Solution for Water shortages?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703735804575536560185801260.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLESecondNews

Always on the lookout for solutions ...

Israel drills for gas

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304250404575558134023689648.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLETopStories

100 year supply??

Capitalism Saved the Miners

Henninger explains ...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703673604575550322091167574.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

"If those miners had been trapped a half-mile down like this 25 years ago anywhere on earth, they would be dead. What happened over the past 25 years that meant the difference between life and death for those men?

Short answer: the Center Rock drill bit.

This is the miracle bit that drilled down to the trapped miners. Center Rock Inc. is a private company in Berlin, Pa. It has 74 employees. The drill's rig came from Schramm Inc. in West Chester, Pa. Seeing the disaster, Center Rock's president, Brandon Fisher, called the Chileans to offer his drill. Chile accepted. The miners are alive"

Here is a gem from the OpEd

"In an open economy, you will never know what is out there on the leading developmental edge of this or that industry. But the reality behind the miracles is the same: Someone innovates something useful, makes money from it, and re-innovates, or someone else trumps their innovation. Most of the time, no one notices. All it does is create jobs, wealth and well-being. But without this system running in the background, without the year-over-year progress embedded in these capitalist innovations, those trapped miners would be dead"

Bryan Caplan on Immigration

Nothing is as one may believe ...

http://www.fff.org/comment/com1009f.asp

(Why is this here? The future is brighter if we allow those that want to come here, to come here)

Cars that drive themselves?

Oh yes ... The Google Car

http://www.thespec.com/news/business/article/266177--google-cars-drive-themselves-in-traffic

"Collateral Beneficience"

http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/collateral-beneficence is where I first saw this ... and here is the link to the actual report

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11496710

Conclusion? Genetically modified crops bring cash harvest to Non Genetically modified crops

"Where good ideas come from"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704631504575531790397679612.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

A book by Steven Johnson (I imagine it covers ideas like what Matt Ridley has done in the "Rational Optimist"

Here is part of a book review by McArdle

The endless creativity of the human animal is one of the differences between us and a chimpanzee poking sticks into an anthill in search of a juicy meal. But another one is our capacity for the endless elaboration and refinement of ideas—particularly in a modern economy. Toyota's prowess at this sort of incremental improvement is legendary, even radical. Wal-Mart, it is said, was responsible for 25% of U.S. productivity growth in the 1990s. That's not because Sam Walton emerged from his lab one night waving blueprints for a magic productivity machine. The company made continual, often tiny, improvements in the management of its supply chain, opening thousands of stores along the way and putting the benefits within reach of virtually every American.

We are all of us, every day, discovering many things that don't work very well and a few things that do. Reducing the history of innovation to a few "big ideas" misses the full power of human ingenuity.

Ms. McArdle is the business and economics editor of The Atlantic and a fellow at the New America Foundation.