40 millimeters = 1.57480315 inches but it's still far less than predicted.

I can hardly believe you folks are still seriously using Farhenheit.
I mean, the power of social norm and all, but really, Farhenheit? What's next, miles? Stones?
Perhaps we traditionally just don't appreciate having social norms dictated to us by the government? (Which admittingly seems have changed in recent years)

https://autonomousmind.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/co2_ppm.jpg
A useful graphic showing the proportion of naturally-occurring and manmade
Co2 in the atmosphere.
The green dots represent naturally-occurring Co2.
The red dots represent mandmade Co2.
The black dots are other gases and particles.
You may need to expand the image to see everything

We are all taught that this is the best way to let our voices be heard by government, but unfortunately unless your name happens to be listed on a major stock exchange your voice will just be ignored. It's naive to think that writing your congress(wo)man or senator will have any affect and it hasn't for decades. If your write to one of these people your letter will be processed by an intern and if you are lucky you will receive a form letter reply after having your name and address entered into a database associated with the issue at hand. Here is an interesting take on the issue from the inside: Write your congressman? Don't even bother / His signature is phony, so is his interest
http://articles.sfgate.com/2004-01-11/opinion/17406204_1_beltway-signature-smudge
Here is an excerpt from the above link:
Letters written by people who will vote for or against the congressman in the next election receive the following treatment: 1. The letter is scanned by an intern for the central issue. 2. The letter is labeled with the issue. 3. The writer's address is entered into a database. 4. The address is married to the issue's form response found in another database. 5. The response is printed and fed into the signature machine (when it's working). 6. The response is stuffed into the envelope printed with the matching address. 7. The response is mailed. If this sounds like a worthwhile process, then you should go ahead and send that letter on solar energy you've been working on so hard. I
It's sad that that's what things have come to.

What kinds of nefarious outcomes can this technology lead to? Insurance companies and DHS using it in ways that help no one but themselves (and the children) immediately come to mind.

I know that they have plenty of lawyers, but that can't be the full story. I just have to stop and wonder what makes them think that their right to entertain should outweigh other people's civil rights.

or at least I'm not aware of having seen them flying overhead. Are they easily identifiable from the ground?

Geeks worldwide seem to manage two steps forward for every step "forward" that governments make. Hopefully the trend will continue. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire-gee-no-evil/

This Firefox addon re-enables censored "suggestion" content from Google.

It's a great plugin, but I'm curious as to how it actually works.

And why would you think Russians are any less capable of building space vehicles than Americans?

I was not implying that they are less capable (In spite of a recent string of bad luck) but the media frenzy that would follow such an unfortunate event would presumably have such an effect and force congress to react to angry demands that they should "do something about it" and it may even lead to "serious" studies as to why America may be starting to fall behind in such endeavors. "If 'merican astronauts are gonna get killed being launched into space, then gosh darnit' it should be 'merican rockets that they get killed in!"

[i]Actually the U.S. government can, but chooses not to.[/i]

Perhaps it will reconsider once American astronauts are killed being launched into space on a Russian rocket? It's a grim thought, that that may be what it takes to give congress the wakeup call it needs.

This airplane has been nicknamed "the Doctor Killer".

https://aviatorcollege.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/why-is-the-%E2%80%9Cdoctor-killer%E2%80%9D-airplane-so-dangerous/

"There is compelling evidence [that] fine particles of moondust, when sufficiently charged-up, actually float above the lunar surface. This could create a temporary nighttime atmosphere of dust ready to blacken spacesuits, clog machinery, scratch faceplates (moondust) is very abrasive) and generally make life difficult for astronauts."
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/17apr_magnetotail/

If this is the case then SETI may be wasting their time looking for any kind of ancient tracks in the dust on the moon.

Such a calendar scheme would have some interesting repercussions for countries such as Germany. Germans do not get Monday off of work if the 25th of December falls on a Saturday. which means that they could also forget about ever getting the first of January or several other holidays off if such a calendar system were to cause current holidays to fall on weekends. Perhaps they would have to adopt the Anglo-Saxon practice of taking a following Monday/Tuesday off which would essentially end up shifting entire holidays by two days in their perspective?

From what time I have spent in Russia I get the impression that nearly every town there has a street by that name.

Or blunt trauma