Category Archives: Political Commentary

Political Commentary, Space

Disconnect

3 Comments

John Marburger, the president’s science advisor, apparently gave an interesting speech the other day, which can be somewhat summarized by this statement:

“Exploration by a few is not the grandest achievement,” he said. “Occupation by many is grander.” (Although he added that by “occupation” he did not necessarily mean settlement but instead “routine access to resources”.) His long-term vision for the future is “one in which exploration has long since ceased and our successors reap the benefits of the new territories.”

As I noted in comments at Space Politics, this is the most visionary thing that I’ve ever known a president’s science adviser to say, and the other notable thing is that he himself says explicitly (as well as implicitly in the above comment) that space isn’t just about science. (As an aside, I’ve always thought that “Science Adviser” was too restrictive a title for that position–it’s always been science and technology.)

As I also noted over there, it’s unfortunate that NASA’s current plans are so completely unattuned to that vision, being specifically designed for “exploration by a few” (and rarely) rather than “occupation by many.” One wonders if he’s ever complained to anyone about that.

Political Commentary, War Commentary

Why Do They Hate Us?

11 Comments

Apparently, that’s what Ahmadinejad should be asking about the Iraqis:

Weeks of hard work by Iranian emissaries and pro-Iran elements in Iraq were supposed to ensure massive crowds thronging the streets of Baghdad and throwing flowers on the path of the visiting Iranian leader. Instead, no more than a handful of Iraqis turned up for the occasion. The numbers were so low that the state-owned TV channels in Iran decided not to use the footage at all.

Instead, much larger crowds gathered to protest Ahmadinejad’s visit. In the Adhamiya district of Baghdad, several thousand poured into the streets with cries of “Iranian aggressor, go home!”

But, but… I thought that our foolish adventure in Iraq only created an Iranian puppet there?

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

The Problem With Health Insurance

9 Comments

It’s not insurance.

Nothing new here to people familiar with the situation, but many don’t seem to understand the problem. But this is the origin of it:

Health insurance started to change, though, during the Truman administration. (I hasten to mention that I wasn’t actually there: I was born during the Eisenhower administration, when the process had only gotten started.) Truman wanted to implement the progressive new notion of a national health care plan, but couldn’t get it through; at the same time, post-war wage controls were still on, so employers bidding for new workers had to find other ways to compete.

Through a sequence of compromises, what came out of it was a system in which companies and only companies could buy health insurance and health care for their employees, and deduct the cost as a business expense. My father’s music store and the steel mill across town could buy health insurance, basically, at a discount. (My uncle the butcher couldn’t; he wasn’t a “business.”)

Years pass. (Insert visual of wind-blown calendar leaves here.) Medical care becomes more complicated, legal conditions change, and a lot of things that used to be major medical issues that mostly affected the life insurance rates become things that could be cured, or at least managed. Increasingly, what was “major medical” insurance became, simply, health insurance; we expected the insurance companies not just to pay for unexpected events, but for the normal sort of day-to-day maintenance we all need.

People will pay to repair their car, or their pets, or appliances out of pocket, but somehow, over the past decades they’ve come to believe that it’s a fundamental human right to have someone else pay for your doctor visits. Until we cut off this disastrous government policy of tying health insurance to employment, and allow everyone to deduct medical expenses on a level playing field, and get people to understand that we have to return to the model of health insurance the problem will not be solved.

Political Commentary

Turning Up The Heat

6 Comments

I’ve been predicting for a while that this won’t be another summer of love for the Democrats, but a lot more like Chicago, 1968. Apparently a lot of Obama supporters agree with me.

…if the Machine tries to give the Clintons the victory at the convention, I swear to God, [1968] Chicago’s going to look like a Sadie Hawkins dance. People my age are going to be throwing stones. We all have transportation — cell phones — disposable income — the Internet — free time — and Seattle as our example. Part of me is scared of a riot. Part of me isn’t. The nomination belongs to Obama. Do you think we’re going to let the Democratic Leadership Council take it? “God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water, fire next time.”

Between this kind of stuff, and the recruiting office bombing, this year is shaping up to give me a sixties nostalgia (and the King and Kennedy assassination fortieth anniversaries, both events that I remember clearly, are coming up soon).

Political Commentary

Faux Pas

Does anyone really buy this?

In her statement, Power said her comments “do not reflect my feelings about Sen. Clinton, whose leadership and public service I have long admired.”

No, of course not. You don’t really think she’ll do anything necessary to attain power. You just said that for no reason at all.

Sometimes, to slightly paraphrase Freud, a cigar really is a cigar.

Of course, she’s saying what non-Clinton-koolaid drinkers have been thinking for many years, but whose loyalty to their political party exceeds their loyalty to common decency.

I think that I’ll just keep the corn a poppin.’

Education, Political Commentary

The State Of Education In California

Lileks has some thoughts:

Of course, home-schooling Bolsheviks will have less reason to complain soon. “This bill would delete provisions that prohibit a teacher giving instruction in a school from teaching communism with the intent to indoctrinate or to inculcate in the mind of any pupil a preference for communism.” Apparently the teacher’s right to teach Communism trumps your right to school your kid yourself.

What a world. Sometimes, when I look at the educational system here–primary, secondary, college–I wonder if we really won the Cold War.

[Update mid morning]

Apparently the LA Times got the story wrong (What! Say it ain’t so!) about not allowing unaccredited parents to home school, so the situation in California is not as dire as originally thought in regard to home schoolers.

Maybe it was just wishful thinking on the part of the Times’ reporter and editor, since that paper has long been in the tank for the teachers’ union.

Political Commentary

The Chicago Way

15 Comments

Rick Moran explains.

The parallels with the Clintons in 1992 remain amazing:

  • We have people who have a record of corruption (almost by definition in the case of Obama, because it’s not possible to come out of Chicago politics, particularly Democrat politics, without being corrupt). And the corruption involves (among other things) shady real-estate deals.
  • The couple both have law degrees.
  • The wife is loved by the left, and is problematic with the non-left.
  • The media swoons for them, and doesn’t bother to ask any of the local journalists about their local past which, if they had, would have provided a rich vein of ore that would provide themselves and the nation a lot of info about what we were all in for if they were elected.

    The difference, and problem (of course) for them is that there is no Ross Perot this year to suck off squishy Republican votes. Neither of the Dems’ candidates have a prayer of winning this year, but I’ll enjoy watching the fratricide, which will just make the landslide all the larger, and perhaps provide coattails for the Congress.

History, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Back To The Drawing Board

2 Comments

Lileks:

I just remembered that I called the Bob Davis show this morning to talk about the new theory re: Moses and the Ten Commandments: dude was high. Apparently a professor somewhere has suggested that the entire experience was the result of a mushroom or some such ceremonial intoxicant. I called to say I didn’t believe it, because if Moses was tripping we wouldn’t have ten commandments. We would have three. The first would make sense, more or less; the second, written half an hour later, would command profound respect for lizards who sit on stones and look at you, because they’re freaking incredible when you think about it, and the third would be gibberish. Never mind the problem of getting the tablets down the mountain – anyone who has experience of watching stoners try to assemble pizza money when the doorbell rings doubts that Moses could have hauled stone tablets all the way down.

Political Commentary

“Steny Hoyer Didn’t Get The Memo”

This is highlarious. I liked this comment:

And we wonder why democrats can’t get a damn thing done.

Every answer they give to a question sounds like a 16 year-old kid standing in front of a clerk at a liquor store trying to remember the address and birthdate on his fake ID he just acquired from some smelly hippy from the wrong side of the tracks.

I hope to God (whatever that is to you) that someone writes a period piece on the democratic-controlled house and calls it “Lessons in Stupid – the Pelosi years.”

Political Commentary

“Steny Hoyer Didn’t Get The Memo”

This is highlarious. I liked this comment:

And we wonder why democrats can’t get a damn thing done.

Every answer they give to a question sounds like a 16 year-old kid standing in front of a clerk at a liquor store trying to remember the address and birthdate on his fake ID he just acquired from some smelly hippy from the wrong side of the tracks.

I hope to God (whatever that is to you) that someone writes a period piece on the democratic-controlled house and calls it “Lessons in Stupid – the Pelosi years.”