It astonishes me to see the same people pushing for higher CAFE (fuel economy) standards for cars and light trucks are the ones wanting to release strategic petroleum reserves and/or windfall profit tax the oil industry. Regrettably, most politicians are economically illiterate. They think the gov't can tinker its way in an out of everything.

The current high price of fuel at the pump is largely a function of very high market demand (Red China and the rest of the 3rd world is getting motorized...) and the crazy-low value of the U.S. dollar. Prices have risen in the world market to be sure, but not anywhere near like they've increased in the U.S, all on account of our dollar free-falling... So what does the Fed do? It cuts interest rates more! Ugh. They are attempting to be inflation hawkish, but the high energy prices are starting to filter through everything we buy and they will soon wind up chasing that.

Oh, the stupid ethanol mandates don't help anything either -- the wasteful burning of food as fuel only makes each more expensive.

So, what to do? While the value of the dollar should be managed more prudently, there should be no special steps taken to artificially control the price of fuel itself. Let it reach its natural level and US consumer behaviour will adjust as need be. Consumers will naturally gravitate to other alternative forms of transportation and/or explore other alternative fuel options without these being pre-selected for us by a government that invariably bets on the wrong technology. Sure, there will be fewer folks commuting in Suburbans, but so be it.

What else can be done? Permit oil drilling within our own boundaries. The drilling proposed in the so-called Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a *tiny* tiny fraction of an enormous expanses of tundra. Folks have the idea that it will be a huge tear up of some enormous pristine park when nothing can be further from the truth.

Why not post this story on the real Memorial Day (May 30th) instead? This recent "nearest Monday" custom really cheapens the hell out of honoring our valiant war dead, by moving around *their* holiday to align better with a 3 day weekend. It's vulgar and sad, IMO.

You can't blame him too much for the Hans Chritian Andersen incident. Andersen was famously annoying and 5 weeks with him would probably be a bit much for anyone.

Yeah. Can't have one of those crazy guns going wild, loading itself, pointing itslef at someone and pulling it's own trigger.

Moron. The firearm is merely an appliance, a useful tool. Assuming local regulations are followed, the dealer is no more liable (morally or legally) than if someone runs down an innocent pedestrian with one of those cars he's sold.

An armed society maintains the peace, defends the weak, and ensures liberty.

DDT-
Shut the F up. You have to try to make political hay out of an entire generation's gallant service to our nation.
God bless him and the hundreds of thousands who put up with trench warfare and being gassed so that pantywaists like you could be free.

Hah hah.... So if you have free sugar and free electricity (and exactly how many kW*hr are required to make 1 gallon of EtOH??), this is just the ticket. Oh yeah, you need $10K also. Sigh... There are probably some morons out there who might actually buy something like this...

I wonder if he has another pair of legs that have swim fins molded onto them... If he hurries he can probably get some made in time and kick ass in swimming as well.

This is a stupid controversy that is only still in play because of the whiny nature of today's bleeding heart P.C. society. Seriously... Bummer about the legs, dude, but those are thee breaks.

They have a special class for wheelchair athletes in many marathons. They can't "run" with the main class because the wheelchair athletes would kick everyone else's asses (Boston Marathon winning wheelchair times of < 1h 30m compared with over 2h for "normal" runners).

If there are enough double-amputee athletes out there, they can have their own paralympic event. That's the whole point of those games.

Thanks Art for digging out Darwin's actual words on the subject. I knew he had personal feelings on the subject as well.

@Thebes - can you supply some references about forced sterilization of American Indians into the 1970s? I had never heard that before, so I'd like to look into it. How widespread is it? What level of government are you claiming was involved? Federal, state, county government?

The eugenics movement started to crumble when the atrocities of National Socialism came to light. If you look up "Eugenics" or "Heredity" under books.google.com (choose "full view books"), you'll find dozen of fascinating texts written in the pre-War 20th century. The movement was very passionate and had a LOT of famous devotees.

Indeed, intelligence has significant heriditary components, and yes, unfortunately IN AGGREGATE the stupid reproduce a lot faster than the intelligent. They start a lot earlier and they have lot more kids every generation. That isn't to say ALL people with large familes are stupid or all stupid people will have large families, but across society there is positive correlation, ESPECIALLY when the progeny are illegitimate with siblings having multiple absent fathers.

That said, involuntarily sterilizing people IS a violation of basic human rights and I wouldn't trust a doctor or even a panel of doctors and judges to make such a determination. What needs to be done instead is merely to end the present financial incentives to have more illegitimate kids. The welfare state rewards promiscuous women for popping out more and more out of wedlock children and encourages them to keep them, rather than place them for adoption. These kids get double hampered by not only having their parents' intellectual genes, but are also socially mistrained by them as well. So they drop out of highschool at 15 and have children with muliple absent fathers -- just like how they grew up themselves. And so the cycle continues... A little tough love (be stingy with benefits in the first place and certainly don't increase them with added kids!) would do a world of good towards keeping these trollops on the straight and narrow. A little societal shame wouldn't hurt either.

What idiot would seal off a room rather than fix a mold problem? Mold comes from retained moisture, especially in dark poorly ventilated areas. Closing the room up doesn't fix anything -- those spores can still find a way out. Dumb previous owners.

Makes me think of my grandfather who was a lifelong bowler. I remember he was rolling > 180 into his 80s ... I'd watch him and be terrified he was going to slip and break a hip or something, but he never did. The perfect game always eluded him, but I think he threw a 289 once (missing the final strike and getting a nine instead). Good thoughts and congrats to Mr. Davis -- consistently scoring as well as he does is tough for even much younger players.

I liked Atlas Shrugged a good bit, but I thought the hundred page speeches by the protagonist were a bit much. The characters in Atlas are really one-dimensional as well -- you know who is good and who is bad when you first meet them and you don't changed your mind much through the book. Her better work (IMO) is The Fountainhead, where the characters are a little more "grey".

Oh, I also get irked when people (including Rand) misquote the famous words of St. Paul which spoke of the LOVE of money, not money itelf. Money itself is neither good nor bad, it is merely a tool to efficiently trade goods and services.

In a land that encourages infanticide and performs involuntary abortions on women who have the nerve to conceive a second child, they aren't going to lose much sleep over squashing a bunch of toads on the road.

Call it "climate change" so that you can better whine and beg for money REGARDLESS if the temperature is lower than average or higher than average. The global warming crowd revised its terminology a few years aago to protect themselves in the event of bad (i.e. cool) years, which would otherwise cause them to lose support.

The "climate change crisis" caused by the human involvement is a cruel confidence scam. The Earth's climate has NEVER been constant and has gone up and down many many times over billions of years. How self-righteous these kooks are who submit that THEY can determine some particular state is somehow IDEAL ?

The whole thing is a blend of 1) a scheme to redistribute wealth from developed countries and handicap them to the benefit of the Third World. 2) a cash grab from certain scientists and "entrepreneurs" to score big research dollars / Euros / Pounds Sterling and commisions from the guilty-feeling (both governments and individuals).

Wake up fools. Straight talk from Sid.

$2 million ? Come on... what a crock. Throw it out of court, judge. The guy was traveling gratis and suffered no real damage or injury. I'll agree the pilot made some dumb choices (it would have been better/safer to break the "jump seat for employees only " rule than make him sit on the crapper for hours), but it's insane for the company or its shareholders to be punitively punished to the extent the plaintiff is requesting.

It's a huge liability risk. You can get a buyer to sign something, but then they sell the car to someone who sells it to someone else, &c.

I was an automotive engineer for a US manufacturer for 12 years and we crushed a lot of test cars that were only lightly used. They could have been sold as low-mileage used (not new of course) cars, but it just wasn't worth the risk. Recovering $20K isn't worth a future lawsuit that could pay out tens of millions and generate a lot of bad press.