CHANGE: Who said that? Dems and GOP display dizzying shift on Medicare. “Political opportunism is nothing new in Washington, nor is the occasional policy flip-flop. But the brazenness with which lawmakers are changing their rhetoric to woo seniors has amazed even long-time Washington hands who can’t recall such a rapid – and complete – role reversal.”
Archive for May, 2011
May 31, 2011
EURO UPDATE: Eurozone crisis risks ‘systemic’ fallout. “The debt crisis in Greece, Ireland and Portugal could have ‘significant systemic effects’ in the eurozone, Italy’s central bank chief Mario Draghi, who is set to head up the European Central Bank, said on Tuesday.”
ANN ALTHOUSE: “Imagine if Anthony Weiner were a Republican. (I know, it’s such a hackneyed visualization, but it’s important here.) The liberal/lefty blogs would be shredding him mercilessly. I’m not saying Weiner’s not getting his hair mussed. But if he were a Republican, the feeding frenzy would be of a different magnitude entirely. ”
Ya think? There would be a media feeding-frenzy, instead of a media ignoring-frenzy slowly morphing into an explaining-away frenzy.
ADVICE FOR CONSUMERS on fighting back.
LAST NIGHT, a reader asked me if Frank Herbert’s Bureau of Sabotage was behind the Weinergate incident. I replied that with politicians, it’s mostly self-sabotage, making BuSab superfluous.
This observation is true from a policy standpoint too, and here’s the latest example: Environmental tax threatens green energy research in UK: Carbon reduction commitment (CRC) scheme has ‘perverse effect’ of threatening zero-carbon energy research.
World-class research into future sources of green energy is under threat in Britain from an environmental tax designed to boost energy efficiency and drive down carbon emissions, scientists claim.
Some facilities must find hundreds of thousands of pounds to settle green tax bills, putting jobs and research at risk.
The unexpected impact of the government’s carbon reduction commitment (CRC) scheme is so severe that scientists and research funders have lobbied ministers for an exemption to reduce the bills.
Among the worst hit is the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, a facility for research into almost limitless carbon-free energy. The lab faces an estimated £400,000 payment next year, raising the spectre of job losses and operational cuts. “Considering our research is aimed at producing zero-carbon energy, it seems ironic and perverse to clobber us with an extra bill,” a senior scientist at the lab said. “We have to use electricity to run the machine and there is no way of getting around that.”
Perverse, indeed. All part of the Knowledge Problem, of course.
May 30, 2011
WILL AMERICA SEE EUROPE-STYLE RIOTS? Newsweek sounds hopeful, but in America, unlike Europe, it’s usually the taxpayers who are behind the revolutions, not the parasites.
UPDATE: Reader William Stoddard emails:
I have to say I find the 18th-century analogy that Newsweek offers fairly plausible; it’s one of my possible historical models. But I think they have the actors wrong. Consider what things were like in France under the ancien régime, the dominant Great Power of the time:
* Rule by two cooperative elites, the noblesse d’epée and the noblesse du robe, the latter of whom were the intellectual, political, and legal class of the day, with both groups profiting from massive government subsidies and tax exemptions denied to the commoners
* Massively unbalanced government budgets, with the rulers spending money several years before they collected it in taxes
* Early experiments with printing-press money under John Law, which gave rise to the South Sea Bubble, which was, I believe, the first to be called by that name
If we are headed for revolutionary times, I have my own theory as to who will be the aristos fleeing from the embrace of Mme. la Guillotine: the people who’ve visibly profited from their control of government offices and budgets.
Indeed.
THE MORAL BANKRUPTCY of international organizations.
DRUG SHORTAGE UPDATE: Hospitals hunt substitutes as drug shortages rise. “A growing shortage of medications for a host of illnesses – from cancer to cystic fibrosis to cardiac arrest – has hospitals scrambling for substitutes to avoid patient harm, and sometimes even delaying treatment.”
TIMELINE: Weinergate: What We Know. “For MSM types who wish to start covering Weinergate accurately, or for readers just catching up, here’s a quick primer on the undisputed Weinergate facts.”
UPDATE: Related: Yup I’d hire a lawyer too if someone hacked my twitter account.
And here’s more on how Weiner’s lawyered up. Let’s face it, if he were a Republican, he’d already have been mocked on Comedy Central and forced out of office.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Whose bulge is bigger? Conveniently side-by-side here.
MORE: Human Factors: “My own interpretive key to these scandals is whether the politician has appeared in public with the demonstrative support of his wife. Weiner also fails my test. In another of Glenn’s Weinergate updates, the New York Daily News publishes a photograph of Weiner out for a walk, holding hands with his wife, Huma Abedin. I don’t want to be rash, but that photograph is a dead giveaway. In terms of persevering in the face of the scandal, however, Weiner has something important going for him. He’s a Democrat.”
JACK KELLY: Netanyahu shows how to beat Obama.
MEMORIAL DAY SALE: Up to 30% off select HDTVs.
Related: Bestselling TVs.
THIS DOESN’T SEEM LIKE A BAD THING TO ME: Tea Party 2012 Effect Stirs GOP Trepidation: “Republicans, once ecstatic about the energy generated by the 2009 anti-spending tea party uprising, are growing increasingly uneasy about the impact in 2012 of a movement that seems beyond the control of anyone, including its own leaders.”
MICKEY KAUS: Do Skyboxes Cause Crime? “Has the class segregation of sports stadiums helped promote hooliganism?”
A HUMAN-POWERED HELICOPTER TAKES FLIGHT.
Related: Jetpack soars to 5000 feet. Of course, a human-powered helicopter that soared to 5,000 feet would really be news!
WHAT DO THEY TEACH THEM in school these days?
IF PUNS ARE SINFUL, THIS CALLS FOR A HUNDRED HAIL MARYS: Summa This, Summa That.
ASK KATHY: “Now, I ask you in all soberness if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and endorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to transform this government into a government of some other form.”
BRYAN CAPLAN: “If the minimum wage is a good idea, shouldn’t unpaid internships be illegal as well? If not, why not?”
Plus this: “Name the main arguments in favor of the legality of unpaid internships. Aren’t all of them equally good arguments for allowing people to work for wages greater than zero and less than the minimum wage?”
AT AMAZON, markdowns on bestselling inkjet printers.
A REMINDER FOR MEMORIAL DAY, from Frederick Kempe’s Berlin, 1961. “I want Americans to understand how the decisions of their presidents — then and now — shape world history in ways we don’t always understand at the time of a specific event. I want readers to know that Kennedy could have prevented the Berlin Wall, if he had wished, and that in acquiescing to the border closure he not only created a more dangerous situation — but also contributed to mortgaging the future for tens of millions of Central and Eastern Europeans. The relatively small decisions that U.S. presidents make have huge, often global, consequences.”
REPORTERS SURPRISED BY ANEMIC OBAMA RECOVERY.
SURGERY IN THE MORNING, BLOGGING IN THE AFTERNOON: The Insta-Wife on the miracle of modern medicine.
FROM CNET, a video review of the Audi A7. Saw one of these the other day and thought it was a very good looking car. I love that a 0-60 time of 5.4 seconds is now merely considered “respectable.”