BEWARE OF “renewable energy sprawl.”
Archive for 2011
June 13, 2011
INCANDESCENT WITH RAGE? Fred Upton’s Broken Light Bulb Promise Another Example of the Failure of Republican Leadership.
UPDATE: Oops, link killed that site. Try this one.
THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MCCAIN, we’d have a President who pursued endless war. And they were right!
READER PRAISE for Ric Locke’s Temporary Duty. Reader Thomas Jones writes: “Thanks for the link to Ric Locke’s book! I’m halfway through it (on Kindle) and love it. Not to make extra work for you, but could you possibly link (on the sidebar)to a list of the last twenty-five or so Amazon links? I always read at work – at lunch, of course – and sometimes forget to go back and buy when I get home.” I’d love to, but that’s beyond my programming skills, I’m afraid. But I’ll look into it.
THE TENNESSEE LAW REVIEW has a forthcoming symposium issue on a federal constitutional convention, with contributions by all sorts of people ranging from Richard Epstein to David Lat. Here’s my Foreword, which addresses a number of proposals for reining in federal power, ranging from creating a third house of Congress with the sole function of repealing federal statutes, to more familiar proposals like a balanced budget amendment or term limits. Download it early and often!
UPDATE: Reader Carl Fumante writes:
“..ranging from creating a third house of Congress with the sole function of repealing federal statutes, ”
Someone’s been reading Frank Herbert. “Bureau of Sabotage.”
Actually, the first place I saw the idea was Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.
ANOTHER UPDATE: And that reminds me: Here’s the list of books getting a boost from Obama again.
AND WE SHOULD TAKE THAT SERIOUSLY: This Week’s Solar Flare Illuminates the Grid’s Vulnerability. “The next peak cycle of sunspot activity is predicted for 2012-2014, bringing with it a greater risk of large geomagnetic storms that can generate powerful rogue currents in transmission lines, potentially damaging or destroying the large transformers that manage power flow over high-voltage networks. . . . In the worst-case scenario, the stockpile of spare transformers would fall far short of replacement needs. Urban centers across the continent would be without power for many months or even years, until new transformers could be manufactured and delivered from Asia. The transformers are not made in the United States.” Which would be awkward, too.
Plus this: “If the solar storm of 1921, which has been termed a one-in-100-year event, were to occur today, well over 300 extra-high-voltage transformers could be damaged or destroyed, thereby interrupting power to 130 million people for a period of years.”
A NEW TRIAL COMING for a previously failed Parkinson’s treatment.
THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION: Itsy-Bitsy Pieces.
LAWS ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Weiner’s Pathfinder Has Different Plates, is Unregistered.
UPDATE: Reader David McCourt writes: “Maybe the Honorable Congressman got a waiver from the Obama administration.” Heh.
And reader John Galvin emails: “So Anthony Weiner, staunch Democrat backer of unions, has TWO non-UAW cars, a Nissan Pathfinder and a Honda. Of course, he’s not a hypocrite, right?” Yeah, this could cost him his seat faster than the sex stuff. On the other hand, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz seems to have gotten a pass.
IN THE MAIL: From Tom Kratman, The Lotus Eaters.
THE HILL: Poll: Politicians, Congress unethical — and getting worse. “A striking 68 percent of likely voters polled said the ethical standards of politicians have deteriorated in recent decades, while just 7 percent said they have improved during that time, the survey said.”
INTERESTED IN DISASTER PREPAREDNESS? Check out Bill Quick’s discussion forum.
And here’s a disaster-preparation list. Here’s another.
SALENA ZITO: David McCullough On The Enduring American Spirit.
JIM COOPER: Some Jobs Are Never Coming Back.
BLOGGER ROUGHED UP at Indiana rally. Video at the link.
SARAH PALIN’S Trig Letter.
UPDATE: Reader John Russell writes:
Last night reading Harnden’s Torygraph piece, when he commented that after all that she could only emerge from the stunt with her reputation enhanced, I thought well, this is more proof that God has a wicked sense of humor (or, for the Telegraph, humour). The media stage the world’s largest “Chinese fire drill” looking for something, ANYTHING, to skewer her with and after a truckload of emails she didn’t think anyone would ever read she comes across as honest, forthright, funny, and smart. A brunette Carol Lombard in My Man Godfrey.
Coming right on the heels of Breitbart’s absolute skewering of them this was just too good. Wouldn’t it, I daydreamed, be funny if, after covering up for Edwards and Weiner as long as they could, only to have them be revealed as real schmucks, and embargoing any mention of Jeremiah Wright during the campaign, they discover that they had possibly elevated the object of their scorn, hatred, and derision to something as close to sainthood as one can get in politics.
Then I followed your link to the LAT piece. First time reading about a politician brought tears to my eyes. Well, tears of gladness, wonder, instead of frustration or ridicule. Thank you.
You’re welcome. But you know, I just linked it. She wrote it.
STANLEY KURTZ: “I posted some thoughts on the media’s Palin/Obama paper-trail hypocrisy last Friday. Around the same time, Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft highlighted the continued refusal of the LA Times to release the unseen but nonetheless famous video tape in which Obama toasted Rashid Khalidi at a testimonial dinner likely also addressed by Bill Ayers. . . . Will we ever get to see that tape, and if so, how best to shake it loose?” Er, convince ’em it would be bad for Sarah Palin?
A WEINERGATE stalemate? “Whatever might motivate Weiner to quit, it obviously can’t be shame. Anyone who has seen the middle-aged congressman’s photo self-portrait of himself posing naked in front a gym mirror must conclude that Weiner is utterly shameless.”
TOP 5 RULES for “bad girls.”
IN CANADA, a different sort of “unexpectedly” appears: “Canada’s jobless rate unexpectedly declined in May to the lowest since January 2009 as the economy added workers for the seventh time in eight months.” Hmm. What could explain the difference? . . .
TODAY ONLY: A 32″ HDTV for $289.99.
ANDREW KLAVAN: Viva The New American Revolution. “The Mainstream Media’s Empire of Lies is still an empire, after all. They still have most of the money and almost all of the air. The alternative media is still, as it were, taking potshots at them from behind rocks and trees. But last week — man oh man! — it sure looked like Lexington and Concord to me.”
MATTHEW SHAFFER: The Higher-Ed Dilemma. “Those of us who question the price and value of higher education don’t disagree that people with B.A.s do much better in life, especially in employment. We disagree about the source of that advantage: The B.A. may mostly correlate with and signal for, rather than impart important qualities. . . . We skeptics think this: Since employers can no longer measure job applicants’ IQs nor put them through long apprenticeships, graduating college is the way job-searchers signal an intelligence and diligence that college itself may have contributed little toward. Employers are (to use a little economic jargon) partially outsourcing their employee search to colleges. This is a good deal for employers, because college costs them nothing, and the social pressure to get a BA means they won’t miss too many good prospective recruits by limiting their search to college grads.”