Well, if not a terrorist group, a rogue nation could buy several container ships, load them with 126 of these systems on each ship and drive each ship within 300km of a carrier group. Fire simultaneously from all ships and take out all carriers at the same time.

I'll bet it costs a whole lot less to buy and arm a ship with 126 of these systems than to build a whole aircraft carrier and the aircraft it carries.

Now that's asymmetric warfare.

The thing is, if you use a nuclear warhead, the cruise missile does not have to impact the aircraft carrier to sink it. Detonation within 100m may be sufficient and will probably take out a large part of the carrier group too.

Measles might well be the most contagious disease known to man. On top of that, the serious complication rate is much higher than 0.1%, even with world's best standard healthcare.

You are assuming the DVD that is discovered by future archaeologists will have data mostly consisting of text.

According to Murphy's Law, the stash that this future archaeologist discovers first will be a bunch of porn movie DVDs.

you mean an open fracture as opposed to a closed fracture. a compound fracture just means many pieces instead of two pieces.

You are seriously underestimating the potential of graft versus host disease. Seriously. You do not want to eliminate your own immune system only to get a whole new one which will recognize your body as foreign.

You really don't have kids, do you?

If North Korea threatens China with taking out Hong Kong, 8 minutes after making that threat, their missile launch sites will be giant craters. Followed closely by Pyongyang.

It will be 5 minutes instead of 8 minutes if Kim threatens to take out Beijing instead of Hong Kong.

Yeah. Great statistics.

So, if those statistics from 1918 are correct and relevant to the swine flu today, you have a 30% chance of catching the disease and about a 3% chance of dying from it. That's a 0.9% chance of dying. Assume that the dead are equally spread around your country. That means that 1 out of every 111 people will die from this disease.

How many people do you know in your community? Your family? Your workplace? Your school (or university or old school)?

If those numbers turn out to be predictive of the current problem, chances are you will know several people who died as a result of this.

Still like those odds?

That's why I like the idea of Senator online. Would like to see it working instead of just in theory though.

Failing to make payments on debt is a default. Perhaps you are not familiar with what happens to people or companies or even countries that are in default. People in default over their home mortgages lose their houses. Companies in default over their debt end up in bankruptcy and shareholders often end up with little or nothing. Countries in default have the value of their currencies (which is effectively a country's share price) drawn through the dust.

If the US defaults on all foreign debt, the value of the US dollar will be crap. Nobody will want to hold US dollars because it represents a liability that the country has shown it is not willing to pay back.

All US citizens would suffer the effects of hyperinflation as the price of all imports in US dollars soars.

Careful what you wish for.