When the president has lost Gary Trudeau…
Though I haven’t noticed much support for protesters in Iran. He let him off too easy.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
Demagoguery
The president is now trying to distract from his own policies by blaming the oil companies for high gas prices, and he wants to increase their taxes, by taking away “subsidies.”
a) Does he really think that increasing oil companies’ costs will reduce gas prices? Apparently the question tied Jay Carney up in verbal knots.
b) Do oil companies get much in the way of “subsidies” that other companies don’t? If he’s talking about things like accelerated depreciation and R&D tax credits, this is helpful to any company, not just an oil company. If he is proposing to take it away from them alone, isn’t he simply punishing a vital industry because it’s making him look bad?
Ramesh Ponnoru makes a good point:
The big energy subsidies, on a per-unit-of-energy basis, are for ethanol, solar, and wind power. Get rid of the oil subsidies — and the “oil subsidies” — and nothing much changes. Get rid of the subsidies for those other energy sources, and those industries disappear. Just ask their lobbyists.
And good riddance, too, if they can’t make it without Uncle Sugar.
[Update mid afternoon]
“The president doesn’t know squat about energy production.” Which, unfortunately, doesn’t distinguish it in any way from most other subjects.
Why Not Just Move The UN Human Rights Council
…to Syria? The whole thing would be a joke, if it weren’t so serious.
The Politics Of Star Trek
Thoughts from Ilya Somin:
Instead, it is the Federation that turns out to be a sort of kinder, gentler Soviet Union. Both are multicultural, federal, socialist states with an official ideology of egalitarianism. But the Federation lacks the Gulags, secret police, and mass murder (or at least we never see them on-screen!). Meanwhile, the Romulans represent several of the negative qualities that many leftists associate with the present-day West: elitism, arrogance, and intolerance for other cultures. The same can be said of many other Star Trek villains, such as the Ferengi, who represent the supposed evils of capitalism. At some level, of course, Star Trek is a projection of Western values. After all, egalitarian socialism is a Western ideology. However, Trek is far more hostile to the present-day West than Nussbaum and some other left of center critics recognize.
Some say Roddenberry was a dreamer. But (sadly) he’s not the only one. Imagine.
Good Question
Dear Mr. President: what took you so long?
Here’s why he waited: “…there was no immaculate conception!”
It is a shocker.
[Update late morning]
OK, so why is the birth certificate in layers?
[Bumped]
[Update just before noon]
More analysis. And the Freepers are discussing it. Many think that it’s an artifact of Adobe Illustrator.
NASA Over A Russian Barrel
I have a piece over at Pajamas Media today about the Russians’ latest attempt to stifle competition in crew transportation.
[Update mid morning]
I have related thoughts over at the Washington Examiner.
[Bumped]
Inside Every Leftist
…is a little authoritarian dying to get out. Harold Pollack channels his inner Tom Friedman.
The Climate Coverup Continues
Also, there’s a double standard in Virginia when it comes to releasing emails:
UVA and the interest groups have been in Mann’s corner, fighting Ken Cuccinelli’s request for documents for months. But it was that Greenpeace request of UVA for Pat Michaels’ work product that has legs. The environmental group filed similar requests with other institutions seeking the records of climate skeptics, and in a couple of cases, mounted campaigns to have those skeptics fired from their positions. Where were the voices of academic freedom of expression during those campaigns? Sitting on their hands.
Now, though, they have sprung into action because Michael Mann, who shares their climate change beliefs, is under what they deem to be attack. Horner says these groups are “a little bit late to the party,” because, as noted above, UVA has already said it’s willing to release an academic’s emails, “so long as he’s a climate skeptic.”
As Norman Leahy writes, we now have half a million reasons to want to see them.
Ready For The Future?
XKCD has the timeline.
Is Obama Too Smart For His Own Good?
Yeah, I laughed pretty hard, too, when I read Dana Milbank’s nutty theory (unless it was really intended to be a joke). Jen Rubin isn’t impressed by it, either:
I hate to be prosaic about this, but what is the evidence that Obama is a complex guy? ( None of the three gurus have met or actually diagnosed him, of course, and I’d bet, just a wild guess here, that they are liberal Democrats who just think he is swell.)
After all, Obama has not blazed new political or policy trails as Bill Clinton did. He’s written no scholarly books (sorry, memoirs don’t count). His understanding of the Middle East has been so slight and his strategy so misguided that there are no Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and we have been spectacularly unsuccessful in stopping the hegemonic aspirations of Iran. I mean, isn’t it just as likely that Obama’s a garden-variety liberal with poor decision-making skills?
Much more likely, actually. I’d go with Occam’s Razor here. And as she notes, they said the same thing about Jimmy Carter.
[Update mid morning]
Jonah Goldberg doesn’t think much of Milbank’s thesis, either.