A new transhumanist magazine. Looks interesting.
Monthly Archives: October 2008
“A Star On The Fridge”
This, coming from Jim Abrahamson, is pretty disappointing:
James A. Abrahamson, a retired Air Force lieutenant general and the chairman of the NAC’s Exploration Committee, praised the Constellation program to the Council at its quarterly meeting in Cocoa Beach, calling it the best program for the agency given its tight budget and schedule.
“The NAC is confident that the current plan is viable and represents a well-considered approach given the constraints on budget, schedule and achievable technology,” he said.
I agree with this comment (and I have a pretty good guess as to who made it):
One Washington-based space policy consultant said: “The NAC’s endorsement of Ares I reminds me of the so-called independent rating firms that kept saying that Lehman Brothers, Wachovia, and AIG were just fine.”
Yeah, I don’t think that the NAC is all that “independent.” By its nature, it tends to consist of space industry insiders drinking their own bathwater. Looking over the Exploration Committee, it doesn’t strike me that any of the members are space transportation experts (and no, you don’t become one by being an astronaut, as proven by Horowitz…). But I thought that Abrahamson was smarter than that.
Bride Of Frankenstein
More evidence that the fashion world is not mine.
The Press And The Plumber
They’ve done more investigations into Joe the Plumber in 24 hours than they’ve done on Barack Obama in two years…
They’ve also had more interviewers with him lately than they have with Bill Ayers. Aren’t they curious at all as to what he thinks? I mean, he was brought up in the debate, too…
[Friday morning update]
Is Joe the Plumber the forgotten man?
I’m Drooling
Amazon is having a power tool sale
Not that great for a survivalist, though, unless you can generate a lot of power. Let’s hope we’re not going back to hand tools soon.
Actually, I already have most of this stuff. I continue to be amazed at the cost, quality and innovativeness of tools since I was a kid. It has to have been a great contributor to national productivity, both professionally, and for the DIYers. And it wouldn’t have happened without China. Another reason to hope that the (newly isolationist) Dems don’t get full control of the government.
RIP, Edie
Edie Adams has died. Those too young to remember her should check out DVDs of Ernie Kovacs’ show
I met her as a child growing up in Flint. She (and, I think, Kovacs) performed in one of the A.C. Spark Plug concerts that my father produced in the sixties, and we always got to meet the stars back stage at the IMA auditorium afterward, and often went to Luigi’s for pizza (still the best pizza in the universe, IMHO). The place has autographed pictures of the stars that dined there on the wall. I think hers is still there.
Better Late Than Never
Listening to a McCain stump speech, he just used the line “…we didn’t become a great nation by spreading the wealth, we became a great nation by creating new wealth.”
Where has that John McCain been all fall? Or his whole previous life?
What We Should Really Be Angry About
I fully agree with Iain Murray:
While conservatives are angry about a number of things at the moment, they should be at least as angry that the Congressional Democrats who helped stoke the mortgage crisis are getting away with blaming everyone else for it. Today, Senator Chris Dodd, the prime recipient of GSE lobbying funds and proud holder of a sweetheart mortgage from Countrywide, is holding hearings where the witnesses will blame everyone but Dodd, Barney Frank and their cronies. Republicans asked to invite witnesses but were barred from doing so.
The notion that this mess is the fault of Republicans, and “deregulation” and the free market, is one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated on the American people. And as a result, we could be heading toward both electoral and economic disaster.
[Update early afternoon]
Peter Schiff says don’t blame capitalism:
Just as prices in a free market are set by supply and demand, financial and real estate markets are governed by the opposing tension between greed and fear. Everyone wants to make money, but everyone is also afraid of losing what he has. Although few would ascribe their desire for prosperity to greed, it is simply a rose by another name. Greed is the elemental motivation for the economic risk-taking and hard work that are essential to a vibrant economy.
But over the past generation, government has removed the necessary counterbalance of fear from the equation. Policies enacted by the Federal Reserve, the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (which were always government entities in disguise), and others created advantages for home-buying and selling and removed disincentives for lending and borrowing. The result was a credit and real estate bubble that could only grow — until it could grow no more.
Prominent among these wrongheaded advantages are the mortgage interest tax deduction and the exemption of real estate capital gains from taxable income. These policies create unnatural demand for home purchases and a (tax-free) incentive to speculate in real estate.
Similarly, the FHA, Fannie and Freddie were created to encourage lending by allowing primary lenders to turn their long-term risk over to the government. Absent this implicit guarantee, lenders would probably have been much more conservative in approving borrowers and setting interest terms, and in requiring documentation of incomes and higher down payments. Market forces would have kept out unqualified buyers and prevented home-price appreciation from exceeding the growth in household income.
Read the whole thing.
I disagree, though that the solution is to take away the home-mortgage interest deduction and the capital gains break. It would be much better to restore the deduction for all interest (as it is for business, and was for individuals until the tax “reform” in 1986). It’s not fair to have to pay tax on interest earned as income, but not be able to deduct interest paid.
Also, rather than treating houses preferentially, peg all capital gains taxes to inflation, to eliminate having to pay a tax when the actual value hadn’t increased.
Frustrated At McCain
How many times is he going to let Obama get away with this bullshit that he’s going to cut taxes for people who don’t pay income taxes? He’s done it twice now. It’s a frickin’ handout and redistribution. As I said, John McCain could win this election if he weren’t John McCain.
Sounding a little better on spending cuts. Talking about ending ethanol subsidies and tariffs on sugar (writing off Iowa…). He should have point out how he was going to veto spending bills that Bush wouldn’t (another missed opportunity). Another missed opportunity was to point out that while earmarks are small, it’s how Congress logrolls other members on big spending bills.
[Update]
McCain is actually doing much better now. But he really should stop talking about the “overhead projector in Chicago.” People like planetariums, and it makes him look clueless about science.
[Update]
McCain just pointed out that Obama’s solution (increase taxes, restrict trade) was Hooverlike. This is good in two ways: it helps separate him from Republicans and it’s true.
[Update]
McCain is on fire on health care. Obama seems to think that having an employer providing health care is a wonderful thing, and that everyone agrees on that. But McCain had a great (non?)-Freudian slip. He called his opponent “Senator Government.”
[Update]
The discussion on Roe almost veered into a discussion on federalism. But not quite. But McCain went after him on his vote on the bill to allow failed aborted babies to die. And Obama is obfuscating on his vote.
[Final update]
Not a great debate for McCain, but it was his best. And he’s not out of it.
What was missing? Gun control. It would have been a big issue in key states.
Good Question
Would anyone care to explain to me why Sarah Palin is less qualified to be vice president than John Edwards was four years ago?