Category Archives: Political Commentary

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

In Which One Of The Rubes

6 Comments

…admits he’s a sap:

This wasn’t a speech to get something done. This was the sort of speech that sounded better when Ted Kennedy was delivering it. The result is that we will get neither short-term stimulus nor long-term debt reduction anytime soon, and I’m a sap for thinking it was possible.

Yes, I’m a sap. I believed Obama when he said he wanted to move beyond the stale ideological debates that have paralyzed this country. I always believe that Obama is on the verge of breaking out of the conventional categories and embracing one of the many bipartisan reform packages that are floating around.

What a fool.

[Update a while later]

“Foolish little girl.”

Political Commentary, Space, Space History

Looking For Snoopy

18 Comments

The search is on:

In a celestial version of finding a needle in a haystack, Howes and his team are about to embark on the seemingly impossible: finding Snoopy!

After consulting members of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Faulkes Telescope team, who are working with the Space Exploration Engineering Corp and astronomers from the Remanzacco Observatory in Italy as well as schools across the UK, the team are under no illusion of how difficult the task will be as Paul Roche, Director of the Faulkes Telescope Project states: “To paraphrase President Kennedy, we are trying these things ‘not because they are easy but because they are hard’ — this will be a real test for the hardware and the people involved.”

The challenges facing the team are enormous, a fact that isn’t lost on Howes. “The key problem which we are taking on is a lack of solid orbital data since 1969,” he told Discovery News. “We’ve enlisted the help of the Space Exploration Engineering Corp who have calculated orbits for Apollo 13 and working closely with people who were on the Apollo mission team in the era will help us identify search coordinates.”

Here’s an interesting project. Have Paul Allen or someone put up a prize to not just find it, but to retrieve it, and put it on the lunar surface as part of the lunar Apollo historical sites. It’s the kind of thing we’d do if we were really a space-faring nation. And we will never do it with anything like an SLS.

Business, Economics, Humor, Political Commentary, Satire

A Rogue Trader

2 Comments

…in a massive “green jobs” fraud:

The fraud – conservatively estimated at $38.6 billion, though others believe it could be at least 20 times bigger once his secret trading accounts in a file mysteriously marked “Stimulus Package” are fully investigated – comfortably exceeds the paltry $2.3 billion losses run up by UBS trader Kweku Adoboli.

Though full details of the Uber Rogue Trader – known only by his initials B.O. – have yet to be released, he is believed to be either of Hawaiian or Kenyan birth, with a plausible speaking manner and a deceptive aura of competence and gravitas. He is said to be “coolly unrepentant” about his crime, which, he claims, he was only doing to provide “hope and change” to his 200 million victims.

The fraud appears to have centred around an arcane taxpayer-swindling system first devised by Kenneth Lay of Enron known as “Clean tech” or “green jobs.” B.O. – who joined the bank in January 2009 – is believed to have persuaded colleagues and shareholders that he could boost the institution’s flagging profits by spending $38.6 billion on a “loan guarantee program” for clean tech start up companies. He also claimed that in the process he would create “65,000 jobs”.

This really is criminal fraud. But I won’t hold my breath waiting for the Justice Department to do anything about it.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

John Stewart

20 Comments

I’ve never been as impressed with him as I’m supposed to be.

Here’s a long explanation why:

Was Jon Stewart being a dick when he was subjecting Jim Cramer to enhanced interrogation? Sure he was. He was also being a dick when he called Tucker Carlson a dick, and when he was preaching to Chris Wallace. But here’s the thing: It doesn’t matter. What matters is that even when Stewart’s a dick, he is never the dick. It is Stewart’s unique talent for coming across as decent and well-meaning when he’s bullying and hectoring and self-righteous. And this is because his talent is not just for comedy and not just for media criticism or truth-telling; it’s for being — for remaining — likable.

I think it’s a travesty that so many young people get their news from him and think they understand what’s going on.

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

I Agree With Instapundt

2 Comments

Exactly the same example hopped immediately into my mind.

[Update a couple minutes later]

“They all look alike to them“:

I’ve suggested in the past that Obama is Pumpsie Green and but was sold to us as Jackie Robinson, but on reflection I think it goes deeper than that.

I think the press had Pumpsie Green in front of them but saw Jackie Robinson. They deceived themselves and moreover wanted to be deceived. As far was the press was concerned their desire for the political equivalent of Jackie Robinson blinded them to the point where any semi-qualified black candidate became Jackie

So naturally when some of us on the right objected to a person who was totally unqualified for office the press went wild, because it directly challenged their illusion and cried racism when it was just the opposite.

We on the right saw not a black man, but an unqualified inexperienced Chicago pol who just happened to be black. The press meanwhile saw not an individual but a symbol, it didn’t actually matter who he was, it mattered that he was. Or to put it bluntly, they couldn’t tell Jackie Robinson from Pumpsie Green because “they all looked alike to them.”

If Branch Rickey had done this in 47 the majors might still not be integrated.

As I’ve often noted, the true racists are on the left, almost inherently.

[Update a few minutes later]

I agree with Instapundit on this, too: “Half a century ago, insecure white bigots needed to put down black people so they’d have someone to feel superior to. Now they use Mississippi.”

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Space

This Won’t Be Good For The Rocket Racing League

31 Comments

Many people have been killed and injured at the Reno Air Races. It was a vintage plane (reportedly a Mustang) and things can go wrong. The rocket racers will be more modern, and presumably safer, but there will be a lot of emotional arguments against allowing a crowd anywhere near them after this.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s some video. Looks to me like it could have been a lot worse — the pilot seems to have tried to minimize the damage. I’d hope do the same in similar circumstances — I suspect it’s a natural reaction. You don’t want to die, but you don’t want to fly into a crowd, either.