LOL.. That will change as you get older young grasshopper.. You will find your self dumber and your parents smarter as the wisdom that comes with age sets in.

If you have kids, they will look at you the same way.

Identical twins only separate at birth, so all we've got evidence of is that intelligence is largely set prior to that event.

I'm going to guess that we really need to studied identical twins, separated PRIOR to implantation and carried by different mothers. Problem with this is such experiments are not exactly ethical.

True, but one that is devoted to the quick delivery of things that are of value to military activities.

Well... It's stayed up there ya know... That's an achievement..

Maybe you mean "Advancement"?

You mean like weaponizing space kind of experiments?

OPM says she was lying with the intent to mislead and she had an ongoing relationship with one of the other members of the organization who DIED IN JAIL in relation to crimes committed in association with said organization.

OPM say she's unfit, good bye job. With her qualifications, finding another won't be hard. End of report.

Dang, I'd be in trouble here... Where I have come across people who obviously where into this kind of thing, I've never actually known anybody who I would classify as a "close contact" who I knew for sure was into this kind of thing. I'd have to honestly say "no" to that question. Glad I'm not trying to be a cop..

What I'm reading is that she was indeed a member of two or more such organizations, some who had members jailed for inciting and committing violent acts. Her activity in these organizations was more than just passing by the accounts I'm reading and the nature of the organizations coupled with the failure to disclose her associations with them conspired to fail the background check. Cannot pass background check = no job. She knew this before she accepted the position, before she signed the paperwork, and when she was interviewed by the investigator. It's not like she's getting hauled off to jail (which by the way IS possible in this kind of thing), she's just out looking for a new job.

If you want a job that requires a background investigation, it seem to me that a lot of candor might be in your best interest, especially if your employment is conditioned on actually passing the background check. Remember, they TELL you before you get hired that you will need to pass the check, so it's not like you are being forced to disclose stuff any more than you are being forced to take the job.

However, if you DO fill out a form that asks you questions and you LIE on it in an attempt to hide or mislead the investigators, you can bet it won't go well for you should they happen to find out. When they kick you to the curb with your box of personal items and your last paycheck, don't come crying to me about how unfairly you've been treated.

Further, I'm guessing that in the headline case here, the issue wasn't so much her association with some radical group 30 years ago, but with the failure to disclose it. I'm just guessing here, but I'll bet they wouldn't have tossed her had she disclosed it and the evidence was that she hadn't be involved in such stuff since. This lady played it your way and got fired for it.

Do what you want though...

If it is the set of questions I answered for the same folks, It's pretty clear what they want. Where you a member of.... Do you have friends or associates who are members of... Is anybody in your family a member of...

She clearly WAS an actual member and apparently didn't disclose it. When it turned up in the background investigation that what was on the disclosure she signed was not true, she got the boot.

Bye Bye, don't let the door hit you on the way out....

So you just miss the part where "SHE LIED" on her background check and got canned for it. I don't know about you, but if I lie on my employment application or Resume and get canned because of it, it's going to be my fault.

Maybe I live in some alternate reality or something, but I don't see a problem with this lady getting the boot if she signed the paperwork and either misrepresented her past, failed to remember it, or neglected to disclose it and the investigation turns up something different.

Does it matter? The problem here is that some yahoo *could* get a sample of small pox, or plague, and start such a problem. Small Pox might be officially eradicated, but I can think of possible ways to collect samples outside of official channels and you could kill millions in the third world if you let that loose.

But, I'm more concerned about stuff that might not be lethal to humans, but say kills chickens or cattle. There is a virus that is killing pigs "in the wild" right now that is causing hog farmers no end of trouble. They don't know where it came from, how it is transmitted, but it's killing a significant number of pigs. Say somebody comes up with something that destroys corn plants and gets transmitted by wind and birds. Lets say it wipes out 25% of the corn crop before we can deal with it. There will be a LOT of starving people out there. This is the kind of thing that we must prevent.

Most of this kind of thing can be prevented if you follow simple protocols when working with risky things. Such protocols need not be expensive, but they need to be followed and that means we need oversight in place to make sure they get followed, even for the guy with a microscope running an incubator on his back porch.

WMD's, everybody needs them. Bio-weapons from hacking? Why not....

I have no doubt that BIO hacking is a great pastime, but seriously, there really needs to be some oversight on this, draconian or not. I'm not going to sit here and say it's easy to weaponize this kind of thing, but if some yahoo are growing anthrax on the back porch it might be a good idea to have somebody keeping track of it. Virus production is even worse. Anything that could cause trouble for humans, the food supply, or the environment needs to be watched, carefully, or somebody who doesn't know better is going to cause a big problem.

Now if you want to experiment with genetics by selectively breading peas or some such, knock yourself out, but if you start "hacking" around with possibly lethal pathogens or something that could become one, we need draconian oversight.

Right.... So, do you want to continue discussing original intent as a logical position or do you want to keep pulling things out of context to suit your arguments...

Care to point out what "inconsistency" you are pointing at in the Federalist Papers? Which article should I read?

So let's talk about that in terms of original intent then, it's a good example of how this works... Looking at original intent, what DOES the 2nd amendment say? What did the founders intend when they wrote that? What right where they trying to protect?

The text of it says: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

During the 2nd world war, it was said by military leaders in Japan that they NEVER wanted to invade the USA because "there was a gun behind each front door". I think this was the intent of the framers, to provide an intrinsic armed populace that could muster a defense of the country. That's how the revolutionary war was initially waged, private arms owned by private citizens, fighting for their independence.

So what's the left's out from the "the right of the people to keep and bare Arms, shall not be infringed?" I don't know, but it seems to me that it is a whole lot more strained interpretation that says something like "What's a well regulated Militia?" and how is that related?

So, at risk of misstating your side on this debate, what IS the original intent argument here that supports this "Ban Guns" mantra of the ACLU? I'll let you respond.