Here's the promotional video from Rafael, the system's maker. If the Iron Dome launchers are in a position to hit incoming rockets when they're still in boost phase, they're clearly effective. When they hit, the ascending rocket's flare disappears. Israel has Iron Dome launchers both forward postioned near Gaza, for boost phase defense, and near cities, for terminal defense. For terminal defense, it's harder to tell if they worked. The incoming rockets are just falling at that point, and success requires blowing up their warhead, not their rocket engine.

Videos show the missile's warhead exploding. That's triggered by a proximity fuse. There's a spray of shrapnel from the warhead; it doesn't have to be a direct hit. Whether that sets off the incoming rocket's warhead isn't visible from the videos of terminal defense.The Patriot missiles used in the Gulf war were able to hit incoming Scud missiles, but often didn't detonate the warhead.

not like the wild animals and fish don't piss and shit into our water

The wild animals don't tend to piss and shit birth control hormones and other still quite bioactive medications.

There are huge tax advantages for income properties, in terms of you can take losses against capital gains on them, but you can't on a property you used as a residence? Why?

"Under 26 U.S.C. 121 an individual can exclude, from his or her gross income, up to $250,000 ($500,000 for a married couple filing jointly) of capital gains on the sale of real property if the owner used it as primary residence for two of the five years before the date of sale."

You can't claim take losses because you have this massive exemption on gains on your primary residence. In the vast majority of cases that's a much better deal for tax payers.

Nadella used to run Bing. Did anything change there while he was in charge?

If by that you mean that clearly written words in the English language have no actual meaning, then sure, I guess. If you mean that the Constitution, and the countless supporting documents and correspondence written to, between and about its authors and the large groups of representatives that agreed on its purpose and amendments to it were just setting us with something that had no actual meaning, then sure. But that's BS, and you know it.

The Constitution makes no such distinctions between one tool and the next. But of course the people who wrote it were very clear that there were some tools that some people would - given a period of power in the congress - try to deny to the public, and so they added amendment that explicitly reminded the government that it cannot act in those areas. The Constitution is built around the concept that the government's powers over what you may or may not do it inherently limited to the things that are enumerated therein, and generally prohibited otherwise, with the states having all such other authority. This isn't a matter of "perspective," and it isn't true for certain tools, and false for other tools. If you think that "drones" (but not, say, chain saws) should be singled out for capricious bans by the federal government despite laws recently passed by the congress explicitly to the contrary, then you're completely missing the point.

Semantic games like that show how completely unserious you are.

A matter decided upon, legislatively. at the municipal, county, and (rarely) state level. Not by capricious extra-legal, counter-constitutional fiat from a political appointee of the White House, as in the case at hand.

Because the FAA, by federal statute (passed by congress, which is made up of representatives of all of the states), is granted that regulatory authority. There is legal precedence for their authority over everything that flies in the air, right down to an inch above the ground. Which doesn't mean that their position on this stuff isn't incredibly absurd. But it's their turf.

Why should the FAA, which is part of the Obama administration, feel any urge whatsoever to enforce or obey laws passed by congress? We have ample precedent of him using the pen and phone about which he so regularly boasts to simply do what he wants anyway, even in direct contradiction of plain language in the laws he swore to uphold. Any expectation that the chief executive of the administration will be asking his immediate (appointed, by him) subordinate (the Secretary of Transportation) to instruct HIS subordinate (Huerta, the director of the FAA) to actually comply with the law, is laughable. The administration takes laws (like their own favorite, the ACA), and completely ignores hard-wired dates and other requirements as it suits them for political leverage with the portion of the voters to whom they pander. Happily, that particular instance is about to be challenged in a civil suit coming out of congress - that's very good news.

We just need another suit, along the same lines, requiring the administration's law breaking at the agency level in the FAA to be discussed in the bright sunshine of court. Something you'd think that the "most transparent administration in history" would applaud, right? Yeah.

Since when? Last Tuesday? Denied dessert were you?

You have your entire concept of liberty, and of the constitution, exactly backwards.

Should every new concept, innovation, invention, tool, technique, strategy, and technology be prohibited by default? What the hell is wrong with you? If I come up with a clever new way of slicing deli meat, should I be prohibited from using it or showing someone else how to use it until I've sufficiently begged an un-elected, un-accountable agency bureaucrat to allow me to use it?

And in the case at hand, picture two people standing right next to each other. Each has their hands on the controls of a 4-pound plastic quadcopter carrying a GoPro. Each takes off, sends the little machine up to 45 feet above the same house. Each of them use the device to record the condition of the houses's gutters, sparing somebody a couple hours of putting up a dangerous extension ladder a dozen times. Each of them get the job done in minutes, and land their little quad back down in the driveway right next to each other. You think that one of those two people should be banned from what the both just did, but the other should not. Why? Be very specific.

What I've pieced together is it's a 50 cal smooth-bore discarding sabot system, the round is aerodynamically stable with the center of gravity ahead of the aerodynamic center and is fin stabilized. The round has no inertial guidance so I assume that it wouldn't be able to use nutating scanning techniques and any spin would be unnecessary complication.
Cryptographic modulation, more likely none in the first interation, then a very profitable MWO to add a simple coherency signal adapted by reading a barcode on the round as it's loaded.

So it'll be easy to recognise the important bad-guy because he'll be the one wearing the MILES gear, a second doesn't give you enough time to vacate the area, but you only have to move farther that the bullet has time to correct.

Yeah right, the chain of command is going to authorize shooting a $50K bullet at a kid; also if somebody has to paint the target, then only a few dollars more gets you a live video feed so command can watch and control any engagements. I see this as being a replacement for the AGM-114, Hellfire missile on Predator and Reaper drones against soft, point targets. One problem we're having now is the bad-guys is using tactics that maximise collateral damage. these bullets will counter those tactics and give our drones he ability to engage many more targets.

You don't seem to be acquainted with the concept of sovereignty. Law contains rights and responsibilities, but in general any body of law is limited to the territory of the sovereign government that created the law. American law governs America. Canadian law governs Canada. Finnish law governs Finland. Canadian law doesn't govern Finland, Germany, or America. Finnish law doesn't govern Italy or Cuba. The law of the sea is a special case. (I wouldn't be surprised if you are a pirate even if you don't sail the seas looking for mischief.)

If the legal protections of your country apply to Americans, why aren't lawyers from your embassy assisting Americans accused of crimes? Where are the social welfare payments? Do you suppose it is possible that the rights of citizens or residents of your nation don't apply to Americans in America?

If America truly does threaten your freedoms I assume you must be doing something unsavory and special.

If it did start a war it would almost certainly be short. I'm inclined to believe that Martians would immediately surrender under a bombardment like that.

Justin Bieber? Miley Cyrus?