How can Americans be expected to wrestle with the myriad dangers that confront them each day? Insalubrious cereal? Unregulated garage sales? Pools of death? Sometimes it’s too much to process.
You know what we desperately are crying out for? An army of crusading federal regulatory agents with unfettered power. Who else has the fortitude and foresight to keep us all safe?
Mercifully, as The Washington Post recently reported, many of President Barack Obama’s appointees “have been quietly exercising their power over the trappings of daily life … awakening a vast regulatory apparatus with authority over nearly every U.S. workplace, 15,000 consumer products, and most items found in kitchen pantries and medicine cabinets.”
If there’s anything Americans are hankering for in their everyday lives, it’s a vast regulatory apparatus. Hey, it’s dangerous out there.
David Harsanyi, “They’re Tragically Delicious: Confronting Big Cereal, unregulated garage sales, and other evils”, Reason.com, 2009-10-14
October 14, 2009
QotD: Our expanding Nanny state
Neuter NASA to save manned space exploration?
Gregg Easterbrook, to be polite, isn’t a fan of NASA’s big-budget plans:
Soon, Barack Obama must make a decision on whether to continue funding NASA’s daffy plan to build a Motel 6 on the moon. The president will be put on the spot when the final report of a space commission [. . .] is delivered. Rumor is that in keeping with the tradition of Washington commissions, the report will contain extremely vague language about sweeping reform; then cite every item on every wish list of every interest group with a finger in this pie; then recommend nothing specific, so as to offend no interest group; then close with a call for higher subsidies. NASA is not one of the core missions of government, and spends only one-half of 1 percent of the federal budget, so space waste is relatively minor in the scheme of things. But if public policy can’t get this right, what can it get right?
Right now NASA’s budget is $18 billion annually, and the quarter or so spent on science — planetary probes, telescopes that scan the far universe — is going very well. The rest of NASA is a mess. The agency has just thrown $100 billion of your money down the drain on the space station, which has no scientific achievement and no known purpose other than keeping checks in the mail to favored contractors and congressional districts. The station is such a white elephant the current plan is to “deorbit” the thing in 2016. “Deorbit” is polite for “make it burn up in the atmosphere.” So after spending $100 billion to build a space station, we’ll destroy it. Your tax dollars at play!
Since 2004, NASA has said its next goal is a manned outpost on the moon, as a stepping-stone to manned travel to Mars. There’s nothing a person could do on the airless, lifeless lunar surface that a tele-robot operated from a Houston office building could not do at a fraction of the price and risk. And the moon has nothing to do with Mars. Any Mars-bound mission will leave directly from low-Earth orbit to the Red Planet: stopping at the moon, then blasting off again, would consume the mission’s fuel to accomplish nothing. Though NASA has been studying moon-base and Mars-mission proposals for five years, the agency refuses to give a cost estimate — a sure sign the plans cannot pass a giggle test. Considering the space station price was $100 billion for a limited facility that was not accelerated to the speed necessary to reach the moon — speed means fuel which means higher price — even a Spartan moon base easily could cost several hundred billion dollars. For what? Why, for “economic expansion”! Today, no one is interested in economic expansion at Earth’s poles, which are far more amenable to life than the moon, have copious resources, and can be reached at one-ten thousandth the cost of reaching the moon.
There’s a lot more, buried in the middle of his weekly “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” column at ESPN.com. The numbers for manned exploration of Mars aren’t encouraging, either.
IPCC to US: stop breathing
Ace of Spades reports on the latest “modest suggestion” from those whacky folks at the IPCC:
The IPCC says that rich industrial countries must cut emissions 25 to 40 percent by 2020 (from 1990 levels) if the world is to have a fair chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change. By contrast, the WBGU study says the United States must cut emissions 100 percent by 2020—i.e., quit carbon entirely within ten years. Germany, Italy and other industrial nations must do the same by 2025 to 2030. China only has until 2035, and the world as a whole must be carbon-free by 2050. The study adds that big polluters can delay their day of reckoning by “buying” emissions rights from developing countries, a step the study estimates would extend some countries’ deadlines by a decade or so.
Emphasis mine.
Military false economies
Strategy Page reports on the British Territorial Army:
Recently, Britain decided to suspend training for its Territorial Army, for six months, as a way to save money so that more resources could be devoted to the effort in Afghanistan. This has caused an uproar in Britain, where there is much popular support for the Territorial Army, even though it is a relatively small force, with only 34,000 troops.
Cutting training was widely seen as false economy, since the average Territorial only gets 4-5 weeks of training a year. The government saw it differently, noting that many non-combat jobs in the Territorial Army are held by people who do the same kind of work in their civilian job. This is particularly true of people with communications, maintenance or medical jobs in the Territorial Army. But Territorials only get two weeks of additional training before being sent off to a combat zone, and the feeling is that they need all the training they can get if they want to survive overseas.
I’m astonished not only at the bone-headed decision to suspend training, but the relatively tiny size of the current Territorial forces . . . bureaucratic war results, I suspect, as the part-timers don’t have a strong voice in either the military or civilian hierarchy to defend their interests.
October 13, 2009
Just fill in the technobabble later
Charles Stross explains why he isn’t a Star Trek fan:
I have a confession to make: I hate Star Trek.
Let me clarify: when I was young — I’m dating myself here — I quite liked the original TV series. But when the movie-length trailer for ST:TNG first aired in the UK in the late eighties? It was hate on first sight. And since then, it’s also been hate on sight between me and just about every space operatic show on television. ST:Voyager and whatever the space station opera; check. Babylon Five? Ditto. Battlestar Galactica? Didn’t even bother turning on the TV. I hate them all.
I finally found out why:
At his recent keynote speech at the New York Television Festival, former Star Trek writer and creator of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica Ron Moore revealed the secret formula to writing for Trek.
He described how the writers would just insert “tech” into the scripts whenever they needed to resolve a story or plot line, then they’d have consultants fill in the appropriate words (aka technobabble) later.
“It became the solution to so many plot lines and so many stories,” Moore said. “It was so mechanical that we had science consultants who would just come up with the words for us and we’d just write ‘tech’ in the script. You know, Picard would say ‘Commander La Forge, tech the tech to the warp drive.’ I’m serious. If you look at those scripts, you’ll see that.”
October 12, 2009
Object to skeletal fashion models? You’re a “fat mummy”
Karl Lagerfeld puts you into your place, fatty:
Karl Lagerfeld, the eccentric German fashion tsar, has waded into the debate about size-zero models by saying that people want to look at “skinny models” and classing those who complain as “fat mummies”.
Lagerfeld, 71, was reacting to the magazine Brigitte‘s announcement last week that it will in future use “ordinary, realistic” women rather than professional models in its photo shoots. He said the decision by Germany’s most popular women’s magazine was “absurd” and driven by overweight women who did not like to be reminded of their weight issues.
“These are fat mummies sitting with their bags of crisps in front of the television, saying that thin models are ugly,” said Lagerfeld in an interview with the magazine Focus. The designer, who lost a lot of weight himself when he went on a strict low-carbohydrate diet several years ago, added that the world of fashion was all to do “with dreams and illusions, and no one wants to see round women”
The complaint about ultra-thin models has a lot of merit: the model is chosen to be as close to a clothes-hanger as possible, to improve the sales of the item at retail. It’s easier to persuade buyers to buy things that look like they do on the runway when they’re in the store.
The fact that the majority of women in western cultures don’t come close to fitting that sort of clothing is largely ignored. The designers tend to prefer clothes that do not provide room for typical womens’ hips, breasts and curves. One sometimes wonders if the clothing is supposed to be equally attractive on bone-thin fashion models or young teenage boys . . .
Image from BoingBoing. Extreme photoshopping in the original ad.
Protip: a police station parking lot is not a “private place”
BBC News reports that a couple of Edinburgh pub-goers chose a particularly unsuitable place to go have sex after meeting in the pub:
An amorous couple have been fined for having sex in broad daylight — in a police station car park.
Leanne Richardson, 26, and Ross Welsh, 30, had to be physically stopped mid sex act by officers from Portobello police station in Edinburgh.
They both pleaded guilty to committing a breach of the peace in the car park on 21 April and were fined £200.
Vikings improve to 5-0 with win over Rams
Probably thanks to the “Brett Favre” factor, I’m having the opportunity to watch more Vikings games on TV this year than in almost any previous year. It almost makes me regret my earlier “stay retired, Brett” posts.
St. Louis self-destructed in this game, turning the ball over repeatedly within a few yards of the goal line, denying themselves great scoring opportunities. The Vikings defence looked very ordinary as the Rams moved up and down the field, but posted very few points (final score 38-10). Turnovers literally were the story in the game: the Rams fumbled, the Vikings didn’t.
As far as individual performances went, the usual names were there (Favre, Allen, Peterson), but some less familiar names got frequent mentions: Benny Sapp seemed to be in on every defensive play, Tyrell Johnson had an interception and a very athletic pass deflection, while Karl Paymah got victimized for the Rams’ only TD after he replaced Antoine Winfield. Adrian Peterson scored two TDs, but again didn’t have a lot of yards.
Update: Tim Olsen quotes “Eaten Purple People” about past Vikings teams:
Short week, road game, coming off of a big emotional win….hmmmmm.
In the Denny era this game was as good as pre-lost.
In the Tice era, the staff would be game planning for the Ravens game and starting the party planning for the bye week.
When TJack ran the show, you could count on as many fumbled snaps as were necessary to keep the Rams in it for the whole game.
In the early Chilly era, we would run a variety of plays designed to gain 3.33 yards if executed perfectly and then hope the measurement crew bailed us out.
But E.P.P. is here to tell you — not this year. We remember the 1998 Vikings that would win these games by 3-4 TD’s going away.
October 11, 2009
QotD: Silvio Berlusconi
As Silvio Berlusconi yesterday tried to shore up his position by declaring himself irreplaceable as Italy’s head of government, a court in Milan was told it had been “amply demonstrated” that he was guilty of bribery.
“I am, and not only in my own opinion, the best prime minister who could be found today,” he told a press conference. “I believe there is no one in history to whom I should feel inferior. Quite the opposite.”
The problem, he explained, was that “In absolute terms, I am the most legally persecuted man of all times, in the whole history of mankind, worldwide, because I have been subjected to more than 2,500 court hearings and I have the good luck — having worked well in the past and having accumulated an important wealth — to have been able to spend more than €200m in consultants and judges . . . I mean in consultants and lawyers.“
John Hooper, “Silvio Berlusconi: I am inferior to no one in history”, The Guardian, 2009-10-10
Will Cameron be the last PM of the United Kingdom?
Jackie Ashley (almost alone among British commentators, according to Charles Stross) examines the likely consequences of both the next British election and the promised-by-Tory-leader referendum on the European Union:
So the question facing the Tory leadership is quite clear: if, by next May, the Lisbon treaty has come into force and Europe has a new president, quite possibly Tony Blair, will Cameron keep his promise to hold a referendum? Yes or no? It’s a straightforward question. He knows that to do so would risk a huge row with the rest of Europe, and a fully operational treaty would be harder to unpick than one not yet signed. That’s why until now he has used the weaselly words that, if the treaty is signed, he would “not let matters rest there”.
Cameron also knows that many in his party, not least his would-be successor Boris Johnson, will push for a referendum and have the support of much of the media too. If Cameron appears to want to renege on his promise, he will provoke fury and rebellion on his own side. For now, his “wait and see” gambit is beginning to look indecisive. If he were Gordon Brown, he would undoubtedly be accused of dithering.
At the same time, Cameron is worrying about another referendum, one which may prove no less momentous for the future shape of Britain. He faces a two-sided constitutional struggle, looking south towards Europe — but also north towards the Scots.
The nightmare for Cameron is that, once George Osborne has revealed details of the cuts imposed by Tory Westminster on Scottish budgets, the SNP start to gain momentum for their proposed independence referendum. Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister and nobody’s fool, has been watching the Conservative agendas on cuts and on Europe with fascination.
The Scots will be having their own referendum on independence in 2011, and the Tories barely poll north of the River Tweed. Up in Scotland, it’s Labour and the Scottish Nationalist Party as the top two. Scotland is in an odd situation of having its own parliament, but also sending MPs to Westminster, where they can vote on issues affecting the rest of Britain, but non-Scottish MPs do not get to vote on Scottish issues.
Charles provides the odds:
The current government is a minority one (yes, we’ve got a hung parliament): the Scottish National Party are in charge, although they rely on other parties to get legislation passed. The SNP are formally in favour of outright independence for Scotland, as an EU member nation; and they’re committed to holding a referendum on independence in 2011, before the next election. (Labour and the Lib Dems oppose this. The Tories do too, but they’re so marginal that nobody pays any attention to them.)
Here’s the rub. As things stand, the SNP would lose a vote on independence at this point. But under a conservative government in Westminster — especially one that’s wielding the axe of public service cuts, which is going to happen whoever wins the election and which will disproportionately hit the less well off, which includes a lot of Scots — well, I’d handicap things by giving the pro-independence vote an automatic bonus of 10%.
A sensitive, caring, next-generation Conservative government will therefore be at pains to tread lightly north of the border, and to attempt to defuse nationalist sentiment. Or will it?
On the one hand, to give them their full title, they’re the Conservative and Unionist Party, dedicated to preserving the union. But if they cut Scotland loose, then, in a 650 seat parliamentary system, they lose 80 seats, 78 of which belong to their rivals. Leave aside the fact that Cameron is committed to reducing the number of constituency seats in the UK: the 10% of them elected by Scotland are overwhelmingly not conservative. Ditching them will give the Conservatives an electoral lift that will last for a generation.
That’s got to be a temptation, even to a leader who “loathes the idea of being the last ever prime minister of the United Kingdom”.
Dita’s two public images
Dita von Teese has had an unusual career path, from retro-40’s and 50’s style cheesecake model to having her own lingerie line with Wonderbra:
It’s not the usual style of clothing you would expect to see burlesque queen Dita Von Tesse [sic] wearing.
Clad in an outrageous Christian Lacroix wedding dress, the sultry fetish model poses during a fashion shoot in Paris for the latest edition of Harper’s Bazaar Russia.
The 37-year-old is covered from head-to-toe in the ivory-toned gown which is bejeweled with colourful roses and a headdress with a golf leaf design.
With her head tilted to one side, Von Tesse [sic] looks Madonna-like during the ‘Saint And Sinner’ themed fashion shoot, which launches her new Party Edition lingerie range for Wonderbra.
But she also reverts to form by wearing a provocative black outfit.
You tell ’em, Your Highness!
I’m not a reflexive royalist, but I’m very much in agreement with Prince Philip on this issue:
The Duke of Edinburgh has launched a scathing attack on the design of television remotes and controls.
The famously outspoken Duke, 88, criticised designers yesterday for making handsets small and complicated and for hiding controls on television sets.
His words gave an intriguing insight into life at Buckingham Palace.
He said: ‘To work out how to operate a TV set you practically have to make love to the thing. And why can’t you have a handset that people who are not 10 years old can actually read.
I’m not much of a TV watcher, so the few times I want to watch something on TV, there’s a 50/50 chance I’ll need to get technical assistance from Elizabeth or Victor. If the DVD player was the last component being used, the cable box may need to be rebooted. Usually, after rebooting, it’ll then need to be reconfigured to work with the TV set. Sometimes, the re-configuration needs to be done 2-3 times before it “sticks”. Even then, sometimes the TV doesn’t get a signal from the cable box, so the cable box has to be unplugged (so it loses its IP address from the cable provider) and then plugged in again (to get a new IP address). Then, if we’re lucky, it’ll connect properly and I can start to find the proper channel . . . it shouldn’t take 5-10 minutes of fiddling to turn on the bloody television!
And that’s ignoring the fact that none of the remotes does everything, so we use the cable box remote for most things, but the TV remote for widescreen/regular format and the DVD remote for pause/eject.
H/T to Elizabeth for the original link.
Update, February 2010: Apparently a lot of our issues were caused by the DVD player. We replaced it with a Blu-Ray player over Christmas, and we no longer have anything like the same sort of hassle. Still too many different remotes, but everything now works.
