At the very least they already collect the metadata for all postage communications.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

Then they impound your car because it might be rigged with booby traps. I'm all for giving it to the man, but unfortunately this is a poor chance at a good outcome.

I don't know. Shutting down an airport for god knows how long would be pretty damn disruptive.

It's interesting that the article seems to contradict itself.

It says:
"(This is not the same as restoring nervous system function to quadriplegics or other victims of traumatic spinal cord injury.)"

And this later:
"Paraplegics with qualifying injuries (i.e., enough spinal cord left intact to allow for a head transplant) could in theory regain the full use of a (donor) body"

Regarding your contention about nickel mines. 100s of square miles of bare earth should easily be visible from google earth, no?

I'm too lazy too look, but someone should... :(

I wonder if Ariel Castro could have been found by mining this data? Yeah, I know it sucks, but the data is already out there. Maybe it could be put to good use.

So what exactly are you calling bullshit on?

Cattle don't produce significant methane? Is the EPA not authoratative enough for you?
http://www.epa.gov/rlep/faq.html

Or that methane causes climate change? I can't really help you if you believe climate change is a hippie conspiracy, but maybe this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/evidence/methane.shtml

Human beings causes a huge, measureable impact on the environment in may other ways, it is not a leap of logic to believe in anthropological climate change.

If vat grown becomes a reality. Beef production produces huge amounts of methane which is a big contributor to climate change. You don't have to be animal welfare nut to advocate for this development.

This article disputes your general premise. Government workers make more than private sector for the same education level.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/08/29/federal-state-workers-overpaid/

Do you have any references to support your claim?

Thanks

Would be interesting if they tried this technique to find osama. The guy put out some videos at some point and im assuming they weren't all from a cave.

This article seems to disagree with you:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d5fa0660-7b95-11de-9772-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2ElVkh9ow

"Beyond rebates, another key concern is the practice of flashing prices, which helps market makers or investors discover where others want to buy or sell stocks. This practice is widely used by high frequency traders and is allowed by BATS, Direct Edge and Nasdaq OMX, while NYSE Euronext has been a vocal critic against the practice."

This was an older article, but still... What do you say about this?

Also important and that no one has mentioned yet is the contraction ratio. The muscle does no good if it can only contract 1% of it's length...

I think the government is actually thinking that obese people cost a crapload of money. I don't think this has anything to do with happiness.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/03/opinion/bergen-drones-taliban-pakistan/index.html

So an interesting question would be to imagine what would happen if WMD's existed in the Star Trek universe. What would the federation do to an empire with clear intentions to build planet destroying weapons? What if such planet busting weapons existed? Would the federation limit its proliferation?

Gotta love how tv is so different from the real world...

(not a total star trek fan, so not entirely sure if this has been covered...)