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Who could have have seen this coming"

The only important reason it failed is because it was incredibly impractical and expensive to operate. Yes it was a marvel and all that, but you couldn't make money off it.

My understanding is that Concorde's unprofitability was mostly myth. There were problems in the beginning because fear-mongering in the States left only JFK as a destination, but once things settled and the ticket prices were reset to ultra-high class, things settled out just fine.

Had the Concorde really not been profitable, it would have been terminated long before the crash over Paris. That's just how business works. The problem was simply that the planes were aging, no replacement models were being made, and the operators were left to scavenging parts from other Concordes. With the Paris disaster, they had more expenses reinforcing the fuel tanks to try and prevent the disaster from occurring again. These things ultimately tipped the scales to grounding the program.

But is there a demand for crossing the Atlantic in 3 hours? Is there demand to cross the Pacific in 5 or less? Hell yes. If they build it, people will pay the ticket price (and enjoy the view of the curvature of the Earth through the window).

California's education now ranks lower than Texas.

Gee, throwing money into unionized teacher pensions doesn't educate kids? Who'd have thunk it?

http://www.dailybreeze.com/gen...

Try 80,000lbs.

Have you been living under a rock or something? I mean just recently with the dorner case in California, the cops opened fired on a pickup truck who's only crime was being a similar color as the one dorner was thought to be in and delivering newspapers without their headlights on. That same day, another pickup truck was open fired on for doing nothing but going right for sirens and lights.

Cops are scared little pussies in some cases and shoot to stop from pissing themselves. No guns being drawn or pointed or even an attempt to visual identify someone before shooting them. All I have to say is it was a good thing those cops were too scared to shoot straight else the three innocent people likely would have died.

http://www.dailybreeze.com/general-news/20130207/police-confuse-truck-for-christopher-dorners-shoot-at-3-people-in-torrance-in-case-of-mistaken-identity

Oh yeah, there was another shooting incident connected to the dorner search but I forget the details enough to find a link to it.

It does not explain why government does not work.

I would think that burden of proof lies with the government / communist, not the libertarian. It's enough for the essay to say "it works better without it" which is surely true about any business. Less restriction = more productivity. Ask any business owner, are you better or worse off with the yoke of government?

Sure, we need the government to provide for the common defense and infrastructure, but that's it, and to the extent my taxes pay for infrastructure and defense I will not complain, but when the government decides to become a venture capitalist in order to push "green" technologies and blows huge sums of money on fly-by-night operations I'm going to have a big problem with it. I might even say "what the fuck gives you the right to give my hard earned money to this douche bag?". Of course, they take the money with threat of force, because nobody would have invested money in the douche bag's company without being compelled to do so. This goes for almost all forms of subsidizing too.

I see you're starting to realize my point when you say that the communist pencil factory does not produce better but in fact inferior pencils. Yet in the free society a government mastermind didn't force the workers to go to work, or force any of the other thousands of interactions to occur as they do in a communist society. I never claimed "government is incapable of it" as you suggest, in fact the essay even provides examples of the government doing things (USPS) so I'm not sure where you're coming from with that suggestion.

I'm not a huge critic of LA DWP but I just did a Google news search for LA DWP, not pretty. This stood out though: DWP makes list of most hated firms So to the extent that it can be easily quantified public utilities are lucky if they score half the score a private utility scores in customer satisfaction, so while your admiration may be genuine, it is also rare. Until you can provide any evidence to the contrary I will conclude that private utility is better.

I'm quite sure you're mistaken about the whole "brown out" thing with your neighbors since rolling blackouts and brownouts haven't occurred with a private utility in my living memory, and I do pay attention. The last time we experienced brownouts is after the nationalization of the utilities in CA, then Gov. Gray Davis implemented "price caps" on the private utilities forcing them to go bankrupt or to sell their power to other states. If you made a car for $1000.00 and the government said "You must sell it for $500.00" you probably wouldn't want to sell to those people (Californians) , so the private CA utilities sold their "power credits" to NV, who in turn seeing CA in the "we don't have any power" predicament sold the "power credits" back to CA at a huge markup. So thanks to government interference in the free market, we now pay much more for our electricity than we would have if they had left it alone.

And now they have these insane "green" laws now that try to "encourage" me to use electricity when they feel it is the "wisest" time to use it, as if I didn't know already when it was the best time for me to do the things I need to do. What if I work at night? What if I don't? What if I enjoy doing my laundry at noon?
So to sum up the public vs. private utilities:

Private:
Costs a LOT Less.
Better product and service.
Incentive to make products and services better (private competition).
You're not forced to choose this company.
Operators are not compelled by the use of force to operate, but rather they want to and have incentive to do so.

Public
Costs a LOT more.
Worse product and service.
No incentive to make anything better, but plenty to make it worse.
You have no choice but to use this company.
Uses laws to force you to use their product.
The people

what about the federal government busting medical marijuana producers and distributors in California?

Perhaps you missed this part: "Don't get me wrong, it is not perfect and oppression still occurs but make no mistake, you do have options under the Constitution to protect your rights."

That said, it is ironic that you made this post while a quick search of the news shows that local California government is trying to ban medical marijuana while at the same time the third branch of the Federal government, the Supreme Court, is on a path to end the oppression against medical marijuana.

So it appears that your problems with medical marijuana are not simply the big meanie Federal government stomping all over your rights but in fact the Federal government is playing a role in protecting your rights against local California government.

In the Ron Paul Libertarian universe you would have no Federal Constitution, no Federal Court, and only the individual rights that the local mob decides you may have.

Are you seriously making the argument that if it weren't for local government in California, the federal government would have made medical marijuana available? If so, there's really no point in having any further discussion with you since you're so invested in a position that reality doesn't even come into play...

You might be able to find a minor story here or there that would present that case, but you're seriously ignorant of the entire history of the issue in CA if you think that it's the local government that has made it illegal... Prop 19 was a clear example of that. It might have been defeated, but there's nothing even approaching it happening at the federal level.

You want 1 government, you've got to put up with everyone's input, even the bible thumpers that we both despise... which is why the end of prohibition will originate from state and local fights against the feds, rather than the federal government. You're crazy if you think the representatives from all the red states are going to not fight it. At least we have blue states that are thankfully able to act because of federalism... otherwise, we'd be stuck trying to convince the red states that it's our own business what we decide to do with our own bodies.

And, had it only been the federal government, there would likely have not been abortion to be fought for to begin with thanks to those red states. Even before Roe v Wade, it was legal in some states. If we'd only had federal rules, it wouldn't have been to begin with... and there never would have been Roe v Wade.

Instead of dealing with a local mob, that you at least can escape by crossing the state line, you've got a national mob... and that mob would definitely build the border fence... only not to keep people out...

what about the federal government busting medical marijuana producers and distributors in California?

Perhaps you missed this part:
"Don't get me wrong, it is not perfect and oppression still occurs but make no mistake, you do have options under the Constitution to protect your rights."

That said, it is ironic that you made this post while a quick search of the news shows that local California government is trying to ban medical marijuana while at the same time the third branch of the Federal government, the Supreme Court, is on a path to end the oppression against medical marijuana.

So it appears that your problems with medical marijuana are not simply the big meanie Federal government stomping all over your rights but in fact the Federal government is playing a role in protecting your rights against local California government.

In the Ron Paul Libertarian universe you would have no Federal Constitution, no Federal Court, and only the individual rights that the local mob decides you may have.

Article this morning's Daily Breeze cites Opera ASA as saying they have seen no significant change in downloads, and goes on to quote a statement that user apathy rather than loyalty to MS.

This article from the paper in Senator Bowen's district covers it pretty well. Senator Bowen has been a strong consumer advocate and has introduced many similar bills in the past. Her most notable work was trying to enact stiff penalties for junk faxes. That bill was also killed by the spam/fax lobby.

Since Bowen is the senator from my district, I cannot vote against the other corrupt politicians who killed this.

A column by Daily Breeze writer John Bogert."It's Stalag 18 with ideals by Locke and Jefferson."

For whatever reason, the article has moved since orriginally posted... http://www.dailybreeze .co m/content/bln/jim/nmwebking.html

Does Katz seriously believe that his commentary about the suspension of Patrick Griffiths won't be noticed as the wholesale, unattributed lifting of somebody else's work that it is?

Open Source is about the willing participation of creators in the distribution, modification, and enhancement of their work. We do not take; we accept what is freely given.

See this link for an update.

I fear that another Columbine will be coming soon, and that there is very little we can do about it.

I fear that another Columbine will be coming soon, and that there is very little we can do about it.