EIGHTIES NOSTALGIA CENTRAL: LikeTotally80s.com.
Archive for 2011
October 4, 2011
NOT-SO-GREAT EXPECTATIONS: US Factory Orders Fell Unexpectedly in August.
RICHARD EPSTEIN: The Debit Card Stealth Tax.
IN THE MAIL: Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Dammed If You Do. “If you want a snapshot of the future of 20th century progressivism, look at the nation’s waterways. In the 19th and 20th centuries dams were a hallmark of progressive planning – using the resources and coordination of the government to build an infrastructure that would power industry, generate electricity, and create construction jobs. Now many of those dams are coming down. . . . It’s an apt metaphor for the deconstruction of the last century’s progressive agenda. Decades of progressive legislation and regulations that are no longer needed will be dismantled as new technology, a new post-industrial economy, and a new era of budget-crunching force reform and renewal.”
Related: Tam on construction porn.
MEGAN MCARDLE: Solyndra and the Dubious Benefits of Loan Guarantees.
WELL, THAT’S KIND OF A BUMMER: No 3G Web Browsing on New Kindle Touch 3G.
OBAMA’S SPACE POLICY HAS BEEN GOOD, but Jerry Pournelle would go much farther. “Mission for NASA: Become the national Space Prize organization. Congress appropriates $2 billion a year, relatively trivial amounts; NASA sets up prize committees, stores up the money, and gives it away as prizes. It doesn’t fund anything, it doesn’t need large staffs, it needs some bright people to come up with prize objectives and definitions, judges to determine that the prize objectives have been met, and someone to sign the checks for winners. Nothing else.”
UPDATE: Related: Rand Simberg: Shuttlyndra And Bipartisan Crony Capitalism.
WELL, THAT’S BECAUSE HE MADE IT WORSE: CBS Poll: 7 in 10 Say Obama Hasn’t Helped Economy.
BYRON YORK: Bill Clinton Polishes His Image At Obama’s Expense. That’s getting easier and easier to do, of course. But, still:
While the political world obsesses over Chris Christie, Rick Perry and the rest of the Republican presidential field, something is up with Bill Clinton. On Nov. 8, the former president will publish a new book entitled “Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy.” Judging by pre-release publicity, the book resembles nothing so much as a campaign tract for a third Clinton term. Of course Clinton is barred by the Constitution from being elected president again, but “Back to Work” still seems the product of an author who’s gearing up for something.
Whatever could it be?
AT AMAZON, top deals in Electronics.
OKAY, THIS HEADLINE SEEMS STRAIGHTFORWARD: End of local concealed-gun bans worries officials across South Florida.
But when you read the story, what the local “officials” are actually worried about is that they’ll be punished for breaking the law now:
Effective Saturday , many of South Florida’s “No guns allowed” signs are gone. That’s thanks to a new state law imposing fines of up to $5,000 on county and municipal officials, and even threatening them with removal from office, if they enforce firearms and ammunition restrictions other than those spelled out by state statute.
The state legislation has been on the books since 1987. But because it did not contain any penalties until now, many local governments passed their own, more restrictive laws.
So they happily broke the law to deprive people of their legal rights and now that they might be punished for doing so, they’re troubled? Personally, I’m gratified. And if being punished for violating the law is troubling “intimidation,” then what have you folks been doing — illegally, I stress — since 1987?
ALI AKBAR UPDATE: Tea Party Activist Gets Help From Morgan Freeman’s Neighbors.
MICKEY KAUS ON SOLYNDRA: Bad days are coming. “And that’s from a stash of e-mails the Democrats released.” Plus, how the National Journal buried the lede.
WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Senate votes 79-19 to move bill punishing China on currency.
Well, here’s one take on what could go wrong: China Fires Back At US Senate Which May Have Just Started The Sino-US Currency Wars.
UPDATE: A hedge-fund reader emails: “Actually, the Chinese have been nudging their currency irregularly higher for quite a while. It’s in their interest to do so now, given their internal inflation problem. The Yuan has weakened vs. the Dollar in the last couple of weeks, but that’s due entirely to the financial crisis and a flight to currencies seen as safe. US politicians are entirely deaf to the risk they’re pouring gasoline on the world’s financial infrastructure by provoking a needless currency war at the worst possible time.”
Well, that would be par for the course.
Related: “Another potentially embarrassing Obama green fantasy is this DOE estimate of a million Electric Vehicles (EVs) on the road by 2015. Note that Obama is counting on 500,000 Chevy Volt sales, or 120,00 a year. They are currently running at about 750 a month, or 9,000 a year.”
ENDANGERED DEMOCRATS AVOIDING OBAMA. When they can get him to show up. . . .
DAVID BARON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Couple attacked by bear inside their home.
TEA PARTY LEADER ON #OCCUPY MOVEMENT:
“I feel bad for them,” Tea Party boss Christen Varley said. “They have no charter, no mission statement. They are talking about anarchy, but they are in chaos.”
The loosely organized Tea Party movement grew rapidly in 2009, quickly developing principles and leadership that heavily influenced national politics with its small-government, anti-taxation message. As of yesterday, the loosely organized group calling itself Occupy Boston — inspired like others nationwide by the anti-corporate Occupy Wall Street — had failed to develop a mission statement or goals. The group calls itself a “horizontal democracy,” lacks leaders and devotes hours in “general assemblies” to getting group consensus on matters such hygiene and security, as well as arts and culture to entertain the campers, and media outreach — despite the lack of a cohesive message.
“I thought we were an autonomous collective.”
UPDATE: It’s all good revolutionary fun until some drunk starts vomiting on your tent.
And reader Bill Rudersdorf writes: “It looks like the ‘Occupy’ folks took the bumper sticker ‘Anarchists Unite!’ seriously (just to discover that it was really a joke). I guess it’s one way to learn.”
NATURE: Clean-energy credits tarnished. “As the world gears up for the next round of United Nations climate-change negotiations in Durban, South Africa, in November, evidence has emerged that a cornerstone of the existing global climate agreement, the international greenhouse-gas emissions-trading system, is seriously flawed.” Best quote: “Basically, a farce.”
RALPH BENKO: Time For A Constitutional Convention? It’s The Integrity, Stupid.
More here.
WASHINGTON EXAMINER: A Reminder That It Can Always Be Morning In America.