Carbon Credits = Let Them Eat Cake

When Algore or Laurie David or some such affluent environanny rationalizes their extravagance via a purchase of carbon credits, they ignore that the cost of such credits is negligible to them and major to ordinary people.

In other words, the envirosnobs want to impose privations on the public that are not privations to them. And they don't acknowledge it: quite deliberately and cynically no doubt.

Hey, in a planetary emergency, the leaders should set the example, right? Instead, this is yet another instance where they want rules for the public that do not affect themselves.

Out of the Fire and Back in the Frying Pan

That's my reaction to the people who are missing Bush.

Afaic reacting to Obama by missing Bush is like reacting to Nixon by missing LBJ.

Bravo, Fred Bright, Georgia DA

He decided that there is not sufficient evidence to prosecute the tacky Ben Roethlisberger. "We do not prosecute morals. We prosecute crimes." Like I said:

That saying should be posted on the wall of every prosecutor in the country. And every on the wall of “activist” zealot, for that matter.

Whether he seeks higher office, remains in law enforcement, or enters private practice, I wish Mr. Bright well in his future endeavors.

Bravo.

Addendum 20100418. Unfortunately, not everyone involved in the case was as professional as Bright: Cop who investigated Roethlisberger forced to resign.

MD Motorcyclist Stopped at Gunpoint

A motorcycle rider is recording his ride with a helmet cam. He is cut off by an unmarked car from which somebody emerges holding a gun, orders the driver off the bike, and then identifies himself as a police officer. The driver gets a ticker. He posts the video on You Tube and pretty much forgets about the incident.

Thereupon he is served with a search warrant and charged with felonious recording; the maximum sentence is five years in prison. If not for undisclosed medical issues, he would have been arrested. It's illegal to record someone in MD without them knowing (unless you're Linda Tripp?). Apparently a helmet cam in plain sight does not qualify.

In a free country you do not threaten someone with five years in prison because he made the police look bad.

This will not stop until there are serious consequences for police and prosecutors--don't forget the prosecutor who is willingly joining the witch hunt--who abuse their authority. The rogue cop and the rogue prosecutor will get out of this scot free.

(Look at films from the 70s and 80s to see how scared people were about rampant lawlessness. We no longer live in such fear. But have we traded an unnecessary amount of liberty for the security we have? For that matter, how much security do we have when police abuse their power in the manner shown on the video?)

Oh, and why does it take two police cars and a drawn weapon to make a routine traffic stop?

Those police are working for us. Sure they are.

The Franchise

Restricting the franchise to "qualified" voters has an unsavory history in the USA. (When assessing the damage from the Civil War, the damage from Jim Crow and Reconstruction should not be forgotten.) Nevertheless, in the abstract, I can accept the proposition that someone who turns to their fellow citizens, via the State, for support should forego some--not all--of their civil rights.

I've placed a related comment here:

The Founders were aware that voters and special interests might try to plunder the federal treasury. That is presumably one reason why the franchise was originally restricted to property-owning males.

The nation is on the brink of terminal stagnation or worse. It’s tempting to associate that condition with the extension of the franchise to irresponsible voters. IMO such linkage is plausible but, because correlation is not causation, not conclusive.

However, when there is a push to allow non-citizens to vote (via deliberate non-enforceability of registration requirements or via illegal-alien “amnesties”), something is very very wrong.

And the government and special interests deliberately refuse to enforce the borders. Combine that with goo-goo multiculturalism...

I Hope She's Right

Rand Simberg interviews NASA second-in-command Lori Garver:

A caveat to begin: the agency is still planning its mission sequence and goals. With that in mind, within five years, I would expect to see at least one commercial U.S. vehicle carrying astronauts to and from the ISS on a regular basis for a per-seat price. I would anticipate that additional private citizens and other government agencies might also be buying transportation services to and from a possible co-orbiting commercial/industrial space station, perhaps using inflatable technology. NASA will be, at that time, developing our state-of-the-art heavy-lift vehicle that will take us into deep space for missions to a variety of destinations throughout the solar system...I'm confident the excitement of the President's future-looking vision for NASA will carry the day and in five years, we will be amazed at how far we have progressed beyond today's capabilities.

The private sector servicing the space station within five years? Together with, perhaps, a private sector version(s) of the station? If that happens--and I hope it does--, wow!

The first sustainable step out of the gravity well. (By which I mean that it can be profitable via tourism if nothing else. Hopefully additional economic opportunities will arise.)

USA Squelches Emerging Economic Competitors

This'll fix 'em:

The financial geniuses who gave us the housing collapse and other credit bubbles are turning their talents toward emerging-market debt.

Paul Ryan

Worthwhile speech here (HT: Neo-Neocon).

Transterrestrial commenter McGehee:

I’d be more open to the idea of Paul Ryan running for president if his Reagan hairstyle didn’t look so obvious. I hear all kinds of good things about the guy, but that hairstyle just looks a bit too cute.

Agreed.

Comments: April 2010

On the intentional disfigurement of language by the PC. In particular, note this quote from Theodore Dalrymple.

On the proposition that the franchise be restricted to taxpayers.

On Georgia DA Fred Bright's decision not to prosecute Ben Roethlisberger. “We do not prosecute morals,” Bright said, “We prosecute crimes.”

On "intellectual property".

On LSU's grade-inflation kerfluffle, and the principals. I wonder if the dean was settling a score.

On Clausewitz's relevance to politics.

Wrt John Paulson's bet against the housing market, on a foolish convention in financial reporting about burst market bubbles.

Concluding, here and here, that Haley Barbour is a racist bigot.

On Obama and the VAT.

On potential Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan: pro, then con My point is that an anti-military Justice should be especially unthinkable when we have troops fighting abroad as part of a novel kind of war. (And I'm no fan of expanded government authority.)

April the Fool

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

You tell 'em, Edna.

This Is Just Good Government. The French Would Never Be Protectionist.

No, they're just being logical:

LONDON, March 26 (Reuters) - Hedge funds and managers based outside the European Union should be banned from soliciting EU investors unless they meet the bloc's strict new supervisory standards, a senior lawmaker said on Friday.
...
Jean-Paul Gauzes, a French centre-right lawmaker responsible for the draft in parliament, wants to ban third country funds and managers whose home rules are deemed by the EU not to be of an equivalent standard to the bloc's new rules.

It's a pure coincidence that their proposed measures would undermine London as an international financial center--and simultaneously take a whack at the US finance industry.

All part of France's high-minded mission to civilize the world.

Is This How the Underclass Feels?

I hate my stockbroker.

I need low commissions and I don't have much money to pay for data.

My online broker has low commissions and offers free data.

The trouble is that the executions are poor and so are data access and quality. I am livid. When I log on, I have little confidence that the connection will hold; when I put in an order, I have little confidence that it will be filled expeditiously; but I have high confidence that my blood pressure will surge.

Other people feel the same way. The broker is routinely berated on discussion sites, including the broker's own.

For the time being, I can't afford better. If the broker went out of business, I'd be in real trouble.

In effect, I'm demanding that a level of service which I can't afford be provided to me for free.

My anger is irrational. Pointless. Silly. But there it is.

New Yorkers Love Their Nanny State

Here.

What Would Milton Friedman Say?

The closest we can come to knowing is to hear his student and colleague Gary Becker.

A badly needed dose of intellectually grounded optimism.

In fact, I assert that in conditions like ours, optimism is a moral obligation.

Frum Done at AEI

David Frum coined the term 'conservative entertainment industry' and was fired from AEI shortly thereafter.

Early in his tenure as RNC Chairman, Michael Steele had to apologize to Rush Limbaugh.

This is insane.

Or pathetic. Does Oprah Winfrey call the shots in the Democratic Party?

My suggestion: Flush Rush.

Addendum 20100326. Mark Steyn and others basically say that Frum was not earning the six figures that AEI paid him.

I Was Hit by Scareware a Few Months Ago

Maybe from these people:

(Reuters) - Hundreds of computer geeks, most of them students putting themselves through college, crammed into three floors of an office building in an industrial section of Ukraine's capital Kiev, churning out code at a frenzied pace. They were creating some of the world's most pernicious, and profitable, computer viruses.
...
In a rare victory in the battle against cybercrime, the company closed down last year after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit seeking its disbandment in U.S. federal court.

The kind of victory I'd prefer is a UAV strike.

The Health Insurance Industry's Coming Collapse

Neo-neocon has the scoop from Rush Limbaugh.
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Modest Proposal and Open Letter

Rush, you didn't become a very rich man by accident. Surely you'd like to be an even richer one.

It's possible to profit from the collapse of the health insurance stocks. Short them, buy options, or a combination of the two.

Do you feel lucky, Rush? Well, do you?

I look forward to hearing that your broker has executed your instructions. I look forward to following the market value of the Limbaugh Portfolio.
********
To be entered as a comment on the linked article.

Failure: What's in It for Me?

Moral superiority.

Republicans AMBUHshed by Stock Market

AMBUH is an index of health insurance stocks. It's up more than 85% in the last year.

Something to watch as Obamacare continues.

Curse you, George Soros! ;-)

A biotech metric (the XBI ETF) is up over 30%, underperforming the insurance stocks. So I see no reason to reconsider my opposition to Obamacare.

To be posted at LGF & NNC.

Among the Best of the Genre

Hitler Discovers Republicans Have No Ideas.

A Liberal Speaks

I am apologizing about the teabaggers.

As a highly educated white liberal of elite morality and intelligence, I hope for the day when my race is a credit to me.

A Democrat I Can Support

Congressman Tom Perriello (D-VA) says:

If you don't tie our hands, we will keep stealing.

That is, I can support him if he's willing to live up to the rhetoric.

Stealing is exactly what they're doing.

Obamacare and November

My previous post described how my anti-Obamacare activism stopped on a dime.

Instapundit thinks this is a serious analysis

What they don’t realize is that today’s vote isn’t the end, but just a new beginning in the debate over health care. Buckle up, because if they manage to cobble together enough votes to pass the Senate Health Bill today, we’re set for weeks and perhaps months of a constitutional and political crisis the likes of which we haven’t seen in our lifetimes.

...Also, it [Obamacare] is in direct conflict with state law in at least two states, Idaho and Virginia.

While the legal battles wage on, expect an enormous public back-lash against the Democrats.

1. How about the Constitutional crisis from the Clinton impeachment?

2. The author seems unaware that federal law supersedes state law.

3. Yup, just like the enormous public backlash against the Democrats in 1998.
***********
These clowns could be in for quite a surprise.

As with the previous post, I'll put the above at LGF.

Obamacare and Me

Here is how this conservative-tilting libertarian stopped working against the bill.

I made a list of Congresspeople to call. After calling a couple, I checked in at The Corner to find Kathryn Lopez chatting about co-hosting a broadcast with Rick Santorum...and Tom DeLay himself called in! Afaic Santorum is a synonym for stupid; DeLay, for corrupt. I was not pleased.

Then she tried to fire me up with this video.

My palm smacked my forehead. They think we've forgotten how crazy and corrupt and dumb and incompetent they are. They think they have the rubes marching to their tune again.

I made no more calls.

I hope the bill is defeated. If it passes as seems likely, I'll go on from there. I'm picking my battles. Stoicism is a virtue that merits revival.

And K-Lo, about reinstating my subscription? Fuhgedaboudit.

You betcha.

I'll place the foregoing at Little Green Footballs.

David Brooks and Jennifer Rubin

I've been critical of both of them, but recently Brooks has gone farther off the deep end while Rubin has talked sense. I will submit the following as a comment to Ledeen's Brooks piece.

Brooks has abruptly swung from Polyanna smugness to what he thinks is Kierkegaardian despair.

And he still doesn't get it:

But I persist in the belief that government is more fundamentally messed up than ever in my lifetime. Barack Obama campaigned offering a new era of sane government. And I believe he would do it if he had the chance. But he has been so sucked into the system that now he stands by while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi talks about passing health care via “deem and pass”...

Ah yes, the noble well-intentioned leader is undone by his sinister advisors. Poor Kaiser Wilhelm! Poor Chiang Kai-shek! Poor President Obama!

Where does the buck stop? Or don't they talk so simplistically in the intellectual stratosphere that Brooks inhabits?

I have a degree of sympathy for Brooks, but I fear that he has ruined himself and abetted great damage to the country in the process.

Rage and despair each have their attractions under the circumstances, but neither is constructive. IMHO Jennifer Rubin strikes the right note:

I personally am not out on a ledge. (But then I never bought the whole Obama campaign whoop-de-do.) Should this pass, I have infinite faith that the American people will deliver a mortal electoral blow to those politicians who thought they could shred anything to get their way. And then bit by bit — or in one fell swoop — the elected replacements for the shredders will rip out ObamaCare. So there’s no reason to be morose. Elections are great corrective exercises, and one is just around the corner.

La Pelosi

If she rams through Obamacare and the Democrats hold the House in November, she is a shoo-in to enter history as a strong Speaker. In any other scenario, her current chances are iffy at best.

Afterthought 20100318. The Supreme Court Justices who attended the State of the Union address were attacked by Obama while surrounded by jeering Democrats. Obama and the Democrats might come to regret that bit of intimidation.

A Guess about 2012

Obama-Clinton.

Request to St. Patrick

Great job throwing the snakes out of Ireland.

Now please come back and throw them out of DC.

Thanks, I Needed That

The importance of hybridizing your skills. I've been griping because I should do that but don't want to; the reminder is constructive.

However, focus and specialization can be essential too.

It depends on the context.

Creative synergistic visionaries are essential. So are people who take out the trash on schedule every day.

Interesting Conjecture about Advanced Intelligences

How will advanced intelligences, either artificial or alien, treat sapients below them on the evolutionary scale?

J. Storrs Hall suggests that such intelligences will be risk-takers and they will treat sapient risk-takers with consideration as primitive kindred.

But if the sapients have used their intelligence to construct a static, risk-averse society, they will be treated as uncivilized, even as inanimate.

Wolverines! Wolverines!

I first saw Red Dawn within the last three years or so. To date it is my only exposure to the acting of Patrick Swayze (1952-2009 RIP).

The film surprised me. I've occasionally seen it dismissed as a fascistic propaganda piece. I didn't think it would be that, but I expected it to be more upbeat and flag-waving than it is. IMO the human cost of war is well portrayed. The price is presented as worth paying, but Red Dawn does not flinch from saying that the price is high.

Iowahawk Comes Roaring Screaming Back

Even Homer sometimes nods, and so, perhaps, has Iowahawk for a time.

However, this compilation of press reports regarding senior Obama staff is close to the level of his best work.

Is What Obama Is Precluding More Important Than What He's Screwing Up?

America has been about growth, change and progress. For example: The Louisiana Purchase. Emancipation. The Homestead Act. Women's suffrage. Jazz. Tom Edison. The telephone. Nuclear energy. Civil rights. The Salk vaccine. The Moon landing. The PC. The Internet. Mobile phones. Consumer GPS.

What transformations are not happening because of Obama's screw-ups?

On the other hand, unlikely though it seems, if he rights the ship and something big happens on his watch--something like a breakthrough in robotics that makes domestic manufacturing cost-effective--, he could still go out in triumph like Clinton did during the Internet Bubble.

For some time I've been meaning to express the foregoing. Since neo-neocon's post finally got me off the dime, I'll submit it there as a comment.

Dennis the Menace and Nicky 510

I've already noted that by the 1970s the blonde hellion of the 1950s had become a bland blank slate ready to be inscribed with PC programming.

Some of the original spirit is captured by Nicky 510, who reminds me of the primordial Dennis, and of Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes. Recommended.

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.

I Thought This Was the GOP Playbook

Indiana prosecutor Stanley Levco claims that automated video rentals endanger The Children. He threatens to bring felony charges against a grocery store whose machine offers PG-rated material. He was alerted to the threat to Indiana's youth by...a lawyer for a video-store owner.

To my surprise, Levco turns out to be a Democrat.

Another Straw for the CAmel's Broken Back

The California legislature is seriously considering a law to create a sex-offender-type registry for animal abusers.

To be financed by "a small tax on pet food".

The state is melting down and they propose another "small" extension of government financed by another "small" tax.

Incredible.

Comments: March 2010

Speaking up for Jim Webb. (Webb was elected Senator in 2006, not 2004.)

On the expense and disruption of Presidential visits. Note also that there is a trickle-down effect: many a self-important governor and mayor will imitate the Presidential way of travel.

On the left and children of all ages.

On protests against CA education budget cuts. (Scroll down to 'gs said' or 'March 6, 2010 7:34 AM'.)

David Cameron reminds me of John Lindsay, not John McCain.

On Charlie Rangel's exit.

On the GOP establishment and it's ignoring of Paul Ryan. (Unfortunately, getting too specific about budget cuts opens you to attacks by supporters of those programs: you don't care about national defense, you don't care about The Children, etc etc

Why what is not happening could be worse than what is.

On Robert Frost's Design, Intelligent Design, and evolution. (Scroll down to ''gs said' or to 'March 9, 2010 11:05 AM')

On Rachel Corrie. John O'Neill's phrase about "rich American kids vacationing in other peoples miseries" is spot on.

On the morality of technology and Kurzweil's Reflections on Avatar. My comment is the first.

In support of Amazon's retaliation against Colorado's taxation efforts--but cautioning that the company acts against the public interest when it suits its purposes.

Shades of George MacacAllen: here, here, and here.

On Afrocity's PTSD-like symptoms: here and here.

On David Brooks: here and here.

Suspicion of the Republican resurgence.

On wrecking the country via immigration.

On the gravity of Obamacare: here, here, here, here, here, and here.

On getting illegal-alien amnesty through Congress, and the role of data overload in contemporary politics.

On Bush's Ben Tre logic. On Limbaugh's expertise in financial economics.

More on healthcare and Congressional machinations: here, here, here, and here.

On Obama and American Jews: here and here.

On the role of spiritual experience in the religious right's politics: here, here, and here.

On Michele Bachmann and Obamacare repeal. Also here, here, here, and here.

On bad poetry: here and here.

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.

Miss Me Yet? Yes!

Before I forget, I want to post this:

The other images and links here are worth a look too.

The Sanfords are Divorced

See here.

With reservations, my sympathies are with Jenny Stanford. They were unconditionally hers until I learned that fiancé Mark told her he might not be a faithful spouse--and she married him anyway.

Smart woman, stupid choice?

I Like This Hopeless Cause

Jim McGovern is my Congressman. Though I strongly disagree with his leftist orientation, his responses to my constituent inquiries have been courteous and to the point. He is a competent professional politician: I still remember how skillfully he ejected his hapless predecessor, the stupid incumbent Republican Peter Blute. I expect McGovern to survive even if the GOP makes historic gains in November. He is no Martha Coakley.

Nevertheless, I have to salute Mike Stopa's quixotic effort, in particular this:

I am calling for an immediate reduction in the civilian federal workforce of 10 %. While businesses big and small across America have to tighten their belts in order to adjust to hard economic times, the federal government has become more bloated than ever, topping 2 million (including military personel) for the first time in ten years. Upon election, I will propose legislation that will immediately reduce the civilian workforce from 1.25 to 1.1 million and will freeze the workforce at those levels until the unemployment rate overall drops below 6 %.

This is so gloriously anti-political I have to love the guy. I wish the GOP and Tea Partiers would find a way to make this point in an electorally palatable way. Perhaps a federal hiring freeze would fly?

If the government is the employer of last resort in a recession but there's no need to restrain government growth during economic expansion, when exactly do we stop government from growing faster than the economy?

If American voters reduced government workforces during a recession, that would be a major step toward delegitimizing the impacted governments. (I mean delegitimizing government's claim to be public's master and/or nanny rather than creature and servant.)

Hopefully Wrong, but Maybe Not

I've seen a few posts claiming the Democratic Party is controlled by doctrinaire leftists who view losing elections as an acceptable price for forcing irreversible changes on American society. Here's one.

Meanwhile, Instapundit links to WSJ's John Fund's Speaker Pelosi’s Treasure Hunt for Votes Isn’t Going Well...and the Intrade odds for Obamacare have climbed steadily to 2:1.

Blue-Sky Conjecture

The Obama Administraton's decision to refocus NASA on commercial applications will be as important fifty years from now as today is the decision, about fifty years ago, to begin work on what became the Intenet.

Medical Marijuana: Entrapment and Worse

Radley Balko reports:

Last Friday, the DEA raided a medical marijuana producer in Colorado. The story needs some fleshing out, but at the moment it appears that Chris Bartkowicz wasn't violating any state law. Medical marijuana is legal in Colorado. His offense appears to have been boasting about how much money he makes growing the drug for patients...The DEA is not only unapologetic, they appear to be blatantly ignoring last year's directive from the Obama Justice Department instructing U.S. attorneys to allow medical marijuana growers and distributors to operate so long as they're complying with state law.

From the Balko link:

Along with the raid, Jeffrey Sweetin, the Drug Enforcement Administration's special agent in charge of the Denver office, sent a message to anyone involved in Colorado's increasingly profitable medical-marijuana industry. (p)"It's still a violation of federal law," Sweetin said. "It's not medicine. We're still going to continue to investigate and arrest people."
...
A memo in October from Deputy U.S. Attorney General David Ogden said federal agents should not target people in "clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana." The memo led many in Colorado's medical-marijuana community to believe that federal agents would no longer raid medical-marijuana dispensaries or growers.

Guidelines included in the memo to distinguish between lawful medical-marijuana operations and unlawful ones include whether the operations produce more plants or generate more money than state laws intend. Sweetin said those guidelines put much of Colorado's medical-marijuana industry in the crosshairs and that he has been gathering information on dispensary owners and their operations for months.

"Technically, every dispensary in the state is in blatant violation of federal law," he said. "The time is coming when we go into a dispensary, we find out what their profit is, we seize the building and we arrest everybody. They're violating federal law; they're at risk of arrest and imprisonment."

Reason notes:

The really galling aspect of this case is that Jeffrey Sweetin, who runs the DEA's Denver office, does not even pretend to be interpreting state law, as the Justice Department memo ostensibly requires.

Wrt another raid, I commented:

The government has engaged in entrapment.

"We're going to be restrained, sensible and decent about medical marijuana," sez the Prez.

So the providers come into the open, and...wham!

A jury might accept an entrapment defense--I would--, so I look for non-drug offenses to be included in the indictments.
********
Note to Obama: you can confiscate a lot of money by pulling the same trick with delinquent taxes.

Another note to Obama: when federal police ignore the President's policy directives and pursue their own agenda, they have begun acting like a Praetorian Guard.
****************
Doubtless many growers of medical marijuana do not have compassionate motives, but that's not the point.

Coincidence?

1. A Microsoft executive calls for Internet "driver's licenses". A Time Warner columnist chimes in with an "opinion" piece.

2. War game reveals U.S. lacks cyber-crisis skills, thunders the Washington Post. The Bipartisan Policy Center, which sponsored the war game, has no blatant ties to the IP monopolies, but it was founded by the kinds of 'centrists'--Howard Baker, Bob Dole, Daschle, George Mitchell, Gephardt--who did not get where they are by bucking special interests.

I'm not questioning the threat. I'm questioning the government's capability to deal with it. I'm saying the government's first instinct is not to address the threat, but to use it as a pretext to expand its power. (Per Instapundit, it sounds like "they’re after powers more than skills, which is typical.")

3. Law enforcement special interests want to automate the process of searching a suspect's Web history. Note that they refer to 'legal process requests', not warrants. The whole system would be encrypted and access would be restricted to law enforcement.

Hey, what could go wrong? The policeman is my friend...
*********
Ben Franklin must be rolling in his grave.

Stopped Clocks or Straws in the Wind?

Obama has sent reinforcements to Afghanistan. He has invited Republicans to negotiate on health care. He wants to support the role of the private sector in space. When Congress did not join in, he created a panel to study deficit reduction. He met with the Dalai Lama despite Chinese objections.

Could he finally be learning the job? Too soon to tell.

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.

Diana Moon-Glampers is a SoCal Educrat

See here and here. Berkeley High School is on the verge of eliminating after-school science labs because of the racial disproportion in their use. Apparently a performance gap between races is a no-no that jeopardizes funding, so the local educrats are reacting by penalizing the motivated high achievers. Harrison Bergeron High, Instapundit aptly names it. (The first link says 'too many white kids', but what about Asians?)

Then there's the vice-principal of a technology magnet school who locked down the place and called the bomb squad when a kid brought in a homemade motion detector.

Why Bye Bye Bayh?

Indiana Senator Evan Bayh's decision not to seek re-election was apparently coordinated with the state's Democratic establishment. Possibly the White House was in the loop.

Is Bayh being positioned for SCOTUS, a major Cabinet post, or the 2012 VP nomination?

When Pain and Anguish Wring the Brow, A Ministering Angel Thou. Not.

It is a sad fact of life that women send Dear John letters to deployed military. I'm not censuring their human frailty: it's the smugness that gets me.

Writing self-centered columns about dumping your significant other is something new.

Callously dumping a vulnerable life partnet is not confined to one gender or one branch of the political spectrum: ask Newt Gingrich or John Edwards.

Maybe there should be annual awards like the Emmies. Anyone for the Amies?

Comments: February 2010

On the progression of irresponsibility about the deficit.

On the Administration's space policy and Bill Richardson. On skepticism in the House.

On Obama's call for bipartisan healthcare negotiations. Maybe the GOP won't fall for the ploy.

On discrimination in college admissions. (Scroll down to 'gs said...' or '7:50 PM'.)

On removing NH Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (scroll down to 'gs said' or to '9:36 PM, February 08, 2010'.) Here too.

On the Iran resistance. On Iran in Iraq.

On the late Howard Zinn's A People’s History of the United States.

sigh Palin, Palin (scroll down to 'gs' or look among 'Feb 7, 2010'), Palin (scroll down to 'gs writes' or to 'February 7th, 2010 10:31 am' for Palin isn’t an alternative to Obama. She is the Right’s version of Obama.).

On learning Asian and Hispanic languages, and the clash of civilizations. (Scroll down to 'gs said...' or '10:24 AM'.)

On responding to potential climate threats sensibly and reversibly.

On Michelle Obama's obesity initiative. Here too.

On Orin Hatch at a Tea Party.

On the surveillance state's beachhead in Philadelphia's public schools.

On the Google trial in Italy. If Google has declined to abet the Italian government's desire to control Internet speech, might the conviction be a reprisal?

On an unintentionally hilarious defense of rampant SWAT tactics. See this too.

Palin is the Obama of the Right

I've been groping for some time to express my reaction, and have finally found something that rings true. It's in the title.

Addendum 20100208. Like this gal says.

Happy Birthday, RWR

Wherever you are, if you are.

Apparently the birthday is becoming a Republican holiday, joining Lincoln's birthday.

No offense to Dwight Eisenhower, who was a successful President but not a transformational one. Theodore Roosevelt probably was a transformational President (trust busting and projecting America onto the world stage), but too erratic to warrant veneration.

Is Obama Finished? GOP Blowout in November?

Maybe not.

Intrade has the odds of Obamacare by summer at 40%.

ITG's Chief Economist Robert Barbera has been saying that jobs are on the way.

Obama's meeting with the House Republican caucus is a Clintonian move to the center--or so it appears to the voters, even if it turns out to be cosmetic[1].

The Republicans should make gains like the minority party historically does during an off-year election. However, much of the right blogosphere is behaving as though a blowout is in the bag. A nasty surprise could be in store. Just ask Congressman Doug Hoffman.
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[1] Addendum 20100208. And cosmetic it may be.

If, indeed, Obama chooses Carteresque intransigence to Clintonian adaptation, who is the Reagan who will unseat him?

Palin?

Give. Me. A. Break.

Addendum 20100215. The Tea Party is running an independent candidate against Harry Reid. Instapundit, sensibly, is not pleased:

Two words: “Ross Perot.” Two more: “Ralph Nader.”

As above, two more: "Doug Hoffman".

Lech Walesa Campaigns for Illinois Republican

Imagine the conniption fits the Right would be having if Nelson Mandela or Desmond Tutu campaigned for Obama.

R.S. McCain gushes:

It's not every day that a Nobel Prize winner becomes involved in a U.S. election, but Lech Walesa -- famed for his Cold War leadership of the Solidarity movement in Poland -- will be campaigning this week for a GOP gubernatorial candidate in Illinois.

(Boldface mine.) Jimmy Carter and Al Gore immediately come to mind. (Mandela and Tutu have also won the Nobel Peace Prize.)
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Foreigners don't belong in US politics. Period. (They're free to kibitz of course, but candidates who let them play are unworthy of support.)

My no-confidence feedback to the GOP is validated.

This Is Not What I Mean by Conservatism

The Tories want to impose draconian taxes on liquor.

Not only are Western political elites sending the countries they govern down the tube, they don't want to let us drink ourselves into oblivion while they do it.

The Bernanke Confirmation Process

Congressional refusal to confirm Bernanke for a second term would be like firing Grant because his armies took casualties while winning the Civil War.

Wait, they tried to do that too, didn't they?

Why is the Market Down?

The sudden uncertainty about Bernanke's reconfirmation, of course. A WSJ blog headlines "Warren Buffett Predicts Chaos If Bernanke Is Not Re-Confirmed". Buffett:

BUFFETT: If I could vote twice, I would. He should be, I mean, he did a magnificent job over this period. Now, everybody can do it somewhat better. We could sit here and armchair quarterback him, but when I look back at particularly September and October of 2008, he took some extraordinary actions that, if they hadn't been taken, willingness to act like that, and even stretch his authority some. But he did what you do, and we talked about it being an economic Pearl Harbor, he did what should have been done in response to that Pearl Harbor. And I think he's done a stellar job.

BECKY: What happens if he's not reconfirmed? What's at risk?

BUFFETT: Well, just tell me a day ahead of time so I can sell some stocks. (Laughs.)

BECKY: You think there would be a strong selloff?

BUFFETT: Oh, I think so, sure.

BECKY: Across the board?

BUFFETT: Yeah. I think it'd be justified.

BECKY: You do?

BUFFETT: Yeah, I think - I think one of the - I think Congress generally is the worry of the American people, particularly what they've seen over the last 12, 18 months. If Congress essentially said we can do this better then a Ben Banana, and we think we know, I would get very worried.

The full transcript is here.

If the market hates uncertainty, what is it making of the latest SEC fishing expedition about market structure? Money quote from the Concept Release (pp 41-42):

In addition, what standards should the Commission apply in assessing the fairness of the equity markets? For example, is it unfair for market participants to obtain a competitive advantage by investing in technology and human resources that enable them to trade more effectively and profitably than others?

The text is the SEC's. The boldface, dropped jaw, and boggled mind are mine. Who's in charge at the SEC, Handicapper General Diana Moon-Glampers?

Audentis Fortuna Iuvat

Congratulations, Senator Scott Brown.

The Eyes of the Nation are on Massachusetts

I never thought I'd write that. It gives me a shiver. How incredible to have an important vote.

I pushed the cement snow off my car and got to the polling place in my rural Central MA town of maybe 4000. At 3:00, 1100 people had already voted.

The holbytlan emerge from their humble burrows and shake the towers and councils of the Great.

Addendum. This is a good line too:

And once again, there is a Tea Party in Massachusetts.

The whole thing is worth reading.

Addendum. I'd made up my mind to leave Massachusetts if in a financial position to do so. The 25% hike in the sales tax during a deep recession was the last straw.

I may revisit my decision if Brown wins.

A Better Choice for First Black President

Former California Assembly Speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown:

If we as a state want to make a New Year's resolution, I suggest taking a good look at the California we have created. From our out-of-sync tax system to our out-of-control civil service, it's time for politicians to begin an honest dialogue about what we've become.

Mind you, I'd probably be howling in protest if he had the job--but I wouldn't be terrified that he'd run the country off a cliff.

NB: the foregoing holds irrespective of Brown's race or political philosophy.

Coakley-Brown and the Miracle on Ice

Sunday's polls are in and all show Brown with a lead. The Intrade odds have increased to 7:4 in his favor.

For an upset of this magnitude, everything has to go Brown's way. One glitch and he has a moral victory, i.e. he loses (and can start running for governor).

The fact that tomorrow is a holiday might give the machine time to regroup: many voters can be reached at home instead of being inaccessible at work.

Is This Democrat Rooting for Scott Brown?

Deval Patrick, I mean.

Deepest-blue Massachusetts has nevertheless had a run of Republican governors--Weld, Celucci, Romney--until Patrick conned us into taking a chance on the one-party thing.

If Brown loses, I'm guessing he will immediately take aim at the unpopular Patrick.

Moreover, unlike his three GOP predecessors, Brown seems rooted in the state. He just might try to build up the state GOP instead of viewing the governorship as a steppingstone. (Correction: Four GOP predecessors. I mercifully forgot Jane Swift.)

Patrick has not been visible on behalf of Coakley. Part of that might be that he's so unpopular that he'd do more harm than good--but part might be self-interest. (Will Deval share the stage when his buddy Barack visits? You'd think a Democratic governor almost has to appear with a Democratic President. Hopefully the Brown people will manage some Patrick-Coakley photos although I'm guessing the Democrats anticipate the danger.)

Addendum 20100116. Brown's contribution page has an option for recurring monthly donations. Patrick is up for reelection this coming November.

Important Point, with More Important Implications

Steve Wolfram notes that computers do mathematics very differently from humans (I've read similar things about chess programs: they play differently from a human with enhanced speed and memory):

When Mathematica was young, we actually used to include as part of our software distribution a lot of source code for doing things like symbolic integration. It happened to be easier to do the software engineering that way. And we had the idea that perhaps occasionally someone would look at the code, and give us a good suggestion about it.

But that turned out to be completely unrealistic. The code was pretty clean. But it was mathematically very sophisticated. And only a very small number of experts (quite a few of whom had actually worked on the code for us) could understand it.

And the only tangible thing that happened were a few tech support calls from people who thought they could modify some piece of the code—and were about to horribly mess things up.

So what are the implications for AI? For the techno-optimism that future AIs will be human-friendly?

This is a worthwhile historical overview.

France Strikes Again

After the monumentally incompetent Bush administration and the possibly worse Obama, it's bad form for an American to gibe at the Europeans, but I can't resist. From the BBC:

The French government wants to take the controversial step of introducing a new law banning "psychological violence" between married couples or partners living together.

The law is expected to pass.

I don't expect this law to be applied uniformly, objectively or fairly. I do expect it to be extended beyond cohabitants.

Could 'psychological violence' be invoked to circumvent the USA's First Amendment? Look for the usual suspects to get interested.

Addendum 20100107. Chicks on the Right captures the insanity:

What are they going to ban next? The silent treatment?

Yours truly comments. Here too.

Addendum 20100117. According to Rasmussen, 32% of Americans favor such a law (40% opposed and 27% undecided).

A republic, if you can keep it. More and more of us are uninterested in keeping it.

Addendum 20100303. The French are on the verge of passing a law requiring electronic monitoring bracelets for husbands who have a restraining order to avoid their wives.

Speaking of Incompetent Security

Apparently we are not alone. The BBC, which is not an unbiased source afaic, reports:

China's chief negotiator was barred by security for the first three days of the meeting - a serious issue that should have been sorted out after day one. This was said to have left the Chinese delegation in high dudgeon.

No kidding.

At least the Danes didn't bomb the Chinese delegation's quarters.

Massachusetts and California

If MA shared a border with Mexico, we would be in the same shape as California.

(The prosperity from CA's Pacific ports and natural resources has also contributed to the arrogant airheaded idealism that got them into their mess.)

Comments: January 2010

On the Scott Brown candidacy for Massachusetts' open Senate seat. Here too.

On Brit Hume's call for Tiger Woods to become a Christian.

On the Coakley-Brown race: here, here, here, and here. Here and here too. Here and here, here and here.

On f*gg*t humor at Notre Dame. Scroll down to "gs on January 15th, 2010 10:31 pm".

On online reaction to Bernanke's confirmation difficulties. Scroll down to "6:19 pm January 22, 2010 gs wrote".

On Obama's bright idea that government contractors must be certified as non-tax-delinquent. I suggest that compliance costs may outweigh money saved. Scroll down to "Posted by: gs | Jan 20, 2010 10:01:00 PM".

On the fearful state of the Union.

On the pending shutdown of after-hours science labs in Berkeley High School.

A Benign Variant of Alcohol?

The Telegraph reports on UK research (HT: Instapundit):

The synthetic alcohol, being developed from chemicals related to Valium, works like alcohol on nerves in the brain that provide a feeling of wellbeing and relaxation.

But unlike alcohol its does not affect other parts of the brain that control mood swings and lead to addiction. It is also much easier to flush out of the body.

Finally because it is much more focused in its effects, it can also be switched off with an antidote, leaving the drinker immediately sober.

If it's related to Valium, how confident are they that it's not addictive? For that matter, I wonder if there's more to alcoholic dependency than desire for a pleasant buzz. Still, this worthwhile research is a clear step forward.

If the government allows the step to be taken:

The new alcohol is being developed by a team at Imperial College London, led by Professor David Nutt, Britain's top drugs expert who was recently sacked as a government adviser for his comments about cannabis and ecstasy.
...
“No one’s ever tried targeting this before, possibly because it will be so hard to get it past the regulators.

“Most of the benzos are controlled under the Medicines Act. The law gives a privileged position to alcohol, which has been around for 3,000 years. But why not use advances in pharmacology to find something safer and better?”

Getting the drug approved could be hard for the team as clinical trials are expensive, and it is not clear who would pay for them, according to Professor Nutt.

He said that the traditional drinks industry has not shown any interest, however some countries might be persuaded to sponsor the team.

The usual special-interest coalition of zealots and grifters controls the regulatory process. This is a(n unintended?) consequence of the War on Drugs and collateral damage from the Precautionary Principle. In effect, the government's effort to stop the damage done by (some) drugs is stifling the development of safe alternatives. Remember: the issue is never the issue. The issue is control.

(Medical researchers might be getting a better handle on high blood pressure too.)

Wheels within Wheels

Pachauri was apparently the Bush/Saudi candidate to head the UN's IPCC. See this, this, and this.

Yet he is accused of profiting from efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

So...whose side is he really on?

Rajendra Pachauri's side, I imagine...

Good News and Bad News

The bad news is the TSA harassment of two bloggers who posted an unclassified security directive (HT: Instapundit).

The good news is that the Federal courts just might be starting to rein in unwarranted police use of tasers.

Addendum 20100105: I've seen reports that the government has dropped the subpoenas against the bloggers.

Worst Decade Ever (?)

According to Reason TV, it was.

Think where we’d be if we hadn’t started with unprecedented prosperity and power. Think where we’ll wind up if we persist.

And we are persisting.

If governed as we are today, I question whether we would have won WW2 (or WW1 for that matter) or the Cold War.

America Was Once Like This

From the Daily Mail:

Unveiled: China's 245mph train service is the world's fastest... and it was completed in just FOUR years

Look at the images.

In four years, I doubt you could even get regulatory approvals to break ground in the US.

A Progressive's Anti-Obama Rant

This perfectly captures my feelings about Bush.

Drug War

Mexico is losing reviewing its options.

I've read--in National Review iirc!--that US insistence on Drug War poppy eradication has helped the Taliban to rebound in Afghanistan.

The last Mexican election was a very narrow win for the conservative. Will the Drug War help bring us an openly anti-American far-left Mexican government that openly allies with the drug cartels and drives even more illegals (excuse me, undocumenteds) into the US than have already been coming?

Obama's missteps should not make us forget what a moron Bush was.

Worth Its Own Post

Pajamas Media commenter 'kazooskibum' has been repeating:

Remember: The issue is never the issue. The issue is control.

Amen.

When a legitimate issue does come up that calls for pulling together and shared sacrifice, the government will have no credibility left. (I'm not saying it has any now.)

I Approve. So Am I a Pro-Slavery Racist?

From Althouse commenter JohnAnnArbor:

I think they should have to read every bill aloud in its entirety. That would keep them from larding everything up.

Historical trivia: the Confederate constitution tried to avoid Congressional amalgamation of unrelated items in one bill:

"(20) Every law, or resolution having the force of law, shall relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title."

Ludicrous though the title of this post is, IMO that very slur would be flung at someone who proposed to amend the Constitution according to the CSA example.

Given the way the existing Constitution is distorted to excuse federal power grabs, I'm not sure such an amendment would make any difference.

LGF: JBS@CPAC

Charles Johnson reports that the John Birch Society has been accepted as a cosponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference.

No reaction yet from National Review, once the standard-bearer of rational, principled conservatism (w/wo religion).
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Johnson also posts an image of Wasilla Councilwoman Sarah Palin reading a Bircher article. Googling reveals that this image was known to the left blogosphere during the 2008 campaign. It's curious that it was not emphasized by the MSM.

When they recall how Reagan was smeared by his enemies, some people might be reluctant to relinquish their hopes for Palin. However, the false and malicious canards flung at Reagan seem to be valid when applied to Palin.

Is a Meme Developing?

The Moderate Voice:

Precisely which of the two incompetent political parties is less incompetent?

And which incompetent party do you choose to bollix up the country and disappoint you for a few more years?

This is what I thought even before posting here and here.

It's is a tailor-made slogan for a third party.

(Obviously, alternating the government between two successively more incompetent parties cannot work indefinitely. It may fail sooner and more drastically than most people expect.)

California

The state might be better managed if we returned it to Mexico.

Demographic trends may bring that about. IMHO a more plausible worst-case scenario is a Latino majority exacting a steady stream of concessions from Washington, as Quebec does from Canada.

At least Mexico would have the common sense to tap the state's natural resources which are currently off-limits due to environmentalist special interests.

The fate of Berkeley-type watermelons who tried the obstructive ploys to which they have come to feel entitled would be...entertaining. Perhaps grimly so.

My Evil Idea

Gene Healy on making criminals out of all Americans:

There are now more than 4,000 federal crimes, spread out through some 27,000 pages of the U.S. Code. Some years ago, analysts at the Congressional Research Service tried to count the number of separate offenses on the books, and gave up, lacking the resources to get the job done...

You can serve federal time for interstate transport of water hyacinths, trafficking in unlicensed dentures, or misappropriating the likeness of Woodsy Owl and his associated slogan, "Give a hoot, don't pollute."...Bills currently before Congress would send Americans to federal prison for eating horsemeat or selling goods falsely labeled as "Native American."

"Is that the system we have, that Congress can say, nobody shall do any bad things?" an exasperated Scalia asked (Deputy Solicitor General) Drebeen. The system we have comes pretty close, unfortunately. And a federal criminal code that covers everything delegates to prosecutors and the police the power to pick their targets at will, leaving everyone at risk.

(HT: Instapundit) So much for limited government in a free country. Note that the impetus is bipartisan. (Note also bipartisan legalization of things like intellectual-property banditry and expansive eminent domain.)

The law has become so complicated that Congressional researchers can't even enumerate the crimes that Congress has created? This is a job for...Artificial Intelligence!

Some public-spirited entrepreneur should create a software package that runs along the lines of a search engine. The enterprising prosecutor types in a target's behavior and the engine returns the crimes that are compatible with those actions.

In fact, every police department should have one! Initial versions might require an officer seeking a pretext for an arrest to call a dispatcher who will run the program and relay the options to the officer. Very quickly, however, voice recognition software can take the dispatcher out of the loop and automate the entire process.

(According to Healy's piece, Jim Webb is taking this issue on. Good for him. I'm glad I donated to his campaign against MacacAllen.)

Megan McArdle on the Complexity Bubble

Here:

...Every so often I'll read some description of a project out of the olden days--the battle against malaria in Panama, the handling of the Great Mississippi Flood, or the creation of the WPA--and just marvel at how fast everything used to be. The WPA was authorized in April of 1935. By December, it was employing 3.5 million people. The Hoover Dam took 16 years from the time it was first proposed, to completion; eight years, if you start counting from the time it passed Congress.

Contrast this with a current, comparatively trivial project: it has been seventeen years since the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor was established by USDOT, and we should have a Record of Decision on the Tier II environmental impact statement no later than 2010. This for something that runs along existing rail rights of way, and in fact, uses currently operating track in many places.

Would we have won the Cold War if not for our technology? Technology includes the atom bomb which perhaps prevented the Red Army from sweeping across Europe after WW2, and the 1980s military upgrades which the Soviets could not afford to match.

What if the government still operated at 1930s efficiency with today's technology?

Have the parasite classes learned how to coopt technology? (For example, the thousand-page special-interest laws that Congress does not read could not even have been printed a century ago.)

Just because technological innovation saved us from decline and fall in the past, it may not necessarily do so in the future.

Tiger Woods, Eloit Spitzer, and Mark Sanford

Spitzer resigned and is still married. Sanford clung to office and his wife just filed. Coincidence?

Woods has taken an indefinite leave from golf. "It may not be possible to repair the damage I've done, but I want to do my best to try."

To resurrect a relationship wrecked by infidelity, it is probably necessary to demonstrate to the estranged partner that nothing is more important than she/he. But is it sufficient?

More Damage from Compassionate Conservatism

Reason notes that, under Bush, for the first time since World War 2, growth in government employment apparently outpaced private-sector growth (HT: Instapundit).

The Communists said the state would wither away...eventually. Were Bush's theocratic handlers imitating the Marxists? Of course they'll reduce the size of government...when the Peaceable Kingdom is attained...real soon now...

TARPmeister Emeritus Neel Kashkari

The Washington Post profiles his recuperation and reminiscences.

Meanwhile, some are atwitter that he took a job with PIMCO. Since he took a grueling job with a big pay cut and an enormous professional risk, at first blush I'm not inclined to fault him for cashing in on his success.

I take the point about a revolving door between government and industry. But there is also such a thing as public service. I take the point about lobbyist influence and regulatory capture. But I don't want policy made exclusively by academics and NGO goo-goos with no private-sector experience.

Hitchens on Palin

In Slate:

...the usefulness of Sarah Palin to the right-wing party managers is that she combines a certain knowingness with a feigned innocence and a still-palpable blush of sex. But she should take care to read her Alexander Pope: That bloom will soon enough fade, and it will fade really quickly if she uses it to prostitute herself to the Nixonites on one day and then to cock-tease the rabble on the next.

He comes up to the edge of what I've been meaning to say.

Palin's looks are going. Video close-ups reveal heavy pancake makeup that doesn't entirely conceal crow's feet.

Soon she'll look like Harriet Miers.

In 1992 Hillary Clinton successfully mimicked an all-American girl, but she has found a way to age in the public eye. In contrast, Harriet Miers looks will not mesh well with Palin's high-pitched voice and cheerleader demeanor.
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Hitchens says that a key Palin advisor is linked to Nixon's anti-Semitism. Maybe so, but I recall a video that showed an Israeli flag in then-Governor Palin's office.

Among the Decay, a Sprig of Progress

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo.

One small sprig for man, and...?

I hope so.

Yes, Exactly: Corruption

If I haven't written this down, I meant to:

When a government gets big enough, it automatically becomes corrupt. Period.

Instead, we are asked to believe that the government is some kind of omniscient omnipotent sapient unified field that can unfailingly implement the greatest good for the greatest number--if we only let it.

IMO, just as a big enough government automatically becomes corrupt, a big enough government automatically seeks to de facto disenfranchise the electorate.

I've Worked at a Place Places Like This

A recent Dilbert is well above average.

Addendum 20091207. Much better than this. No comparison.

Comments: December 2009

On Doonesbury and Day by Day.

On a potential government bailout of Big Media: here and here.

On an example of "conservative" racism.

On the Antoun murder at SUNY Binghamton.

On various things, including Obama:

I don’t want Obama to fail–because of the damage to the country, not out of any love for Obama–, but he’s in a tough spot (of his own making). Part of his coalition is defecting because his governance is dysfunctional, and part is defecting because his governance is not dysfunctional enough.

On deciphering multiculturalism:

“practicing mainstream traditions” = “bigoted”
“deprecating the flaunting of minority or emerging-subculture practices” = “narrow-minded”

On Truman, Reagan, and Palin.

On why worthwhile and uncontroversial things related to climate change don't get done.

On an appallingly dumb argument for tax increases.

On a major Chinese technology company snubbing the US stock market.

On Rand Simberg's "The Precautionary Principle and Global Warming":

Glenn Reynolds keeps saying that when the bigshots who say it’s a crisis start significantly modifying their own behavior, he’ll start taking them seriously.

I’ll start taking the AGW Greens seriously when they seriously push back against their own extremists who impede nuclear, solar and wind power. I’ll start taking them seriously when they get behind the solutions that moderate warmists and skeptics can both accept.

By refusing to do so, the Greens may be endangering civilization as much as they claim the traditional energy industry is doing.

No enemies on the Left. No enemies on the Green.

A more constructive follow-up is here.

On the UK Livni indictment.

On Kurzweil's latest prediction.

On avoiding out-of-state traffic tickets.

On "universal jurisdiction".

Here and here, on Obamacare.

On the Wen-Obama photo. The subsequent comment is worth reading.

On conservative overconfidence: here, here, and here.

On China's governance and America's Founders (and foundering) Addendum 20100311: Jonah Goldberg accuses Tom Friedman of admiring Chinese authoritarianism. That is not my intention.

On the government reaction to the attempted Delta bombing: here and here.

On Bush as a forerunner of Obama's statism.

NFL: New Orleans and Indianapolis

The NFL's publicists must be salivating at the thought that two undefeated teams might meet in the Superbowl.

Not that that prospect would affect the refereeing, oh my, no...
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It's noteworthy that New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees is 6'0''. (I had assumed for some time that he was too short for the NFL.)