That's because it's not in the Constitution, much like the Hastert rule which Boehner claims is causing the impasse. The difference is, the House holding the power of the purse is an old and established tradition, whereas the Hastert rule is just some crap that's been disowned by its namer.

Like a lot of government-in-practice, the House holding the purse strings is just something that's accrued over time. Budgets originate in the House. That's what they do, one of their major functions in modern American politics. It grants them a lever against the Senate and the Executive branch, either of which would otherwise outclass them.

The Senate could come up with their own budget and try to pass it, but that would simply never happen - no one in the House would ever vote for a budget that originated in the Senate, because it would be basically agreeing to let the Senate steal some power from them.

... if it had been a regular car, fire would have been the least of your worries.

That would be pro-business, and I'm always amazed it hasn't been promoted as such.

It wouldn't be pro-business; it would be pro-small business and pro-new business, but it wouldn't be pro-large business at all; after all, health care is one of the levers they use to press your nose to the grindstone.

Since it's made out of carbon nanotubes, there's also none blacker.

Personally, I like how people keep on referring to it as a "leak" - this particular report might not have been published yet, but usually only because it still needs revisions. The IPCC's actual published reports are freely available, and this one will end up there as well once they're sure it's right.

Once you have their trust, take them out Old Yeller style.

You mean like doing shots behind the barn?

... if you were to open an account stating with $4.50 then add a equivalent of $4.50 per day for the duration of a month (about $135 a month) every month, earning just 3% interest would give you about $38,457.00 in 18 years.

Soooo... where are you getting this mystical 3% interest account that can be opened with zero initial deposit?

Because in my experience, opening even a savings account with no initial deposit and no direct deposit means you're going to get charged *at least* $10/month in maintenance fees, and you're not getting anything even remotely like 3% per year.

The post-WWII period was really the first time in the last several centuries that women were expected to not have to bring income into the household. You probably don't realize that because most of the literature was written by the upper class, but women of the lower classes had to work for the family to get by.

These two are actually related - part of the reason why women in post-WWII middle class USA weren't expected to work is because the USA had suddenly become significantly more affluent, so the middle class started mimicking the upper class (like it always does when it can).

Seriously? Is it so difficult to imagine a device where you sit down, rest your elbows on a flat surface, then manipulate the hologram in front of you?

It would be like using a keyboard, except with a hologram where the keyboard is.

When was the last time you saw a new freeway in California? Yes once the land rights are secured they're secured, but getting new ones is a huge stumbling block.

Yes that's why the problem with the high speed rail plan is political, not technical.

Can you imagine the size of the shitstorm that would happen if the government nabbed all that land? It would be insane. The lawsuits alone would cost billions.

On the other hand, a bunch of pylons is fine - they don't split your land in half, and the footprint is relatively small.

Yes, the actual high speed rail technology is a concept that's been done before - however, stomping over all of that privately owned land between LA and SF is a political concept that's completely infeasible at this point in time.

Although Elon Musk is using a bunch of existing technology in new ways, his plan is politically feasible - and it's not like we would just start building the Hyperloop without doing a proof-of-concept first. If it turns out that the idea doesn't scale, we'd do something else.

Maximum capacity of something that will never get fucking built is utterly irrelevant.

The current high speed rail plan is so completely infeasible, you might as well say the system will have infinite capacity.

The border patrol considers everything within a hundred miles of any coast or national border to be under its jurisdiction.

Here's a map of what that looks like. Note that it completely covers pretty much all of the major population centers.

Those would be terrible in practice though - crud would accumulate in the ridges, and it would get in the way when you want to do something wherever it is.

Flush ones would be the way to go.