Russia shoud realize by now that there is no credible threat of a U.S. nuclear first strike attack:

- There is no advantage gained by crippling Russia economically or socially. A failed Russia causes us more problems than a successful one. See references on the 'end of the Cold War' to see what a successful Russia lead to. No problem for us there. We can do it again.

- Russia's military is sufficiently constrained by economics that it is not the critical, immediate threat it once was. We should be encouraging Russian stability and economic success.

- A nuclear attack of any consequence on Russia would cause multiple environmental disasters of both more immediate and more intense concern than glbal climate change. Rendering much of Eastern Europe, the Caucuses, and potentially China and the Indian sub-continent either uninhabitable or medically dangerous would not serve any purpose. Nuclear attacks on even a regional scale must be considered 'doomsday' responses by all major nuclear powers. In light of this reality, the real threats are North Korea and potentially Iran, since they do not have the resources to make large-scale nuclear attacks, and so could calculate a scenario where an attack could be survivable for them. Mutually Assured Destruction is very near, it not already at, the end of its usefulness.

- Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, their capacity is not only constrained, but their sphere of influence is reduced. Less reason than ever to try to suppress Russian efforts at influence around the world.

But Global Climate Change has taken us down a road of questionable science, apathy by the masses, and governmental distraction from real, solvable problems. Reducing nuclear weapon stockpiles dramatically would solve a lot of problems between the U.S. and Russia, and including the major nuclear powers as the process moves forward would eventually bring us close enough to nuclear disarmament that we could engage the lesser powers and make a credible demand for their disarmament also. Then we can legitimately challenge ALL weapons-grade processing and put a stop to this dance we are in with North Korea and Iran. Sadly, we can't get there in time to address Iran's nuclear ambitions.

A significant nuclear weapons release will do more harm to our climate and planet than the worst the Global Climate Change crowd can imagine. It would render Climate Change unimportant. No one would care about failed crops from land poisoned by fallout. No one would care about UV exposure and sea level rise if they are battling cancer and indirect, long range radiation poisoning. No one would care about lost habitat and lost biodiversity in the midst of massive and fatal mutations. The jig would be up. I would be entirely aghast if both our incoming Presidents and Russian Presidents did not each get through briefings on the impact of even small releases, at least from the civilian agencies interested in this (State, FEMA, DOE, EPA, DOAgriculture, and maybe a few others) and russian counterparts. The military, despite our instincts, generally would prefer to offer an honest view of strategic ware outcomes. They also would have good reason to caution incoming Presidents against nuclear war. I would not be surprised if our secret strategy would be to back down from any threat. How we would handle an 'unexpected' massive first strike, I dunno. Again, if the schoolyard bully knows there's a bigger bully down the street that has a little brother in his school, does he go in and beat up the bigger bully's little brother? Only when he loses restraint, or the bigger bully loses credibility.

So far, we have not lost credibility on either side.

There are fewer reasons than ever to have a nuclear war.

Competition for adopting babies is pretty fierce.

Only the white ones. There is a shortage of families willing to adopt black children. It has gotten better over the last year, but two years ago some agencies were offering 25-50% discounts if you considered black or mixed race babies.

Consider the fact that a full adoption is more often than not a years-long process (waiting lists, background checks, etc), requires a lot more effort to complete, and often costs more than whatever this particular treatment will cost?

In the U.S., this is only the case when you want a white baby at birth. If you have no racial preference, but reasonable restrictions on the birth-mom's health (not epileptic, no drinking/pot when pregnant, etc) you can have a newborn in less than a year for about $10-15k. If you go through the state's foster system, and you are less restrictive on age, you could easily adopt in less than 6 months and just pay the processing fees which are usually less than $200.

Compare that for fertility treatments, and then different in-vitro procedures, adoption is still cheaper. There are agencies out there that charge much more($25-40k)for domestic adoptions, but they are generally geared toward people who want white children from mom's of a certain background, and they provide more services to birth-mom during the pregnancy.

I somewhat disagree about your point that we all want to pass on our own genetic material. I think that most people are not exposed to adoption, or are only exposed to the Hallmark Channel's interpretation of adoption, so they never look at it as an adoption.

You've come to the right place....

Leave Quebec out of this.

If she is only retaining the logs of the IP addresses for a few months, and did not know this order was coming, she is safe.

FRCP Rule 37 states:

This may sound facetious, but I had a similar question the first time I saw a large Sodium-sulfide (NaS) battery. It was the size of a garden shed, and basically was filled with molten sodium. The engineers said that it was safe from thunderstorms, tornadoes, tree falls, and earthquakes. My first question was "it is safe from two or three of those if they happen at the same time?"

A now very pale engineer answered "no". I guess they hadn't considered a tree falling on it in the rain, and we all know how much fun sodium is when it gets wet...

No, its Frahnkensteen

How about Semperubisububium

Always wear under wear

Thanks for the tips. Grilled veggies are always a good side, although I was thinking more along the lines of beer-flavored celery, or buffalo-wing-bananas.

How about using the proceeds to make healthy foods taste better?

As a parent of both biological and adopted children, I can tell you that I went through a similar transformation that you went through with the biological kids, and then through a just as significant transformation with the adopted ones. (As a note, they were adopted right from the hospital.) What I was learning is that the "my" kids was not what any of them are*. They are not my possession, but someone I get to have an enormously close relationship ans responsibility to. This doesn't mean that there isn't a bond, quite the contrary, but that the bond is more realistic and better understood, just as you now understand what the bonds in your family friends ans S/O's through your children.

I know you had a question about surrogacy, and this is not exactly that. I will tell you that the bonding with the adopted kids did take extra time, but it is there, and it is just as deep as it is with the bio kids.

*Note: I am not trying putting words into your mouth, but this how I think I saw things with the first bio kid.

It sounds like you are working the Ballmer curve!

I agree with you with regard to flying "Western" carriers. The few times I have flown on a Korean or Japanese airline 747 (to keep this on topic) it has been completely different. They actually treat you like you paid for the flight, and that it is their job to try to make you happy. A complete 180 from "Sit down and shut up"-Continental.

You hit on a good point, but I think there is one factor you missed that may help these types of functions become ubiquitous: your electric meter. What is happening in the US and from what I can see in part of the EU, is that low-bandwidth network protocols are being implemented in the new meters which will allow your thermostat to see signals from your meter. What is being developed by the appliance manufacturers are controls for washers and dryers that can also respond to these signals and thereby give it the option of running when the price of electricity drops to a certain level. Most of these meter deployments (see map here) should be rolling out in the next few years. After that, the appliance manufacturers should follow with new functionality once the communications standards become more standard.

As for the standards themselves, I can only speak with certainty for the U.S. (but I know this technology is being used in the EU) when I say that there are standards being developed like the Smart Energy Profile being proposed by the ZigBee-Homeplug alliance ( not mentioned in TFA). From what I can see, this will allow for a relatively inexpensive chip to integrated into the appliance. Although they have devices that work at the mains plug, it is better not to cut power to the device completely if at all possible.