Category Archives: Economics

Business, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Over The Counter Birth Control

7 Comments

Finally, the Republicans do something smart:

Just this week, legislators introduced a bill that would encourage drug companies to apply to sell contraceptives without a prescription.

But if Republican Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, along with four other GOP senators, were expecting flowers from Planned Parenthood and others for their bill, the Allowing Greater Access to Safe and Effective Contraception Act, they should brace for disappointment. Suddenly, the idea doesn’t sound so great, and the former supporters aren’t mincing words.

Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards said the bill is a “sham and an insult to women.”

Karen Middleton of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado even got personal, saying, “Cory Gardner can’t be trusted when it comes to Colorado women and their health care.”

Why the about-face? Well, the story the libs are going with is that the bill will actually make the pill more expensive once it’s no longer prescription (and therefore not covered by insurance). Which would be a fair point if it were true.

As she notes, the Dems hate this because it knocks the legs out from under their “War on Women” scam.

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Advice For Young Men

4 Comments

…from my neighbor, Kurt Schlichter:

Remember my exceedingly hot wife? You should, because your romantic relationship should be the cornerstone of your life and you want to get it right. Now, in a world of creepy feminists and whiny femboys, you need to understand that biology still trumps stupid social fads. Women want men. Not girly men. Not boys. Not manchildren. Men.

This is true of liberal women too, whether they admit it or not, but you don’t want one of them – well, at least for more than a few hours. Which reminds me – have an alias and use it.

The point is to avoid liberal women. If you see a chick hauling around a mattress, keep moving no matter how open to experimentation you hear she is. Do not become the lead in some daddy issue-plagued hysteric’s personal psychodrama.

You want a conservative woman. Ignore the liberal deniers – science proves that right wing women are hotter and sexier. Hey, conservatives don’t tend to have large families because they’re prudes. With liberal girls, a romantic interlude means a lot of sobbing about patriarchy, plus the vibe gets spoiled when you have to constantly stop to notarize affirmative consent forms.

There’s a lot of pressure on you young men to be passive and, frankly, wussy. Reject it. Call the girl. Don’t freaking text – texting is for the weak. Call her, like a man, and tell her what you want: “Hey, I want to take you out to [Quality Place] Friday. I want to pick you up at 7. You in?”

It’s about life in general, though, not just love life.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Space Access Update

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The latest version is out, describing the current hijinks in Congress:

Full-throttle political support for full-funding Commercial Crew at the requested $1.24 billion is a top (if not the top) political priority for this year. Down-selecting to one vendor to save money over the next two years would add multiple unacceptable program risks and lead to long-term monopoly pricing. Successful flight before the end of 2017 already apparently involves optimistic assumptions about not needing the full $300 million in NASA-required-extras contingency funding. NASA says that any shortfall from the $1.24 billion level this year risks further program delays, and our look at the numbers seems to bear that out.

Yes, as Bolden said a few weeks ago, they can’t accelerate it with more money, but they can delay with less, and they seem determined to do so.

[Early evening update]

OK, here‘s an even more recent update.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

My New Kickstarter

17 Comments

I’m having trouble uploading the video to the Kickstarter page (they’re figuring out what the problem is, hopefully), but meanwhile, here’s a higher-quality version of it on Youtube. I’m not thrilled with audio quality (it sounds sort of like I’m in an echoey lecture hall), but I don’t have a sound studio, just a Sennheiser headset.

[Update a few minutes later]

Oops. Just noticed, it looks like I lost the end credits. Have to look into what happened there.

[Update a while later]

For some reason, I hadn’t included the final credits in the build. Here’s the new version.

[Update a while later]

Sorry transitions are so choppy. I’m sure it has something to do with Youtube’s post-processing.

[Monday-morning update]

Business, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

Medical Health Records

8 Comments

Another ObamaCare failure:

Let’s force doctors to spend a lot of money to become technology dependent and adopt electronic health records when the old way of doing things was working just fine. And hey–as a bonus, our health information is now more vulnerable to hacking and we can lose some privacy along the way! Electronic health records haven’t saved a single life or a single dollar, but they have created a lot of expense, confusion, and tremendous demoralization for our health care providers. It wasn’t broken, and it shouldn’t have been “fixed.” If the Republican Congress was smart, it would repeal this onerous, useless provision of Obamacare.

There are a lot of things the Republicans would do if they were smart. On the other hand, I can understand why they don’t want to repeal this abomination piece meal. They need to scrap the whole thing and start over, but it won’t happen until we get someone in the White House who actually understands markets and actually gives a damn about others.

Economics, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Space History, Technology and Society

The Rashomon Of Apollo And Shuttle

13 Comments

Stephen Smith has a lengthy review of John Logsdon’s latest book.

As he notes, the dual myths of Kennedy as space visionary and Nixon as space villain don’t stand up to any sort of realistic historical scrutiny. In fact, with Apollo, Kennedy set us up for decades of failure, in terms of making spaceflight economically realistic.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Global Cooling

6 Comments

A study predicts decades of it ahead.

Cold is much more deadly than heat, by an order of magnitude.

I have no more confidence in this prediction than I do of predictions for warming (and particularly predictions of catastrophic climate change). The lesson is a) the climate can always be counted on to change, b) we don’t really know what the future holds for climate, c) we need to be prepared for anything, which means maximizing economic growth and d) (related) we need to stop fantasizing that carbon dioxide is a magical climate-control knob.