Mars does not have a molten iron core, and hence doesn't have the cool magnetic field that earth does. That magnetic field does a LOT to protect our atmosphere from getting stripped off, not to mention protecting us from radiation.

Screw Mars. Spend all that money on making it nice HERE. We have the means. We have the tech. We could have a star trek utopia right here... Free education, opportunity through small businesses, cheap housing, plentiful energy. We could have all that right here if we just put a smidge of effort into it.

Take all that money and just pay off 5% of the population's houses. Those people, now freed from having to grind on the treadmill for their housing, could start small businesses... circulating money in the economy. It doesn't need to be much. Start a taco truck... Employ a few people... We'd have zero unemployment and a lot more happiness. The economic repercussions would be staggering.

A lot of human suffering is because a few assholes ruin it for the rest of us. How about we fix THAT? Screw mars...

Actually, SolarWorld (a german company) is located in Hillsboro OR, and they pump out solar panels for roughly $1/watt, which is about average when I was shopping last. I suspect if there are cheaper panels, they're cheap for a reason....

So many stupid replies, I'll reply to myself. I should have just said this; There are so many REAL instances of police militarization, illegal wiretapping of US citizens, killing US citizens without a trial... These are the things that anger Liberals. When a conservative bashes the governement for taking over, the examples seem to be toilet flushes, light bulbs, and soft drink size restrictions......

It's not required. You can take your own trash to the dump.... No one makes you pay the garbage company.

Oh no... techies are famously libertarian leaning. It comes from thinking they're so much smarter than everyone else.

Actually, it usually derails into diatriabes about Climate Change being a hoax......

• Why is it bad that federal law mandates that toilets not be wasteful? Who gives a shit, if you'll pardon the pun? That's a good thing.
• Why is it bad that federal law mandates listing the wattage used on a bulb? I can't make informed decisions if I don't have good information. Why is it bad that federal law mandates low wattage bulbs? Again, WGAS?
• I don't live in NYC. I don't care about soft drink sizes. Also, you could drink as much soda as you wanted... just get two. WGAS?
• magazine rounds. WGAS? If you need to go on a killing spree just bring more magazines....
• Air bags are a good thing. So are helmets. So... what's your point? Some states let people do stupid things? WGAS?
• No they don't.... I can turn my GPS off... of course, they can track what cell tower I'm talking to at the moment.

There's no conspiracy here. Welcome to a civilized society. We have rules. Wwwwwooooooo!!!!! Big Scary Rules! There's no takeover. There's no micromanaging of your life. I live on the West Coast, in Portland, a supposed Liberal Bastion, and I live in Not Legal housing. Nobody gives a shit. The city knows....

I just don't see why you people need to be victims. It's like you're not happy unless someone is repressing you, and if no one is you have to invent someone...

The weird thing is, there are plenty of REAL instances of government oppressing people. Conservatives are usually the first to defend the government when that happens.... If those black people would just $BLAH that wouldn't have happened....

I pay a private company to take my trash. it's not taxes. You likely have the same situation.... so...

Also, you're coming across as a total crank and making conservatives look bad.

Seattle is trying to get people to put compost in the compost bins. They have tiny stupid $1 fines for not doing so... which they don't expect to have to give out that often anyway. What's the problem here beyond you hating the general rules of civilization?

OK, first, how are the people posting about doctors over prescribing antibiotics being modded insightful? That's not really a problem any more, and it's specifically NOT what the article is about....

This should be a test case for those people that say that the Free Market is good and Government is bad. We have a problem with industrial farmers (I hate calling them farmers. I grew up on a farm. What they do has little resemblance to farming) abusing antibiotics. This is NOT new news. We've known this for a long time. There is no government oversight on this issue.

If all the libertarians and righties were correct, people would stop buying meat from these industrial farmers and they'd stop the practice. I should note that most of the people I see buying meat that's grass fed, organic, and cruelty free are all lefties (but that's because we're the only ones that actually give a shit about other people. Wow. That sounded jaded even to me. I'm going to leave it up there, but... there's some hidden anger I didn't realize I had.. I should examine that. anyway)

What we see is the opposite of that. Without a strong cop (government) regulating for the common good, the market is doing what it's designed to do.... Maximize profit and let society deal with externalized losses. The solution to this is to have the government stop pussyfooting around and regulate. It is heavily lobbied to make sure that doesn't happen, because our system is corrupt.

Yes, it's corrupt. The solution to that isn't to get rid of big government. That's exactly what the people doing the corrupting WANT. We need regulation of industry (not take over, regulate. No one's saying to socialize. Calm Down.) because industry always tries to externalize the losses to maximize profits, and someone needs to tell them "knock it off.".

Also, the free market is a myth. A useful tool to demonstrate and idea, much like a frictionless wheel to demonstrate basic physics ideas to a student... but we've known about this for a LONG time. We have many examples of companies acting badly in the last decade, but no examples of people punishing them into changing their behavior..... I'm still looking at you BP...

long term goals... whoopdie do! They can have all the long term goals written on a napkin that they want. I want to rule the world too, you don't see us bombing my house.

There is an alternative. Bombing them only continues the cycles. Why do they exist? American and Russia meddled in the middle east. We've gone back and forth for decades now. This is just another cycle...

The alternative is to break the cycle. Lets go to the Kurds in Northern Iraq and help them create Kurdistan. Lets build roads, schools, hospitals, etc. Lets Marshal Plan the shit out of them. Do the same thing in the South. Do the same thing all over, and those people will love us. Look at this from the villager on the ground's perspective... A drone drops a bomb and kills your son. You hate America. Your son gets sick and he's treated at a hospital made by the Americans... Yay America!

We need to go back to winning hearts and minds. You do that by building instead of destroying. It seems like a longer process, and maybe the school that we build gets blown up... Good. Let the villager see that we built the school and THEY blew it up. It's not actually a longer process. I think it's a shorter process... How long have we been entangled in the Middle East?

I'd like to bump up this idea that they're not a long term threat. Everyone is waving ISIS Around like they're scary... They're not. They took some land, they took some villages, they even took some cities. I get it. They're scary.... But taking territory is not RULING territory.

I'm not scared of 10,000 guys with AKs, rocket launchers, and pickup trucks... Not when they're on the other side of the world. I'm not scared of them, and I don't think they're a threat. I don't think they'll be able to hold the territory they have. I think planting a flag and actually governing are VERY different, and they have yet to actually govern the territory they hold.

Lets see how good they are at providing the functions of a government. Hospitals, trade, rule of law, schools..... Oh wait....

The American people are being whipped into a fear frenzy of nothing, to justify a continuation of war, which will continue the problem of terrorism, not solve it. Why? Because it makes money to continually bomb people....

Bah. If MOOCs are a failure, that's because they're doing it wrong. There's a lot of good research saying that humans learn best through experimentation and projects, and in groups... MOOCs can't do that.

I'm still waiting for our hidebound education system to do "homework" in class with other students and where the teacher can help and do "lecture" via a recording that students can watch while they're at home. My wouldn't THAT be nice? There's something MOOCs would be good at...

Throwing lectures via a recording at people doesn't work really any better than doing it in person.

There's going to be a LOT of posts about politics here. Mine will be no different. oh look, the first post is about global warming. "Just link your thesis to Global Warming, and you won't have a problem."

Except that's the complete opposite of what the article is saying...

We need good science. I'm very annoyed that we are subsidizing profitable industries while NOT funding important science work. You all should be too. What happened to us? What happened to America? When did we become so.... Stupid? When did we change from people that valued knowledge and learning to a people that put quotes around "scientists" all the time?

I'm guessing it happened right around the time that the messages that educated people were telling us became harmful to the messages that industry wanted us to hear. Why can people not see that?

I am frequently found wondering about the pace of tech and the abilities it gives us being up against the speed of government, a large organization not known for speed. Designer drugs, fracking, UAVs, etc etc etc... It seems like it you move fast enough you can get away with a lot before anyone notices what you're up to. :D

This is not always a good thing, but... it is interesting.

I should also note there have been a LOT of coups in Argentina, and the US has been behind at least the ones in the 70s... This is known, not conspiracy. Kissinger gave the green light himself, and those records have been recovered under a FOIA request.