The Mess in the GOP

Corporate kleptocrats and religious kooks are fighting for control of the GOP. The trouble is that each is becoming unelectable.

No, the country is not going to ban abortion across the board. No, the country does not believe that billionaires are panting to create jobs, except overseas.

For the GOP to survive and prosper again, both factions have to make their agenda realistic. To save face, call it clarifying their agenda:

1. Social conservatives should stop trying to impose their religious views via the federal government. They should work to devolve social issues to the states: abortion, drugs, gay marriage, assisted suicide, etc.

2. Economic conservatives should stress that they favor free markets over big businesses; if they don't, they should damn well start. Questioning the too-big-to-fail status quo is one place to start. Adopting Derek Khanna's agenda is another. A market economy with a safety net is salable to the electorate, and big business might prefer it to what the Democrats want to do to them.

Ideological Imbalance in Academia

I'm not proposing the following proposal as a definitive policy, but as a starting point for discussion:

No institution of higher learning that receives government funding more than TBD may require politically partisan coursework as a requirement for graduation. If such coursework is required, said funding will be cancelled.

I could propose that no credits toward graduation be granted for partisan coursework, but I am just brimming with tolerance, accommodation, and sweet reason. ;-)

A New Precautionary Principle

The Precautionary Principle states that no innovation or policy change should be implemented until it has been proven to be safe. That is, no change should be adopted until every objection has been conclusively refuted; the burden of proof falls on those who propose the change.

My suggestion:

Disregard everybody who invokes or implies the Precautionary Principle.

One Term for the Fed Chairman

This reduces the temptation to manipulate rates in a manner that panders to politicians, the President in particular.

If a given Fed chair is supposedly irreplaceable--the Greenspan debacle is a counterexample--, the Fed is structured incorrectly and invested with too much power.

Maybe the single term should be made longer than the current renewable term.

On Citizenship Requirements

Brainstorming suggestion: everybody applying for US citizenship or residency should be required to sign a commitment to human rights, including the right of adults to change their religion, to marry (or refuse to marry) a consenting counterparty of their choice, etc.

Among other things, such a requirement would support Muslim moderates who are currently intimidated by the Islamists--and it would provide grounds for revocation and deportation if naturalized extremists acted out.

Addendum. This proposal is timely given the Moslem Brotherhood's recent declaration against the USA (and Israel, of course).

Extend the NH Pledge Nationwide

NH gubernatorial candidates have no chance of getting elected unless they pledge to veto an income tax bill. (That may change as Democrats move into the state and its Republicans become dispirited with their national party.)

I'd like to see all candidates for Congress, especially the Republican ones, offered a similar pledge regarding a VAT[1]. In addition to voting against a VAT, Senate candidates should be asked to pledge to filibuster it.

The reaction would say a good deal about which Republicans are serious about limited government and which ones are paying lip service or lying outright. That's probably why the national GOP is not mentioning such an obvious tactic, but I'd like to see the Tea Parties take the issue up.
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[1] I vehemently oppose Obama-Bush profligacy and I vehemently oppose major tax increases: I want spending cuts.

How Much Lunar Water is Enough?

CNET reports regarding a NASA instrument aboard India's lunar probe:

NASA scientists reported Monday night that the space agency has discovered as much as 1.3 trillion pounds of ice on the moon, a finding that indicates future lunar visitors could have a wealth of water waiting for them.

Not having consulted the NASA sources as yet, for the time being I'll take the 1.3T lb as an estimate of the total water on the Moon (not the water on part of the area).

If a pint's a pound, that means the Moon has about 160 billion gallons.

However, 300M Americans use 400 billion gallons daily.

Suppose you cut that down to 20B gal/day by recycling. Then a small lunar nation of 3M people would use 200M gal/day. It would take them little more than two years (~800 days) to exhaust the supply.

We're not ready to colonize the Moon even if travel were affordable. We need to find--or make--more water. (There's plenty of solar power.)

However, when technological progres is allowed for, a lunar/Mars-colony test bed, populated by 3K+ high-skilled people supported by robotics etc, does not seem out of the question by midcentury.

Dude, Here's Your Flying Car Home

Here, here and here.

Roving residential communities? Could they be scaled down to single-unit mobile homes? The air traffic control would be tricky and safety considerations would probably dictate automated and remote pilot override capabilities. But why not?

Addendum 20103013. Variations on the theme are here, here, and here. In addition to a race, I'd like to see a contest for airborned longevity (including weight classes). Resupply allowed.

Dhimmitude to Grizzly Bears

I am delighted to share my property with wildlife--as long as they fully understand who belongs to the dominant species.

This Forest Service page has many interesting links related to the government's efforts to restore grizzly bears in the lower 48 states. Clicking through, I came to these Tips for Residents in Grizzly Country.

Unfortunately, the term 'grizzly country' is all too literal: the document discusses how humans, at their own effort and expense, should make themselves and their property unattractive to the bears (without harming the dears, of course).

My suggestion: enlist Charles Darwin to teach the bears that bothering humans has excruciating or fatal consequences.

Addendum 20100227. Oh, and by all means kill the orca that drowned his trainer, and was involved in two previous human deaths to boot.

I don't know if the brute is being kept alive because of squeamishness or greed. Maybe both.

In a society that, apparently, can never have too many counterproductive safety measures, why did SeaWorld make no provision for intervention? Squeamishness, stupidity, or greed? If the orca had been killed to save the trainer, would they have gotten worse publicity than they have after the trainer died?

In principle I agree that Dawn Brancheau (RIP) knew the risks and should not have been prevented from accepting them. In practice, I question whether that's the ethical foundation on which SeaWorld's operating policies rest.

The Kind of News We Need

Berkshire Hathaway is acquiring Burlington Northern Santa Fe:

...the transaction is valued at approximately $44 billion, including $10 billion
of outstanding BNSF debt, making it the largest acquisition in Berkshire Hathaway history.

“Our country’s future prosperity depends on its having an efficient and well-maintained rail system,” said Warren E. Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway chairman and chief executive officer. “Conversely, America must grow and prosper for railroads to do well. Berkshire’s $34 billion investment in BNSF is a huge bet on that company, CEO Matt Rose and his team, and the railroad industry.

“Most important of all, however, it’s an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States,” said Mr. Buffett. “I love these bets.”

More from Buffett here:

...Fortunately, our two big businesses, insurance and our utility business, aren't really affected that much by the recession. But most of our businesses are still feeling severe effects from the recession. They are not going down. It's stabilized. There's not this fear that was prevalent eight or ten months ago, but business has not bounced very much. It will. I don't know when, but it will. We wouldn't be putting out the equivalent of $34 billion unless I felt there's a lot of good years for America. America's best years lie ahead. There's no question about that.
...
...But this country will solve its problems. We're not so good necessarily at avoiding problems, but we're pretty good at solving problems. And I remember back in the early '80s, we thought that Germany and Japan were going to eat our lunch and we'd all just be working at McDonald's and cutting each other's hair or something to keep busy. But we added tens of millions of jobs since then. So, we do come up with things. You can't predict that we'll have a software industry or you can't predict that we'll have a great aircraft industry, but those things come along. And the world right now, 12 percent of our GDP is going to exports and 35 years ago only 5 percent was. So we are making some things the world wants. But I agree with you, Governor, you've really got -- you've got to count on the potential of people that you and I don't even know coming up with new things to do that the world wants. Historically we've been very good at that and I think we'll be good at it in the future.

Like Buffett's interviewer said, I want to stand up when I hear talk like that.

(Btw, I too have wondered what the Next Big Thing might be. For Bill Clinton, it was the Internet.)

Addendum 20091118. More from Warren Buffett and Bill Gates (full unofficial transcript here.):

BECKY: All right. Welcome back, everybody. Gentlemen, last question today. If America was a stock, would you buy it? Bill.

GATES: You bet.

BECKY: Warren.

BUFFETT: On margin.

Isn't there a saying to the effect that no cynics get rich?

Addendum 20091212. While Buffett has a reputation for integrity, note that his Burlington acquisition presumably needs government approval.

Be President, Barry

"House Democrats propose $410B spending bill", reports the AP. Including an 8% increase during a dangerous recession.

One of Bush's biggest mistakes was his failure, afaik, to veto a single spending bill while his party controlled Congress. Obama should not repeat it.

Let me fantasize. Everybody (Pelosi, Reid, etc.) gathers for the signing. Obama marches in stonefaced and announces he's not going to waste the American people's money with this and this and this and too much else to mention. He takes out a magic marker and writes a big block-letter VETO that he holds up for the cameras. Saying "Madame Speaker, take this back and fix it," he starts to hand the bill to Pelosi, but then he stops and says, "No, just start over." And marches out.

Seriously, "the President is who you vote for to protect you from other people's Congressmen." Obama should make it publicly clear that he is such a President. (Is he?) Note that early in his administration, Reagan fired government air traffic controllers who were striking illegally, even though their union had supported him in the election.

In other words, Obama should set up a kinder, gentler Sister Soujah moment with Pelosi.

Trickle-Down Biotech?

Glenn Reynolds:

But what’s really nice about today’s world is that lots of things that were luxuries a few years ago are cheap — flat-screen HDTVs for under $500, for example. It’s possible to live quite well, even luxuriously in many respects, by the standards of previous decades on not all that much money, if you don’t insist on having the biggest, latest and trendiest.

This should be a model for the research and deployment of medical treatments.

Should be but won't. The political demagogic class will never tolerate having a life-saving treatment restricted to "the rich" even though the restriction is temporary--and the alternative, if any, is a slowed development cycle.

Shielding Space Travelers From Solar Storms

Apparently the Europeans have devised a compact magnetic shield. A simulation was reported here. Preliminary measurements are reported here.

I've read that passengers on a space elevator passing through the Van Allen belts would be endangered by radiation, and that strength of the elevator material could be endangered by radiation-produced defects. Might the magnetic technology be adapted to this situation?

Space Elevator

A few weeks ago, the Japanese announced they are getting serious about a space elevator. The Russians[1] may be stirring too.

Since the Japanese are currently the world's best engineers, they might pull this off.

It would probably be a game-changer insofar as the world balance of power goes. Accordingly, the USA doing it would be preferable afaic, but that's almost beside the big-picture point. What is essential is that humanity do it.

Just as during the chaos and pessimism of the 60s and 70s, the building blocks of the information era were being created,...?
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[1] Although Tsiolkovsky had the original idea of a space elevator, the headline of this piece is unsupported by the text. I don't see corroboration that the Japanese will subcontract manufacturing to the Russians.

We Need a Commission

There's plenty of blame to go around for the current financial crisis, but I'm not sure whether it should be evenly distributed. Here's a high-grade amoral ploy: the faction that primarily caused a given problem makes political hay by pinning the blame on the faction that tried to prevent it[1].

Something like the Challenger Commission or 9/11 Commission is needed, i.e. a council of elders composed of people with reputations for objectivity and integrity. Put some credentialed foreigners on it too.

Who were the Republican legislators that helped the Democrats block the regulatory Fannie proposals that failed a few years ago?
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Nobody seems to be talking about putting the federal budget so we're better positioned to deal with the next crisis when it comes along.
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[1] Not that I wrote "a given problem". There are plenty of problems and plenty of responsibility for them, and I don't doubt that both parties and multiple factions are trying the ploy I mentioned.