Well, I guess I was inarticulate -- ISA is internationally reportable "like" mad cow is internationally reportable (not that it is like mad cow). The upshot is that when cattle are suffering from mad cow, you can't export the meat. When farmed salmon are suffering from ISA, you can't export the meat. Protecting exports is why the Canadian government is trying to hide it's ISA problem.

The sad thing is, if you take infected fish home and wash it before cooking, there is a possibility that ISA then ends up in the local waters depending on how (or if, as it is often not in Canada) waste water is treated.

Here's a very interesting movie about farmed salmon in BC and the ISA virus (an internationally reportable virus like mad cow). http://salmonconfidential.ca/

Basically, the Canadian government, despite highly reputable testing, continues to deny that there is ISA and other viruses in the farms, muzzles the scientist who published research on the topic, and almost passed a law making it a felony to report on infections in livestock/farmed fish. All the while, native stocks of salmon plummet due to diseases that fill the narrow passageways in which the farms are located. And no, you can't just replace wild salmon with farmed salmon -- unless you're going to truck them out to the forest and dump them because even the trees get fertilized by dead fish that bears leave around after eating the eggs (and then of course there are Orcas and seals to feed etc. etc). The rivers can provide nutrients to an entire ecosystem including people -- farmed salmon destroy that but provide profit for big business. With most fishermen being small time business people -- guess which wins. http://oregonstate.edu/instruction/fw580/pdf/15.%20MDN%20riparian.pdf

Wait - Bush and the GOP are is still in power?

Yes they are -- power has been handed over to the New GOP (AKA Democrats) so that all the Executive branch power grabs and Constitutional abuses of the GWB era can be legitimized as the "New Normal".

Those quadcopter things are fairly reliable. There's even designs out there for 6 or 8 redundant rotors. These things can survive a fairly hard landing especially if the rotors are shrouded, whereas a helicopter is a lot more damage-prone. A running helicopter that falls on its side will most likely need some serious repair work before it'll fly again. A damaged quadcopter can be fixed with duct tape in most cases.

They exist. If I recall correctly, Model Airplane News even published plans for a fairly hefty gas-powered one (might have been another magazine).

Drunk kids having a little fun. Basically ... all kids are terrors in one way or another. Too bad we've moved way beyond imposing a fine, a stern talking to, and maybe a few hours picking up garbage on the freeway.

karma

True now, but what if Congress simply required manufactures to include taggants as has been suggested for gunpowders. I don't know if it would be possible to reliably transfer a taggant to a bullet, but I think it is premature to think that such printed guns would be totally untraceable. Assumptions like that are what cause people to get caught.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taggant

What about the chemical characteristics of the plastic used for the barrel? I would think that some of that plastic would rub off on the bullet because the barrel material is softer than the bullet. If that is so, it may be possible to identify the particular plastic, even perhaps the batch, and then narrow down the list of possible suspects.

Even easier, the government could just require tracing compounds be incorporated into the plastics and require detailed sales records.

That's the opposite of my take. The comment hinges on morality, and few believe it is moral to randomly kill people.

I am a-religious. I sympathize with the quoted statement, and yet would not ever initiate violence against another unless it were justifiable defense. The two have nothing to do with each other except what a given person deems as moral.

In libertarianism, the government exists to protect the rights of the people. No such structure exists in Somalia, making it the antithesis of libertarianism.

Taxing gross profits over $1M would bankrupt an enormous number of small businesses who do not have the resources to hire cutthroat accountants.

Other than that, sounds pretty good. Corporations exist at the pleasure of the jurisdiction in which they are incorporated, and as such should have no rights whatsoever. There are no provisions for collective rights in the Constitution. All rights are personal, even the right to assembly. Stripping corporations of rights do nothing to infringe the personal rights in the Constitution, as people can still exercise them. There is no right to avoid personal accountability just because you run a business.

While many claiming to be libertarian would howl at the above, I believe it is perfectly consistent with a primarily libertarian outlook.

Politicians make it hard to distinguish left wing from right wing in all but the most trivial of ways. They each mimic the other's methods depending upon whom is in power.

The law doesn't determine anything but the law. Fairness is subjective, otherwise slavery was fair when it was legal.

Is this a gun, as in a fully functional and useful tool? No. But it's not proof of any kind that 3d guns are impractical in principle (as that Register article claims); quite the contrary. The Liberator proved that it's possible to print a gun that can be fired (unreliably) on a printer, without blowing up. The Lulz version proves it is possible to create one that can be fired repeatedly, and can be created on a consumer grade printer. From here on in the reliability will improve, and perhaps someone will come up with a double barreled one or a six-shooter even.

This development is not interesting for gun enthusiasts. It may be interesting for people who need to smuggle a gun past security (you still need to get the metal parts + cartridges through the detector). It's not that interesting for people with the skills, tools and smarts to build their own gun, nor is it for criminals who can (in most countries) quite simply acquire a gun from an illegal source. But it is very interesting for people who want to acquire a gun illegally, not necessarily because they want to use it for criminal purposes, but in case they want one to defend themselves but the gov't doesn't let them have one.

And for that purpose, you wouldn't really need something that can reliably fire 10.000 rounds. 6 reliable shots would already be a vast improvement over nothing at all. And given the progress already made on these printers, I'd say that printing and assembling such a gun by anyone may well be viable in a few years.