Sure... don't believe me. How about Lee Atwater, the architect of the 'Southern Strategy' and adviser to Nixon and Reagan:

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968, you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."
-Lee Atwater
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

Sure, if you go back to the 40s and 50s, you will find that most of the south was Dems and there were even Dem Senators who had been Klan members

Then this little thing call the Civil Rights Movement came along. Some of the former Klansmen (Sen Byrd is a good example) turned their backs on their past and worked to convince people to no longer be associated with that group

By the 70s many people in the South were disillusioned with the Dem party because of the support of civil rights and they were attracted to the Republican party due to the Southern Strategy that was promoted by Nixon and Reagan

Since that time 'States Rights' was the dog whistle to call the racists and klansmen to the GOP and they have gone over in droves, there is no surprise to find that the ranks of the gop are littered with people of that mindset

I was more inclined to think Europe and Japan, but I suppose that having no argument leads you to just shout about them damn commies

That's ok, I guess it would suck to live with an out dated view of the world, particularly when you are trying real hard to ignore that which is plainly obvious

I have found progressives more inclined to ask questions of their critics than conservatives

It has to do with mental makeup, that is to say progressives are a great deal more curious about the world around them, while conservatives already know how everything is and just want to shut up those who disagree with them

Providing secular laws and education seems to be the key in blunting the effect of religious zealotry

We can easily identify those leaders who fight against secularism as the promoters of religious radicalism and refuse to vote for them

With Iridium the approach was to hand ff the transmission between satellites until it was within range of of a ground station to connect to a terrestrial network, or reach another satellite phone, usually one or two hops

They may use a similar approach, although Iridium initially involved the governments in the countries that they maintained gateways in as part of the corporate structure. See Wired story, "The United Nations of Iridium"
http://archive.wired.com/wired...

It would make a lot of sense to use the satellite network as the primary routing mechanism and only maintain gateways in geographic locations that Musk has strong political influence in. This would limit political interference from countries that practice censorship and limit money lost to graft and bribery

This ^

Furthermore, Musk has gone beyond ideas or demos and delivered profitable companies delivering these technologies

I would say put your eggs into many baskets, this endeavor represents another basket

People get confused between because the current satellite data providers (like HughesNet) are in geosynchronous orbit, which does suffer latency issues

Iridium is a LEO system that does not currently provided data services, and which has a relatively sparse constellation which requires a wide visible horizon to use

Variety?

If all of your eggs are in one basket, i.e. fiber optics, then last mile, remote location, some jackass dragging an anchor or a recalcitrant local government can cut you off from access

Satellite communication is the more expensive option, but it can be worth it if there is no other means of connection

The real question is whether that market is enough to support their cost structure

It really depends on how many sats SpaceX can jam into one launch and how much of their capacity is already committed to other contracts

Teledesic was dependent on other companies for launch, the one demo sat they put up was using Orbital's Pegasus

It is actually calling for a few thousand satellites, but you are correct.... not that big of an issue considering the area that they are spread out over

I have to wonder, considering the Branson announcement, which billionaire is trying to distract from which billionaires actual commitment

Musk has the lead in the form of an actual, demonstrated, launch capability, but Branson made it to press a few days earlier

Gotcha, every story has to be wrapped up in a bow and dropped in your lap with no loose ends in a 90 minute running time.

I'm glad that Ridley Scott's other works like Blade Runner made it so easily digestible

My favorite is Grandma's Boy where the aging dweeb bangs the hot management consultant would would have had him riffed in real life

My guess is that he is the only one that they are willing to hang out as bait and get wasted so they can identify their target without any down-side of somebody else caring what happens to him

A lamb staked out to draw in the wolves

I'll probably wait to watch it on netfix in a few years, no rush to see it on the big screen