A traditional journalist would be less likely to make false accusations in their line of work, because they could lose their job, and their employer could be taken to court.

A traditional journalist is also less likely to pursue politically sensitive stories for the same reasons. When was the last time you remember the White House press corps really hammering the President on a sticky issue?

There were abort procedures, but all would have required waiting until after SRB separation and so wouldn't have been available to the Challenger crew. I watched the launch from my grandmother's house in Rockledge, FL, and I remember grabbing the binoculars hoping to see that somehow the orbiter got away.

Actually I think you're right. I looked a little more closely at the charging options, and I was assuming (always a recipe for failure) what was involved was one of the high-power charging adapters with the LEDs (which is where you'd have to have the DC circuitry), but I see now that it wasn't one of those involved, and that they have to be wired directly to the panel and not through a plug on the back, which totally deflates my argument. The standard cable that comes with the car is much smaller, with a regular cable and connector for the 240 volt socket, and you're probably right that the wart has just the GFCI and rudimentary sensing circuitry that is likely directly on the power line.

Sorry for wasting your time on this. :-) You're absolutely right that it's unusual to fuse the power plug itself.

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree here. I do see where you're coming from, but IMO any device that's handling that kind of current and directs any of it to power onboard low-voltage DC circuitry needs to be thermally fused as well as breakered.

Putting one in the plug to try to detect that the outlet is overheating is non-standard.

You don't really fuse the charger to detect wiring faults in the outlet (although it's helpful in case you have something like 230V on a 115V outlet), you do it for the more common case where the transformer, regulators, or something else fails and start getting hot, and it's quite common that chargers are fused as I mentioned before.

There are plenty of (much smaller) battery chargers and battery packs out there that incorporate thermal fuses, enough to where people complain about them blowing and accuse the manufacturers of planned obsolescence. Yes, most electric ovens are thermally fused, and pretty much every household dryer has one as well.

If you RTFA you would see that Musk talks about home wiring not always being done properly, so in order to avoid leaving that variable up to chance, Tesla has sent out chargers that shut themselves off at a certain temperature. Its almost like he cares if his customers are happy and hes willing to do what it takes to alleviate as many issues as possible while using his product, even when not caused by his own product.

As opposed to designing the charger to handle this not-particularly-outlandish possibility to begin with?

Attic is usually a better place for electronic equipment...

Not where I live. You'd be looking at $300 or so each month just trying to keep the equipment from frying in the 100+ degree heat up there during the summer unless you spent a ton of money putting walls and insulation in. Of course flooding is a concern with a basement installation, but there are ways to mitigate that risk.

Pain control, lots of water, and wait for it to pass.

Unless they're too big. Like you, I've had multiple occasions of having them, but the last time they were too big to pass and had to be broken up over multiple procedures after they put stents in. And God help you if you have staghorn stones.

I don't know if they're still made, but Cibie used to make their "Z-Beam" brand headlights that did exactly this as far back as the 70s. If parked facing a wall, you could clearly see a horizontal line above which almost no light was present.

In recent years, I have noticed a distinct upward trend in the headlight output of new vehicles produced here in the States.

The same is true for emergency lighting used on police cars, ambulances, etc. With the advent of cheap LED lighting, a lot of emergency vehicles use ultra-bright LEDs, which are great for daytime visibility, but are far brighter than what's needed at night. I've yet to see a unit that tones the intensity down in darkness, with the effect that they're dazzling within a quarter-mile or so.

there are locations in the US that get this stuff called snow and that said snow, and the dirt & salt they spread to melt the snow, tends to cover lines on the road.

Another common problem in rainy areas is where the water on the road reflects the light away from the driver before it can reach the reflective tape/paint on the roadway, rendering the lines much less visible.

If he really wanted to make a point, he should come back and argue his case in court. Plenty of lawyers would be happy to work for him due to the high-profile nature of the case.

He wouldn't get to argue his case in court. The state would pull the "state secrets" card, and practically no evidence in his favor would be allowed at the trial. This assumes he even makes it to trial, and doesn't end up in a mysterious accident or murdered by a fellow inmate.

That said, I think he would be far more effective in his efforts as a martyr instead of a perceived outlaw. Unfortunately the attention span of the majority of the American public is such that even that likely wouldn't matter. The fact that information continues to come out regarding the NSA's activities is the only thing keeping this issue in a lot of peoples' minds.

You have much more influence controlling who is on the ballot for a party if you are a delegate.

This points out a large part of the problem - if you're not a (D) or (R), you don't really matter to the process, and most times all of the candidates offered by the two major parties are equally worthless for one reason or another. Hell, they effectively bar presidential candidates from other parties from participating in the debates, for crying out loud.