Funny. No mod points. Apparently riding the dog like a small horse is frowned upon in this establishment. Since I'm here, I hope you won't take umbrage if I offer a tweak to the new mod. Drunken Rambling should like the Ace of Mods...it could be used as in poker as ace high or ace low. 'Cause you know, sometimes drinking makes you real smart.

Multiple variant linear regression analysis is inclusion-free on the order of flawless a life changing asteroid impact with our rather inhabitable little rock will occur. Whether it is an extinction event or merely teleports us back to the Stone Age is irrelevant with regard to the loss of all human technology and scientific progress. A robotic presence during exploration is invaluable. Robotic slaves at the off-planet human settlement will be handy like a pocket on a shirt. Without a human presence, well, there goes our entire legacy.

Any possible scenario for a lunar (or Martian settlement) involves eminent loss of life and hardship, especially at the outset when our learning curve begins. One of the difficulties an American expedition would encounter is the high price placed on each American life. The Chinese might have an edge here, and could perhaps design equipment and housing without the quintuple safety redundancies that have made NASA projects so time consuming and expensive. Backslash is onto something though...nothing would fire up the US government's interest in off-earth exploration faster than a threat to national security.

Easy there... this is Slashdot and generally folks here who exploit weaknesses in security systems without regard for personal gain are on the white hat side of the field. Here's what should happen: these two will make their 15 minutes complete with a round of guest appearances on the morning show circuit, and if the story really catches on, maybe even culminating with a nighttime appearance on Letterman. If any lesson is to be learned from this breach by security forces, it is probably one they already suspect: their job is a hoax. It is impossible to keep an event like this secure and they are there to perpetrate the illusion of security. The Superbowl sites are picked years in advance. There are years for 'neer-do-wells to access the structures.

Well done.

There's a very real possibility a couple of black men sneaking into certain events, for instance a Superbowl in New Orleans, would stand out even less than a couple of young white men. That said (with regard to the cat and mouse analogy), when you're playing a mouse and there's no real chance the cat will catch and eat you, the pressure and nervousness factor is an order of magnitude less than a real run at espionage.

I will guard everything within the limits of my post and quit my post only when properly relieved. _1st General Order, US Army. Heresay military studies of the time of my introduction to olive drab as a fashion statement were reported to suggest that privates with higher ASVAB scores (military IQ test) made worse sentries that those below a certain level of measured intelligence.

It's news for a reason. It seems unlikely he is strapped for cash, and as he's acting Executive Chairman of Google, a significant stock sale has to mean he's convinced the market capitalization for his Outfit has peaked. Often, if you look way up ahead in the distance, you can just make out the Captain running ahead of all those rats.

Temporarily, methane is a more potent threat. There is also a school of thought that implies burning natural gas instead of coal for electrical production saves on CO2 emissions, but detractors contend the greenhouse gases emitted during it's recovery aren't factored in. There is no perfect, sustainable, nonpolluting source of energy available to us yet.

That's the thing about both mouth-breathers and careless drivers: no one place has a monopoly on either, not that they're mutually exclusive. Nothing chaps my ass like another driver who isn't operating his/her self-propelled internal combustion engine properly, you know, like I do.

Libertarians wish to crack open the State. Hippies are only too happy to break out the pot.

They are a flatulent bunch, as I am when dining exclusively on a diet of greens.... As a cautionary tale though, I checked with the EPA website, and their figures indicate that electricity(40%) and transportation(31%) are the largest contributors to U.S. CO2 emissions from 1990-2010. It may indeed be determined one day that the sacrifice in land and water resources is too great to sustain the First World luxury that is the ribeye steak (sorry about that, grandchildren), but I would grudgingly eat lab-grown protein way, way, way before I would be willing to live without power and a horseless carriage.