Don't confuse them with facts. The United States is well on its way to destroying what is perhaps its greatest achievement: universal public schooling of at least minimal and often excellent quality [1]. We would not want to interrupt that march by providing mere truth about "government schools".

sPh

[1] Look at the list of distinguished graduates of the New York Public Schools (1820 forward) some time.

You are free to argue that standing over a person's shoulder, watching what they type, and saying "feel FREE to send that e-mail to the Senator" is just monitoring and not interfering. I suspect you'll also be free to make that argument when (1) under oath in front of a Senate Committee (2) to a jury.

sPh

Your legal knowledge appears extensive. Perhaps you could give us a briefing on the federal law that prohibits interfering in communications between any federal employee and a member of Congress.

sPh

Well, we might want to read through the "potential for buckyballs to cause cancer" papers before we charge full-speed ahead on that one. Interdisciplinary thinking and all that.

sPh

Bit of human error there, eh?

sPH

= = = = Either you are trolling or there is a huge gap between your understanding of the law and what the situation actually is. I suggest you talk to a lawyer before you test your theory in real life.= = = =

Yes, who can ever forget when Hewlett-Packard received the corporate death penalty for running a cell phone hacking scheme through a third-party contractor.

sPh

Not entirely disagreeing with you, but perhaps M1FCJ was referring to the fact that just as the US did the Soviet Union had a pool of qualified female aviators (including many with combat experience) but selected Valentina Tereshkova, who appeared to be only minimally qualified, instead. One suspects that there might have been a concern (as there was in the US) that if a qualified women was chosen she might just expect to be a full member of the team, selected for additional missions, etc).

sPh

= = = I'm guessing that they probably had a pool of potential female candidates, all of them qualified for the job, and once the vital qualifications were met they picked the one who would look best on the propaganda posters. This is supposed to be a statement of the greatness of China - it wouldn't do if their poster-woman had a gap whenever she smiled. = = =

The United States, of course, would never stoop to such tactics. (hint: next time you are at a big airshow stop by the US Air Force recruiting booth and evaluate the attractiveness of the pilots working there, both male and female. Do you really think every USAF pilot looks that good?)

sPh

If you are referring to the Radical Right talking point of the Community Reinvestment Act, which required mortgage lenders not to discriminate against qualified buyers, it was passed in 1977. That's a heck of a delayed reaction there as compared to, I dunno, the Gramm family's work in repealing Glass-Steagall in 1999.

sPh

1000 Hz - you could come very close to hand-cranking it!

sPh

= = = That said, the United States Postal Service isn't really in financial trouble.
Their problem mostly has to do with a bad law that forces them to devote enormous amounts of cash to prefund pension plans [wikipedia.org] = = =

Excellent point.

sPh

Something like 99.7% of USPS mail is autosorted. There are three (IIRC on the number) centers were a few dozen human-type people view (remotely, from the regional sorting center) the 0.3% that doesn't autosort. Again IIRC those people are able to sort 99% of the remaining, usually within 10 seconds. The rest go to the dead mail office.

The pictures people have in their minds of USPS "inefficiency" are the way things were done in the 1950s; the USPS started automating in a big way in the 60s and funded a lot of research in machine vision and OCR in the 60s and 70s.

sPh

...because all resources collection occurs outside the well.

Bit of a chicken-and-egg problem there unfortunately.

sPh

= = = = build a space elevator and... = = = =

Soon as that 1000x-stronger-than-spider-silk cable material is invented, the electrical charge problems are solved, and the people living under the fall path of a broken cable accept the risk we are good to go. Just a few minor engineering obstacles to be sure.

sPh

There is no doubt that in a situation of species-threatening emergency that mankind has, today, the technology to construct a quite large object in earth orbit and give it enough engine power to move through the solar system (Orion drive or whatever). The problem is that we do not have the technology to get stuff out of the Earth's gravity well with anything greater than 0.1% efficiency, and in the process of building that Enterprise-sized object we would destroy the Earth's atmosphere and ecosystem. So until a 10,000x better surface-to-orbit launch technology comes along this ain't gonna happen.

sPh