FRANK MUNGER ON RUMORS THAT Barack Obama would move work from Oak Ridge to Illinois. He’s skeptical. Plus, Rob Huddleston says Tennessee isn’t getting the respect it deserves at the RNC. “Perhaps Lamar stole Mitch McConnell’s pudding in the Senate cafeteria, because Kentucky is up front (as Convention Chair Mike Duncan assigned, I am sure) and Tennessee needs binoculars.”
Archive for 2008
September 2, 2008
RON BAILEY on particle accelerators and the end of the world.
SO I COULDN’T BELIEVE THAT THIS HEADLINE WAS ON REUTERS: While McCain Raises Money For Hurricane Victims Obama Set To Jet Off For Geneva. Closer examination revealed that it was on a Reuters blog-aggregation page. For a minute there, the whole world was upside down.
UPDATE: Reader Martin Shoemaker emails: “FYI: the story of Senator Obama in Geneva is false. Yes, there is a Hollywood fundraiser for Americans in Geneva (all those working class folks the Democrats represent, no doubt). Yes, the fundraiser continues despite the hurricane. But no, Senator Obama is not there, and has no control over it. . . .I’m no fan of Senator Obama, but I’m a fan of the facts.” As are we all. But a false report under the Reuters brand? Unheard of! Here’s a report on the Geneva fundraiser.
REMEMBERING THE WORLD TRADE CENTER: The Man Who Walked Between the Towers.
So I wandered down to the floor — where it’s freezing cold — and it’s pretty busy with preparations in their final stages and a lot of delegates and press people milling around. (Okay, I could actually see that from the PJTV booth, but not up-close.) I’d heard some complaints about where the Tennessee delegation is seated, and it is a bit far from the stage.
It’s pretty far from the stage — about as far as you can get — but the view isn’t too bad. And right across the aisle is Hawaii, which has decorated its standard in a regionally appropriate way.
Those little touches are nice; I’d like to see more like that.
DAVID BROOKS ON MCCAIN AND PALIN: “My worry about Palin is that she shares McCain’s primary weakness — that she has a tendency to substitute a moral philosophy for a political philosophy. . . . He really needs someone to impose a policy structure on his moral intuitions. He needs a very senior person who can organize a vast administration and insist that he tame his lone-pilot tendencies and work through the established corridors — the National Security Council, the Domestic Policy Council. He needs a near-equal who can turn his instincts, which are great, into a doctrine that everybody else can predict and understand.”
That, however, isn’t — and shouldn’t be — a job for the Vice President, as I’ve noted elsewhere. That’s a job for a Chief of Staff. Maybe McCain should announce that choice before the election?
DICK CHENEY TO ATTEND civil war reenactment.
PLENTY OF RON PAUL FOLKS in evidence, but someone should explain to them that you can sell more with a smile and a shoeshine than with a shoeshine alone.
A LOOK AT clinical education in U.S. law schools.
REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from all over.
HEH: “Who is this guy? A spy? Is he even a guy? And what if his name really is Spengler? That would fool everyone. . . . Maybe Spengler is Warren Christopher. Just a guess.” That would be an amusing twist, and make a great plot for a novel . . . .
THE PJTV PROGRAMMING FROM YESTERDAY is now online and can be watched for free. Meanwhile, reader Justin Peter emails:
Since you are actually AT the convention I don’t think you saw this, but I’d like to get your take on it. Last night every single news network focused their coverage on Gustav and not the RNC. Not to take anything away from the folks on the Gulf that have just endured a natural disaster, but when was the last time all major networks ran a special report on a Category 2 hurricane that missed major cities? When was the last time the nation got to see a poncho clad Katie Couric on prime time? There was no last time. It didn’t happen until it coincided with the Republican National Convention.
It was so obvious even my wife noticed – given she’s an Obama supporter that is pretty damning.
Well, there wasn’t a lot happening on the floor yesterday, except for the Laura Bush / Cindy McCain appearance. But PJTV was covering lots of non-hurricane news, so if you don’t like what the networks are dishing out, come on over! And if PJTV ever has me in a poncho doing the usual windblown hurricane stand-up, feel free to email me with abuse.
DAVID HARSANYI ARGUES the libertarian case for Palin:
By now, you’ve probably seen picture or two of Palin sporting a rifle. Apparently, she’s left carcasses strewn across the Alaskan wilderness. In some places — areas where the nation is growing — owning a gun is not yet a sin. And unlike Obama, Palin seems to believe that the Second Amendment means the exact same thing in rural Alaska as it does in the streets of Chicago.
Yes, Palin is without argument a staunch social conservative. She is fervently opposed to abortion – even in cases of rape and incest, which will raise eyebrows, but is certainly more philosophically consistent than the namby pambyism of your average politician. The choice issue, after all, is complicated, even for many libertarians. And, as I was recently reminded, Ron Paul, the Libertarian champion of the 21st century, also opposes abortion.
Even when advocating for “moral” issues, Palin’s approach is a soft sell. Palin does not support gay marriage (neither does Obama, it should be noted). Yet, in 2006, Palin’s first veto as Governor was a bill that sought to block state employee benefits and health insurance for same-sex couples.
Read the whole thing. One can, of course, be a social conservative in philosophy and still support a libertarian approach to government and regulation.
RESEARCH ON high school popularity and future life.
TONY WOODLIEF on why he’s home-schooling: “The reason we’ve broken with tradition, or perhaps reverted to a deeper tradition, is not because we oppose sex education, or because we think their egos are too tender for public schools. It’s because we can do a superior job of educating our children. We want to cultivate in them an intellectual breadth and curiosity that public schools no longer offer.”
MORE THAN ONE PERSON AT THE RNC — okay, two, but that’s more than one — has spontaneously told me that they think Obama would have had a much stronger ticket if he’d chosen Phil Bredesen instead of Joe Biden. I think that’s probably right.
GRAND ROUNDS is up!
IN THE MAIL: A book that must have looked like a better buy when the publisher signed the contract: Christopher J. Fettweis’ Losing Hurts Twice as Bad: The Four Stages to Moving Beyond Iraq. I’m pretty sure this was pitched pre-Surge.
BELL LABS kills fundamental physics research. Jerry Pournelle comments “Thank you, Judge Green. May you reap what you sowed.” Judge Harold Greene has already gone to his reward, and I’m not so sure the AT&T breakup was a bad thing overall, but the loss of Bell Labs as a fundamental research facility has been a major blow.
UPDATE: Reader Robert Johnson emails: “Judge Greene destroyed a critical piece of the infrastructure that once made this country the unchallenged leader in telecommunications knowledge. So we could have cheap long distance calls. I hope you really like having cheap long distance calls, because there isn’t anybody left to invent new stuff.”
UH OH: Spotless:
The sun has reached a milestone not seen for nearly 100 years: an entire month has passed without a single visible sunspot being noted. . . . When the sun is active, it’s not uncommon to see sunspot numbers of 100 or more in a single month. Every 11 years, activity slows, and numbers briefly drop to near-zero. Normally sunspots return very quickly, as a new cycle begins.
But this year — which corresponds to the start of Solar Cycle 24 — has been extraordinarily long and quiet, with the first seven months averaging a sunspot number of only 3. August followed with none at all. The astonishing rapid drop of the past year has defied predictions, and caught nearly all astronomers by surprise.
Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Fabius Maximus notes that one observatory has found one tiny sunspot (see the update to the item linked above). He also has a big roundup on the subject.
THOSE RADICAL, GAY-LOVING REPUBLICANS: “This morning’s New York Times has the fascinating results of a poll of the views of Republican National Convention delegates on a variety of issues. The poll reveals that 49% of the GOP delegates support either gay marriage (6%) or civil unions (43%). Only 46% of the delegates believe there should be no legal recognition whatsoever of same-sex couples.” Follow the link for Dale Carpenter’ take on how revolutionary this is. “I consider this poll of party activists quite surprising, and for a supporter of same-sex marriage, quite encouraging.”
Well, what can you expect from a bunch of “extreme libertarians?”
Bristol Palin has single-handedly dealt the Republican Party its winning hand. With an economy in decline and an unpopular war started by Republicans, Bristol Palin’s unborn baby has now made the Culture War the focal point of this election. This is one ground and, in fact, the only ground on which Republicans can win this election.
Hmm. Read the whole thing. McCain fans should hope he’s right.
UPDATE: On the other hand, Jeralyn Merritt is running a pool on when Palin will drop out. Ann Althouse has some thoughts on that.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Michael Silence agrees with A.C.:
My reaction to the Bristol Palin “controversy”
Yawn.
The more liberals pound this drum, the more votes they garner for McCain/Palin. It’s a non-issue. From a political standpoint the Dems would do well to drop it and move on. I mean, really, how long can one harp on the fact there’s not a perfect family in the world?
We’ll find out who’s right, won’t we?
MORE: Byron York has been interviewing evangelicals at the RNC.
STILL MORE: Bob Owens responds to Jeralyn Merritt with a pool on when Barack Obama will drop out: “We now know far more about Sarah Palin in just four days than we’ve learned about Barack Obama in 17 months. That is just sad. It’s a pathetic reflection of the mainstream media’s unwillingness to do their jobs for fear of finding stories that would hurt the candidate so many of them openly desire to win. But periodically appearing to read teleprompters isn’t vetting, not matter how many months a candidate has done it, and Obama’s ability to perform in set-piece debates is both dubious—Hillary once famously took him apart—and irrelevant. Barack Obama really has never been fully vetted. He hasn’t even come close.”
FINALLY: Reader Paul Jackson writes: “Is it just me or has Bristol Palin gotten more ‘ink’ than Joe Biden’s lobbyist son? Imagine if the roles were reversed. I think we all know how that would be perceived.”
GAMING EVOLUTION:
On his laptop swims a strange fishlike creature, with a jaw that snaps sideways and skin the color of green sea glass. As Dr. Near taps the keyboard, it wiggles and twists its way through a busy virtual ocean. It tries to eat other creatures and turns its quills toward predators that would make it a meal. . . . Dr. Near and Dr. Prum have spent a few evenings testing out Spore, one of the most eagerly anticipated video games in the history of the industry. After years of rumors, the game goes on sale Friday. Spore’s designer, Will Wright, is best known for creating a game called the Sims in 2000. That game, which let players run the lives of a virtual family, has sold 100 million copies. It is the best-selling video game franchise of all time — an impressive achievement in an $18-billion-a-year industry that is now bigger than Hollywood.
Spore, produced by Electronic Arts, promises much more than the day-to-day adventures of simulated people. It starts with single-cell microbes and follows them through their evolution into intelligent multicellular creatures that can build civilizations, colonize the galaxy and populate new planets.
Sounds cool.
YESTERDAY, I LINKED AN ITEM SAYING THAT MCCAIN IS BAD FOR ISRAEL. Noah Pollak disagrees.