MICHAEL YON: Britain Loses One Of Its Finest.
Archive for 2009
November 3, 2009
PENSION CRISIS UPDATE: City of Auburn Hills on the brink of bankruptcy due to unrealistic pension obligations.
RADLEY BALKO: Death Of A Watchdog.
HOUSTON TEA PARTY RALLY draws more than 10,000.
I heard Tim Cox, author of Get Out Of Our House! a book about a campaign for replacing the entire Congress, on local talk-radio today and there were a lot of enthusiastic calls. Everybody’s focusing on today’s special elections, but there’s a lot of other stuff bubbling under the surface all over.
MICKEY KAUS: “It’s now clear that the fate of even unionized auto workers will vary with the success or failure of their individual employers. They’re back to competing against each other, not just against the “bosses.” … P.S.: Too bad the GM and Chrysler bailouts, with their minimal UAW contract concessions, may have given Ford workers an excessively rosy impression of what it really means to have a failed employer. Were Ford workers scared enough to avoid the UAW’s too-little-too-late tradition of concessions? Obama short-circuited bankruptcy’s shock-and-awe function.”
My question is, can the UAW properly represent workers at Ford now that it’s bought-in to Ford’s competitors?
THE AYN RAND We The Living DVD release draws some snarky commentary from Glenn Kenny.
MICKEY KAUS: “If robopolling really does focus accurately on ‘likely’ voters, this latest Rasmussen-heavy health care chart will terrify wavering Democrats.”
One estimate is that 500 nuclear power plants would make America energy independent. I think that is optimistic in that an abundance of electricity doesn’t mean we won’t need to import oil for transportation needs, but it would certainly take us a long way toward independence. The cost would be in the order of 2 billion per plant (I would think less; that is the first one might be 4 billion, but the 400th would be considerably less than a billion; but call it 2 billion). That is one trillion dollars, comparable to the TARP or stimulus — and for once a deficit would be financing something real.
It is less than the cost of the war, and less than the war is going to cost if we continue. Cheap reliable energy would be one major step toward economic recovery. Low cost energy plus freedom will bring prosperity. If we have the energy we can work on the freedom. The whole thing could be accomplished in four years. Of course the ravening wolves in the Congress won’t do it — but then it’s not likely that this is the kind of hope and change we can believe in from the current White House.
But it would work. France knows the value of nuclear power. Why can’t we learn it?
You’d think that “be more like France” would sell these days, but nooo. . . .
WILL MILITARY VOTERS BE DISENFRANCHISED? Again, that is: “One question that remains unanswered in the Virginia and NY-23 elections is whether overseas military voters will once again be disenfranchised. . . . The question of when Virginia and New York actually mailed out their absentee ballots is something that investigative journalists in both states should be probing, even as we go into what may be a very exciting Election Day. Otherwise, our military voters may be disenfranchised, as courts determined they were in Virginia in the November 2008 elections, and in New York in the March 2009 special congressional election for the 20th district.”
THE RISE OF GUN CAMPS FOR WOMEN: “Women love it. We get schoolteachers, lawyers, nurses, women from all walks of life.”
DAGGETT A PRO-CORZINE STALKING-HORSE? Democrats admit paying for pro-Daggett call.
NEW YORK TIMES: In Iowa, Second Thoughts On Obama. It was a bait-and-switch, and the rubes are catching on.
SKEWED PRIORITIES: “What are we to make of a White House visitors list that includes 22 swiftly scheduled appointments with a union boss at a time when Gen. Stanley McChrystal can’t get face time with the commander in chief?”
November 2, 2009
ROBERT SAMUELSON: Could America Go Broke? Depends on whether this gang gets a second term . . . .
DOES MRS. FRISBY KNOW? Scientists make a smarter rat.
AT THE HILL, talking about the Scozzafava Effect.
AL GORE, “first carbon billionaire?”
CONGRATULATIONS TO AMAZON: It’s the “Christmas Corner,” not the “Holiday corner.”
FROM STEPHEN GREEN, it’s this week’s Hair of the Dog: Weasel Words, Straight Talk, And Why It’s Good To Be Right … Right Now.
‘CAUSE THEY KNOW IF THEY ARE, THEY’LL BE TARRED AND FEATHERED BY ANGRY MOBS: Nobody Said “Stimulus 2.” The Words “Stimulus” and “Two” Have Not Been Said In That Order By Anybody.
Okay, not really, but we can hope.
A COUP FOR THE NEW MEDIA in New York?
L.A. TIMES: Last-minute NY 23rd poll: Conservative Doug Hoffman surges, but … “The undecided voters there have doubled to nearly 1 in 5, making the final hours volatile.”
JEREMIAH WRIGHT: HURRAY FOR MARXISM!