I have an environmentalist friend who drives a V8 monster truck. I kid you not. In her defense, it's probably partially for defending herself against the oil & gas mob here in Houston.

I know, the irony is palpable.

If they ARE smarter, better, or more civilized, what makes you think they want to meet us?

ISBN that is.

... as its ISDN.

Automatically redirect to the https version of Google. Problem solved.

Not necessarily. Our universe could merely be a manifestation of a mathematical structure, among an "ultimate ensemble" of infinite and statistically equal mathematical structures (which manifest themselves as parallel universes with drastically different physics in each one). In other words, all rules and conditions arise out of pure statistics.

Some of the best ideas I've come up with happened in the shower, usually after a long day of working on a project.

Carl Sagan would be pround.

Chill dude. Languages are dynamic and evolving, and "-gate" is a perfect example in English. Not unlike "-ism", "-ology", etc, it's concise, immediately recognisiable, and perfectly convey the essence and nuance of the whole situation.

Languages are not laws of physics. They are more like technological standards -- when something gets used by a lot of people, it often becomes the de facto standard.

Beats what they had at Beijing 2008:

http://www.treehugger.com/cars/beijings-olympic-security-forces-drive-segways.html

Well, the religious types will tell you there is also a backup copy stored somewhere, somehow in the cloud, literally.

China bashing is all in vogue these days, since they are supposed to be the next superpower, which doesn't bode well with the current superpower that is the U.S. But realistically, neither side is pure evil, or for that matter, completely innocent. The Chinese are people like you and me, capable of things both good and bad.

Moral of the story: when deciphering all the spin in the media, truth is always somewhere in the middle.

First sentence, should be "indicate".