Wow, that means that the Prenda and MAFIAA guys are actually good guys!

Are you sure about that? Unless we're talking about GTO launches, an equatorial orbit is dfficult to reach from Cape Canaveral since you're actually not on the equator.

You know, had you actually watched Star Trek VI and the new episodes of Star Wars by the time you saw that, you would have known that an alien explosion would have made a 2D shockwave and not a spherical one. If nothing else, we can at least thank Lucas for fixing this bit of general education.

Well, after I had read that the double slit experiment works for such large things as buckyballs (C60), I vowed not to let myself get surprised by QM anymore. So far, I haven't faltered. :-)

Wow, you suck at basic Newtonian relativity. How's that even possible?

There's a good risk of loss in many cases (see the history!)

Taken as a whole, government investments like have very rarely lost. Even in the contentious past 5 years, the government investment in emerging technologies have been very profitable, even with the poster boys like Solyndra which are used to argue that all government investment in technology is a bad idea. This argument is usually made on the Internet, which is more than a little bit ironic.

Did Tesla have to pay a penalty for early repayment?

Early repayment penalties are illegal in most of the US.

The benefit of this kind of loan program is not in the interest earned, but in the fact that you get a successful company that creates jobs and pays taxes, which used to be considered a good thing. Having an additional player in a heavy industry also creates competition in a fairly consolidated sector, which also used to be considered a good thing.

These kind of government loans to business in the US go back to the 18th century, and were considered a very good idea until recently, when one of the two political parties lost its mind.

First time I went down on a girl I was surprised to discover it was a little bit like licking a (dead) 9-volt battery. Turned out she had an exceptionally low pH level (high acidity).

You know how you can power a clock with a potato? I wonder...

It's even noticeable when you have sex with another partner who has a different PH.

I can only imagine the blank looks on the faces of Slashdot users reading that sentence.

Well, basically, here you're just reiterating your former point that anything can be killed by using enough acid. :-)

Arthur Prysock.

Linking to Prysock gives you credibility.

Linking to a Fox News poll does not. Do I have to remind you just how far off Fox's polls have been when it comes to Obama?