Yet the implementation of this aspect of the 1st has very little relation to the wording in the amendment. "Congress shall make no laws regarding the establishment of religion." Absolutely nothing about the separation of church and state. Simply that congress shall not try to establish a state religion. or prohibit a religion.

Whereas some try to justify rules and regulations and out right bans on various firearms based on the Well regulated militia clause but there is not much ambiguity to the "The right of the people to keep and bear arms." is pretty straightforward and clear.

That's pretty harsh! What are you going on?

I got the impression that the article was written after interviewing someone from the company in person. Like you, I don't have anything concrete to go on, but that seems the likeliest explanation for the "go to market" date.And I'm sure the rep from the company had earlier been involved in fundraising and as part of that would have had to tell investors his expectations of energy efficiency.

BBC news articles about scientific papers, by contrast, invariably have the words "scientists say" and usually mention the paper's publication...

He is, he has his own network TheBlaze. He is not on Fox anymore. He's as credible as any other talking head. More so in some ways, less so in others.

McCarthy investigated mostly people outside congress, and a law (I don't recall the act name) was passed in response to his witch hunt. Congress critters cannot be prosecuted for performing normal legislative actions. i.e. proposing bills to repeal other bills.

It doesn't work that way. A congressman cannot be investigated for doing his job as a legislator.

Despite media claims (mostly left wing media at that) about the crowning of Jeb, he has not been nominated and is actually very unlikely to get the final nod. While he's a good leader many conservatives recognize that the left and middle will be very hesitant about yet another Bush, and we ourselves are leery of a Dynasty.

I doubt he'll get the Nomination.

<quote><p>There is a pretty big difference between performing espionage and doing a false flag operation.
A false flag operation actively tries to destabilize the relationship between other nations. </quote>
No a false flag operation plays on the friendship of two nations to allow a third to collect information. A and B are friends, A does not like C. C sends an agent claiming to be from B. The agent is thus able to collect the information on/from A because A thinks he is from B. That is a false flag op. It can destabilize relationships but that is not the active goal or target.

Actually it is hypocrisy, Because everybody spies on everybody. if not for military threats then for political and economic espionage reasons. The Germans complaining about it is very hypocritical because in the world of intelligence and espionage there are no perfect allies.

The American intelligence community assumes that the BND, MI6 and everybody else we work with every day is trying their darndest to wiretap the Oval Office. And for all we know they do have a successful tap running. Amused, not really because it means our counterintel efforts failed. But not surprised or really upset either.

Those schlubs do require a current DOT card and fall under DOT driving regulations and limits and have to maintain a clean driving record. (i.e. 60 hours per week max, no more than 14 hours in a single day etc.) And they are monitored like crazy. Seatbelt buckled when moving, back and interior bulkhead doors closed, backing too much, total distance driven during the route (and compared with the computer estimated route and times). And let's see that drone deliver 60" flat screen TV's.

I drove for UPS this last holiday season, and I really doubt UPS is at all worried. The amount of volume a single schlub driving a package car can deliver and pickup in a single day is quite surprising. The swarms of drones that would be required just for smaller packages would be overwhelming, let alone being able to handle large and odd shaped packages, envelopes and large volume deliveries and pickups.

They found 10s of thousands of shells all around the country, in various states and conditions. What they did not find was the super stockpile, or more importantly the ongoing production and development programs.

Well, I personally take the view that any society that forcibly sterilized 50% of its residents doesn't deserve to continue as a society.

I also don't think Malthus was correct.

Someone insinuated that I'd be ok with Jewish concentration camps if that resulted in a society that survived.

That's a hard question to answer. On one hand, what was done to the Jews was clearly immoral. On the other hand, a society that goes extinct isn't around to argue that it was a moral society. Heinlein noted that survival is somewhat of a precursor to moral behavior.

What we'd like to hope is that the choice between survival and violence against others is a false choice - that there is always a way to both survive and not harm others.

But that may not be the case for all societies in all situations.

It may be that the Native Americans came to the conclusion that you did -- that anything beyond a certain population was unsustainable given the technology level and resources they had available to them.

That may have been an eminently moral choice.

It also means that what they thought doesn't matter today - because there weren't enough of them to defend themselves against an invading society with different ideas.

Another question to wrestle with:

Why didn't the colonization and empire building go the other direction?

Why weren't the native Americans launching ocean going vessels towards Europe? Why, when the Europeans arrived, were the NAs unable to repel them?

Why were there so many top-notch German scientists and engineers in that society in the 1930s and 1940s? Why, given its amazing technological advantages, did Nazi Germany still ultimately lose the war?

If you want a really uncomfortable question: why was South Africa apparently a much nicer place -- for everyone -- under European management with the distasteful Apartheid policy? Why has that society _regressed_ since kicking out the colonial invaders?

There are books on these topics that take varying points of view.

My point is very simple: pining for primitive cultures is romantically appealing but intellectually dishonest. And holding our ancestors to the standards of today is also silly - we can only hold them to the standards of their day --- unless you mean to imply that there has been no human progress.

It is precisely the fact that the Western world has shown dramatic human progress - even at the cost of slowing its own rate of expansion and conquest - that we can be confident that Western Civilization has something to offer the world.

I don't believe that inside Nazi Germany nor in Stalinist Russia, there was the problem of a foreign empire clashing with an indigenous culture.

It seems the best American analogue to the experiences of those regimes was what was done to Japanese Americans in WW2 - which while awful, thankfully, doesn't hold a candle to what was done to the German Jews or the Soviet victims of Stalinism.

The history of the world is filled with violent tribal conflict, usually over the right to settle and tax a given piece of land.

The Jews and Nazis weren't fighting for control over Bavaria.

The Europeans did not set out with the goal of exterminating the native Americans. The NAs had their land taken from them by force, which is how it has always worked on this planet.

There are two general possibilities for how to proceed from here

1) convince people that taking land from other people is immoral

2) find additional land that is both unsettled and desirable

#1 is worth working on, and can show some real improvements, but will ultimately not be enough.

#2 is also worth working on, and why I am a space nutter, and why I am interested in how seasteading plays out.

A mix of #1 and #2 may help humanity not kill each other completely. We've gone almost 70 years with the ability to wipe ourselves out and we haven't done so yet. That's an encouraging indicator.

Small Part Native American here. Grandpa and mom are buried on the Res.

Not that my heritage should matter, but some people can't hear the message until they've decided what bucket to put the messenger in....

How is the way of life and/or world view of the Native Americans worth saving?

Same question for impoverished rural Africans?

We are having this conversation only because an objectively superior culture with an objectively superior propensity for technical development has built this amazing medium for our use.

My ancestors were excellent hunters, excellent farmers, and excellent stewards of natural resources. There are many things to admire and respect about what they did.

Ultimately, however, I'm glad I don't live in a house made of animal skin; I'm glad I have modern medicine; I'm glad my other ancestors - my white European ones - have shot themselves into space, and have opened a way for my children to someday get off this rock.

In many ways, Humans of all colors and shapes are still participating in the tribal violence that shaped native Americans and still shapes many Africans.

Some tribes are better run than others, with better results to show for it. Adapt or die.