No they have not. Research has continued to show that genetic factors overwhelm any other possibility.

It has nothing to do with pollution, and is nothing like cancer at all.

There is no epidemic, there's just increasing awareness and better diagnosis.

You are incorrect, facebook will not violate the privacy settings on your likes.

You can go to the facebook help centre, and specifically to the information about ads pages, where is specifically addresses the issue you mention with the question:

Why did I see my friend's name or photo attached to an ad?

With Facebook Ads for Pages, Events and Apps, you may see stories about actions your friends have taken on Facebook attached to ads you see. For example, you might see a story about a friend who already likes a Page that you're seeing advertised. Similarly, your friends might see stories about you that relate to the ads they're seeing. Such stories will only be shown to friends, and will adhere to any privacy settings you've set for your account.

So if you set your likes to only me then NO ONE will see your name in those ads.
If you set it to a specific group, than only people in that specific group might see them.

You can set it to not display your likes.

On your favourites page you can individually control the visibility settings for the different categories of likes (Music, Book, Movies, etc) and under them is Other pages you like.

So no, your likes don't have to be public at all.
You can limit them to only me or a specific group of friends, through to friends of friends or everyone.

There's a common ground we can both agree on. :)

Which goes back to what services are needed, by whom, and who needs to pay for them.

Cali is just one example of mismanaged money, and where attitudes like "we can't cut service x" or "we can't raise tax y to pay for x" end up at exactly that endpoint of spending more than you have.

I'd like you to point out where in my initial post I said I was talking solely about federal taxes.

Many roads are federal (or state) funded, many environmental controls are state or federal, health costs are not local either.

Society isn't free at any level, local, state, or federal.

Interstate roads, communications networks, power networks, and all the other services are 'relatively new' as well.

Society costs a lot more to maintain than it did when the US was founded, and the outmoded attitude that it's stealing from the people is exactly the sort of situation that leads to massive debts and entire states bordering on bankrupt (ie, California).

You take away a lot more free will when society can't pay the police, firefighters, ambulances, keep healthy air to breathe and water to drink.

Taxes are not just to fund government, but to fund society, which is a bit broader in concept.

When everyone drives cars throwing out pollution that pollution goes into the air, a COMMON, which is not owned by a single person, and no single person has responsibility to clean this damage or prevent it.

Thus a tax on petrol as it pertains to the amount of pollution should have the money directed to fixing these issues, with clean energy investments, cleaner car techs, maybe even tax CUTS for cars that use less or don't use petrol.

Taxes are not just to fund government, but to shuffle money around in ways that benefit society as a whole, the government just decides where this needs to happen.
In the case of petrol where a common is damaged, this is vital.

Drugs are a different case, where the damage is typically personal, so 'vice taxes' on drugs and such should be based on societal burden alone.
How much does health treatment for smokers cost the state per year? How many sales of tobacco are there? Pick a tax rate that will cover the societal cost for the expected consumption rate.

Many of these things should be zero-sum games, taxes on tobacco to offset the costs of tobacco, taxes on petrol to offset the costs of petrol. This was all people have free choice to do as they will, and each person only pays for the vices they personally indulge in.

Funding the government is (and should only be) done through income and/or (general) sales taxes.

It's great to see that others out there appreciate the benefit that recognition of these issues has brought us.

I have personally experienced a lot of these things through my childhood as well, and it's a bit frustrating when others say these issues aren't real, etc.

As I am on the spectrum (aspergers), and also ADHD, I've consistently had issues maintaining jobs and personal organisation. A little help from others and some medication (prozac for anxiety problems, ritalin for focus) has made such a massive difference in my quality of life it's incredible.

Looking back at my family tree, I too see the issues sprinkled throughout, and with modern help those people would have lived happier, more productive lives.

Even now, aspergers is likely underdiagnosed (especially in women, because we're less likely to fit the aspie stereotypes) and ADHD is generally misunderstood.
ADHD doesn't always mean trouble makers; for many it just means it's too hard to stay focused, too easy to be distracted, or too difficult to be motivated to do things you *really* need to do.
If these things can be fixed with relatively minor medical intervention, then why wouldn't you?

Often I wouldn't even say ADHD and ASD issues are specifically negative, they have positives too (though severe autism is hard to deal with). The biggest issues tend to be around dealing with NT (neuro-typical) people.

I hope that in the future understanding of these differences increases and people stop with this "we didn't have that xx years ago" stuff. I'm glad these things are recognised now. Most people impacted by them are.

That's a pretty amazing misrepresentation of it.

It you want to be so essentialist, then you can easily argue that wanting to do dangerous things and risk-seeking behaviour are part of a (typically considered) male biological drive.
Alternatively, we can take the more realistic stance that there are biological factors in all desires, but that some, like child rearing and family building are not entirely biological and have strong social factors as well.

By not carrying a child, a mother misses out on what most women regard as an unrivalled life experience.
Wanting to have that experience is no different than wanting to visit Paris or Rome.

I can (and likely will) adopt to have a family.
But I will be sad to miss out on the experience most mothers have.
You place little value on the experience, and you're welcome to, but it's a little ridiculous to say it's about getting on top of instincts or not.

Not to mention the rather dubious insinuation that instincts should be overcome to begin with.
Some instincts are bad, some are good. Broad generalisations are stupid.

The desire to carry your own children and actually doing it are different things.

No one claimed it had anything to do with lust urges or fucking each other, that's a whole different thing.

It's a long term desire, not an irresponsible desire.
As someone that also cannot carry her own children, I too would jump at any chance to be able to do so, even if the risks were high to myself.

It's not about overcoming instinct or urges. I certainly could say no, and if they risks were *really* high, I would say no.
But different desires carry different weights. I would not endure any risk to do many things (ie, unprotected sex) but things of much higher personal value or desire I would endure some fairly high risks (ie, being able to carry my own children).

Some people take high risks for many (non instinctual or biological) desires, like people that want to break world records, or perform dangerous stunts, or engage in dangerous sports or activities.
It's incorrect to assume it's a matter of overcoming a base instinct or desire. It's more like a life dream or goal.
One you know you cannot acheive, but would endure high risk to have the chance to acheive it.

Site identity is the only way to know you're not being MitM'ed.

If someone uses a man-in-the-middle attack, your encryption is useless.

Identity is required to make encryption useful.

Apparently you've never heard of outliers.
Your anecdote doesn't disprove basically everyone else that it holds true for.

You are one unlucky person!

On average, consoles seem to have a pretty good lifespan (Xboxes excepted).

Then you have to figure in the lifetime of the machine, as I've seen very few consoles last more than 3 years whereas I have PCs pushing the decade mark with the only change being a HDD replacement.

I have a NES, SNES, N64, DC, PS1, PS2, PS3, Wii.
None of them have ever failed.

All of them (except PS3) are over three years old.

Check your facts.