Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Magic Is Gone

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Thoughts on the obsolescence of Barack Obama:

It was canonical to this administration and its functionaries that they were handed a broken nation, that it was theirs to repair, that it was theirs to tax and reshape to their preferences. Yet there was, in 1980, after another landmark election, a leader who had stepped forth in a time of “malaise” at home and weakness abroad: Ronald Reagan. His program was different from Mr. Obama’s. His faith in the country was boundless. What he sought was to restore the nation’s faith in itself, in its political and economic vitality.

Big as Reagan’s mandate was, in two elections, the man was never bigger than his county. There was never narcissism or a bloated sense of personal destiny in him. He gloried in the country, and drew sustenance from its heroic deeds and its capacity for recovery. No political class rode with him to power anxious to lay its hands on the nation’s treasure, eager to supplant the forces of the market with its own economic preferences.

Obama never understood that the notion of a leftist or “progressive” Ronald Reagan was an oxymoron.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Why They’re Not Hiring (Part 2)

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More thoughts on this post from yesterday:

The flat truth is no one is going to hire new employees unless there is some reasonable promise that the additional cost of the employee will be recovered through increased profits resulting from the new employee’s work. That’s not “greed”, it is bare survival in tough economic times. And all the recent additions to per-employee costs aren’t alone. There is a seemingly endless well of new possible costs coming, including new environmental regulations, the possibility of a massive new “carbon tax”, and “card check” that promises to raise labor costs even further with exactly zero (at best) increase in productivity. Vague gestures towards a few thousand dollars of tax credits to stimulate job growth don’t even begin to cover the risks.

On top of it all, if you happen to be an oil worker on the Gulf Coast, your job is politically verboten. Sorry about that. Or not.

Only a crazy person would be eager to start large-scale hiring in this political environment. Yet many anti-corporation zealots profess themselves outraged that the Evil, Greedy Corporations won’t get with the business of economic recovery.

The country’s in the very best of hands.

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

The Big DNA Letdown

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Thoughts on the (so far) overhype of genetic sequencing.

I think that there are going to be huge breakthroughs in health and longevity, but our understanding of genetics is currently much too dismal for them to come from DNA analysis in the near term.

My understanding is that the DNA is a recipe, not a blueprint. And while even with a blueprint of a house, the final product is still dependent on the carpenter, it is at least specified. A recipe can have much more varied outcomes, depending on the cook, and the available resources and ingredients.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

Still Not Quite Getting It

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The WaPo has an editorial today on space policy, that points out some of the flaws in the Congressional rocket design, but misses the mark in many ways, as others have point out:

Last year, the Augustine commission found that without an additional $3 billion in funding over the next several years, the Bush administration’s Constellation program for manned spaceflight and a return to the moon would be impossible.

I’m not sure what they mean by this, but it would seem to imply that it’s only three billion over several years (perhaps half a billion per year) when in fact it is an additional three billion per year. That is how much bigger Mike Griffin’s rocket appetite was than his budget.

It goes on:

…the new plan added a manned mission to asteroids and even a visit to Mars by 2025 without allocating more funds for that. This makes little sense.

Yes, it would make little sense if that was actually the plan, but contra the editors, there is no date associated with a Mars mission. It is simply the “eventual goal.”

Referring to the White House, Senate and House plans, they note:

All three plans for space have in common an unwillingness either to abandon the dream of human spaceflight or to confront the budget reality. But with the funding for NASA set around $19 billion and not likely to change, bold plans for humans in space are simply not feasible. Something must give. If the administration and Congress truly want human spaceflight, they need to fund it adequately. Piecemeal funding that dooms programs to failure is a waste of money — especially when so many truly vital space functions, from the satellites that supply maps and communications to the telescopes that allow us to glimpse distant worlds, could benefit from such support.

That’s true of both congressional plans, but not the White House plan. It may not have been articulated very well to date, but the administration plan is the only one that is responsive to the grim choices laid out by the Augustine panel last fall. Congress seems to ignore them completely, continuing to prefer pork over progress, and potemkin human spaceflight programs over real ones. There is, of course, nothing magic about $19B — certainly the Congress could increase it if it wants, it light of the explosion of budget in all other areas (NASA used to be almost one percent of the federal budget — this year, it’s about half of that, not because its budget was cut, but because the federal budget essentially doubled in the past year). But there is no need for more money, and if it were forthcoming, reviving Constellation in anything resembling its previous form would be a ghastly waste of it. Unfortunately, actual accomplishments in space remain unimportant to those who decide the funding for it.