Shut the fuck up Donny!

want to play "Spaceward Ho!"

That's like asking why the Ford Model-T couldn't do 200mph since a modern Ford Mustang can.

The answer is because the Fukishima Reactor wasn't designed to be passively cooled, the AP1000 is.

that is isn't quite so clean and neat when you're compiling a program that must work on millions of systems other than your own :)

But I would have thought they were already doing that. While going from 32bit to 64bit doesn't magically make everything faster, it does generally add a tiny bit of speed simply because of the extra registers Intel and AMD add for 64bit operations.

Even if it were only a few points, I would think that building as much as you know they must, ANY tiny bit of speed improvement would add up pretty fast (even if only 1% or 2%).

why Muslims and Evangelical Christians DON'T get along better...I really don't.

LMFAO!

Bad shape, try completely in ruins.

The problem with all these doom and gloom stories regarding the United States -- and this is something you touched upon quite correctly, I might add -- is that "debt" is just numbers on a piece of paper if you can do nothing to enforce it, that's the chief difference between nations and your household budget.

If you had a First World Army to back you up, Chase would be a lot more interested in dickering with you come loan refinance time.

Getting back to China...if China were to suddenly stop purchasing U.S. Government paper...decided to be real bad asses ("cash only", etc.) -- the net result would be an economic depression for the United States, follower quickly by the rest of the World. The net result for the country of China, a country were the bottom 90% are dependent on the Government for simple day to day existence (healthcare, food, etc.) would be an outright collapse of the Communist State and an almost inevitable Civil War to fill the power vacuum.

And as long as the interest rate is lower than the inflation rate, the funds are free!

Which, as an American, I can say "it's good to be king!" :)

but this kinda strikes me as a cross between an airplane an a barge. Another way of saying it would be it's like an airborne railroad

Both aren't as fast an an airplane, but both can carry many times as much weight and can travel a predictable distance very affordably on an item-by-item cost basis..

Oh! So now we're going to shift our conspiracy from generic off-shore drilling (which was clearly what you're first post was claiming) and shift the conspiracy theory to a tiny piece of off-shore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

But that's OK, I'll move with you in this conversation -- name a single proven find of oil that's been abandoned in the United States? Off-shore, on-shore, feel free to search both places.

I'll admit that I'm sending you on a snipe hunt because you won't find one. As much as politicians would have you believe otherwise, you don't have to do anything but listen to private industry to hear the truth. Conoco-Phillips just signed an export agreement with the new Libyan Government. Exxon-Mobil ABANDONED it's shale oil attempts even with all the money the Government tried to shove in their pockets.

It doesn't take a crystal ball to see the true state of oil in the United States -- it's not going to get any better. If we're lucky, we'll be able to buy ourselves more time with developments like Bakken, like the proven reserves off-shore, etc. Any belief that we'll ever return to the glory days of being in charge of the Petroleum Market is nothing but a pipe-dream (if you'll excuse the phrase).

Coincidentally, that's also why everyone (Government AND Private Industry) is pushing so hard for the Canadian Pipe-line deal. Do you honestly think anyone would spend the money and expend the political capital on such a project if their magically existed huge petroleum reservoirs within the borders of the United States?

Yep...and it's such a great opportunity that not a single private company has any interest WHATSOEVER in developing it.

Same goes with the "oodles and oodles" of oil supposedly sitting just off the coast -- not one single member of Exxon-Mobile, Conoco-Phillips, etc. has made any demand or claim on any of the land POLITICIANS claim is so full of oil.

These pipe-dreams are created by Politicians, cooked by the media, and eaten up by individuals like you so absolutely terrified that you may have to change how you do things that you're willing to grasp at any straw within reach.

I'm more swayed by the people who actually live there who are fighting tooth, nail, and claw to PREVENT drilling...but thanks for the typical "everyone who doesn't agree with me is a whiner...and probably a libural!" schtick (as made popular by talk-radio).

P.S. -- I could care less what people think who DON'T live there...it isn't for the people who do to sacrifice just to subsidize every 10mpg SUV driver who's too stupid to see the writing on the wall (even when it's directly in their face).

While you are current (same with "free energy" contraptions), HIV/AIDS is different than Cancer in that it is a Virus in the classic sense. One hell of a smart virus, to be sure -- but a virus none the less and ALL viruses can be defeated (even if the solution initially evades us).

Simple as evolution itself, really.

While toxicity was an issue, (they were called "zip fuels") the main problem they could never overcome was the fouling of the engines by the boron-gunk left behind.

During the 1970s, Northern-Pacific Railroad had a similar problem when they tried powering their extensive live of turbine-engined Freight Locomotives with Coal-slurry rather than fuel oil/diesel.