The world is fallen. The only available liberty is Christ.

It's more like when you know somebody dying to die by a needle and run out of energy trying to talk them out of their nihilism.
The courts have shown their corruption, overturning voters across the country. It is left for me to raise my sons with a proper understanding, irrespective (and disrespective) of what some liars say.

More like -37%. I mean, as long as you're going to go broad brush, brush that broad, say I.

I hope you don't think me a GOP apologist. I'd toss fully 80% of the Republican louts, too. #NoMasBush

But you didn't eat it

Well...

Actually the "B" scenario is quite common, the technology gets to the point where something is possible and multiple inventors invent the same thing. the classic example was the telephone, due to speakers and microphones being new tech, people put them together to make a telephone. One day two inventors showed up at the patent office, first Elisha Gray whose application went into the inbox at the bottom, hours later, second, Bells partner who demanded that his application get processed right away. So Bell ended up with the patent and went on to form a famous monopoly based on that master patent (along with some vacuum tube patents later). If Gray had been more aggressive things may have ended different but the fact is that they both independently invented the telephone (along with another IIRC who tried to file later that week) because it was time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

It's a patent so you can't just reverse engineer it unlike if it was only copyrighted. Even if you totally independently invent it, you can't use it due to MS patent. This is one of the problems with patents, sometimes it is just time for an invention and whoever gets the patent wins. Phones were a good example, the technology was there and one day two different inventors showed up at the patent office (with another that week) to patent the phone. First one got the patent which led to the AT&T monopoly.
MS didn't actually patent the Office file formats as far as I know, probably due to not themselves knowing how they work or perhaps they weren't patentable at the time.

Actually Robertson screws are a good example of a superiour product that didn't catch on (at least in the States, they've always been common in Canada) due to licensing. P. L. Robertson refused to license manufacturer to most everyone including Henry Ford who found using Robertson screws cut a couple of hours off building a Model T so Ford used Philips instead, at least in America.
I curse every time I deal with a Philips and smile when using a Robertson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

And! and! and.... The generator costs money to buy use and maintain, and it has to be exercised, because that fuel has to be used - you don't want old fuel in an emergency generator, Stabil or no Stabil. Its just one more thing that the some folks don't take into account when they do their ROI's and other calculations based on something that they just don't like.

And if you want to see some real dollars go away, try replacing your entire house hotel load of power needs with an appropriately sized generator. Running a big freezer, an oil furnace, refrigerator, and all tungsten lights (assuming a person who hates this idea hates cfls or led lights too) is going to get you some serious bucks involved. Don't forget your capacity has to be enough so that you can handle the motor startups on the devices, plus you really need to have enough to handle the draw when a couple start at the same time. Don't forget you need to install a cutout system so you don't electrocute linesmen trying to get you your power back.They frown on that, although the ROI of a couple years in prison isn't too bad with those three hots and a cot

So what's the ROI on a whole house emergency power generator plus installation plus fuel plus maintenance?

Strategically, if I were at war with another country, I would hope that their power generation capacity was in as few locations as possible.

I'm all about conservation, but in the end, it is every bit as much a distraction as that stuff you don't like.

Because in all conservation efforts, the end is people using so little resources that it is effectively zero.

While I suppose you don't believe that, tell me, what is the amount of conservation of materials that compensates for population increase?

Let's say we all use 10 percent less of something. Let's say water.

Each new person on earth then uses up water to the same level the rest of us are using, which is 90 percent of what we used before.

So for every new person, how many people's savings in water have been used by this new person?

So we have to reduce all that much the next year, then the year after that, and on and on. Eventually no one uses any water.

Are you trying to say it will never be viable?

Its the new Slashdot, home for the reactionary status quo. These good folk will be clutching their hatred of anything new until they meet the actuarial tables.

Unfortunately, they get mod points, and in their world, anything they disagree with is marked troll or flame bait.

To quote a commenter above:

reality is there will be collateral damage in fighting terrorists sometimes

if you travel to the middle east, don't be surprise if terrorists grab you and hold/torture/behead you

You ar eright. Those oil subsidies are a bit of a nuisance.