Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

A US President

25 Comments

…raised on KGB propaganda:

From his communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis to the unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, Barack Obama has always gravitated towards people holding radical leftist views akin to those of Zelaya. He eagerly promoted leftist ideology as an ACORN activist and later when he taught and developed theories that opposed the American system of individual liberties in favor of unsustainable group entitlements at the expense of producers — theories that advocated placing the people under the controlling “care” of the state.

And since such views are part of the ideological template that vilifies America and lionizes its enemies, Obama’s instinctive reaction was to back Zelaya and throw a lifeline to Ahmadinejad.

Like John Kerry at the Senate hearings, President Obama may be acting in good faith, but his processing of reality is just as impaired by the same “metaphorical deformation.” As a result, the leader of the free world strays across the frontlines and joins the Marxist leaders Hugo Chavez, Raul Castro, Evo Morales, and Daniel Ortega, at least two of whom — Castro and Ortega — were committed Soviet clients.

It explains much.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Meghan McCain

3 Comments

Slapped down:

Ms. McCain’s ideas are neither new nor exciting. In fact, if you took Nelson Rockefeller’s speech to the GOP in 1964 when Barry Goldwater was nominated, toned down the language so a whiny teenager would understand it, inserted a few pointless digs at other peoples’ appearance/online fan base, one or two lines of bizarre biker fetishization, and peppered it with logical fallacies and non sequiturs, you’d have the makings of a pretty standard Meghan McCain column. In fact, if you took the former self-described “conservative” and two-time Adlai Stevenson supporter Peter Viereck’s thoughts on Joseph McCarthy and replaced the name “McCarthy” with the name of any socially conservative Republican politician/commentator, and replaced the terms “communists” and “reds” with the word “gays” or “bikers,” you’d also have the makings of a pretty standard Meghan McCain column. Both of these people ended up lost on the ash heap of failed Republican political figures, a destiny which Ms. McCain herself is destined for if she keeps on offering unsolicited advice.

What a ditz. But it’s sort of like shooting a whale in a barrel.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space

The Last Public Meeting

15 Comments

…of the Augustine panel was today. Clark Lindsey has been keeping an eye on it.

[Update mid afternoon, Pacific time]

I don’t know what Bill White means in comments when he says that Jeff Greason “blew up the meeting,” but there is an old concept from the military (and later from the computer industry) called FUBAR: Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition (though some think that the first word may actually be something else…).

That’s a fair description of the US human spaceflight program, and has been, really, since the end of Apollo, if not before, at least in terms of being effective at getting humans into space in reasonable numbers. My New Atlantis essay was a long-winded way of saying that, with some recommendations for fixing it, which are probably politically unfeasible. But that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be pointed out.

[Update a few minutes later]

Bobby Block has a real-time report over at the Orlando Sentinel:

“We are on a path right now for a system on a close order of just double the budget to operate,” said panel member Jeff Greason of Constellation, which stemmed from President George W. Bush’s 2005 “vision” to return Americans to the moon by 2020 and then move on to Mars.

Greason added that if Santa Claus gave the program to the country fully developed, NASA would still have to cancel it because the agency could not afford to launch it.

Greason and former astronaut Sally Ride later questioned the utility of the Ares I rocket, which was supposed to launch humans to the international space station by 2015 but which now won’t be ready until well after the station is deorbited in 2016, as NASA currently plans.

Constellation has spent more than $3 billion in the past four years. And while the panel stopped short of recommending that the program be killed, it wasn’t immediately clear what financial solution it might suggest.

Presumably, they’re assuming that the administration is smart enough to draw their own conclusions…

[Update a few minutes later]

Clark has a late update:

Some discussion items that stand out include:
/– Agreed that splashing the ISS in 2015 is not realistic so all program options that include it will be eliminated.
/– The program of record (i.e. Ares I/V/Orion/Altair), which exceeds the expected budget substantially, will no longer be in the options table but kept separately just as a reference.
/– There will be two options that fit the expected budget. Others will assume growth up to $3B more than current annual budget.
/– A lengthy discussion of the Mars First option seems to have led to its removal. Instead the Lunar and Deep Space options will be presented as preparing the technology and in-space infrastructure for Mars missions later. The current baseline is far too expensive and any other scenario would involve too much sci-fi.

Emphasis mine. Bye bye, Constellation.

Here’s the chart of all the options being evaluated. There is no obvious weighting of the criteria, but to first order, all of the options seem to suck. There are a lot more negative numbers than positive ones. None of them are scored as sustainable. It really is an unsolvable Rubik’s cube. I don’t envy the panel members. Or the new NASA administration.

[Late evening update]

Commenters indicate that the numbers in the chart are changing in real time. As I noted above, I don’t envy the panel, or the new administrator and his deputy who have to implement whatever comes out of this process.

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Taking His Name In Vain

25 Comments

Senator Isakson isn’t very happy with the president’s invoking him as a supporter of health-care deform.

But actually, the reason I’m posting is for a grammar flame:

“This is what happens when the President and members of Congress don’t read the bills,” says Isakson in a paper statement. “The White House and others are merely attempting to deflect attention from the intense negativity caused by their unpopular policies. I never consulted with the White House in this process and had no role whatsoever in the House Democrats’ bill. I categorically oppose the House bill and find it incredulous that the White House and others would use my amendment as a scapegoat for their misguided policies…”

No, Senator. It is you who is “incredulous,” not what the White House did. What you find about that is “incredible.” This is a common error (like confusing “imply” and “infer”) but that’s no excuse for it in a written press release.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Rationing

83 Comments

Megan McArdle has some thoughts:

Robert Wright notes that “we already ration health care; we just let the market do the rationing.” This is a true point made by the proponents of health care reform. But I’m not sure why it’s supposed to be so interesting. You could make this statement about any good:

“We already ration food; we just let the market do the rationing.”
“We already ration gasoline; we just let the market do the rationing.”
“We already ration cigarettes; we just let the market do the rationing.”

And indeed, this was an argument that was made in favor of socialism. (No, okay, I’m not calling you socialists!) And yet, most of us realize that there are huge differences between price rationing and government rationing, and that the latter is usually much worse for everyone. This is one of the things that most puzzles me about the health care debate: statements that would strike almost anyone as stupid in the context of any other good suddenly become dazzling insights when they’re applied to hip replacements and otitis media.

It doesn’t help that there is so much economic ignorance out there (not to mention in my comments section).

[Update a few minutes later]

Glenn Reynolds has some further thoughts:

Also, the market doesn’t deny you a hip replacement or a pacemaker because someone in government thinks your political views are “un-American.” Given the cronyism and thuggery we’ve seen with the bailouts, etc., I’m not confident this would hold true under a government health program. And I’m absolutely certain there would be a special track for insiders and favorites.

So am I.

[Late morning update]

Five leftist myths about health-care reform.

[Update a few minutes later]

Caught in the act: a blatant lie by Barack Obama about his support for single payer. Just how stupid does he think we are? And how clueless is he if he thinks that we can’t find this kind of thing on the Internet?

[Update before noon]

The people are seeing through the snake oil:

Thirty-two percent (32%) of voters nationwide favor a single-payer health care system where the federal government provides coverage for everyone. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% are opposed to a single-payer plan.

Fifty-two percent (52%) believe such a system would lead to a lower quality of care while 13% believe care would improve. Twenty-seven percent (27%) think that the quality of care would remain about the same.

Forty-five percent (45%) also say a single-payer system would lead to higher health care costs while 24% think lower costs would result. Nineteen percent (19%) think prices would remain about the same.

…Data released earlier today shows that 51% of voters fear the federal government more than private insurance companies when it comes to health care decisions. Forty-one percent (41%) have the opposite fear.

We’re not as stupid as they want us to be.

General, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Satire, Social Commentary

Some Thoughts On Comparing The President To Hitler

18 Comments

They seem to have won back their democracy, no thanks to the White House.

As a test of the state of “Bush the Nazi” rhetoric, I went to Google and typed in “Bush is a Nazi” and got 420,000 hits, well behind “Hitler was a Nazi” (654,000 hits), but then Hitler WAS a Nazi and had a 75-year head start. (Computer searches like this are very crude instruments. They sweep up many references that cannot fairly be listed as slurs. But they do offer a rough idea of the amount of name-calling.)

President Clinton did fairly well in the Nazi sweepstakes (158,000 hits, but that’s only 20,000 references for each presidential year, compared to 120,000 annually for the 3 1/2 year-incumbency of George Bush.) The odd thing is that I typed in the names of every Nazi I ever heard of, excluding only Hitler himself, and the group total was still less than George Bush gets alone. This might indicate that either that George Bush is by far the second most important Nazi of all time, or that the Democrats and the left now require some sedation.

But that was then, this is now…

And remember, that was five years ago. I’ll bet that a similar search now would provide much larger results.