Category Archives: Technology and Society

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society, War Commentary

Goodie

12 Comments

Iran will have enough fuel for several Hiroshima-level bombs by the end of the year.

I should note that their ability to put a satellite into space isn’t quite as concerning to me as it has been portrayed by some in the news. Though we had ICBMs before we had launch vehicles, it doesn’t follow that having a launch vehicle implies ICBM capability. It’s actually a lot easier, from a guidance standpoint, to put an object into orbit than it is to hit a target precisely. Also, warhead and entry vehicle technology is a completely different beast than a launcher, so simply having throw capability doesn’t mean that you have all of the pieces in place. In addition, it’s one thing to build a bomb — it’s another to make it small enough to be able to loft it around the world.

Of course, none of this is of much consolation to Israel, because it’s a lot closer, and I would imagine that the Iranians are indifferent to how precisely they can kill hundreds of thousands of Jews.

Political Commentary, Technology and Society

The Party Of Death

8 Comments

“Reason” is concerned, legitimately I think, about potential opposition in our new ruling class to anti-aging research and treatment:

All rapid legislation turns into a wish-list for those closest to power: the faster it is enacted, the greater the scale of corruption, and the more you can be sure that your interests are being directly harmed. The legislation discussed above is a good example of the way in which the politics of central control turn what would be a golden opportunity for a free market in healthcare into the modern equivalent of putting the old people out into the snow.

I wish we’d had better choices last November.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Dangerous For Your Health?

27 Comments

Yet another time bomb in the “stimulus” package, that won’t be debated:

One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

The last entity that I want monitoring my health care is the federal government.

This bill is apparently chock-a-block with stuff like this, each and every one of which should be discussed, debated and if passed, passed on its own merits with its own bill, and has nothing to do with stimulus. This is quite possibly the worst piece of legislation in the nation’s history, and it’s being rushed through with almost no debate, discussion, or even knowledge of its contents by those voting for it. The Founders would weep.

If they vote for the conference product, I hope that Collins, Snowe and Specter all lose their next races, even if they’re replaced by Dems. At least they’ll be honest Dems.

[Early evening update]

(Democrat) Mickey Kaus explains how this bill will roll back, if not completely undo, welfare reform.

Administrative, General, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society, War Commentary

On Not Being A Dove

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A long but fascinating essay from the late John Updike. I found this passage quite interesting:

The protest, from my perspective, was in large part a snobbish dismissal of [the president] by the Eastern establishment; Cambridge professors and Manhattan lawyers and their guitar-strumming children thought they could run the country and the world better than this lugubrious bohunk from Texas. These privileged members of a privileged nation believed that their pleasant position could be maintained without anything visibly ugly happening in the world. They were full of aesthetic disdain for their own defenders, the business-suited hirelings drearily pondering geopolitics and its bloody necessities down in Washington. The protesters were spitting on the cops who were trying to keep their property—the USA and its many amenities—intact. A common report in this riotous era was of slum-dwellers throwing rocks and bottles at the firemen come to put out fires; the peace marchers, the upper-middle-class housewives pushing baby carriages along in candlelit processions, seemed to me to be behaving identically, without the excuse of being slum-dwellers.

Emphasis mine.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. They weren’t anti-war — they were just on the other side.

Administrative, Technology and Society

Rough Night

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So, after being up for about twenty-two hours, I got to bed about 11 Pacific. I got a call about quarter after one informing me that my luggage had arrived at LAX (no mention of where it had arrived from). I said, yes, please deliver it.

A while later, I got another call telling me that they were at the condo. I got the luggage (I thought) after a long and unnecessary dispute over the proper amount of the tip to the delivery guy, who (at the risk of seeming racist) seemed to be in both accent and appearance Middle Eastern. I ended up giving him more than I should have from cash that I hadn’t realized I had. Then (at least so I thought) back to bed.

About 2:40 AM, there was a knocking on the door downstairs. I thought “now what?” and ignored it, hoping that it was one of the other doors. But it persisted. I got up, and there was a guy claiming to be delivering my luggage. He said he would have just left it outside, but didn’t know if it was a good neighborhood for that.

He was right. He did have my luggage. The other delivery had apparently been an annoying dream. I took delivery (with no tip) and went back to bed, hoping that it had been real this time. In the morning, it turned out to have been.

And note, I really couldn’t have twattweeted this:

Lugj l8t to LA. Got urly morn call to delivr from LAX. Got nther call was here. Rgu bout tip. Was dream. Real dlvry l8tr. Finely got sleep LOL.

See, it’s just not the same.