this gem ... hidden in the article:

"... whether it is possible for a spacecraft traveling at conventional speeds to achieve effective superluminal speed by contracting space in front of it and expanding space behind it. ..."

They've been playing at that for a while. It would allegedly work by creating a condition of cosmic expansion behind the craft and its converse in front of it, so the spacecraft is in a bubble where it's running slower than lightspeed (i.e. stopped) but the cosmic expansion and contraction regions behind and ahead of it each total to the opposite sides retreating or advancing faster than light (which is allowable).

I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to fall out of this - or anything. Effective superluminal translates to "Sending messaages into the past." and "Violating causality." if you pick your reference frames correctly. So I expect flies to appear in this ointment at some point: Like something broken about what happens at the sides, needing big-bang energy levels (and not being able to transfer them between the front and back so they're free), or not being able to set up the condition in front because the agency making it happen must involve actual superluminal signal propagation.

Nevertheless, an "electric motor" that works by pushing against virtual particle-antiparticle pairs (or the total mass of the matter in the universe, or of an inverse-square weighting-by-distance of it so it's mostly the local stuff, or dark matter, or the neutrino background, or whatever), instead of ejected exhaust, is just DANDY! Let's see if they can make it work for real at human-palpable, nontrivial, efficiencies and power levels.

when the democrats and republicans are voted out.

But...but..

Robert Byrd is dead and was a Democrat, besides he didn't look all that tough! Maybe he was a bit more spry back in his younger days when he was burning crosses on 'uppity' black family's front lawns with Al Gore Sr.

Strat

...telling carriers that they can't charge more for premium levels of service.

Not while they are protected monopolies.

When the rubber meets the road, people like Rand Paul are not actually in favor of downsizing the government. They just want to eliminate restrictions on business and aid to the poor.

You have the liberty movement confused with their arch enimies the neocons.

A) The rules are already there and need no new legislation. They just need willpower in the agencies involved.

B) Though not as idealistic as his father, Rand has substantial libertarian leanings - and is a major figure in the Liberty Movement. As such his main goals are to downsize the government and free the people

Downsizing the government means you DON'T add new restrictions to "fix" every new manifestation of a political issue. Doing that keeps the government growing. Instead you:
  1) Oppose ANY INCREASE in the government's power and limitations on what people can do.
  2) Look for ways to "solve" problems by REMOVING government power and meddling where possible, or just use the EXISTING powers in the ways they were intended when a "solve by downsizing" isn't feasible.

Tell people to get a bigger phone. I don't know, personally it seems kind of backwards to have to write the page for each device. The clients browser should handle that shit, scaling images, etc.

But, are they winning elections? It seems that's all you have to do, and then just sign whatever is put on your desk.

That's the nature of all things political. The same was true for 'Obamacare'. The same is true for the wars.

And the Catholic church, please. Those 'nice monks' were quite the fantasy. Those that did/do exist, never get very far in the Vatican. Today's bigotry is a mere vestige of the Inquisition.

Argentina already went through this headache when the US Dollar became the defacto standard for awhile while the Argentine Peso was pegged by law to the US Dollar and contracts were drafted using the Dollar, not the Peso, as the unit of currency. This became a problem when Argentina wanted to decouple from the Dollar; it meant that Argentines, earning money in Pesos, would be entirely dependent on the exchange rate at the moment to pay back their debts. I expect that's why the currency exchange laws were passed, to make the transition back to their own currency and thus their own monetary policy possible.

Bitcoin, if it gets too big, destabilizes this again, as now people do not look to their own national currency, and their already weak national currency grows even weaker. If you want an example of the effects of a nation not being able to control monetary policy, look at Greece as a constituent of the EU; they can't control monetary policy through the usual means (ie, controlling access to new money) so they can't devalue the currency when necessary to keep the economy flowing.

I expect that the laws will be interpreted to mean that Bitcoin users are in violation, or else new laws will be written to force Bitcoin exchange to follow the same rules as any other currency exchange. Argentina has struggled with their money for too long to let something destabilize the government like this.

you're still going to need something to move goods from the rail network to their final destination.

A long time ago, produce (mostly coal) was on underground light rail. There is no reason not to expand on that. Well, maybe one

I also value my time, which I don't want to waste on a 200 mile trip waiting in line, and security theater

In theory, the FCC shouldn't need to regulate the internet at all, but because other government has created a wholly fucked up system, I agree that it's necessary at this point for them to step in.

If any branch of government should step into this, it's the FTC and the Justice Department, not the FCC.

Network Neutrality conflates two issues: Traffic management and anticompetitive behavior. Some packets SHOULD be treated differently than others, in order to make diverse services "play well together". (Example: Streaming vs. File Download.)

The problem arises when an ISP uses the tools to penalize the competition to its own company's and partners' services, extort extra fees, and otherwise engage in non-technical nastiness through technical means.

The proper regulatory regimes are antitrust and consumer fraud. These are the province of the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, not the FCC.

The FCC is using this as a power-grab on the Internet, in direct contravention of Congress' authorization. THAT is what Rand Paul is opposing.

Over half of what we produce goes straight to the landfill (in one fashion or another). The 'sacrifice' angle is bullshit. There is no need to submit to any authority that demands it. If they demand that we cut the waste and contamination, then that is different. But to ration is intolerable and inhuman.

I don't know why they should be allowed to keep the patents and copyrights then.