We’ve come a long way.
California High-Speed Land Grab
Despite the fact that the project is essentially dead, the state is continuing to move forward with eminent domain.
Lawlessness
We’ve now reached a point where a flailing president, desperate to deflect the opprobrium heaped upon him for the false promise that you could keep your health plan if you wanted to, calls a hasty news conference urging both insurers and the states to reinstate millions of such plans.
Except that he is asking them to break the law. His own law. Under Obamacare, no insurer may issue a policy after 2013 that does not meet the law’s minimum coverage requirements. These plans were canceled because they do not.
The law remains unchanged. The regulations governing that law remain unchanged. Nothing is changed except for a president proposing to unilaterally change his own law from the White House press room.
That’s banana republic stuff, except that there the dictator proclaims from the presidential balcony.
IF the White House had a presidential balcony, he’d probably do it from there.
Off To Vallejo
Heading up north in an hour or so for the weekend. But there will be computers and bandwidth there.
[Thursday-morning update]
Got in late last night. It was a three-hour drive to get thirty miles, from Redondo Beach to Valencia. Smooth sailing after that, though. Don’t think we’ll do that again. And definitely not coming back Sunday night.
It’s a good reminder of what a mess it would be if there were some event that required evacuating the LA metro area. I think we need to keep a boat in the garage.
Obama Approval
It’s fallen to fifty percent in his home state, and he’s deep underwater in Ohio.
The Book
I just (finally) gave final approval for printing. Unfortunately, it won’t show up at Amazon for three weeks or so, but still in time to get it under the tree. I just ordered a couple dozen to see how it comes out.
4K Televisions
Why you shouldn’t buy one this year.
In addition to the standards issues, I don’t think there’s much content yet.
Derailing High-Speed Rail
I’m glad that the idiotic project is dead, but it should have died for sensible reasons, instead of being strangled by California’s (and the federal government’s) own red tape:
Our legal systems are increasingly so cumbersome, so slow and so expensive that they are a serious drag on productivity and growth. Just as teachers unions oppose reforming public schools that cost too much and do too little, professors and administrators fight to preserve a dysfunctional university system, and a multitude of vested interests drive up costs in the health system, the “legal system lobby” is more interested in the financial health and social power of its members than in the public good.
The whole system, both in California and in DC, needs an overhaul.
The Bacon Explosion
No, Mark, bacon and sausage don’t cause coronaries and strokes. #NutritionalIgnorance
The Bad-Faith Presidency
If he were awoken at 3 a.m. and told he had to make the case for nationalizing the banks by denying he was nationalizing the banks, he would do an entirely creditable job of it, even without a TelePrompTer. The salesmanship for Obamacare represents in microcosm the larger Obama political project, which has always depended on throwing a reassuring skein of moderation on top of left-wing ideological aims.
All politicians are prone to shaving the truth, giving themselves the benefit of the doubt and trying to appear more reasonable than they are. Obama has made it an art form. Bad faith is one of his signal strengths as a politician, and makes him one of the greatest front men progressivism has ever had.
He will never admit his deep bias toward the growth of the federal government for its own sake, or that he doesn’t care that much if Iran gets the bomb, or that he is liquidating the American leadership role in the Middle East. No, no—he is just trying to make government work, giving diplomacy a chance and pivoting to Asia, respectively.
It’s a shame more people didn’t catch on the the con last year.