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That was “intended to win the bidding for oil concessions”... the exclusive right to explore and develop oil, not to receive unlawful and beneficial-to-them reductions to their royalty payments. In fact hand-in-hand with the receiving of the concessions goes the fact that all applicable royalties will be paid to the host country.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_an_oil_concession

I should add that the level of intent required to make something a crime may differ from crime to crime, of course. General intent may not be enough in some cases.

I don't think you know what Cheap is.

A quick search in Denver county came up with 77 Three bedroom, 2 bathroom houses between 100-150k. Lets do 120k.

1000$ a year in taxes for such a place is *high* around here. We're now at 800$ a month with taxes at 6% mortgage interest with zero down.

500$ a month in groceries seems doable for a 4 person family where only one is working. Total of 1300$ a month.

200$ a month for water and power. 1500$

300$ a month for an affordable used car. 1800$
Figure 2000$ a year For clothes for everyone.

Put aside your own money for health care. HMOs and such are rip-offs. Find a doctor who will do cash only.

It's doable.

And according to this: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_a_grocery_store_manager_make

The *beginning* salary of a grocery store manager is 35k a year. That's just the section manager.

How did you ever get through college without learning how to stretch every penny? I went weeks at a time knowing exactly how much was in my wallet because it didn't change.

Spit, not splitted.

Something like CTRL+Shift+C, type "rosebud" and you're the CEO.

Its a non-linear scale so not everything is shown. http://www.answers.com/topic/nonlinearity

so a compromise has been made here between information needed and too much detail

but if you were to "generalise" (I know bad [hides] ) its still true that 33 miles per gallon is better than 10 miles per gallon.

I thought I remembered a quote about achieving even 50% efficiency being a pipe dream at this point, but actually it's not easy to find solid efficiency figures for wind turbines (I can't remember when or where I heard the quote so hopefully things have moved on since then, plus I guess so much depends on location, season, etc making it hard to give definitive figures, but it would be nice to at least know, when running in optimal conditions, what the conversion rate was like). My favourite quote from Answers.com: "A. They are very efficient and they also can be nonefficient" - brilliant.

Uh, you realize that that is only $1.64 a day? I don't go there, but it sounds like just a coffee is $1.19. Throw in the occasional breakfast sandwich, or maybe lunch, and I could easily see someone surpassing $600 when they don't really go there that often.

I think you misunderstand his point (or perhaps I am giving him too much credit for asking a really good question). Mach speeds are a ratio of the speed of the aircraft to the speed of sound. Mach 6 therefore means "six times the speed of sound". OK, nothing difficult there; most people here probably knew that already. Here's the rub: what is the speed of sound? Hint: it's not the same at sea level and at the 0.1Mm you mention, because the speed of sound varies with the density of the atmosphere. In other words, Mach 6 at sea level (~4500 mph) is not the same speed as Mach 6 at, say, 100,000 feet above sea level (~4100 mph).

I think you misunderstand his point (or perhaps I am giving him too much credit for asking a really good question). Mach speeds are a ratio of the speed of the aircraft to the speed of sound. Mach 6 therefore means "six times the speed of sound". OK, nothing difficult there; most people here probably knew that already. Here's the rub: what is the speed of sound? Hint: it's not the same at sea level and at the 0.1Mm you mention, because the speed of sound varies with the density of the atmosphere. In other words, Mach 6 at sea level (~4500 mph) is not the same speed as Mach 6 at, say, 100,000 feet above sea level (~4100 mph).

and wait for some tiny country like Panama to invade us

That might be easier said than done.....

There are over* 305,000,000 people who call them "potato chips" and only 61,126,832 people who call them "crisps". You're outnumbered five to one.

And unlike tyres, they were invented by an American.

*Probably more, since I'm sure Americans aren't the only ones who call them "chips".

From Wiki Answers:

Mach is a relative measurment of speed and fluid temperature.
example;
Mach 1 at Sealevel (0 feet) is 761.2 MPH (Calibrated Airspeed) and 761.2 MPH(True Airspeed)
Mach 1 at FL50 (Flight Level 50,000) is 285.8 MPH(CAS) and 660.05 MPH(TAS)
Mach 6 at Sealevel (0 feet) is 4567.3 MPH(CAS and 4567.3 MPH(TAS)
Mach 6 at FL50 (Flight Level 50,000) is 3147.97 MPH(CAS) and 3960.31 MPH(TAS)

So that's like going from Atlanta, Ga to Honolulu in just over an hour.

Umm... Even on our rather aqueous planet, where the only CO2 ice is either synthetic or located in seriously inhospitable places [...]

Just out of curiosity, is there a place on earth where there is naturally-ocurring dry ice? A Google search comes up empty.

Apparently it freezes at -78.5 degrees C which is uncommon but not impossible on Earth.

Nope, just based in the law.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_it_legal_in_Texas_to_marry_your_first_cousin

In common law jurisdictions, maintenance is the intermeddling of an uninterested party to encourage a lawsuit.[1] It is "A taking in hand, a bearing up or upholding of quarrels or sides, to the disturbance of the common right."[2]

Champerty is the maintenance of a person in a lawsuit on condition that the subject matter of the action is to be shared with the maintainer.[3] Among laypersons, this is known as "buying into someone else's lawsuit."

In modern idiom maintenance is the support of litigation by a stranger without just cause. Champerty is an aggravated form of maintenance. The distinguishing feature of champerty is the support of litigation by a stranger in return for a share of the proceeds.

- Lord Justice Steyn , Giles v Thompson[4] At common law, maintenance and champerty were both crimes and torts, as was barratry, the bringing of vexatious litigation. This is generally no longer so as during the nineteenth century, the development of legal ethics tended to obviate the risks to the public, particularly after the scandal of the Swynfen will case (1856-1864).[5] However, the principles are relevant to modern contingent fee agreements between a lawyer and a client and to the assignment by a plaintiff of his rights in a lawsuit to someone with no connection to the case. Champertous contracts can still, depending on jurisdiction, be void for public policy or attract liability for costs.

http://definitions.uslegal.com/c/champerty

Champerty is the practice of agreeing to paticipate and share in the proceeds of a lawsuit, despite not being a proper party to the dispute. The outside party, usually an attorney, bargains to exchange their financing and promotion of the lawsuit in exchange for a share of the recovery.

Champerty is distinguished from barratry, which is the active encouragement of lawsuits. Champerty is prohibited in some jurisdictions; in others, judges are considered to have the responsibility for policing such behavior.

Think of it as someone participating in a lawsuit in which they don't have any legal standing. Their patent isn't being infringed on, it's another patent in the same "pool". This is just a way to sneak past any claims of champerty and maintenance (as in maintenance of a lawsuit that was initiated by someone else).

In the US

This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.

Champerty is the process whereby one person bargains with a party to a lawsuit to obtain a share in the proceeds of the suit. Maintenance is the support or promotion of another person's suit initiated by intermeddling for personal gain.

Both champerty and maintenance have been illegal for two basic public policy reasons since early common law: (1) It is considered desirable to curb excess litigation for the operation of an efficient judicial system. The reasons for this are numerous and include problems of overcrowding on court calendars, economic considerations, and the desirability of promoting a society that is not excessively litigious. Champerty and maintenance work contrary to this societal goal by stirring up litigation. (2) Champerty and maintenance bring money to an individual who was not personally harmed by the defendant. An attorney found guilty of either champerty or maintenance will be subject to the payment of any damages that may have been incurred by the parties to the lawsuit and to disciplinary proceedings, which can result in his or her disbarment.

Whether or not champerty and maintenance exist in a particular instance depends upon the facts and circumstances of the case. They apply specifically to cases wherein one person pr

Bollywood creates 800 movies a year in India, a place the US is exceptionally upset at for it's lax IP laws, that by all politicians should not have nearly the thriving multimedia industry it does.

Hollywood creates about 600 (603 in 2007).

Given the local differences, it's amazing that they make 10% of the revenue that Hollywood does, while investing only $500K per movie (from the previous PBS report, as contrasted with the average of $100 million for a Hollywood movie.

Stop sending your women and children to war ;) Might help.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/When_were_women_first_legally_allowed_to_join_the_military

http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/children.html

If someone dies from self-inflicted autoerotic asphyxiation... it's never too soon.

As opposed to when someone dies from it when it isn't self-inflicted? That's unlikely. Unless you mean "intentionally on purpose," you don't understand why it isn't erotic asphyxiation.

For Pete's sake, the guy was saying we should stop oil production to force people to use non-existent renewable energy.

Ever hear of geothermal? Solar? Wind? They all exist. And if they were given as much in subsidies as coal, nuclear power, and petroleum they would be producing a lot more energy.

Falcon

Um... no. No they would not.
Geothermal, while prevalent in some parts of the world, is not that big of a resource here. And most of the places where geothermal is available are national parks. Could you imagine the uproar if you tried to build a power plant at Yellowstone?
Solar is nowhere near efficient enough to power the country. It can be a nice boost, hardly economic, and government subsidies are not enough to help. For starters, government subsidies exist. There are also several tax breaks you can receive for "greening" your home, but it will never be enough to make it cost effective:

He found the cost for an installation ranges from nearly $86,000 to $91,000, while the value of the power produced ranges from $19,000 to $51,000.

I don't know about you, but I don't have an extra $91,000 sitting around to spend on something that will save me $51,000 over the next 20 years. Also, this study fails to consider the sunk costs. In other words, if I were wisely invest that $90 G's instead of blowing it on solar panels, it would grow. Take whatever money it would have made and add that to the loss. I'm not alone here. A very small percentage of Americans have $900.00 to spend, much less $90,000.00. Oh, and then there are cloudy days, night, snow covered roof tops, hail, shadows from when the sun crosses to the other side of your house and so on that make solar an even less economic proposition.
Now, if you are talking about massive power plants located in the desert, when then you have other issues. See, you green buddies at the Sierra Club tend to block most of these programs because, even though they could save the earth, they may endanger a turtle that lives in the sand. That pretty much stands for any of these green projects. Someone, somewhere is going to get their feelings hurt. And these someones tend to have lawyers. So, don't bitch at me. Call the Sierra Club!
Finally, Wind! Wow! This is a fun one. I'll start with this quote:

Another interesting point with wind systems is that fossil fuel plants normally run on standby to support the wind fluctuations that occur. So, not only do we see only 8 to 10% of a rated power output, but this is offset by the fossil fuel consumed an not delivered to the grid. The net result is that most wind packages deliver less then zero power, when you consider the wasted fuel at the fossil fuel plant.

Of course, as the Kennedys showed us, some people don't like the way they look. You remember Ted Kennedy, right? That big green liberal that BLOCKED wind power because it might disrupt the view from some of his mansions?

So, in to put it more succinctly, renewable energy does not exist, at least not to the point where it can completely replace fossil fuels. While all these other ideas do produce energy and will reduce our fossil fuel dependence for producing electricity, I believe the only viable solution is nuclear. Oh, your green buddies blocked that too!
Now the elephant in the room that I've ignored until now is that all the proposals yo

Actually the shortest MLB baseball game ever was 51 minutes

The problem with your assumption is that this is destroying an ecosystem. Do you even know what crude oil is? It's a naturally occurring, additive free, organic substance. It doesn't rampantly kill life on contact like say, mustard gas.

It's not an assumption, because this is not the first oil spill ever.

And yes I know what crude oil is, do you know that "naturally occurring, additive free, organic substance" and "harmless" are not adjectives?

Nobody is claiming it's going to instantly kill anything on contact. But if you had any idea of the environmental damage caused by previous spills, you wouldn't be talking like this "naturally occurring" substance isn't going to cause any problems in the quantities and concentrations here. Go ask an actual biologist or environmental scientist or anyone who has actually studied the impact of oil spills if they're concerned about this "organic substance". If they say that yes they are, make sure to remind them that the oil is additive free!

Oil naturally leaks in plenty of places on the planet. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090513130944.htm

You realize that article is talking about oil seeping out over an extended period of time, filtered through and partially biodegraded passing through ocean floor sediments before it even reaches the ocean water? Not pumped out through a cleanly bored holed designed to maximize pressure and thus output. The Exxon Valdez spill wouldn't have been a big disaster if the oil had been leaked out slowly over twenty years, and 11-110 of them wouldn't be a big issue on the time scales it took it to reach that level of concentration in the soil.

It does kill some animals fairly quickly, but it also feeds algae and other microorganisms as well as plant life on the shore. I expect that the "fallout" from this spill will hurt the fish and shrimp industries this year, but in the coming years, they will have bumper crops. I'm not saying this isn't an environmental incident, I just fail to see the doomsday scenarios that everyone is talking about.

Yeah, now who's making assumptions? Fail is the operative word here. Here's a couple links: http://www.answers.com/topic/exxon-valdez-oil-spill and http://www.eoearth.org/article/exxon_valdez_oil_spill showing how the environmental impact and disruption of ecosystems was ongoing ten and even twenty years later. There's plenty more on teh googles. Fishing was disrupted for multiple years, and catches have never recovered. Mortality remains high among contaminated fish and other animals.

It's not about doomsday from one spill, it's about damage to ecosystems that are already stressed. It's about idiots saying that it's not such a big deal so lets not stop doing it, ensuring that there will be subsequent stresses.

There is a big difference between 1-2 million birds dying in one geographic location over a short amount of time versus hundreds of millions spread relatively evenly across the globe. It also doesn't stop at birds. Crabs, clams, crawfish, fish, etc, etc.

Roughly a quarter million people die each day. That doesn't mean that wiping out the population of Buffalo NY every now and again is "ok". It would simply devastate the area (for other humans who live around there, etc.. probably good for the environment tho...).

I know this stuff happens naturally and I get that. Natural disasters have more or less hit the "reset" button on the planet a few times. But going out and causing it (intended or not) is stupid and entirely preventable. Just because an asteroid or another event pretty much wiped out life on the planet in the past doesn't mean that killing/poisoning large quantities of life now, no matter how small in comparison, is a-ok!

Agreed. The real counterfeiting occurred in 1964 when silver was no longer used in quarters and dimes, and in 1971 when we went off the gold standard. Here is the proof: the value of a gallon of gasoline in 1964 was 27 cents. Today the average price of gas is $2.86. The melt value of a 90% silver quarter from 1964 is worth $3.27 in today's dollars. If we kept using 90% silver quarters today, we would be able to purchase more than gallon of gasoline with it. Our coins and paper money have become extremely devalued.

Me thinks that the "researchers" need to research a little more... http://www.answers.com/topic/trespass http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/student-papers/fall97-papers/kim-crime.html

You forgot part of your equation. It looks like your number should be about x20.

You count ALL European human pollution then contrast it to 1 volcano. The original assertion is wrong but you are also being misleading. Not your fault the gp asked a leading question.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_number_of_active_volcanoes

"15-hour shifts, six and seven days a week, for around 65 cents per hour"

That's about 4.6 Yuan per hour. Accord to wikianswers, that means you'd have to work about two hours to afford 1 quart of milk. WA also mentions the cost of bread being around $2.50, which - assuming somebody didn't use a $ to mean Yuan - is about 17 Yuan... over 2 days work?

I'm sure this varies somewhat by region, and rice is likely more common than bread, but if anyone from China could perhaps confirm a base price?

So how fair does that seem so far?

If people are working 15h days constantly, and napping at work, that's probably because they need to do so to get by or try to get ahead in life. IMHO, at a fair wage they should hopefully be able to work 8-10h days, and/or have 1-2 days off instead of 0-1.

I wonder how hard it would be to visit some of these factories (and where exactly they are). If I had the opportunity I'd love to drop in and share a little wealth with the workers. A few thousand bucks CAD or USD would probably go a decent distance.

"15-hour shifts, six and seven days a week, for around 65 cents per hour"

That's about 4.6 Yuan per hour. Accord to wikianswers, that means you'd have to work about two hours to afford 1 quart of milk. WA also mentions the cost of bread being around $2.50, which - assuming somebody didn't use a $ to mean Yuan - is about 17 Yuan... over 2 days work?

I'm sure this varies somewhat by region, and rice is likely more common than bread, but if anyone from China could perhaps confirm a base price?

So how fair does that seem so far?

If people are working 15h days constantly, and napping at work, that's probably because they need to do so to get by or try to get ahead in life. IMHO, at a fair wage they should hopefully be able to work 8-10h days, and/or have 1-2 days off instead of 0-1.

I wonder how hard it would be to visit some of these factories (and where exactly they are). If I had the opportunity I'd love to drop in and share a little wealth with the workers. A few thousand bucks CAD or USD would probably go a decent distance.

Cheapskate Troll,

NASA costs $57.10 per taxpayer per year. The average taxpayer pays a total of $25,000 per year.

Wiki Answers
Absolute Astronomy

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_chess_a_game_or_sport
Chess today is a recognized sport of the International Olympic Committee.

bold faced lie

That's bald-faced lie.

Is letting 'cloud users' access the servers that run out financial markets really a good idea?

No.

Citation needed.

http://www.answers.com/topic/common-sense

Yes. Even a magazine is too heavy, but usually you can rest it on your chair/lap until you need to turn the page. Now you have this gadget that needs lots of user input/interaction...hello gorilla arms. It isn't the ability to lift and hold the device or media, it is the need to continuously hold it and interact with it for long periods of time that becomes the problem.

I compiled some weights to compare items you hold in front of you (or don't in case of textbook):

Wii Remote / Nunchuk: 3.1oz / 2.6oz
1984 Paperback 248pgs: 5.6oz
Kindle: 10.2oz
People Magazine: 11.5oz
Kindle DX: 19oz
War and Peace paperback 1424pgs: 19oz
Ipad: 25oz
Average Physics Textbook: 58oz

Fail, fail, fail.

Hedonism is the pursuit of pleasure. Where you got your definition from, I don't know.

Fail, fail, fail.

Narcissism is a personality trait. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a psychological condition. The person who took the last coke out of the fridge would be narcissistic - to a degree. There is an element of narcissism in all of us. The OPs use of the term indicates he thought that there is an excess of narcissism in our society, not that he thought everyone was pathologically narcissistic.

This idea that we somehow have more sex now then in the past is the biggest load of bullcrap. guess what? people fuck, your grandma had he same urges in the 1920's as you have now. the biological drive is exactly the same, it's just socially we are less afraid to express it, so you hear about it more.

Yeah, it just used to be that people married early, and their impulses tended to be directed more towards a single person (not exclusively, of course, but more so than today). Monogomy tends to retard the spread of STD. It's no coincidence that the rapid spread of STDs coincided with the sexual revolution (and with rapid, affordable intercontinental travel).

Correct answer is "both".

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_the_saying_'all_intents_and_purposes'_or_'all_intense_purposes'

I think that's sarcasm, though they mean the same thing. Scientific literature usually speaks of causality as a concept, and causation as specific to a particular phenomenon. http://www.answers.com/causality http://www.answers.com/causation

I think that's sarcasm, though they mean the same thing. Scientific literature usually speaks of causality as a concept, and causation as specific to a particular phenomenon. http://www.answers.com/causality http://www.answers.com/causation

You know, i personally don't give a shit if both sides make each other glow in the dark and turn that shithole into glass, but what pisses me off is you, me, and every single taxpayer in the US gets a bill for 23 grand to prop up Israel and that DOES piss me off.

And the truly sad fucking part? all that money is being taken out of our pockets by right wing bible thumpers because they think that "Jebus won't come back! PRAISE JEBUS!". Well to all those I have one thing to say...fuck you. If your God is so damned weak he can't win without the US military then he is a giant pussy and undeserving of the name God, alright? He doesn't need your overfed bible thumping ass draining my pockets to prop up a country that wouldn't piss on us if we were on fire. If God wants Jews in Israel then they'll stay, if not? They'll go. Quit acting like Jesus is the fucking Groundhog that if he pops his head out the hole and don't see Jews he'll hide for another thousands years.

What little US grown sucrose there is comes usually from Florida sugarcane

I would you suggest you double check your research. Florida Sugarcane accounts for less than 1/4th of the sugar production in the United States. Sugarbeets are grown on more acreage than sugarcane in the United States.

Really, there weren't that many choices. Lucid Lemur is not nearly as exciting.

Considering it's an honor to serve your country, maybe they should rethink their payscale.

THEY do, that's the problem. The thing is we need some sort of checks and balances. You should never be in charge of voting for your own paycheck.

Senate votes on House & Vice Versa? My state already does a direct democracy on a ton of issues, why not just figure out a pay scale.

Or even as simple as: You get 200k/year based on the % of votes you were there for. Show up for 5 votes out of 100, you get 10k.

If we're going to pay my senator $174,000 a year for 4 year term, plus lifetime pension and health benefits, plus other expenses*, I damn well expect them to be there every day. They already get plenty of days off, in addition to federal holidays. Maybe you make more than $174,000 a year, but I promise you, I don't. Considering it's an honor to serve your country, maybe they should rethink their payscale.
 
*Senators have free access to military jets, which cost anywhere from $500 to $5000 an hour depending on who you ask, among the many other perks

That story doesn't leave much to go on, it's pretty low information content. However, it should be noted that a vintage wine can contain up to 15% of its grapes from another year. That would obviously skew any carbon dating results.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_a_wire_transfer_and_an_automated_clearing_house

" Answer:

A wire is a real-time method of transferring immediate funds and supporting information between two financial institutions and is relatively expensive to use. An ACH is similar to a wire transfer only it uses a batch- process. Transactions received by the bank during the day are stored and processed later in batches and normally do not become available to a beneficiary until the next day. ACH transfers are less expensive than wire transfers."

Seems too good to be true. I wonder what the downside is.

Well, when you burn things you get CO2. It seems that Methane has much less impact as a greenhouse gas than CO2, but only because of the volumes involved. So the down side is we are screwed if we continue burning stuff for power. I wonder about cracking the methane for hydrogen.... At least that burns in a more friendly manner... water vapor we can handle.

Also, when a flock of chickens suddenly loses it's rooster, the dominant female will sometimes act as a rooster. That isn't hormonal?

This does happen.

Apparently this is not all that common, that is, not every hen can become a henry, and perhaps TFA suggests the means by which this does happen when it does.

Apparently One in 10,000 hens can change sex, usually in response to a gonad ceasing to function. One professor explained it this way:

  "Yes a type of sex reversal does occur in poultry. Both a right and left ovary start to develop in the embryo but between day 7 and 9 of incubation the right gonad ceases to continue development. If in the adult, the left ovary is removed or fails to function the right gonad hypertrophies to become a testis-organ and thus "a male' instead of what was a hen."

The implication of this is with regard to TFA is that failure of one gonad cease development leads to the double expression of traits documented in the story.

So there is nothing new here that hasn't been known for some time with regard to chicken sex other than that the normal failure to enter stasis can lead to odd birds.

New York City uses 1.086 billion gallons of water a day, so with a weight of 8.35 lbs/gallon (3.78749629 kg/gallon), that's 4,113,220.97 metric tonnes a day.

So we're talking the amount of water New York City uses (directly, not indirectly, since we're not including the water required for its food needs) in 145 days.

WE WON the Cold War, the least we should get out of it is the right to spell however we want and to keep our superior gallons over them crappy ass metric liters. Liters is for Coke, not gas.

Aww, hey, don't feel bad. Just because the British Gallon is bigger than the American one:

... one British (imperial) gallon equals 1.2009 gallons US I'm not even going to go into litres.

I am not disagreeing that information about space or life in other places would be interesting. These days I tend to think that bacteria came from outside the solar system myself, given how hardy bacteria is, and how statistically it would just be more likely it came from elsewhere with one small Earth and one big universe. I'm disagreeing with how compelling that would be as a call to action in current US society. As in, "Oh, gee, cute seamonsters on Europa. Now, what kind of cosmetics should we be producing to make the most money?"
http://www.skininc.com/treatments/cosmetics/16814576.html
"Global color cosmetics sales reached $36.8 billion in 2007, ..."

It has been said more people have walked on the Moon than have been to the bottom of the "deep ocean floor".
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_part_of_the_ocean_has_been_least_explored

We even have AI about to emerge seriously in twenty years or so (let alone new human/machine hybrids). Big yawn by most people.
http://www.transhumanist.com/volume1/moravec.htm

Frankly, the world would probably be a better place if we took all that money that goes into a search for life in space and put it towards helping understand and preserve life around Earth. One example of where the money would be better spent:
http://www.mel.nist.gov/programs/slim.htm
"The United States needs to prepare for a future where products are 100% recyclable, manufacturing itself has a zero net impact on the environment, and complete disassembly and disposal of a product at its end of life is routine."

A few hundred billion spent on sustainable and resilient infrastructure done in a free and open source way, would let us bootstrap our civilization to the stars. In that sense, all the money spend on big science of other sorts has just kept us from creating space habitats. Related, on my own (self-funded) efforts to that end:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1563102&cid=31279590

Basically, the scientists at NASA have politically triumphed over the engineers. So, NASA does amazing scientific experiments with, for the most part, 1960s technology, with lots of money for science but comparatively little for innovation (and of course, the Shuttle has eaten up most of NASA's budget in general, anyway, so the engineers and scientists were just fighting over scraps left over). And beyond that, there are records showing how NASA has from the start been primarily funded for military goals (to demonstrate intimidating technical leadership):
http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK+Library+and+Museum/News+and+Press/JFK+Library+Releases+White+House+Tape+on+Space+Race.htm
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/735/1
"We know that such recordings can shed substantial light on Kennedy's thinking on space because of another tape that was released five years ago and gained a surprising amount of media attention in the sleepy month of August 2001. That recording, number 60 in the Kennedy Library, concerned a November 1962 meeting between Kennedy, Webb, and several other top White House and NASA officials to discuss the NASA budget. During that meeting, Kennedy made the comment that "I'm not that interested in space..." explaining that he supported the lunar program because it was a race against the Soviets: "the Soviet Union has made this a test of the system. So that's why we're doing it," Kennedy explained."

O

to all intensive purposes

It's "to all intents and purposes", geeze! You Brits were supposed to know how to speak American!