I used to work in a port. We once received an automobile from Thailand in a 20 ft shipping container. The auto was tied down with ropes and the ropes were tightened by twisting with shafts of bamboo (which, by the way, is about the crappiest way to tied down a car and very non-standard). When we opened up container, the bamboo was riddled with holes from some kind of Asian woodborers that had chewed their way out during transit. Anyway, we had to call the Department of Agriculture inspector (this was before the ag inspectors were merged into customs) who had us fumigate the whole container.

So the moral of the story here is, based on experience, if I opened a box with reeds full of holes originating from a foreign land , I'd burn it too.

Sarten-X discribes exactly what is going on. In fact, the Contracting Officer probably decided it was in the public interest to digitize and get the data public as opposed to it sitting in the bottom of a box in the proverbial Indiana Jones warehouse lost to the public forever. DoD has some boilerplate contract clauses for this, mainly 252.227-7013 Rights in Technical Data--Noncommercial Items. Alternate I, which states:

(l) Publication for sale.

(1) This paragraph only applies to technical data in which the Government has obtained unlimited rights or a license to make an unrestricted release of technical data.

(2) The Government shall not publish a deliverable technical data item or items identified in this contract as being subject to paragraph (l) of this clause or authorize others to publish such data on its behalf if, prior to publication for sale by the Government and within twenty-four (24) months following the date specified in this contract for delivery of such data or the removal of any national security or export control restrictions, whichever is later, the Contractor publishes that item or items for sale and promptly notifies the Contracting Officer of such publication(s). Any such publication shall include a notice identifying the number of this contract and the Government's rights in the published data.

(3) This limitation on the Government's right to publish for sale shall continue as long as the data are reasonably available to the public for purchase.

The point here is that sometimes the Government wants data to become available to the public (as opposed to sitting in a box in the basement) and uses commercial contractors to do it. An example would be something like this: Say somebody discovered several hundred boxes in the basement at Ft. Dix NJ of first-person interviews of soldiers during WWI and the Spanish flu. Now say university historians of WWI want access to these interviews. The historians can fly to NJ, get a hotel room, a rental car, and spend several thousand dollars and weeks digging through, cataloging, and copying the documents or alternately, the DOD can hire a contractor to digitize everything and any historian anywhere in the world can buy it for a few hundred bucks.

IIRC, that was the goal of RepRap: a machine that could replicate itself. That raises some Sci-Fi come true issues. To paraphase an old meme: Image a cluster of self replicating machines :)

I see some safety issues related to the strength of the metals. I would be interested if somebody put the printed metal material through some metalurigal tests to see how strong it is versus traditionally cast/machined parts.

Your original point still stands, since it was Philip's son also named Philip. Positivly identified and older than Ghengis Khan to boot by about 1,500 years.

Not an armed mob. With officers, discipline, and lawful activities.

I've read and heard that the salinity of the ocean drives a large part of the currents. The entire premiss of the over-the-top disater film "Day after Tomorrow" was that warming would dump fresh water into the N. Atlantic shutting down the salinity driven currents (that draw the warm Gulf steam northward and thereby warm the N hemisphere) leading to a deep freeze in the N Hemisphere. Granted that was a bit of far fetched fiction. But does knowing that ice-melt will follow the canyon and dump into the relatively self-contained arctic instead of the N. Atlantic change real-word global-warming models?

Well, the conversation just slipped into Godwin's Law. But I'll bite anyway, because I'm bored.

I don't know any specific allegation of selling drugs, but I've heard such rumors in the past. However, one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. Backing and conducting assassinations? Don't know of any. I do know we have targeted killing of enemy combatants in the current war, but those are not assassinations. Jailing people without charging or trying them? I don't know of any Americans who have been held without trial by the US Government. I do know we hold foreign combatants and properly so without trial. POWs or internees should not be tried for being soldiers, as that is not a crime. They shall be held, without criminal charges for the duration of the conflict. When they have been suspected for violating the laws of war, they have been charged and brought before military tribunals. Perhaps you should read the applicable parts of the Third Geneva Convention. Coups and fabricating evidence to start wars? Well I know some intelligence information about Iraq was misinterpreted, but I don't know of any that was outright fabricated. And that war was to enforce a UN resolution that Iraq was unwilling to demonstrate compliance with. They had only to demonstrate compliance to defuse the causus belli and they refused.

Slavery, while unwise and wrong, was legal at the time, which is the test we are applying here. We are discussing lawlessness versus lawfulness, not your or my personal definition of morality.

What you describe as the spanish-american war of aggression was lawfully declared by our Congress under our constitution and the laws of nations at the time. You fail to explain how it exemplifies systemic disregard of constitution or law, merely that you disagree. BTW, we see this as a war against European colonialism and imperialism.

All the other things you mention, which constitutional principle do they violate?

Congratulations to Finland. But with a population (5.4M) smaller than Missouri (6M), only three ethnic groups (Finn, Swede, and Sami), and a completely different culture from us, its easy to see why you have such a peaceful society. I could pick a small American state with a mostly all-white population, Vermont for instance, and also demonstrate low levels of violence and low infant mortality. I not sure what that proves about respect for the constitution though.

Let me turn the question around; can you name a century during which no systemic corruption, disregard for human rights and life, or unjust violation of national sovereignty of a foreign nation condoned by US government did not happen?

Yes, the entire two centuries have been without systemic constitutional irregularity. There have been anecdotal violations of statutes and constitutional provisions, but never systemic. These other things you seem to being trying to introduce into the conversation do not seem to be related to constitution or statute. Are you trying to say any blemish ruins the entire national project? Or are you saying another world power lasting two centuries has a better track record and therefore the US is lacking in comparison? Name the world power? (Its actually irrelevant to the conversation, because we are talking about US law, not foreign powers) I believe you are simply an anti-american who like to shout "You're not perfect, You're not perfect".

Would you care to cite a specific US Statute or US constitutional article and then the specific violating act?

But it does! Because its not the Executive's job to adjudicate the constitutionality of the laws; that job belongs to the courts. The President has an opportunity to veto a law at the time it is passed and (not) signed. There is no constitutional provision for an after-the-fact veto.

Yes, practically the entirety, otherwise the Republic would have fallen long ago. I can not name any other time of SYSTEMIC lawlessness by the executive, not even Watergate. The only thing that come close was Jackson and Indian removal (trail of tears).

You may or may not agree with the wisdom of any particular law, but the executive branch and the President have an obligation to see that the laws are faithfully executed until such time the law is repealed, even when they disagree personally (or politically) . Under the Constitution, it is not the place of President or his advisers to second-guess a duly passed law. If they think the law is unwise, they should go through the democratic process of petitioning Congress to repeal it. Just unilaterally deciding to ignore the law undermines the rule of law and the democratic process.

Here are some laws that the administration has famously ignored, instead of pursuing a repeal through the democratic process. There are probably more.

• The Defense of Marriage Act
• Mandatory Sentencing
• Yucca Mountain

Again, I'm not saying any one of these laws is a wise law, but they are (or were in the case of DOMA until overturned) duly legislated, therefore the executive had a constitutional duty to enforce them until such time the laws are repealed by the legislature or overturned by the courts. Where is the Republic going when the executive branch no longer feels constrained by the law or the democracy?

Something similar actually is a traditional Arabian festival dish. I read about it in the "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" (Lawrence of Arabia's book). They do rice and chickens/peahens inside of sheep, and then the sheep inside the camel.

The Haj is coming soon (i believe it will be October). If MERS escapes into the pilgrim population, it will be a global disaster. Packing millions of people into the track around the Kaaba or the Plain of Arafat will be a perfect place for MERS to spread. Then they will all get on airplanes and scatter around the world. MERS has a very high mortality rate WITH modern medicine intervention. If pilgrims start taking it home to villages in Africa, Pakistan, Indonesia, etc where there effectively is no medical care, lots of people are going to die.