Hillary’s campaign doing push polling? Surely it can’t be true!
A Critical Step Toward Affordable Space Facilities
Genesis II apparently had a successful launch.
The “Leaders” Of Our Great Nation
You know, speaking of unjustified self esteem and overpraised Senators, like royalty, I suspect that members of “the world’s greatest deliberative body” (OK, I’ll wait a few minutes for you to stop laughing)…often cocoon themselves with such simpering sycophants as staff that they have no concept of how idiotic they can come off when performing unscripted. George Voinovich being a case in point. When a dim bulb like Sean Hannity can make you sound like a fool, you’re a blithering idiot.
Well, at least he didn’t cry, as he did during the Bolton nomination.
That creatures like this get elected to such high positions is a shameful commentary on the state of the nation’s electorate.
[Update a few minutes later]
Speaking of overpraised Senators, Jonah Goldberg makes a good point about fluffy, meaningless political rhetoric (in this case, from the Great White Whale of Massachusetts):
Sen Kennedy just shouted that the choice before the Senate on the immigration bill is between “voting for our hopes, or voting for our fears!”
I don’t quite understand why voting your fear is obviously wrong or why voting for your hopes is necessarily right. Fear is often quite reasonable. I have a reasonable fear of alligators. Hopes, meanwhile, are often irrational and goofy. I hope eating lots of cashews will give me laser-vision and super-strength.
Yes, phrases that seem to sound good in an impassioned speech often break down under even a trivial analysis. My pet peeve on this score is Kennedy’s “not because they are easy, but because they are hard…” in explaining why go to the moon. I’ve discussed this in the past.
[Update a couple minutes later]
By the way, just in case no one noticed, for the clueless, I’ve been bashing Republicans today. Not that that’s in any way unusual for me, but some myopic people seem to only notice it when I go after Democrats.
The “Leaders” Of Our Great Nation
You know, speaking of unjustified self esteem and overpraised Senators, like royalty, I suspect that members of “the world’s greatest deliberative body” (OK, I’ll wait a few minutes for you to stop laughing)…often cocoon themselves with such simpering sycophants as staff that they have no concept of how idiotic they can come off when performing unscripted. George Voinovich being a case in point. When a dim bulb like Sean Hannity can make you sound like a fool, you’re a blithering idiot.
Well, at least he didn’t cry, as he did during the Bolton nomination.
That creatures like this get elected to such high positions is a shameful commentary on the state of the nation’s electorate.
[Update a few minutes later]
Speaking of overpraised Senators, Jonah Goldberg makes a good point about fluffy, meaningless political rhetoric (in this case, from the Great White Whale of Massachusetts):
Sen Kennedy just shouted that the choice before the Senate on the immigration bill is between “voting for our hopes, or voting for our fears!”
I don’t quite understand why voting your fear is obviously wrong or why voting for your hopes is necessarily right. Fear is often quite reasonable. I have a reasonable fear of alligators. Hopes, meanwhile, are often irrational and goofy. I hope eating lots of cashews will give me laser-vision and super-strength.
Yes, phrases that seem to sound good in an impassioned speech often break down under even a trivial analysis. My pet peeve on this score is Kennedy’s “not because they are easy, but because they are hard…” in explaining why go to the moon. I’ve discussed this in the past.
[Update a couple minutes later]
By the way, just in case no one noticed, for the clueless, I’ve been bashing Republicans today. Not that that’s in any way unusual for me, but some myopic people seem to only notice it when I go after Democrats.
The “Leaders” Of Our Great Nation
You know, speaking of unjustified self esteem and overpraised Senators, like royalty, I suspect that members of “the world’s greatest deliberative body” (OK, I’ll wait a few minutes for you to stop laughing)…often cocoon themselves with such simpering sycophants as staff that they have no concept of how idiotic they can come off when performing unscripted. George Voinovich being a case in point. When a dim bulb like Sean Hannity can make you sound like a fool, you’re a blithering idiot.
Well, at least he didn’t cry, as he did during the Bolton nomination.
That creatures like this get elected to such high positions is a shameful commentary on the state of the nation’s electorate.
[Update a few minutes later]
Speaking of overpraised Senators, Jonah Goldberg makes a good point about fluffy, meaningless political rhetoric (in this case, from the Great White Whale of Massachusetts):
Sen Kennedy just shouted that the choice before the Senate on the immigration bill is between “voting for our hopes, or voting for our fears!”
I don’t quite understand why voting your fear is obviously wrong or why voting for your hopes is necessarily right. Fear is often quite reasonable. I have a reasonable fear of alligators. Hopes, meanwhile, are often irrational and goofy. I hope eating lots of cashews will give me laser-vision and super-strength.
Yes, phrases that seem to sound good in an impassioned speech often break down under even a trivial analysis. My pet peeve on this score is Kennedy’s “not because they are easy, but because they are hard…” in explaining why go to the moon. I’ve discussed this in the past.
[Update a couple minutes later]
By the way, just in case no one noticed, for the clueless, I’ve been bashing Republicans today. Not that that’s in any way unusual for me, but some myopic people seem to only notice it when I go after Democrats.
Petraeus Explained
By Fred Kagan:
The U.S. has not undertaken a multi-phased operation on such a large scale since 2003, and it is not surprising therefore that many commentators have become confused about how to evaluate what is going on and how to report it. Sectarian deaths in Baghdad dropped significantly as soon as the new strategy was announced in January, and remain at less than half their former levels. Spectacular attacks rose as al Qaeda conducted a counter-surge of its own, but have recently begun falling again. Violence is down tremendously in Anbar province, where the Sunni tribes have turned against al Qaeda and are actively cooperating with U.S. forces for the first time. This process has spread from Anbar into Babil, Salah-ad-Din, and even Diyala provinces, and echoes of it have even spread into one of the worst neighborhoods in Baghdad–Ameriyah, formerly an al Qaeda stronghold. Violence has risen naturally in areas that the enemy had long controlled but in which U.S. forces are now actively fighting for the first time in many years, and the downward spiral in Diyala that began in mid-2006 continued (which is not surprising, since the Baghdad Security Plan does not aim to establish security in Diyala).
All of these trends are positive. The growing skill and determination of the Iraqi Army units fighting alongside Americans is also positive. Some Iraqi Police units have also fought well. Others have displayed sectarian tendencies and participated in sectarian actions. Political progress has been very slow–something that has clearly disappointed many who hoped for an immediate turnaround, but that is not surprising for those who always believed that it would follow, not precede or accompany, the establishment of security at least in Baghdad. And negative sectarian actors within the Iraqi Government continue to resist making necessary compromises with former foes. Overall, the basic trends are rather better than could have been expected of the operation so far, primarily because of the unanticipated stunning success in Anbar and its spread. But it remains far too early to offer any meaningful evaluation of the progress of an operation whose decisive phases are only just beginning.
To say that the current plan has failed is simply incorrect. It might fail, of course, as any military/political plan might fail. Indications on the military side strongly suggest that success–in the form of dramatically reduced violence by the end of this year–is quite likely. Indications on the political side are more mixed, but are also less meaningful at this early stage before security has been established.
I wonder how many of the House members were listening, or care?
[Update mid morning]
J. D. Johannes, just back from Iraq, isn’t very impressed with Richard Lugar:
The virtual extinction of the insurgency in the province
The Overpraised Generation
I always thought that the “self esteem” movement was a lot of hooey. All of the bullies I knew as a kid didn’t seem to suffer from lack of self esteem. If anything, they had an unjustified overabundance of it.
It’s exactly the kind of untested, unsubstantiated nonsense you’d expect from the education establishment, and unfortunately, too many parents bought into it. Donald Sensing describes some of the effects.
Take Heart
Things are not as bad as they seem in the Middle East.
More Chinese Froth
China is doing some major tinkering with fiscal policy according to today’s Wall Street Journal. To try to moderate the flow out of bank savings into their stock market, they are decreasing the tax rate on savings from 20% to 10% and increasing the savings interest rate.
This will indeed get people to save more in the banks. But it will also give them more future cash from the lower taxes and higher returns. This may make them more confident about speculating in the stock market. This means that China’s mountain of cash will continue to grow. Here’s a report that China’s savings rate is 55%.
If you think about the combination of pension products (6% to get all the 401k matching seems typical), Social Security (12.4%) and Medicare (2.9%) we are doing a good bit of forced savings. If you add in home equity, most US workers in their prime are socking away 30% if you don’t deduct the debt they’re taking on.
Our population doesn’t have a huge demographic bulge brought about by a one-child policy, industrialization and massive improvements in life expectancy. The upshot is China will have very high savings until the inverted pyramid kids (one kid who is the only kid of two parents who are each the only kids of two grand parents) get to the workforce. They can expect bequests, a healthy mortgage loan market and modern employee benefits. In the mean time, no amount of cajoling from Chinese or American treasury and central banking officials is going to curb the Chinese savings rate much.
The impact means cheap money across the board for another 20 years. According to the CIA World Factbook $180 billion of their savings is going abroad net. Since they get about $65 billion in foreign direct investment, they get to invest almost $250 billion a year abroad.
They have $1 trillion in bank reserves and gold compared to US’s $70 billion. They have about $300 billion in government debt or $1.2 trillion at purchasing power parity (PPP), compared to $10 trillion US. China has a vastly undervalued currency with gross domestic product (GDP) PPP estimated at $10 trillion at about 4 times the official exchange rate which puts their GDP at current fixed exchange rates at $2.5 trillion.
In short, with a floating exchange rate, China would have the world’s second biggest economy. And that is without the benefit of substantial deficit spending, a stock market, consumer credit, a public pension system up to western standards, a health care finance system up to western standards or any of a number of multipliers that the US already has.
In the next few years, we can look forward to China becoming an economic super power and not slowing its growth (10.7%) until it rises from $7700 per capita PPP GDP to that of Poland ($14k, 5.8%) or France ($27k, 2.1%). That is respectively twice and three and a half times what it is today. With four times as many people that’s 2-3 times as big an economy as ours in the next 40 years.
Can the US manage a peaceful decline and start playing the role of junior partner in defense alliances?
The Science Of Homosexuality
An interesting overview over at New York Magazine.
It’s long been obvious to me that homosexuals (and heterosexuals, as I am) are born, not made. What I did find interesting was the notion that women may not have an inherent sexual orientation, or at least one not as clearly delineated as that of men. It certainly jibes well with my own observations. But I’m skeptical that there’s no such thing as a male bi-sexual.