It’s long past time to end it.
This by itself is reason enough to end the nonsense of letting Iowa be so crucial to nominating presidential candidates.
Better yet, of course, would be fixing the Constitution (perhaps by overturning Wickard) to end all kinds of nonsense like this.
What does this mean?
The original Panama Canal was a revolution in geopolitics and economics; before it was built, the sea voyage was shorter from London to San Francisco than from New York to California…
Ummm, last time I checked, San Francisco was in California, and that was true even before the canal was dug. How could it have been a shorter distance from London to there, than from New York to there (or to southern California)? Both trips would involve going around the Horn (or taking the long way round the other way). Does anyone know what Professor Mead is saying here?
Frank J. has a great idea that should make everyone happy, ignorant and knowledgeable alike:
…What we can do is pass a law banning a bunch of made-up things that sound scary, and many gun control proponents already have great ideas along this line. For instance, I read a column in which Howard Kurtz mentioned a ban on high-magazine clips — we can certainly do without something that nonsensical. And I’ve heard the press before mention armor-piercing hollow points and plastic guns (actually, I think we already banned that made-up weapon in the ’80s). And as long as the NRA and Wayne LaPierre go apoplectic about it (“This ban on sorcerer-enchanted guns is just a slippery slope toward eliminating all witch-hexed weaponry!”), gun control proponents won’t know the difference between this and actual gun control. And this will help protect our most vulnerable people out there: politicians. Because long after the gun control advocates move on to other things, like who they want to tax next, gun owners will still be annoyed by any actual gun control legislation. One of the greatest fears politicians have is seeing an angry guy with lots of guns charging down the street, because they know he’s probably on his way to commit an act of voting.
Of course, with this idea, absolutely nothing will be done to keep criminals and madmen from obtaining guns, but that’s the effect of every other gun control law, so we’re just reaching this end in a much cheaper and less messy fashion.
I think you could probably even get it through the House. And the enforcement costs would be zero.
There’s a new White House petition to develop one.
This looks like it would make a useful material for an electrodynamic tether:
Working with Teijin Aramid, the Rice group has now made carbon-nanotube fibers that have more of the properties of individual nanotubes. They have an electrical conductivity close to copper’s, but are much stronger. They’re not quite as strong as conventional carbon fibers, but they’re much less brittle. And they’re more thermally conductive than metal or carbon fiber. That means nanotube fibers could replace these materials in existing applications in aerospace and electronics, and enable new technologies that take advantage of the fibers’ unique combination of strength, flexibility, and thermal and electrical conductivity. Pasquali envisions washable electronic textiles, lightweight wiring for planes, and eventually, more efficient wires for the electrical grid.
Cool.
How much can we cut?
In addition to the points that Megan makes, a lot of the Pentagon budget is wasteful, for the same reason that a lot of NASA’s is — because the lawmakers on the committees overseeing it like it that way. But the other problem is that we can’t always predict what we’ll need, and in that sense, defense spending is like advertising — only half of it is effective, but no one knows which half.
..the way we currently regulate guns.
It’s a tongue-in-cheek proposal, of course, to make the point to all the ignorant people who don’t understand how heavily regulated guns already are.
…for a green ideology, and corporate greed:
…many worry that Guatemala’s poor are already suffering from the diversion of food to fuel. “There are pros and cons to biofuel, but not here,” said Misael Gonzáles of C.U.C., a labor union for Guatemala’s farmers. “These people don’t have enough to eat. They need food. They need land. They can’t eat biofuel, and they don’t drive cars.”
This isn’t a market failure. It’s a deliberate distortion of markets through government policy. In some sense, it’s almost as criminally egregious as the behavior of the British during The Hunger in Ireland.
When it comes to guns (and many other issues), the Democrats don’t even have a popgun:
[Cuomo’s proposal] is beyond stupid. Rifles, notwithstanding Adam Lanza’s murder spree, are involved in hardly any homicides. More than five times as many Americans are murdered with knives than rifles – all rifles, not just “assault rifles.” More Americans are murdered with blunt objects; more are beaten to death with bare hands. The idea that banning “assault weapons” is the key to a more peaceful America is ludicrous.
Likewise with “ammunition magazines that carry more than 10 bullets.” I own two such magazines; there are countless millions in circulation. A magazine is a simple device, made from sheet metal and a spring; many thousands of Americans could make them in their garages. But let’s suppose that you could magically make all such magazines disappear. All a would-be mass murderer needs to do is pre-load, say, four 10-bullet magazines and carry them with him. People do this all the time. It takes only a second or two to drop an empty magazine from a semiautomatic rifle or pistol and slide a new one in. The idea that lives will be saved by making magazines smaller is pathetic. And yet, this is pretty much what the Democrats have to offer.
That’s what happens when you operate on emotion instead of facts and logic.