Again, it's philosophical. If you believe that, ultimately, the gene pool needs some chlorine then perhaps massive die offs of humanity (and lots of other organisms, remember, this is a high extinction event we are going through) are a good thing.

If you are a politician or an administrator trying to keep a society happy, or at least alive, not so much.

Have you seen who is moving into Florida? Those land whales are heavy. It's not so much that water levels are rising, it is that the land mass is sinking due to all that extra weight.

Those Double Cheeseburger / Extra Fries / Monster drink calories have to go somewhere.

While undoubtably true, one of the big issues with our currently changing climate is that the anthropogenic forcing is supposedly pushing change faster than historical 'natural' climate change. Thus, ecologies will have less time to adjust and that is generally considered to be a Bad Thing. The problem with that theory is that some of the finer grained climate studies - mostly from newer ocean sediment cores - indicates that some significant changes have happened over periods of decades. That clearly is putting increased stress on some critter populations and, in fact, entire enviroments but sometimes life is a bitch.

From a purely practical, selfish standpoint having significant changes in climate (and therefore resources and therefore economies) is going to put even more stress on H. sapiens sapiens so we will tend to screw things up more than ever. Might very well suck to be us in a couple of decades. And this is irrespective of whose 'fault' it is. Remember, the current period - the Holocene - has been characterized by very stable weather patterns. This is not normal and probably won't stay stable - again, no matter if it's caused by a volcano or big coal.

As to whether or not we can actually influence things by cutting down on carbon consumption - that is a completely open question. There are lots of good arguments to make about not using up all of the planet's resources in 200 or so years and mitigating our species impact on the rest of the planet. But that is very much a philosophical argument.

Channeling Sarah Palin? That's a scary thought.

She can follow up on her work at HP and merge the Democrat and Republican parties together. That should make things much more efficient, increase shareholder value and offer synergies to enhance international competition.

A seagoing vessel is probably a better analogy (boats fall apart just floating around) - while there are ancient boats still floating, pretty much everything in them has been replaced at one point or another. In a dock - which is a pretty benign environment. It may be impossible to disassemble the ISS and replace the bad parts in orbit. Look at how much effort goes into just putting a new refrigerator on the outside of the thing. We just don't have the technology to uncouple a module, re weld a section and bolt / weld it back together again.

We likely should be working on that ability but this sort of construction and repair isn't sexy enough, I guess. Space is hard. Very hard. Budget constraints have made it so the US and Russia are really just jogging in place on the ISS - very little real research (such as in orbit assembly) is even being contemplated.

ISS-2 will be put together on the ground and boosted into segments and snapped together in orbit, but it won't be 'built' in orbit. There won't be any machining, welding, wiring, insulating or any of those types of functions done in space. We are no where near being able to do that past the sound stage.

OK, OK. Alien infestations and smelly roses then. Two out of three ain't bad.

Geez. Tough crowd.

Maybe not so smart. Sounds kinda blurry, like a Gen I night vision scope. I think I'd wait a little bit to make sure he doesn't grow things in inappropriate places or start photosynthesizing. But they do have the benefit of previous research as some form of chemotherapy so I guess it won't kill you right off.

Oh come now folks, just look it up.

It's practically on Recipes.com.

I am unaware of the UNHCR dealing with American refuges. I'm sometimes a little out of the loop but I thought I would have heard of that by now. Is it that bad in Texas these days?

I'm to assume that Ikea instructions make more sense in another language?

I've always wondered about that.

Is anything legal in California these days?

I don't know if SpaceX is leapfrogging ULA. The Alliance (why does that just sound wrong?) is responsible for a number of different booster programs spread out over time and territory. It never really was supposed to be efficient - except perhaps in the mind of a bunch of MBAs. SpaceX has narrower, more clearly defined goals.

That said, some pressure on the behemoths to tighten up their act might be helpful - but remember although the ULA is presumably private, it is very much beholden to the Military Industrial Complex which means it is very much beholden to the Congress which means different booster programs spread out over time and territory as much time and territory as is possible.