Cockamamie fight!

b1-66er: "Three countries are due to reach Mars in the next two weeks"

Special K: Good deal.

b1-67er: So there are four possible wins:us lander, china orbiter, china lander, UAE orbiter.  How many wins do you think there will be?

66: That's a good question.

And part of it will depend on the definition of a "win"...

...e.g. Mr. Musk thinks blowing his rockets to smithereens on landing is a "success"...

... There's an added complication in that both espionage and falsified data are possible here...

But I'll go with 2...

... The US and 1 of the Chinese.

Which, I guess, means you can color the UAE entry as "doomed" in my eyes.

67: Win is orbiter operating for thirty days.  Rover has to land (not space x style) and drive for one day.

D4rw1n: I say any confirmed landing is a win because it means the lander was not destroyed on impact. I've got a rooting interest in the US lander, because i'm always rooting for USA. And my client made a lot of the components. But I'm guessing one in four wins.

67: US has pretty good ability to do imagery of Mars surface.  Fraud here would be detected I think.

66: Land not SpaceX style, is a laugh out loud funny expression.

D4:  I wonder if the Chinese could ever get away with falsifying data. You'd think they'd be motivated to, but I'm not aware of any evidence they've done it before with regard to space exploration

67: I was going to go with 3.  Most likely fail is UAE orbiter with Chinese rover not far behind.

D4: I laughed at "space X style" too

This is great. We have votes for one, two, and three. But we have different definitions of a win

Oddly my definition is easiest, but my prediction is lowest

67: US lander has good chances although I think the lowering on cables concept is cockamamie.

D4: Although I guess my definition doesn't work, because the  UAE orbiter never has to land 

That cable thing looks really awkward

But, to be fair, no more awkward than the bouncing balloon ball we had a few years ago

67: Oh no way.  The bouncing ball is a great design.  Pretty failsafe. 

66: My favorite of all these kinds of extraterrestrial motions was the jumping Japanese shoebox. 

(On an asteroid!)

67: Also a great, great design.  I wouldn't have come up with it. Brutally simple. Not external moving parts.  Awesome.

Crap(s)

b1-66er: "Las Vegas company announces product to prevent COVID-19 and help in school shooting situations"

b1-67er: Bulletproof suit with breathing apparatus?

Special K: Loaded dice. 

Do you have any of those spiked toothpicks as well?

b1-66er: "Trader Joe's Kicks Off 2021 With Hell In a Jar"

Special K: I'll take 6. 

Eye See

b1-66er: 

"How actor Ethan Suplee has maintained his nearly 300-pound weight loss"

I've heard Ethan Slurpee hasn't done as well.

Not yet picking up a bus

The Accomplice:

Sign 0 the times

Special K:

MURDER!

b1-66er: "8 On Your Side spoke with a criminal law expert about the charges someone who charged the Capitol Building could be facing.

These are burglars, they are insurrectionists, they have committed thefts and armed offenses, threatened congress members, they are looking at the type of charges that could get them decades if not the remainder of their life in prison," said Jeffrey Swartz.

b1-67er: I doubt that they will throw the book at these people though.

66: I can tell you I wouldn't want to be the one to try and figure it out.

At the heart of the matter is can we let common citizens/anybody run roughshod through a community building?

I'll tell you what, I'd be combing that building for bugs...

What an ideal time to get a foreign operative inside.

67: I think he's missing the biggie.  If someone dies because you are commiting a crime...that's murder in most places.

66: Ohhhh yeah.

Funny how i overlook death-related charges. Murder, manslaughter and its deformed little cousins.

"His lawyer, John Bryan, previously told CNN in a statement Thursday that his client "had no choice but to enter" the Capitol due to the size of the crowd he was in, and that "it wasn't apparent to Mr. Evans that he wasn't allowed to follow the crowd into this public area of the Capitol, inside which members of the public were already located.""

D4rw1n: And if it is a capital crime you are committing, then it's capital murder 

66: And if it happened in the government building it would be...

...Capitol capital murder!

D4: As to the insurrectionists planting bugs: in the footage so far released, I didn't see a lot of the type of higher prefrontal cortex function that would be a predicate for planting effective listening devices.

 I also saw the 'no choice' quote. That is not the best legal argument I've ever heard