Here is one of the You Tube programs that we will see a lot of come the fall campaign. Jeff Jacoby has some thoughts about it.
Archive for May, 2008
You will see a lot of this next fall
Sunday, May 25th, 2008The economics of global warming
Sunday, May 25th, 2008Here is an excellent essay on the economics of various global warming scenarios. It does not propose that the current hysteria is incorrect. It simply considers the costs of various proposed remedies, a little bit like Bjorn Lomborg does.
Whether someone is serious about tackling the global-warming problem can be readily gauged by listening to what he or she says about the carbon price. Suppose you hear a public figure who speaks eloquently of the perils of global warming and proposes that the nation should move urgently to slow climate change. Suppose that person proposes regulating the fuel efficiency of cars, or requiring high-efficiency lightbulbs, or subsidizing ethanol, or providing research support for solar power—but nowhere does the proposal raise the price of carbon. You should conclude that the proposal is not really serious and does not recognize the central economic message about how to slow climate change. To a first approximation, raising the price of carbon is a necessary and sufficient step for tackling global warming. The rest is at best rhetoric and may actually be harmful in inducing economic inefficiencies.
This is a quote from one of the books being reviewed. It is so sensible that I am surprised to find it in The New York Review of Books, a publication I once subscribed to but gave up on years ago.
He proposes five possible scenarios to deal with the problem and calculates the economic cost of each. One scenario is “business as usual.” Two are radical programs proposed by Al Gore and Sir Nicholas Stern. The results of those two programs, calculated purely on economic terms and based on projected conditions in 2100, are disastrously worse than business as usual.
Personally, I am a skeptic and believe that, while the planet is warming, this is a natural phenomenon and we can do little to alter it, nor should we. I am also watching the sun spot cycle over the next year to see if the climate might change yet again.
I’m convinced
Saturday, May 24th, 2008I have to confess that I am finally convinced that global warming is real. I have known for some time that we were warming as a result of the end of The Little Ice Age. I just didn’t appreciate how powerful it was.
Here is proof. Jupiter now has three “red spots” instead of the single Great Red Spot that has been visible for 300 years. The cause ? Why Global Warming, of course. Since both Jupiter and Earth get their warmth from the Sun and from internal chemical and nuclear reactions, one might assume that global warming is independent of CO2 emissions. That assumes that one is not in thrall to the religion of Anthropogenic Global Warming, and that may be a big assumption these days.
This will not be the last such story
Friday, May 23rd, 2008Today, the city of Vallejo, California filed for bankruptcy due to excessive city employee costs and pension obligations. The public employee unions have had a merry time, bidding up salaries and pensions by supporting enabling politicians. Now, the real estate crunch may be the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. This will not be the last municipal bankruptcy. A few elected officials have recognized the danger and tried to do something about it, but they are few, far too few.
Obama voters
Friday, May 23rd, 2008UPDATE: Here is an Obama supporter, and presumably voter. She must be highly educated and she wants to nationalize the US oil industry. What a brilliant idea ! She must be very, very highly educated. It takes years of Marxist economics to arrive at those brilliant insights !
A few people have noticed something when Obama voters are described. They are all “highly educated”. What does that mean ?
Here is one characteristic:
I stole a friend’s idea and devised “The World War II Test.” I invited the applicants for interviews. These PMI wannabes came off as slick and somewhat rude. I noted something among my subjects, a sense of entitlement, they all, to varying degrees, emitted a message along the lines of “Why are you bothering me with this silly interview? I am obviously brilliant. I have a degree from Columbia. I am not going to spend my whole life as you have in this stupid bureaucracy. I just need this to add to my resume. I am in a hurry.” I hit them with the test, which consisted of about dozen questions about WWII and its aftermath. I recall a few.
He asked them a few questions like “Who were our allies in World War II?” One applicant said “Why are you asking about World War II when the job is about NATO ?
Hmmm…
Now, here is someone who is not “highly educated” and is probably not an Obama voter.
We do know that there are Obama voters out there from stories like these.
No doubt those people are “highly educated.”
If you wonder who Marcus Luttrell is, this is his story.
Commencement Day is coming
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008My daughter (I think) will graduate from high school on May 31. I don’t know if they have scheduled a commencement speaker. I don’t think they give honorary high school diplomas, so this humorous essay is probably not applicable but it is good enough that I included it.
I was once asked to give the commencement address to the graduating class of UC, Irvine medical school. I already had an MD, so no honorary degrees were involved. I also addressed my own graduating class as valedictorian and student body president and I got a degree that time.
I agree with the essayist that honorary degrees have gotten well past the point of becoming ridiculous. Still, at the awarding of my last degree, in 1995, President Clinton gave a nice speech and handed me my degree. That was the occasion for a photo that I brandish at my children from time to time.
Obama and You-Tube
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008Obama is the young guy in the campaign for the presidency this year. McCain is supposed to be the old man. If that is true, and a lot of it is true, why doesn’t Obama understand the significance of You-Tube ? This will be the first presidential campaign since You-Tube became the universal presence that it is. In the old days of 2004, opposition research was directed at finding out things the other candidate had written and said that could be used against him. Now, the video of such incidents will be far more powerful. Obama has been saying that it is unfair for John McCain to attack him on foreign policy. This, of course, is said minutes after Obama accuses McCain of conducting “The Bush foreign policy” for another four years.
I have news for Obama. McCain won’t have to say much. You-Tube will take care of that. His people are already backing away and trying to spin this. I don’t think it will work. You Tube is too easy to use to refute his denials.
Expect to see a lot of that video this fall. The Swiftboat veterans were a minor annoyance to Kerry compared to what this will do.
Free speech in France
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008I thought I had previously posted on this subject but it must have been on another blog. The story is here except that James Fallows, a left wing writer for the Atlantic, took the Palestinian propaganda version as the truth. Here is another version of the story but it is still not the truth.
It is now widely believed among objective observers of the Palestinian story, few enough as there are, that the boy was never killed and the entire sequence was a propaganda film. A lengthy court struggle in France, pitting the France 2 network and its powerful supporters in the Chirac government, against a single web site owner, has resulted in the defeat of the TV Goliath by the independent David.
Phillipe Karsenty is a hero to all journalists and his improbable win should join the annals of great media stories.
It probably won’t.
More here. This is a big story for Israel but also for all of us who care about truth.
This is probably bad news
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008The NY Times reports today that Special Operations will step back from its aggressive stance in fighting terrorists around the world. If you have read “Imperial Grunts”, you know they have been doing this for years. It is also well known that the Big Army is uncomfortable with Special Operations and Special Forces. I don’t know the rest of the story but this may be an example of an anticipation of President Obama and the consequences of the surrender coalition taking over the government.
Here is more on this story although it is still not clear what the implications are.
Obama has some interesting delegates
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008Former Muslim Army chaplain Yee, who was discharged from the military for suspected espionage at Guantanamo, is an Obama delegate to the Democrat convention. Birds of a feather ?
By the way, he was not exonerated.
He did however, appear on Syrian TV and lie about his country