Archive for 2010
July 14, 2010
MARK TAPSCOTT: Columbia’s Bolinger echoes Hugo Chavez’ chief U.S. apologist. Sadly, Bollinger was once known as a great supporter of free speech. When the Palin/Brewer Administration is in charge of the media, he’ll see the error of his ways . . . .
BUT WILL GM LAST THAT LONG? Chevy Volt battery to have 8-year warranty.
GOOD LUCK: Stanford Tries to “Nudge” Its Aging Faculty to Retire. Plus, from the comments: “Did anyone else notice that the acronym for Stanford’s “Retirement Incentive Plan” is ‘RIP’? That’s not exactly the message I would want to convey to the senior generation on their way out the door.” Heh.
ROAD MATERIALS THAT clean the air. ” A research team at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in the Netherlands have invented a type of paving material that can be mixed in with normal asphalt or concrete that actually removes some pollutants from the air as cars travel over the surface. The effect works well enough to remove some 25% to 45% of nitrogen oxides from vehicle emissions. The best part: the material reportedly doesn’t even cost that much more than a normal roadway to construct.”
ELECTRIC VEHICLES, past, present and future.
DOUG BERMAN on the Seventh Circuit’s Skoien Second Amendment decision. My first comment: It fits perfectly into the post-McDonald law review article that Brannon Denning and I are writing . . . .
FROM TAEGAN GODDARD, an online political dictionary.
RETAIL SALES fall in June. “The overall message of these indicators is a crisis in confidence in the economy — and the political leadership of the United States. Even if CBS and the Washington Post hadn’t polled on confidence in Obama, these results would have painted a very clear picture.”
UPDATE: Reader Paul Jurkoic writes: “What? It wasn’t ‘unexpected’???? The end times are here!!”
I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS DIDN’T HAPPEN SOONER: Gary Numan Plays “Cars” On Two Dozen Cars. “Here is Numan, the electronic music pioneer, performing his 1979 hit ‘Cars’…on a bunch of cars. Oh, and the whole rig’s powered by a single car battery. The 96-wheeled instrument was put together by Synn Labs, the tinkerers responsible for the Rube Goldberg madness of OK Go’s recent ‘This Too Shall Pass’ video. Both videos were directed by James Frost of Zoo Films.”
CHANGE: In Key Contests, Democrats Championing Gun Rights. “’I think there’s been a change in the country as a whole,’ said Jon Delano, an independent political analyst associated with Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. ‘Unless you’re from an urban area, where gun violence is so intense that there’s a feeling you need to control these weapons, the vast majority across the country do not support gun control.’’’ Some of us saw this coming a long time ago.
CLAUDIA ROSETT: Next Up In Washington: A Media Czar?
IN THE MAIL, From Mark L. Van Name, Jump Gate Twist.
THE OLDEST MANMADE OBJECTS IN SPACE: “Next time you’re marveling at the fact that Spirit and Opportunity have been roving Mars for over six years now, ponder this: the two Voyager spacecraft have been hurtling through our solar system for nearly 33 years. Today, Voyager 1 hits a mission milestone of operating continuously for 12,000 days. The spacecraft launched on September 5, 1977, while Jimmy Carter was president, and has now traveled 14 billion miles.”
UPDATE: Note the “operating continuously” part, folks.
RADLEY BALKO: “The involuntary manslaughter verdict for Oscar Grant’s killer may not be popular, but it is appropriate.”
THE NEW REPUBLIC: Islam: Unmentionable in D.C. Yes, Obama will call Al Qaeda racist, but not Islamist. “Although it’s deeply politically incorrect to say so, intellectually, things were better under the Bush administration.”
TAKING BILL PRESS SERIOUSLY. I never even considered doing that. . . .
POLITICO: Hill exempts self from veterans’ law. “Veterans who apply for jobs on Capitol Hill aren’t receiving critical federal job-placement benefits because Congress has largely exempted itself from a law that aids post-military employment for vets, a new congressional report shows.”
This CBS poll suggests that the Obama administration, in order to be better liked, basically needs to pack it in. It’s the economy, and he’s acted stupidly.
It’s an ugly picture, looks like a hurricane just rolled through or maybe an oil rig exploded or the Basij militia just quelled a public disturbance. Only 13 percent say the stimulus helped them. Large numbers think he wasted time on that health care thing, spent too little time on the economy. I don’t know … looking at what he did when he did spend time on the economy, it’s hard to think that devoting more time running up the deficit to benefit a few hacks and push pork and assorted lefty agenda items would have helped much.
Taken with the oil thing, the assorted foreign policy things, it’s starting to look like Obama’s Katrina is going to be … Obama.
So when people say “Obama’s Katrina,” it’s a contraction, not a possessive . . . .
PROF. WILLIAM JACOBSON: It’s beginning to feel like August, 2009 again. “What kicked off the hotly debated town halls of last summer was the attempt by Democratic leaders to stifle debate by calling health care protesters violent extremists, terrorists, and racists. I’ve compared the situation to placing a lid tightly on a boiling pot. Rather than engaging in open debate, Democrats sought to demonize law abiding citizens. The reaction was not violence, but verbal confrontation at town halls. We’re seeing it again. As documented here dozens of times, the past year has seen Democrats jump the race card shark. The NAACP resolution painting Tea Parties as racist was the last card. . . . The problem for the Democrats is that poll after poll shows that the people they seek to ostracize are, in fact, a majority of Americans who have seen the failure of the Democrats and are frustrated with the disconnect.”
THE HILL: Watchdog group calls for ethics probe into gift received by Rep. Meeks. “At issue are the thousands that Meeks took from businessman Ed Ahmad in 2007, which the congressman did not disclose in required financial disclosure reports. Meeks called the money a loan, and repaid it with interest after the FBI initiated an investigation into the matter.” After.
WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Obama Under Siege On Economy. Ya think?
But see Sean Trende, It’s Not “Just the Economy, Stupid” This Time.
Related: National Journal: Public still sour on ObamaCare. “Overall, 47 percent disapproved of the law, while 35 percent approved.”
Plus, CBS Poll: Support for Arizona Immigration Law Hits 57 Percent. “Support for the measure increased five points since May. Since then, the Justice Department has filed suit against the law, claiming that it usurps federal authority to enforce immigration laws.”
Also: In New Orleans, Gulf oil spill anger turns to Obama. “Here in the French Quarter’s Jackson Square, unrest over BP’s handling of the Deepwater Horizon blowout and the Gulf oil spill has turned to anger at the Obama administration.”
So, yeah, it’s not just the economy.
FLORIDA MAY ADOPT Arizona-style immigration law.
REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from all over.