So what are we supposed to do, check our laptops? Is this going to bankrupt everyone that provides service contracts for laptops or what?

Has everyone noticed that in the UK you can only bring carry ons that fit in a clear plastic bag and consist of your travel documents, your wallet (maybe) and prescribed medicine or baby formula? So you can fly *in* with your laptop but not *out*.

Will airline passengers ever tolerate the same mortality rate car drivers and passengers casually accept?

I don't think the administration is attacking science because they want the judeo-christian worldview inserted in the constitution --- that's just part of the attack, not the motivation. The problem with science is that it is a method for finding truth that creates well-supported, testable narratives which have nothing to do with anyone's political agenda -- it's uncontrollable. So if you think it would be incovenient if right now the general population found out the world is round and goes around the sun, or right now they found out driving their cars makes global warming worse, then you have to supress science.

Basically, if you want to be in control, you can change who the judges are and you can change who's in charge of the NSA and the military, and you can convince the voters that they are obligated to vote for whoever will block abortion no matter what else those people support, but you can't change the outcome of science.

I think the article's great (both in itself and as an advertisement.) But here's a question for an economist --

Is the increase in crime rate linked to reduced access to abortion in the same way the decrease in crime rate was to the increased access?

http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/990812/abortion.shtml

Why are people surprised that some percentage of women who make this difficult decision really are not in the situation to be able to raise their children?

I'll never forget the only time I've seen a murdered man --- he was already shot but not yet dead, and he was in the lobby of the building I worked in. I went down (it was about 4pm) because I heard a coworker had been shot & I thought it was someone I knew (it wasn't.) Commuters cut through our building to a train station, and while many just went by without looking, a crowd was gathered around a police tape laughing and gossiping like it was a TV show rather than a person dying.

I've always wondered how much of that was because they were a different race from the guy who was shot. To be fair, we didn't know yet that he would die. I was fascinated by the horror that was the crowd's reaction, but when the victim started to regain consciousness, was rolling in pain, it struck me immediately that this was a deeply personal, private moment for that man, and I left immediately.

For all that, if I had never seen any films about WWII I doubt I would understand it. Though maybe the only good ones have been documentaries, not dramatizations. "The Fog of War" was amazing.

"If the novel, with its low-tech paper-and-ink delivery system, is rebellion against scientific progress,..."

Ink, paper, printing and distribution are four (of many) bits of technological/scientific progress I wouldn't want to be without.

I'll definitely read We anyway (thanks!), but I don't get this knee-jerk luditism. One thing useful Bush has done is proven that science & technology are not (just/even) tools of the right. They are orthogonal to politics, though of course they intersect with it since they affect our lives.

As someone who accidently made it to 31, I had a lot of time to think about what was going wrong. This article & some of the letters focusses largely on bookish/bright virgins. Well, this is my theory, at least for them.

That for some very small proportion of the society, following the rules is largely a road to success. We study hard etc. and wind up at the top of the class. Most kids figure out that the "any child could be president" business is rubbish when they are very young, and develop a healthy attitude of skepticism about the rules that tell them that, contrary to all their personal experience, they are unexceptional. They have the average experiences of life in the average ways, which seems to really require a certain amount of cheating on the rules.

While for a few kids, following the rules seems to work, and maybe does make them pretty/handsome, succesful, etc. But also leaves them socially handicapped.

On the other hand, I do think there's something to the idea of a low teen-age libido --- maybe I would have worked harder not to miss out if I'd been as driven at 18 as I was at 36. I'm sure it's hormonal, and that teen hormones don't predict adult ones. Sometime when I was about 25 babies started looking cute to me for the first time, and I realized that my virginity was really actually a problem.

And to all the people who were too afraid to get involved --- damned straight. Be very afraid --- just as afraid as you are of commitment, or anything unusual. I am still with my first and going strong. Now I wouldn't have it any other way.