Interesting fact about lobsters, they haven't always been considered delicious. In colonial times, lobsters were considered "poverty food." They were harvested from tidal pools and served to children, to prisoners, and to indentured servants. In Massachusetts, some of the servants rebelled and demanded that they would not be forced to eat lobster more than three times a week.

In fact I met a old woman who told me that, when she was young, she would hide and eat her school lunch- her family was too poor to afford anything other than lobster and the other kids would tease her.

I just goes to show you how society, culture and advertising controls our behaviour, beliefs and taste buds.

As far as this lobster "overpopulated" lobster nonsense- call me when you can walk along the shore at low tide and just pick them up by the dozens (as was common in years past). That would be the natural equilibrium population before we started commercially harvesting.

This whole "overpopulated" is clearly perpetuated by someone who wants increased quotas.

Gouging is not 100% efficient- gouger's will inevitably buy and store more than they sell and still make a profit. Furthermore gouging causes people to hoard. If I know that gas will remain a roughly the same price it is now and likely return to normal in a week or so, I am probably just going to fill the tanks in all my cars and maybe get a small jerrycan before the storm. If I think gas will rocket to $20/gallon after the storm I am going to buy a 500 gallon tank rush to the pumps and suck them dry before everybody else does.

Our behavior will create massive shortages, nothing like what we currently see. Creating an incentive to direct supplies to a disaster area is something that government can do far more efficiently than price gouging.

Also, we haven't even talked about those people who can't afford increased prices. Those people would certainly go without in a gouging scenario. In a large disaster I would imagine that would result in civil unrest, increase crime and violence.

Allowing price gouging post disaster can be very dangerous because it exacerbates any shortages. No only are people in need vying for scare resources but price gougers who buy and hold much more than they individually need in an effort to reap a profit on resale. This causes more gouging and hoarding as people become scared that prices will increase. The ultimate result is that people will go without and possibly die while resources go unused.

They actually paid the guy to dump the iron sulphate- 2.5 million is what I heard on the radio.

This is blatantly false. The friction between a locked sliding tire and the road is usually less than the friction that can be applied by braking system while the tire is still rolling. From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-lock_braking_system

ABS generally offers improved vehicle control and decreases stopping distances on dry and slippery surfaces for many drivers;
Stopping distances were reduced in most of the tests compared with locked wheel braking, particularly on slippery surfaces, in which the improvement could be as much as 30 percent.

The Long-Term Effect of ABS in Passenger Cars and LTVs
From:www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811182.PDF

Median Percent Reduction of Stopping Distance
ABS Enabled Versus ABS Disabled
Road Surface
Dry concrete: 5% reduction
Wet asphalt/concrete: 14% reduction
Wet Jennite 43% reduction
Wet epoxy 10% reduction
Gravel: 28% increase*

That's because traffic is so bad now that nobody can go over 50mph.

Very interestingly according to the inflation calculator:

What cost $0.50 in 1895 would cost $12.93 in 2010.

So really the same price per minute real terms.

Perhaps his imaginations refuses to wildly defy the laws of physics?

On the face of it that sounds down right, reasonable. I'm not sure why someone would call themselves something so derogatory that they themselves would be insulted by it?

I do actually. When I take the float plane from Victoria to Seattle/Vancouver they have strict 24lb baggage limit. I weigh 160lbs and my girlfriend weighs 110lbs. When carefully packing our 24lb bag we always gripe. We are paying the same price and have the same baggage estrictions as the 220lbs guy!

Look at the number of hairdryer in the shower deaths we have prevented.

I know you are being sarcastic but the update to the building code to require GFCI plugs in the bathroom has saved thousands of lives. Deaths by electric shock in the US have dropped from about 500 a year in 1960s to around 150 now days despite a population increase.

You can readily find the stats online or just google "gfci saved my life" for some anecdotes.

It's popular to spout the meme that government regulation is unnecessary and unhelpful but there are countless examples of problems solved by government action. Nobody has to worry about their young children dying from small pox anymore, or polio or consumption. If you house catches fire the fire department will show up. And if you buy a new house you don't have to worry about your four year old electrocuting themselves while playing dress up in the bathroom with the hairdryer, even if you have no clue what a GFCI is or how it works. A GFCI costs significantly more than a standard plug and without the government regulation developers would not install them. You also don't have to worry about your house coming down in a earthquake, like houses in Haiti (government solved that problem too).

What do you mean walked all over? This isn't lord of the flies. If someone is jerk I don't include them in my social circle and they certainly wouldn't be employed where I work. If they act violent I call the police. If they try and harm me in some other way I call a lawyer.

Can you give me an example of how someone with balls can "walk all over" a soft person in modern western society? (Without ending up in jail or the defendant in a lawsuit)

Exactly. But your problem is largely due to inconsistent tax regimes in neighbouring states. Nobody is manufacturing cigarettes - that would be much more difficult. In Canada we have much higher taxes on alcohol and cigarettes than the US does, however, smuggling for resale is almost nonexistent.

7. The price of the drugs will be 5-10x lower, making the theft crime needed for unemployed addicts to support their habits will be proportionally lower.

I agree with everything except point 7. Introduce it at a low enough cost to put all of the illegal avenues out of business. Then slowly increase the price and make it more expensive that it used to be. Just like alcohol and tobacco. Overall usage will decrease dramatically and the government will make money in the form of taxes that can be used to fund rehab, abstinence campaigns and hospitals.

For clarification GP means this type of AA Battery:

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/02057T736e8oT/610x.jpg

Not this type:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ce/Energizer_reghargeble_batteryIMG_0006.JPG/220px-Energizer_reghargeble_batteryIMG_0006.JPG

Still not funny though.