That's not surprising. They want something guaranteed to be good. It's unrealistic for them to be able to know if every form of ID from any country in the world is legitimate. I'm sure they do at least a cursory check before allowing anyone in.

In theory, your passport is good. It should have been checked when you entered the US.

If you are a foreign national in the US, you're suppose to keep your passport with you at all times. Some states require anyone 18 and over to carry at least a state issued ID with them at all times. I carry 3 state/federal photo IDs, because they all serve a different purpose.

This is the ID requirement from their site.

ID Requirements
Please arrive at the designated boarding area at least 15 minutes before departure time. A U.S. government-issued Driver's License or U.S. State ID card is required for guests age 18 and over. International adult and child guests must present a valid passport to participate.

https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/tours/ksc-up-close-then-and-now-tour.aspx

If that were true, then there wouldn't be so many people trying to cheat.

The government should not be constrained by market assumptions, such as that resources are limited because of efficient allocation.

That's not a "market assumption", it's plain old reality: resources are finite, so you need priorities. If a cop pulls someone over for speeding, then sees an armed robbery in progress, or a paramedic is treating someone's sprained ankle then a bystander has a heart attack, do you want them to stick to what they were doing and reject the notion of priorities as being a "market assumption"? I'd rather they focus their efforts on the higher priority, because that gives the best outcomes.

In this case, the FTC had more pressing enforcement jobs, like telemarketing scams, the fight with cellphone companies over ripoff premium services ... they felt putting their resources there made more sense than fighting Google over the order of search results, and I'm not at all sure they were wrong about that.

By coincidence, I was discussing law enforcement priorities at work on Friday (we teach computer forensics for law enforcement, among other things); unlike the world of CSI, real law enforcement doesn't go spending days testing out an obscure theory, or digging into every possible detail of each case: they do enough work on a case to pass it to the next stage, then get on with the next case. No "market" - there just aren't an unlimited number of hours in each forensic caseworker's day.

Speak for yourself - I got my FAA PPL in about 50 hours and adjusted to today's dollars it probably cost less than half of that.

Navigable airspace in the US starts at the surface, everywhere. Don't confuse class G airspace with the idea that it's unregulated.

You know incorrectly. There are no laws compelling you to carry a photo ID, although as you note not carrying ID can limit what you can do.

Well, because one particular political party insists that there isn't.

It just so happens that that party is the one with the most to gain from voter fraud, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

When it comes to road safety, sentience is overrated.

If a non-sentient computer can drive a car safer and more efficiently than me and other people, we'll be better off for it.

You are somewhat the rarity with your vintage car. For most people, drive by wire is already a thing. The throttle has been drive by wire for years on most cars, and some of today's cars are steer by wire. (Yes, there is manual reversion if it fails, but in normal driving you have no mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the wheels of the car). Many cars can brake independently of the driver. Even my 2007 Civic has traction control and ABS fitted as standard.

Traffic would probably flow considerably better in a city full of self driving cars. A lot of the chaos of city driving is because of human error and human reaction delays.

You only have to fly over a traffic jam on a major highway to see problems that could be significantly alleviated by self driving cars that communicate with each other. Quite often you see traffic jams with no explanation - a mile of stationary traffic, but there's no obstacle in front and none behind. What happened is two hours earlier someone slammed on their brakes, someone following too close had to brake harder, and eventually the whole highway stops. As long as traffic is not leaving the stopped area faster than it is arriving, you get a self-sustaining traffic jam long after the original cause has gone away. The self driving car will reduce the instances in the first place of the cause, and if it does happen will be able to as a group moderate their speed in such a way that you don't end up with a mile of stopped cars. Instead of the next car only starting after it has seen the previous one begin to move + reaction delay, all cars will be able to start moving at once or nearly so.

Surely drive-by shootings will become easier, as now they have one more person who can do the shooting once you get rid of the need for a driver?

Honestly, I have a lot of names that renew yearly. It's not really practical to buy everything at 10 years. Even at Namecheap's pricing, a .com is $102.90 for 10 years. That's a lot to drop on a fledgling project that may never become anything.

I was actually referring to all immigrants to Europe, not Muslims in particular, though they certainly seem to get the double whammy of "you're not from around here, are you?" combined with hostility towards their religion.

Europe is traditionally a place that people leave so it's not surprising that they haven't figured out how to assimilate immigrants.

^^^^^^^^ This ^^^^^^^^

People who think the United States is hostile towards immigrants should spend some time in Europe as one, particularly one of color.

You're quoting the Ma Bell divestiture as an example of helpful regulation?! Ma Bell:

1. Took her universal service obligations seriously.
2. Invested money into keeping her plant modern and current.
3. Was friendly to labor.
4. Threw gobs of money at Bell Labs for the sake of science, with no expectation of immediate payout or profit.

The contrast with modern day ILECs is telling. I'm less than one thousand feet from our central office and can't get DSL faster than 3mbit/s because Verizon wants out of the wireline business and is bleeding it to death. And who can blame them? They've forced to compete against unregulated cable companies while still meeting all of the legacy ILEC obligations, ranging from service commitments to labor contracts.

If Ma Bell was still around I would have had fiber many years ago. For all her flaws she put money back into the business and planned for the future.