Deregulator: Alive since '85!

Save the planet, off the people The campaign against SUVs got particularly ugly today, as the Earth Liberation Front apparently orchestrated several incidents of vandalism and arson at four L.A. area auto dealers. The damages exceed $1 millon. This week, ELF also took "credit" for torching a five-story residential complex in San Diego Aug. 1, causing some $50 million in damages and endangering the lives of three construction workers who were sleeping in the building. To give you an idea of the level of intellectual nuance we're dealing with here, consider this: Near the scene of that blaze, firefighters found a 12-foot-long banner bearing the hand-lettered message: "IF YOU BUILD IT -- WE WILL BURN IT -- THE E.L.F.'s ARE MAD." As my friend Virginia Postrel points out, no response to date from SUV-bashing California gubernatorial candidate Arianna Huffington. Also no response from the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Foundation, or any other more-mainstream envi...

What's next ... a plague of locusts? The floods that hit parts of Las Vegas yesterday may go down as another case study of the failure of government planning. You may recall that after the "100- year flood" hit the city in 1999, local infrastructure experts accelerated plans to divert runoff to designated detention basins and flood channels. The local flood district has spent about $750 million over the past two decades on flood-prevention projects and claim that the job's only half done. The problem is, yesterday's flood hit a part of town that's supposed to have been "fixed." Water that flooded streets, stranded motorists and damaged homes (in relatively upscale neighborhoods, BTW) missed detention basins and other runoff channels by only a few yards. And another inch or more of rain is expected today. Of course, it's possible that at the rate the rain fell -- a few isolated areas recorded nearly 3 inches of rain in about 90 minutes -- no div...