Cue the environmentalists to come running out of the woodwork, filing every lawsuit they can find, protesting the work site, and in general trying to slow down and interfere with the construction of said nuclear power plant.

The level of public ignorance never ceases to amaze.

You're overlooking something huge: no matter what the images showed, there was nothing that could be done to save Columbia short of launching another shuttle on a rescue mission. There was a heated debate post-disaster that management decided not to do the photorecon because they'd already decided nothing could be done even if the photos showed damage. The engineers said they might've been able to throw something together for a rescue mission for the crew; Columbia was deemed irrepairable by even the most optimistic engineers.

While one can't question the bravery of anyone attempting such a rescue mission, the logic of it is tough to reason out. Launching another crew on another shuttle that could easily suffer the same damage is questionable. Then you'd have two dead crews and two lost shuttles.

Oh yeah, it's just that easy. You've got the whole problem solved in one paragraph!

Have fun getting anyone to agree on what an "unessential" government program is. Replace Social Security? Tried that. The Democrats screamed "you want old people to die, don't you?" and shot it down. Replace Medicare with a government-run option? Welcome to Obamacare, which nobody likes and has doctors and nurses running for the exits, straining an already understaffed healthcare system.

First, let's get past this "free" thing you speak of. Nothing is "free" in this world. If you're getting something without paying for it, it means someone *else* paid for it. Those people are known as "taxpayers" and they're damned sick of providing "free" food, clothing, housing, and medical care for people who seem to enjoy living off the backs of others who actually work for a living.

Won't work. "Low cost proven procedures" don't include the latest, most-expensive, life-saving medical procedures, therefore somebody who could have been saved by them will eventually die on this "budget plan" you're advocating. The relatives of this person will be paraded in front of Congress as an example of a heartless system that lets poor people die, Congress will allocate more and more money to The System, and we'll have a system that's every bit as expensive as we have now only with government ineptness, bureaucracy, and inefficiency as an added bonus.

Sure, because we all know that "long shelf-life products" never contain tons of additives and preservatives which *allow* them to be long shelf-life in the first place, right? Healthy stuff indeed. Flavored with unicorn tears, I hear.

Which leads to the "poor" people on your program to bitch and whine and moan that the rich are getting all the good stuff while they're left with the dregs. And these "poor" people vote. Which guarantees some whore of a politician will come along and promise to "spread the wealth around" in the name of fairness and give these whiners more...and more...and more...until you end up with Greece.

Look, I know you mean well. Idealists always do. The problem is the real world bears absolutely no resemblance to what you'd like it to be. Give people free shit and they complain that it's not *enough* free shit. Give them nicer shit and they *still* complain that other people have nicer shit than them. And if you *give* it to them, they have no concept of earning it, no idea of the value of work. They just feel entitled. And they tend to riot if you don't keep feeding their addiction despite the fact that it will eventually destroy the economy, the country, and everything around them.

Uh, no. Ideally, that which governs least governs best. The government exists to protect my basic individual rights such as life, liberty, and the *pursuit* of happiness. Government does not, should not, and cannot *ever* "make people happy." It is up to The People to make *themselves* happy.

A government powerful enough to "make people happy" is powerful enough to make a lot of people unhappy, too.

Really? I wonder who -- or what -- you've been hanging around because I've never heard a "states rights advocate" who advocated anything remotely similar to what you just described. States Rights is all about getting the Federal government out of the way and making politics more local and thus more in tune with the population of that state. It's the best of all worlds: the California liberals can get all their pet projects in California and the South Carolina conservatives don't have to pay for it, and so forth. The Founding Fathers originally intended it to be this way. It's only in the last century the Federal government has extended its heavy hand so far into States Rights that the phrase might as well not exist.

But nobody of any serious persuasion is calling for the abolition of the Bill of Rights as you suggest. That's just silly hyperbole on your part.

I've noted two trends in the job market lately: the jobs are paying a good deal more, but there are a lot fewer of them. It seems counter-intuitive because an oversupply of candidates would tend to drive wages down. However, what I see happening is companies almost *want* to pay top dollar...but only because they want absolutely stellar, walk-on-water, can-do-no-wrong, all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips candidates. I'm making *more* than I was during the dot com bubble. I'm also working my ass off managing projects that would've taken a team of people to do a few years ago. They're certainly getting their money's worth, but I have no room to complain because I'm making top dollar. And that's just how they want it: I have no incentive -- and no opportunity -- to jump ship for something better paying because I'm already way above the average wage, and a less stressful position would pay me so much less that it's not worth searching for.

John Stapp survived decels in excess of 40g's but it doesn't state the duration. However, I believe the medical data derived from his testing showed a properly-restrained human body is capable of surviving a surprising amount of deceleration, much more that most people believed possible prior to his tests.

So long as the SUV doesn't rollover, the greater mass and size of the SUV makes it a better choice against pretty much anything else in a collision. While SUV's are more prone to rollovers than passenger cars, it doesn't make a rollover a foregone conclusion.

Uhhh...do you know what an airbag is and how it works? It's specifically designed to prevent the injuries you describe, even if not wearing a seatbelt.

440 cu in = ~7.2L, actually. Do you work for NASA?