My dishwasher has a timer delay feature. I use it already even though I don't have time-of-use billing because I can shift the noise to a time when I'm not near it.

If my washer had a timer, I could wash one load of clothes during the day and/or one during the night, depending on when the off-peak hours were. Likewise for drying. A given load could take up to two days to get washed and dried, but that's not a huge problem. In fact, I already prefer doing one (full) load at a time more often than batching it up and doing laundry all day.

How would you define "ex post facto law"? As it turns out, my definition seems to match Calder v. Bull, which is apparently the relevant precedent in the U.S.:

I will state what laws I consider ex post facto laws, within the words and the intent of the prohibition. 1st. Every law that makes an action , done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action. 2nd. Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed. 3rd. Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed. 4th. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different, testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offence, in order to convict the offender.

-- Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. 386 (1798)

Retroactively granting someone immunity (which is a limited form of retroactively making something legal) is very different from making something retroactively illegal. For example, if Congress were to repeal the prohibitions on marijuana and apply that retroactively, people could be released from jail. On the other hand, if Congress made possession of ibuprofen illegal retroactively, the fact that someone owned Advil (and took it all) last year could land them in jail. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems that making something legal retroactively would not run afoul of the constitutional prohibition on ex post facto laws.

I'm not taking a position, in this post, on the wiretapping immunity law itself, the legality of said wiretapping, or the legality of Congress granting such immunity.

Urban areas are about the exact opposite of native, aren't they?

The plane won't crash: http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=12798

So for the rest of it, you just have to weigh the risk of someone getting hit by a stray bullet vs. the reduction of risk of the terrorist bringing down the plane. I'm not sure which way that would go, but if this is such a problem, why don't we hear about shootings on buses?

With respect to "no security", yes, if people can bring bombs on planes, that's bad. But regarding guns, why would Mr. Smith be more dangerous on a plane than on the ground (where his training can get him a permit to carry in most states)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrens_title

Why do you need increasing sunset lengths? A statute against murder, for example, should be easy to renew. It'd take a few minutes at most, even if you require a voice reading of the full text. I'd imagine if you used unanimous consent or voice votes, you could renew all the obvious, non-controversial laws in a couple of days sessions, at most. Is someone really going to be the jerk that fillibusters the law against murdering the President (murder being a state issue and fillibusters being a federal Senate thing, I had to specify this more)? It seems like their party (since political parties aren't going to disappear any time soon) would quash any attempts at that because of how the public would react.

This would never work, because as you pointed out, it's impractical from the start. A better approach would be to pass a constitutional amendment that provides for a mandatory sunset of laws. Ideally, you'd also require codification of all laws.

So the amendment would say something like, "1) All new laws passed by Congress must be codified into titles. 2) Each title (or existing uncodified law) shall automatically sunset and be removed from the official record of titles after __ years from the later of its original passage or last renewal. 3) For the purposes of this amendment, laws existing at the time of this amendment's ratification which were originally passed over __ years previous shall be considered to have been last renewed at a date within the last __ years, with the date randomly assigned by the ____ office."

Thus, you'd cause all existing laws to sunset slowly over the next __ years (for whatever value you fill in), and they'd have to be codified when they were renewed.

Then, if you want to help keep laws simple (which seems good in theory, but may just push the complexity to the executive branch's rulemaking process) and ensure there's been adequate time to read them before voting (which I support), you could pass another amendment (or add another section) that says, "Any law passed by Congress must have been read aloud in full by a representative or senator, as appropriate, or it shall be null and void." Obviously, the exact wording of these amendments might need some tweaking, but it seems more sustainable.

The title says "30 years", but it's really "30 months" according to the "two-and-a-half years" bit in both the summary and the linked article. Also, the linked article's title says "30 months".

I knew someone would reply with this. Yes, we can all cheer personally that the bad guy is off the street and they're not going to tie anyone else up. But from a legal point of view, once the immediate threat has ended, you can't use force in self defense.

My point was that this is not an example of "Britain locking up people for defending their families", especially with the implied contrast to the United States. Legally, they locked this guy (and his brother) up for chasing, beating, and permanently injuring a guy in the street. Had the same beating happened while they were still in immediate danger, the legal situation would've been entirely different.

From the article you linked to:

This wouldn't be legal in the U.S. either.

Amen, though I'd like to see this extend to everything, not just commercials. I have no problem hearing police sirens in rap music listening to the album at home, but on the radio (which most people listen to in the car), it's just obnoxious.

Aren't the pilots already doing this with their radio (the code being the flight/tail number)?