It’s possible that not all of the magazine’s archives are online, or that the search engine didn’t pick up every example. But hey, I at least made the effort, which is more than we can say for vanden Heuvel. Even if I missed a few, I think my point is made: Libertarians have been out in front on this issue from the start. And contra vanden Heuvel and Ames/Levine, not only was libertarian criticism not muted when a Republican occupied the White House, during that time libertarian journalists, wonks, and pundits did a damned sight better job covering TSA abuses, inefficacy, and theatrics than the The Nation.
The mindless criticism of the Koch brothers by those funded by George Soros is also simultaneously amusing and infuriating.
I don’t think that people really appreciate the potential for life extension and rejuvenation from these technologies, or its societal implications (including entitlements, and lifetime tenure).
Thoughts from Robin Hanson. Ignoring space settlement, one of the reasons I want us to become spacefaring is to make it more affordable to answer questions like this. With low-cost access both to orbit and beyond, we could do some pretty spectacular exploration of, say, Europa.
Is there any prominent person or editorial board (outside of the administration) on the left who made a huge stink about Valerie Plame’s outing who is remotely as horrified by the ongoing Wikileaks travesty?
The outrage is indeed selective.
What I want to know is why Wikileaks can’t get its hands on Obama’s college transcripts. Apparently, there are some secrets that the administration can keep.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Michael Ledeen actually kind of likes the leaks. Well, some of them are damaging to the terrorists. And it’s nice to see that the administration and State Department aren’t as utterly clueless in private as they are in public.
Thoughts on freeing Lori Berenson. She can rot there, for all I care (maybe give her Joran Van Der Sloot for a roomie — sociopaths deserve each other). But someone needs to take care of her kid.
OK, that’s long enough. Between this sort of thing and Stuxnet, I’m glad to see that someone is doing something about this. I wish that I had confidence that it was us.
The attacks could be a concerted effort to retard Iran’s nuclear progress, or they could be meant to hype Iran’s own “terror threat” and provide an excuse to crack down on domestic opposition. The only certainty is that the life expectancy of Iranian nuclear physicists is falling rapidly, and is now almost as low as that of Iran’s civil-rights activists, journalists, and public intellectuals.
Given the stated goals of the Iranian nuclear program, I’m hoping that it will go lower.
