I didn't know there were any nails in the ID coffin. My intent is not to argue in favor of ID, but rather to point out that no evidence exists that life *wasn't* created by an intelligent being, whether God, alien (would that be extraterrestrial as well?), bigger human, or computer. Yes, life may have been created *through* a process such as this, but no evidence exists, and likely ever will, that proves that some higher being did not use this process *to* create life. Or that that being created life and concurrently created these proteins that can be formed in this manner. For that matter, who is to say that a being that powerful did not also concurrently place fossils in the ground, time the dating of Carbon-12, and for all we know, life was created 6,000 years ago with all the ancient artifacts we find even today already in the ground?

Kids needed another reason to work hard in high school. I realized freshman year in high school (4 years ago, seems like just yesterday though) that I wasn't going to be able to go to Rice without some help. My parents might have been able to pay UTexas or UHouston out of pocket but it wouldn't have been easy. So for every NHS meeting I didnt't want to go to, for every Saturday service hour I wanted to sleep through, and for every test I didn't want to study for, I did it anyway. Because my high school success = $$$. I actually didn't end up at Rice- I'm at Clemson, so private vs. out of state public (not a HUGE difference), I was a little more than prepared for the $20-30k a year that they're going to want me to cough up. Guess what! There were people out there that wanted to throw money at me, a white male child of 2 college educated parents making over $100,000 a year! (about that paycheck vs tuition... there are additional circumstances) I got ~65% of my tuition payed with scholarships THROUGH THE SCHOOL, an additional 15% from other scholarships, and the rest was paid between my parents and a small loan I took out (a few grand a year, I've got educational savings still building up for that. Don't ask how it worked out to use savings to pay the loans, it just did). Thought college was too expensive? Tell that to the kid that got a full ride for being almost as smart as myself AND poor.

Oh, goodness, now Comcast is displaying banner ads telling me that my computer is infected? Looks like I can't even avoid those fake ads on my ISP's homepage now... Since when has a banner telling me my computer's infected ever been true? Add another banner to the ignore list...

Not wearing a helmet may not increase the risk to yourself or others on the road, but it certainly increases costs incurred to yourself/your insurance company (and others insured by that company as well). If your insurance is set up so that crashing helmetless means you pay for all costs, then that is a real incentive to wear a helmet, and the insurance company doesn't take the same hit if you crash and require hospitalization for a fractured skull. With texting, you as the driver/insured/texter are taking on the chance that should you crash while texting, all costs incurred by all involved parties become your own. Two thoughts did come to me while replying, though. The first is a question about this:

Do you mean that my insurance would have to take into consideration the possibility of someone hitting me while texting, and not being able to pay? That makes more sense than how I took it initially, that they will have to prepare for costs incurred by others besides the insured/texter.

The second is this: If your insurance is not going to pay for damages to yourself, your car, or anyone/anything else involved in an accident caused by texting, what is the difference between that and driving uninsured? I may have just proved to myself that a valid argument for enforcing a texting ban. If insurance companies held out that they would put all responsibility for all costs rooting from a texting-caused crash on the texter, that could easily be grounds for the same punishment as driving uninsured. Even if that is just the display put on by the insurance company, and they frequently end up paying (because of the insured texter) just as they would in any other crash.

This all seems cyclical...

I read an article in my college newspaper recently arguing in favor of legislation to require motorcycle drivers to wear helmets. Among the arguments was the proposition that it would reduce health care costs, because it's inevitably the bigger risk takers (helmetless motorcycle drivers vs. drivers of cars or SUVs) that increase the cost of health care and insurance. Costs incurred by the ones that draw on these services the most are shouldered largely by those who do not require them as much. That led me to a thought... If you are adding a motorcycle to an insurance plan, can they not ask if you plan to wear a helmet? If you answer no, your insurance rates go up, but you are also covered if you wreck while riding without a helmet.

That leads me to believe that it is recorded after an accident, at least some of the time, if the crash was caused by a driver's inattention. So when you get in an accident, if your insurance company finds out that you caused an accident due to your inattention- whether it's texting, putting on lipstick, getting brain...- they cut your coverage. You just got in a very expensive accident. Of course you'd have to agree to that with your insurance company first, and I suspect that's a whole other story... Surely it cannot be that simple or such a plan would already be in place. What, in my college naÃveté, am I missing?

Has nobody else realized the possibilities this device enables? I've always wanted to find out where my ex-girlfriend goes after school!