Simply changing EPA rules by Presidential decree is dictatorial

The EPA is empowered, by Congress, to make such rules. The EPA falls under the executive branch, and so takes direction from the President, within the broad legislative mandate to protect the environment. In any event, the President hasn't actually issued new rules by decree - he's got certain goals, and has set the EPA to the task of actually drafting the rules and regulations through their normal process (which, for better or worse, includes lawsuits).

A President can't drop such regulations by decree, because that would violate the EPA's mandate and other existing laws enacted for the environment.

I did a bit of reading on the subject from TI, which has FRAM integrated into some of its MSP430 microcontrollers. If anything, the technology seems to be well-suited to the space environment, because bit storage is accomplished via a crystal structure change (polarization), rather than through charge storage.

I'm a huge fan of FRAM

That may be, but it wasn't exactly an option (in the sense of it being readily available and thoroughly tested for spaceflight) when the rovers were being designed 15 years ago. Is it even an option today?

I believe that there is one very high end 3D printer that has made metal weapons that work very well

That weapon was made using a DLMS (direct laser metal sintering) machine, which fuses metal powder using a powerful laser. This kind of machine goes for upwards of $1million, and isn't exactly turnkey. (I know: my company has one, and although it's amazing, it tends to not produce a usable copy of a new part until the 2nd of 3rd try.) Plus, it required a fair bit of post-machining.

Your example reinforces my point - if you want a "reliable and somewhat accurate weapon", you use metal, and metal rapid prototypers are not hobbyist equipment, and may not ever be. Plus, even if it were, you still need a reasonably well-equipped machine shop to finish the metal parts and assemble a working gun.

Do a powered descent with the Dragon Capsule, and return to orbit with Dragon under its own power to rendezvous with the upper stage that will bring it back to Earth

Dragon does not have enough fuel to both land and launch again. SpaceX hasn't demonstrated that it has sufficient capacity to even do a powered landing. I'm not saying itcan't, but you can't look at a Dragon capsule and consider it a vehicle capable of powering itself to orbital launch velocity, even on Mars.

3D printers will allow anyone to print a reliable and somewhat accurate weapon cheaply one day. At the moment they are still expensive, but won't stay that way for long

The notion of a "reliable and somewhat accurate weapon" coming from a $2,000 FDM (fused deposition modeling, i.e., plastic extruder) is laughable and drastically oversells the ability of the technology. Oh, sure, you can produce a gun today that'll kill someone, but don't expect 3D printers to enable the next Continental Army.

Perhaps a gunsmith could say otherwise, but my understanding is that a "reliable and somewhat accurate weapon" requires metal. 3D printing of metal is going to stay expensive for a long time, maybe for good, if only because the power it takes to sinter/melt metal is high and isn't going down. A 40-kW laser in every tinkerer's basement isn't likely. I've seen FDM-like metal printers that are more or less wire welders on an XYZ base, but the results leave much to be desired. Even then, a printed metal part will still need a decent amount of post-machining, in which case you may be better off fab'ing your gun from solid stock.

(I use 3D printing (FDM, SLS, DLMS) in my day-to-day job, have experience with hobbyist 3D printers)

In what way aren't they capable?

Well, the big one I can see is that they lack an airlock for EVAs. They also lack a cargo bay for bringing up tools and replacement parts. Lastly, they don't have a remote manipulator like the shuttle's arm, which was an essential tool for the servicing missions - first for capturing and positioning the telescope, then for moving the astronauts around.

With several launches, you could put together an orbiting service platform that contains these things. Unless things change greatly, however, the cost of putting together such a platform approaches the cost of building a whole new telescope!

I'm sure that we'll get there eventually (a LEO servicing platform), if only because fixing satellites could be a genuine business venture, but I don't think it'll happen within Hubble's remaining life.

Easier on Mars, because you generally don't have to worry about strong winds. The gravity is lower, so it requires less thrust. For some rocket engines, this is actually difficult, because you have a limited throttle range; the Merlin engines have been designed for this.

Also in your favor on Mars, your landing pad isn't pitching up and down on waves. On the other hand, the ground is not necessarily a smooth, flat, level pad. SpaceX has demonstrated the ability to hover, so as long as you have decent fuel reserves, you should be able to spend some time searching for a good spot.

However, in the case of using this technology to land on Mars, there is a significant difference: you would be using it to land a rocket (first stage and all) on the planet after having done a long coast from Earth and a violent re-entry. That is definitely more difficult than returning a first stage to the ground after lift off.

I read the whole article (yes, heresy) and the author doesn't even know what an operating system is.

The author lost a lot of credibility when he (she? the name is Dylan, which is slightly ambiguous as a first name) included this gem:

Nest has since released an intelligent CO2 detector, called Nest Protect.

Nest Protect is, first and foremost, a smoke detector / fire alarm. It can also monitor for carbon monoxide, but the author apparently failed high school chemistry.

I'm having a hard time imagining an electrical accident that would make you lose both your arms yet not kill you.

I'm sure it did kill him, in the sense that it stopped his heart. Apparently, however, death was just a temporary condition.

I don't really know - I wasn't there, and the other party is dead

This is one of the real problems I have with "Stand Your Ground" laws, like the one in Florida that allowed George Zimmerman to escape charges in the death of Trayvon Martin. It doesn't even boil down to a "he said, he said" kind of argument - conflicting accounts of what happened, like some bad replay of Rashomon . Instead, it's "he said, and the other guy's dead," which doesn't sound like a good way to get at the truth, let alone justice.

("Stand Your Ground" is a somewhat different situation than cops shooting subjects, or Castle Doctrine laws involving one's own home. The situation is the same - one guy's dead - but the context of who did the shooting and where provide more latitude.)

For what it's worth, iPhone screens can be replaced by removing screws. It still takes some skill, and is easier if you have a suction-cup tool, but does not involve adhesive.

For instance: iPhone 6 teardown

"We couldn't let it happen. We would lose our tax base, we would lose our jobs, we would lose our future," said State Sen. Catharine M. Young. "This agreement saves us. It gives us a foundation on which to build our economy."

It seems to me that if they were going to use the local power plant as a foundation for building the local economy, they might have gotten around to that by now. The plant has been there for decades, right? Looks to me like they squandered their chance as diversifying their tax and employment base - why should they be given a second chance to squander?

If you just replace coal with natural gas in the same plant to heat the water it is not significantly less CO2

Burning coal is pretty much just turning bulk carbon into carbon dioxide. Burning natural gas (methane, CH4) creates carbon dioxide, too, of course, but also releases energy from burning the hydrogen to make water. As a result, the combustion of natural gas produces less CO2 for the same energy output.

From the Energy Information Agency - Pounds of CO2 emitted per million BTU of energy:
Coal (anthracite): 228.6
Gasoline: 157.2
Natural Gas: 117.0

[I'll apologize for the units - I'm just quoting the result. If you must know, 1 lb / 1e6 BTU is equivalent to 0.43e-3 kg/MJ. Or, just look at the number as a figure of merit: lower is better.]

more data here

If one were to be cynical one would suggest that environmentalists only want sources of energy that are expensive and unreliable

Or they could, ya know, maybe use less energy. There's plenty of low-hanging fruit in using what energy we can produce more efficiently, which obviates the need for any new generation, or allows old plants to be mothballed. It doesn't mean shivering in dark caves: humans, particularly Americans, are fantastically thoughtless and wasteful when it comes to energy.

Rather than forcing utility rate payers to fork over $150 million for a natural gas conversion of an older plant, why not get them to fork over half as much money to pay for efficiency measures that would 1) negate the need for that natural gas plant altogether and 2) save them lots of money in the long run.