In some cases I have. For example, I stopped trying to rid myself of the flu virus through the totally ineffective flu vaccine. Haven't had a single instance of the flu in the ten years I stopped getting the vaccine. But the thousands of strains of the flu virus is exactly the kind of mutations I am talking about. Nature will always find a way.

Nobody said nature was "intelligent". It is resilient though. And if it was advantageous for a species to survive to have laser defenses, then that is what will happen in some form or the species will go extinct. In both cases upstream dependent species will be effected.

That depends on the quality of life I will have after the treatment and what is involved in the treatment in the first place. If the quality of life goes below my standards, then yes, I would refuse treatment and live life to the fullest for the time I have left. If the treatment is worse than the disease then yes, I again would refuse treatment and live what life I have left to its fullest.

...Flying insects kill millions of people each year. ...what? This goes beyond hyperbole.

Even if it wasn't, our constant struggle to defy nature is astounding. The thing is, nature will always win. Death is inevitable and frankly, things like disease and famine are natures way of population control. Just look at some of the modern day diseases and their resistance to antibiotics for an example of nature getting around the problem. Until humans can face the fact that death is around the corner, the more waste of time and resources we have trying to outwit nature. Just because we can do a thing doesn't mean we should. We have no idea how this technology will upset the balance nature has struck. Wiping out an insect species may very well wipe out others that depend on them for food. Eventually, that can lead right up the food chain to us.

It will be interesting to see how nature gets around this problem.

The fact is that Dems. and Reps. *both* are very sensitive to opinion polls.

Umm... No they aren't or they would pay attention to the polls that rate Congress in the single digits to lower teens.

sNOwden decided to make our nation look completely idiotic in the eyes of the world , decided to put its citizens at risk further...

I would say those that dreamed up the spy program, implemented it, got it sanctioned and enshrined in law and defend it made our nation look bad in the eyes of the world. All Snowden did was leak it's existence. If you don't want the US made to look bad, then maybe the US shouldn't be doing things that make them look bad.

Ummm... No...

After Charles I of England became king in 1625, this religious conflict worsened. Parliament increasingly opposed the King's authority. In 1629, Charles dissolved Parliament with no intention of summoning a new one, in an ill-fated attempt to neutralize his enemies there, who included numerous lay Puritans. With the religious and political climate so hostile and threatening, many Puritans decided to leave the country. Some of the migration was from the expatriate English communities in the Netherlands of nonconformists and Separatists who had set up churches there since the 1590s.

The Winthrop Fleet of 1630 of eleven ships, led by the flagship Arbella, delivered 800 passengers to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Migration continued until Parliament was reconvened in 1640, at which point the scale dropped off sharply. In 1641, when the English Civil War began, some colonists returned to England to fight on the Puritan side, and many stayed, since Oliver Cromwell, himself an Independent, backed Parliament.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

The Quakers had the same issues and they too migrated to the US to escape religious persecution. Look it up.

So to say it was "religious freedom they were running away from" is totally false.

That's pretty funny! If I hadn't posted already you would be getting mod points from me for that one...

Lee said they were looking at three possible routes the virus could have taken onto campus: wild birds, NIAS vehicles, and supply deliveries. 'We will determine the reason for the infection, and we are going to hold those responsible accountable,' he said."

OK... Just how do you hold wild birds accountable???

But I've spoken to a half-dozen or so of their clients, and not one of them has ever had a successful completion of a project, and they've all gone over budget. Purely anecdotal evidence, I know.

I could tell you from a West Virginia perspective it isn't good:

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...

And that's not anecdotal evidence.

What I don't get is why there is an FCC ruling forbidding telcos from being able to bill the government for modifications to their equipment to comply with the law?!?!? So it basically comes down to an unfunded mandate probably passed down to the very customers the government is spying on.

WTF is so hard about getting a warrant even in this case? If they had enough probable cause to arrest him then they have enough probable cause for a warrant. Warrants are handed out like candy these days so exactly what is so hard about the police following at least the letter of the law?

I currently have an HP Envy M7 laptop with a multi-touch touch screen. It can recognize 10 finger touch gestures... Never use it! Besides despising touch screens in general, multi-touch just adds to the annoyance. Further, multi-touch will still make you have to look at it to ensure you selected the right control. Ooops! I touched it with 3 fingers instead of 2 and now it is adjusting the temperature instead of the radio.

Just stick with knobs / fixed buttons please. All this silly touch screen shit is pure distraction and another expensive part when it breaks.

So how about we get the right to elect your representatives, senators and presidents...

You basically already do. Citizens United made sure you can since money is speech and "political donations" can be hidden.

You need to re-read that link you provided. It blasts both the EPA & OSHA but not nearly as much as the WVDEP. The problems at EPA & OSHA can be partially attributed to cutbacks in federal spending and leaving vacant positions unfilled. It is tough for 1 inspector to fully inspect 7 states worth of industries.

Also, this spill, unlike the others, wasn't required to be inspected due to loopholes the industry saw was in place in state law. That is the trick of the feds. If a law is more restrictive in a state than federal law then the feds have to abide by the strictest interpretation of the law. WV's law in many ways is more strict than federal. The problem is the state lacks the will to follow it as was pointed out in that article.