Category Archives: Political Commentary

Political Commentary

A House Of Repeal

16 Comments

I like this idea:

Perhaps what America needs is an authority whose sole job is to get rid of outdated, ill-conceived, or just plain bad laws.

This administration would certainly keep it busy.

I don’t know if this is the solution, but the system clearly is broken. The Founders would be appalled.

I still like my idea of a Sunset Amendment:

“All laws passed by the Congress shall remain in effect for no more than ten calendar years from the date of passage, at or prior to which time they must be repassed, or expire. All federal laws in existence at the time of passage of this amendment shall have staggered expiration dates, as a function of their age on the books, according to the formula, time-to-expire = 35 x (year-of-amendment-passage – 1787)/(year-of-amendment-passage – year-of-law-passage) + 5. Repassage of all existing laws will also have a lifetime of ten years.”

I’ve put some (but not a tremendous amount of) thought into this. The idea is to make the whole mess go away eventually, but you wouldn’t want to have a single date of expiration for all existing law–it would simply overwhelm the system. What I’m hoping for here is something that whelms the system only slightly, but enough to keep them so busy renewing important laws that they won’t have time to renew antiquated or bad ones, or to cause new mischief.

The formula has the earliest phaseouts (of the most recent laws) occur in five years, while the oldest laws (some of which, given their age, might have actually been good ones), can hang on as long as forty. The last sentence may be redundant, because it’s implied by the first sentence, but I want to make it clear that once law existing prior to amendment passage has been reauthorized, it has no special status among laws passed later–it is simply treated as any other newly-passed law.

There is a useful discussion of loopholes over comments at the old post.

Economics, Political Commentary, Space

Maybe The Ming Dynasty Had The Right Idea

48 Comments

Legend has it (whether true or not) that, after Zheng He’s voyages were shut down, it was made a capital offense to build a ship with more than four masts.*

If I were Norm Augustine, I would suggest that NASA be encouraged to innovate by being forbidden to develop a vehicle with more capability than the biggest existing Atlas V. This would finally force them to stop wasting money on the heavy-lift fetish, and get on with the business of developing a cost-effective (and scalable) in-space transportation infrastructure. If they really want to continue to indulge in this economically irrational behavior, let them do it with their own money, or find some crazy investor, instead of continuing to screw the taxpayers.

*It was not the size restriction of the ships that prevented the Chinese from being a naval power. The Portuguese and Spanish conquered the New World with much smaller ones.

Political Commentary, Space

You Know The Program Is In Trouble

11 Comments

…when the major contractors are running down the lines of the ship:

According to industry officials present, former astronaut and Boeing Vice President Brewster Shaw, Lockheed Vice President John Karas and other executives met with the staff of powerful U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby to discuss creating a media campaign to counter Ares I critics and alternative ideas. Shelby, R-Ala., is a fierce protector of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, which is designing the Ares rockets.

But the campaign never materialized. Instead, Lockheed and Boeing have softened their positions and even indicated some support for looking at alternatives.

Lockheed, which has a $4.5 billion contract to design and build the Orion crew capsule to ride on top of Ares I, now says it is “neutral” on which rocket takes its capsule into orbit.

In addition, it allowed United Launch Alliance, the company that Lockheed jointly owns with Boeing, to make a presentation to the Augustine Committee advocating its Delta IV rocket — now used to launch military and commercial payloads — as a cheaper, better alternative to Ares I.

When asked this week which rocket his company supports, spokesman Stephen Tatum replied: “Lockheed Martin is focused on building the best Orion crew exploration vehicle possible for our NASA customer.”

Diplomatically put.

Dead rocket walking.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

I Hope That He Fails

2 Comments

… in his attempt to take over a third of the economy. If that be treason, make the most of it. Henry Waxman is behaving like a fascist.

And there’s a good reason for that.

[Update a few minutes later]

The unraveling begins:

The Obama White House and their congressional allies have built expectations among their core supporters that this is the year to pass a government-takeover of American health care. With expectations set so high, most elected Democrats have concluded they have no choice but to set out on a forced march to try to do exactly that — despite unified Republican opposition. But a partisan bill means that Democrats own all of the messy and unattractive details too. The debate is no longer about vague concepts of “coverage” and “cost-control” but who pays and who is forced out of their job-based plans. The more people learn about these details, the less they will like them —which is why the Democratic committee chairmen are working desperately to shorten the time between a full public airing and a vote. They’re hoping there won’t be enough time for public opposition to put a halt to the proceedings.

Just keep giving them more rope, please, and prepare the gibbet for 2010.

[Update a couple minutes later]

And is the Sotomayor nomination in trouble with the public?

Rasmussen’s June 29–30 survey found that support for her confirmation has fallen 8 points, to 37%, while opposition has risen 10 points to 39%…

…Rasmussen also picked up a negative movement in her favorability ratings. In May, a few more voters checked the “very favorable” box (20%) than the “very unfavorable” one (17%). By late June, she was upside-down on this important measure, with only 14% very favorably disposed toward her and 24% very unfavorably disposed.

Another issue on which they may have the votes, but will pay for them November next year.

[Late morning update]

More and more people are becoming traitors to the state, it would seem:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 30% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-eight percent (38%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –8. The President’s Approval Index rating has fallen six points since release of a disappointing jobs report last week (see trends)…

…Overall, 51% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance so far. Forty-eight percent (48%) now disapprove.

I think those numbers are going to get worse before they get better. If they get better. Let’s hope not.

Just keep reeling out the rope…

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Good Luck With That

2 Comments

Wanted: honesty in the health-care debate.

President Barack Obama walked into the Oval Office with a veritable halo over his head. In the eyes of his backers, he could say or do no wrong because he had evidently descended directly from heaven to return celestial order to our fallen world. Oprah declared his tongue to be “dipped in the unvarnished truth.” Newsweek editor Evan Thomas averred that Obama “stands above the country and above the world as a sort of a God.”

But when it comes to health care reform, with every passing day, Obama seems less God and more demagogue, uttering not transcendental truths, but bald-faced lies. Here are the top five lies that His Awesomeness has told—the first two for no reason other than to get elected and the next three to sell socialized medicine to a wary nation.

Read the whole thing. Though it’s a little harsh. He’s sufficiently ignorant of economics and other matters that he may have persuaded himself to believe the nonsense.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

Moonbat

14 Comments

As Thomas James notes, Bruce Gagnon is off his meds (again? still?).

When the space craft arrives near the moon it will fire a missile, at twice the speed of a bullet, from the spacecraft into the moon’s surface. NASA maintains that the “test” will displace several miles of lunar material in order to find out if water is present on the moon’s surface.

Funny, I didn’t know that lunar material came by the mile.

NASA has publicly maintained in recent years that all of their space missions are now “dual use” – meaning that each mission they launch is both civilian and military at the same time. Thus one must consider that this LCROSS moon bombing mission is likely testing the capability of Pentagon technologies to launch missiles from space that could hit targets on Earth.

NASA has never “maintained” such a thing, either publicly or privately. I’m not aware of any, let alone every, mission that is “both civilian and military at the same time.” It would be amusing to see Mr. Gagnon attempt to come up with a citable source for this psychotropic fantasy. And of course, even if the premise weren’t nonsense, the conclusion doesn’t follow from it. It is no technological challenge to hit targets on earth from space — this is exactly what ballistic missiles have been designed to do for half a century or so. Only someone fundamentally ignorant about history, technology and physics (and probably deranged as well) would delude himself that the Pentagon would need to test such technology on a body with no atmosphere.

Hate to break it to you, Bruce, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

But I will admit, I do expect the president to apologize to the moon for this aggressive act.