Mark Whittington has further (uncharitable) thoughts about the late Senator Proxmire. It’s a harsher obituary than I’d write, particularly seeing as the body has barely cooled off, but then, I’ve never been as enamored of large federal space budgets (particularly considering how ineffectively they’ve been spent, for the most part) as he is.
Compare And Contrast
I’m not a smart enough Googler to figure it out, but how did the press coverage of Saddam’s “election,” in which he won 99% of the vote, compare to today’s? Which did the MSM think the bigger story, and by how much?
[Update on Friday morning]
Little Green Footballs has an example.
[Update at 9 AM]
Here’s a roundup from last January of how credulous many in the media were about Saddam’s “election”:
While the network news gurus have spent weeks questioning whether Sunday
Intergenerational Wealth Transfer
At 2.3% per capita real income growth, real income doubles every thirty years. That is, we can expect our kids to be roughly twice as rich as we are. In particular, we should stop worrying about them supporting twice as many retirees per capita. We should also stop worrying about their environmental legacy. They will have twice as many billions to devote to environmental cleanup and upgrade even if population remains constant.
One thing that would cause the social security crisis to come back in spades would be if, as is proposed in the UK, that social security is indexed to wages instead of prices. If wages are used, social security payments will double when wages double and longevity and early retirement will bear down on workers.
How much do we owe retirees? Is it the same absolute standard of living as they had when they were working? Their same relative position in the economy? These are expensive moral questions. But recognize a promise of a wage indexed gain for what it is: it is a heavy tax on the working to give more real dollars to the retirees than they gave to the retirees while they were working.
I am still in favor of privatizing government pensions, but that would in effect be a huge cut in subsidization of government borrowing. That is, without the whole social security trust fund invested in government bonds, it will be more expensive to finance government borrowing. That will either require higher taxes, increased borrowing or reduced spending to offset.
One thing I can say about that is that my daughter’s generation will be twice as able to deal with it as mine per capita.
Counter Insurgency Training
Economist looks at counter insurgengency training and hopes a volunteer army will remember them longer than a conscript army remembered lessons from Viet Nam.
Oedipus Yucks
On the Internet, not only can no one tell you’re a dog–no one can tell that you’re his mother.
Coming Home
Aleta Jackson writes that XCOR’s EZ-Rocket flew home to Mojave today, piloted by Rick Searfoss, from its record-breaking trip to California City. It finished its taxi to the hangar the same way it took off–under rocket power.
It was apparently its last journey. It’s now achieved (and probably exceeded) all of its original technical and marketing objectives, and its final destination is now a well-deserved display area in an aviation and space museum.
Video Conferencing Soon Ready for Prime Time
Economist reports that video conferencing kinks are being worked out of both the experience and the business model. Corporations are getting on board. $1.75/minute on peak, $0.25 off peak? If it is being used “around the clock” as they say, average price would be only $0.50/minute or if only during business hours 40 hours/wk at $2/minute. Paying $3000 hard costs for four hours ($12.5/minute) of on site business meetings the past two days myself, I sure would like it if I could cut travel by 75%. The calculation is more extreme if you assign labor cost to travel. If you throw in my 16 hours of travel at $2/minute you get up to over $20/minute for these face-to-face meetings.
Marching Toward Freedom
Gateway Pundit has a roundup on the Iraqi elections, which are reportedly going smoothly, with little violence, despite Zarqawi’s threats. Even the BBC is impressed.
Continuing The Coverup
It seems to be a bi-partisan effort.
The level of my disgust with politicians in Washington continues to plumb new depths.
No More Golden Fleece
Former Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire, long-time nemesis of NASA, and budget hawk (something that we could use a lot more of, these days, though he always made an exception for dairy price supports), has apparently died.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s the story. I hadn’t realized that he suffered from Alzheimers. At least his suffering is over.