Except that, like any other organic fuel, the CO2 that it emits when burned equals the CO2 that it absorbed when growing, so it's a net wash — at least for the parts of the plant that you smoke. The stems could be processed for paper pulp and fiber (although the psychoactive hemp isn't the best producer of fiber and…

"We had to destroy your freedom in order to save it."

And it's useful to point out that SF authors can be as wildly wrong about the future as they are right. Take Heinlein's projection of future computers in Starman Jones, where the astrogators have to set up the calculations by hand, manually convert the parameters into binary, and enter them into the wall-sized…

Back when I was in college, I used to take Greyhound between San Diego and Phoenix when college let out and I went back to my parent's place in Tempe; some of the trips were... interesting. The trip where the AC unit blew 15 minutes short of Yuma, got 'fixed' in Yuma, and lasted another five minutes once we left Yuma;…

Technically, that would be a half-track motorcycle, since it's not armored, but the Kleines Kettenkraftrad was actually designed as a light artillery tractor that would fit into a Ju-52 transport.

Lucas takes the movies, makes minor tweaks to them, and re-releases them; the new edition gets a new copyright. As long as he keeps releasing the movies with 'updates', he can keep pushing out the expiration of his copyright. Sort of the flip side of what Disney did with the Mickey Mouse Protection Act — he's doing it…

Once again proving that a verbal contract is only as binding as the tape it's recorded on.

The more Japanese game shows I see, the more it seems as if there's a basic theme for Japanese game shows requiring them to have two snarky commentators and a ready supply of competitors to act stupid as they race around a course filled with obstacles.

How many clowns get out of it when it stops?

Most modern Antiship missiles just don't pack a large enough warhead to cause enough damage to an Iowa class battleship to sink her.

IIRC, the Mythbusters test was launching a self-propelled vehicle into the pond; this is being pulled down the slope and off the ramp by a bungee cord. I'm a little dubious that the quadracycle+rider is enough weight to get the traction you'd need to get good tension on the bungee cord, but there's only one 'strand',…

Or the blonde joke that ends "You finished painting my porch?" "I sure did, and I had paint left over, so I gave it a second coat. By the way, it isn't a Porch, it's a Ferrari."

Need even more lift? Run the engine exhaust through heat exchangers to warm the helium, making it expand. For wider-range control, you can pump the helium into or out of pressure tanks, such as for situations where you want to establish significant negative buoyancy.

Well, except that, by the time you've descended far enough to put the wheels of a 172 on the runway, you would have dug a 70-foot-deep trench with a 747. What? That's landing it, you say, not flying it? I need to point out that, while takeoffs are optional, landings are mandatory; once you get it into the air, no…

And if you click through the link to the article about the 'non LoS cannon', then scroll up to the top, you find that not only was the Dragon Fire II shelved in favor of part of another program, but that entire other program was cancelled because the common vehicle for the program wouldn't provide sufficient…

Well, I suppose that if it's legal for the government to attach a GPS unit to your vehicle without a warrant, then it's equally legal for you to remove that GPS unit from your vehicle and attach it to some other vehicle. I imagine that attaching it to a container ship shortly before it departs for a trans-oceanic trip…

Well, a jet engine would cause problems with the exhaust temperature, even with a high-bypass turbofan engine, but there are a number of places around the country that have offered this for years — look up 'vertical wind tunnel' or 'indoor skydiving' — using a propellor and aircraft engine or other high powered fan to…

It's actually "Jungle Emperor Leo"; 'Kimba the White Lion' was what it got renamed as when it was brought to the US.

Heh. I remember watching that on TV as it went on a few miles away from me. "...police officers jumping on the moving tank..." They waited until he got stupid and tried to climb the cement divider at a shallow angle and got the belly of the tank caught on the barrier, immobilizing him. If he'd had any real experience…

From the appearance, what they had there was a Cadillac Gage 'Commando' armored car.