In this case, you don't need a honking horn, just, e.g., an audible engine-like rumble when cars are approaching intersections. I assume (hope) you don't lean on the horn every time you see a pedestrian at the corner. And, if a blind person is crossing, you should never have a need to honk --- you should have brought your car to a stop at the intersection and given pedestrians their right of way (not be caught unawares blasting through a stopsign). Self-driving cars will probably, on average, do a lot better job of this than humans.

I agree on the general principle of "just because fancy tech happened before doesn't mean every wishful idea will be achieved" (e.g. faster-than-light travel) --- but self-driving cars aren't an exotic future possibility outside the present domain of human knowledge. They're working prototypes cruising around today, and doing a pretty good job of it. At this point, there's a big burden of proof to establish why they won't become common, rather than whether they might be possible in theory.

Apologies if poking fun at the motivations for private space exploration annoys people like yourself lacking in "prestige" due to having a small "space program."

Correction: they're going to spend $36M of other people's money to win a $30M prize for themselves. You don't think the rocket scientists running this are footing the bill themselves, do you? Or that a lot of the money they're spending is going to strangers? If you want to question the financial wisdom of this venture, you might want to look at the people doing more of the paying and less of the getting paid side of the equation. That said, many space ventures have been more about dick waving than financial or scientific return on investment; and a $36M space dick is a really cheap space dick by most comparisons (especially for one that reaches the moon).

You're also missing some history --- you do realize that the 1949 borders are not generally the territory under dispute? That Israel has done a few things since then with regard to stealing territory and imposing perpetual occupations?

Yeah, but that's only one tiny part of the space race --- America's the clear leader if you look at the big milestones, instead of just cherry-picking one isolated mission. Like, first satellite in orbit --- oops, ignore that. How about first human in space --- aww, shit; well they aren't really in space unless they can do the first spacewalk --- dang. Well, the free and equal US at least got the first woman in space... fooey. Well, near-earth is easy stuff anyway; how about first to reach another planet? Darn, but first to touch another planet... well, first to soft-land on another planet... shit. OK, first sample-return from outside earth... err, let's focus on what's really important in the space race...

USA Number One! USA! USA! USA!

Because sticking a microphone in a corner is obviously a gigantic difficulty in design, that has baffled engineers since the dawn of the electronic age.

Out of graduate school, and still get nightmares about high-school tests --- and I never even came anywhere near flunking a test in high-school; I had no rational reason to worry even back then. I think this shows how psychologically traumatic major portions of our educational system are. Testing in the school environment is emphasized to the point of crippling fear for nearly everyone who's been through the system --- this can't be the healthy and right way to do things. But, since everyone has been through the same trauma, it just seems like the normal and correct way to raise the next generation.

My mistake if I implied establishing a functional free minarchist system was in any way simple. Indeed, I agree it may not even be possible --- my best hope is that it be attempted; an ongoing work-in-progress of negotiation and revision.

The problem is, Libertarians often push for the isolated ideas that would only make sense in a larger system to be implemented right now. Sure, in some Libertarian utopian fantasyland, there won't be crooked oligarchical megacorporations with undue control over major economic sectors --- so let's slash regulations that prevent megacorporations from taking a crap all over everyone right now! Sure, in some Libertarian fantasyland, no one in power is a deep-seated racist or misogynist, because they'd be driven out of business. So, let's completely stop worrying about systematic oppression by race or gender right now! I have yet to see any plan for reaching said Libertarian Fantasyland that doesn't involve completely turning over the reins of power to an oligarchical elite, and just hoping they'll be fair-minded and play nice.

I think it's also a mistake to consider liberty as the opposite of statism. Just as reducing to a Red/Blue argument ignores how both parties frequently co-operate in bipartisan manners against freedom, so to assuming that liberty is the result of a minimal state ignores all the non-state systems of oppression. Establishing liberty requires critiquing, undermining, and dismantling all hierarchies of coercive power. The state is one --- but, so are, e.g., economic, racial, and gender hierarchies of oppression that can (and quite frequently do) arise in decentralized "free" systems where the strong are given free reign to oppress the weak. Dismantling state apparatus to make room for local feudalism is no step towards liberty. The assumption that the ideal "minimal state" is one that enforces Capitalist/market regulations (enforces contracts/property) is fundamentally flawed, because market systems are themselves unstable towards accumulation and collapse into tyranny. Rather, the need is to establish a minimal state that dismantles and devolves any accumulations of power to as many people as possible.

There are plenty of instances where blatantly deceptive advertising would be near-impossible to prove as fraud on the basis of any one isolated, individual case.

Hey, buy my homeopathic cancer cure for $15,000, and you could be cancer-free in three weeks! In a study of 50 participants on the miracle treatment, 100% were cured!

(Note: it's all true; you could go cancer-free, and a study of 50 people on our lists of people whose cancer had gone into remission showed a 100% success rate. But, don't regulate me to put this disclaimer anywhere, you nanny state goons!).

To control deceptive advertising, as opposed to individual-instance fraud, you need the ability to monitor and evaluate a large number of cases, along with setting standards for, e.g., how studies should be conducted before claiming success based on a study. This is what regulatory bodies do --- they set up a framework for evaluating claims and behavior that can't necessarily be reduced to black-and-white "fraud or not" individual cases.

And other states near the bottom of the list: Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Georgia. Also, "voted for Obama" is a poor measure for intrusive state regulations --- one of your "bottom 5" states is Nevada, the place that allows brothels and pretty much anything to go (an "anti-California" when it comes to pervasive regulations). In other words, the picture is far less clear than you claim. Your statement was "This kind of bureaucratic overreach is the reason" (emphasis mine), which is demonstrably false. Fine, if you want to walk it back to "one small part of the problem" --- but it was your own words clinging to the simplistic distortion to support your ideology.

Which is what these places appear to be doing, on a wide scale. Thus, the state is placing them under the oversight of the regulatory body with the mandate and expertise to evaluate claims and practices in education. This isn't "throwing up hurdles to everyone that wants to start up a business"; this is putting up hurdles to a very specific class of shady businesses that've raised attention through dubious practices.

Strangely, many deep-red states are also struggling with poverty and high unemployment. If "this kind of bureaucratic overreach" was a simple explanation for high unemployment rates, then the problem would solve itself as non-California states became prosperous utopias of full employment. Real-world evidence indicates this isn't the case --- there must be big structural factors besides California's regulations responsible for the nation-wide (not just California and "liberal" states) employment issues.

Hmm, none whatsoever of the sources you assume I'm getting info about the Tea party from (OFA website, Salon, the MSM, or HuffPo) are on my regular reading list. You seem to be basing your assumptions about my knowledge and motivations on a carefully-crafted straw-man version of generic "Liberal" thought. You already seem to know which "people I support in D.C." --- strange, I didn't mention that. And you're generally wrong, thanks to the preconceptions stilled in your mind by your propaganda overlords (speaking of "divide and conquer strategy").

You do realize, in the case you are referring to, that the bakery was not forced to make a "gay themed wedding cake." They were asked to provide a cake, the exact same service they provide to any other customer that walked in the door. They weren't required to write "I love anal sex" in the frosting, or decorate the cake with erect wieners. When a person goes into a sandwich shop and asks for a sandwich on the menu, I don't support the shop's right to say "we don't serve black people here, get out." If a Muslim bakery only does wedding cakes with Islamic religious symbols, and that's what they offer to all their customers, then they shouldn't be expected to turn out a special-order star-of-David cake. But, they should be expected to offer the same services to red-headed customers as to blond customers. Allowing businesses to discriminate based on the race, gender, creed, etc., of their customers --- people buying the same stuff they sell to everyone else --- has a nasty history, and is not conducive to a free society.