CNN reports that Governor Tim Pawlenty will be announcing the formation of a Presidential Exploratory Committee today. Not surprised, but pleased to see it happening. Unfortunately, Romney's stock has taken what appears to be a terminal hit from "Romneycare." I say "unfortunately" because, on balance, my understanding is that, in its original form (that is, before it accrued the myriad barnacles which the deep-blue MA legislature affixed to it before passage), it was not altogether objectionable. And besides, the State level is where experiments like that should be run in a Federalist system: NOT a top-down, heavy-handed Transformation air-dropped on the entire Nation from the banks of the Potomac. But I'm not sanguine about the Mittens' ability to close that sale. I wouldn't write him off entirely...but the cap's off the pen.
But I digress.
There is much chatter about T-Paw's "boring" personality, which really itches me. On the issues, he's pretty much five-by-five. And we already know the true market value of political rock stars...
I think T-Paw’s Midwest civility will be a net positive, despite all the “boring” blather. Despite being a train-wreck of a POTUS, Obama is still widely liked, personally (I know. Go figure.). Someone who savages him in debates may find it a Pyrrhic victory. By contrast, Pawlenty’s smart and right-headed enough to be relentlessly correct on the issues, systematically deconstructing the Won’s fables without getting all wild-eyed about it.
T-Paw’s squeaky-clean, non-demagogic, slow-’n-steady demeanor may be just what we need to snare the napping hare. His presence as an even-tempered, humble, affable, but principled administrator strikes just the right tone for what the Tea Parties are *really* about, which is a government that knows its place and does not presume to overstep its bounds.
And wouldn’t it be TEH AWESOME if he could find a VPOTUS named Good(e)?
Monday, March 21, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Modern Electronics Designed to Fail. Yay.
[by Mr.Hengist]
Interesting: "It is by no means uncommon" for modern IC integration design engineers to assume the fast obsolescence of the end product, and therefore IC environmental protections are not incorporated. Such devices will therefore have short lifetimes by design, and while that's not a problem in market due to fast obsolescence, it means that you're SOL if you want to keep such a device for an extended period of time.
It reminds me of the story of Henry Ford, who perused junk yards for his cars. He asked the proprietors which parts lasted longest, and then instructed his engineers to make those parts more cheaply because, by his reasoning, they were overbuilt.
Anyways, here's the relevant quote:
Interesting: "It is by no means uncommon" for modern IC integration design engineers to assume the fast obsolescence of the end product, and therefore IC environmental protections are not incorporated. Such devices will therefore have short lifetimes by design, and while that's not a problem in market due to fast obsolescence, it means that you're SOL if you want to keep such a device for an extended period of time.
It reminds me of the story of Henry Ford, who perused junk yards for his cars. He asked the proprietors which parts lasted longest, and then instructed his engineers to make those parts more cheaply because, by his reasoning, they were overbuilt.
Anyways, here's the relevant quote:
The traditional functions of a semiconductor device package are to protect the die from degradation by the atmosphere and fan-out the electrical interconnects to the next level. Because of the benign environment in which most modern semiconductors are used coupled with short expected life through product obsolescence, the need for the package to provide environmental protection has virtually disappeared. It is by no means uncommon to see essentially package-less chips attached to circuit boards, with just a polymer covering over the exposed bond pads.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Milestone
Apropos of nothing, I felt I would be remiss in failing to point out that today marks the point at which it will be exactly two years till the inauguration day of the next POTUS (as per the "Gone" counter in the sidebar, which shows 730 days, and counting...). As Dante began his journey through and out of the Underworld at the midpoint of his life ("Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita..."), so do we as a Nation find ourselves at the solstice of this Boschian Winter of an administration.
Here's hoping our own version of Vergil shows up ere long!
Here's hoping our own version of Vergil shows up ere long!
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Glenn Greenwald Bites Into a Bitter Reality Sandwich
[by Mr.Hengist]
Glenn Greenwald put out a piece on January 18th, 2011 which must have been as difficult for him to write as it was amusing for me to read. With a title that, well, coming from Greenwald, makes one suspect we're in for a massive treat of sarcastic jibes, "The vindication of Dick Cheney" is instead a diatribe lambasting the Obama Administration for continuing and even strengthening Bush Administration GWOT policies.
I have... comments.
Besides which, Obama promised so many things that would hurt National Defense like cutting the Defense budget, pulling out of Iraq as fast as possible, killing the missile defense program, and so on, that it would be reasonable to conclude that, should he follow through, he would, well, hurt National Defense.
Only his promise to expand the war in Afghanistan seemed contrary to that, but we got fooled, didn't we? If Bob Woodward's "Obama's Wars" is to be believed, POTUS Obama had no intention of fulfilling that promise, but the Pentagon would not accommodate his wishes. The surge he authorized was about a third of what the Pentagon wanted, and the results speak for themselves.
VPOTUS Cheney and other leading figures of the Right are now praising POTUS Obama. They will not be denounced, hounded, or even roundly criticized for it, either. The Right doesn't have a problem when one their own praises the Left, when they finally get it right. It's worth noting.
Well, anyway, Greenwald further states that POTUS Obama has been the "leading advocate" of Bush/Cheney GWOT policies. This is just absurd; most of the announcements of his continuation of Bush/Cheney GWOT policies have been made quietly and with little comment from the White House.
Greenwald fills much of the middle of the piece with a litany of woes, rife with the canon of Liberal attacks on those policies (illegal-this, power-grab-that), after which he gets to the red meat of the article.
On the other hand, maybe it's still hard for me to tell where Greenwald's genuine beliefs end and his proclivity to rant hyperbole begin. Hyperbole is a safe bet, so I'll go with that.
In truth, my sincere hope has been that Liberals will revisit those policies and the debates of the last decade with fresh eyes and an open mind. There are policy issues of relevance to our present and future which should not be sacrificed on the altar of partisan political gain. I'm afraid this will fall to the next generation as they look back at history, decades late.
Failing that, I'd settle for a collective change in the collectivist mind. Perhaps Liberals will, having been given motive and permission to change their beliefs, will do so for partisan gain or to toe the new party line. In any case, I am glad they haven't taken to the streets in protest - again - or made much of an issue at all about this. It would be ideologically and logically consistent of them to do so but, more importantly, it would be harmful to the country. Again.
Glenn Greenwald put out a piece on January 18th, 2011 which must have been as difficult for him to write as it was amusing for me to read. With a title that, well, coming from Greenwald, makes one suspect we're in for a massive treat of sarcastic jibes, "The vindication of Dick Cheney" is instead a diatribe lambasting the Obama Administration for continuing and even strengthening Bush Administration GWOT policies.
I have... comments.
"In the early months of Obama's presidency, the American Right did to him what they do to every Democratic politician: they accused him of being soft on defense (specifically "soft on Terror") and leaving the nation weak and vulnerable to attack."Well, yes, but historically, post-Kennedy Democrat Presidents have an abysmal track record on Defense. Democrats in general have a shameful history of cutting our Defense budget, undercutting our allies, making nice with our enemies, and belatedly authorizing only weak and ineffectual military actions when they do resort to force.
Besides which, Obama promised so many things that would hurt National Defense like cutting the Defense budget, pulling out of Iraq as fast as possible, killing the missile defense program, and so on, that it would be reasonable to conclude that, should he follow through, he would, well, hurt National Defense.
Only his promise to expand the war in Afghanistan seemed contrary to that, but we got fooled, didn't we? If Bob Woodward's "Obama's Wars" is to be believed, POTUS Obama had no intention of fulfilling that promise, but the Pentagon would not accommodate his wishes. The surge he authorized was about a third of what the Pentagon wanted, and the results speak for themselves.
"But that tactic quickly became untenable as everyone (other than his hardest-core followers) was forced to acknowledge that Obama was embracing and even expanding -- rather than reversing -- the core Bush/Cheney approach to Terrorism."With the high degree of hyperbole so common to the Left, Greenwald ignores the many criticisms the Right has made of Obama's GWOT policies. From the dismal slog in Afghanistan to the attempts to close Gitmo and try the detainees in U.S. courts, the record has been less than stellar. His overblown point is, nevertheless, well-taken: the Obama Administration has continued and/or strengthened many Bush-era GWOT policies.
"As a result, leading right-wing figures began lavishing Obama with praise -- and claiming vindication -- based on Obama's switch from harsh critic of those policies (as a candidate) to their leading advocate (once in power)."Again, note the over-the-top hyperbole, "lavishing Obama with praise." I'd like to pause here for a moment to note that, if you think about it, across-the-aisle praise basically comes from one direction. When have you read of Democrats or Liberals giving straightforward praise to their political opposition for doing something good? I'm reminded of an article I read a few years ago - didn't save the link, sorry - in which the author was talking about AIDS in Africa, and he actually did praise W for dramatically increasing U.S. expenditures in fighting it over there. It was tepid praise, but fairly straightforward, and so unusual that I found it a little surprising - you know, that it was there at all. Then, immediately after that praising of W, the author went on to list a half-dozen things that W had done which the Left just hated - you know: the Enron, the Iraq war, the tax cuts, the this, the that - completely non sequitur in an article on AIDS in Africa. It was there so that the author could both remind the readers of how much they should hate W, and to insulate the author from criticism for committing the Liberal faux pas of praising the Right. Remember the response when Bono praised W for this? So do I.
VPOTUS Cheney and other leading figures of the Right are now praising POTUS Obama. They will not be denounced, hounded, or even roundly criticized for it, either. The Right doesn't have a problem when one their own praises the Left, when they finally get it right. It's worth noting.
Well, anyway, Greenwald further states that POTUS Obama has been the "leading advocate" of Bush/Cheney GWOT policies. This is just absurd; most of the announcements of his continuation of Bush/Cheney GWOT policies have been made quietly and with little comment from the White House.
Greenwald fills much of the middle of the piece with a litany of woes, rife with the canon of Liberal attacks on those policies (illegal-this, power-grab-that), after which he gets to the red meat of the article.
"First, it creates the impression that Republicans were right all along in the Bush-era War on Terror debates and Democratic critics were wrong. The same theme is constantly sounded by conservatives who point out Obama's continuation of these policies: that he criticized those policies as a candidate out of ignorance and partisan advantage, but once he became President, he realized they were right as a result of accessing the relevant classified information and needing to keep the country safe from the Terrorist threat."Why, yes, it certainly does leave that impression, doesn't it? I didn't need to quote all that, but it paring it down would diminish the gladdening of my heart. I'd also add that it adds merit to the warning of Right that Obama is a lightweight. So, was he pandering to Liberal fantasies or is he a lightweight who learned real-world realities only after having been sworn in? Probably both.
"Second, Obama has single-handedly eliminated virtually all mainstream debate over these War on Terror policies."Well, no, POTUS Obama has done no such thing, and I find it amusing that Greenwald would choose to credit him with this ability. No, Liberals shut down the debate, quenched the rage, and dialed down their hysteria to a quiet, occasional grumble. They did that because they've been fundamentally dishonest in these debates. Their double-standards are on full display as they grudgingly accept their Democrat POTUS doing what made them made them scream, shout, and stamp their little feet when the Republican POTUS did the same thing. They marched by the tens, hundreds of thousands back then. Now, not so much. Was it naked partisanship that made the difference, or are they just so easily manipulated that, absent their opinion-leaders telling them what to think, they don't much care about these things anymore? The cognitive dissonance must be unbearable.
"Third, Obama's embrace of these policies has completely rehabilitated the reputations and standing of the Bush officials responsible for them.That's really shiny! So, Glenn, you're going to reconsider your positions from the last ten years, then? You've been given "the best possible evidence imaginable to prove those claims true" - that pretty much demands from you, if you consider yourself to be a fair and objective person of reason, that you revisit both your facts and arguments and those of your political opposition. I'd suggest you start with the opposition since I'm doubtful you've given much time to them firsthand. The archives of National Review, Power Line, and Instapundit will be most illuminating, I'm sure.
[...] But Obama's impact in this area extends far beyond that. Dick Cheney is not only free of ignominy, but can run around claiming vindication from Obama's actions because he's right. The American Right constantly said during the Bush years that any President who knew what Bush knew and was faced with the duty of keeping the country safe would do the same thing. Obama has provided the best possible evidence imaginable to prove those claims true."
On the other hand, maybe it's still hard for me to tell where Greenwald's genuine beliefs end and his proclivity to rant hyperbole begin. Hyperbole is a safe bet, so I'll go with that.
"If Obama has indeed changed his mind over the last two years as a result of all the Secret Scary Things he's seen as President, then I genuinely believe that he and the Democratic Party owe a heartfelt, public apology to Bush, Cheney and the GOP for all the harsh insults they spewed about them for years based on policies that they are now themselves aggressively continuing."If we ever get this - and I'm assuming only a witnessed and notarized statement signed by Obama in his own blood will suffice - then we'll get to see whether Greenwald can own up to his own divisive dishonesty during the W years. At any rate, it's good to see someone from the Left even float the idea that an apology might - just might - be in order.
In truth, my sincere hope has been that Liberals will revisit those policies and the debates of the last decade with fresh eyes and an open mind. There are policy issues of relevance to our present and future which should not be sacrificed on the altar of partisan political gain. I'm afraid this will fall to the next generation as they look back at history, decades late.
Failing that, I'd settle for a collective change in the collectivist mind. Perhaps Liberals will, having been given motive and permission to change their beliefs, will do so for partisan gain or to toe the new party line. In any case, I am glad they haven't taken to the streets in protest - again - or made much of an issue at all about this. It would be ideologically and logically consistent of them to do so but, more importantly, it would be harmful to the country. Again.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Civil Discourse in "The New Republic"
[by Mr.Hengist]
... aaaaand no sooner do I publish my previous blogpost (Their Uncivil Terms of Civil Discourse) than "The New Republic" comes out with this cover for their latest issue. Well, at least they didn't put in little soldiers firing artillery at the giant Republican elephants destroying D.C. So how's this for an example of the civil discourse of the Left, TNR-style:
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Their Uncivil Terms of Civil Discourse
[by Mr.Hengist]
On January 8th, 2011 in Tucson, Arizona, nineteen people were shot, six fatally, others grievously, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. It was an awful, unprovoked tragedy perpetrated by a lunatic. What happened afterward was an ugly smear campaign perpetrated by the Left against the Right.
It's always wise to be cautious about drawing conclusions in the midst of a national crisis. Facts are few and sketchy, frequently subject to subsequent revision as the fog of uncertainty lifts in the days that follow. Early reports are reliably wrong.
We saw no such caution from the Left. Before anything was known about the shooter we saw the Left shoot from the hip, targeting the Right - the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Sharon Angle, etc. In the days that followed, as facts began to emerge, we were told that it was the violent rhetoric and imagery of the Right which was to blame for inciting this act of violence.
Even as exculpatory facts entered the public sphere - friends saying the shooter was left-leaning, classmates and teachers concerned at his odd and disturbing behavior, etc. - the accusers did not recant, nor was the smear campaign tempered. We saw much the same thing play out last year when a guy flew his plane into an IRS building.
It's a deliberate and dishonest ploy by the Left delegitimize and silence the Right, just as when they've accused the Right of being a bunch of Nazis and racists, they've now added the charge of accessory to murder. We exclude violent extremists and haters from the discourse of politics, and the Left has been relentlessly trying to push the Right outside of that sphere.
After Sarah Palin put up a video addressing this on her Facebook page she was criticized for it, naturally. For making herself the center of attention. For using the term "blood libel." Really, for not admitting culpability.
On January 17th, 2011, the WaPo ran Eugene Robinson's column, "Palin's egocentric umbrage", which addresses these criticisms, and it deserves a fisking. I'm happy to do the honors. Let's begin!
In the context of the Tucson massacre I first read it on Instapundit from Glen Reynolds. Indeed, Glen: blood libel is the perfect description of what the Left has been doing to the Right.
Of course, I don't know whether Sarah Palin was aware of the ancient historical roots of the term, or of its subsequent usage unrelated to that history, but I wouldn't be surprised if she was. Naturally, the Left would be very surprised if she was. Neither side has any evidence either way, but note how the Left has assumed that she was unaware. Naturally.
Of course, as the Left has long characterized the Right as a bunch of rootin' tootin' gun-totin' redneck yahoos, and have long since come to believe these catcalls and insults they've hurled, the incitement charge perhaps seems somewhat plausible to them. Well, no, not really. They know who to be genuinely afraid of: militant Islamic jihadists. If you piss off those guys they'll cut your head off, so Liberals don't dare provoke 'em. The Rightwing? Nah, not scary at all, which is why Liberals feel free to insult them.
Indeed, the state of mind of the shooter is of utmost importance. At the risk of committing libel myself, I think we can all agree that it appears the Loughner is certifiably crazy. Much like Sirhan Sirhan, who heard voices telling him to kill RFK, or Lee Harvey Oswald, who was a communist so bonkers that even the Soviet Union couldn't use him or keep him for propaganda when he defected to the USSR. To try to discern the politics of a lunatic is to try to superimpose a template of rational order on what is, by definition, disordered and irrational. We do not take seriously the political views of someone who believed that the government is using mind control on us through the use of grammar.
On January 8th, 2011 in Tucson, Arizona, nineteen people were shot, six fatally, others grievously, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. It was an awful, unprovoked tragedy perpetrated by a lunatic. What happened afterward was an ugly smear campaign perpetrated by the Left against the Right.
It's always wise to be cautious about drawing conclusions in the midst of a national crisis. Facts are few and sketchy, frequently subject to subsequent revision as the fog of uncertainty lifts in the days that follow. Early reports are reliably wrong.
We saw no such caution from the Left. Before anything was known about the shooter we saw the Left shoot from the hip, targeting the Right - the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Sharon Angle, etc. In the days that followed, as facts began to emerge, we were told that it was the violent rhetoric and imagery of the Right which was to blame for inciting this act of violence.
Even as exculpatory facts entered the public sphere - friends saying the shooter was left-leaning, classmates and teachers concerned at his odd and disturbing behavior, etc. - the accusers did not recant, nor was the smear campaign tempered. We saw much the same thing play out last year when a guy flew his plane into an IRS building.
It's a deliberate and dishonest ploy by the Left delegitimize and silence the Right, just as when they've accused the Right of being a bunch of Nazis and racists, they've now added the charge of accessory to murder. We exclude violent extremists and haters from the discourse of politics, and the Left has been relentlessly trying to push the Right outside of that sphere.
After Sarah Palin put up a video addressing this on her Facebook page she was criticized for it, naturally. For making herself the center of attention. For using the term "blood libel." Really, for not admitting culpability.
On January 17th, 2011, the WaPo ran Eugene Robinson's column, "Palin's egocentric umbrage", which addresses these criticisms, and it deserves a fisking. I'm happy to do the honors. Let's begin!
"In the spirit of civil discourse, I'd like to humbly suggest that Sarah Palin please consider being quiet for a while. Perhaps a great while."Just as I said: this is a ploy to silence the political opposition - "in the spirit of civil discourse", of course. Palin's video and statements have been nothing but civil; it's the content with which Robinson has a problem. She simply won't admit her guilt, and anything less is uncivil and warrants her preclusion from the public debate.
"At the risk of being bold, I might observe that her faux-presidential address [...]""Faux-presidential address"? Good grief. Sitting in front of a video camera with a neutral background, there she was, speaking quietly and earnestly. OK, you want to see what a "faux-presidential address" looks like? Have a look at then-candidate Barack Obama in his Invesco Field DNC acceptance speech, with the faux-columns and faux-presidential seal. That, Eugene, is faux-presidential, and I was really embarrassed for you guys back then. I suspect this swipe has more to do with Liberals speculating about a Palin presidential run next time around, although it's been hard to tell whether they're gleeful at the prospect the Republicans fielding her or worried about her chances of actually winning.
"[...] about the Tucson massacre seemed to fall somewhat flat, drawing comparisons to the least attractive public moments of such figures as Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew."So Liberals didn't like her video, and in other news, the sun rose in the East. Here's another general rule from the Liberal playbook: never praise your opposition. It's different on the Right; Obama's speech at the Tucson memorial received widespread praise, along with some minor criticisms, which surprised me not at all.
"I could go so far as to observe that Palin almost seemed to portray herself as a collateral victim. Surely a former governor of Alaska - who served the better part of an entire term - would never seek to give the impression that she views any conceivable event, no matter how distant or tragic, as being All About Sarah."This so ludicrous as to be risible, and childish to boot. It was the Left which pounded on the Right for days, and specifically on her. Palin was made a target of insinuation through no action of her own, and now they're turning it around and pretending that she's inserting herself into the story, apropos of nothing? What's more, her speech was about America and our national debate, not herself. I can't help but wonder whether Robinson even watched the video or picked up his talking points from the HuffPo instead.
"Yet this is the unfortunate impression that Palin's videotaped peroration seems to have left. I am at a loss to recommend any course of corrective action other than an extended period of abstinence from Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites."In other words: Shut Up, Sarah. Shut up, shut up, shut up!
"Palin doubtless understands by now that characterizing her alleged persecution by journalists and commentators with the term "blood libel" was a semantic faux pas."This seemed to be the other major criticism of her video from the Left: outraged indignation and/or derision at her use of the term "blood libel" to describe what the Left has been doing. I first became aware of the term during the Second Intifada, around 2000-2001, when it was used to describe a variety of contemporary violent libels against the Jews in present-day Israel. I remember thinking, "That's a marvelously descriptive term!" I've subsequently read it here and there, perhaps a dozen times, to describe violence-related libel of both Jews and others. Jim Geraghty of NRO has put up a brief list of some of these examples.
In the context of the Tucson massacre I first read it on Instapundit from Glen Reynolds. Indeed, Glen: blood libel is the perfect description of what the Left has been doing to the Right.
Of course, I don't know whether Sarah Palin was aware of the ancient historical roots of the term, or of its subsequent usage unrelated to that history, but I wouldn't be surprised if she was. Naturally, the Left would be very surprised if she was. Neither side has any evidence either way, but note how the Left has assumed that she was unaware. Naturally.
"One must question, however, not only the tone of her complaint but the content as well. Did she, indeed, have a legitimate grievance? I must be frank: The evidence suggests not."Oh, yes, let's have it, Eugene.
"Days earlier, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat, had been shot while meeting with her constituents; six people were killed in the incident, including a federal judge, and more than a dozen others injured. It happens that Giffords' district, in southern Arizona, is passionately divided on just about every hot-button issue."OK, so here's his first point: political passions run high in Arizona!
"It also turns out that before last November's election, Giffords gave a television interview expressing her concern about the bitterness and rancor of our political debate. In the interview, Giffords cited a graphic that Palin had posted on Facebook - a map identifying congressional districts being targeted for Republican gains. The districts, including that of Giffords, were highlighted with an unfortunate symbol: the cross hairs of a rifle scope."Well, yes, but Rep. Giffords was hardly the first to voice that complaint. The Left has also been harrasing the Right for years on end about the tone of their political opposition. So here's his next point: Rep. Giffords was dismayed by the political rancor from the Right!
"One of Palin's aides must have been trying to lighten a dreary week with a bit of humor when she claimed that the cross hairs were actually those of a surveyor's scope."Ah, no. I hotlinked his quote above as it was in his original column. Go ahead and clickthrough that link of his and you'll find that the Palin aide said they were surveyor's marks, as would appear on a map. The piece he links to even has a hotlink to a USGS website which has the very symbol in question.
"Perhaps the ruse would have been more effective if viewers of Palin's "reality" television show hadn't recently watched her use a high-powered rifle, not a theodolite, to fell a caribou."... and your columns, Eugene, would greatly benefit if you actually read the things to which you link, assuming that your misrepresentation was due to sloppiness and not malice. Now, personally, when I first saw the those marks I thought they were target symbols. I still do, as the crosshairs of a scope are a more familiar symbol than the marks of a surveyor. Nevertheless, it's a far stretch that this is an incitement to murder, which is the implicit accusation that Robinson and the Left are making.
"Or, indeed, if Palin hadn't famously counseled fellow Republicans not to retreat but instead to "reload."Well, let's take a look at that. The Republicans were not literally retreating. In order to reload, one has to have already discharged the loaded ammunition in a gun. Since neither applies in a literal sense, it is nonsensical to use this as an incitement to murder. The audience understood it as metaphor even as the Left pretended otherwise. Indeed, all of these military terms are understood as such in American politics, as evidence by the electorate. Right-wingers are neither taking up arms against the Left nor taking pot-shots at them, insofar as we can tell. There are the occasional gun-related incidents on the Left and the Right, but the assertion by the Left that this will incite the Right is provably wrong. What's more, military lingo and imagery have been used in conjunction with political campaigns since, well, forever. Further, one might reasonably expect the side which favors gun ownership to use gun-related imagery and words, which Republicans do; one would expect the opposite of the anti-gun Democrats, but their avoidance of these terms has been less than studious.
Of course, as the Left has long characterized the Right as a bunch of rootin' tootin' gun-totin' redneck yahoos, and have long since come to believe these catcalls and insults they've hurled, the incitement charge perhaps seems somewhat plausible to them. Well, no, not really. They know who to be genuinely afraid of: militant Islamic jihadists. If you piss off those guys they'll cut your head off, so Liberals don't dare provoke 'em. The Rightwing? Nah, not scary at all, which is why Liberals feel free to insult them.
"In her statement, Palin gave the impression of being appalled that journalists mentioned the cross-hairs graphic in the hours after the rampage in Tucson. She singled out reporters and pundits, not political activists who might bear partisan animus. Surely she must have anticipated that viewers who recall her course of collegiate study - journalism - would be baffled at this reaction."Because reporters, as we all know, are strictly non-partisan and never, ever let their biases affect their reporting! Well, so they tell us. Reporters and editors of the dinosaur media by and large heavily lean Liberal/Left and often report in a dishonest, slanted way to either hurt their political opposition or help their side. Case in point: the Tucson shootings. Our national media, print and (so I'm told) video, have by-and-large jumped on the insinuation bandwagon, but only because that insinuation is directed at the Right. If they were unbiased then we should see them increasingly insinuate the culpability of the Left, as more evidence and indicators show that the Tucson shooter was left-leaning. Not happening, is it?
"In the days since, we have learned that the alleged gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, appears to be an unbalanced young man whose political views are confused and perhaps irrelevant. But at the time, nothing was known about the assailant or his motives."Not so. MSNBC wasted no time in liking the shooting to the Tea Party and Sarah Palin on January 8th, the day of the shooting, even before we knew much of anything about the shooter (and, thus, before anyone could know anything about his politics or state of mind). The earliest reports on the shooter were that his political views were "confused."
Indeed, the state of mind of the shooter is of utmost importance. At the risk of committing libel myself, I think we can all agree that it appears the Loughner is certifiably crazy. Much like Sirhan Sirhan, who heard voices telling him to kill RFK, or Lee Harvey Oswald, who was a communist so bonkers that even the Soviet Union couldn't use him or keep him for propaganda when he defected to the USSR. To try to discern the politics of a lunatic is to try to superimpose a template of rational order on what is, by definition, disordered and irrational. We do not take seriously the political views of someone who believed that the government is using mind control on us through the use of grammar.
"I am confident that at least one of Palin's professors must have taught her that in reporting about a shooting, the fact that the principal target felt threatened is highly relevant information, as is the specific nature of that threat."Actually, Eugene, you fool, it's completely irrelevant. Logic and law tell us that if the murderer is rational we need to establish a causal relationship between the alleged incitement and the act of murder, and if the perpetrator is irrational then it has little, if any, bearing. At this point the linkage appears nothing more than coincidental, at best, assuming that the alleged incitements could be interpreted as having an inciting effect, an assumption I have already challenged.
"It is also relevant that most of the violent political rhetoric that blights the public discourse is emanating from the far right - a constituency for which Palin speaks, often so colorfully."Leaving aside the characterization of Sarah Palin as "far right" - objectively, like it or not, she is definitionally mainstream - this assertion is hogwashian balderdash. During the Bush years the worst sort of imagery and rhetoric came from the far Left, and was tolerated or applauded by Liberals. OK, one quick example: remember "Death of a President"? That British wish-fulfillment film about the assassination of then-sitting POTUS George W. Bush? How did the Liberal/Left react to that being shown nationwide in American movie theaters? With open arms. Such a thing was not, shall we say, out of bounds. Now, imagine the reaction if a similar film were to be released now about sitting POTUS Obama...
"In the 1960s and '70s, this was not the case; anti-government invective and unsettling talk of "revolution" came primarily from the far left."In addition to openly advocating revolution and opposing the government in every form and in every way, they also carried out actual murders and bombings, but Robinson has whitewashed this from his accounting of Leftist sins past. Down the memory hole they go!
"Palin is perhaps too young to remember that era, but as a student of history she must have read about it - and must recognize the contrast between then and now."I'm also too young to remember that, but even a cursory comparison between then and now shows the Leftists of that era to be utterly and completely beyond the bounds of civil discourse in ways which were unequivocally violent and treasonous. Nowadays the best the Left can muster is, "Hey, that map `targeting' Democrats has crosshairs on in - that means they want to kill Democrats!" and the like. By contrast, Leftists of the 60's and 70's openly advocated the violent overthrow of the United States, and occasionally acted on that threat in violent ways. They blew things up. They killed people.
"For her to take such umbrage, then, at the reporting of evident, pertinent and factual information deepened the impression that she is - and I must be frank - astoundingly thin-skinned and egocentric."How dare the narcissistic bitch defend herself!
"[...] Palin portrayed herself as not only a popular champion but also a martyr [...]"Oh, that's rich: she's made herself out to be a martyr. Get it? Those other people got shot, killed, and here Palin is making herself a martyr. Thing is, if you were to actually watch the video, she never speaks directly of the allegations made against her. Instead, she speaks in vague, third-person terms of a general nature, only alluding to the "target" map, for example.
"Or perhaps - solely in the interest of civil discourse - that there be no next address."... because, in Liberal-land, the terms of "civil discourse" are that YOU WINGNUTS SHUT UP, got it?
Thursday, December 16, 2010
At the Shores of the Sea of Stars
From The Australian comes this update on the whereabouts of the Voyager spacecraft, at the very edge of the region in which the influence of the Sun is waning, the solar wind beginning to blow sideways, rather than outward from the primary.
I am awed to silence at the notion that an artifact of a certain species of naked ape is about to go interstellar.
Wow. Just wow.
I am awed to silence at the notion that an artifact of a certain species of naked ape is about to go interstellar.
Wow. Just wow.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Whittle Boils It Down, Part Six: Immigration, Assimilation, and the Rule of Law
Here's the Sixth part in Bill Whittle's excellent "Firewall" series on the core ideas of the Tea Parties. Part Five dealt with gun rights, and was the usual cool, rational tour de force, and I do recommend it. But, in my view, it lies a bit to the side of the main thrust of the series, which is to shine a clear light on the dizzying succession of absurdities which are leveled at the Tea Parties by their determined, well-funded adversaries.
The Tea Parties are a heterogeneous assemblage of groups, still very much finding its voice and finding its feet. They contain a fair share of flakes and philosophers, psychos and statesmen. They differ broadly on methods and on messages. They engage in their fair shares of far-sightedness and folly. They are still evolving. As such, they are easy pickings for those who would "pick their target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it." It's easy enough to pick and decontextualize the dumbass things that are said and done within established political entities, with lobbyists and press handlers and a measure of message momentum. To take a stew like the Tea Parties, still in full rolling boil, and dip the fork of opposition research into it, one is bound to come up with more than one unsavory ingredient.
All of the abject nonsense about racism, xenophobia, theocratic aspirations, and domestic terrorism has either dropped into the pot from fringe elements who are broadly denounced from within the Tea Parties themselves...or have been slipped into it from without. I can only get up so much of a head of steam about the foolishness which comes out of the mouths of some Tea Party adherents. I could really live a whole lot better without the selective harvesting of these mal mots, and their use as cudgels, but if someone said 'em, there's no use hiding 'em. It's the introduction of slanders spun of whole cloth which really chaps my chalupas. One of the real biggies, the great, steaming, nitrate-rich piles of pure felgercarb, is this whole bit about racism.
One may, of course, differ with the small-government, free-market, decentralized politico-economic model of the Tea Parties (the one thing they all have in common). One can, of course, hold to a model of greater intervention in the economy by a more robust centralized government. But all of this non-sense about xenophobia is simply not in code of the Tea Party program. If anything, the meritocratic opportunity society which the Tea Parties envision is one which leaves zero room for the identity politics which form a far more fertile patch of soil for the undue emphasis on differences whose excessive extension leads into the rank recesses of racism.
It is to this last point that Whittle speaks in this latest vid. One of the recurring themes in the Tea Parties' discourse is one of push-back against illegal immigration, and against those government policies which --in effect or by intent-- abet it. Naturally, among Transnational Progressives, any mention of protecting National borders is at best distasteful...at worst, it is a kind of nativist provincialism which is treated as interchangeable with xenophobia. The cult of multiculturalism will not brook any talk of assimilation, treating it as some Borg-like attempt to erase the essence of the soul of the somethingorother. They would have us replace the "melting pot" with a very busy salad.
The problem is that all of this is beside the point. That point is that one of the chief functions of a Nation-State is to guard the borders which, in large part, define it. It is to reinforce the membrane around the organism of State, and thus to preserve the integrity of that entity with respect to its surround. A cell with an overly porous membrane (or none at all) simply melts into a patch of protoplasm, indistinct and quite dead. Say what you will about the Nation State as a concept (sigh, I guess that includes you, Mike), but so long as it exists, it must preserve a certain structural integrity, which includes the regulation of passage across its borders. Ethnicity has nothing to do with this, except inasmuch as given ethnic groups may (lamentably!) be statistically (though by no means essentially) associated with the sorts of failed and failing states from which people show a tendency to want to emigrate, with the US as a prime destination. But (and this is the central point) that ethnicity is wholly incidental to the question of whether their quite legitimate grievances with their countries of origin entitle them to carry with them some of the lawlessness that they strive to escape, and to import it into this Nation by the sheer act of slipping into it extra-legally.
There are whole shadow infrastructures which subtend the passage of illegal immigrants into this country, vast criminal enterprises which I would flatter by referring to them as merely amoral. Emotional appeals about poor families, hoping to make a better life must be held up against clear-eyed acknowledgments of the brutal, lawless cartels which pad their clandestine balance sheets by flouting the legal structures of this Nation and marching those families across the frontier in the dead of night. An insufficiently guarded border is like one big broken window in the neighborhood. It signals a laxity and decadence which invites exploitation like a wounded seal in a school of sharks. The national security implications of poor border enforcement are obvious (or should be!). But there are subtler issues afoot here, issues having to do with the level of order which a Nation can assure its citizens (not so great for the people of border states, who are urged to avoid certain areas so as not to run afoul of well-armed Coyote caravans), and with the value of labor (materially deflated by the presence of an entire underground economy of desperate people willing to take less than a pittance for jobs which would otherwise have to compete for workers in the full light of day).
The leaky bottom of the labor market, as far as I've been able to discern, is the main point of contention within the Tea Party ranks when it comes to illegal immigration. It speaks directly to the integrity of the marketplace as a mechanism for assigning value to economic activity, and the distortions of that marketplace where the value of labor is so unbalanced by a vast pool of undocumented workers, pulling that value artificially downward. Throw in the whole bit about the government failing to act on its Constitutionally-mandated charter to enforce the borders, and there's a whole lot of principled ground for the Tea Partiers to stand on with regard to this issue, and not a bit of it has to do with racism. Fancy that.
Now, I would be the first to be attacked from some quarters of the Tea Parties (and no, not because I am Hispanic. Sheesh!), in that I do support some kind of mechanism for bringing many of the diligent and law-abiding illegal immigrants in out of the cold...though not without penalty, and not in a way which disadvantages those who have striven mightily and waited long to secure legal residency or citizenship. But such measures would be meaningless in the absence of robust border enforcement, and a national will to expel those who game the system and/or commit crimes while they're here (aside from the one about being here in the first place, that is). If this way of thinking appears racist to some, then I submit that their definitions of that word cry out to be revisited.
Anyway, here's Bill's take on the matter:
The Tea Parties are a heterogeneous assemblage of groups, still very much finding its voice and finding its feet. They contain a fair share of flakes and philosophers, psychos and statesmen. They differ broadly on methods and on messages. They engage in their fair shares of far-sightedness and folly. They are still evolving. As such, they are easy pickings for those who would "pick their target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it." It's easy enough to pick and decontextualize the dumbass things that are said and done within established political entities, with lobbyists and press handlers and a measure of message momentum. To take a stew like the Tea Parties, still in full rolling boil, and dip the fork of opposition research into it, one is bound to come up with more than one unsavory ingredient.
All of the abject nonsense about racism, xenophobia, theocratic aspirations, and domestic terrorism has either dropped into the pot from fringe elements who are broadly denounced from within the Tea Parties themselves...or have been slipped into it from without. I can only get up so much of a head of steam about the foolishness which comes out of the mouths of some Tea Party adherents. I could really live a whole lot better without the selective harvesting of these mal mots, and their use as cudgels, but if someone said 'em, there's no use hiding 'em. It's the introduction of slanders spun of whole cloth which really chaps my chalupas. One of the real biggies, the great, steaming, nitrate-rich piles of pure felgercarb, is this whole bit about racism.
One may, of course, differ with the small-government, free-market, decentralized politico-economic model of the Tea Parties (the one thing they all have in common). One can, of course, hold to a model of greater intervention in the economy by a more robust centralized government. But all of this non-sense about xenophobia is simply not in code of the Tea Party program. If anything, the meritocratic opportunity society which the Tea Parties envision is one which leaves zero room for the identity politics which form a far more fertile patch of soil for the undue emphasis on differences whose excessive extension leads into the rank recesses of racism.
It is to this last point that Whittle speaks in this latest vid. One of the recurring themes in the Tea Parties' discourse is one of push-back against illegal immigration, and against those government policies which --in effect or by intent-- abet it. Naturally, among Transnational Progressives, any mention of protecting National borders is at best distasteful...at worst, it is a kind of nativist provincialism which is treated as interchangeable with xenophobia. The cult of multiculturalism will not brook any talk of assimilation, treating it as some Borg-like attempt to erase the essence of the soul of the somethingorother. They would have us replace the "melting pot" with a very busy salad.
The problem is that all of this is beside the point. That point is that one of the chief functions of a Nation-State is to guard the borders which, in large part, define it. It is to reinforce the membrane around the organism of State, and thus to preserve the integrity of that entity with respect to its surround. A cell with an overly porous membrane (or none at all) simply melts into a patch of protoplasm, indistinct and quite dead. Say what you will about the Nation State as a concept (sigh, I guess that includes you, Mike), but so long as it exists, it must preserve a certain structural integrity, which includes the regulation of passage across its borders. Ethnicity has nothing to do with this, except inasmuch as given ethnic groups may (lamentably!) be statistically (though by no means essentially) associated with the sorts of failed and failing states from which people show a tendency to want to emigrate, with the US as a prime destination. But (and this is the central point) that ethnicity is wholly incidental to the question of whether their quite legitimate grievances with their countries of origin entitle them to carry with them some of the lawlessness that they strive to escape, and to import it into this Nation by the sheer act of slipping into it extra-legally.
There are whole shadow infrastructures which subtend the passage of illegal immigrants into this country, vast criminal enterprises which I would flatter by referring to them as merely amoral. Emotional appeals about poor families, hoping to make a better life must be held up against clear-eyed acknowledgments of the brutal, lawless cartels which pad their clandestine balance sheets by flouting the legal structures of this Nation and marching those families across the frontier in the dead of night. An insufficiently guarded border is like one big broken window in the neighborhood. It signals a laxity and decadence which invites exploitation like a wounded seal in a school of sharks. The national security implications of poor border enforcement are obvious (or should be!). But there are subtler issues afoot here, issues having to do with the level of order which a Nation can assure its citizens (not so great for the people of border states, who are urged to avoid certain areas so as not to run afoul of well-armed Coyote caravans), and with the value of labor (materially deflated by the presence of an entire underground economy of desperate people willing to take less than a pittance for jobs which would otherwise have to compete for workers in the full light of day).
The leaky bottom of the labor market, as far as I've been able to discern, is the main point of contention within the Tea Party ranks when it comes to illegal immigration. It speaks directly to the integrity of the marketplace as a mechanism for assigning value to economic activity, and the distortions of that marketplace where the value of labor is so unbalanced by a vast pool of undocumented workers, pulling that value artificially downward. Throw in the whole bit about the government failing to act on its Constitutionally-mandated charter to enforce the borders, and there's a whole lot of principled ground for the Tea Partiers to stand on with regard to this issue, and not a bit of it has to do with racism. Fancy that.
Now, I would be the first to be attacked from some quarters of the Tea Parties (and no, not because I am Hispanic. Sheesh!), in that I do support some kind of mechanism for bringing many of the diligent and law-abiding illegal immigrants in out of the cold...though not without penalty, and not in a way which disadvantages those who have striven mightily and waited long to secure legal residency or citizenship. But such measures would be meaningless in the absence of robust border enforcement, and a national will to expel those who game the system and/or commit crimes while they're here (aside from the one about being here in the first place, that is). If this way of thinking appears racist to some, then I submit that their definitions of that word cry out to be revisited.
Anyway, here's Bill's take on the matter:
Friday, November 12, 2010
Per Libertas Ad Astra
In the course of my journey from Big Government Liberal to libertarian-esque Conservative, one of the hardest things for me to let go of has been my hitherto-unquestioned belief that it is the business of the Federal Government to shepherd humanity into space.
It had always been an article of faith for me that only an Apollo-like Project could midwife the hatching of our species, at long last, from its primordial creche at the bottom of the Earth's gravity well, and out into the cosmos, where it belongs. The maddeningly slow progress of that momentous trek, of course, had to be due to an infuriating lack of vision at the top: If only Nixon had not killed the versatile and muscular Apollo in favor of the nifty but limited and cash-hungry (and ultimately lethal) Shuttle (and if only that program had not itself become freighted with the 'all-things-to-all-constituencies' bloat which subverted its initial purpose as a cheap, fully re-usable space truck), we could have expanded Skylab into a proper orbital village. If only Vietnam had not squandered so much of this Nation's wealth on a vain and pointless struggle against somethingorother, we could at least have had a fracking Moon Base. If only the Luddite fetishes of the 70s-era environmentalists hadn't refocused NASA into an operation bent on going around in circles, gazing at its own navel, we would have made it to Mars (and, having been an Environmentalist myself, this last came with no small quantum of cognitive dissonance!). On and on, I gritted my teeth at the absence of a Mission for the agency in charge of our Government's sacred trust to lift us to the stars.
It was only long after I had transitioned from Liberalism to a succession of species of Conservative that I had what, in retrospect, was a rather embarrassingly-belated realization: Why the blazes should mere Government be expected to oversee --let alone monopolize-- the greatest adventure on which humanity would ever embark? Why should it be the (IRS-enforced) obligation of a grain farmer in Iowa, or a Burger King manager in Virginia...or a clinical psychologist in Philadelphia to bankroll our evolution into a spacefaring species? If humans are going to hoist themselves into free space and forge a destiny in its airless reaches, why on earth (pun intentional) must it be left to the grinding Rube-Goldberg mechanism of pork-laden appropriations to make it so?
In an editorial by Iain Murphy and Rand Simberg at The American Spectator, the authors tackle this very question, and articulate the answer in devastatingly clear terms: It shouldn't:
For, so long as this Administration shows its indifference and disdain for human spaceflight by refusing to bestow upon it a Big Government Project (which, in Obama's world, is the ultimate marker of value, after all), then that endeavor stands a chance of actually getting off the ground. On the one hand you have a set of fixed-funded, results-based benchmark incentives for competing private industries' achievements in developing a viable, human-rated commercial launch and orbital operations system (from which NASA can then purchase flights, while shouldering a relatively paltry share of the R&D costs). On the other, you have the usual cost-plus shenanigans of the usual suspects drawing the usual (voluminous) booty into the usual districts. The pace of the process might not be as gratifyingly brisk as you get when you unleash the jury-rigged juggernaut of State-Sponsored Will on a problem. At least not at first. But as markets are created and exploited through a ratcheting series of entrepreneurial beach-heads, the gains are apt to be more durable (as their funding streams will not be pegged to the American election cycle), and to ramp up more steeply once established (same reason).
So, it took Bigelow and Branson and Musk to make manifest what had previously only been obvious...so that, in the end, even I got it. I've been able to redirect my geek sensibilities in a direction more in keeping with my larger politico-economic explanatory system (and thus to discover that, even at my advanced age, I am still capable of changing my mind on important matters. Again.). And all this just in time for some most unexpectedly sensible legislation from the last Administration from which I would've seen it coming. Epic win!
And, in the end, once Bigelow builds his station, and clients (including NASA) start lining up, you start to introduce modest economies of scale, which bring down costs to orbit, which opens up new markets...and suddenly the landscape seems a mite more amenable than it ever would have been under NASA to the prospect of my not shuffling off before having seen the blue-white, gracefully-curved limb of the Earth, brightly sunlit under a black sky...
It had always been an article of faith for me that only an Apollo-like Project could midwife the hatching of our species, at long last, from its primordial creche at the bottom of the Earth's gravity well, and out into the cosmos, where it belongs. The maddeningly slow progress of that momentous trek, of course, had to be due to an infuriating lack of vision at the top: If only Nixon had not killed the versatile and muscular Apollo in favor of the nifty but limited and cash-hungry (and ultimately lethal) Shuttle (and if only that program had not itself become freighted with the 'all-things-to-all-constituencies' bloat which subverted its initial purpose as a cheap, fully re-usable space truck), we could have expanded Skylab into a proper orbital village. If only Vietnam had not squandered so much of this Nation's wealth on a vain and pointless struggle against somethingorother, we could at least have had a fracking Moon Base. If only the Luddite fetishes of the 70s-era environmentalists hadn't refocused NASA into an operation bent on going around in circles, gazing at its own navel, we would have made it to Mars (and, having been an Environmentalist myself, this last came with no small quantum of cognitive dissonance!). On and on, I gritted my teeth at the absence of a Mission for the agency in charge of our Government's sacred trust to lift us to the stars.
It was only long after I had transitioned from Liberalism to a succession of species of Conservative that I had what, in retrospect, was a rather embarrassingly-belated realization: Why the blazes should mere Government be expected to oversee --let alone monopolize-- the greatest adventure on which humanity would ever embark? Why should it be the (IRS-enforced) obligation of a grain farmer in Iowa, or a Burger King manager in Virginia...or a clinical psychologist in Philadelphia to bankroll our evolution into a spacefaring species? If humans are going to hoist themselves into free space and forge a destiny in its airless reaches, why on earth (pun intentional) must it be left to the grinding Rube-Goldberg mechanism of pork-laden appropriations to make it so?
In an editorial by Iain Murphy and Rand Simberg at The American Spectator, the authors tackle this very question, and articulate the answer in devastatingly clear terms: It shouldn't:
There's something about space policy that makes conservatives forget their principles. Just one mention of NASA, and conservatives are quite happy to check their small-government instincts at the door and vote in favor of massive government programs and harsh regulations that stifle private enterprise. It's time to abort that mission. [...]
It is time for conservatives to recognize that Apollo is over. We must recognize that Apollo was a centrally planned monopolistic government program for a few government employees, in the service of Cold War propaganda and was therefore itself an affront to American values. If we want to seriously explore, and potentially exploit space, we need to harness private enterprise, and push the technologies really needed to do so.One of the few things that the Obama Administration has gotten resoundingly and unambiguously right was the shift of NASA's priorities from old-school, Manhattan Project thinking on space access, in favor of a less-centralized, free-market approach. I know...right? Here is one area in which the Administration's singular (and in so many other ways extraordinarily dangerous and misguided) focus on a domestic policy of Transforming America tm has happened to strike precisely the right note. Now, if this is simply a case of doing the correct things for the wrong reasons, then I'll take it just the same.
For, so long as this Administration shows its indifference and disdain for human spaceflight by refusing to bestow upon it a Big Government Project (which, in Obama's world, is the ultimate marker of value, after all), then that endeavor stands a chance of actually getting off the ground. On the one hand you have a set of fixed-funded, results-based benchmark incentives for competing private industries' achievements in developing a viable, human-rated commercial launch and orbital operations system (from which NASA can then purchase flights, while shouldering a relatively paltry share of the R&D costs). On the other, you have the usual cost-plus shenanigans of the usual suspects drawing the usual (voluminous) booty into the usual districts. The pace of the process might not be as gratifyingly brisk as you get when you unleash the jury-rigged juggernaut of State-Sponsored Will on a problem. At least not at first. But as markets are created and exploited through a ratcheting series of entrepreneurial beach-heads, the gains are apt to be more durable (as their funding streams will not be pegged to the American election cycle), and to ramp up more steeply once established (same reason).
So, it took Bigelow and Branson and Musk to make manifest what had previously only been obvious...so that, in the end, even I got it. I've been able to redirect my geek sensibilities in a direction more in keeping with my larger politico-economic explanatory system (and thus to discover that, even at my advanced age, I am still capable of changing my mind on important matters. Again.). And all this just in time for some most unexpectedly sensible legislation from the last Administration from which I would've seen it coming. Epic win!
And, in the end, once Bigelow builds his station, and clients (including NASA) start lining up, you start to introduce modest economies of scale, which bring down costs to orbit, which opens up new markets...and suddenly the landscape seems a mite more amenable than it ever would have been under NASA to the prospect of my not shuffling off before having seen the blue-white, gracefully-curved limb of the Earth, brightly sunlit under a black sky...
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Will on the Limits of Predictability
Here's a nice meditation by George Will in Newsweek, a glimpse of a glimpse of the fringes of the sheer complexity of the ever-shifting topology of the global economy. Commenting on the ideas of Robert Weissenstein, a chief investment officer in Credit Suisse Private Banking, Will highlights “the enormous iterative impact of everything we hold and do.” He points to the unanticipated consequences of seemingly unrelated innovations and how they create (and destroy) opportunities in a manner reminiscent of Burke's splendid series, "Connections." It sounds what could be a healthily cautionary note for zero-sum, fixed-"pie" static-model economic thinkers with a mind to tinker with the workings of the marketplace in an effort to control it.
The oft-cited example of this unpredictability is the devastating effect which the advent of the automobile had on the buggy whip industry ("Think of the jobs!!"). The point of the article is the non-linear, unpredictable downstream effects of events and innovations, driving new growth, even as they annihilate previous growth drivers. It's the global economy as a dynamic and evolving landscape, in which dynamic and evolving things live. And die.
It is no more predictable than were the consequences of increasing amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere, billions of years ago, which killed off virtually all of the primordial anaerobic life forms that made up the vast bulk of the Earth's biosphere. It was a Disaster! But, of course, aerobic life forms were able to utilize and dissipate energy far more effectively, leading to greater diversification and complexification, ultimately producing the spectacularly successful dinosaurs...
Complex systems like organisms and species and economies are like that: they are inherently unpredictable, dancing always on the edge of chaos. And that's where evolution happens, on the margins.
If we let it, such can be a profoundly humbling perspective on our efforts to predict and control, and on the hard limits with which those efforts will inevitably collide.
I suppose "that's why we have a Tea Party."
The oft-cited example of this unpredictability is the devastating effect which the advent of the automobile had on the buggy whip industry ("Think of the jobs!!"). The point of the article is the non-linear, unpredictable downstream effects of events and innovations, driving new growth, even as they annihilate previous growth drivers. It's the global economy as a dynamic and evolving landscape, in which dynamic and evolving things live. And die.
It is no more predictable than were the consequences of increasing amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere, billions of years ago, which killed off virtually all of the primordial anaerobic life forms that made up the vast bulk of the Earth's biosphere. It was a Disaster! But, of course, aerobic life forms were able to utilize and dissipate energy far more effectively, leading to greater diversification and complexification, ultimately producing the spectacularly successful dinosaurs...
Complex systems like organisms and species and economies are like that: they are inherently unpredictable, dancing always on the edge of chaos. And that's where evolution happens, on the margins.
If we let it, such can be a profoundly humbling perspective on our efforts to predict and control, and on the hard limits with which those efforts will inevitably collide.
I suppose "that's why we have a Tea Party."
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