This is probably the last shot we have at saving the new suborbital launch legislation this year, which was passed by the House last month, but still needs to get through the Senate. If it doesn't pass, we'll have to start from scratch next year. Jeff Foust has some useful links.

And one of those links, this story from Alan Boyle irks me:

The word from some quarters on Capitol Hill is that the House bill was caught up in a cross-chamber dispute with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is pressing the House to move forward with boxing-reform legislation.

It's always frustrating when needed legislation gets held hostage for reasons having nothing to do with it. On the other hand, this probably prevents a lot more bad legislation from passing than good (since most legislation is bad), so perhaps I shouldn't complain.

This is another example of the need for reform of the procedures of the US Senate. The system they have developed whereby one senator can block consideration of a bill or a nomination is WRONG and should be eliminated. This is totally and completely undemocratic and has to stop.

We just need to repeal the 17th amendment already.

Women all over America live in a world of suffrage from the age of 18 until they die. This madness must stop. Please, help end the suffrage of women in America, and help this wonderful country return to its rightful place as a leader in human rights. Repeal the 19th Amendment.

Help the Federal government save tax dollars--repeal the 3rd Amendment!

Well, with everybody saying repeal this amendment or that amendment, I say ratify the last remaining amendment of the original 12 amendments. The 1st Amendment was really the 3rd Amendment. I say complete the Bill of Rights, ratify the original 2nd Amendment. The original 1st Amendment was ratified in the 90's.

Nonsense. The entire Constitution is flawed, a dangerous instrument conducive to mob rule. All power should rest with the Executive, who should be repeatedly cloned so as to provide needed stability.

I mean just look at all the Senate bills which die because their sponsors can only scrape up 49 votes. Is it right that a true and good law that any right-thinking person can see is necessary should fail because a measly 2 Senators withheld their approval for unknown but probably highly wicked personal motives?

I very politely let McCain's office know that, as a constituent from a household that voted for him, I disapproved of his not consenting to HR 5382, and why.

Jabba,



The original second amendment was ratified as the 27th amendment in 1992. From http://www.guncite.com/journals/embar.html:



[1] It is not irrelevant that the Bill of Rights submitted to the states in 1789 included not only what are now the first ten Amendments, but also two others. Indeed, what we call the First Amendment was only the third one of the list submitted to the states. The initial "first amendment" in fact concerned the future size of the House of Representatives, a topic of no small importance to the Anti-Federalists, who were appalled by the smallness of the House seemingly envisioned by the Philadelphia framers. The second prohibited any pay raise voted by members of Congress to themselves from taking effect until an election "shall have intervened." See J. Goebel, 1 The Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court of the United States: Antecedents and Beginnings to 1801, at 442 n.162 (1971). Had all of the initial twelve proposals been ratified, we would, it is possible, have a dramatically different cognitive map of the Bill of Rights. At the very least, one would neither hear defenses of the "preferred" status of freedom of speech framed in terms of the "firstness" of (what we know as) the First Amendment, nor the wholly invalid inference drawn from that "firstness" of some special intention of the Framers to safeguard the particular rights laid out there.

Rather than repeal the 17th Amendment, I would prohibit the congress (both House and Senate) from meeting in Washington for more than, say, one month out of the year. And that would mainly be for ceremonial reasons. With the technology available today, there is no reason they can't stay at home and cast their votes electronically. This would have several effects that I can think of:

(1) It would keep the congress-critters home, closer to their constituents. Of course, this is exactly what they don't want. Going to Washington makes them feel special.

(2) It would mitigate inside-the-Beltway groupthink

(3) Lobbyists could no longer concentrate their efforts in one building in one city. Instead, they would have to spread their efforts to 50 states and 435 districts. It would be much less cost-effective to lobby a congress-critter who does not represent your district.

(4) A single terrorist weapon of mass destruction could no longer wipe out the entire federal government.

A single terrorist weapon of mass destruction could no longer wipe out the entire federal government.

You say that as though it's a good thing...

A single terrorist weapon of mass destruction could no longer wipe out the entire federal government.

You say that as though it's a good thing...
Posted by Rand Simberg at December 3, 2004 07:55 PM

I'm the type of person who actually sees the humor in that. But it's also the type of comment that will come back and bite you in the ass if, Great Maker forbid, something actually does happen.

Think about how much unfair crap the National Rifle Association caught for the "jack booted government thugs" fund raising letter after the 1995 OKC bombing.

Or Ann Coulter for "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."

Comparing Bush to Hitler, however, is still acceptable, truly patriotic non-hate speech.

Oh well, enough chilling of free speech for today.

But it's also the type of comment that will come back and bite you in the ass. . .

Balls. It was hilarious. I only wish I'd said it.

Carl, maybe you did. . . ;-/