I have more respect for him as a SEAL than the two Bronze Stars, those aren't all that hard to earn after all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Star_Medal

I suppose it depends on what that service was, but still, a pretty exemplary person.

Well it depends on what continent you feel Central America fits under. It could go either way, but generally I would agree with you as most maps round out that corner of SA and attach Central to NA.

$1000. It is all in the build :)

How many designer purses were sold in the same time period? Buying iPhones is about the look more than the actual purpose. I personally don't get it, I prefer function over form, but people pay enormous amounts of money for fashion.

At max power, a GSM tower can cover a 50 km radius, so not so odd to have service out there.

I don't have individual city maps, but I have found that the visitor centers off the major highways tend to have maps for free, I have almost the entire east coast that I keep in my truck's glove box just in case. I can't say I have used one in years however...the last time I used one was when I took an exit in CT that was supposed to be in Mass and needed to figure out where I went wrong. I however always use my smartphone now, set the navigation before starting and follow it the whole way, it even updates for traffic.

FYI, Cricket uses Verizon's network, at least in my area. However, their "unlimited" plan is limited to 2GB, then it drops to unusable speed.

http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1507959-What-network-does-Cricket-piggy-back-on

Apparently, they have roaming agreements with all the CDMA providers.

There was, but as Japan runs on both 50 cycles and 60 cycles power, the generator was the wrong type. As the entire area was damaged, they were unable to source the correct type of generator.

Um, my perspective on what he said was he was referring to how men (and often women) gain weight when they get married, not just to getting pregnant. Pear shape would imply expanding out in all directions, not just the front.

Reading that excerpt, I am left with the impression that he just didn't have time for meaningful relationships, he devoted himself to his work instead. Nowhere does it actually say that he is gay, though you can read that into what he says. There is a section that says:

He is specifically coming out and saying that Bean's desires are twisted into not having children, not that Bean is gay or that Anton is gay. Anton threw himself into his work rather than trying to find someone to marry, there are many people who do that.

Frankly, it is a book of its time. Shadow puppets was published in 2002, they gay marriage debate wasn't really an issue back then, most homosexual people were just looking for acceptance of them as they are at that point in time.

Looking up more information, it looks like Rackham was in the first war as well, but unclear how we beat them. The novels which go over the first formic war are Earth Unaware, Earth Afire, and an unpublished book Earth Awakens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender's_Game_series

Ignore the AC, you are right, in the books they go over the first invasion happening on Earth, wide swaths of land was destroyed in the initial attack. Mazer was from the second invasion I believe, I don't know if they ever went over how we drove them off in the first invasion, as we would have been severely outmatched in that fight.

You do realize the fighters and carriers in Ender's Game had real people flying them right? When the fight was over they turned into the first colonists, well except for the last group, they were all destroyed.

Ender's team was only giving orders/occasionally taking over individual fighters, the reason he thought it was a game was that no one would conceive of faster than light communication since it was kept such a good secret (the ansible http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansible#In_Card.27s_work which quantum tunneling sounds very much like)

We are talking about a country where one of the politicians requested a ($30k - $2m) bribe from him shortly before the murder charge. This is out in the stories too...so it is up to you who you believe.

From all appearances, I don't think Kim knows that...