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there goes another gap...

That article says the autopilot was disconnected and "[The investigation] will help us to understand whether there was a problem with the Airbus or in the training received by flight crew in manual aircraft handling at high altitude."

In other words they don't know what happened, but at the time of the near stall the plane was no longer under the control of the auto pilot. BTW if a plane suddenly finds itself overspeeding, climbing to lose speed is the right thing to do.

Can you cite one please?

So the EPA should be able to make rules and then say," Because...this". What is this? No one knows.

Making rules, regulations and public police is serious business and should be done open and above board.If you want to restrict or prohibit something, you should have real science, available science to back it up. All this garbage about privacy is just that. Scientific studies are done all the time protecting the patient's info and is perfectly acceptable science.

I think they don't want to be forced to show their work...just write down "the answer".

"Muddy the discussion"? You mean like having two opposing viewpoints represented? Having an actual discussion instead of choir practice? Well, that's the problem isn't it? Far too many people are here for choir practice instead of discussion, and a lot of that "music" is pretty crappy given the varous claims about geeks and "superior" intellects. Too few people post correct information about this and related topics.

And your crack about "same worn-out arguments" cuts both ways. Or at least you would realize it if you have any genuine insight. The right answer doesn't change just because you're tired of reading it.

Not many years before that warning the US devoted about 40% of GDP to defense spending. The long term trend of the percentage of GDP devoted to defense spending has been a long decline until today where only aroud 5% of GDP is spent on defense. That wouldn't happen if the "MIC" were all powerful as some people mistakenly claim.

There appears to be a gap between the facts of history and your theories.

Wow. I found troopers quite tedious. Harsh mistress and stranger were my favorites of his, but far, far from my all-time favorites. More of a Banks man, myself.

There is essentially no chance of that happening. The only prisoners sent to Guantanamo were people known or believed to be members of al Qaida, or its affiliates. That doesn't describe Snowden. Or are you calling Snowden an al Qaida terrorist?

Snowden would end up in ordinary Federal court.

In a post above you made this claim:

What you posted there doesn't seem to support that claim. Would you care to provide an actual example of that happening to an ordinary American (or Briton, or Canadian, or Australian, or New Zealander) with no involvement in terrorism or organized crime? Do you have in mind someone running or office, or what? There doesn't seem to be much to your claim.

I think you missed the point of the film. It was clearly intended as parody of both war propaganda films and 90210-style utopian soaps.

You poor soul.

Australia counters Chinese threat
Ascendant China spurs increased military spending in Australia

There is a very large gap between your thinking and reality. Think of the Marines as a "trip wire" protecting Australia.

Most people fail to see that since it doesn't actually happen.

Rather like many do when discussing ..... hating the US?

Well, there is plenty of madness to go around, isn't there? I seem to recall a certain faction of the NZ political establishment thought cozying up to the People's Republic of China was a better "fit" for NZ than allying with the US. I wonder what the people in Hong Kong would think, or the Philippines? Of course, what could possibly go wrong? What madness.

Do pilots still need licenses in the age of autopilot? Well yes because machines aren't infallible.

Not quite. It's "yes" because most people would be unable to get over their fear of flying in an entirely autonomous plane, not because we need heroic pilots to override the computer when things go wrong.

Consider that about half of all aviation accidents are traced to pilot error. The percentage of crashes caused by autopilot error is zero.