US during his time in power. But he is conveniently dead so all this is subject to conjecture.

Getting back to life in jail means innocent people have a chance, few years ago Michigan (or some other state in that region) the governor put a halt on all death penalties even though he was pro-death penalty. Reason was a study showed 160 death row inmates were found innocent due to DNA testing. I don't have details on the story, I heard of it briefly mentioned on a radio news program.