During that "disasterous" period, DARPA made progress on the "Proto 1" and "Proto 2" cyborg arms, and the military (not sure if DARPA specifically) funded Bussard's "Polywell" fusion project.

Sounds like the premise of Heinlein's "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress". Revolutionaries on the Moon take control of a mass driver and start flinging multi-ton barges at Earth, with just enough remote-control maneuvering that the shooters can call up Earth afterward and ask if they'd like to surrender.

Why? Because it's possible -- not saying it's true yet, mind you -- that just maybe the guards thought Watts was dangerous. And by Watts' own admission he first broke protocol for dealing with border guards (by getting out of the car), then violated a direct order by a law enforcement officer. So to leap without further evidence to the conclusion that the officers were being "gigantic dicks given excessive amounts of power" requires that you don't care what the guards thought was happening.

It's interesting to compare this incident to the "flying imams" event a few years back. I've read the police report of that, citing multiple passengers' and crewmembers' testimony. Should we have heard early articles saying "a couple of Muslims were thrown off a plane!" and said no more evidence is necessary; it's clearly the work of abusive, racist, anti-Muslim guards? (And no, I don't have reason to think Watts was nearly as alarming as the imams.)

My point is: would you accept at face value, without even needing to hear Homeland Security's side, the account of a guy who is known for being particularly vocal about the evils of Homeland Security?

The opposite hasty generalization? A couple posts upstream someone said, "I think I'd like to hear both sides of the story before I decide." Is that the same as, "He must've deserved it"?

It sounds like the facts aren't all in yet, so let's not leap to conclusions. We're hearing the account of Cory Doctorow -- who in his novel "Little Brother" had an obvious axe to grind against Homeland Security and law enforcement, to the point of suggesting "9/11 was an inside job". (Says one of the leaflets dropped by the novel's heroic protesters.) We're also hearing second-hand from Watts and the other people in the car. We're not yet hearing the guards' account. Maybe Doctorow et. al. are completely right, but let's not assume so right off the bat, eh?

The Doctorow account quotes Watts saying that he got out of his car when questioned (mistake #1), then refused the order to get back in (mistake #2). No, of course that doesn't justify a beating. It just suggests we don't have the whole story.

Wait, eInk has screen savers? I thought part of the point was that it required no charge to maintain an image. Does an eInk screen suffer from burn-in like a CRT?

In fact, part of the information allegedly taken from these researchers is source code, and it's revealing. It helps reveal the significance of an e-mail about a "trick" done with the data.

"it's time we took the money away from the scientists who have been telling us this for years and gave it to the engineers to get us out of this mess."

So, you're saying, "Cut off funding for anyone who questions the official position that this is an urgent global crisis that demands massive government intervention"?

If it's not truly as serious a problem as some would have us believe, then we don't need to radically restructure the global economy, expand government at the expense of freedom, or transfer more wealth to other countries. At least for this reason.

World population today: >6 billion. World population ca. 1900: 1 billion.

What's this? But I keep hearing that our problems are the fault of "greedy capitalists", and that "capitalism" means an unlimited government trying to dictate and control the economy while working hand-in-hand with giant corporations.

Come to think of it, isn't a capitalist economy easier to model with physics-like methods than a statist economy like that of (say) Europe or where the US has largely gone? In an idealized (in the sense of "oversimplified") capitalist society, you're dealing with a bunch of semi-rational actors acting individually, as opposed to massive decisions getting imposed by unpredictable political methods. Whether capitalists shift to a new energy tech depends on costs and innovation, but whether statists shift to a new energy tech depends more on whether Senator So-and-So cajoles and bribes his way to getting a bill passed.

It has no bearing, only if you start with the premise that the Constitution doesn't limit federal power. Which is assuming what you're trying to prove.