Jane, how were you able to upload a screenshot to Lonny Eachus's website? Did you hack in, or did Lonny Eachus upload your charmingly named screenshot for you?

No, in recent history, these conflicts are resolved by pressure from the international community. It's how apartheid in South Africa ended, to a great extent.

I don't know if you're old enough to remember Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher referring to Nelson Mandela as a "terrorist" and his party as a "terrorist organization". It turned out they were dead wrong. Last year, the philosophical progeny of Reagan and Thatcher hailed Mandela as a hero.

History is not going to be kind to the government of Israel in the first decades of the 21st century (if not longer).

It didn't have to be this way.

Did you read that Wikipedia article you linked to? It makes a pretty good case that it's apartheid:

The analogy has been used by scholars, United Nations investigators, human rights groups and critics of Israeli policy, some of which have also accused Israel of committing the crime of apartheid.[2][3] Critics of Israeli policy say that "a system of control" in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including Jewish-only settlements, the ID system, separate roads for Israeli and Palestinian citizens, military checkpoints, discriminatory marriage law, the West Bank barrier, use of Palestinians as cheap labour, Palestinian West Bank enclaves, inequities in infrastructure, legal rights, and access to land and resources between Palestinians and Israeli residents in the Israeli-occupied territories resembles some aspects of the South African apartheid regime, and that elements of Israel's occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law.[4] Some commentators extend the analogy, or accusation, to include Arab citizens of Israel, describing their citizenship status as second-class.[12]

You know the old expression about "looking like a duck and walking like a duck and sounding like a duck"? Well, Israel has been quacking for quite some time now when it comes to it's treatment of Palestinians.

Why not use the already installed electrical wiring? Not that every room needs internet connection anyway. Or does the taxpayer really need to make sure little Johnny and Susie can check their social media while in class?

The drugs are often exotic molecules we've cooked up for the purpose; but hormonal birth control exploits the same hormones that would naturally show up, since those are the ones that there are receptors for and that cause the desired changes. The quantity that a dense human population will put out is something quite different; but the chemistry won't be markedly different between humans and other placental mammals.

There might be an RO system somewhere that uses gravity and an input reservoir at higher altitude than the output to supply some or all of the pressure; but I don't think that that is anything like the typical configuration. Cleaning up after a leak in zero gravity isn't going to be lots of fun; but everything else should work largely as planned.

In the case of SDI the PR might actually be worse than useless (playing mutually-assured-destruction isn't much fun to begin with; but if one or both sides come to believe the hype about a missile defense system things could really go downhill). In the case of 'iron dome', though, it might actually be helpful. Barring fairly substantial increases in rocket construction expertise, or acquisition of something particularly nasty to fill them with, the attacks it is supposed to defeat are only modestly dangerous; but extremely inflammatory.

Given how lousy the alternatives for appearing to be taking action against the rocket menace are (grovelling through every last hidy-hole in Gaza is militarily doable but a PR debacle and unlikely to turn up more than a few bits and pieces of impoverished machine tools, because low-end rockets just aren't that hard to build. Paying Hezbollah a visit might turn up somewhat more interesting stuff; but that hasn't turned out well in the past) a system that postpones or prevents somebody taking the bait and trying them might be quite helpful.

Apartheid. There's an app for that.

People do get killed by these things.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09...

http://www.nydailynews.com/new...

That's total bullshit. We've had insurance and employment coupled here in my country for almost a century now and none of these clusterfucks have happened. The thing that causes the clusterfuck is a country that can't decide whether it wants to be religious or secular.

But our creator gave us rational minds to solve puzzles with.

You bet.

How about if I look at it in a mirror? Or out of the corner of my eye? Or I have someone else look at it and describe it to me?

Quantum computing sure is hard.

Adding to this: some towns will have laws that allow bicycle riding on sidewalks provided they travel no faster than jogging speed. So you can "become a pedestrian" without even getting off the bike. At some of the more problematic "smart" lights, cyclists simply slow down and use the crosswalk, then back into the road.

That said, ones that run red lights while in the road annoy me. It usually means I have to pass the same cyclist *twice*, since they will have passed me at the red light.

Smart guy, but you don't know what's going on.

Says the guy commenting on the issue without knowing anything about the treatments objected to by other regions - objections just as "sincere" as those from the owners of Hobby Lobby. If you want to be pompous, you might want to work on the willful ignorance.

Maybe you can use this to start bridging your information gap.

Maybe you could work on your reading comprehension. Pointing to the fact that other countries have militarizes and intelligence programs is a complete non sequitur when the subject is the depth, pervasiveness, and reach of the USG. The Vatican has armed guards, so it's pretty much the same thing as the U.S. Marine Corp!

US military spending is high because it pays its volunteer soldiers a competitive wage while sustaining a substantial military that is actually capable of fighting despite the fact that it often has to cross oceans to do so.

Do you have some smarter jingoistic friends that could troll on your behalf, because your constant practice you're still bad at it. The U.S. has over 600 overseas bases around the world - how many does Russia have? The United States has 20 air craft carriers in service, under construction, or in reserve - how many does China have?

Go home, troll, you're drunk.