Archive for 2009
June 22, 2009
FOR ICELAND, a geothermal bailout? “Last October, Iceland’s economy tanked. Its bailout? A two-mile geothermal well drilled into a volcano that could generate an endless supply of clean energy. Or, as Icelanders will calmly explain, it could all blow up in their faces.”
STEM CELL THERAPIES move into clinical trials.
MEGAN MCARDLE on why that rogue cancer unit at the VA was able to persist. “Not because hospitals are above covering up malpractice, or because doctors don’t protect other doctors, but because any private hospital would have been terrified of getting sued. The VA is very hard to sue because of sovereign immunity.”
DUCK AND COVER: ACORN drops tarnished name and moves to silence critics.
Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) leaders are using the threat of a law suit to silence and intimidate critics, according to current and former members of the liberal activist group.
In a letter dated June 11 an attorney for ACORN advised top whistleblowers that their unauthorized use of the organization’s name could make them liable for monetary damages and injunctive relief.
ACORN executives have also changed their organization’s name, which was tarnished by investigations in at least 14 states of allegations of voter registration fraud during the 2008 presidential campaign, and charges by current and former members of financial mismanagement and misrepresentation.
Clearly the behavior of an outfit that has nothing to be ashamed of!
UPDATE: Some name-change confusion is cleared up. “ACORN hasn’t changed its name. ACORN International has. . . . They are two separate entities — and there is considerable tension between them. It’s confusing because, of course, ACORN runs a vast network of affiliates across the country that facilitate its money-shuffling racket.”
MATT WELCH: Workaday Media Bias and State Budget Crises, Example #1. “In 2002 total combined state revenue was $1.097 trillion…. In 2007 this figure had risen to almost $2 trillion. That’s an 81 percent increase, at a time when prices plus population increased 19 percent. . . . I understand partisans and rent-seekers not wanting to deal with the uncomfortable fact that states right now would have had enough money for increased recession-triggered services plus a combined half-trillion dollar tax cut if only they had kept spending growth at the rate of population plus inflation for just five recession-free years. But newspapers?” Nowadays, newspapers are partisans and — as they angle for government bailouts — rent-seekers, too.
UPDATE: What Crisis?
What state budget crisis?
This year the hacks had $28.1 billion to squander. In the new fiscal year they’ll have $27.4 billion. In other words, for every $39 they wasted in FY 2009, they’ll have to get by on $38 in FY 2010.
If the commonwealth were a person with an income of $50,000, he would be looking at a pay cut of $1,282. A lot of people right now in the Dreaded Private Sector would call a 2.5 percent pay cut a reprieve, a godsend. The real crisis is the tax bender they’re on at the State House. To deal with this infinitesimal cut, the taxaholics are going to jack up the sales tax 25 percent. They’re allowing local hacks to impose a new meals tax. They’ve invented a new tax for satellite TV. They’re increasing the hotel-motel tax. Registry fees are going up.
The tax-fattened hyenas are hitting us with a new 6.25 percent tax on alcohol, though they and their brain-dead enablers in what’s left of the mainstream media refuse to call it a tax. They describe it as eliminating the exemption.
Mainstream media, partisan rent-seekers, whatever. But hey, the good folks in Massachusetts had a chance to vote in real tax cuts this past election, and they didn’t. So now they’re “getting it fast and hard,” as Mencken put it.
THE RETURN OF THE CUYAHOGA RIVER. I was on the waterfront there a few years ago and it was quite nice.
I DON’T LIKE THE SOUND OF THIS: How Apple and AT&T Are Closing The Mobile Web.
ETHANOL-FREE GASOLINE a hot seller in Florida.
UPDATE: Link was wrong before. Fixed now. Sorry!
THE STATE IS HEADING FOR BANKRUPTCY, BUT New Jersey is focused on banning drivers’ use of GPS while driving.
ROBERT POST will be the new Dean of the Yale Law School.
IN THE ATLANTIC, I talk about Iran’s revolution and the state of the blogosphere.
AS BLOGS ARE CENSORED, it’s kittens to the rescue! Plus this: “You have to have the sword at home. You don’t want to have to buy a sword at the last minute.”
FTC TO MONITOR BLOGS? James Joyner is unimpressed. “Do we seriously expect people to hire lawyers before launching a mommy blog? Apparently so.”
IN THE MAIL: From Brookings, Avoiding Trivia: The Role of Strategic Planning in American Foreign Policy. Seems timely.
Knoxville, Tennessee. Another picture of the deflated credit ape. Poor guy; it’s kind of sad.
MICHAEL BARONE: Obama’s governance style. “First, Obama likes to execute long-range strategies but suffers from cognitive dissonance when new facts render them inappropriate. His 2008 campaign was a largely flawless execution of a smart strategy, but he was flummoxed momentarily when the Russians invaded Georgia and when John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. On domestic policy, he has been executing his long-range strategy of vastly expanding government, but may be encountering problems as voters show unease at huge increases on spending. His long-range strategy of propitiating America’s enemies has been undercut by North Korea’s missile launches and demonstrations in Iran against the mullah regime’s apparent election fraud.” Read the whole thing.
KENNETH ANDERSON: Varieties of Realism and Idealism in the Obama Administration.
CHRISTINA HOFF SOMMERS: No Country for Burly Men: How feminist groups skewed the Obama stimulus plan towards women’s jobs.
A “man-cession.” That’s what some economists are starting to call it. Of the 5.7 million jobs Americans lost between December 2007 and May 2009, nearly 80 percent had been held by men. Mark Perry, an economist at the University of Michigan, characterizes the recession as a “downturn” for women but a “catastrophe” for men.
Men are bearing the brunt of the current economic crisis because they predominate in manufacturing and construction, the hardest-hit sectors, which have lost more than 3 million jobs since December 2007. Women, by contrast, are a majority in recession-resistant fields such as education and health care, which gained 588,000 jobs during the same period. Rescuing hundreds of thousands of unemployed crane operators, welders, production line managers, and machine setters was never going to be easy. But the concerted opposition of several powerful women’s groups has made it all but impossible. . . . Our incoming president did what many sensible men do when confronted by a chorus of female complaint: He changed his plan.
Sensible? Read the whole thing.
CHRIS DODD UPDATE: He’s “offended” at suggestions that his wife doesn’t deserve the big corporate bucks she’s hauling in.
FASTER, PLEASE: Prostate Cancer: From Inoperable to Cancer Free. “I was cutting away scar tissue, while trying to find cancer cells. The pathologist was checking samples as we proceeded and sent word back asking if we had the right patient. He had a hard time finding any cancer. I had never seen anything like this before. The pathologists were floored.” But it’s early yet. Let’s hope this pans out in larger trials.
UPDATE: Reader Paul Jurkoic emails:
Wonderful story and great example about how medical research can lead to game-changing breakthroughs.
Query whether any such research would be conducted in the US under Obamacare, or whether research dollars will be steered toward “politically correct” studies according to whichever politically connected interest group is screaming the loudest.
Yes, my biggest worry about Obamacare is that it will squash medical innovation at a point where we’re about to make real progress.
ROBERT MAYER SENDS THIS IRAN VIDEO.
He comments:
I don’t know if you’ve seen this video, but this is by and large my favorite video of of the Iranian revolt so far. It shows a large mass of people being kept back by riot police throwing tear gas grenades. At some point, a few people begin throwing the grenades back at the police and eventually the entire crowd joins in and rushes the police as they run away in fear!
The coming two to three weeks will be decisive. Will this be a revolution or not? It obviously will not be a bloodless event such as the Orange Revolution, as people have already been murdered in cold blood. The context is completely different. I do believe that, just as the journalist Gongadze was a martyr in the cause of Ukrainian democracy, the slaying of the martyred Neda is a symbol for what the ayatollah regime has represented for thirty years. And, much like Ukraine, the regime has undergone a severe regime split that has been developing for the past few years and is culminating right now. Oftentime the masses can be put down when there is no regime split, but it’s do or die at this point. They have to go full speed ahead because if they don’t overthrow Ahmadinejad, and possibly Khamenei, the defectors will all be shot. What we need to see now is the security forces turning. We’ll know the answers to that in these 2-3 weeks.
I chose this video because it perfectly demonstrates that a government that rules based on fear can be overcome by the people when they are willing to fight it. And even as governments all over the world try to harness technology for repressive means, individuals and informal organizations can stay one step ahead.
I see the biggest challenge to all governments in the beginning of the 21st century is the issue of their own legitimacy — even democratic governments. Albert Einstein said that he did not know with what weapons WWIII will be fought, but WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones. I see WWIV as a general revolt against the legitimacy of most governments worldwide, and in [most] countries where citizens may not own guns, it will be fought with sticks, stones, and proxy servers.
As BT said, prophetically, the revolution will be televised:
The revolution will be fought in all forms of media
The revolution will be fought on phone lines and cable modems and cellphones
The revolution will be a war of attrition, against the great dumbing down of our people.
But in some places, it has to be fought in the streets, too.