A righteous rant on the educational system and teachers’ unions, from Matt Welch.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
Good Space Reporting
It’s so rare, I want to applaud it when it occurs. There’s a story at the WaPo that has a good summary of what’s going on in space policy, though I think that the headline is a little understated. It might have been nice to get a little more elaboration on this, though:
The House bill awaiting action would give twice as much money to Russia for transporting astronauts and cargo to the space station as it would give to U.S. companies working to build that capacity.
Insanity. And it doesn’t even mention the fact that this undermines the non-proliferation regime, due to the need to continually waive the requirements for INKSNA (a subject on which I’ll have more tomorrow).
“The President Is Losing It”
I don’t know whether or not this is true, but it certainly wouldn’t shock me if it were.
I disagree that he’s a lock to win in 2012, though. I think the magic is over. The rubes have caught on.
[Sunday morning update]
This post is about Sarah Palin, but I think that this part about the president is right:
Obama would be making a deadly mistake by calling out Sarah Palin for a political cage match. Let me put this bluntly: virtually no one in America gives a damn what Barack Obama says about anything at this point. What could be more predictable, and less interesting, than Obama’s opinion on any given subject? Who wants to contemplate the economic wisdom of a guy who looted the Treasury for a trillion dollars, with less benefit than we could have achieved by stuffing hundred dollar bills into random cereal boxes? Who’s excited to hear about the next plan to convert taxpayer dollars into Democrat campaign funds? Who’s hungry for another hour of tedious excuses about permanently broken markets and the titanic dead hand of George W. Bush? Who wants a lecture on ethical business practices from the titular head of the party that gave us Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters? What use is another hollow foreign-policy speech from a man who sees no global adversary to rival the menace of Arizona? Even Obama’s supporters don’t hear anything he says any more. There’s nothing left to hear.
Unfortunately, speechifying on his radical agenda is all he’s ever had. As I said, the rubes have caught on. There aren’t enough marks left, any more.
That’s One Giant Leap Forward
Not that it’s really news, but there’s a new book out documenting that Mao (Anita Dunn’s favorite philosopher) was the biggest mass murderer in history. But unlike Hitler, he murdered his own kind, so that’s all right. And as usual, one has to ask why it’s acceptable, and even fashionable, to wear a Che or Mao tee shirt on campus, but not a Hitler one.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Wow. It’s amazing to read some of the defenses of Mao (and Che), and anti-West sentiment in comments over there.
Home Depot
This makes me glad that I’m a regular customer:
On CNBC, the founder of Home Depot blasted Barack Obama and his administration as a collection of tenured dilettantes who have never had to meet a payroll in their lives. Greg Hengler offers a couple of juicy excerpts from his appearance, especially when Marcus starts “apologizing” for having created over 300,000 jobs through the kind of entrepreneurship that the current White House wants to discourage.
I don’t think that Obama was tenured, though. And I hope he’ll be out of a job himself in a couple years.
The Tea Parties
…have already won:
What debuted in nationwide protests on April 15, 2009, has taken less than 18 months to become the current driving force in American politics. The Tea Party insurgency will not only cost Democrats dozens of seats in Congress, and likely their majority — it will define the coming GOP presidential nominating process, determine the direction of the GOP for years to come and threaten any remaining plans Obama has for sweeping reforms of education, energy policy or our immigration system.
And it’s driving the establishment, in both parties (e.g., Karl Rove), crazy. So much for Queen Nancy’s “astroturf.” She’s about to be dethroned.
Big-Government Republicans
…at least when it comes to space.
The Delaware Primary
T. Coddington weighs in:
Who was this mysterious rival, I inquired – some heretofore unknown Machiavellian prodigy from Harvard poli sci? An old-money interloper from the Philadelphia Mainline? Neither, they said. The challenge, they explained, came in the form of one “Christine O’Donnell,” a financially destitute 37-year old Tea Party schoolgirl whose intellectual heft by comparison made even la Palin look Obamanesque. I then watched in abject horror as they played a video of her crusading against teenage onanism. I admit no great pride in my own occasional participation in that unseemly adolescent pastime, but what sort of person declaims it on MTV? And what sort of party allows her name to appear on an official primary ballot? And that is when it struck me: I was obviously now witnessing the premise of an elaborate practical joke. Delawareans have long been known as the irascible pranksters of East Coast Republicanism, and to be selected as the target of their good-natured japery is in some fashion an honor. Even though the stunt nearly led to his untimely demise, the very first T. Coddington Van Voorhees himself reportedly enjoyed a hearty laugh after his waggish Delaware friend E. I. du Pont replaced his trusty dueling pistol with a replica that egested a comical “BANG” flag. Not wanting to spoil their fun, I did not let on to the Delaware party officials that I was wise to their little joke. Instead, I played along and counseled them to run a last minute, no-holds-barred negative media blitz against their impossibly fictional “Tea Party candidate.”
And thus I awaited with wry anticipation as Farquhar slowly traversed the breakfast room with the cart bearing the punchline to the Delawareans’ clever prank. This was followed by gales of riotous laughter when I discovered the wags had printed an entire mock edition of the New York Times announcing their satirical “Miss O’Donnell” had actually won the race! I was so overcome with mirth that I kicked over the cart, spilling grapefruit across the marble. As Farquhar trembled back to the kitchens to retrieve the mop, I reached for the ringing telephone prepared to hear the voice of the Delaware GOP chairman crowing about his ingenious drollery. Instead I was greeted with the panicked entreaties of none other that Mr. Castle himself, joined by the Republican National Congressional Committee brain trust, insisting against all rational evidence that Miss O’Donnell was in fact real and that she had indeed won the contest. I conducted an incredulous review of the cable news channels, which confirmed their wild story. I called the kitchen intercom and bade Farquhar fetch me a stiff drink on his way back with the mop.
He’ll probably need to make it a double.
[Update a few minutes later]
A rare interview with the Hawk himself.
Born Gay?
Here’s an interesting discussion on forecasting sexual orientation:
We all know the stereotypes: an unusually light, delicate, effeminate air in a little boy’s step, often coupled with solitary bookishness, or a limp wrist, an interest in dolls, makeup, princesses, dresses and a staunch distaste for rough play with other boys; in little girls, there is the outwardly boyish stance, perhaps a penchant for tools, a lumbering gait, a square-jawed readiness for physical tussles with boys, an aversion to all the perfumed, delicate, laced trappings of femininity.
I’m sure that my parents thought, or at least worried, that I was going to be homosexual. I was a bookworm, and didn’t enjoy roughhousing or sports. On the other hand, I never had an interest in girlish things, and was more into pirates and cowboys. In any event, I’ve never had the slightest interest in the same sex, sexually speaking — I’m as heterosexual as they come (so to speak). But I think you have to be in abject denial to think that sexual orientation is a “choice.” The only people for whom that’s the case are bisexuals.
Et Tu, Jim?
In a roundup of some House races, Jim Geraghty at National Review comments on Suzanne Kosmas’ district:
Kosmas defied her district by voting for health-care reform, and many figured she had traded her vote to the Obama administration for some sort of deal to save Space Coast jobs. Instead, President Obama’s space-policy changes are effectively ending manned spaceflight, disastrous news for workers in her district.
I don’t know who figured that she had made such a trade, or how that was supposed to work, but the new policy is not “effectively ending manned spaceflight.” As I’ve explained myself at National Review, in fact, it was the Bush/Griffin policy that was doing that, in wasting money on an unaffordable and unnecessary new rocket that was extending the post-Shuttle gap into the indefinite future. The new policy could have a (commercial) crew delivery system in as little as four years, given proper (and comparatively modest) funding, while allowing the agency to focus instead on human exploration beyond earth orbit.
None of which is to say, of course, that Kosmas should necessarily be reelected.
[Update a while later]
Jim has updated his post to note that this assessment is that of the Republican candidate, and not necessarily his own.