"Fitness", within the context of evolution, relates only to reproductive success rates within a population. If a "simple" structure is sufficient for reproductive success, then the "simple" structure will remain present over time.

Evolution is not driven by "purpose". Evolution is a consequence of imperfect replication; is not a movement toward a goal.

"Intelligent Design" is the conjecture that certain biological structures could not have emerged through the process of evolution and therefore (a non-sequitur reasoning method) an unspecified "designer" employed unspecified methods to implement the "design" of these structures. Not only is the conjecture completely untestable (as undefined mechanisms cannot be tested), but many of the supposed "irreducibly complex" structures are not actually irreducibly complex. A common failing of "design" advocates is an assumption that biological structures always emerge through purely additive processes, when in fact a process that removes redundant structures could leave behind structures that could not have existed in partial form on their own (but that could have existed in partial form along with the no-longer-present redundant structures).

I am somewhat surprised that the city is not blaming the gun range for the lead contamination in every body of water in the city.

Some games do in fact request Administrator rights when run from Steam on every launch. Typically, this is a consequence of a bugged launch condition check that fails to accurately detect that needed libraries are often installed; choosing not to authenticate will still allow those games to run properly, and workarounds exist to eliminate the incorrect detection entirely.

The term "assault weapon" is a nebulous term based upon the presence of features that do not affect actual firearm function. Most "assault weapons" are in fact civilian sporting rifles featuring a pistol grip and at least one other defining feature that are most commonly seen at target ranges and occasionally in the hands of hunters.

The term is applied for the specific purpose of confusing those unfamiliar with firearms into believing that common civilian sporting firearms are actually military weapons.

Did you read the article? They're not talking about just asking a fee for their content. They're discussing attempting to change the fundamental building blocks of content delivery on the Internet. They have no clue technically how to do it, but they sure as hell know how to get laws passed, companies shut down, and move public opinion. These are companies that are used to getting their own way, and they think transforming the modern Internet architecture into something closer to television & cable is a modest goal.

The United States is fully capable of shooting off its own leg to save a toenail. There are men with real power in the country who would happily pull the plug on the entire Internet tomorrow if it would save their margins on Marley & Me 2.

There is evidence that the electromagnetic properties of the medium of space itself have indeed changed dramatically over time.

Then you should be able to reference this evidence. Please do so.

Replying to an anonymous coward.

1. Inform the user about where they're going

So you're saying when they mouse over the link a pop up with display all the cryptic servers that will be pinged when they click? Yeah right.

2. Speed up the retrieval of the true destination (instead of waiting for some redirect page to respond, if it responds at all)

This is complete nonsense. Translation of what you just said: "It takes a lot of infrastructure to spy on user behavior. By having the client assist with the spying, this work is completed faster. The sooner the spying is out of the way, the sooner the user is able to access the content they want." I reject the entire premise behind this, and want my client to do whatever it can to make spying not happen at all, much less go faster.

3. Put control in the user's hands as to whether they're tracked or not.

This is also nonsense. As I'm sure you've already said on another account in this thread, advertisers are already fully capable of spying on users without this. Turning this setting on or off will not improve that situation at all. You know this. The only result of turning it off is that the advertiser is forced to fall back to the more expensive process of notification by proxy and cookies.

Anonymous Coward, why not identify yourself? State clearly why you as a web browser user would actually want your browser to do this. Is "it makes web browsing faster by accelerating spying" really the end user sales pitch?