Perhaps the cities would fall, sure. Fortunately, all those redneck skills/traits for which we hillbillies are typically mocked will certainly slow down any would be invader once they reach the Appalachians.

Um, that's how this trading game works. I make money. Someone else has to lose it. I want to buy a certain stock at $5/share because I think the price is going up. You want to sell that same stock at $5/share because you think it is going down. I buy the stock and it goes up to $5.10 five minutes after my purchase and I immediately sell it. It means you made a bad decision by not waiting five more minutes to sell. I made a good decision. You lost money. I made money. Rinse and repeat. Who ever makes the most good decisions wins. It is gambling - but slightly less gambling than poker and significantly less gambling than an entirely random game of chance.

Traders like trading stock. They add their money to the pool. More money in the pool distributed across the market increases the market value of companies in which they invest. The higher market value enables those companies to borrow on better terms or otherwise raise additional capital. That additional capital helps the company grow creating real return for actual investors. Some traders win. Some traders lose. But long term investors are better off either way. QED.

My initial reaction while watching that live was that true market forces nearly instantaneously corrected any glitch by returning the stocks to their perceived market value.

Of course, the counter to this is that the instability of the markets discourages investment which lowers the overall market cap. Eh, who knows...

Also consider the current backlash against the uber-wealthy (definitely in America, presumably around the world). You have movie stars and rock stars earning millions upon millions of dollars for performances not always considered worthy of the pay and a population who is apparently much less concerned about the well to do of the well-to-do.

For the music industry, a sustainable business model is to freely distribute recordings and charge higher for live performances. The availability of recordings acts as promotion for the live performances.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a comparable business model for the movie industry - unless they all want to go back to live performances.

What is this social interaction of which you speak? And do I want it?

The issue for me is that games are now too long for me to finish before I get interrupted by other responsibilities. Fallout 3 and Dragon Age were both interrupted and I failed to return back to them to finish, but have finished Halo 3 twice. I was probably 30+ hours into FO3 and DA:O, and got bored/distracted by other things in my life. The story line for Halo 3 takes about a leisurely weekend to get through.

That's my problem. I have momentary breaks in my life where I'll have a slow weekend or week that I can really get some gaming in. But if it takes more than a week or two to get through a story line, other responsibilities/interests arise, I get distracted, and by the time I have another break for gaming, I'm no longer interested.

Can a democrat accurately describe the fundamental ideology of members of the Republican party? Or does he or she assume that the most outlandish of Republicans represent the norm?

The Republican party I know is comprised of several distinct groups, not all necessarily mutually exclusive. One group believes in small government, less regulation, lower taxes. The Reagan Republicans, if you will. One group believes in laissez faire capitalism: the Randian Republicans. Another group believes in bigger government for the purposes of national defense and international manipulation. We'll call them the Bush Republicans. One other group believes in totalitarian government: the religious right.

Some members of the Republican party, myself included, despises the religious right and everything for which it stands. I also dislike the Bush Republicans.

As I've recently convinced my wife, both the religious right's stance and the Bush Republican stance is inconsistent with the fundamental basis of traditional Republican values. Fundamentally, we believe in less government involvement in everything - from business to individuals to international affairs. But without these other groups, we'd never win an election.

And now we see why Republicans are f$cked. In order to have any political clout, we sold our souls to the war machine and to God. We cannot abandon them (despite the Tea Party's now twisted goals) because without them, we're massively outnumbered by people who believe that governments should always be doing something.

So I've essentially given up. I believe that the government that governs least governs best. But I'm in the vast minority on that one. So I just have to suck it up and pay my taxes and grumble. Like this post.

I was not aware that the drilling contract was available to the public. Or are you sharing confidential information on a public forum?

Finally, someone talking some sense. BP is being blamed by the feds and press because every American (well, most) know of the existence of BP. I'd wager that fewer than 10% had ever heard of Transocean prior to the accident. The more I've read, the less culpable BP seems. The president coming out and essentially convicting BP before all the facts were known was completely inappropriate.

Bread and circuses...

Without the profit motive, they have no reason to provide you with oil and its products.

And lets not forget that they allegedly did install a check valve. The check valve failed to close. Was it BP cutting corners to squeeze a little additional margin? Or was it the check valve manufacturer who cut corners in the manufacture of its product that caused this disaster?

I suspect that plants do not use 100% of available energy reaching the surface of the Earth. Its not like we'll be coating the surface of the Earth with solar panels within the next 100 years. But what it does provide us with is additional time to perfect fusion.

When discussing global warming and energy policy with associates, the typical basis of my point of view is "we either figure out fusion or we're screwed." Wider adoption of solar/wind/geothermal at least gives us more time to get there before society collapses.

I do agree, however, with your concerns about the effect of wide adoption of solar energy on weather patterns.

The existence of corporations arose by virtue of express permission from the government of the country/state in which the corporation desired to transact business with a corporate liability shield. Because they cannot conduct business with the privileges and protections of a corporation without the express permission of the applicable government, the government is empowered to condition the granting of the corporate charter upon certain conditions. One of these conditions is prohibition against certain types of anti-competitive practices.

So yes, private property came first, but a corporation cannot exist to be an owner of private property without the express permission of the government in which it wishes to transact business. That entitles the government a certain level of control.

I would be curious to see what would happen if an individual tried to go out and do something like this - say, some particularly wealthy fellow decided to go out and buy all coal reserves in the United States, then refused to develop it. I don't think anti-trust laws would apply. I suppose the government(s) would just claim imminent domain.

Eh, don't forget the GMO soy bean and their efforts to destroy heirloom soy bean farming.

Well, according to wikipedia, the largest estimates put the Oort cloud out at 3.6 light years, so this brown dwarf is probably too far away to perturb the Oort cloud, but as an aside observation: If the Sun's oort cloud is 3.5 light years in radius, and Proxima Centuari is only 4.2 light years away, and assuming Proxima Centuri has its own oort cloud (if it didn't get swept away by the gravitational interaction of the multiple stars), would our system's outer members and Proxima's outer members intermingle? IIRC, the Oort cloud objects aren't necessarily on the plane on the system.

Ten light years away... How far out does the Oort cloud extend? Its NEMESIS!!