Dumb Lawmakers and the Rules They Frame
We often curse our lawmakers (politicians) for being so dumb, for not understanding complex issues, and for coming up with ad-hoc rules based on sheer ignorance. Let’s see if things are better elsewhere. Let’s start with American Congress(wo)man Eleanor Holmes Norton. Asked how Toyota handled complaints, Toyota’s President said that his engineers started by trying to duplicate the reported problem in their labs. Norton’s response? “Your answer -- we'll wait to see if this is duplicated -- is very troublesome” . I am stumped: how can an engineering company fix an issue that they cannot reproduce ? Did the Congressman not understand how engineering is done? Or was she just playing to the galleries? In UK, they have a law that allows a few other select entities to archive a copy of every printed publication in UK without being charged with copyright infringement. The reason behind that is to preserve articles for posterity. But when it comes to doing the same for British In...