I agree with xtal that one or the other of the "nuclear options" is not unlikely. But I doubt that nuclear in its existing implementation is a solution, in that the more existing-style plants there are, the more accidents there will be, the more public resistance there will be, and the more likely the plants will be permanently shut down.

What is needed, and I'm not saying it's about to happen, is to rearrange economies so that energy is priced at or higher than its real cost to the environment. I don't know how that happens in a democracy, so maybe China really will lead the way. For any jurisdiction to impose the extraordinarily high fuel taxes that this would require, it will have to become the common understanding in that jurisdiction that all of economics has been fatally wrong for at least fifty years, and that material growth is not a good thing for an economy if the economy happens to exist on a finite planet.

Ibsen's An Enemy of the People. Too many of us put too much faith in the media and in democracy, and Ibsen's masterwork is an accurate corrective. Newspapers engage in crusades as long as it doesn't hurt their bottom line. People will ignore facts that are inconvenient. Politicians will do what majorities ask for, even if it means trashing the truth. We live in the tobacco company era and are still ignoring the global science community's warnings about climate change -- unless enough of us learn to think for ourselves, our prospects are not good.

"Wouldn't it be undemocratic if all the big states could, at the country level, impose laws on the smaller states without the consent of the inhabitants of said smaller states?"

No, democracy *means* majority rule. Minority rights are also important, which is why it's important to have a Constitution and a court system to protect the minorities. While the early federation of states might have considered states as equal entities, the reality of our system is that the states are mostly vestiges, the entities which should be represented in DC are called citizens, and the entities actually represented in DC are called corporations (the Senator from ADM, the Senator from Monsanto, the Senator from Boeing, etc...)

No, I think it's useful to have a branch of government that has longer terms and fewer members. I just think citizens should have relatively equal representation in it, so that each Senator represents a geographical area with a population of about 3 million people.

People such as myself?

Ah, the blissful European countries with cultural homogeneity. Perhaps they don't argue internally, I can't say I pay that much attention. I do recall hearing once or twice of the occasional war between one or two of them, and I note that they've attempted to form overarching economic and political structures in hopes of making such wars less common in the future than they've been in the past.

No doubt the internal arguments in the United States would be fewer if Utah, for example, were its own country. But the thought of a nuclear armed Utah doesn't strike me as an improved geopolitical situation.

Well, of course, if you don't believe in democracy then it wouldn't bother you that a population of 15 million or so can effectively veto the desires of 315 million persons. The protection of minority rights is vested in the courts, and in the idea of equal justice under law. The Senate is hardly a protector of minority rights -- it is a protector of the huge resource extraction entities and agricultural businesses that dominate rural state politics.

Well, if this http://www.peakbagger.com/pbgeog/histmetropop.aspx#tables is correct, the largest city at the time of the constitutional convention would have had 40,000 persons. I'm not sure the rural/urban divide was the dividing issue -- I think it was much more a concern that the small population colony-states would not be well represented in the House, and so needed a check in the Senate. Not the same thing, especially when used as justification for mis-matched representation in states between states that were never independent.

Yes, that is its political effect, and it is extremely anti-democratic. But the reason it exists is simply that independent states varied in size at the time of the Constitutional convention. There was no intention at that Convention to give rural people a political check over those living in cities.

It's sad that an artifact of the nation's early history results in a Senate where a few square post-independence states with tiny populations are effectively able to veto ideas supported by very large majorities of Americans. Splitting states to provide relatively equal populations per Senate district would go a long way towards eliminating the existing gridlock in American politics.

There is simply no reason beyond historical accident why the 40 million people of California have two senators, while the combined 3 million people of the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana have eight senators.

Offhand, I think the libertarians should be free to purchase as many incandescent light bulbs as they wish, but they should be bundled with the bulbs average lifetime kWh of electricity when given typical use. Then you should get a monthly rebate for the electricity as you use it. So you could buy your incandescent bulb for $20 (or whatever), and get a dime back each month. Or you could buy an LED bulb for $15 (or whatever) and get a nickel back each month.

Computer science is a poor substitute for teaching logical argument and mathematical logic. But if they're going to teach computer science, I hope that doesn't mean "how to use Excel."

The rules of modern day America are pretty simple. You have liberty to do whatever you like, but DON'T FUCK WITH THE OWNERS.

Lawyers and lobbyists have come a long way since 1858; with enough lawyers and lobbyists today, ScrewCorp could patent a pencil colored yellow.

The United States government has never had better timing! I'd sign up now, but I figure you guys have got it covered already, OK?