"550,000 million dollar Kepler space telescope"

I think you're about 3 orders of magnitude too high.

So... The two of you are in agreement that we're completely fucked unless we follow your path.

However, you seem to disagree strongly about what that path is, save that yours is the "right" one.

Here are two cricket bats. Beat on each other until one of you is unconscious or you reach a consensus.

The rest of us will continue blundering our way to the future while you have it out. Hopefully, by then the answer won't matter anyway.

If it fails as badly as the rabbit infestation, you've given the pols another wonderful issue to send out direct mailings about!

Not to mention, a whole slew of disaster movies that will make Night of the Lepus look positively tame.

"why would some intentional geoengineering be so bad?"

If it fails, not much.

But if it works, and global warming is controlled, it would undercut the best fundraising, societal engineering and lobbying arguments many organizations have.

Example: It'd remove a massive issue for the Democrats and Republicans to argue about and scare voters with.

Repeat that with both environmental and conservative organizations losing that issue, and you have a worse crisis for them than just the prospect of getting cooked by rising temperatures. ;)

"What are ya programmin' for, Timmy my boy?"

"Helps with my hallucinations. I get to see the world in its real black and white!"

(We're all coders on this bus.)

"hillbilly echo-chamber constantly circle-jerking while chanting "fuck you, got mine"."

Oh, really?

What type of echo-chamber do you circle-jerk in, and what mindless mantra do you chant?

They will very soon have a comprehensive database of the very best automated troll entry coding skillsets that GNAA and other such groups can muster.

Or didn't they get the memo that Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf won man of the year over a decade ago?

You mean, like is combined with arsenic (a deadly poison) to use for all sorts of evil things like LEDs and high speed transistors for things like cell phones?

And you can combine it with that nitrogen stuff that is part of so many explosives. And use it for (wait for it) even brighter LEDs!

Wow. That's some real exotic stuff there. Certainly wouldn't want any of that in the world.

Yeah, this is the sort of BS I'd expect out of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. It's sad they've figured out that submitting everything to Slashdot is a way to shovel their message.

Nasty. Swans are already mean as all get out and now you want to genetically engineer them with African bee dna, so they behave like killer bees.

Black swan: Cygnus atratus
Africanized honey bee: Apis mellifera adansonii

Africanized Black Swan: Cygnus atratus adansonii (variety: Winged Death).

Attacks in flocks of thousands and chases you for miles. Almost as bad as sharks with lasers, but can fly and travel on land. Doctor Evil would be proud.

"bootstrapping a solar system civilization with no additional money"

FTFY.

It's Ingrid Newkirk. What did you expect?

That was in the 68 campaign (i.e. I'm a bit young to remember much of it personally, unlike Watergate and the fall of Saigon). How much effect it really had can be argued. One thing I do know is that even later the Paris talks weren't looking all that promising until at least 1972, and Thieu had to be strongarmed to go along. Whether Johnson/Humphrey could have delivered Thieu to the negotiating table even without interference is a question we'll never know the answer to.

There's plenty of things to dislike about Nixon. He's always been a mixed bag in a lot of ways. Yes, he was a crook. But, some of the diplomacy during his administration may have reduced the chance for nuclear war (détente with the USSR, and the opening with China).

In some ways, his Vietnam policy is similar to Obama's in Iraq. Then it was called Vietnamization, now it's called having the Iraqi's assume responsibility for their security. In the case of Nixon, we have 40 years of history to know it didn't work very well. In 40 years, we'll know a lot more about how Iraq works out.

All depends on how you define "playing in that sandbox". We had several hundred military advisors there during the 50s. Now, you may be able to say that Truman was also "playing in that sandbox" while it was still French, but you can't say the US wasn't there in more than just casual numbers during Eisenhower's administration.

Now, if you mean standard combat troops, that was the Kennedy administration. But, advisors and intelligence personnel are a nebulous area (a bit like our current anti-gravity personnel in Iraq who in no ways have their "boots on the ground").

"But.. if I feel like Nixon hating there is always Vietnam"

Which part do you hate him for? Ike and especially Kennedy were already playing in that sandbox. LBJ was the one to get the Tonkin Gulf resolution passed and massively enlarge the commitment of troops.

If it's that you think he lost the war, that was already well underway since the crisis of US public opinion after Tet. The draw down of troops and the cut off of ammunition to South Vietnam were nearly mandated as a result of public opinion and congressional action.

Yes, Nixon increased the bombing campaign and implemented a blockade, but also pursued peace talks with North Vietnam (The agreements which N. Vietnam basically violated when they pushed south.)

I've been appalled by how often when I've heard one of the younger set say that Nixon started the Vietnam War. That's a pretty major failure of history knowledge. I'm hoping that's not what you were thinking.

Sure. Or, just make it a hybrid drive with charging from the grid and have the best of both worlds.

Fire trucks are a small enough part of the vehicles out there to be less of a worry for efficiency. Reliability is a big thing for emergency vehicles.

There are a lot of garbage trucks and other utility type trucks out there that do short range stop and start runs that would probably make a lot bigger difference.