Indeed. I am a few friends all are what would likely be considered voracious readers. I believe I got my kindle touch about 2.5 years ago, and I've got about 250 ebook purchases in my library now. I also still buy physical books, but generally that's for certain authors/series I've been following/collecting, and it's vastly outnumbered by my digital library in terms of purchase volume.

Why do I like the eReader
* It's just as easy on the eyes as a book. Easier in some cases as font-size is adjustable
* If I finish a book, and there's another in the series, I can just grab it
* Holidays, etc... it's *MUCH* easier to pack an eReader than a half dozen paperbacks
* Most eBooks are priced more reasonably than print, with the exceptions of some major authors
* With the above, I've found a ton of AMAZING authors
* Suggestions based on my reading: which led me to many of the above

Features I wish my eReader had
* Solar charger
* Waterproof
* Backlight tinted for night viewing (non-sleep-interrupting, I don't have a backlight at all on my model though)
* Ability to follow a series. Possibly an author. I'm not sure if I'm just not finding this feature or if Amazon is really missing the ball here, but it seems it would be an extremely convenient feature to get notified of new releases and beneficial to them from a sales perspectivel

I can't comment on other readers because I don't have one. The may have or lack some of the features of mine.

My point was that DDT was the first large scale agricultural pesticide that was engineered specifically to be less toxic to humans. You could use cyanide gas on a field, but your farm hands or animals would die if they wandered into the cloud. That meant a farmer wouldn't apply those kinds of poisons except in severe infestations.

DDT made the application and use of pesticides measurably safer, and led the way to routine applications of pesticides on all kinds of crops. Today's pesticides can be deployed on a schedule as a preventative measure to ensure reliable crop yields, and not just applied on an as-needed basis. For that matter, GMO crops are now engineered to express all kinds of toxins throughout the plants, with the plants' own cells serving as microscopic pesticide factories from germination through harvest.

So when do allergies develop? I'm all for building immunity but if the kid DOES have a reaction at infancy it could be pretty deadly...

I do agree that whomever gave the kid a "toy" gun without the red tip shares blame in this... it's there for a reason (also wondering if there are laws in regards to this, but I haven't heard whether the toy was altered or came without the red tip).

However, having watched the video, the reaction is pretty crazy. Basically the police car zips into the park, the cop jumps out and almost immediately opens fire. It was EXTREMELY aggressive. No time to assess the scene, or for the kid to drop the weapon, stand down, whatever. They might as well have just planted a sniper on the roof and shot the kid from there, for all the warning he had.

You mean the call that said "I think it might be a toy gun"?

Yeah, just looking at the "real" vs "generated" photos.
Noses don't really match up on most of them, nor do eyebrows. The chin is sorta close but without any of the other defining facial characteristics (age lines etc) it's pretty ambiguous. Also, the generated photos have cut out most of the upper-jawbone area so one can't even compare that.

IMHO they seem to be able to give you a decent approximation of the skin tone - minus blemishes - but not much other than that. I'd think that these might actually be counter-productive as you're going to get lots of people that match in a generic way, but the actual match is going to be different enough that people would say "nah, the nose and eyebrows don't match up" or whatever.

As I recall, the agricultural pesticide industry was initially derived from the chemical weapons industry, not the other way around. Poisons had been known for centuries, but weren't widely applied as they were toxic to both humans and pests. Large scale agricultural applications of pesticides began with DDT, which wasn't developed until 1939.

The second you approve of a policy that restricts action X based on moral grounds, you have defined a vulnerability that a less ethical enemy will exploit.

Furthermore, when you're in a war, it's chaos. Bad stuff happens. Collateral damage happens. You certainly don't plan to inflict 1000 civilian casualties, but you can predict that in a city of 1 million people undergoing an all out conflagration, there will statistically be civilians killed, displaced, wounded, orphaned, starving, etc. You don't stop a war just because you're better at math.

War also isn't the first choice of a rational society. Diplomacy, negotiations, sanctions, pressure, demonstrations, all these kinds of activities are intended to solve the problem before it degenerates into war. But there is always another side, and if it degenerates to war, it's because at least one side was acting in bad faith. ISIL isn't even acting as a rational society. They don't negotiate - they enter an area, kidnap and rape the girls and take them forcibly as wives, and kill, conscript, or indenture the males. They use civilians as human shields, betting that an opposing force won't bomb their headquarters if they have them located in a schoolhouse full of children.

An outside society can do two things: allow the continued expansion of slavery and genocide, or attempt to stop it. If non-military resolutions fail, what would you have them do? "Sorry, you can't fight those insurgents because they duct-tape kidnapped children to the front of their vehicles." "Right, we'll just let them continue on their homicidal path because we can't place those children at risk."

It's not like anyone in the West wants civilian casualties. The moral high ground may not be perfect, and it may not be absolutely 100% civilian casualty free, but you can't claim a millimeter of moral high ground if you let the atrocities continue unchecked.

You'd be limited where you can plant it. To really grow, I believe bamboo requires a fair bit of water (although it seems to stay alive for a long time without much, it doesn't grow much), and it does NOT like the cold.

So you'd need someplace that's hot all year with plenty of fresh water. Not the easiest thing to come by these days.

Because it's not really about building sustainable plants, but avoiding US taxes. If you're going to build a new plant, it's not significantly more expensive than a regular one. It's not about saving the planet, it's about seeking tax shelters.

I know, right. Next they'll want to prosecute me for all the jay-walkers I've been mowing down.

Ironically, the one thing that I've toaster ovens don't do quite very well is make toast. The only one I saw that did toast half decently was my grandmother's toaster oven that actually had a toast slot that popped open in the top (and the burners tilted when it was in "toast mode").

Chillax. It's just a reference to the plot of a science fiction movie that's quite popular with nerds.

I genuinely appreciate your earnestness in wanting to reform the system, and I think more people should have strong feelings and ideas about how to "fix" things as you do. Unfortunately, a lot of things that seem like they have easy answers don't, and that's why they're hard. The devil is in the details, and the law of unintended consequences makes itself felt very keenly here. To wit:

For better or worse, people elect judges because they want their views to reflect that of the community where they live. Maybe a liberal area wants judges that are more lenient in sentencing, or vice versa. Do you really want your Bay Area case where some wing nut has sued Google for not basing the Android clock on days since Biblical Creation to be decided by an imported judge from Alabama who may actually think they're right?

Plea bargaining has its abuses, but more than anything else it is a very practical thing. A full jury trial for any serious (felony) offense is extremely expensive and time consuming, and plea bargaining is a way to reduce the burden on courts and juries by exacting some form of a minimum toll on the guilty without going for the maximum.

What? Who decides this? Right now, through separation of powers, the courts rule on the constitutionality of laws. Under your idea - does John Boehner get to automatically impeach President Obama because he thinks executive orders on immigration are "unconstitutional?" Who gets to boot Republicans automatically for bringing DOMA to the House floor? What if I just think you're a dick and your law is unconstitutional and you should be gone?

Sorry, friend. I agree with your statement, but probably in exactly the opposite meaning you intend. Why even mention "a well regulated militia" if that is not the justification for the 2nd Amendment? And if you're not in a state-sponsored militia, why do you have this right again? This is just an example of where well intentioned people can wildly disagree on the meaning of legal/constitutional language and there is no shortcut to divining meaning.

So just to make this clear - I arrest you for drunk driving. But I search your trunk later and find you have a kidnapped person in there, and I can't charge you for it? Or, more likely, I arrest you for stealing a car. While the prosecutors are interviewing witnesses for the case, they talk to a chop shop operator who testifies you stole and sold 25 other cars to him. Why on earth should you not be charged with that?

You're right, nobody likes lobbyists. But they do actually have a purpose. Let's say that a congressperson from Maine is going to have to vote on a bill to grant or revoke a complicated set of tribal fishing rights on Federal land in California. Is this congress critter going to have constituents who are informed about this issue, or will they have time to learn about the issue on their own? No. Instead, lobbyists - on both sides of the issue - have their opportunity to brief lawmakers and try to sway their vote. Certainly not a perfect system, but you really do want to have professional advocates on both sides of an issue. Imagine if the EFF couldn't talk to congresspeople, and they had to rely on what some dumb-ass "IT guy" in their home district had to say on the issue, having spent all of 10 minutes researching it on Ask Jeeves. You get the idea.

What? What if I like champagne, cinnamon or wagyu beef? What if the cost of diamond engagement rings goes up 10x because the US doesn't produce a meaningful amount of diamonds? What is the point of suddenly creating the need for millions of minimum-wage jobs - the sh*t end of the economic value chain, which is the vast majority of what has been outsourced - that Americans can't and don't want to fill?

Anyway, my point is that I admire people with a strong desire and thoughts about how to turn things around in this country. It's just much harder to fix things than it looks, which is why making things better will require people to do the hardest thing of all - converting their zeal to electoral action, and then overcoming partisanship to make compromises and work together.

ANYthing that reduces costs, enhances productivity, or makes life easier is a "fraud enabler."