Exactly. Even if we DID build an Orion nuclear spacecraft (http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclearspace-03h.html), at best we'll get 1/10th light speed, and it would take the equivalent of several thousand Saturn V launches to build the ship in space. So we're talking at best a 220 year round trip, IF everything went right.

That's exactly what I did with our 505!
My wife had it for just about a year and then wanted a Kindle so I loaded it up with about two dozen public domain books. It worked very well, and for my train ride into NYC was perfect because the battery life was adequate and the screen was non-glare and nigh indestructible no matter who hit it/pushed into me/knocked my bag. Heck, I fell asleep several times and dropped the thing hard. It didn't care.

And since absolutely nobody ever wanted to steal it, that was a bonus too.

Or about 9.942 rods. Which in my car would cause me to burn 0.00007238095 hogsheads of gasoline.

Well, yes. That's what the Big Bang Theory is in a nutshell, and it was after all originally developed by Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian Catholic Priest.
It's notable that all of the planet's major religions endorse the BBT and consider it to not be at odds with their faith including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, & Judaism.

Actually, it improves the potato crop. (FIVE GUYS needs every potato they can lay their hands on!) The waste has also sped up work at the prehistoric Kennewick Man site, and has increased sales of all kinds of abatement gear (and anti-roadrunner technology) from ACME in nearby Walla-Walla.

I disagree with your insinuation that the US Government are the good guys in this case. (Think "Fast & Furious".)

The laptop manufacturer with an decade long ongoing power supply issue in almost every model now has battery issues? Say it isn't so! Oh, wait, this isn't 2009. We've already done this.
http://hothardware.com/News/So...

The North Koreans will happily take it.

Wow. I love your link... thanks for showing that the fossil fuel industry does not get a single subsidy. Seriously. Everything listed from pages 6 through 13 is a tax break.
And let's look at the things this wonderful environmentalist think tank listed as "Grants":

1) LIHEAP ($6,358): The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Government funding to keep poor people warm.
2) Strategic Petroleum Reserve ($6,183) : This is the Federal government keeping oil around in case of an emergency.
3) Black Lung Disability Trust Fund ($1,035) : Federal money to pay benefits to sick miners.
4) Highway Trust Fund ($500) : The Highway Trust Fund supports highway, road, and other transportation projects throughout the country. It is funded largely by the Transportation Fuel Excise Tax on road fuels.
5) Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve ($50): similar to the SPR in #2 above, but concentrated in the Northeast where home heating oil is a common fuel.
6) Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves ($28) : "As the payments do not benefit a fuel source, but rather were used to settle a dispute, they do not constitute a subsidy to fossil fuels."

Calling any of these a subsidy if a sad joke. In short, there is NO SUBDSIDY OF FOSSIL FUELS by the US Government.

What? Are you saying that the Britain she inherited from James Callaghan was somehow a paradise? It was a MESS, as was the US when Reagan took the reins from Carter! Her economic reforms are the reason why today Britain's economy doesn't look like Italy's!

In that list, name just one, please. As for Empire, haven't you ever wondered why Elstree Studios is in the credits? IT WAS SHOT THERE.

On what do you base that conclusion, when we had TOM BAKER as the Doctor from 1975-1981 followed by PETER DAVIDSON from 1981-1985? Then we had such other Britcom greats as Blackadder, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Blake's 7, Red Dwarf, Antiques Roadshow, East Enders, The Young Ones... plus the rise of British New Wave and Heavy Metal, etc.? Okay, the Bond franchise went from four solid Moore films to the questionable Living Daylights and awful License to Kill starring Tim Dalton, but surely that wasn't all Maggie's fault! And we did get The Elephant Man, The Empire Strikes Back, Chariots of Fire, Excalibur, Gandhi, Pink Floyd's The Wall, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, Henry V, Highlander...

Has begun work on something called a 'Wave Motion Gun". Details are sketchy at this time, but the plans seem to involve the recycling of a sunken World War Two battleship...

Legacy of the Ancients! Now THAT was a great game! I also love Wasteland & Pool. The Pool of Radiance module for Neverwinter Nights was flawless, IMO. My old gaming buddies and I played that 4 or 5 times just for the nostalgia. (And heck, it was BETTER since it was multi-user and not just us talking about what we were doing at home on our Commie 64s...)

Miss! (I want to go beat them with my Visa card until they explode like a blood sausage... NO! Better! Reduced to a thin red paste!!)