Category Archives: Political Commentary

They Only Kind Of Suck

October 23, 2010 Rand Simberg 11 Comments

Frank J. explains why the Dems are going to lose at least one house of Congress:

…the Democrats will counter that the Republicans also suck. And while this is true, it’s not really going to help them. As I pointed out before, both a dog incessantly barking and a zombie apocalypse are things that everyone would agree suck. Yet no one during a zombie apocalypse, while hiding out in a boarded up mall, would turn to the other survivors and say, “We don’t want to kill all the zombies; then we’d have to go back to being woken up at night by that annoying dog next door.” But this is the best argument the Democrats can come up with. “Remember how awful the Republicans and Bush were? You hated them. You don’t want to go back to that.” Yes, why would people want to go back to when 6% unemployment was considered high?

People do remember how much the Republicans suck, and they know where it tops out … and that is nowhere near as bad as the Democrats are today. Like with the barking dog, it’s annoying, but you know it’s not going to cause the collapse of civilization as we know it. Not so with the zombie apocalypse; who knows how bad that could get if left to continue? Same with the Democrats and Obama; people have never dealt with anything this horrible their entire lives, and they aren’t that curious to see how much worse it can be.

They really have nothing on which to campaign at this point.

Humor, Political Commentary, Satire

I Worked So Hard

October 23, 2010 Rand Simberg 8 Comments

Call Me Senator from RightChange on Vimeo.

Let’s work so hard to take it away from her.

Humor, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Obamadinejad

October 23, 2010 Rand Simberg 28 Comments

This is pretty funny. And I agree that this comment is bizarre:

I admit it’s humorous but it’s not really a good nickname for Obama since Ahmadinejad is a far right conservative.

It’s a good demonstration of how useless the phrase “right wing” is for political discourse. What in the world does this mean? That Ahmadinejad wants lower taxes? Smaller government? Choice in public schools? No gun control?

What?

Political Commentary, Space

“Witches’ Brew”

October 23, 2010 Rand Simberg 41 Comments

Paul Spudis discusses the recent LCROSS findings:

The LCROSS team’s published data from the mission reveals a cold witches’ brew deep inside Cabeus crater. The finding of significant lunar water has confirmed data from earlier missions, while the ejecta plume from the LCROSS impact reveals more modest amounts of a variety of other substances. The Near-IR spectrometers on the LCROSS shepherding satellite detected abundant water (H2O) but also hydrogen sulfide (H2S), ammonia (NH3), methanol (CH3OH), methane (CH4), ethylene (C2H4) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). The uv-vis spectrometer found carbon dioxide (CO2), sodium, silver, and cyanide (CN). Aboard the distant LRO spacecraft, the ultraviolet LAMP imager detected hydrogen (H2), nitrogen, carbon monoxide (CO), sodium, mercury, zinc, gold (!), and calcium. But water, present in quantities between 5 and 10 weight percent, is the most abundant volatile substance present.

One of the many travesties of Constellation is that, in attempting to redo Apollo, it ate up all the funding for serious preparatory exploration of the moon that would have provided a lot better guidance to requirements for human lunar activities. Compared to what we previously thought, the moon seems to be a veritable rain forest in terms of water quantities and densities, with other useful volatiles as well.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

In A Free Society

October 23, 2010 Rand Simberg 57 Comments

…the government would not fund a major media outlet, taking taxpayer dollars to disseminate viewpoints that are anathema to many taxpayers. As Jefferson said, “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.” NPR/PBS have been an abomination for American values since their inception.

Just in case you were wondering what I thought about the Juan Williams situation. And I actually like a lot of NPR programming. But I suspect that the programming that I like would survive just fine absent federal dollars. And if not, I’d survive just fine without it.

And Juan Williams apparently agrees. You know the old saying that a conservative is a liberal who just got mugged? Well, Juan just got mugged.

[Update in the afternoon]

A proposal for a “Juan Williams Law.”

This legislation would outlaw all government funding for any news organization, whether private or non-governmental in nature. This restriction would include not only National Public Radio but all domestic news outlets, whatever their ideology or bias, or even if they claim to have none. (I am not talking here, of course, of international operations such as Voice of America, which have the legitimate task of representing American interests abroad.)

The legislation would further outlaw any future stimulus funding or bailouts for news organizations, again irrespective of ideology.

It’s easy to understand that government financing of the news is at best unseemly and at worst totalitarian. The possibilities for corruption are myriad. I am not one to dwell on what the Founders intended, but I am reasonably certain they didn’t want a Fourth Estate that was bought and paid for by the government, even in part.

I would go further and argue that it’s a violation of the establishment clause, given the degree (and it’s a large one) to which “progressivism” is a religion. Juan was duly punished for his heresy.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

Soviet Lander Commentary

October 22, 2010 Rand Simberg 16 Comments

Well, this is a little annoying. Scott Ott seems to get it, though.

Political Commentary

The End Of The Progressive Fairy Tale?

October 21, 2010 Rand Simberg 32 Comments

This election should put it to an end, anyway:

The DCCC is running ads about Kristi Noem’s speeding tickets, Keith Fimian’s home-inspection business, Jaime Herrera’s business-card expenses. Tennessee Democrat Lincoln Davis accuses his opponent of “a history of violent and threatening behavior.”

As we all know, Jack Conway is running an ad on the Aqua Buddha. The DSCC is running an ad saying that because Pat Toomey did work for a Chinese company, “maybe he ought to run for Senate . . . in China. (Gong noise.)” We all know how much of the DSCC attacks on Christine O’Donnell have been about her personal finances, and how much fun they had with Linda McMahon’s wacky on-camera performances as part of the WWF. And the White House, of course, is screaming from the rooftops that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce must prove their innocence over their unsupported charge of using foreign money.

Yet few if any endangered Democrats are running on health care and the stimulus, or to argue that the past two years represent serious improvement in the lives of Americans. They don’t want to talk about their ideas, or their record.

They should stop telling themselves the fairy tale that Americans, deep down, agree with the liberal agenda; Americans have had two years of the liberal agenda and are, by and large, vehemently rejecting it.

Unfortunately, I suspect that delusion will spring eternal.

Political Commentary, Space