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Archive for 2012
January 20, 2012
A NEWS REPORT ON my Cayman speech from last week.
ENVIRONMENTALISM AND THE LEISURE CLASS: “In turning down Keystone, however, the President has uncovered an ugly little secret that has always lurked beneath the surface of environmentalism. Its basic appeal is to the affluent.” Plus this:
What finally focused my attention on the aristocratic roots of environmentalism, however, was a chapter in Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class. Although the book is justly famous for coining “conspicuous consumption” and “conspicuous waste,” there is a lesser-known chapter entitled “Industrial Exemption” that perfectly describes the environmental zeitgeist. Veblen posed the question, why is it that people who are the greatest beneficiaries of industrial society are often the most passionate in condemning it? He provided a simple answer. People in the leisure class have become so accustomed affluence as the natural state of things that they no longer feel compelled to embrace any further industrial progress.
I’ve got mine, Jack!
YOU DON’T SAY: Technology Review: Canceled Oil Pipeline Won’t Mean Less Emissions. “Environmentalists have long opposed the pipeline as a potential danger to water supplies (in the event of a spill). They’ve also said that increased consumption of oil from the oil sands, made possible by the pipeline, would increase carbon dioxide emissions. But unfortunately, it’s unlikely that denying the application for the pipeline will prevent these emissions. The oil will likely be delivered to customers elsewhere in the world, or to the United States by other means, such as oil tankers.”
RESEARCH: It actually matters when people care.
PHOTOS: The World Of 30 Years Ago.
CHANGE: Staunch SOPA Supporter, Marsha Blackburn, Says It’s Time To Scrap SOPA. First you have to get their attention.
THE FUTURE: A Free College Education For All? That’ll bust the higher education bubble. . . .
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: DoJ figure taking the 5th in Fast & Furious probe. “Cunningham is represented by Tobin Romero of Williams and Connolly who is a specialist in white collar crime. In the letter, he suggests witnesses from the Department of Justice in Washington, who have spoken in support of Attorney General Eric Holder, are wrong or lying.”
Also: Holder, Breuer connected to players in foreclosure fraud?
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Tehran And Moscow Double Down In Syria.
OBAMA’S JOURNALISTIC BUTTON MEN: “Journalists like to claim they speak truth to power. But when Barack Obama wields that power, they’re all too willing to do his bidding, even if it means attacking one of their own. Just ask Jodi Kantor. . . . The same unhappy fate befell Ron Suskind, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who described discord among Obama’s economic team in his book “Confidence Men.” Suskind was savagely attacked by the administration (which “carpet-bombed” the book, according to Politico). But instead of recoiling at this display of White House paranoia, a compliant press instead followed up with killer blows.” It’s like they’re just dutiful apparatchiks or something.
Related: Here’s a paper that Rob Merges and I wrote on the proper scope of the patent and copyright power.
JOBS? WHO NEEDS ‘EM? Obama is ignoring his own jobs council’s recommendations.
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: $356 Million Later, the Justice Department’s Wireless Network Still Sucks.
After 9/11, three federal law enforcement agencies planned a massive project to replace a mishmash of aging and obsolete radios used by thousands of federal agents. A decade and $356 million later, the program has made “minimal progress” and the Department of Homeland Security, one of the project’s key partners, wants little to do with it.
That’s all according to an audit by the Justice Department’s inspector general, following interviews with officials from the FBI to DHS and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, among others. The DOJ’s investigators found the project — dubbed the Integrated Wireless Network — to be at “high risk for failure” because of shifting priorities, costly delays and frequent changes in leadership at top DOJ posts.
The country’s in the very best of hands.
PROF. JACOBSON: ABC News’ Textbook Lesson In Media Hackery. “On the two key inflammatory statements made against Newt, ABC News presented the statements without challenging his accuser based on readily available public information casting doubt on her version of events. We can debate the propriety of running an interview with a bitter ex-spouse at a critical juncture in a campaign. What is not open to debate is that ABC News used Marianne Gingrich for its own purpose of trying to damage one of the top contenders for the Republican nomination.” It’s as if they’re just dutiful apparatchiks or something.
INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: When Will We Awake From Obama’s Bad Green Dream?
The Obama administration promised a future with a clean, green economy. Instead, it’s left us with failed government “investments” in projects driven by politics rather than prudence.
While campaigning for the presidency in 2008, Barack Obama swore he’d create millions of green jobs.
“We’ll invest $15 billion a year over the next decade in renewable energy, creating 5 million new green jobs that pay well, can’t be outsourced and help end our dependence on foreign oil,” he said that fall.
Three years into the Obama presidency, the country has yet to see a wave of green-collar jobs. What it has seen is government pouring taxpayers’ money into pet projects that wasted the cash. A particularly sore example is Solyndra, which not only went bankrupt after taking in more than $500 million in taxpayers’ dollars, but also became the target of an FBI probe.
According to one analysis, at least 12 clean energy companies “are having trouble after collectively being approved for more than $6.5 billion in federal assistance.”
It’s like the whole thing was just a scam to bleed the taxpayers or something.
If only Uncle Sam were just knee-deep in debt . . . .
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Another Obama Record!… The Average Age of US Car on the Road Is 10.8 Years. “Unemployment and the sour economy have caused people to put off buying cars and trucks.”
UTAH TEA PARTY UPDATE: David Kirkham emails: “Tea Party under dog Dan McCay won the special legislative election tonight! The seat was vacated by a legislator who resigned to run for our new 4th congressional seat. Dan won out of 3 candidates–in the first round–with over 60 percent of delegate vote. He was running against the establishment. They say the Tea Party is dead because we aren’t rallying in the streets. What they don’t see is we are rallying on campaigns.” They’ll figure it out eventually.
WHAT DO YOU DO with a 1000-foot wrecked cruise ship?
SUSANNAH BRESLIN: I Am The Facebook Whisperer.
Most companies are horrible at social media. Even if they tell you their engagement numbers, show you their PowerPoint presentations, and use every buzzword in the book, the fact is they have no idea what they are doing. And that’s OK. The having-no-idea-what-they-are-doing part. Because no matter who tells you otherwise, no one knows what they are doing when it comes to using social media. Not now. It’s too new.
That’s because the key to being good at using social media to sell stuff is intuition. People in business don’t like to talk about this. They don’t understand intuition, they aren’t good at intuition, and they can’t quantify intuition. I mean, you go into a big meeting with a billion-dollar company in hopes of getting them to give you millions of dollars to manage their social media platforms, and your PowerPoint presentation in which you show them how you will do this consists of one page that says, “INTUITION,” in giant black letters? That is not going to work.
That doesn’t mean it’s not true, though, that the real — and, honestly, only — way your company will do well in the social media sphere is if you hire someone who intuitively gets it.
I think that’s right.
CREATING A HOME with 3D Printing. “It can take anywhere from six weeks to six months to build a 2,800-square-foot, two-story house in the U.S., mostly because human beings do all the work. Within the next five years, chances are that 3D printing (also known by the less catchy but more inclusive term additive manufacturing) will have become so advanced that we will be able to upload design specifications to a massive robot, press print, and watch as it spits out a concrete house in less than a day. Plenty of humans will be there, but just to ogle.”
SAY IT AIN’T SO: Jim Rogers: US Govt to ‘Juice Up’ Economy in Election Year.