Media Criticism

J-Vator? Probably Not

33 Comments

Leo Lewis notes that boosters at the Japan Space Elevator Association are psyched. Unfortunately, material science problems are still a challenge, albeit one that has potential to be solved quickly (say in the next 10-30 years) and economically–but it’s still only potential at this point. Kevlar is still king of industrial cabling, body armor, etc. so super strong materials will be a laboratory curiosity for some years before they will be available for Earthbound uses, much less space uses.

One oddity: electric power delivered by the elevator. That would be an electric line that would stretch around the world. Probably better to stick with power beaming by laser. With solar energy very popular, that should not have any laugh test to pass. Another oddity. They stick with the far counterweight popularized by Edwards; this may be OK for initial deployment, but once mass is coming up the cable, the counterweight should be closer and heavier and the cable shorter.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Who Smeared Sarah Palin?

27 Comments

Rusty Shackleford has been doing a lot of research. If this can be traced to the Obama campaign, the FEC should be interested. But they probably won’t be. And neither will the MSM.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Dan Riehl has more. And like roaches fleeing when the lights come on, the perps have pulled down the sites. Not in time, though–they’ve been cached.

You know, this could be a really big story for an enterprising investigative reporter at someplace like the New York Times. Unfortunately, when it comes to Barack Obama, such creatures don’t seem to exist.

[Update mid morning]

Ace has more:

Tomorrow they will claim this was all inadvertent, etc. They’ll say they did produce the ad, and sent it to Winner and Associates to, um, focus-group or something, then decided not to run it, but that dirty Winner family and its employees attempted to get it to go viral without their authorization.

Whatever.

If this is all so innocent, why are the videos being yanked even as we speak?

Just about one hour after the post went up, “cnwinner,” “eswinner” and the rest of the winner gang are yanking their videos.

Almost as if… I don’t know, some kind of major campaign organization was patrolling the internet 24/7.

Can we believe “cnwinner,” “eswinner,” and etc. just all suddenly were monitoring the internet and decided to take their videos down simultaneously?

No, we cannot.

Can we believe Winner & Associates scours the internet 24 hours a day for derogatory stories about them?

No, we cannot.

But — can we believe the Obama campaign has people watching the internet 24/7 and just sent out the call to Winner & Associates to bury the evidence?

Yes we can, friends.

Yes we can, even if the Gray Lady can’t.

Political Commentary

Thoughts On Wisdom

2 Comments

And whether Sarah Palin or Barack Obama have it, from Victor Davis Hanson:

For most of you readers, all this is trite and self-evident. But apparently not for hundreds in politics, the media, the universities, Hollywood, and the foundations who seem to think that a fumbling nervous Obama in interviews, who grasps for a word and utters vacuous platitudes is “really” contemplative, like his Harvard Law professors; but when a Sarah Palin seems nervous under scrutiny from a pseudo-professorial, glasses-on-the-lower-nose Charlie Gibson, she is clearly an empty head with an Idaho BA.

A Ronald Reagan knew more about human nature, and thus what drives the Soviet Union than did all the Ivy-League Soviet specialists that surrounded Jimmy Carter-much less the Sally Quins and Maureen Dowds of that age. We in America, unlike the Europeans, know this intuitively, grasp that a Harry Truman figured out the Russian communists far better than did the Harvard-educated aristocrat FDR.

And the inevitable comparisons between the top of the Democrat ticket and bottom of the Republican one continue, which is part of the genius in picking her on McCain’s part.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Four Questions

8 Comments

Newt Gingrich says not so fast to Paulson’s bailout plan. I particularly agree with this:

Four reform steps will have capital flowing with no government bureaucracy and no taxpayer burden.

First, suspend the mark-to-market rule which is insanely driving companies to unnecessary bankruptcy. If short selling can be suspended on 799 stocks (an arbitrary number and a warning of the rule by bureaucrats which is coming under the Paulson plan), the mark-to-market rule can be suspended for six months and then replaced with a more accurate three year rolling average mark-to-market.

Second, repeal Sarbanes-Oxley. It failed with Freddy Mac. It failed with Fannie Mae. It failed with Bear Stearns. It failed with Lehman Brothers. It failed with AIG. It is crippling our entrepreneurial economy. I spent three days this week in Silicon Valley. Everyone agreed Sarbanes-Oxley was crippling the economy. One firm told me they would bring more than 20 companies public in the next year if the law was repealed. Its Sarbanes-Oxley’s $3 million per startup annual accounting fee that is keeping these companies private.

Third, match our competitors in China and Singapore by going to a zero capital gains tax. Private capital will flood into Wall Street with zero capital gains and it will come at no cost to the taxpayer. Even if you believe in a static analytical model in which lower capital gains taxes mean lower revenues for the Treasury, a zero capital gains tax costs much less than the Paulson plan. And if you believe in a historic model (as I do), a zero capital gains tax would lead to a dramatic increase in federal revenue through a larger, more competitive and more prosperous economy.

Fourth, immediately pass an “all of the above” energy plan designed to bring home $500 billion of the $700 billion a year we are sending overseas. With that much energy income the American economy would boom and government revenues would grow.

Also, SOX was the disastrous result of the last time Congress decided that it had to “do something.”

General Science, Science And Society

The Last Of The Neanderthals

2 Comments

Here’s an interesting piece on the latest research, at National Geographic:

“Most Neanderthals and modern humans probably lived most of their lives without seeing each other,” he said, carefully choosing his words. “The way I imagine it is that occasionally in these border areas, some of these guys would see each other at a distance…but I think the most likely thing is that they excluded each other from the landscape. Not just avoided, but excluded. We know from recent research on hunter-gatherers that they are much less peaceful than generally believed.”

“Sometimes I just turn out the lights in here and think what it must have been like for them.”

Nasty, brutish, short.

And many people have no idea how close we are to returning to those days, should things take a wrong turn.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!