This stirring spin around the Le Mans circuit in 1956 gives me an idea. The video was a lot of fun on its own merits, of course. Look at how far our technology has come in the intervening half a century or so. The camera on the back of the car weighs about enough to make the Jag pop a wheelie. In the spot where your GPS goes in your car, Mike Hawthorne has his wife’s makeup mirror to look at. The microphone apparatus looks like a bizarre dental experiment.

But one problem hasn’t been solved in the intervening years. I’m informed that there’s a population problem that needs fixing, or we’re all doomed, doomed I say. Every newspaper in the world explains to me that we’re running out of everything, and it’s because there are just too many people on Earth. We’re going to run out of food, water, icebergs, gasoline, single-family split-level ranches, rhinos, bumblebees, polar bears, and three-cent stamps any day now, and we have been since this video was made. Something must be done! This video gives me an idea.

A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick:

Let people ride bicycles, walk around, and drive regular cars without seatbelts on Formula 1 tracks while the race cars are using it. Problem Solved!

[Many thanks to Johnny Glendale for sending that one along. It’s magnafeekee]