Category Archives: Political Commentary

Political Commentary, Space

Policy Purgatory

106 Comments

As I wrote the other day, what a mess:

Even Nelson, who described Obama’s speech at KSC as “visionary,” has advocated continued Ares rocket testing because it could mean a few hundred jobs at the center, which is set to lose as many as 9,000 workers once the shuttle completes its final three missions.

Much of the gridlock over Obama’s plan can be traced back to one sentence inserted by Shelby into a spending bill last year that bars NASA from canceling Constellation programs this year without congressional approval. Not only has that sentence prevented NASA from quickly switching to Obama’s new plan, but it also has given Congress time to kill his proposal and save Constellation.

Indeed, the tactic has proven so effective that lawmakers loyal to Constellation are considering a similar move in upcoming spending bills. That possibility has bureaucrats on both sides of the issue combing through thick pages of appropriations measures to ensure that the other doesn’t gain ground.

With such scrutiny, the issue may not be decided until Congress ultimately approves its 2011 budget — which may not happen until the winter holiday season.

OK, someone explain to me why, if the government is operating on a continuing resolution into the winter, and the Republicans have taken over one or both houses, and will be in power in January, why they wouldn’t simply filibuster any “Mad Duck” attempt to ram through an appropriations bill in December, and then do a new one in February?

Education, Political Commentary

Desecration

17 Comments

Do you know what I find most outrageous about this? That a public “servant” tried to force a student to turn an American flag inside out.

[Update a few minutes later]

Thoughts from First-Amendment specialist Eugene Volokh. As a commenter notes there, if a school is at risk from disruption by students wearing an American flag, it has very deep-seated problems. This is multi-culturalism run amok. Also, as another commenter points out, if this was really about Cinco de Mayo, they should have been concerned about French flags. But this was more about Mexican nationalism in American schools than the celebration of a minor Mexican holiday.

[Update a few minutes later]

Zombie has further thoughts:

So here we have the Principal and the Vice-Principal of an American high school treating the Stars and Stripes as if it was a gang bandanna; even worse, the school administrators took sides in this imaginary US-vs.-Mexico gang fight by allowing the widespread display of Mexican flags on campus but banning (under threat of punishment) any display of the American flag.

NBC quotes a fellow student:

“I think they should apologize cause it is a Mexican Heritage Day,” Annicia Nunez, a Live Oak High student, said. “We don’t deserve to be get disrespected like that. We wouldn’t do that on Fourth of July.”

Disrespected? I’m confused. Aren’t all the students Americans? Who is being disrespected by the display of our shared national flag?

I thought that one of the purposes of the public school system, agree with it or not, was to instill a sense of common culture and national (not nationalistic) pride. It seems to be failing at that as well as everything else.

Political Commentary, War Commentary

The Absurdity

4 Comments

…of the foreign terrorist organization list:

…if you can follow this, we’re in a war on terror against terrorist organizations that are killing and plotting to kill Americans but that our government won’t officially call terrorist organizations.

The “Continuity Irish Republican Army” is on the terrorism list … but not the Taliban.

Note that this is bipartisan stupidity. The Bush administration could have done something about this years ago, and never did.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Politically Incorrect Disaster

32 Comments

The more I see things like this, the angrier I get about the irresponsible and sensationalistic press coverage of Katrina, for no other reason than to discredit the Bush administration.

[Update later morning]

(Tenesseean) Michael Silence is running an Internet poll. Of course, the problem is, it’s been so undercovered that many people taking the poll won’t even know what it was about. As I note in comments over there, there should have been a third choice: “What TN flooding?”

And what is that Barack Obama hates so much about southern people?

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Satire, War Commentary

The MS In MSNBC

9 Comments

Lileks, on the moral superiority of our media and political “elites.” It’s really hard to use that word for them with a straight face.

Hope the attack was caused by one of the several dozen million militia members — also known as “Midwesterners.” After all, that’s the logical extension of being opposed to anything the government does while in control of the Democratic Party: blowing up that oasis of commerce and gaudy free enterprise, Times Square.

Fingers crossed: Oh, if only the attack was caused by someone protesting Arizona’s immigration policy. Such a thing would be misguided, but there’s a lot of anger out there about a law many say harkens back to Nazi Germany, where they rounded up Jews who had entered the Third Reich illegally, and made them return to Israel.

…CNN chatterboxes later ruminated that the fellow had a hard life in the U.S. — couldn’t get a good job, had his house foreclosed on. Granted. But this has happened to many during the Great Recession, and 99.99999% don’t sit down and conclude: “Well, it’s Pakistan for fertilizer bomb training, then.”

Do these people actually think about the stupid things they say?

I fully expect all those being foreclosed on to be put on a terrorist watch list. But we can’t discriminate against those Jihadis. That would be intolerant.

Political Commentary

When Is Racism Not Racism?

15 Comments

When it’s racism against white schoolchildren.

The left is always telling us that a power relationship has to be involved for it to be racism, it’s not enough to just have bigotry. Well, who has more power over kids while they’re at school than the school principal? And if figures that it would be in Ann Arbor.

Which reminds me of a true story. A few years ago, I was visiting some friends of mine who have a farm west of town, and as we were driving down the dirt road to their place, we saw a black squirrel run across the road in front of us. My friend said that probably the Ann Arbor city council had voted to bus him out there to increase local diversity.