. . .benevolence on the part of Uncle Sam. . .

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/why-metadata-matters

I have every right to expect that my dealings are my business, particularly when dealing with an organization or individual who promises to keep our interaction private. Our government has been known to do Bad Things. Your attitude assumes benevolence on Uncle Sam, when the evidence would seem to suggest that he can, at times, be a real jerk. Perhaps this administration can be trusted, (Can you keep a straight face while saying that?) but the last administration apparently lied, and the next administration may be even worse.

I can't disagree with you more strongly. I don't see how this can be good for liberty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeach#United_States

He was impeached by the house, but not tried by the senate.

I've always had a p38 on my keychain and never had a problem. One of the TSA folks looked at it once, but that's all the attention that it's ever gotten. I used to fly frequently to DFW from LAX, and have also gone through security in Fairbanks, Salt Lake, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Portland, Anchorage and Burbank. (There may be one or two more that I've forgotten.)

5x5280=26400

But it's not all that small, either. It's the fifth largest city in the state, though areas like Wasilla have a significant population outside the city boundary. The middle school had enrollment of 295 for two grades in 2009, so there are probably about 150 students in each grade.

Both the town and the schools are a lot bigger than where I went to school, so it seems to me that that's more than large enough to get lost in.

Do you mean something like this?

This is called trespassing, not occupying. It's always interested me how our politics can influence our descriptions.

I don't think that they could recover their investment, if this is even technically possible. The extraction is done underground at the end of a drill string. The Nankai Trough is as much as 4000M deep, and the deposits that they're tapping are as much as 7000M below the sea floor. According the Wikipedia article on the Nankai Trough, there's a huge influx of sediment, which would make "strip mining" still more difficult.

The article really sucked, so I went looking for another, even though it was only slightly better.

The major improvement is in depressurizing the hydrate so that the gas will boil off. They don't have a robot at those depths, the work is done at the end of a drill string

Too much coffee?

I don't think it's age. I've not been able to remember where I set my mug since I started drinking coffee. I've been losing my glasses since before I drank coffee. They're just details that don't seem important when they happen.

Yes, it is. My story wasn't supposed to reflect all of Texas, you blithering moron. It's just a funny story. I've lived in Vermont, Texas, Washington, California, Alabama, et c. Idiots are everywhere, which you quite ably help demonstrate.

Some years ago, while I was working on the North Slope, in Alaska, I was having a conversation with a Texan fresh out of high school. He commented that the planes must fly slower up here, because the flight from Anchorage to Deadhorse was so long. When I tried to correct him, he had difficulty wrapping his head around the idea that Texas wasn't the biggest state, because, he said, "It's what I learned in school."

I know it's offtopic, but I still chuckle over that 20 years after the fact.

I'm looking for something new to read. If you've put this much work into publishing, I'm guessing that you've put similar work into crafting the stories. Care to share the name of your novels?

5773 years, and a little change.