There’s a lot of interesting and disputatious discussion of the NASA budget and its implications for Ares I over at Space Politics this morning.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
Ethanol Versus Electricity
An interesting discussion of the transportation tradeoffs of biofuels.
St. Elizabeth
I’ve never been as impressed by Elizabeth Edwards as the media has wanted me to be (of course, the gulf between my perception of John Edwards and the media’s desires has been even wider). Kaus says that the media continues to be too soft on her:
You’re understandably focused on your own family. You won’t say Hunter’s name. She’s “irrelevant to your life.” You don’t know if Hunter’s child–which you call “it”–is John’s. You just know “It doesn’t look like my children.” You say Hunter had no right to disrupt your marriage. “Women need to have respect for other women.” But during the campaign an aide and friend of John Edwards, Andrew Young, stepped up and claimed paternity of Hunter’s child. Andrew Young has a wife. How do you think she feels about this? How do her children feel about it, and what other kids say about it, when they go to school? Do you really not care if she’s going through whatever she’s going through because she’s playing her part in a lie constructed in service to your husband’s, and your, unstoppable ambition?. How are you respecting her and her marriage?
Both of these people are complete hypocrites, and made for each other. Fortunately, though, they weren’t made for the White House.
A Good Question
From Iain Murray:
The news has just broken that the Federal Reserve is requiring GMAC to raise $13 billion in new funding. Given the way its previous creditors were treated, just who do they think will lend to them?
Gosh, it’s almost as though they want to take over the economy.
A Tale Of Two Axes
George Bush’s Axis of Evil versus Barack Obama’s.
C. P. Snow’s Two Cultures
Have they been superceded?
And yes, he did miss the Russo-Japanese War, though as he notes, the Japanese were westernizing rapidly at that point.
Tugging On Superman’s Cape
And he doesn’t seem to mind:
The USNS Lewis and Clark was chased for about an hour on Wednesday morning by two pirates skiffs, but neither came closer than about one nautical mile to the U.S. vessel, the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet said in a statement.
The small arms fire fell well short of the U.S. ship which speeded up to evade the skiffs.
So let me get this straight. A US Navy ship is fired upon by a ragtag gang, and instead of sending them to the bottom, they run away? What ROE have they gotten from the White House? Would this have happened during the previous administration? And if so, is this bipartisan stupidity?
If you want to discourage piracy, you have to make the costs higher than the rewards. This was a perfect opportunity to make an example of them. Instead, we seem to be doing just the opposite.
[Update a few minutes later, after a lot of discussion in comments, some of it useful]
If the L&C didn’t carry standoff armament that could take out a skiff at the range of a mile, it seems like they should at least be able to call in a chopper air strike. We should have a policy that one does not fire on US vessels with impunity and without consequence.
The Documents Have Been Released
The full ESAS study, apparently including appendices (other than 12) seems to be available over at Wikileaks.
Ah, where to find the time to read it…? I hope that Norm Augustine does, at least.
Bag The Sex And Religion
An open letter to the Republican Party.
[Update a while later]
The GOP needs a new marketing department:
Now, before this turns into a two-hundred comment post with people yelling about not giving up their core principles, let me be clear. I do not advocate that the party pull left or advertise itself as “Democrat-light.” But I do advocate prioritizing the issues that form the foundation of our marketing campaign..
I’m sure “Transformers 2″ has a romantic subtext between Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox. I’m sure that there are at least two minutes in the film of them making kissy face and being sappy. Yet, the trailer is all about giant robots trashing everything in sight. In fact, almost every shot is a giant explosion, or a giant robot. That’s smart marketing. It’s a summer popcorn movie. Give the people what they want. If there is a great romance or moments of rip-roaring comedy, that’s a pleasant surprise. But, if I don’t see a forklift turn into a robot and crush an Apache helicopter, I will be disappointed.
Did the Democrats put nationalizing the banks, firing corporate CEOs, and practically making out with Hugo Chavez in their trailer? Did their poster include Obama’s embarrassing world apology tour? I think not.
Yet, we allow the media to frame the discussions and the debates. Why, for example, did most of our pundits take the bait on the Perez Hilton thing and let the media frame the arguments as an example of the gay marriage issue being debated in the public forum? That incident was about how the left stifles free speech. It was about how women are second-class citizens in the Democratic party. Every discussion of Ms. California should have been an opportunity to bring up the media’s treatment of Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton. But it wasn’t. Instead, we allowed the Democrats to cut our trailer and replace the robot on the key art with a photo of Shia LaBeouf.
The problem is that many Republicans remain fair-weather federalists. They have to start arguing that the federal government has no business in either your wallet or your bedroom.
Obama’s Policies More Bankrupt Than Chrysler
Obama’s grand design for U.S. automakers is the perfect opportunity to show where his moderate rhetoric varies from his big-government actions. He has said he doesn’t want the government to be a permanent owner of big companies, arguing — in part correctly — that he inherited the bailouts and partial nationalizations from the Bush administration. But Obama’s plans for Chrysler and General Motors belie his claims that he doesn’t want the government to dig in further. His actions show that he isn’t shy about using the powers he inherited to favor political allies such as Big Labor at the expense of millions of Americans with savings vehicles invested in auto company debt securities.
The government-union ownership structure — in which the United Auto Workers retiree health care fund would own 55 percent, Fiat would own 20 percent, the U.S. government would own 8 percent, and even the Canadian government would own 2 percent (Canada is “home to several to several large Chrysler facilities,” according to the Wall Street Journal,) — also has little to do with repaying taxpayers.
As a Wall Street Journal editorial just before the bankruptcy announcement put it: “Taxpayer-shareholders are likely to be far better off with a smaller stake in a truly private company that is better insulated from political meddling. Private owners are more likely than the Treasury or the unions to try to run the company for profit, and so increase its equity value over time.”
But that wouldn’t accomplish the political goals.