Category Archives: Political Commentary

Humor, Political Commentary, Satire, Space

NASA’s Latest Ambitious Plans

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To send a man where many men (and women) have gone before:

The complex and dangerous three-day mission, dubbed “Chariot I,” is expected to pass through six states and include two brief transfers in Atlanta and Louisville in both directions, at a reported total cost of $360 dollars plus taxes and fees.

“For almost as long as our nation has existed, man has gazed upon a map of the eastern United States and dreamed of traveling to Cleveland, the largest metropolitan area in Ohio,” NASA administrator Charles F. Bolden, Jr. said at a press conference announcing the agency’s first major initiative since the discontinuation of the space shuttle program. “Until now, the immense physical and psychological risks involved in any manned mission had put that dream sadly out of reach.”

They’d never be able to do it that cheaply, unless they use Greyhound. As Clark Lindsey notes:

Of course, this mission cannot be carried out with a commercial bus but only with NASA’s $20B SBS (Senate Bus System). NASA has many studies to confirm this.

Though somehow, we never actually see their results.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The End Is Near

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…and it’s going to be awesome:

…government-dominated systems are inherently defective. Not because the people who run them aren’t smart and well-intentioned — though they are by no means universally smart and well-intentioned — but because it is the nature of political institutions to be insulated from the information-feedback that characterizes marketplace activity.

Simply put, when Coca-Cola introduces New Coke or McDonald’s introduces the McGratin Croquette (shrimp, mashed potatoes and deep-fried macaroni) and hordes of people don’t show up to buy them, those products go away, and if a company makes enough such unwanted products, it goes away, too. But if you live in The Bronx and your local elementary school is terrible, it does not go bankrupt, and you probably don’t have even 20 other options, though there are 900 kinds of shampoo on the shelves. There are many good ways to invest 12% of your income for retirement, but that’s harder to do when you first have to put 12% into a bad investment, Social Security.

The decline or dismantling of these programs will prevent us from pouring a great deal of good money into bad investments. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and related entitlements make up the largest part of federal spending; combine those with national defense and interest on the debt, and you are talking about nearly the entire federal budget — about 81%, with the rest of it comprising that piddling non-defense discretionary spending that President Obama goes on about.

But where we’re not going to be putting our money is not nearly as important as where we are going to be putting it: into productive enterprises, into the creation of actual goods and services in the real economy.

Here’s the new book, which comes out today.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Benghazi

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Special Forces were told not to go there.:

According to excerpts released Monday, Hicks told investigators that SOCAFRICA commander Lt. Col. Gibson and his team were on their way to board a C-130 from Tripoli for Benghazi prior to an attack on a second U.S. compound “when [Col. Gibson] got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, ‘you can’t go now, you don’t have the authority to go now.’ And so they missed the flight … They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it.”

CNN is on the case, finally, too, but of course, it’s Jake Tapper. I wonder what Candy Crowley thinks?

The rest of the media is finally starting to at least attempt to catch up with Fox, though they remain far behind.

Economics, Health, Political Commentary

The Oregon Medicaid Study

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Why it should change our thinking about health insurance and health care:

A bunch of people sarcastically asked whether I was planning to drop my health insurance. The answer is no, because my employer pays for it. But if the question is “Has this caused you to revise downward your estimate of the value of health insurance?” the answer has to obviously be yes. Anyone who answers differently is looking deep into their intestinal loops, not the Oregon study. You don’t have to revise the estimate to zero, or even a low number. But if you’d asked folks before the results dropped what we’d expect to see if insurance made people a lot healthier, they’d have said “statistically significant improvement on basic markers for the most common chronic diseases. The fact that we didn’t see that means that we should now say that health insurance, or at least Medicaid, probably doesn’t make as big a difference in health as we thought.

Certainly, this bolsters my belief that health insurance should provide financial protection from catastrophic events, not wrap-around first-dollar coverage. Those who used to read me on The Atlantic may recall that the McArdle Plan for Healthcare involved the government picking up the tab for any medical expenses above 15-20% of income: simple, progressive, and aimed at the actual problem we know health insurance can fix. Unfortunaely, Obamacare made that sort of coverage functionally illegal.

And that was the kind of coverage I’ve always purchased for myself. That is, true health insurance, not what the moron Sibelius thinks is health insurance. And they want to make it impossible for me to get it.

Gun control isn’t about guns — it’s about control. And health care isn’t about health — it’s about control. The thing is never about the thing.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Money Wasted On Advertising

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…by New York State:

You can’t make major changes like these in a state like New York without attracting lots of free attention and publicity. Do the job well and you won’t have to spend a penny on publicity. If New York state became a genuine leader in business-friendly reform, headlines everywhere would blare the news out for free. Every sentient business leader in America would know that New York state was open for business again.

But other states have nothing to worry about. The corruptocrats in Albany and in the City aren’t going to change their ways any time soon.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

African Goats

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…and American exceptionalism:

American exceptionalism — to the extent it remains — is not the product of some sort of genetic superiority. The settlers who made something of Jamestown after Dale’s reforms were the same ones who were bowling in the streets instead of working when he arrived.

What is exceptional about America — at least, what’s been exceptional up to now — is the extent to which individuals were allowed to keep the fruits of their own labor instead of having them seized by people in power for their own purposes. The insight behind American exceptionalism is that people work harder and better for themselves, as free people, than they do as servants for some alleged communal good.

But maybe Shapiro’s right, and this insight isn’t as exceptional as I make out. After all, it’s also contained in a West African proverb, to the effect that “The goat owned in common dies of hunger.”

Human nature isn’t so different, whether you’re in 17th century North America, 19th century Africa or the 21st century United States.

What’s striking isn’t that human nature is the same, but that so many want to pretend that it’s not.

The primary project of the left, since Rousseau, has been about the denial of human nature or, if they conceded that it exists, to force it into a different Procrustean mold, and build the New Soviet Man. All in the name of fairness and compassion, of course.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Nakoula

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…is still in jail:

The fast-tracking of Nakoula’s jailing was highly irregular. Among other things, I’d like to see the Congressional investigators get Nakoula’s prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Dugdale — and perhaps his boss, U.S. Attorney André Birotte Jr. — under oath about communications from the White House or the Justice Department regarding this case.

Because what it’s looking like is that Nakoula was targeted and jailed so as to provide a scapegoat/villain in a politically motivated cover story that the White House knew was false. If that’s the case, it’s extremely serious indeed, and in some ways more significant than whatever lapses and screwups took place in Benghazi. I’d also be interested in hearing from Nakoula’s attorney, Steven Seiden, about any threats made by the government to secure a plea deal.

If there’s an impeachable offense anywhere in the Benghazi affair — and at this point, I’m not saying there is — it’s more likely in what happened with Nakoula than in the problems abroad…

Unfortunately, impeachable offenses,and high crimes and misdemeanors are in the mind of the beholder, and impeachment is ultimately a political, not legal act.