According to the articles linked, they have FAA approval to fly in the area at this time. Also, they were wanting to fly mapping operations to help local officials while the weather grounded all other aircraft operations, hence there would be no air traffic issues. The drones are far more capable of imaging and mapping the flooded area in a timely manner than any manned aircraft available.

The video has loud obnoxious ads which you cannot skip.

My family and I have never cared about watching the Academy Awards, the Emmy Awards, or any other such awards show for many years. A late freind of mine actually won an Emmy (he did audio work), and even he didn't think much of it. He laughed when I asked him about it years ago. He told me that they gave him the thing on stage, then when he went off stage they took it from him, and said it would cost him $300 to keep the statuette. He always laughed about that, but myself and others who knew him did as well, for the thing is made cheap, and his broke. I have always seen the award shows as a self masturbatory act, and he even agreed.

Owning the weapons are legal from that date, but the selling of them is not except under specific circumstances. Since the parent said "selling", you should probably learn reading comprehension before spewing your own mouth off in the future.

The requirements for obtaining selective fire weapons in the US is age 21, FBI background check (which you have to pay for), sign-off of local police, and they're also pretty damn expensive all by themselves. School shooters like this deranged kid or even his mother are not going to get their hands on automatic weapons like this, and none of them have.

You do not know what you are talking about. I suggest you kindly not talk about subjects not in your area of expertise, just as I do not post BS on subjects not in my area of expertise. First off, I own Title 2 firearms. Yes, you read that right. I own machine guns, suppressors, and a few other regulated, legally registered weapons. I have been a collector/investor for many years, so I have a clue. The parent post you replied to was correct as well.

Title II firearms are regulated by the National Firearms Act of 1934, commonly referred to as NFA. Sometime the weapons are incorrectly refered to as "Class3" by the general public. All NFA weapons are tracked with mandated registration with the BATFE. Weapons regulated by the NFA are Title 2 weapons (Title 1 weapons are "normal" firearms you see in most gun stores) include Destructive Devices, Suppressors (aka Silencers), machineguns made prior to May 1986, Short Barreled Rifles (SBR), Short Barreled Shotguns (SBS), and lastly the Any Other Weapon (AOW) category. These items can be purchased and transferred to you from any FFL who has paid an annual Special Occupation Tax (SOT) on file with the BATFE. Not all states allow you to purchase or posses these items, but most do. That being said, Federal law is clear that you can own these items if you pass the background check done by BATFE, which generally takes a few months due to the volume of applications they process. State law however, can limit or prohibit your possession, as well as use of the items. When you purchase any of the items above, you pay a one time $200 transfer tax to the BATFE per serial numbered item. The only exception are the AOW's which have a $5 transfer tax.

The age restrictions on the Federal level for Title 2 weapons is the same as it is for a handgun. The age limit to purchase one of these items through a dealer, or to have it transfered through a dealer, is 21 years of age. If a person is between the ages of 18-21, you can purchase a Title 2 firearm from an individual, as allowed by Federal law. A dealer is not involved in a person to person transfer, only as long as both individuals reside in the same state. Background checks are still done by BATFE, and there is a paper trail. Again, these are legally registered weapons.

Any individual can sell a registered transferable Title 2 weapon at any time they wish, to a qualified person, entity, or agency, which passes the background check. The background check is free, however you will pay the transfer tax of $200 ($5 if it is an AOW). The paperwork is filled out and sent in with the appropriate transfer tax amount. When the approved transfer papers are returned to the owner of the weapon, then the physical transfer of the weapon to the new owner may take place. No sooner.

As for machineguns made after May 19, 1986, individuals cannot purchase or posses them. Only dealers, manufacturers, and government agencies may purchase or posses them. These guns are commonly refered to as Post Samples, for they are made after the ban in 1986. Dealers who sell Title 2 weapons commonly have them, and sell them to local LE agencies.

If you want to own a machine gun, be prepared to pay a handsome price. You can buy a car, or a house, for as much as some of them can cost. It is estimated that there are just barely over 100k transferable machine guns in the US that an individual can legally own. They are quite rare, and priced accordingly. See here for an example of prices:

http://www.subguns.com/classifieds/?db=nfafirearms&category=All+Items+in+this+Category&query=category&search_and_display_db_button=on&results_format=headlines&website=&language=&session_key=

You can learn more about the National Firearms Act here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act

On a personal note, it is sad that some people do stupid things, and take lives for no reason. My heartfelt sympathies go out to all involved in the tradgedy. We as a nation should be realistic though, laws do not stop criminals who are determined to do harm. If one tool is not available to him, he will find another. For example, on the same day of the shooting in Connecticut, a mentally deranged man stabbed 22 children in a Chinese school. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-20723910

There needs to be a better solution, rather than restricting the constitutional rights of law abiding Americans. As to what the solution should be, that is up for debate. I would like to see a police officer in each school myself. Heck, there was one in the high school I attended many years ago, in a rural community.

As a long time owner of a vB license, I second the motion to read about the history of vBulletin before making a decision to use their software. When IB bought Jelsoft, it went downhill rather quickly. Many would say, and I have to agree, that vB jumped the shark after the acquisition. Many of us who own and operate boards also agree that version 3.8.7 was the last good version. The management at Jelsoft/IB attempted to morph the software into a catchall social networking solution akin to Facebook, in my eyes anyway. Many of us who have or had "owned" licenses feel that we got screwed, for the terms in licensing changed dramatically beginning with version 4. It turned into a huge money grab in the eyes of many, including myself. Many customers went with other options, and some of us never updated beyond 3.8.7, and are looking for other solutions. Yes, I have tried versions 4 and 5, and they are horrid IMHO.

It should also be mentioned that some key vB developers left the company as well, for they agreed with many of the customers at that time, that Jelsoft had lost its way. Those developers who left, started to build their own forum software solution from scratch, which is called XenForo ( http://xenforo.com/ ), and is offered to the public as a paid option to forum software. IB got quite pissy over this, and filed multiple court cases against them, which has thus far proved to be fruitless, and appears to be simply a way to make XenFro bleed financially through litigation. http://xenforo.com/community/threads/a-statement-regarding-the-current-litigation.7567/

I will say that I personally do not think that XenFro is quite yet up to snuff, when compared to older versions of vB, or other paid solutions. I do hold hope that one day soon it will be.

Parent is correct, this is not an assault rifle, so mod him up please. An assault rifle is defined as a machine gun, just so that folks know. The media tends to call any rilfe an assault rifle, just to sensationalize the reporting. On a side note, in most states people can legally own a machine gun, as long as it was made prior to May of 1986, and that it is in the BATFE maintained NFA (National Firearms Act of 1934) database as a registered transferable weapon. Machine guns made after May 19th 1986 may only be sold to dealers, law enforcement agencies, other government agencies, or the military, per federal law. Having a fixed supply and a high demand, transferable machine guns are quite expensive. They are certainly a better investment than shares in Facebook...

Read more on the National Firearms Act of 1934 here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act

To get an idea of the cost of machine guns, look here:

http://www.subguns.com/classifieds/?db=nfafirearms&category=All+Items+in+this+Category&query=category&search_and_display_db_button=on&results_format=headlines&website=&language=&session_key=

http://www.sturmgewehr.com/webBBS/nfa4sale.cgi

OP speaks the truth. A few years ago I asked a local Charter executive whom I met at a meeting why my cable bill was so damn expensive, and increasing so often. His reply was that ESPN kept raising their rates, and that 60% of what I paid for in my bill was for their channels which are forcibly bundled. You have no idea how angry that made me, learning that little peice of information. I have never watched ESPN, and care nothing for it. I am forced to have it in order to get the channels I really want. ESPN can go DIAF.

As someone educated in the biological sciences, I can tell you that introducing terminator genes into a food source is not a very good idea, except in corporate boardrooms. I have yet to meet another individual educated in the biological sciences who condones the idea for a food source. The risk of the terminator gene to be transferred into the wild is a scientific reality. Transgenic instability is a known fact. Yes, the risk is very real. The trait could be transferred to wild relatives, which can lead to their extinction, and genomes could be compromised which would lead to other unwanted consequences in the biosphere. Let that be food for thought, while there is still food.

I had a machine colocated at FDC in Chicago, at CBOT, for two years. Here is my take on their service from my personal experience. The service was cheap, and attractive to me at the time, for I was just getting my feet wet in colocating. I found the bandwidth at that time (2006-08) was terrible in consistency, and oversold. I guess what I am really trying to say is their network went down quicker, and more frequently, than a cheap street walker. When the network was up (as in their equipment not letting out the magic smoke, or maintenance degrading the service temporarily for upgrades), the DDOS attacks on the network were crippling and frequent. I found out quickly through other customers there, that it was a haven for botnets, and IRC servers, which were always at war with each other or someone else. As far as physical support to a machine (needing a reboot, help diagnose an issue such as bad network card/cable) the service was always prompt, and bang on. Due to the constant network issues though, I moved my box to Texas in late 2008 to a different provider, and I am much happier.

Things may have changed there since I have used them, but I do not know. They were in the middle of additional network and bandwidth upgrades when I left. Perhaps it is better now, I really do not know. I have read that they currently do not have a SLA (Service Level Agreement). Granted, you are looking for a VPS rather than colocation, but I felt it best to give you my experience from when I was a customer, for the network & bandwidth availability are important no matter where you are. I also suggest reading all the different opinions folks will post here, then research the options you are interested in. WebHostingTalk http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ is another useful tool for you in your research of a provider before making a final decision IMHO.

If you want justice, go to a whorehouse...

There is rape, incest, homosexuality, torture, as well as murder in the King James Bible. Perhaps they should ban it as well.

Yes Americans do hate bailouts, especially when the major banks/corporations get bailed out, and the executives get massive bonuses, while the common folks get the shaft. The shaft should have been equally distributed across the board, or the bailouts distributed evenly across the board, rather than catering solely to the elite.