He's getting 32-bit libs that he didn't realize he was getting.
Not that that's a problem... in any way, whatsoever.

I would love to hear what the speed benefit is of not having 2 separate runtime linkers that each only apply to binaries of their architecture.

In a way, it does make it easy to get your game running on multiple platforms. The base dependencies for Steam are also basic middleware installed on virtually every Linux machine, and Steam ensures that it is there. SDL/OpenGL are easier to use than DirectX (IMO, I concede), and making sure that Steam enforces the dependencies across multiple flavors of platforms does in fact overcome the most difficult aspect of Linux development- dealing with the nightmare of different ways or slight variations in the details for pulling in dependencies on different platforms.

Need the 32-bit version of of the Pulseaudio libraries, but you refuse to install that stuff on your machine? Don't worry, Steam has you covered.
Steam is, in essence, a portion of the middleware, a compatibility layer, to a point.

It's certainly dick-headed... But profoundly and willfully ignorant? I don't know. The Minecraft engine is pure shit. I work with the base classes frequently while work with mods. It really does take an i7 with a decent GPU and a couple gigs of ram to really run it worth a shit with any kind of mods that make the game anything more than a simple sandbox, and the graphics really are terrible... That being said, the game itself is great, and the ease with which it can be modified is also great, so this shouldn't be construed as a dig against Minecraft, I'm just not a defender of the faith.

I suppose if someone wanted to get pedantically technical, one could argue that the extra lib directory in /usr causes a several microsecond increase on latency during the runtime linker's initialization....... if you're running a non-hashed directory inode filesystem....

Or the claim is entirely bullsh.

For now.

Once the law says so, and the schools must teach that it is so, it's only a matter of time before it is effectively 3. Our scientific knowledge and progress is in fact bounded by our laws, even if the physical laws themselves are not.

I don't think the science itself is. I do think that the science is being abused by profiteers in both directions (both supporting anthropogenic cause, and denying it)

I do not, however, think that it's healthy to continue to deny the science just because you don't like what one side of the profiteers are lobbying for us to do about it. Instead, lobby for saner solutions. Putting one's head in the sand and screaming that it isn't happening is just lunacy. You're presenting no real alternative to the other side, and they're going to get their way, and it's going to be your fault.

I'm sorry, are you saying it'll be rotating with the pointy end down? Why can you not simply keep it pointed at the nose? Or are you saying it will be tumbling? If so, I guess that would make it pretty damn hard to do much damage.

I think maybe you're underestimating the power of a 30kW beam collimated to a few square inches of area when fire through a mile of thick atmosphere, nevermind fired upward into atmosphere of rapidly dropping density? (The test scored the kill in seconds at 1 mile- and I imagine did plenty of damage in fractions of a second. The "seconds" was for complete burn through to disable the engine block)

My understanding is that ICBM RVs are very aerodynamic (sharp cones), entering at a significant enough velocity as to undergo massive friction and compression wave heating, and have quite stable trajectories, atmosphere be damned (Enough momentum and aerodynamic shape should reduce the ability of the atmosphere to move it around much, yes?) and pictures I've seen of MIRV re-entries do in fact look unnaturally straight.

I'm also not sure disrupting the airframe of an RV is much use. Again, it's a small, dense cone, in a high velocity ballistic trajectory. I'm not sure even significant damage to that airframe is going to cause destruction of the warhead even should the airframe come entirely apart.

I still don't think you could hope for much more than disabling the warhead in the RV, dropping a tumbling nuke onto the ground at high velocity, hopefully not spreading too much isotopic matter all over the place, and that applies for ballistic weaponry applied against the RV as well.

No, because the material with 95% reflectivity will not have that after it begins to heat up and is destroyed catastrophically. One does not mirror 30kW in a few square inches of area. 99% still wouldn't be enough. It would no longer be reflective in milliseconds, and then it would burn like anything else.

No, because it's only white for a fraction of a millisecond at that energy.

I imagine not very long before it causes enough damage (melting?) to make the shell's formerly ballistic trajectory no longer a threat to you

I don't know if staying on target is a problem. The RVs are on a ballistic trajectory. However, completely destroying them may be a bit of a trick. I think the best you can hope for is disabling the warhead and having a dirty bomb fall on your head.

You'd perhaps be surprised how difficult it is to mirror 40kW of coherent light without liquid nitrogen.

Sigh. As I said, the bill had already passed her chamber of congress, so she had either forgotten about that (I suppose you'll say that's possibility), or she was referring to the Senate reconciliation process. I'm not even saying I disagree with the point you're trying to make, but the comment is still taken entirely out of context. I'm certain there were people in the Senate debates... the *year* of debates, that knew full well what was in the bill.

FY2007's omnibus budget bill was 1400 pages. You're using an absolute number that is shocking with nothing for comparison. Either you knew that, and are being disingenuous, or you didn't, and now you do.