Let's not waste over 400,000 lifetimes per year by federaling mandating 55 MPH. It was stupid last time it was done.  It will be just as stupid now.  

300,000,000	People	300,000,000	People
55	MPH	70	MPH
10,000	Miles/year	10,000	Miles/year
54,545,454,545	Hours	42,857,142,857	Hours
149,439,601	Hours/year	117,416,830	Hours/year
1,992,528	Lifetimes on the road	1,565,557	Lifetimes on the road
		426,970	Wasted lifetimes per year

Congress and the President could easily solve the problem of judicial activism by passing a law that any rule of law decided upon by the Supreme Court sunsets in 5 years times the number of justices in the majority and 5 years for any lower court as a maximum. One might also consider a retroactive provision where previous judicial decisions would sunset in a similarly organized fashion related to # of judges in majority and age of ruling. 

After a ruling sunsets, the Legislative branch could take up these issues legislatively, or it could be reviewed again by the Courts. 

Eventually, the piles of steaming judicial compose that have warped the nature of our Constitution would be replaced by properly executed legislative process. Jefferson talked about each generation have the right to revolution. This would provide each generation a tool to reconsider important and unsettled issues in an organized predictable fashion.

The Judicial Branch could complain all it wants, but there isn't any clearly defined right in the Constitution for them to have the right to declare laws for all time that they have declared for themselves.  With two branches of government passing a law to Sunset Judicial Activism, it seems one has two branches defining law within the reasonable exercise of the powers clearly delineated in the Constitution. 

Personally, passing something along the same lines for sunsetting all laws Congress passes by the size of the majority the law was passed might be worth considering to keep Congressional Compost from getting too deep.  However, such a law may need to be a Constitutional Amendment since messing with the rules for passing laws is clearly defined in the Constitution.  However, the fine print here would be Congress would soon come to rely upon 'bureaucratic regulations' to be the new source of compost to perpetually cover the Constitution, denying the people's right for each generation to define the important issues from their own perspectives.  

Minimally, it's all something that may be worth occasional comtemplation.  Replace the notion of "Living Constitution" with "Living Body of Law". 

  The Democrat Congress wants to showboat their solution to high gas prices by demonizing the Oil Industry thru a Windfall Profits Tax.  The likely solution to this is oil and gas would get more, not less expensive as the taxes would be passed along to consumers in higher prices.  Plus, some oil companies may just decide to refocus their sales elsewhere where they aren't taxed so much.  This again would lower supply and increase taxes.  

   My solution is simple -- Windfall Stupidity Tax.   Congress should pass a law that collects extra gas tax revenue from the districts and states whose Congresscritters continue to stifle reasonable and progressive development of known oil resources on federal lands.  The stupid people that support these politicians should face the consequences of their stupid support for pols in the econut's pockets. 

Districts and States with Congressmen and Senators who don't support active drilling and development of oil resources on federal lands pay 10 cents extra gas tax for each Senator and Congressmen who votes against development of homeland oil resources.  This shall be known as the Windfall Stupidity Tax.

Residents of Districts and States get a 10 cents reduction in gas tax for each Senator and Congressmen that supports developing fully developing homeland oil resources.

   Stupid people who support less energy and higher gas prices should pay for their positions.  The Windfall Stupid tax revenue would be redirected to the poor intelligent residents of other areas who have to suffer thru the stupid energy policies of politicians who don't fully understand the need to develop homeland oil resources.

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Uh, hello GOP.   This is something you ought to use to at least entertain folks with while you also make a point about what the Drill Nothing Democrats are doing to average working families.  

If I were the Good God of implementing all good common sense ideas : here's one I work on:

• The UN would be evolved to a non-profit institution who primary job is to bring prosperity to the world thru becoming the (3rd) world's nuclear energy provider/supplier.
  
• UN power stations would be built with reasonable safeguards that allow it to safely and quickly shut down plants such an attempt be made to over take it's facilities.
  
• As a non-profit, it would direct it's revenue to building more energy and paying for any necessary security. 
  
• For example, the UN would take over Iran's nuclear project and make sure the folks of Iran get the power they desire. 
  
• For this service, the UN would get paid a reasonable amount, which they would then use to build their next nuclear plant, perhaps somewhere in Africa... Etc, etc. 
  
• With cheap plentiful energy, many of the struggles of the developing world would quickly go away.  Security issues would resolve. The UN could leverage it's energy to get uncooperative folks to cooperate.  
  
• The UN wouldn't need any sort of taxation of the developed world to move the rest of the world forward.  Rather, they'd just do what they would quickly find easy to do -- provide power and let the revenues of that effort promote it's own tasks. 
  
• Etc, etc.  
  

Or something like that...

OK, let us suppose that the earth is getting warmer and CO2 is increasing.  Does this necessarily mean a warmer planet require politicians to run around like Chicken Little that it's going to be a disaster? Consider several other equally possible scenarios :

• More mild temperate regions -- As the earth warms, it's likely that most of the warming will be towards the poles.  As this happens, the force of weather driven by high and low pressure interactions will lessen as the difference between the highs and lows will be less, not more.  It seems milder winds and weather is NOT something that should not be fought, but something that should be promoted.  
• Warmer oceans means more humidity (water vapor) -- This may mean deserts that have not seen rain for eons may see the return of rains.  Lakes and rivers long dried up could reform and new more dynamic ecosystems could evolve from rather static desert wastelands -- Anyone recall the  Hanging Gardens of Baylon?  
• Melting Ice caps -- The water to fill desert lakes and rivers has to come from somewhere.  The question may not be will the ocean levels rise if the ice caps melt -- rather the question should be will any melting at the ice caps be sufficient to fill these desert lakes, or will instead we see ocean sea levels drop?  
• The reality is as there is more water vapor in the air, more, not less, artic ice may form.  Currently, much of the artic is too cold for much snow to fall.  As the temperature warms, air absorbs more water vapor, which may be transported over the poles and deposited as more, not less, snow.  The artic ice pack may get deeper.  It's possible that the same will happen in the high mountain ranges around the globe.
• One can't just create CO2 out of nothing so it can't increase forever.   There is a limited amount of free carbon that one might add to the environment thru burning of fossil fuels.  One also can't create a world wide renewable energy system without a lot more CO2 to feed and grow the plants necessary to make the renewable energy.  So more, not less, CO2 seems what is needed. 

Bottomline, before everyone runs around to prevent global warming and reduce CO2, perhaps it would be a good idea to determine if more global warming and more CO2 isn't really what is needed for the world to prosper, not less.  It's not like the globe at one time didn't have more CO2 in it and was also warmer. 

Back in 2007, the Canadian dollar passed the US dollar in value. This largely ignored event signaled the world had entered a new growth phase, without the US in lead. Not to worry, in the following years, the Flatland Demogreen politicians continued to entertain the world by digging a deeper and deeper hole for the US to try to crawl out of…

• While the Demogreenies had the US economy digging madly away to a deep green future, more and more US high tech manufacturing and marketing technologies took refuge and hold elsewhere around the world.
  
• Freed from excessive Demogreen regulations, taxes and out of control socialist entitlement programs, they continued to prosper and spread wealth around an ever grateful world.

Meanwhile, the Demogreenies took their unholy war against all things (except green) energy to new heights…. After all, they had try something to get noticed from down inside the deep green hole they were digging for themselves and the rest of the US. They continued pushing billions of dollars and barrels of oil to make Cornahol.

• Go figure how anyone ever thought that was supposed to work?
• All it did was increase the cost of gasoline and produce almost twice as much C02 for the sake of making politically favored Cornahol.
• Meanwhile, all sorts of pollution and other Cornahol problems continued to flare up. Taking a page from the tobacco industry’s play book — the Demogreenies were in a constant state of denial there was anything wrong with their boondoggle of a program.

• Worse yet, it didn’t take long for the Cornaholic Congress to figure out they had all sorts of the power to dig the US into a deeper and deeper hole — all for the sake of their own Deep Green power.

Sure, all of this ‘busy work’ heated up the economy within the US borders. Only problem, not much of this Deep Green effort was of significant value beyond the US borders, at not least when compared to the rising value of oil energy, which the US was produced less and less of. Busy work doesn’t run people’s cars, or industry.

• Let’s see — Busy work or oil, your choice — Go figure why anyone would chose busy work, but such is the nature of Flatland Demo Green? politics…
• Keep on digging boys and girls, and pretty soon you’ll see daylight…. and it will be a bright green light… Or so the green story goes…

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Anyway, that’s the way it looks out here in Deep Green Flatland Future Frontier… You may now return to your contemporary Flatland reality..

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References

We are sorry!, So Sorry...

Be it resolved....

• We are sorry that so many Southern Democrats in the 60s voted against Civil Rights.
• We are sorry that there's a past KKK clan member in the Democrat Congress.  
• We are sorry there's no public record of the fate of illegal campaign contributions for Hilllary. 
  
• We are sorry that gas prices are so high because the Democrats in Congress have opposed drilling in ANWAR and elsewhere for over a decade  -- long enough to get this stuff to market to help lower prices. 
  
• We are sorry the Democrats oppose making your health care costs tax deductible.  (BTW, even those with insurance would find this reasonable, since it would apply to copays, as well as those without insurance).
• We are sorry that the your electric bills are getting higher and higher because the Green Democrats oppose building more clean running nuclear power plants.  Or Coal, or gas... 

We're so sorry that the GOP leadership don't get it.  It's way past time for the opposition party to take the offensive against the inept Democrat Congress.  It's time for the GOP to get off it's serious straight face pity pot.  Make some noise and have some fun by pointing out why so many things in our nation are going in the wrong direction...

If the SCHIP program is such good insurance for middle class kids, the Congresscritters and the staff of those who vote for it ought to be required to sign their children up for it.

FYI, the SCHIP program is basically the same as Medicaid -- full of red tape and restrictions on providing quality care.  There's lots of clinics that don't take it, or severely limit access to care by one means or another.  This is likely to get worse if SCHIP passes in it's current format.

Putting more folks into the Medicaid treadmill is only going to make it harder for the truly needy on Medicaid to get timely care as the middle class starts cutting in line for their care. 

Making it harder for needy kids to get care isn’t compassionate, it’s nuts...

References

It seems to me that all this BS (Bureaucratic Scatology) about Cap and Trade is about taking something (CO2) that was everyone's right to use, declaring it to be theirs and selling it. Under the 5th Takings Clause, anyone who has their property taken needs to be compensated --  including their right to use their CO2 as they wish.  

Another way to look at this is extension of common trespassing laws.  If you have some property and continue to allow other's to use it without restriction, it becomes public property -- however, this doesn't mean that the public can then take that property and sell it to someone while prohibiting others to use it as they always have.  Common law is things in the public domain, such as C02, remain in public domain and isn't open for sale.

What's next?  Cap and trade H20, 02, gravity?   

In other words, any way one logically and legally looks at it, the whole idea of cap and trading C02 is just full of BS.  

What is a Flatlander?  A typical Flatlander cannot see beyond their own limited experience to envision how things work beyond the horizon of their own limited realm. Flatlanders have little useful understanding or appreciation of how things fit together to create a functional moral and prosperous society. For one reason or another, there appears to be many flatlanders in our world.  If this is you, the Flatlanders Blog just might be for you.  Here you will find perspectives that might just allow you to exit Flatland into the real world beyond.

Flatlander politics are based upon the practice of organizing groups of Flatlanders into little pens with fences high enough so those in one pen cannot see (and ideally have no desire to see) from their little pen into their neighbors pen.  The PRESSident (aka liberal PRESS) teaches these groups to live happily within their little 'pen'.

The Flatlander Politician retains their power by tossing a few tidbits of fairness into each pen as they make their political rounds.  When Flatlander problems arise, everyone is trained to quickly point blame at the self reliant freedom loving folks living outside the pens as the cause of all Flatlander problems -- Haleluhayh and Amen...   Pitting one or more penned up group of Flatlanders against the self reliant in our society is what passes for Flatlander "leadership".

Until our nation (and civilization) drops its flatlander fears and sets sail towards the mythical realm of personal responsibility and self relion the other side of the civilized world, we will continue to live in a society and civilization more and more dominated by flatlander political thought and its resulting fiscally and morally bankrupt society. Oh boy...  Can't hardly wait to move on?