Regardless of the rights and wrongs of KD's actions, one thing has been very strongly lighlighted by his arrival in NZ and the actions that have followed from that.

When he first arrived, he was welcomed with open arms by the government, despite his shady past.

Why?

Well he had *lots* of money and was prepared to give some to the government and spend the rest locally.

Yes, you *can* buy your way into New Zealand -- despite claims to the contrary.

Then many people of power and influence hob-nobbed with KD, hoping perhaps that they'd get favours from him -- as indeed one politician did, to the tune of thousands of dollars contributed to his funds but not declared (later resulting in a conviction for that MP for filing false returns).

Once KD had given huge sums of his money to the NZ government he was then of little further use to them so they were more than happy to help out their US overlords (the FBI and MPAA) by engaging in *unlawful* surveillance and an unlawful raid and asset seizure. Despite the illegality of these government-organised activities, nobody involved or responsible has been censured for breaking the law. How convenient, and another sign of deep-rooted corruption.

Once KD dared to meddle in local politics by funding a party which stood at the last election, this was the final straw. The Prime Minister (whose office has been engaged in some *very* shady dealing with our Security Intelligence Service recently, prompting that agency to apologize to another opposition MP) has now obviously decided that it's time to kick KD to the curb.

In any *real* democracy where people's rights are respected and the government and its agencies are required to obey the laws that they pass, there would be little problem. However, as has been seen by the massive trail of graft and corruption, plus the ongoing lack of accountability for wrong-doing on the part of the PM, his office and its agencies, it's unlikely that KD will get a fair deal at all.

As I said... I don't give a damn whether KD is an angel or the devil incarnate -- his mere presence in this country has exposed the lie which is a claim that we are the least corrupt country on Earth. No... the truth is that, until now, we've been the best at covering up huge levels of corruption that are now exposed for all to see.

Auto mechanics own their own tools. Most shops give a "tool allowance" for them to buy new tools on a regular basis, but the fact is that owning your own tools makes theft pointless and accidental loss expensive. Problem solved.

When I look at this toolbox and the amount of effort to "check out" or "check in" a tool - plus the fact that the capacity of the box is now 1/10th what it used to be - that $35,000/year is starting to look like a rock bottom bargain if they have anything more than 3 or 4 people using it.

I contend that the bar on "defending yourself" is set much too low. The current laws in many places may disagree but laws can & do change, admittedly now always for the better.

I don't support mob rule but I also don't support giving anyone a walk after killing someone. You take a life, you face trial, officer or citizen.

Before making spurious comments about the mob, keep in mind that there have been bigger, more destructive riots after SPORTS EVENTS.

Also, when has any of these mobs actually lynched anyone? Do you even have the foggiest clue as to what white supremacists lynch mobs have actually done?
Do you have info on a raucous minority mob dragging an American police officer behind a car to his death, then cutting off his fingers, extracting his teeth and castrating him for souvenirs. Because that was the sort of things that lynch mobs did to African-Americans.

There are still many people living today who remember what happened to 14-yr old Emmett Till, murdered for allegedly wolf-whistling at a white girl.
Two men did face trial but were quickly acquitted - and not lynched by a raging black mob. Imagine that.

It's been over 100 days since Mike Brown died in the street in Ferguson and yet Officer Darren Wilson has faced no credible threat to his life - a lynch mob worthy of the KKK would have long since meted out their idea of justice.

And they can't possibly ever be wrong.

The Russians have plenty and the Obama administration secured quite a few decaying nukes for our Glorious Comrades and used the fuel to provide nuclear power.
I understand that the USA is now producing Pu-238 again so that's something for future missions.

Now we are talking about a European mission from 10 yrs ago so that's definitely a factor in deciding how to power the apparatus.
But it's also true that whatever Russia has is available - for a price.

There's been a lot of science on Slashdot since the days when we joined.
Plus, shit happens in people's lives and there are only so many hours in the day. So there's plenty I've missed and I was never all that interested in the minutiae of space exploration. I love to learn more about the universe but I'm also quite convinced that our lives for the reasonably forseeable future are tied to this Pale Blue Dot and here's where my focus has been for quite some time.

It's not inconceivable that fuel cell cars will be a success but the current state of tech is much better suited to stationary storage or heavy vehicles.
From the few reviews I've found, they seem to a bit on the sluggish side unless paired with a battery, which makes them more expensive.

As for catching Tesla, they'll really have to throw money and resources into it - Tesla is NOT standing still and they've already built out their fast charging infrastructure.
Hydrogen transport and storage is nowhere near as ubiquitous and is not a trivial problem.

"Over a decade without warming" - that's only somewhat true of the surface temps and not at all true of the ice caps & the ocean.
You do realize just how much ice was lost from the Arctic sea, the Greenland ice sheet, the land-based ice of the Antarctic and the various glaciers during your "over a decade without warming"?? FYI, it's way more than a multigigametric cubicfuckton.

You do realize just how much heat it takes to melt ice, right? That just converting a given amount of ice into water without raising its temperature requires as much heat as heating that volume of water from room temp to nearly boiling?? You are aware of that, right??

I keep posting the link below for all the "no warming since whenever" folks. Let's how that some of you actually bother to read the post - you just might learn something.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/20...

However we do it, we'd be turning down the thermostat to a setting we've lived through in the present & recent past.

Many jungles, such as the Amazon, have very poor soil and only function because of rainfall and an interconnected ecosystem. That sort of interconnectedness is the antithesis of modern large scale monoculture farming. You need to be able to foster the production & maintenance of soil - or use a lot of petrochemical based fertilizer.

Quite a bit of those costs are being incurred right now. For example, Hurricane Sandy, flooding in Europe & the UK, prolonged droughts in CA, TX & Southwest, ever more damaging wildfires,etc.

How did those presumably photosynthetic plants cope with the several months of darkness that's part of the polar year?

Are you posting from 1960? Appliances have had delay timers for decades.

You overestimate the power of environmentalists.
If they had the power you imagine, there would have been no new coal plants built anywhere after 1970.

And they've not been able to prevent nuke plants from being built in quite a few countries, even after Chernobyl.