Monthly Archives: June 2009

Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Space

Goat Meat

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It’s not what’s for dinner, generally, in the US, but it’s pretty popular in the rest of the world. I’ve only had it a couple times myself (in Ethiopian restaurants).

But an interesting space-related point is that goats are a lot better for space colonies than beef, being easier to manage, more efficient producers of meat from carbs, needing less room, having more protein (and good milk). Keith and Carolyn Henson raised them in Tucson (in town) in the seventies, along with rabbits. They wrote an early paper on space colony agriculture, presented at the first Princeton Conference, based on their own experiences.

Political Commentary, War Commentary

He Wants Our Help?

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Some interesting statements from Mousavi’s “external spokesman.” Jonah Goldberg has some thoughts:

It seems to me that this is at minimum a hint that Mousavi would be willing to put the nuke program on the table for negotiation — the complete opposite position of Ahmadinejad. Moreover, it hints or at least suggests that the way Iran meddles in other countries — i.e. financing terrorism, sponsoring terrorist groups etc — would not be locked in stone either. Now, of course, this could all be a ruse. Mousavi is no angel. But, again, these are not things the opposition would want to say if they wanted America to stay out of it. And yes, even if the opposition wants support, that doesn’t mean they’ve made the right calculation. The law of unintended consequences is universal as is the rule of thumb, “Be careful what you wish for.” But Obama supporters and others who think America should do nothing to help the opposition need to at least wonder whether they have a better grasp of the situation than the opposition itself does.

I’m sure they think they do, based on foolish statements by some of their supporters here.

[Update a few minutes later]

More thoughts from Pejman Yousefzdadeh:

Totten believes that it is possible that Mousavi has grown into less of a Khomeini-ist than he was in the past. One certainly hopes so, and I would pick him over Ahmadinejad as the lesser of two evils any day. But that is because Ahmadinejad is truly vile, while Mousavi’s past-at-least-semi-vileness may have been put in abeyance by events. Mousavi’s problem is that he remains wedded to a brutal and vicious regime. The protests he leads only have value and relevance insofar as they demonstrate that at long last, the regime must be swept aside. It’s nice if Mousavi wants to act as one of many vehicles and vessels for the revolutionary change that is so needed in Iran, and Obama was dead wrong to suggest that there is no real difference between him and Ahmadinejad. At the same time, however, it is equally ridiculous to think that Mousavi is the transformational figure that Kleiman thinks Obama is. Indeed, if Mousavi is Iran’s version of HopeAndChange, then the country of my ancestors is in more trouble than I thought.

Yes, let’s hope for their sake that they’ll be luckier than we have been in new leadership.

[Update a few minutes later]

Cracks showing in the regime? Let’s hope so.

I think that the next couple days will tell the tale, whether the Iranian people free themselves of these theocratic monsters, or their power is further entrenched.

Business, Economics

Househunting

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In Flint, Michigan:

As the veteran of a brutal San Francisco home-buying odyssey, there’s no denying the appeal of a place where desperate Realtors sometimes offer up houses by the dozen. But this is more than a quest for cheap housing. I have an almost unhealthy attachment to Flint. I want to do something—anything—to help my hometown. Maybe a “summer place” in what has been ranked one of America’s most depressing cities can pump a little life into the local economy. And I fear that after 15 years in San Francisco—sometimes described as 49 square miles surrounded on all sides by reality—I’m losing touch with my roots, drifting uncomfortably far from the factory town my grandparents moved to at the turn of the 20th century.

How do I know this? Sometimes I fret about the high price of organic avocados. After growing up driving a Buick Electra 225, I now own a gutless four-cylinder Toyota Camry. And then there’s the fact that I’m so jittery in the place where I grew up that I’m sleeping with a bat.

There are some good neighborhoods there still, I think, it’s close to recreation up north (though Saginaw and Bay City more so) and it’s cheap living, if you can work from anywhere. Of course, you could even live up north (though the winters are tougher there than southeast Michigan). On the other hand, there are the Michigan taxes…

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Obama’s Failed Gamble

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Jimmy Pethokoukis:

Obama wagered that the deluge of money coming from the Federal Reserve would do the heavy lifting as far as stabilizing the financial sector and keeping the already apparent recession from turning into a real disaster. Voters would, thus, continue to support his policies to assert more government control over healthcare, heavily regulate energy through a costly cap-and-trade program and further intervene into the financial industry.

The gamble appears to have failed miserably, both economically and politically. The terrible tale of the tape: a) the current downturn is arguably the worse since the Great Depression; b) household wealth has fallen by $14 trillion during the past two years, including the first quarter of 2009; c) while the economy may not shrink as much this quarter as it did in the previous three months (-5.7 percent) or the final quarter of 2008 (-6.3 percent), unemployment is soaring; d) Obama himself said the jobless rate will hit 10 percent this year; d) even worse, the Federal Reserve sees it approaching 11 percent next year. (Recall, that the original White House economic analysis of the Obama economic plan never saw unemployment exceeding 8 percent if Obamanomics was passed by Congress.)

While I don’t mind him failing, since his policy goals are disastrous, I’m furious that it’s wrecking the economy anyway.

Humor, Political Commentary

A Victim Of Obama’s Heavy Hand

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The widow of the assassinated fly is suing the president:

“Bob was a wonderful husband and provider,” said the widow, Mrs. Vivian Vvzzvzwwzzz, wiping tears from her compound eyes. “Even though he was always busy at the Rose Garden turd pile, he always flew home in time to tuck in our maggots.”

The 17-day old widow said the grieving process since the murder has taken its toll.

“Although it’s been nearly 48 hours, I still get an empty feeling in my thorax everytime I think about it,” she said. “I feel like I’ve aged an entire week. Mating season is over, and here I am, stuck trying to raise 532 larvae on my own.”

Let’s just hope that the president doesn’t try to intimidate any witnesses this time.