demitri martin's clearification

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Budget office reports war costs could reach $2.4 trillion by 2017

from the story at governmentexecutive.com:

Even if U.S. troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan are reduced by more than two-thirds from the average numbers, the cost to the taxpayers of those conflicts could reach $2.4 trillion in 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Wednesday.
...
Budget ranking member Paul Ryan, R-Wis., did not challenge Orszag's numbers, but said that the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when measured by the percentage of the gross national product going to defense-related spending, is low compared to previous conflicts and the average during the Cold War. He agreed with Spratt and the witnesses that the war funding should be part of the regular budget, but noted that, despite their protests, the Democrats have continued to approve the supplementals.

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first artifical life form created

'Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth.

The announcement, which is expected within weeks and could come as early as Monday at the annual meeting of his scientific institute in San Diego, California, will herald a giant leap forward in the development of designer genomes. It is certain to provoke heated debate about the ethics of creating new species and could unlock the door to new energy sources and techniques to combat global warming.

Mr Venter told the Guardian he thought this landmark would be "a very important philosophical step in the history of our species. We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before".'

Guardian article

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Robot Lover

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