POPULAR MECHANICS: Questions for Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz, Head of Global Strike Command.
Archive for 2010
November 12, 2010
DHA DELAYS early brain decline.
PREDICTION: $300/barrel oil by 2020.
Upside: By then, $300 will be the price of a Big Mac.
THANKSGIVING: A “sexy holiday?”
Just don’t wind up with spotted dick.
UPDATE: Reader Jeff Johnson emails: “Anecdotal evidence: In a previous job our department (with about 15 people) would have cake on each person’s birthday. This group had a large fraction of people whose birthdays were at the end of August/beginning of September – five within two weeks. This seemed a little unusual, until I counted back nine months from August – it was Thanksgiving! So either the food “helped things along” for people or the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has always been boring.”
IN THE MAIL: From Noah Feldman, Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices.
RECLUSIVE LEFTIST: “There is no schadenfreude in the Smoking Lounge. Every single thing I wrote and predicted about Barack Obama in 2008 was true, true, true, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy watching the nightmare unfold. After all, the reason I cared so much in 2008 was because I was so desperate to stave off the disaster. Now that I’m living through the disaster, I’m not exactly enjoying it.” I wonder just how many Democrats feel this way, but aren’t ready to say so yet? Well, read this:
You know what else is funny? Nobody has ever apologized to me. Not that it would make a difference, but still. Not one of those people who accused me of being a racist and secret wingnut has ever said, “You were right about Obama. I’m sorry I called you those names.”
What they do instead is claim that no one could have known how Obama would turn out. He seemed like cream of Jesus on toast, so how could they know? Nobody could know! And as for the uncomfortable fact that a bunch of people, including me, seemed to know exactly how Obama would turn out and were saying so loudly in 2008—well, that was just coincidence. I’m still, according to this logic, a racist unfeminist wingnut on the Republican payroll whose 2008 rantings just happened, by sheer coincidence, to accord precisely with unfolding reality.
Yeah, when the right-thinking folks get it wrong, it’s never their fault.
UPDATE: A reader emails:
The posting from Reclusive Leftist reminded me of a conversation I hadwith a friend of the family who is fairly highly placed in Illinois governor Pat Quinn’s re-election campaign. Last spring, before the Illinois primary (which Governor Quinn barely won), we were discussing the upcoming election when, out of the blue, my friend asked, “How did we elect this guy?” – meaning President Obama. My friend, a hard-boiled Chicago machine Democrat, seemed truly astonished that this could happened – like a woman who wakes up to find herself in bed with a stranger. My guess is that now, quite a few hard-boiled professional Democrats are asking themselves that very same question: “How did we elect this guy?”
Indeed.
PROPHETIC: Go back and read what Steven Den Beste posted on election day 2008.
UPDATE: Also, this from David Kahane.
IS THIS HOPE, OR CHANGE: In Las Vegas, 80% of homes are underwater.
PETER SUDERMAN: Ben Bernanke’s Made-up Money: With its new round of quantitative easing, the Fed enters uncharted territory.
UPDATE: Reader Richard Wagner writes:
If I read the current articles correctly, support for QE2 is found, in part, in the belief that current inflation is so low that there is some wiggle room to print money and not risk actually causing inflation. Some articles say there is currently very low inflation, and others say significant inflation has already started. To get the real story, I went straight to the source – my wife – who is responsible for 100% of the household expenditures in our family. I make the money, and she stretches it as far as it will go. I asked her if prices are rising more than normal recently. Without hesitation, she said yes, without a doubt.
Yes, I’ve noticed that too. And then there’s the skyrocketing price of bacon . . . .
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Charlie Domino is suspicious:
Just had a nasty thought….What if inflation isn’t a bug, but a feature? The timing of this decision is suspect. If it sets off inflation, angers our creditors, and starts a trade war, the effects will start to be felt in the 2nd half of 2011, and be roaring in time for the elections in 2012. At this point of course, any fiscal catastrophe will _obviously_ be the fault of the Republicans in Congress. Why, as soon as they took power, things started going to hell! I’m sure the legacy media will helpfully tell us so–repeatedly.
There was speculation as to whether the President would retrench in the wake of the elections, or double down. I think we now know which, regardless of whether my speculation is true.
Well, for that to be the case, there’d need to be some sort of coordinated media campaign. Hey, wait . . . .
QUANTITATIVE EASING CHEESING: The rest of the world goes West when America prints more money. “Last Wednesday was a hinge point in history. The United States decided to drop all pretence of being interested in leading – or even being part of – a coordinated global policy response to the most serious economic crisis in more than 70 years. America is now isolated and the rest of the world is furious. The widespread use of capital controls and even a lurch into 1930s-style protectionism are both far more likely than just a few days ago.”
NOBODY TELL CHRIS MOONEY: A war against science.
ARNOLD KLING: The Truth About Entitlements.
SAVING HAYEK from the people who think they’re saving Hayek. That’s a charitable assessment of what they’re doing.
AT AMAZON, a 48-hour sale in HDTVs and video.
ERIC SCHEIE: In Our National Kindergarten, Another Tragedy Means Another Law. “I find it a bit ironic that a newspaper called the Free Press is editorializing in favor of criminalizing what are traditional free press activities.” That kind of irony has long since gone stale.
MORNING CHEER: JOBS NUMBERS are even worse than they look.
Related: Labor Force Participation Rate: What Will Happen? “The collapse in the labor force participation rate has been one of the key stories of the great recession. . . . As the economy slowly recovers, an important question is what will happen to the participation rate over the next few years? If the participation rate increases to 66% – from the current 64.5% – then the U.S. economy will need an additional 3.3 million jobs just to hold the unemployment rate steady (not counting population growth).”
MICHAEL GERSON: The Blue State Budget Crisis. “While massive state budget shortfalls are not limited to predominantly Democratic states, they are concentrated in them.”
IRONY: Obese Chris Matthews jokes about Chris Christie’s being obese. Meh. The closeted gays are the most homophobic, and the in-denial fatties are the most “sizeist.”
LARRY SABATO: Don’t Get Cocky.
BLOWBACK: Consumer group demands hearing on Google ‘Wi-Spy.’ “Google admitted last month that it collected and stored private user data, including passwords and e-mails, from Wi-Fi networks. Critics have termed the incident Google’s ‘Wi-Spy’ breach.”
NICK GILLESPIE WANTS TO SEE More Politicians Crying.
TV’S DR. DREW not that enthused about ObamaCare.