Oh, and after 30 years by themselves in a spaceship, once the "astronaut" gets there, they're probably INSANE.

From re-watching Friends and Seinfeld 2400 times.

Crashing is the easy part. Really, everything we put on Mars is just a controlled crash, and that's when everything goes right.

Cranks *ARE* their base.

"The wealthy don't pay taxes" isn't a winning campaign message.

Where would you get the meteor? How would you direct it?

If you were an alien, and you managed to make it across interstellar space to another solar system, maybe you are at the very limit of your civilization's technological advancement, and you have spent 30 years on a one-man one-way mission and after all that just landing "successfully" (not dead) was the best you could manage.

*IF* there are aliens, and *IF* interstellar travel is possible, the first beings to do it are going to be coming in on the space equivalent of a Viking longship, not an aircraft carrier or 787.

First contact isn't going to be with a ship capable of doing anything other than just barely getting there.

"I'm probably among the oldest wave of those who can be considered digital natives"

Not by a long shot. I was born in the very early 70's (I like to obfuscate a bit) and had my first PC when I was 6. I ran a FIDO net BBS back in the early days before the interweb thing came around (just another fad, I assure you...). And there are many more like me. We connected quite a bit back then, wrote code in BASIC and C and had a good time in our nerd world.

Hell, I was graduating high school by the time you were born. :)

You post something publicly and somehow expect it to be a secret? Wow are some people just dumb...

No. No, they showed that Clinton would win the popular vote by 2-5% which she did. So the polls were pretty damn accurate. The Electoral College is another thing altogether and harder to predict as you essentially need to forecast 50 states plus DC accurately. This is much harder to do than get the national poll.

Please stop spreading fake news.

Whoops, you are quite correct. Brain cramp on my part.

The head of the FCC is a former Verizon lawyer who is opposed to net neutrality and for allowing ISPs to sell your personal data without you being aware of it.

I guess this is what MAGA means.

One was cheating to lose, the other cheating to win. Quite a big difference in my book.

There are times when it makes since to go with the lowest bidder, but it usually isn't government services. If the government wants something done correctly, without spelling out the most minor details or anticipating every possible short-cut, it should probably handle it on its own.

And what happens when that truck driver can't find another job? Do we guarantee him a wage? What about his kids when they can't find a job?

I am not against progress, but there is a social cost that partially offsets the gains. We seem to regard this a collateral damage and want to ignore the people that are hurt in the name of progress.

Oh.... thank you for the correction.

The Feds should block this one if it ever comes close to being attempted. We have an absolute dearth of competition as it stands now. I looked at moving from Time Warner for my internet and found AT&T is the only option in my area. TW is okay, but overpriced and I have never heard a good thing about AT&T. Allow the two to combine and I get the worst of both worlds.

"i buy cars that make me happy and will be fun to drive. All I'm looking for is what is the best can I can afford to enjoy driving for the money I can spend....gas mileage, I don't really even look at..."

Just because you don't doesn't mean all of us don't.

Gas mileage was one of my top criteria for choosing a car. I bought a car that advertised 27 mpg city, 37 highway, combined 30 mpg. I get around 32 mpg combined, or 35 when I am driving to maximize gas mileage. Overall, I have dropped my gas expenditures 100 dollars per month (roughly) for a car that was under $14,000.

So yes, many people like me do use it as a criterion for their car purchase.