I wonder if you realize how foolish you sound.

Every trait has a tradeoff. Evolution has no master plan, it has no absolutes, the superiority of one trait over another depends on environment and luck. It is not an accident that sickle-cell is a prevalent trait amongst those of recent african descent. Environmentally, living in africa presents a greater likelihood of dying from malaria. The sickle-cell trait protects the individual from malaria. In that population, it's a survival trait, as I said, in spite of that fact that getting copies of it from both parents is fatal. It is statistics, my friend.

Outside of Africa, particulary north European types, malaria is not a big issue. Sickle-cell in THAT population is NOT a survival trait, and is slowly disappearing amongst people of african descent who live in the north. They are also getting whiter, since black skin protects from heavy sun in africa but entirely blocks the diminished wavelengths needed to produce vitamin D in the skin, thereby causing rickets, a particular scourge of black people, especially nursing black mothers, and one reason why many countries add vitamin D to milk. Blackness is not a useful survival trait in northern climes.

Human evolution is a fascinating subject. You would do well to study it before demonstrating such cocky stupidity in public again.

So-called color "blind" men have frequently been shown to have advantages in seeing through camouflage in a natural environment - a useful trait for hunting. Like sickle-cell anemia and attention "deficit disorder", these "disabilities" turn out to have survival advantages for the species. In sickle-cell just one copy of the gene makes the owner more resistant to malaria, and so is a net win for species survival even though those who inherit two of them die. Attention "deficit disorder" - a short attention span and high distractability - makes it possible to be more aware of everything going on in the environment around you - like the prey lurking under a bush, the odor of a big cat, or that (possibly fatally-infected) fly landing on you, all things that a highly focused individual might miss in concentrating on chipping his flint. Many such traits are still in the gene pool for a reason.

The FDA was a good idea that has already overreached. It has added so much cost and delay to the development of new drugs and new treatments that its opportunity cost is almost literally too large to calculate. People die while it dithers. Most of the progress in HIV came only when its rules were loosened to permit faster tracks for drugs that combat it. So don't hold it up as an example of great government.

Oh and by the way the FDA does not test for mad cow disease. You're only safe from that because you live in America.

> You'd think with a UID that low you'd have learned something by now...

I have.

...is more government power. Once the national ID is in place it will be expanded. First ID, then driver's license, then credit card, then key card, and so on, and it will not be long before the United States government has a record of everything you buy, every place you enter or leave, every place you can enter, and, eventually, everything you do or say. This is not a slippery slope argument because we are already far down that slippery slope sliding on our asses at bewildering speed to the rocks at the bottom. Picture yourself living in a world where everything you do or say or possibly, not too long hence, even think, is being continuously monitored by the almighty government. This isn't just a conspiracy theory any more. It's a policy. A $500 ticket every time your car drifts a couple of miles an hour over the speed limit, spot checks scanning your (effectively naked) body for weapons or contraband, not just at airports but lots of other places that "need security", the government monitoring your fat intake, your cholesterol level, how well your kidneys function, how much nicotine is in your blood. Don't think so? Socialized medicine is all the excuse needed to directly regulate everything you eat, everything you drink, every product you ingest, rub on, carry.

We live in a country with literally millions of pages of laws, rules, regulations, and requirements that apply to every citizen. Now picture what it will be like when the government is finally able to completely enforce every single tiny, seemingly inconsequential rule, law, regulation, or requirement that's on the books. Tell me how anyone will be able to get through a day without being cited for multiple violations of laws that you can't even know exist because no one can read that much material.

I'm sorry. That's not a free country. That's not America. That's not what our forefathers wanted to leave for their posterity. And it's no place I want to live. So where will we be able to go, those of us who still want freedom or privacy or the right to make decisions for ourselves? Why do any of you even want to live in such a country? Make no mistake. That is where Obama is going to end us up. If he's elected to a second term, you will see all of the above put into place.

And Congress did not "give us" the right to medical care. Rights are intrinsic to each and every person, they cannot be granted and when they are taken away there is tyranny. Rights are negative things, we need them so we can stop other people from doing things to us that we don't like. When you turn a right around and make it a positive thing, like the "right of medical care" then you also put into place a requirement of service from someone else to implement that right. You're "right" then enslaves that person. That's not freedom. And that's a fact.

> the US has its own largely untapped reserves that could safeguard future tech innovation

Oh, sure, that'll help. With the lunatic left running things we will never manage to open another mine - no matter how crucial the material might be to "future tech". In fact, it's usefulness in future tech is probably proportional to the amount of protest it will create at proposals to mine it.

Damn it's embarrassing when we have to look to Europe for a lesson in intellectual freedom!

...after all, we know how much work and deliberation goes into giving these things out...

Like anyone is going to believe that, now.

> the accumulated knowledge on this subject is already sufficient
> to say that commercial fusion power will never become a reality.

In the veriest fraction of a second that this idea becomes
Conventional Wisdom, the first commercially-viable fusion
reactor will start up without a hitch.

Libertarian thought is not incompatible with open source, in fact it is incompatible with closed source, since libertarian thought is primarily concerned with protecting people's rights. The problem comes with those who have not analyzed the subject deeply and jump to the conclusion that the rights that need protecting are not the consumers but the purveyors of software. In the case of software this is deeply incorrect, open source software is, defensibly, the only really open market for software, any other version admits of using tricks to lock people into compartmentalized monopolies, which are anathema to libertarian thought.

> People like you are never wrong.

I wish I could be when it comes to Washington.
Just once.

None of this is rocket science people. Google up a pair of drawings of the Raptor and Lightning to the same scale and look for yourself.

I notice Slashdot has become quite distinctly looney-left itself. Despite Obama's trillion dollar deficient in his first 6 months in office, the complete failure of his "stimulus" package (which was really just Democratic pork in a very large barrel), the certain knowledge that his health care "reform" will add another $1.5 trillion dollars minimum to gov't spending - and yet whenever I mention any of this, it's modded "troll". I knew Obama himself was thin-skinned, but I thought slashdotters prided themselves on their ability for reason and logic.

About the Levin-McCain Amendment - simply because I blame Democrats more than Republicans doesn't mean I blame Republicans any less than they deserve. Bad as liberal democrats are, they could not have done this much damage without help.
I didn't vote for McCain because I thought he would be a great President, I knew perfectly well he'd be mediocre at best. I voted for McCain because I thought Obama would bankrupt the country and destroy the economy with huge tax increases, throwing us into a depression worse than the 1930s. Anybody still want to debate that? Hmm? But I don't need to argue it. One day Real Soon Now you'll be sitting around the unemployment office waiting for some career bureaucrat with an enviable medical plan, and you'll remember what I said. So will those who modded me "troll".

Yeah, people like me are always right. It's a pretty easy trick, though. You just need to read your history and listen to what people are saying when they run for office. Obama is doing nothing he didn't promise to do. The only difference is that now people are starting to realize, now that they are running out of everyone else's money, who's going to pay for it.

Hey, guys, it's all good for me. I have a heart condition and I'm on disability. YOU are going to be paying for MY meds, not the other way around. $700 a month for byetta alone. New pacemaker every five years. I'm paying my own way now, but I won't be if Obama gets his way. I'll get to pocket what I'm spending on insurance and you can support me.

Go head. Troll that. But you'll still pay. Oh, you'll pay.

And I will laugh my ass off.

> How can this counter-intuitive fact be communicated effectively to people unschooled in statistics?

In One Word: it can't.*

*Yes, that's two words, one of which is a contraction. Statistically, it's close enough. And I'm much better at statistics than anyone in Congress.

The f-35 Lightening is half the size and has less than a third the weapons payload of the Raptor. It is a multimission fighter intended for all services except army, but you'd need three-four of them to replace one Raptor and remember the single most expensive component in a modern fighter jet is the pilot. 3-4 pilots instead of one and the saving don't add up real fast.

The Lightning is seriously cool but it simple cannot replace the Raptor - and it was never meant to, except, it appears, in the minds of Democrats. Let's face it, they aren't going to buy any extra Lightnings because of the reduction in the Raptor fleet. In point of fact, they'll cut the ones they have already committed to.

I predict. And I've been dead right about every prediction I've made about Obama and his lunatic lefties.

...that is one butt-ugly car!

...that most UK residents won't get the treatment for years while their sight degenerates as they sit on the waiting list. Unless they get it done in the United States...oh, that's right - they won't be able to once Obama is done with health care.