In response to FAA Stops Beer Drone Delivery:
Maybe the FAA is on to something here. When Skynet takes over, do you really want the Hunter-Killer bots luring us out of hiding with six-packs? Because that would totally work. Especially if they were smart enough to use a variety of different brews to catch all the beer snobs.
Imagine you’re hiding in the ruins of Washington, checking your laser rifle and wondering how much longer the battery charge will hold up, when a case of Blue Moon drops outside your hideout… followed moments later by a package of orange slices. That tears it; you lunge out to grab these treasures, only too late hearing the whine of turbofans as the H-K swoops overhead and draws a bead on you…
But seriously, there’s a whiff of unpleasant bureaucratic stasis around this little tale. The FAA thinks it’s a great idea, but they told the guy to stop anyway, while they review their policies to see if there’s any reason they should tell him to stop? That’s the Republic of Paperwork for you in a nutshell.
Update: Along those same general lines, the Supreme Court is working on a case that essentially argues “straw gun purchases” – a big part of what the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms polices against, and the driving force behind the Obama Administration’s deadly Operation Fast and Furious – aren’t really illegal at all. They’re only treated as a crime because the ATF bureaucracy “interpreted the will of Congress” back in the Nineties and added a question to background-check forms in which a gun buyer swears he’s not purchasing the weapon for someone else.
First they tried to take our guns, and now they’re coming after our beer-delivery robots. Where does it end?