Flowers, bucket full of cocktops. Tomayto Tomahto.

Texas has recently opened a section of road with a speed limit of 85 (mph || 137kph). Minor correction to the quoted section above. For any nations using metric (I'm looking at you, entire world), 80mph is approximately 129kph, not 134kph.

Without knowing the percentages of one and two officer cars and the specifics of their deployment, this statistic indicates nothing. There's simply not enough information. Assuming 1/2 of the cars have a single officer, and 1/2 of the cars have 2 officers, and they are evenly deployed, one could conclude that each officer in a 2 officer car is .833% safer than the officer in a one officer car. That's not the only problem here. Why are we citing a study from 1960 to 1962? Hasn't the nature of crime and the style of officer deployment changed at least a little in the last 50 years?

This is undeniably true. Look at the disastrous quality of education in Washington DC.

I was unaware that a babysitter would be willing to babysit 20 to 30 kids at the same time for $9 per hour. That'd be no more than 45 cents per kid per hour!

First, we'll just accept that the high wages of postal carriers may be related to the fact that the US Postal Service is losing billions of dollars a year and in danger of going bankrupt. Lets move on to a comparison. There are only 180 school days in a school year (in Texas). That's 36 weeks, leaving approximately 16 weeks in the year for vacation. Assuming letter carriers get 2 weeks of vacation, that's 50 weeks. $58,700 / 50 ($1174) compared to $42,890 / 36 ($1191.39). Also, teachers don't have that "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night" slogan, and largely get to work indoors sheltered from bad weather and vicious dogs.

If being middle class on a single income while taking nearly 1/3 of the year off isn't a "living wage" for you (in a state with a low cost of living), money isn't going to solve your problems.

You probably were complaining to them about only earning 50% more than they do (individual income, not household) while you had to work an entire 2/3 of the year, when they're the ones paying your income.

I had no access to a web or a BBS at the time, but that just caused a flood of ALL of the Challenger jokes that I knew to come flooding back. There were many of them, and virtually all of them were tasteless Christa McAuliffe jokes. I don't really think that could have possibly fallen under bullying at the time, but it seems that some lawmakers want to outlaw tasteless jokes, and with the remarkably broad language in the law as described, they may be able to try.

Oh, yeah, because businesses favored by democrats don't hedge the same way. This bullshit cuts both ways. You're thinking with your politics, not your brains.

Thank you for stating this. Businesses are not able to act confidently when they are worried that the rules are going to keep changing. It's not like playing a boardgame where it's all part of the fun. Real things are at stake, and people tend to be very cautious and try to remain flexible and not put any chips on the table when the rules keep changing. (apologies for the mixed gaming metaphors)

Also, I think there's a semantic problem between the people that argue against and for "deregulation", as they seem to be using the term differently. Some people view it as a simplification of the rules, and in some cases, a removal of the more expensive and onerous of those rules. Other people view it as a case of simply changing the rules in whatever way is necessary so businesses can maximize profits. I think an argument can be made that the changes to the financial rules that led to the crisis can be fairly classified as the latter.

You've obviously been living under a rock for several years. Check it out.

But I'm down with this. As long as there is a way for individuals to support a particular government program they believe in, I would support it. In the case of NASA, I'd put my money/time/support where my mouth is.

Damnit, finally a valid reason to sign up for twitter.

Honestly, I'm still wondering why you think "parts" doesn't tie in to "manufacturing". As for mining, you're actually trying to say that "apples" and "applesauce" aren't connected.

3500 smackers? For that, I could buy a toolshed, fill it with the tools I need to do this, and still have 1000 smackers or more left over. That, and I'd still have the pride that I'd made it myself! (not to mention, being able to fix it on the fly, and, hey, I'd have a lot of power tools)

Industrial base was implied when I started discussing parts. And when you started discussing mining.

Honestly, what I was thinking about was pretty much around how so much of the shuttle was built from all over the place. That might be due to pork barrel, and that might not be as much of a problem for SpaceX, but for NASA, or anything else funded by the government, it's likely to come up. California is a huge producer/manufacturer in the US, and it's about as far from Florida as you can be, without involving another country or the ocean. I'll admit I know a lot less about the original Apollo program and what the logistics where at that time. They stopped that when I was too young to remember, so maybe it was ideal then.

I felt like I was being bad about looking stuff up when I didn't check the rail lines between Houston and the proposed location, but... Heck, if it's only 300 miles, that's only 5 or 6 hours by truck for a part or supply. That's not bad. And for what it's worth, Houston isn't just a port. It still has manufacturing, and a ready supply of petrochemicals.

While this is, in a race, true, it is a limit that a lot of race teams have bounced against and lost. Also, while I think most people receive value from what is learned in races, but they want their daily driver to have a little more longevity. Hopefully there's still enough pep to let the thing merge in traffic.