Michael Totten, on why the UN deservedly gets no respect.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
Without A Shot Being Fired
Scott Ott has a depressing satire.
We’re all fascists now.
“Spread The Wealth Around”
It’s too bad that Senator Obama seems indifferent to actually creating wealth. This is the critical distinction between collectivists and classical liberals. The former think that it’s a fixed (or growing, but according to supernatural forces unaffectable by human intervention) pie to be justly distributed, whereas the latter think that it’s something to be created by maximizing freedom and minimizing how much of it is confiscated by those who want to “spread it around.”
And don’t expect many in the MSM to criticize him for it.
The Coming Counterrevolution
What we have to look forward to under an Obama/Pelosi/Reid administration:
A Democrat-controlled Washington will use sweeping new rules to shush conservative political speech. For starters, expect a real push to bring back the Fairness Doctrine.
True, Obama says he isn’t in favor of re-imposing this regulation, which, until Ronald Reagan’s FCC junked it in the ’80s, required broadcasters to give airtime to opposing viewpoints or face fines or even loss of license. But most top Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, are revved up about the idea, and it’s hard to imagine Obama vetoing a new doctrine if Congress delivers him one.
Make no mistake: a new Fairness Doctrine would vaporize political talk radio, the one major medium dominated by the right. If a station ran a successful conservative program like, say, Mark Levin’s, it would also have to run a left-leaning alternative, even if — as with Air America and all other liberal efforts in the medium to date — it can’t find any listeners or sponsors.
There’s certainly nothing in Obama’s current behavior to indicate otherwise, as the editorial points out.
Even ignoring the First Amendment issues (which are sufficient reason in themselves to fight it), it would be a nightmare for broadcasters to enforce. What is “balance,” and who would decide? The model here is for the issue ad. If there’s a proposition on the ballot, and you run an editorial on it (say) in favor, then it’s fairly straightforward to say that it could be balanced by an editorial against it. But even there, who gets the opportunity? There might be multiple people or groups against it for different reasons, some more articulate than others. How would it be decided which of them got to “balance” it?
And once we get outside that narrow focus, into talk radio itself, it becomes a real nightmare, and a litigator’s delight. Consider Larry Elder, who is mostly a libertarian. Who “balances” him? A socialist who disagrees with his economics? A “conservative” who disagrees with his views on pornography and drugs?
What single blog is the antithesis of this one, or Instapundit? I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be the television or radio program director who had to decide. All of this, of course, is predicated on the simpleton’s assumption that political views and issues can be expressed on a unidimensional “left-right” scale. And even if that were the case, and political issues didn’t fall into a hypercube of multiple dimensions coming from all points on the hyperspherical compass, it wouldn’t be that simple, because the magnitude has to be calibrated as well. Is Rush Limbaugh as far “right” as Randi Rhodes is far “left”? Where is the pivot on the scale? Who determines what is “mainstream”? Ted Kennedy?
The First Amendment should have put a stake through the heart of this pernicious and anti-freedom nonsense years ago, but the fascist proponents of things like it have long abandoned principles like that.
[Afternoon update]
Treacher has some thoughts on the “Deathbed Media.”
An End To Redundant Inefficiency
John Jurist writes (or at least implies) that there’s just too much competition in the suborbital market:
An approach I favor is forming a university consortium analogous to those that design, build, and operate large cooperative research assets, such as telescopes and particle colliders. That consortium could develop a suborbital RLV or even a nanosat launcher to be used by consortium members for academic projects. Since the consortium would design and develop the vehicles, participating universities would be more likely to use them for student research under some type of cost-sharing arrangement with federal granting agencies.
Dr. Steve Harrington proposed something a bit different recently:
If you took all the money invested in alt.space projects in the last 20 years, and invested in one project, it could succeed. More underfunded projects are not what we need. The solution is for an investment and industry group to develop a business plan and get a consortium to build a vehicle. There is a lot of talent, and many people willing to work for reduced wages and invest some of their own company’s capital. Whether it is a sounding rocket, suborbital tourist vehicle or an orbit capable rocket, the final concept and go/no go decision should be made by accountants, not engineers or dreamers (Ref. 8).
I would concur with Dr. Harrington’s final remark except I would expand the decision making group to include management and business experts nominated by the consortium members with whatever technical input they needed.
Yes, good idea. After all, we all know that it’s a waste of resources to have (for example) two grocery stores within a few blocks of each other. They could dramatically reduce overhead and reduce costs and prices if they would just close one of the stores and combine forces. In order to assure continued premium customer service, they could just assemble a board of accountants, and finest management and business experts to ensure that the needs of the people are met.
In the case of the RLV development, the consortium could hire the best technical experts, and spend the appropriate amount of money up front, on trade studies and analyses, to make sure that they are designing just the right vehicle for the market, since it will be a significant investment, and the consortium will only have enough money to do one vehicle development. They will also have to make sure that it satisfies the requirements of all the users, since it will be the only available vehicle. This will further increase the up-front analysis and development costs, and it may possibly result in higher operational costs as well, but what can be done? It’s too inefficient to have more than one competing system. As John’s analysis points out, we simply can’t afford it.
The Hate And Rage From The McCain Campaign
John McCain’s bid for the Oval Office suffered another stunning blow yesterday when the Arizona senator referred to Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, as “my opponent.” The campaign-shattering remark came during a vicious, Hitlerian speech before an audience of drooling right-wing drones in one of those states in the middle, possibly rectangular.
“I believe that we should do things one way,” McSame sneered, his shrunken, twisted body and hideous visage producing overwhelming revulsion in all sane people who beheld him. “But my opponent feels we should do things a different way.”
Yes, Treacher’s ahead of the curve. My hat is off to him, because these people continue to get ever harder to satirize.
Irony Meter Meltdown
Joe Biden stood next to Hillary Clinton in Scranton, PA today, and said with a perfectly straight face that she never abused her power.
Tell it to Billy Dale. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.
Hope, Change
…and Molotov cocktails. Will this get as much news coverage as the phantom cries of “kill him” at MCain/Palin rallies (of which there has only been one reported)?
[Update a couple minutes later]
Michelle Malkin has more leftist rage and hatred. Feel the love of the left.
As the first commenter notes, this is typical projection. They accuse others of doing what they are actually doing (lying, racemongering, hating).
Egalitarianism
How it evolved?
Note that just because something is natural doesn’t make it moral.
Is There Enough Makeup In The World?
I thought it was a gag (in multiple senses of the word) when I heard that Annette Bening was going to play Helen Thomas in a movie. But it’s twue, it’s twue.
On the other hand, it’s probably a lot easier to make Annette Bening look like Helen Thomas than vicey versy.
[Via Driscoll]