It's a far better thing, as well as much easier, for government to act to prevent a disaster, or at least to warn residents loudly and clearly of the potential consequences of their foolish choices.

What is not acceptable, what is a non-starter, is the notion that we can dispense with the law.

Somewhere in the Great Beyond, Hermann Goering is laughing.

I stood on the bridge; I stood right there on the bridge looking down at the Rio Grande River, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a Mexican gentleman who had started himself a ferryboat service.

Inspecting IDs is a waste of time and money, but it's ideal from the bureaucratic point of view because it doesn't solve the problem.

Bureaucracies never die, and India's still uses genuine red tape.