Don't forget that OPEC countries have been found financing anti-Keystone XL 'environmental' groups as a means to keep competition out of their oil markets and keep prices up. Then there's the railway owners, who would lose out if a pipeline was built. Much of the inland oil development is shipped by BSNF, a Berkshire-Hathaway company. Buffet is an Obama supporter who has publicly supported Keystone XL, but who knows what deals are going on behind closed doors? (my apologies if this is a repeat post, the last one didn't seem to take.)

There's more though. Arab oil-producing companies have been found backing environmental groups, to fight the introduction of new supply into their markets, which would depress prices. Then there's the owners of the railroads, who would lose out if the pipe network was expanded. If I remember correctly, BSNF railway ships much of the recent inland oil development, and it's owned by Warren Buffet, a notable supporter of Obama. Buffet (again IIRC) has come out in support of the Keystone XL pipeline, but who knows what deals are going on behind closed doors?.

you're a pussy. use freakin ALGOL

I suppose that for consistency you always refer to Nintendo as Marafuku and AOL as Quantum Computer Services?

UK salaries aren't that high: it's more like the annual salary of about five professionals, and it seems to be about three times their annual "governance" spending according to the summary of their accounts on the Charity Commission website (although since they apparently have the equivalent of 354 full-time employees they must be filing the bulk of their wage bill under "charitable activities"). Perhaps more pertinently, it's about 1% of annual turnover, which is not an unreasonable level to pitch a fine which can't be treated as a cost of "doing business" badly.

And if you read the sidebar you'll see that its name changed to BP Amoco plc in 1998 and to BP plc in 2001.

Calling it a British company is debatable, but more defensible than calling it "British Petroleum (BP)". British Petroleum isn't even its previous name.

IMHO the issue is that academia is not really a hierarchy like in industry. At a big school the freshman labs will be plenty paranoid about safety because of legal liabilities, but once you're talking about professors' private research projects, it's more like a hobbyist working in their basement, and in that situation we're all inclined to become comfortable and take shortcuts. Part of it, also, is the assumption that anyone with a degree comes packaged with knowledge of proper lab technique. What you will find is that, especially when you are talking students and Ph.D.s from different countries, they were trained differently. We have a lot of Russians who seem particularly cavalier. (honestly, if Chernobyl had't already happened, I might be expecting it).

Clearly, Apple cannot afford to take the risk. Why, if they give in just this one time, they set the stage for this family to become kingpins of crime. All they would need is a steady flow of cadavers, forged legal documents, lawyers, and stolen iPads, any of which these sort of experience criminals could find fenced for a-dime-a-dozen.

Facebook does not want to be hounded by the anti-gun/do-it-for-the-children/omfg-i'm-scared lobby.

"1) How is ITER going to succeed if one of its major contributors pulls out?"

The US pays about 10%. Guess they'll have to find a way to make it less of a boondoggle?

"2) Are there any domestic programs with a better chance of success and a more concrete plan? (I'm not aware of any.)"

Given that ITER uses the same tired methods that have been worked on a very long time, I'd say yes all the alternatives have just as good a chance and for far less money.

BTW: The largest constraint on SUSY partner masses does not come from the $9bn LHC, but from the ACME collaboration's measurement of the electron electric dipole moment, a $6M tabletop atomic physics experiment.

Gasp! You mean maybe, just maybe, CERN might want to hold off on those grandiose plans for a bigger, better LHC and think if it might be able to toss that cash around and get better bang for the..um..Euro?

"it might be time to start hammering in those coffin nails."

Quite clearly you are a SUSY denier. Have you not seen the models? The many papers? To deny the existence of SUSY is to deny all but certain fact! And do not resort to quoting LHC "results" as that is just chery picking from the very large parameter space SUSY occupies!