I Love This Guy

If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.
-- Dan Quayle

Better Airplanes and Gardens

The U.S. Patent on this is for a wind-resistant dwelling. The 727 can be rotated (into the wind) and it's pitch can be altered so it's virtually unaffected by high wind. I used to think the human race progressed more or less in accordance with a master plan of some kind. This is clear evidence that random mutation and natural selection are still at work in the human species.

Whispering Wheelies

Now this looks like a cool idea for high efficiency transport. But IMHO, what's needed to make this whole green machine thing really work if for tree-huggers and motor-heads to get together and figure out how to build a FAST green car! Hey, it doesn't have to smoke a Ferrari just yet. Just has to be faster than the other guy's envirowagon. This is, after all, America. Competition is ingrained in our culture. It's not a bad thing. Just need to get the guys working on the right stuff. And even as much as I love the sound of a roving herd of hogs, it would be pretty cool to have a completely soundless car that would do zero to one hundred in around nine!

Suicide Bombing

On the Quang Duc Homepage, Robert Topmiller writes:

For many Americans, the dramatic photo of the Thich Quang Duc?s self-immolation in 1963 constitutes their most enduring memory of the Vietnam War. In June of that year, as the Buddhist rebellion against Ngo Dinh Diem gained momentum, the elderly monk sat in a lotus position on a busy Saigon street and set himself on fire. This first and most spectacular self-immolation of the 1963 Buddhist crisis, an incredible act of protest that galvanized world opinion, served as a moving example of South Vietnamese resistance to the Diem regime that stamped an image on the Vietnam war that has never faded away.

It is my humble suggestion to today's would-be suicide bombers that following Quang Duc's example would go a lot farther to further their causes than the killing of innocent non-combatants.