Over at Wired.
[Update a while later]
Chuck Divine took some pictures of the press briefing/debate today.
After Keystone
“We’d rather sell our oil to China.”
What Harper is saying is that Canada could make more money by creating a market for its oil rather than selling all of it solely to the US. In other words, the cost of Canadian oil will go up as the US is forced to compete with China.
…Obama could have approved the pipeline, added 30,000 jobs to the economy, and insured the most secure oil source for our future. Instead, he chose to kill the pipeline and the jobs and, in the process, insured that America will pay more for the oil it does buy. It’s hard to imagine a worse decision, especially since it was all so Obama could deny Republicans a win in the run-up to the next election.
It’s worse, actually, considering the latest news:
Officials in the White House’s Office of Management and Budget told the Treasury Department that the announcement of a conditional commitment to Solyndra was imminent. The department had one day to review the terms of the guarantee to accommodate an Energy Department press release.
“Treasury’s consultative role was not sufficiently defined, the consultation that did occur was rushed and no documentation was retained as to how Treasury’s serious concerns with the loan were addressed,” the audit said.
…The Treasury requested more time for review and later agreed with the Energy Department’s request to expedite the review by March 19, 2009, “so that the press release could be issued on the morning of March 20, 2009,” according to the report.
Got that? A speculative “green” energy project that in retrospect, once the rest of us saw the details, was obviously going to be a business disaster, and ended up costing the taxpayers over half a billion dollars, was approved after a “one-day review.” Yet the president demanded that Keystone, a project with certain and vast energy output, be delayed for many more months so that it could be “adequately reviewed,” despite the fact that it had already had years of review. And as a result our energy prices will now rise in the future, with no way of returning to the status quo. Just as the president told us he wanted them to when he ran four years ago.
The campaign ad this fall almost writes itself. Or themselves.
One wonders what administration defenders are thinking as they watch this ongoing trainwreck. We know what they’re saying, but what are they thinking?
A Nice Passover Gift For American Jews
Interestingly, that sole Obama remark, as reported by Wallsten, contains an ellipsis in the middle. After the then-state senator says the Khalidis had given him “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases” comes a strategically placed dot-dot-dot. We don’t know what those blind spots and biases were and what he might have thought of them. Or how he might have changed. That, in Wallsten’s or some Times editors’ judgment, was best left on the tape.
So what are we to think? We have an administration that not only ascribes most of the Middle East blame to Israel, but also has banned “Islamism” and all related words, even “Islam” and “jihad,” from our national security documents. They’re completely gone. Indeed, even the Fort Hood massacre, so clearly inspired by Islamic extremism, has now been shifted into the comfortable category of the lone, angry killer.
It’s interesting to compare this to NBC’s recent journalistic malpractice, in which they elided some words in the middle of a quote to create the false narrative that George Zimmerman was motivated by race in his suspicion of Trayvon Martin. Except in this case, it’s the reverse — to remove potentially damaging comments to show that the president is an “unbiased” “moderate.”
What, indeed, is the LA Times hiding? If they are unwilling to show the tape, they could at least provide the complete quote. They haven’t claimed that a promise to a source prevents them from doing so, though now that I’ve made the request, perhaps that will be their next excuse. At which point, we can safely consign them to the same ill repute in which NBC should reside, even if it does not in the minds of its fellow “journalists.”
It’s Not The Constitution, Stupid
It’s about raw political power:
That’s what it’s about. The president and his followers want to be able to labor on our behalf, and to make all of our important decisions. Many of them, like their European counterparts, firmly believe this is the best way to achieve the common good. Others are driven by disgust with contemporary America and the American people, and see themselves acting to save the world from our own worst instincts and impulses. Still others are elitists who despise the common people, who are so plainly unworthy of respect. Whatever the motivation, the “solution” is to restrict the freedom of Americans in order that the superior beings who currently control the executive branch can dictate policy.
Well, if “labor on our behalf” means lots of golf and expensive vacations, mostly at taxpayer expense.
Big, Bold Science Fiction
Why we need it more than ever. I’ve read more than half of Glenn’s picks, but not all.
Tomorrow’s Press Conference
Our press conference on the space property rights paper will be live streamed, starting at 11 AM EDT.
Colleges Skimp On Science
…but spend big on diversity. Must be part of that “Republican war on science.”
This doesn’t just happen on the Left Coast. The University of North Carolina at Wilmington saved some money by lumping together two science departments and raised spending on its five diversity-multicultural offices.
But, to quote George W. Bush, is our students learning? Not very much, concludes the California Association of Scholars in its 87-page study of the University of California system.
Students aren’t required to study American history or Western civilization. But they’re subjected to a lot of political indoctrination by leftist activists. “Far too many” have not learned to write effectively to read “a reasonably complex book.”
“In recent years, study after study has found that a college education no longer does what it once did and should do,” the report concludes. “Students are being asked to pay considerably more and get considerably less.”
That’s the sort of thing that happens when you pump money into an insular system and don’t hold its leaders accountable for results.
And man, that’s an unflattering picture of Sherry Lansing. She looks like she’s auditioning for the Walking Dead.
Republican Space Socialists
Gene Kaprowski from the Daily Caller interviewed me on Monday afternoon. This is the result.
[Update a few minutes later]
It’s both amusing and depressing to read through the post comments, and note that absolutely none of them have anything to do with space. It’s all about the election and the Tea Party. This doesn’t bode well for having a space-policy discussion this year.
Bolden In Bizarro World
I’m glad to see the administrator so forthrightly in favor of private provision of launch services, but this seems exactly backward to me:
Only governments could control space exploration, he said, because only governments were willing to accept the risks.
“We are going to lose people,” he warned.
“You need to be able to accept that. Governments can handle that a little bit easier than private industry.”
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah [deep breath] hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah…
Whew. That was a good one.
The Constitutional Law Professor
…doubles down on his ignorance of history and the Constitution.
Gosh, I’m starting to think that this guy may not be the brilliant lightworker we were told he was four years ago. You’d think that at some point his defenders would get tired of trying to defend him. But I expect them to double down, too.
[Update a few minutes later]
A lot more related links from Instapundit.
[Wednesday morning update]
The man who knew too little.