Over at The Space Review today, Stephen Ashworth responds to the idiotic Space News piece by the ESA guys last week. I generally agree with his critique, though he’s far too fond of airbreathers.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
Gee, Just What We’re All Interested In
A terrorist critique of US foreign policy. Holder’s decision is looking more brilliant by the day.
The Science Is Unsettled
My thoughts on the climate-change fraud, over at PJM.
[Update a few minutes later]
All the news that’s fit to bury. I liked this: “If Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe are done tormenting ACORN maybe they can figure out how to pose as underaged climate researchers…”
[Update about 8:30 PST]
The ugly side of climate science.
[Late morning update]
Lord Monckton speaks: They are criminals.
[Early afternoon update]
Another “blue dress” moment for the media — the BBC has had some of this info for weeks.
[Update mid afternoon]
I like the comment that offered this code snippet over at McIntyre’s place:
void function fubar(void); {
if dataset == hockeystick then plot(dataset); else fudge(dataset);
return; }
I assume that it’s recursive, in that fudge calls fubar…
Has Obama Become Funny?
Apparently, SNL eviscerated the president in the opener last night, and the attack wasn’t even from the left. So what has changed? All through the campaign, and for months into the election, all of the comedy writers and comedians whose job is to make us laugh told us that there was nothing funny about Barack Obama. Now, I thought at the time that if they couldn’t find much to mock from this arrogant pomposity, they should find a new line of work. But I’m glad that they finally found something. I suspect that now that his polls are down, they’ll start finding a lot more.
Breitbart Responds
And now to address the fever-swamp’s notion that what I said on “Hannity” last night was “blackmail.” Blackmail occurs when one party threatens to reveal an unsavory piece of information about another party, and demands money in exchange for silence. For obvious reasons, it is most often conducted in private. I, on the other hand, went on national television with a challenge to the Attorney General to do his job; unlike this administration and its justice department, what I did was fully open and transparent.
There will be consequences if there isn’t an investigation into ACORN. The videos will be shown and at a particular moment. There is nothing illegal about my proposed response to the continued inaction from this justice department, and there’s nothing I’d like more than to have my day in court and let a jury hear why I have gone to such extraordinary measures to tell a major story that the dying, partisan, leftist media has worked so hard to suppress.
The days of the Democrat-Media Complex controlling the narrative are in their end times. And if the AG wants to turn his focus on me instead of ACORN, then that day will be closer than many of them think.
I suspect that he has a lot of ammunition if the industrial government/media complex wants to escalate its war.
[Evening update]
Fox asked to inspect hen house in Ohio:
According to a report from Ohio today, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the ACORN-tainted Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, to investigation ACORN’s voter registration work in the state.
I’m sure everything will be found to be on the up and up.
Betraying Science
Here’s a nice summary of the significant contents of the email dump. Regardless of the validity of the science, these people have thoroughly discredited themselves, and given AGW skeptics a vast arsenal. Thankfully, this is going to make it much more difficult for the warm-mongers to implement their anti-free-market agenda. I suspect that if cap’n’tax wasn’t already dead in the Senate, it will be now.
[Update mid afternoon]
Powerline has been going through the emails. The picture that emerges is not that of scientists seeking truth, but of partisans, protecting (at the least) their own pet theory, and possibly a broader agenda as well, at the expense of truth and the reputations of anyone who dares to question them..
[Sunday morning update]
When in doubt, delete:
These emails appear to show that, when faced with a legitimate request under Britain’s Freedom of Information Act, these global warming alarmists preferred to delete their emails with one another about the crucially important IPCC report–the main basis for the purported “consensus” in favor of anthropogenic global warming–rather than allow them to come to light. This is one of many instances in the East Anglia documents where the global warming alarmists act like a gang of co-conspirators rather than respectable scientists.
I don’t think it’s an act.
“Failure Is Not An Option”
In other words, it’s a show trial:
Obama’s and Holder’s assurances that KSM will be convicted (and, according to the president, “put to death”) make a mockery of due process. Nothing is more fundamental to America’s criminal justice system than the presumption of innocence, and if terrorist detainees are to be treated as criminal defendants, they are entitled to that presumption.
For the sake of political expediency, Obama and Holder are refusing even to make a pretense of respect for due process. If KSM & Co. are convicted and put to death, America’s critics and enemies will point to Obama and Holder’s assurances in arguing that the defendants were subjected to sham justice. Nice work restoring America’s moral standing, Mr. President.
This remains indefensible, though I’m sure the Obama kool-aid drinkers will continue to defend it. Certainly Holder wasn’t able to do so last week.
A Next Lebanon War
…will be much worse than the last one. And we’ve done essentially nothing to prevent Iran from arming Hezbollah. In fact, I see no evidence that the current administration is even concerned about it.
Entrepreneurs Go On Strike
Thoughts at The American Thinker:
For many decades, the American dream has been undergirded by the faith that regardless of its current state, the economy would come back around thanks to the greatness of ordinary people being free to do extraordinary things. Thus the bold gunslinger mentality many business owners have had in previous recessions, refusing to participate, and even expanding cheaply to grab market share in the next recovery.
But it’s different now, and there is no denying it. The dream itself is being killed by legal and regulatory micromanagement. Washington is determined to employ policies to cure something that can be cured only by government getting the hell out of the way.
A small business summit in the White House will accomplish nothing unless the invitees include unions and lawyers and bureaucrats, in which case it will be devastating. When did a union or a lawyer or a bureaucrat ever start a business? How many times a day do they kill one?
And that’s the climate entrepreneurs see. Unions, lawyers, and bureaucrats gain more power and leverage every day. The big opportunity now is to spend government money: an eighteen-million-dollar government contract to create an awful Recovery.org website, SEIU union jobs in ObamaCare, bankruptcy lawyers, and perhaps carbon credit trades coming. There are ACORN-style crony contracts to be had, not to mention all the jobs created by the David Axelrod astroturfing media escapades. If you are connected or if your dream is to enrich yourself by killing the dreams of others, then the field is ripe for you.
Ayn Rand saw this coming.
Quoteworthy
On mandates:
In the primaries, Obama distinguished himself from Clinton on health care by opposing an individual mandate. In the general election, he distinguished himself from McCain by opposing taxes on health benefits. So now he is trying to pass bills with both an individual mandate and taxes on health benefits—and his supporters are saying that Congress should go along because he won the election.
“I won” is not a substitute for substantive policy discussion.