We absolutely do not know everything in orbit and I would hazard a guess that hundreds if not thousands of objects launched by the U.S and Soviet Union/CIS are now "tumbling out of control." At the birth of the space age there was a lot of room up there and they just never thought to provide a way to bring things back down to Earth in a controlled manner. The countries lambasting the North Koreans need to collectively drink a large cup of shut the fuck up until they clean up their own acts.

Yes, but only if they are not based on SCIENCE.

No, sometimes they just implode all by themselves.

But I wouldn't know where to begin. Does the bubble burst now on inexpensive natural gas? Do they (the fracking companies) stop their activties or just go on with business as usual? Do the citizens in fracking areas have legal recourse? Is what passes for mainstream journalism going to pay any attention to what has happened? Will there be a congressional inquiry or are they too busy impersonating lemmings at the fiscal cliff? Yep, some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints...

Two of my machines run Windows 7 and one is running Mint. When support ends for Windows 7 I'll have three machines running Mint. MS should have remained MS, but they were so busy trying to keep up with Apple that they lost sight of their true customer base. The people I have the most sympathy for are the ones trying to support Windows in a multi-user environment.

I wonder if Congressman Smith is aware that the Earth is billions of years old. It could be that he is among the millions of Americans who aren't aware of that scientific fact.

Those presumptions worked fine when both the electorate and their representatives were educated. Unfortunately we have legislators who don't fuck things up every 2 years, they keep them fucked up for decades. Take a look at the FDA and the way that food regulations have been written by/for the fast food industry and the food mega-corporations. It would be humorous if it weren't so damned pathetic. George Carlin hit the nail on the head when he said, "This country has been bought and sold."

And how long has Adobe been pushing Acrobat down peoples's throats with that damned "must have Acrobat to read PDFs" BS?

Reinheitsgebot, which means you can't piss in a barrel and call it beer.

Sounds wonderful! But I hear that things are not as idyllic during Octoberfest. Apparently the beer vendors are setting their prices at ever increasing heights (based, no doubt, on how much the tourists are willing to pay). Needless to say, the locals are not happy because they like to drink their beer at a reasonable price. Personally, I can't wait until the U.S. pulls out its head and starts selling liters instead of those silly little pints.

Terrorism absolutely won because the former occupant didn't recognize, I'm sorry, nobody told him that the entire world was on our side following 9/11. We had one moment in which we could have stopped all this foolishness and made a stand for the freedoms for which the U.S. was founded. I think it was Yogi Berra who said "If you come to a fork in the road, take it." He forgot to add, "Think before you leap, you fucking idiot."

So it won't make any difference who is in the White House over the next four years? Supreme Court appointments come to mind...

Because they are sheep.

Umm, what is this "post-nuke" era ? There's a reason they have huge computing capability - the nukes haven't gone away, we just don't talk about them anymore. And they don't just sit around gathering dust; they must be carefully maintained and a huge amount of computing power is expended in "improving" them. And you may rest assured that the nuclear establishment is developing new tactical and strategic nuclear weapons for specialized applications, again using vast amounts of computing power.

Metal shavings...seems I've heard the same thing before with the ISS. The bearings for the solar panel structure apparently had an issue with excessive wear, but I don't recall what the resolution was for that problem.