Oh, but that's recently been banned, hasn't it? I'm fairly certain that all terrorists, just like all good liberals, have duly registered their CA-legal firearms/weapons and turned in their illegal ones to the appropriate authorities. We need not worry about jihadis in California - they're all good law-abiding citizens. Just heard a story on the radio today: soon after Pearl Harbor, analysts feared the Japanese would attack the West coast. Estimates were that the Japanese could not be stopped before reaching the Mississippi River. After the war the Japanese generals were questioned on this. The reason they chose not to invade was that they knew that most Americans a) had firearms and b)knew how to use them.

I was president of a condo association for 5 years. I made the costly mistake of replacing all outside incandescent lights with CFLs:

- all CFLs, regardless of brand, failed within two years. Outdoors CFLs don't last as long as the cheapest incandescents, despite all caterwauling to the contrary. Please don't tell me about your special brand: I've tried it and it failed prematurely.Please don't tell me to return them to the store under the 3-year guarantee: if I did that all my time/gas would be spent driving to/from Home Depot/Lowe's/Light Store and changing bulbs.

- CFLs were frequently stolen. This was an unanticipated cost.

LEDs are even worse: thieves can spot an LED from 100 yards away and will stop at nothing to steal them (since they're so damn expensive). Great to spend $300 replacing a weatherproof floodlight receptacle and the electrical tubing because a thief tore it off an outside wall to get a $50 LED floodlight.

After 3 years I gave up and went back to incandescents, which we will use forever. Savings due to CFLs low electrical usage are not recovered when you include failure and theft in the equation. In fact, incandescents are cheaper even when you include the cost of the rugged models.

There are good reasons why incandescents have been used for so long. And, as others note, you can heat the chicken coop, keep pipes warm, and do other useful tasks with incandescents. CFLs were a political solution to a non-problem.

You've said the solar is competitive but haven't stated whether it is competitive w/o the federal support, which is absolutely necessary. I see no conflict provided the government quit subsidizing solar and every other form of energy.

It isn't possible to type as quickly and accurately on a tablet or iPhone as on a desktop PC. It isn't possible to precisely select a graphical element in one step (as in a CAD drawing).

Since voice input/control is not there yet, we are restricted to using mobile devices' clumsy keyboards. Even with voice, it is likely that users will opt for keyboards for other reasons (privacy, quiet in a group work environment, etc.).

Concentrated fissionable material produce antineutrinos.

What better way to enlarge the NSA's purview than to let it take a chunk out of the particle physics budget by controlling neutrino detection technology?

Protect yourself by climbing into the pipe.

It would have to be buried or anchored and topped with earth/asphalt/gravel/concrete to streamline air flow over the pipe.

Normally a culvert pipe is laid horizontally and could hold a number of people. Or you could use short sections and set them in the ground vertically. When trouble comes you climb in with a built-in ladder. Although these would be more trouble to maintain because:

• - snakes, bugs and rodents would like to live there too,
• - would be like having giant prairie dog holes in your yard: not very safe unless they had good covers.

Just as in a pinch, an underpass or a culvert pipe is a safe haven in a tornado, so this could cheaply save a group of people. And it wouldn't be as difficult as escape pods for those with claustrophobia.

like in science-fiction movies. I envision a hardened shell, coffin-like (but they could be spherical or any shape really), whose entry is flush with the ground. Each would be anchored or chained at a number of points to galvanized stakes (like fence stakes) driven deep into the ground. When a tornado approaches, you climb into your escape pod and latch it shut until the storm passes. This could be cheap and effective for all but the claustrophobic.

"Also the heads of JP Morgan, Citibank, Halliburton, etc, and all the shadowy 1% who are implementing this police state."

There is no evidence that those corporations are willing prticipants, much less "implementors". You're jumping into paranoia with this statement.

I am no friend of those corporations and believe the financial firms should be prosecuted; the NSA data could be used to do this or merely to blackmail them into supporting government policy. So I don't believe that JP Morgan is a willing friend of the NSA.

is all I would leave them.

This is likely causing a panic in Provo. But Mormons are good honest people, the very salt of the earth (that is, the ones that aren't politicians) and I know they'll find better more productive work in the end. Probably will strike up an economic recovery in Utah.

Moving asteroid chunks into Earth orbit.

I'm dumping Linux because Flash doesn't work. It's foolish to be without access to Youtube. And none of the Flash players work.

It's waiting for you.

To be clear:

1.1% of the population are schizophrenic and 98.8% are not.

Of schizophrenics, the fraction 0.05 (5%) are violent, so the percentage of violent schizophrenics in the total population is

1.1% x 5% = 0.011 x 0.05 = 0.00055 (0.055%) .

Of 98.9% non-schizophrenics, the fraction 0.03 (3%) are violent, so the percentage of violent non-schizophrenics in the total population is

98.9% x 3% = 0.989 x 0.03 = 0.02967 (2.97%).

So there 53 (0.02967/0.00055) times as many violent non-schizophrenics as violent schizophrenics in the total population. That is, in a random encounter you are about 50 times more likely to meet a violent non-schizophrenic than a violent schizophrenic.

You forgot a most likely possibility: they are fugitives from their own civilization. They need to get away for awhile to someplace safe and environmentally compatible until the heat is off. They could either plan the trip here or merely stumble across our planet while running away. So the first aliens we meet could be simple criminals.