I was worried that IS-IS was getting massively deprecated by the US government, after I spent time learning it.

It worked pretty well when directed against Germany and Japan in the 1940s.

That's it! Now we have a way to finance the Mars colonization, by backing up all those 1980s and 1990s cat videos we just migrated off VHS tape. I'll see about standing up the first off-planet data center later this week.

Only if she is naked. Hot grits optional.

Why would they want to sue themselves?

Is there a difference here, or did you just feel the need to visit thesaurus.com today?

It's highly arguable whether any of these hot spots currently involve vital interests of the US. Penis-measuring is, as you note, a rather expensive proposition at this level. The American public generally shrugs, or at most bitches a little at the cost in dollars, but a decade plus of body bags and young men with missing limbs have reduced appetites for being the world's cops. That would change quickly in the case of a threat to a close ally, let alone US possessions.

Feel free to sufficiently provoke the US to test your hypothesis. I'll check the Vegas line and watch on video.

Re Iran, the Mossadegh government seems to have been a little too friendly to the Soviets. They shared a long border and the USSR had occupied substantial parts of Iran during (and for several years after) WW2, so there was real fear in the West about losing the whole country to the Soviet bloc. This would have given Persian Gulf ports to the Soviet Navy, an existential threat to the West's oil supplies.

I am not saying the Iran coup of 1953 was a brilliant or ethical move, only that it is somewhat understandable in the geopolitical calculus of the time. It wasn't ONLY commercial profits at stake.

Well one thing that comes to my mind is a dead-man switch. Require whatever ordnance or vehicle to check in and obtain a new certificate from a trusted authority (no not a commercial CA) to continue functioning. Sign the firmware with this cert, and make it hard to get physical access to the ASICs without destroying the gear. In normal circumstances this could be a trivial, largely automated process associated with standard maintenance processes. Set the TTL to something like 6 months and there's no danger of impacting legitimate operations, while minimizing the usefulness of looted gear.

I believe there were many benefits, well justifying the cost. You apparently disagree, fine. Your arguments are unlikely to persuade me, and vice versa. Good day sir.

Really? This article concerns NASA, which pioneered the exploration of space. Are you saying that was unjustifiable? Which private sector entities were clamoring to throw money at it in 1961?

Those Blackadders are quite deadly I hear.

Those noted nuclear apologists at the World Health Organization state that "up to 4000" people could die due to exposure to radionuclides released by the Soviets' stupidity at Chernobyl. But hey, everyone alive in 1986 will eventually die, so maybe we should just count everyone, right?

Meanwhile coal (like that sweet lignite that Germany is digging up now) goes on killing at least HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE EVERY YEAR*, yet people seem only to care about teh ebil raydeeayshun. Maybe the coal casualties aren't as dead or something.

It is way past time to grow up and stop pissing and moaning about nuclear.

* According to Forbes, the figure is about 300000/yr in China alone.

Granted on the (very large) technicality. However, TSR sent me a letter afterward basically saying, "Haha, sucks to be you. We got the company, but we are going to do nothing at all for the S&T magazine subscribers, despite continuing to publish it. You want it, pay up again."

Well, gee, thanks but, go to hell TSR.