Tank driver causes damage in Russia

An allegedly drunk tank driver hits a house and a shop in a village in Russia's Urals region. Locals say the soldier who was wearing military clothes, swayed slightly as he clambered into the tank and was clutching two bottles of vodka.

Unions love Willets Point land grab

NY Daily News article by Juan Gonzales: "It's just a big land grab," says Dan Feinstein, whose family has run Feinstein Ironworks in Willets Point for more than 75 years. "How in the world does the mayor Bloomberg justify what he's trying to do?" Feinstein says. "He's nationalizing our property like we're in Venezuela or Russia, then determining which of his friends will get it."

District of Columbia v. Heller

Opinion of the Court

In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun
possession in the home violates the Second Amendment,
as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm
in the home operable for the purpose of immediate
self-defense. Assuming that Heller is not disqualified
from the exercise of Second Amendment rights, the District
must permit him to register his handgun and must
issue him a license to carry it in the home.

* * *

We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this
country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by the
many amici who believe that prohibition of handgun
ownership is a solution. The Constitution leaves the
District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that
problem, including some measures regulating handguns,
see supra, at 54–55, and n. 26. But the enshrinement of
constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy
choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition
of handguns held and used for self-defense in the
home. Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment
is outmoded in a society where our standing army is
the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces
provide personal security, and where gun violence is a
serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is
not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to
pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.
We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

It is so ordered.

Shockwave traffic jam recreated for first time

New Scientist article by Max Glaskin: Traffic that grinds to a halt and then restarts for no apparent reason is one of the biggest causes of frustration for drivers. Now a team of Japanese researchers has recreated the phenomenon on a test-track for the first time. The mathematical theory behind these so-called "shockwave" jams was developed more than 15 years ago using models that show jams appear from nowhere on roads carrying their maximum capacity of free-flowing traffic – typically triggered by a single driver slowing down.

Travelers Shift to Rail as Cost of Fuel Rises

Just got back from D.C. last night. This was a new experience for me - my first time going there by rail. Don't get me wrong, I use the subway daily and I have been on plenty of commuter trains, but this was the first time on a "real train" here in the U.S. Today's New York Times article by Matthew L. Wald seems to indicate that I am not alone here.

139 years after the "golden spike" completed this nation's first transcontinental railroad, all that we are left with is one unprofitable government owned national passenger rail operator. Amtrak have cost the tax payers over $30 billion since it began operating 37 years ago, with current projected losses of over $1 billion a year.

According to the research of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory mentioned in the NY Times article "the railroad is not radically more energy-efficient than other means of travel. Amtrak can move a passenger a mile with 17.4 percent less fuel than a passenger car can, and about 32.9 percent less than an airline can. It does save oil, however, since much of the fuel Amtrak uses is in the form of electricity, made from coal, natural gas and nuclear power."

Baby steps are the way to energy independence

It's the Platform, Stupid: Baby steps are the way to energy independence Robert X. Cringely: "This is our dilemma: we want to make radical energy improvements but these typically require expensive platform changes and platform changes can take a decade or more to happen. A better solution would be to leave the platform alone and find a single variable that could be changed for everyone practically overnight. So how do we leave that platform intact and unchanged, ask nobody to significantly sacrifice, yet still achieve the noble (and Nobel) goals of lower fuel consumption, lower greenhouse gas emissions, lower pollution levels, dramatically lower oil consumption, lower cost, and lower geopolitical vulnerability for our country? There's only one way I know to accomplish this: change the fuel."

Use Of 'N-Word' May End Porn Star's Career

From The Onion News Network (ONN) Special Report: