Alan Boyle rounds up the discussion since it was formally announced on Monday.
I have to say that I do hope that it kills high-speed rail in CA, even if it never gets built.
Category Archives: Social Commentary
Little House On The Prairie
No, it’s not a big libertarian conspiracy.
Climate Hypocrisy
Why don’t they give up air travel?
So why, pray tell, do we spend so much time talking about suburban sprawl and sport utilities, and so little time talking about FedEx and European vacations?
The question answers itself, doesn’t it? Giving up air travel and overnight delivery is much more personally costly for the public intellectuals who write about this stuff than giving up a big SUV. If you live in one of the five or six major cities that contain virtually everyone who writes about climate change, having a small car (or no car), is a pretty easy adjustment to imagine. On the other hand, try to imagine giving up far-flung vacations, conferences, etc. — especially since travel to interesting locales is one of the hidden perks of not-very-well remunerated positions at universities, public policy groups, nongovernmental organizations, and yes, news organizations.
Yup.
Rodeo Clowns
Thoughts on the proposed re-education camps:
All this outrage is really an admission that Obama is weak, and can’t withstand the kind of criticism routinely directed at other presidents, from Nixon to Clinton to Bush. President Asterisk, indeed.
As I noted on Twitter:
Comparing Obama to a rodeo clown was an insult to rodeo clowns everywhere. @ponder68 @WashTimes
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) August 13, 2013
[Wednesday-morning update]
Shocker! The president is depicted as an ape!
Obviously racist.
Lunar Helium-3 Extraction
Is it ethical?
I haven’t read the paper yet, but I’ll be interested in comments from people who do.
The Eloi
Are we raising a generation of them?
Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs
…are becoming oligarchs:
Like the moguls of the early 20th century, who bought and sold senators like so many cabbages, the new elite constitute a basic threat to democracy. They dominate their industries with market shares that would make the old moguls blush. Google, for example, controls some 80 percent of search, while Google and Apple provide the operating system software for almost 90 percent of smartphones. Similarly, more than half of Americans, and 60 percent of Europeans, use Facebook, making it easily the world’s dominant social media site. In contrast, the world’s top 10 oil companies account for barely 40 percent of the world’s oil production.
Like the Gilded Age moguls, the tech oligarchs also personally dominate their companies. Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, for example, control roughly two-thirds of the voting stock in Google. Brin and Page each is worth more $20 billion. Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, owns just under 23 percent of his company; worth $41 billion, Forbes ranked him the country’s third-richest person. Bill Gates, the richest, is worth a cool $66 billion and still controls 7 percent of his firm. Newcomer Mark Zuckerberg’s 29.3 percent stake in Facebook was worth $16 billion as of July 25, according to Bloomberg.
This combination of market and ownership concentration needs to be curbed.
…Conservatives, for their part, can only face up to the new “axis of evil” by stepping outside their ideology strictures and instinctive embrace of wealth. The increasingly monopolistic nature of the high-tech community, and its widespread disregard for the privacy of the individual, should concern conservatives, as it would have the framers of the Constitution.
This seems related to this.
Libertarians And Conservatives
Can they find common ground through the Constitution?
Preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution, especially its Bill of Rights, provides ample grounds for unity between libertarians and most conservatives. Many of our civil liberties — dear to libertarians and conservatives both — are under assault by progressive forces.
There is much to collaborate on: preserving freedom of speech, and of the press, and of the free exercise of religion; honoring the right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances; not infringing the right to keep and bear arms; rehabilitation the right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonably searches and seizures; the right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Even, casting the net a bit wider, the classical gold standard and the repeal of the Estate tax!
They’d better.
IQ
Why can’t we have an intelligent conversation about it?
Because it’s politically incorrect. All part of the Left’s war on science.
Caffeine Addiction
I started drinking coffee a few weeks ago, primarily for medicinal purposes (a couple cups in the morning). I don’t really enjoy it, and I’ve never noticed any mental effect from doing so. If I didn’t make a pot for her every morning, I probably wouldn’t bother. When I skip a day, I don’t notice anything, either. So maybe I’m sort of impervious to its effects. Of course, that could also mean that I’m not getting any of the hoped-for health benefits of drinking it.