25 July 2009

OBAMA STANDS UP FOR A BROTHER

When Pres. Obama described the arrest of his friend Henry Louis Gates by the Cambridge police as “stupid,” without knowing all the facts he did not anticipate the impact the story would have. It is a relatively slow news cycle and days later the story is still top news. He managed to overshadow his health care pitch with these ill-chosen words, and continued to make matters worse with partial retractions, and then inviting both parties to the White House for a beer, which is sure to keep the story alive until that meeting. Even the official liberal media ran with the story, which indicates that he is not the “post-racial” President he claimed he would be.

Henry Louis Gates, head of Harvard’s black studies (or “African and African-American” as they call it) department behaved obnoxiously with the police investigating an attempted burglary at his house, calling them names and charging there was some racial motivation for their actions. He once did a PBS show on Africa, where you heard more about racism than Africa, the kind of mindset that sees “racists” under every rock. He’s a little man with a big mouth, telling the police they have no idea who they are dealing with.

Instead of responding with no comment, Obama indicated the incident shows that there is still “racism” that “we” need to deal with, despite his own election. This reaction is unsurprising from a man whose wife majored in “black studies,” sat through Reverend Wright’s sermons for twenty years, and spent a lot of time not transcending race but developing a “black consciousness” evident even in his own writings. Despite this background he was able to win election as a congenial, inoffensive candidate, in good measure because McCain stupidly would not let these issues be raised in the campaign lest he be called “racist.” But the real racists are those who are racially obsessed, see nonexistent “racism” in daily life, and use this as an excuse to invoke the power of the state to “correct” it. So we have the promotion of “affirmative action” (i.e. anti-white) programs even in pending health care legislation, to assure not equality of access or opportunity, but equality of results. The more this stuff comes around, the more evident it will become that a black community organizer was never suitable for the presidency. .

21 July 2009

THE "STIMULUS" PROJECT

In connection with the entry below, we should ask where the great public projects are of today. Congress rushed through a $787 billion “stimulus” package that has stimulated nothing, as unemployment continues to rise. That’s not surprising given that most of the spending will occur in future years. But spending on what? It largely throws more money at areas where we are already spending, simply jacking it up and expanding government and the deficit to no good end.

At least during the depression we built dams, bridges, and roads. What will we have to show from this huge stimulus expenditure? What tangible legacy will it have? This shows nothing more than a failure of imagination and common sense in literally throwing money away. While it is increasingly likely that we will see some turnover of this mischievous congress in 2010, it is an open question as to how much of the damage they are doing can be undone.

THE MOON AND THE PACE OF CHANGE

It is hard to believe that forty years have passed since we first landed on the moon. It was probably the most memorable public moment ever for those of us around at the time. What is harder to believe is that nearly 40 years have gone by without any follow-up to this awesome accomplishment. That has to be considered one of the greatest failures of our time. In those days it would be hard to believe that four decades later we have not gone back to the moon or made all that much progress in manned space flight. The next mission at it’s earliest will be in 2020 based upon current plans, or eleven years from now. Considering that it took less than eight years from Kennedy’s announcement to the Apollo landing you have to wonder how we have become so timid, if not inept at achieving great projects.

We are often told we are living in “fast” times; that is that change is far more rapid than in the past. This is an illusion. Look at the world back forty years from 1969. 1929 would put you back in the Lindbergh era. Certainly the world of 1969 was far more different from the world of 1929 than the world in 2009 is from 1969 at least in technological terms, leaving aside computer processing. But change was otherwise far more radical between 1929 and 1969.

Hopefully something will happen to spur space development further. We need goals that lift the imagination and spirit.

18 July 2009

ATTACKING THE CIA

Some congressional Democrats have nothing better to do than harass the CIA. If targeted assassinations of Al Qaeda leaders was planned, so what? This is what we should be doing rather than cancelling the program, as the current director has done. Much of this is attributable to an attempt to protect Nancy Pelosi from getting caught up in her own lies. Only self-hating liberals would attack our national security. Given the complete lawlessness and immorality of the terrorists we should be using any means necessary to destroy them. The Israeli defense force was recently accused of using captives as “human shields.” Good for them! We should be doing the same thing. Consider that most of our casualties are the result of roadside bombs. Apart from the fact that we should have come up with a technical solution to this by now, I see nothing wrong in letting terrorist captives go first. It should also be noted that our casualties are disproportionately from the “red” counties of the country. Liberals have paid no cost in the war protecting them.
For a good take on this see: Liberals vs. the CIA.

09 July 2009

A COLD SUMMER

This is the coldest summer in memory in New York, and much of the rest of the country. Here on Long Island in the middle of the afternoon on a summer day the temperature hovers in the 60s. While this does not by itself disprove global warming, it does warrant some skepticism towards the declarations of Al “Goofy” Gore. Who predicted this cool summer? How reliable are predictions? Can any prediction really hold more than a year or two?

There is no question that climate change is an ongoing process, which has been occuring for billions of years, as well as in small increments within larger cycles, i.e. the last ice age ended only 10,000 years ago. Such things wax and wane with or without us. Let us see how things play out before panicking, This year may be an exception, or a harbinger of something different.

03 July 2009

MANAGING THE UNMANAGEABLE

Every time we exhale we produce carbon dioxide. CO2 is a byproduct of a myriad of natural processes, and essential to life on earth such as plants. It is also a byproduct of various agricultural and industrial processes that make our lives livable such as electricity, heating and cooling, and transportation. It is a naturally occurring gas, ubiquitous on this planet. Nevertheless the government has determined that it is a “pollutant” that can be regulated by the EPA. This effectively gives government bureaucracy virtual control of all aspects of life, since there is hardly a process that does not involve CO2. Based upon the dubious premise that it is harmful, the government is poised to issue thousands upon thousands of regulations over our entire way of life. The costs that will born will set our economy into reverse, significantly lower our standard of living, while making life considerably more unpleasant. Rather than looking towards natural processes, such as planting trees for a truly “greener” world, all of this is to be managed and controlled.

The greater tragedy is that none of this will work as intended or predicted. It never does, because it is based upon the false assumption, which Hayek called the “fatal conceit,” that those in charge know enough to control things. But no one can possibly possess all of the information necessary to effectively do so. This fantasy has caused more misery in the world than any other man-made factor over the last century. Life on earth involves a vast chain of events that are unpredictable, uncontrollable, and unforeseeable. Prediction about anything more than a year or so ahead becomes hazy; over five or more years it is useless. No one has the knowledge to manage things on so broad a scale, but as the government usurps decision-making on the minutiae of life its consequences will only be destructive, being riddled with errors, incorrect information, and false assumptions.

The government can no more manage the environment than it can manage the economy. Never mind health care and the condition of every individual’s life. These are processes that unfold in countless billions of discreet actions that are best left to self-determination. But the conceit of those in power is that they can remake the world and effectively manage everything. This involves not only control of institutions, but of people, for the more power that is assumed by the state, the less power is left to individuals to control their own lives. This can only lead to repression, as no one can stand in the way of the government’s attempt to reach its goals, and the liberty of everyone is thereby diminished, and for no good reason given that the government cannot manage what it claims it can. For in the end, the truth about those in power is, as Socrates said of those presuming to rule in his own time, is that they do not know what they claim to know.