You probably should be sorry. The fastest Geodes are antiques (I have two of them right here, whee.)

How do you know how long it was "flat" before you noticed it?

Guns are not 100% effective; even if you regularly practice with your gun it can still jam or misfire.

The probability of a gun misfiring when well maintained and lubricated is very, very small. Occasionally, you'll get a dud round, but if you're buying quality, factory made ammo (Hornady, Federal, Remington, PMC, etc) the probability again is extremely low. Revolvers can misfire if it's a dud round, but revolvers can not jam. Double barreled shotguns can not jam. Pump action shotguns and Semi-Auto hand guns can jam (again, very, very, very rare if using quality ammo and the gun is clean, because if it's going to jam it'll jam after you've pulled the trigger and the next round gets caught...), but part of the practice is clearing jams quickly (hint: re-rack the slide -- hard, you won't break it. Beat it like it owes you money. The next round in the magazine will load.) You have to know your tool to use it effectively.

So what's quality ammo? Hornday, Remington, Federal, Winchester, PMC -- just stay away from the cheap, steel cased (always go for a brass casing) and in the case of a handgun, use a self defense round -- Hornady Critical Duty, Remington Golden Sabers, even Federal Hydra-shoks are an effective round. For self defense, I do not recommend full metal jacket round. FMJ's are for target practice and training at the range.

If the effect is real, it could be. The question is whether the effect is real.

Sometimes I think China is run by 5 year olds.

As opposed to the U.S., which is clearly run by 6-year-olds...

If the thing works, it's not that it violates conservation of momentum, it's that it's doing something we don't understand, which appears to violate the conservation of momentum because we don't know how it works.

I'm sure many people would love to see this turn out to work because it would be a really cool real-world effect based on some of the the really bizarre and incredibly abstract physics going on these days. Like many people here I'm sure, I'm fascinated by the advances in modern physics in the last century, but a lot of it, especially in the past 30-40 years, seems to bear no connection to the world we see and experience. I know it explains how matter and energy work, but I'm talking about allowing us to do things we couldn't do before.

Plus, who isn't looking at this and wondering if it couldn't be the basis, assuming it can be improved umpty orders of magnitude, to Jetsons-style anti-gravity devices. Let a nerd dream...

which is currently from a physics stand point pure gobbledygook

Dr. Alcubierre would beg to differ.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

The warp drive in Star Trek was based an earlier incarnation of this theory, which is based on results from Einstein. Warp drive FTL travel might not be possible, but the idea is definitely not "pure gobbledygook".

You're a bit late on that one. Pretty much everything is propaganda, and what's more, virtually all of it is fear-based; the remainder focuses on allaying fears, often reasonable ones. My favorite example is automotive advertising. As much as half of it is designed not directly to sell cars, but to make customers feel better about their purchases to try to induce repeat business "down the road", pun intended.

If it bleeds, it leads. Hope is not interesting to people who have more than they need.

We got there because of decades of people systematically giving their money to the most sensational press, which enabled them to become more powerful. It's not something that just happened.

I think that there probably oughta be a law that you can't knowingly tell an outright lie and call it news, but even that seems to be a minority view, which is just another symptom of the same damned need for entertainment.

There's nothing wrong with that, so long as they don't propose to use force to retrieve the data.

Balderdash. There is not a press. What is this, communism, comrade? We have many presses. The problem is that the public follows the sensational ones instead of the informative. We The People have the government, and thus the press, which we deserve.

But it in fact is; it's not all obvious. Being forced to work is slavery even if you get paid, because you're not choosing the terms of your employment. It's like being raped and then having your rapist throw you a few currency units.

Exactly!

Imagine a government agency that knows which members of congress are pedophiles and let's say that that agency possesses data that proves such activity.
Now imagine that government agency's top dog lies to congress.

If you can imagine what happens next, please let us know.

U.S. Constitution - Article 3 Section 3
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
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Is the CIA not an organization of war?
As such, are the tools and methods of the CIA not tools and methods of levying war?
Did the CIA not just admit to using those tools and methods of levying war against this country's government?
Then did the CIA not levy war against our own country by using the tools and methods of levying war against us?