Now the rail has come, and the fire-carriage says buz-buz-buz, and a hundred lakhs of maunds slide across that big bridge.

These beggars on horseback — the poor we will always have with us as long as we give such alms - are forever at the elbows of the secretaries, representatives, senators. The people who pay are at work in their fields, out of sight, scattered over thousands of miles.

It was a lovely moment, a developer outgreening environmentalists by nobly espousing the largest real estate project in history, and it illustrated why Mars is a no-lose proposition for libertarians.

It's a lot of work just to break even and keep the weeds down.