Professor Reynolds points out this article that describes the insufferable pomposity of the European elites.

Many have compared America to ancient Rome as an empire in decline. Maybe, but judging by articles like this, those looking for decadence and decline should be casting their eyes instead across the Atlantic.

Does anyone else notice the irony of Glenn complaining about Samizdata trolling for hits with chykpyks the day after linking a picture of his beautiful wife?

And he doesn’t even need the hits.

I know that I’m a little behind the curve here, having been traveling, but I can’t let this article from Down Under pass without comment.

Speaking at the 2002 World Congress on the Peaceful Reunification of China and World Peace in Sydney, Mr Clinton said this “brief moment in history” when the US had pre-eminent military, economic and political power, would not last.

“This is just a period, a few decades this will last, and I think that all of us who are Americans should think about this and ask ourselves how do we wish this moment to be judged 50 years from now,” he said.

Well, Bill, you certainly did everything that you could to make it end sooner, rather than later.

But even assuming that he’s correct, just what is his point here? That because some other country might (he says that it’s foreordained, but it’s in actuality entirely up to us and our policies, and whether or not we elect any more Bill Clintons) become more economically, militarily, culturally powerful than us sometime in the future, that we should now grovel before those who despise and terrorize us?

The former president said he did not want to be critical of the current US Administration.

Of course, he didn’t want to let bin Laden get away, or take campaign donations from the PRC, or get hummers from Monica, either. The man just can’t help himself.

“I certainly have no illusions about the North Korean Government,” he said.

A statement that is contradicted by his very next sentence, vis:

“. . . But the fact is they ended their nuclear program in 94, in 98 they ended testing of long-range missiles and in 2000 we had the elements of an agreement with them to end their entire missile program.”

Look out whenever the guy who reinvented the word “is” says “the fact is.” The fact is Bill Clinton has no clue as to whether or not North Korea ended its nuclear program, its missile program, or any other program in those, or any years.

[Update at 5:04 PM PST]

Reader John Thacker points out this editorial in the Taipei Times commenting on this speech. The Taiwanese aren’t very happy with Mr. Clinton either. I didn’t address this point, but as John points out, the “World Congress on the Peaceful Reunification of China and World Peace” is an organization that accepts as a premise that Taiwan will be reunified with the mainland, and the “Peaceful” part is just a euphemism for “by whatever means necessary.” So Mr. Bill didn’t just sell us out for Chinese money, he’s continuing to do the same to Taiwan.

Professor Reynolds helpfully points to an article in the National Review Online by someone named Eli Lehrer, of whom I had previously never heard. There’s little new here for those who’ve been reading my rants on the subject of government vs private space for the last few months, but it’s nice to see these themes being picked up by the general media, particularly in a conservative journal, because space has been one of those policy areas in which many conservatives tend to check their brains at the door, often defending this particular government program even as they assail others.

Also, there is one blooper in it (with a confusing, and probably mistaken, link). He states that there is a company in Virginia offering orbital flight for $98,000 dollars, but simply points to the home page for the X-Prize Foundation, which makes no such mention of such a project. I suspect that he meant to refer to Space Adventures, who I believe are taking deposits for sub-hundred K$ trips, but for a suborbital flight, not an orbital one (i.e., a ride that goes up a to a hundred kilometers or more, spends several minutes in weightlessness, and then returns to earth, but does not make a full orbit). I believe that we will eventually be able to offer orbital flight for this amount of money or less, but not in the next few years, and anyone who is actually offering it for that price is a fool or a charlatan, or both.

His X-Prize Foundation link is screwed up as well, because it points to a NASA press release from December 26, 2001 that seems to have nothing to do with the point of his article, particularly in the context of the link.