waive certain parts of the nearly half-century-old California Environmental Quality Act

This seems to affirm the giant elephant in the "save the Earth" room: Tesla (as well as other products relying on highly-capable batteries) aren't all that "green". It may be a great car to drive, but if one needs violates environmental regulations — and not the recent ones — to make it, then green it is not.

Oh, and then comes the problem of disposing of those wonderful batteries — or recycling them...

Had the Wright brothers, Henry Ford, or Nicola Tesla fallen to something like "How to live United" propaganda and gone to "help the poor", how much longer would it have taken for the affordable air-travel, mass-produced cars, and the numerous other wonders to appear?

Especially, if they traveled to the Third World and caught something nasty?

Thankfully, such "sacrifice" was not very popular 100 years ago. Unfortunately, it seems to be all the rage nowadays...

The word "equality" is meaningless without the clarification: equality of what? Hair color? Penis size?

In the context of politics, the following two equalities are usually meant by the arguing sides — even when neither side makes their own meaning explicit:

Equality of Opportunity versus Equality of Results .

The "all men created equal" concept is about equality of opportunity: you start with (roughly) the same things as everybody else and whatever you achieve (or not achieve as the case might be) is due to your own industry, frugality, and, perhaps, genes. We might be created equal (subject to gene variations), but what we do after the creation is up to us.

The equality of results is the opposite: whatever you do, you will have (roughly) the same things at the end: if you are more successful than average, the State will tax you to ensure the results of the less successful aren't too different from yours — a concept lovingly referred to as "spreading the wealth around".

A large number of politicians made careers of conflating the two equalities — by harping at the absence of latter and implying, the former does not exist. Such demagoguery patently dishonest not only in theory, but also in practice...

originally that was the author/inventor, but that ship has long sailed - now it's corporate profits almost exclusively

The "inventor vs. corporation" distinction you are trying to make is without difference . For an inventor to use his invention — whether he himself forms a company to profit from it or sells the invention to an existing company — either way the intellectual property must be controlled by him initially. In this regard nothing has changed since "last century".

We know, what was happening before "intellectual property" was invented — unless they had other sources of income, poets and writers (creators of easily copiable wares) were starving. Inventors, likewise, either went unrewarded for their inventions or were forced to monetize it themselves — and rare is a human, who is both a good inventor and a good businessman. As usual, leftists proclamations are dragging humanity into the past in the guise of "progress"...

artificial scarcity

There is no such thing.

This is the term Marxists use to justify spreading other people's wealth around, that's all. Oh, sure, music and movies can be copied indefinitely and designs and algorithms can be used by anyone once created. But all of those creators need very material things to sustain themselves — and neither food, nor shelter, nor (gasp!) healthcare can be copied via torrent.

Some companies are willing to release software to the wild, others do not. Basing one's employment decisions on that is, indeed quixotic.

Fox news routinely puts the letters (D) after Republican's names if they are in trouble

Citation needed.

Or she could have obeyed the law and filled out the one page form

And there is nothing wrong with mandatory ID-carrying either, is there? "Papers please" much?

Óh réällý?

That's pretty cool. I guess, the entire ISO-8859-15 is Ok? But not Cyrillics :-( Or else, you would've seen some Ukrainian-Russian conflict right here...

I routinely substitute Cyrillic letters for Latin on Disqus and other forums to get around their filters (which block for more than mere "profanity").

Slashdot does not allow non-ASCII characters — although it does not attempt to screen out profanity either.

There is a related form for leaving the country.

I was never asked the question of how much cash I'm carrying. Nor have I ever — in 20+ years of being an American — been made aware of having to declare such sums.

withdrawing more than $10k in cash from a bank

What if it is simply my savings — stored in a jar?

if that money ends up as part of a money laundering scheme, the feds can find you

That's a good argument to have one's DNA registered — at birth. In case it ever ends up inside a rape victim or on a murder scene, you know... Somehow, that has not persuaded Americans to mandate DNA-registration. Not yet, anyway. But, as I said, personal assets are not protected anywhere near as well by our laws, as the persons themselves...

its not hard to construct a right to travel

It is even less hard — for the government — to construct the opposite. In fact, they already did — the no-fly lists exist...

Take a look at the Second Amendment — the right to "keep and bear arms" does not need to be constructed or otherwise derived — it is explicitly listed. And what? Even in the most liberal places — like Texas — you must have a license for it. Which means, it is not a right, but merely a privilege...

There is nothing wrong with being an extremist.

There may well be in certain cases — but it is not (or should not be) a dirty word, I agree.

Yes, although one point of view may be better than another, a compromise is often worse than either of the "extremes"...

All three are Republicans that claim to want "small government"

At least, we know of their party-affiliation from the article. Had the gentlemen been Democrats, the affiliation would've been omitted.

insist that private contractors abide by the same rules that government agencies do

This is not, in itself outrageous or even stupid. Should an orbit-bound rocket lose control, for example, the results may well be far more disastrous than 9/11...

even when the contractors are cheaper and safer than than the government agencies last attempt.

Perhaps, they borrowed the illogic from the Labor Unions? You know, the guys, who insist, foreign manufacturing be following the same procedures and workers be paid the same as in here?

If you're traveling with more than $10k, you just have to fill out one form declaring it.

I believe, that requirement — whatever its Constitutionality — applies only to people arriving into the US, not leaving. Indeed, you aren't declaring anything upon leaving — neither the Customs nor Border Patrol have anything to do with passengers departing.

Also, it was introduced, when $10k meant a lot more money, than it does today. I don't know, when, exactly, but I do remember seeing it on the Custom form in the early 90ies. The $10k even then was $17.5k in today's dollars. But, I think, the requirement is much older...