THOUGHTS ON SPACE POLICY from Rand Simberg.
Archive for May, 2009
May 18, 2009
MORE ON how Wikipedia is run.
ARE THE SPANISH ENGAGING IN extraordinary rendition? Or something akin to it?
EVERYBODY’S GOT AN EXCUSE THESE DAYS: CNBC: Recession Drives Moms to Drink, Do Drugs and Gamble.
POLITICIZING U.S. ATTORNEYS? Democrats fix sights on GOP prosecutor
Easley, Edwards probes under way.
John Edwards admits federal investigators are asking him questions. Federal subpoenas were issued Friday related to Mike Easley.
As the separate federal probes into a former senator and the former governor are emerging, Democrats are taking steps to replace the Republican prosecutor who is spearheading the inquiries about the highest-profile North Carolina Democrats of the past decade. . . .
Edwards, a former senator, vice presidential nominee and presidential candidate, has acknowledged the federal investigation into whether any money given to his presidential campaign — or to nonprofits connected to his campaign — was funneled to his girlfriend, Rielle Hunter. Edwards has admitted having an affair with Hunter, who was hired to make short videos for the campaign.
Easley, governor from 2001 until January, was the subject of a federal subpoena issued Friday to the state Highway Patrol. The FBI wants records and information related to Easley’s private air travel. A separate state Board of Elections inquiry also is under way into a range of activities.
If Republicans were doing this, would it be a scandal?
IN TODAY’S WALL STREET JOURNAL, I’ve got a piece on Obama’s tax audit threat “jokes” and their effect on the tax system.
THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED THIS WEEKEND:
Chris Dodd supporters’ rally turns out to be a small, intimate affair.
How America is vulnerable to bio-attacks.
Selling barbecue with fake boobs.
Yuan to replace dollar as world’s reserve currency?
The joys of the Flip Mino HD camcorder. Plus, why I’m lame.
Obama’s new terror policies, and the problems they pose for Bush critics now serving in the Obama Administration.
A MAUREEN DOWD PLAGIARISM SCANDAL. Here are my thoughts on plagiarism, generally, from The Appearance of Impropriety.
Meanwhile, I agree with this take:
In fact, the beauty of MoDo’s snafu is that not only does it show a major player in the media being led around by nutroots talking points, it involves her lifting stuff from a blog that’s actually called “Talking Points.” Glorious.
Indeed.
KILLING A STORY: How it’s done. “In today’s New York Times, Public Editor Clark Hoyt reveals the result of his investigation into the charge that the paper killed a story during the 2008 Presidential campaign in order to help Barack Obama. Hoyt concludes that the claim is ‘nonsense.’ . . . But the facts as related by Hoyt don’t rebut the charge; they support it.”
UPDATE: Link was wrong before. Fixed now. Sorry!
May 17, 2009
THE KINGSTON TRIO PERFORM ZOMBIE JAMBOREE.
Beware the inevitable zombie uprising, and do not let the musical antics of their sympathizers lull you into complacency!
OBAMA’S competence gap. “We’ve heard the cliché: there is a difference between campaigning and governing. But in the last few weeks the contrast between the two could not have been more stark. And the gap between President Obama’s effectiveness at the former and shakiness at the latter is coming into focus.”
WHAT OBAMA ACTUALLY SAID to graduates at Notre Dame.
ANN ALTHOUSE: God Watch Over Our Troops.
Plus, the dangers of thrown unicorns.
CAR LUST: Remembering the 1989 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am.
THE VIEW FROM MY WINDOW.
JULES CRITTENDEN: Getting Cheney.
It’s also very ironic that just as we are on the verge of really stunning advances in biotechnology, we are fixing to destroy innovation in our health care industry. And just as I (and a bunch of other boomers) are about to need it too. Here’s a proposal. Let’s wait until those with the mean age of Obama voters reach an age where they really need health care, to “reform” it.
Perhaps the Chinese will take over on the pharmaceutical innovation front. After all, they’re taking over on everything else.
PLUS, IT’LL BE YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY TO SMOKE DOPE AND SLEEP WITH HOOKERS: Nick Gillespie offers Obama advice on how to solve his budget crisis.
VIDEO: Protesters interrupt Obama at Notre Dame. Like a “Code Pink” attack?
THE AGE OF FAILED DREAMS: What if the Singularity doesn’t happen?
POLITICO: Some on left souring on Obama. “A few, like MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, have even hurled the left’s ultimate epithet – suggesting that Obama’s turning into George W. Bush. . . . Maddow accused Obama of doing a ‘blatant 180’ on military commissions. On issues like the wiretapping suits, some critics have suggested Obama is even worse than Bush.”
A RIFLE IN ONE HAND, A LAPTOP IN THE OTHER: The Christian Science Monitor interviews some gunbloggers. Money quote:
But here’s the real news: In the press box, bloggers outnumbered national reporters by a good margin. And officially, nearly 50 bloggers — compared to 100 mainstream print journalists — were accredited by the NRA press office to attend the 138th annual convention.
And here’s another:
“If you compare the pro-gun activity in the blogosphere versus the pro-gun-control activity, the scales have just tipped tremendously in their favor,” says Josh Sugarmann, founder of the Violence Policy Center in Washington, which advocates for more gun control in the US. “There’s much more engagement, more involvement, and they clearly have more free time than people on our side of the issue do.”
In the process, gun bloggers are taking on issues like gun control preemption laws in Philadelphia and putting pressure on firearms firms for their choice of spokesmen. And while their reach can be argued, their rise appears to mirror polling data showing that Americans, sometimes by double-digit gains, increasingly favor more gun freedoms, not gun control.
Read the whole thing. Meanwhile, here’s my report from last year’s NRA convention.