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Category Archives: Political Commentary
Forget Personalities
Find some principles, Republicans:
The genius of America is the creativity and energy of a free people, and conservatives must never forget that it is federalism that encourages that genius to flower across the entire country.
But you can’t just be a fair-weather federalist. You have to be consistent.
A Conundrum
Why is it that so many people are finally proud of their country now that we finally have a president who doesn’t seem to be proud of his country?
First Things First
Paul Spudis expounds on a theme that will be a major one in the piece I’m working on for The New Atlantis — that we need to figure out what we want to do before we design the hardware to do it.
My only quibble is that I really dislike the word “mission.” Too NASA oriented. I prefer to ask, what is the goal?
More Waxman-Markey Thoughts
It’s funny how so many liberals have become “realists” of late, insisting that we can’t expect to cajole sovereign nations into doing what we think is right if it’s not in their interests, but the same liberals insist that if we hobble ourselves with the dull-rusty axe of cap-and-tax, our example will inspire other nations to do likewise. Yes, yes, liberals will likely say that fighting global warming is in these nations’ interest, but they just don’t realize it. Well, maybe. But who are we to tell these countries what their interests are? Isn’t that the sort of imperial hubris these folks usually denounce? Regardless, there’s zero evidence and sub-zero reason to believe that countries such as China and India will ever be inspired by our action on global warming.
As he says, W-M may not accomplish much, but at least it’s expensive.
Intended Unintended Consequences
Gee, ya think? Senators Worry That Health Overhaul Could Erode Employer Insurance Plans.
Hey, guys. That’s the whole idea.
And Blanche Lincoln doesn’t get it:
Senator Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas, said preserving employer-sponsored insurance “needs to be a huge objective.”
No, senator. The “huge objective” should be to get people out of plans that are tied to their employers, and into their own private plans that are portable, by leveling the tax-deduction playing field.
The United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small employers, said the proposed requirement amounted to a new tax and would frustrate the creation of jobs.
Only an economic ignoramus (i.e., much of the Congress) would think otherwise. So a company has a choice of hiring someone who doesn’t need or want insurance (because she’s young and healthy, or has it through her husband’s plan) but the cost of hiring her is buying a redundant policy for her to government specs. Guess what? Others will work overtime instead. That’s assuming that the business case closes for the business to get started at all, of course.
Burger King Ads
Buzz Weighs In
He has some advice for the Augustine Panel, over at Popular Mechanics. He wants to go to Mars, and he doesn’t like solids. Scrap Ares I.
[Update on Thursday afternoon]
Newsflash! Mark Whittington has finally revealed one of the members of his secretive Internet Rocketeers Club:
Rand Simberg, the Bill Maher of the Internet Rocketeers.
Well, like Bill Maher, except funny. And not an asshat.
And I’ve never gotten a decoder ring (who do I complain to, Mark?). So I guess I got gypped. And I actually work on space stuff for a living, so I can’t figure out what the criteria are for membership in his heretofore imaginary club. I guess it must just be anyone who is smarter than Mark and talks about space on the Internet. Which is, admittedly, a pretty darned big club.
Save Centennial Challenges
Clark Lindsey has the details.
Optimism On Iran
From Amir Tehari.
All that Iranians want the U.S. to do is to be true to its own principles, not to kowtow to the Khomeinist regime, and not to help it restore its shattered legitimacy. We want Obama to condemn the shooting of demonstrators in Iranian streets and the rigging of the election, and to make it clear that he would not shake Ahmadinejad’s bloodstained hand. We want Obama not to organize a strategic retreat from the Middle East, which would create a vacuum that the Khomeinists would fill. We want him not to leave the region’s new and fragile democracies alone and defenseless against the Islamofascists.
We also want him not to flatter the Islamists by pretending that the Renaissance and the Enlightenment were bred in an Islamic theological college. Don’t claim that Islam invented the pen and the printing press along with poetry and architecture — as if the Hellenic, Byzantine, Persian, Indian, and Chinese civilizations could be scripted out of history. Today, the U.S. has a choice: It can side with the Iranian people and invest in a future democratic Iran, or it can beg for a dialogue with the Islamofacists gathered around Ali Khamenei.
And from here:
…one thing is now certain: The oxymoron “Islamic Republic” has been exposed as a sham.
The regime in Iran has become an Islamic emirate, or imamate if you prefer, like the one that existed in Yemen until 1961 and in Afghanistan under the Taliban until 2002.
In Iran we have reached a moment of clarity. And, believe me, that is priceless.
In my humble way I have fought for three decades to help bring about that clarity, to show my people, and the world at large, the true nature of the regime created by Khomeini, and I am happy.
To be sure, I hope to be even happier a year from now.
I hope so, too.