TASTE-TESTING EMERGENCY RATIONS. I keep some of these in the car, so I was glad to see them do so well. You can also pack a few of these. I used to pack Balance Bars, but people kept eating those.
Archive for 2007
July 17, 2007
CUT AND RUN.
DOW CRACKS 14,000, FINISHES AT RECORD HIGH. Kudlow will be saying “I told you so” again today.
UPDATE: Oops, he’s already done it!
STILL MORE ON those missing bees.
PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The House is doing better than the Senate:
As Democrats attempt to curb criticism of the earmarking process, the House is leading in one area: reducing the cost of lawmakers’ pet projects in the annual appropriations bills.
But the House’s reduction in spending on earmarking by at least 50 percent from fiscal 2006 levels has some members worried. They are concerned that they will head into conference negotiations with the Senate at a disadvantage because that chamber’s spending bills will contain many more earmarks from the start.
“It’s going to be a House-Senate battle,†said House appropriator Sam Farr, D-Calif. . . .
House appropriators have long complained that the Senate tries to squeeze more earmarks into its spending bills.
“When we were in the majority, we used to say the Democrats are the opposition and the Senate is the enemy,†Rep. James T. Walsh, R-N.Y., recently said with a grin. Walsh is a veteran appropriator and ranking member of the Labor-HHS-Education panel.
This year the House and Senate earmark gap has grown. “What you are seeing this year is the discrepancy is enhanced,†said Jim Dyer, a former GOP staff director of the House Appropriations Committee.
The Senate GOP leadership remains lame, too:
Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) speedy ascension to de facto leader of the Senate’s conservatives may have won him a number of fans among fiscal hawks, reform-minded watchdogs and some fellow Republican Senators, who applaud the first-term Senator for his willingness to buck the chamber’s “Old Boy†traditions. But DeMint’s tactics have started to chafe GOP leaders and prompted private warnings that their tolerance has worn thin. . . .
His ongoing fight with Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) over earmarks reforms, has begun to irritate Republican Senate elders, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Minority Whip Trent Lott (Miss.).According to several Republicans, party leaders have made it clear to DeMint that while they may give him some running room over the next few appropriations-laden weeks, they will not tolerate what they see as repeated efforts to hijack the Senate floor and the public spotlight.
DeMint declined to comment directly on any warning leadership may have delivered to him regarding his increasingly high-profile crusades. But he did say it is up to McConnell and other GOP leaders to take up the mantle of reform if they do not want others to do so.
The entire GOP leadership should be doing this sort of thing, instead of being upstaged by a freshman Senator and then grousing about it.
STRATEGYPAGE ON IRAQ: “The war in Iraq is mostly about information, and these days the terrorists have less of it, and Iraqi and coalition troops have more of it. But the war is still not the major problem. Corruption and incompetent government are.”
ARNOLD KLING LOOKS AT GEORGE BUSH’S PRESIDENCY:
As I listen to people discuss the Presidency of George Bush, I find myself hearing the same things over and over. He has been too ideological, too closed-minded, too partisan, and too incompetent, resulting in a disastrous Presidency. I am not sure that this analysis will survive a more sober, detached perspective. Later in this essay, I will spell out what I see as the myths embedded in the conventional wisdom.
Read the whole thing. I can certainly identify with this bit: “I have never felt comfortable with George Bush. I voted for Al Gore–although I never felt comfortable with him, either. I felt even less comfortable with John Kerry, so that I voted for Bush in 2004. . . . I think that President Bush has got one thing very much right, which is that Arab-Islamic terrorism is a symptom that something is rotten in the Middle East. If anything, his failures in Iraq and Palestine are due to underestimating the degree of rot.”
UPDATE: More thoughts from Ron Coleman.
PEACE ACTIVIST PAID BY SADDAM:
EARLY THIS MORNING, a committee of the British House of Commons suspended the flamboyant George Galloway, member from Bethnal Green and Bow, for 18 days for concealing the Iraqi funding of his “charity,” the Mariam Appeal.
Seems like he got off pretty light.
BREAKING THE MYSTERY RACIAL CODE: Eugene Volokh is better at it than The New Republic.
VIRGINIA POSTREL: “People want to keep [kidney donation] as a heroic, uncompensated act because it makes them feel good. Never mind that tens of thousands of people are dying for your right to feel good about other people’s heroic acts.”
HEH: Iran gets punk’d.
MORE ON NORTH KOREA.
TOM MAGUIRE: The populism that dare not speak its name. “I am trying to think of a recent topic that dominated the headlines and related to jobs, stagnant wages, changing communities, and globalization…. gosh this is tough.”
A LOOK AT bilingual education.
MICKEY KAUS: Is CNN blowing the YouTube debate?
Plus, bloggers keep scooping the Los Angeles Times on the Villaraigosa scandal.
WHY YOU SHOULD FUND EZRA KLEIN’S BAR TABS: Er, or something like that . . . .
THOUGHTS ON FREE TRADE, from Daniel Drezner.
PLUG-INS FROM GENERAL MOTORS:
General Motors is working on two plug-in electric vehicles, but only one — the Saturn Vue Green Line SUV — is a hybrid.
The other plug-in, the Chevrolet Volt, is powered strictly via the electric motor, which draws its juice from on-board batteries.
As reader Matt Szekeley says, Bring it on! He adds: “I am a Honda man, but the first company to bring out a reliable plug in hybrid will get my business.”
“RON PAUL DOESN’T SPEAK FOR ALL OF US:” Randy Barnett on Libertarians and the war. And note this comment from Manny Klausner: “The war in Iraq presents challenging issues for libertarians — but it is unfortunately not generally understood that many libertarians do not share the anti-war views expressed by Ron Paul. Indeed, the first Libertarian Party candidate for President — the distinguished philosopher, John Hospers — was a hawk as to the war in Vietnam.”
UPDATE: Defending Ron Paul, vs. The Politico, at The Corner.
CAN SOMEBODY ASK HARRY REID WHAT HE THINKS ABOUT THESE DEVELOPMENTS?
General Peter Pace, the outgoing chair of the Joint Chiefs, has called the surge a success, saying that it has brought about a “sea change” in security for Iraq. Time Magazine reports on his remarks from Ramadi, which in itself demonstrates a level of success, as the Anbar Province has changed markedly from the lost cause it appeared a year ago . . . . [Meanwhile] UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned the US about conducting a precipitate withdrawal from Iraq.
And while we’re at it, has Harry ever answered Jake Tapper’s question?
UPDATE: More on Tapper’s question here.
IN THE MAIL: Stephen F. Hayes’ new book, Cheney: The Untold Story of America’s Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President.
BREAKING THROUGH Chavez’s muzzle.
ROBERT NOVAK answers a question.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SPACE COLONIZATION:
In 1993, J. Richard Gott III computed with scientific certainty that humanity would survive at least 5,100 more years. At the time, I took that as reason to relax, but Dr. Gott has now convinced me I was wrong. He has issued a wake-up call: To ensure our long-term survival, we need to get a colony up and running on Mars within 46 years.
If you’re not awakened yet, I understand. It’s only prudent to be skeptical of people who make scientific forecasts about the end of humanity. Dr. Gott, a professor of astrophysics at Princeton, got plenty of grief after he made his original prediction in 1993. But in the ensuing 14 years, his prophetic credentials have strengthened, and not merely because humanity is still around.
Dr. Gott has used his technique to successfully forecast the longevity of Broadway plays, newspapers, dogs and, most recently, the tenure in office of hundreds of political leaders around the world. He bases predictions on just one bit of data, how long something has lasted already; and on one assumption, that there is nothing special about the particular moment that you’re observing this phenomenon. This assumption is called the Copernican Principle, after the astronomer who assumed he wasn’t seeing the universe from a special spot in the center. . . .
You could argue that he’s being too pessimistic about space exploration. The space program may be only 46 years old, but humans have been exploring new territory for tens of thousands of years, so by Copernican logic perhaps they’ll keep it doing it far into the future. But given recent trends — after going to the Moon, we now barely send humans into orbit — he’s right to be worried.
If it’s true that civilizations normally go extinct because they get stuck on their home planets, then the odds are against us, but there’s nothing inevitable about the Copernican Principle. Earthlings could make themselves the statistical anomaly. When extinction is the norm, you may as well try to be special.
Read the whole thing. And worry a bit.