What strikes me about this story is that it’s supposed to be taken as a given that the NRA and Wayne LaPierre should be remorseful and contrite about Newtown, even though it and he had nothing to do with it.
Ed Markey
…and his idiotic war on roller coasters.
The Union Of Confused Scientists
…is apparently unacquainted with the difference between revenues and profits.
[Update a few minutes later]
And then there’s this:
The economic illiteracy continues, both at UCS and at Wired. “Fuel efficiency is really what’s going to put more money back in your pocket and put more money back in our communities,” Goldman tells Wired, and Newcomb worries that “very little of the remaining cash goes into the local economy.” Can we please lay aside the primitive superstition that in the developed world in the 21st century there is such a thing as the “local economy”? Let’s say we took the Brooklyn farm coop approach to gas, and a quaint little store on my corner had a oil well in the back, a DIY-refinery in the garage, and a hand-lettered chalkboard outside advertising its artisanal gas. The bearded hipster inside runs the whole thing. Local economy, right? But I assume he lives in a house or an apartment, which is bound to be made of concrete and steel not locally sourced. He probably has a cell phone and a computer and may even shop at Trader Joe’s or Whole Food or — angels and ministers of grace defend us! — Walmart, thus sending the money I spend at his shop far and wide. You know who has a “local economy”? North Koreans and hunter-gatherers. Autarky is no way to live. Somebody should explain comparative advantage and gains from trade to these gentlemen.
Idiots.
America’s Car Culture
Four reasons it’s dead or dying.
Amen especially to number two. I was looking in the shop manual for what’s involved in tuning our BMW 323i, and I couldn’t see that there was anything I can do to it other than changing plugs. And there’s just no room to work under the hood. I remember when I was a kid, you could almost walk around in the engine compartments.
Hail
Wow. A blizzard on the east coast, and a cell of hail, or at least sleet, just moved over us at the beach in southern California.
Love that global warming.
Hagel
Is he toast?
Besides sitting on the board of a foundation that funds the NIAC, Hagel has had an ongoing relationship with the NIAC (and its precursor organization, the American-Iranian Council). As Ken Timmerman notes in the Washington Times, this has included giving speeches that rail against sanctions imposed to pressure Iran on its nuclear program, call for unconditional negotiations with the mullahs, etc. The NIAC, in kind, avidly supports Hagel’s nomination.
It was a monumentally stupid pick, even for Barack Obama. Of course, so is Brennan.
Ammunition
Why are the feds stocking up so much?
According to one estimate, just since last spring DHS has stockpiled more than 1.6 billion bullets, mainly .40 caliber and 9mm. That’s sufficient firepower to shoot every American about five times. Including illegal immigrants.
To provide some perspective, experts estimate that at the peak of the Iraq war American troops were firing around 5.5 million rounds per month. At that rate, DHS is armed now for a 24-year Iraq war.
At the same time they want to disarm the rest of us.
[Update a while later]
This seems related, somehow. Would Lincoln have droned Robert E. Lee?
President Empty Chair
Ed Morrissey is incredulous as is Ace over the statements of the head of the Joint Chiefs of staff (as well he should be) but for all of that incompetence of man with the stars and all the snark of the Leon “Global 911″ Panetta there is only one story here:
The story is that on 9/11 during an attack on Americans in Benghazi (including a person he knew personally) the President of the United States was disinterested.
Hey, he had to plan his Vegas fundraiser, and try to talk Bibi into going along with his plan to dismantle Israel.
Of course, the other implication of all this is that the White House was lying all fall when they said they ordered people to do everything possible to help.
[Update a while later]
The president gave no direction in his one call to Panetta.
Meet Yo Mama
Michelle Rhee
“My break with the Democrats.”
Most of them don’t recognize the cruelty of their policies and “solutions.”