Up now over at Popular Mechanics.
A National Version Of RomneyCare
Paul Hsieh says that’s what ObamaCare will be. And that it’s not a good thing.
Doing The Best That You Can Do
…but sometimes, it just isn’t enough. I had drinks with Mark (and Iowahawk) a couple weeks ago. That had to be emotionally devastating. And my hat is eternally off to the people who do it for a living.
[Early afternoon update]
One other take-home message from this. Please, folks. Buckle up.
Enabling Spammers And Stalkers
Over at Organizing Against America. If I were on the list, I’d sue them for invasion of privacy.
And here’s an interesting question:
If OFA is working from a list of registered voters, is it hoping, once it receives reports from its callers, to find out who among them is no longer among us — so they can find someone to vote on their behalf?
Oh, such a suspicious mind.
Ah, Hollywood
Bad news from Lileks:
Over the fire I chatted with a neighbor who’s working on the “Red Dawn” remake. Get this: in the new version, China and Russia invade the US – to put a stop to our greed. There are times you wish you had a mouthful of kerosene so you could do a flaming spit take. If this is how the film turns out, it’ll be hilarious; it’s as if the filmmakers were a bit ambivalent about all the horrible jingoism that such a film might unleash, so they had to temper it with a bit of theoretical altruism that could be true, you know, in a sense. I almost expect the Russians and Chinese to invade to enforce Copenhagen protocols, and the brave Americans fight back for a modified rollout of carbon emission standards that will allow domestic industry to perfect the new HydroWind Energy System, which the Chinese don’t want because they just signed a UN agreement to respect patents of other countries.
Jeebus weeps.
[Afternoon update]
I have a confession to make. Despite accusations by leftist trolls in the past that I’ve worn out the video from watching it so much, I’ve never actually seen Red Dawn.
The Capitalism Of Ayn Rand
This is a good illustration of how misunderstood the concept of “capitalism” is, and why we should prefer some other word to express the concept of a system of free markets.
[Late Sunday night update]
More thoughts at Volokh, with lots of good comments. Particularly on the distinction between Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
[Bumped]
When They Say “Do It For The Children”
…they’re talking about themselves:
Those unentranced by the magic flute have an obligation to remember what happened; to keep the history books free of revisionism so that by shame and memory those pied pipers who led a generation astray can never return unchallenged to sound their witching tune again. But for the children already lost to the dark we can only wish that wherever they have gone, they’ve found what they were looking for.
It’s unlikely. What they’re looking for doesn’t exist, and never will.
Unreasonable Rocket Progress
Clark Lindsey has been following the Pauls Breed attempt. Bottom line: no prizes today, but still a possibility tomorrow. We should all be pulling for them, a father/son team building rockets in their garage, in these days of the supremacy of the State.
Non-Space Media Coverage
John Johnson, who I saw out at the test site in Mojave on Wednesday, has a story about the Masten feat at the LA Times today, illustrated with a photo by XCOR’s Mike Massee. My only problem with it is that he understates NASA costs:
NASA’s next-generation rocket, the Ares 1X, which was test-launched Tuesday, has cost tens of millions of dollars. Xoie and her predecessors have cost about $2 million.
Actually, while it’s technically true that Ares 1-X cost “tens of millions” (over forty tens of millions), it would be more accurate and less misleading to say that it cost hundreds of millions. Not to mention the fact that it flew Wednesday, not Tuesday. Tuesday was the originally scheduled launch date, but it was delayed until Wednesday.
So much for those much-vaunted “layers of editors and fact checkers” at the Dog Trainer.
The Earth Is Not Habitable
…to first order, any way. Some thoughts from Charlie Stross.