If only I had a mod point. As someone who lives in the US but travels abroad, I understand where you're coming from. We in the states have a habit of exporting the worst of our bad practices (McDonalds, anyone?) and privacy intrusions to countries who are all too happy to adopt them minus the fleeting oversight and alternatives that we still get to enjoy here. For example, I've heard that more than a few countries (though I don't recall which) are in the process of implementing the scanners minus the option of a pat down - either you get scanned or you don't fly. I guarantee that TSA would strip away our options in a heartbeat if there weren't a significant percentage of people who would raise a fuss too loud to be ignored (I'm not talking about Joe Passenger, but people with more clout such as airline employees and a few politicians). Even now we have limited options - opt out, write to our representatives - but rest assured there are still those of us who are doing what we can to stand up for our privacy. Hopefully if enough stories like this one get publicized, public opinion will swing in the direction of respecting the privacy and dignity of those of us who just want to exercise our right to travel.

Not sure if your good ol' boy was talking about E85 or that "up to 10% ethanol" blend that most stations sell, but my personal experience with E85 is that you either end up paying slightly more per mile versus regular gasoline, or it's a wash (depending on the current gasoline price).

Several years ago I took a few cross-country business trips in a rented "FlexFuel" Chevy HHR- definitely not my vehicle of choice, but it's what they paid for. I obtained a list of E85 stations along my route (turns out they are exceptionally rare in some regions) and did a little cost analysis with the E85 versus the usual 87 octane (10% ethanol) gasoline. Looking back at my mileage logs, I estimated about 34 MPG with regular gas and 25 MPG with E85. However, the price difference between the two fuels wasn't great enough to make up for the reduced fuel economy, and E85 actually ended up being about 5% MORE expensive per mile at the time.

My most interesting E85 experience was back in the summer of 2008, when Georgia and the Carolinas were faced with fuel shortages and price hikes. Regular gasoline- when you could find it- was about $4.60 per gallon and most stations were sold out. I happened to be attending a conference in the region and had ended up with an E85 rental car. I printed out a list of stations and had no trouble finding fuel wherever I went... and it averaged about $2.80-3.00. A number of people actually got stranded at the conference when every station in the county, and every station in the next county, ran out of gas. Some folks resorted to waiting for hours in lines dozens of vehicles deep when delivery trucks finally came through with fuel; however, I found that there was always plenty of E85 to spare even after the regular gasoline sold out.

TFA doesn't explicitly state how many paying customers the site had (at least 20), or how much the paid service cost, but obviously there's a small niche there.

You or I may not see the need to use a website to design a letter from Santa because we're probably more adept at using our own tools to accomplish the task. I can easily fire up a word processor, find a template and a few clipart images, and create a Santa letter in just a few minutes. Most "average" computer users I know would probably need an hour or so to get it right. The developer of the site was hoping that they could tap into the niche of people who feel that a few bucks (or whatever the cost was) is worth the time saved by using a website to accomplish the task.

Many of my family members are into sendout cards, which follow a similar business model: you create greeting cards on a website using premade templates to which you add your own text or pictures, then pay a few dollars to have the company print and mail them for you. Sure, they could buy the glossy paper, envelopes, and stamps and do the same thing for about the same price using tools they have in the home, but they find it worth paying for the convenience.

Unfortunately it seems that this developer slightly missed the mark and ran afoul of the fact that there is a significant overlap between the following subsets of users:
1. Those who want to use an online template rather than a word processor
2. Those who are too cheap to pay a few bucks for a product that (I'm assuming here) saves them time
3. Those who are too lazy to read the FAQ before firing off an email to a developer
4. Those who habitually mark emails as spam, even if they are in response to #3

You MUST be new here...

Here in America, the "think of the children" card trumps any notion of rationality or common sense within our legal system or in public opinion in general...

Huh? Dengue is very much a human disease. Mosquitoes are a vector, that is to say a species which can spread the virus among a population of another species. I'm not sure about this specific virus, but there are many cases (especially among plant viruses) where insects can act as a vector for a virus without their cells actually being infected (for example, virus particles can be present in the saliva or stylet of an insect and can be passed to another host much in the same way that sharing unsterilized needles can spread infection). Then again, since this virus is persistent (meaning that it can be passed on from one mosquito to its offspring), I suspect that it can also infect cells in the mosquito body. Whether this virus actually causes disease in an infected mosquito (for example, producing outwardly visible symptoms or reducing the individual's fitness) I'm not exactly sure, but it is possible for a virus to infect the cells of a host and not produce actual disease symptoms.

And yes, IAAB (biologist), and I do have some virology training.

He said son, not child. He could be a 34-year old basement dweller for all we know.

Well then you wouldn't exactly be a subscriber, would you?

Ever wonder why most magazines cost $5-9 at a newsstand, but you can often get a year's subscription to the same magazine for $2-4 per issue? Hint: they're not just making money off of the subscription. The types of magazines a person is interested in can tell marketers quite a bit about their interests, and there's good money to be made in consumer profiling.

Fixed that for you.

We know who always wins these cases, and it's not always the plaintiff or defendant...

Indeed. My blender and trash bin are now both "certified for Windows Vista".

The statue crown was closed after 9/11, and IIRC was just reopened this year. They only allow 240 visitors a day, and tickets sell out early in the morning. The pedestal was closed from 9/11 to 2004. Liberty Island itself only closed for a few months at the end of 2001, but it definitely is open to tourists now (I've seen the lines myself).