DOUBLE-REVERSE-WACK-A-MOLE.
Archive for August, 2009
August 30, 2009
MICHAEL SILENCE: Harry Reid losing it.
A BUNCH OF interesting food links.
GORDON SMITH: torture and corporate social responsibility.
SUPERMAN SAYS: Hop On The Welfare Wagon!
HOT AIR: Video: Shea-Porter has constituent arrested at town-hall forum. “This is a curious re-election strategy, especially for a Representative who made her name by bird-dogging her former Congressman at his town-hall forums. Consistency isn’t Carol Shea-Porter’s strong suit, apparently, as she demonstrates in this clip from the meeting she finally held with constituents after dodging them for most of the month. When one of her constituents challenges the presence of union enforcers in the crowd, Shea-Porter asks for police intervention.”
They can dish it out, but they can’t take it. And until now, they haven’t had to . . . .
THE EQUUS: Hyundai’s new Lexus-competitor luxury sedan. I was afraid it would make me want to scratch my eyes out, but it actually doesn’t look bad at all.
UPDATE: Denver reader Matt Dupree writes: “Speak of the devil, I saw the Equus doing high altitude testing on Mt Evans today. It’s a much better looking car in person than those pictures suggest. It is a very substantial car. Toyota should be a little worried, because these seem to be great cars for a good price that carry gobs of ‘luxury’ for buyers who don’t care about performance; in other words, Lexus customers.”
THEY SAID MCCAIN WASN’T HIP TO TECHNOLOGY, but at least he didn’t leave his server open to spammers.
POPULAR SCIENCE: Singularity University Grads Plan to Help a Billion People in 10 Years.
I’ve been getting a lot of singularity-related email lately, and it’s reminded me of two quotes from Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End, describing the state of the world in 2025. First the upside: An Army of Davids success in fighting disease:
The first bit of dumb luck came disguised as a public embarrassment for the European Center for Defense Against Disease. On July 23, schoolchildren in Algiers claimed that a respiratory epidemic was spreading across the Mediterranean. The claim was based on a clever analysis of antibody data from the mass-transit systems of Algiers and Naples.
CDD had no immediate comment, but in less than three hours, public-health hobbyists reported similar results in other cities, complete with contagion maps. The epidemic was at least one week old, probably originating in Central Africa, beyond the scope of hobbyist surveillance.
But there’s a downside:
Every year, the civilized world grew and the reach of lawlessness and poverty shrank. Many people thought that the world was becoming a safer place . . . Nowadays Grand Terror technology was so cheap that cults and criminal gangs could acquire it. . . . In all innocence, the marvelous creativity of humankind continued to generate unintended consequences. There were a dozen research trends that could ultimately put world-killer weapons in the hands of anyone having a bad hair day.
That’s looking like our future, all right.
GEORGE WILL: After the Governator, the Calculator. “Because California’s calamitous present — creative accounting as a rickety bridge to the next budget crisis, coming soon — might prefigure the nation’s future, next year’s gubernatorial election is portentous. An especially intriguing candidate in a colorful field is Tom Campbell. . . . If Campbell is nominated, he can win, but if Californians were sufficiently rational to nominate him, their state would not be shambolic.” Well, the prospect of hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully.
MARK STEYN on airbrushing.
ANN ALTHOUSE: “Come on, Andrew! Raise your game!”
REMEMBERING THE FORD PROBE, in a Star Trek kind of way. I had the Mazda MX-6, which was the Mazda version of the same platform, with the V6 engine. I liked it; though the 150hp would seem underpowered today, it felt smooth and powerful then, and the interior was very fancy for the time.
ORSON SCOTT CARD, WHOLE FOODS, and the Shadow Complex boycott.
A PICTURE OF A SINGLE MOLECULE.
POLL: 57% Would Replace Entire Congress. “If they could vote to keep or replace the entire Congress, just 25% of voters nationwide would keep the current batch of legislators. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% would vote to replace the entire Congress and start all over again. Eighteen percent (18%) are not sure how they would vote.”
IN THE MAIL: From James Anderson and Mark Sebanc, The Stoneholding: Legacy of the Stone Harp.
NEW GOVERNMENT POLICY: De-suburbanization?
UPDATE: The comments are unsympathetic, to say the least. And reader Rich Egan writes: “It is so much easier for the people running things to put us all together and besides that leaves so much more room for the estates of the superior people .”
Funny you say that, Rich. Robert Breugmann’s book, Sprawl: A Compact History, notes that rich people always have places outside the city, and always complain when the working folk start moving out there, too. I had a column on the subject here.
ALTHOUSE ON CLIFT ON why women continued to support Ted Kennedy despite Chappaquiddick, the Palm Beach rape case, etc. “Face it. Liberal politics always came first for the so-called women’s groups, which is why they are not really women’s groups at all.” I think it’s abortion. Abortion gets you a pass as long as you’re useful if you’re a Republican (see., e.g., Robert Packwood), and as long as you live if you’re a Democrat. But maybe we’re saying the same thing here.
NEGATIVE STIMULUS. Reader C.J. Burch writes: “You know Muir is pretty much beating Gary Trudeau’s eyes out at Trudeau’s own game. Heh.” Indeed. But then, Muir is mocking the powerful, while Trudeau is covering for them. . . .
STIMULUS! AP IMPACT: Secret process benefits pet projects. “Despite Obama’s promises that the stimulus plan would be transparent and free of politics, the government is handing out $720 million for border upgrades under a process that is both secretive and susceptible to political influence. This allowed low-priority projects such as the checkpoint in Whitetail, Mont., to skip ahead of more pressing concerns, according to documents revealed to The Associated Press.” Say it ain’t so. More, with references, from Omri Ceren.
CHARLES RANGEL UPDATE: Rangle Untangle: DC Dems Move to Save Him. “House Democrats are willing to rally around Rep. Charles Rangel in his latest spate of tax missteps — but only as long as no more embarrassing revelations come to light, sources told The Post. The head of the powerful Ways and Means Committee last week amended six years’ worth of financial disclosure forms and revealed he’d earned $1.3 million in previously unreported income. That’s on top of ongoing House Ethics Committee probes into four other areas of Rangel’s financial past — including failure to properly report income taxes on a Caribbean villa he owns. ” Of course, there’s also a risk of criminal prosecution, but I suppose he feels pretty safe with Eric Holder at Justice, who’s already shown considerable willingness to let politics influence decisions on who to prosecute.
Really, this isn’t a bug, but a feature: The more vulnerable he becomes, the easier it is for the Democratic leadership to keep him in line.
NPR: “Tea Party Express” Takes Protests Cross-Country.
UPDATE: A report from the Rush Holt town hall in New Jersey.