This is pretty cool. The article concludes:
“The X-37B might lack a flashy name, a made-for-the-movies mission and public hoopla, but this space plane’s low profile might be just the thing that helps it beat the long odds and become a success.”
Actually, “X-37B” sounds exactly like the sort of name that Secret Projects have in science fiction. Perhaps it will be our first line of defense against The Reapers.
(Hat Tip to Huffington Post)
People are even comparing him to Obama.
This video has been getting a lot of attention today. Since I’ve been discussing the reasons for the Tea Party a lot lately, I thought I’d address it.
Much is made of the fact that the Tea Party members shown here are apparently unaware of the fact that their taxes are at present slightly lower.
Well, the obvious response must first point out that if anybody at this event did give a reasonable discourse on, for example, Ricardian Equivalence, it wouldn’t make this video, because of its makers’ stated agenda. Secondly, it must be pointed out he interviewed so few people that it’s hard to call it a significant sample. Lastly, most people become flustered when asked to speak on camera, and tend to babble a little. So, the bias of the piece makes it rather difficult to have any faith that we are getting a real representation of the Tea Party.
That isn’t to say that the video is worthless–the search for completely unbiased reporting is in any case, I think, quixotic. The bits that document the rehearsed performances and speeches are pretty effective in showing them to be rather silly. (As are similar things at Left-wing rallies, I’ll bet.) I found Lord Monckton’s little rallying cry about Fox News anchors to be fairly Orwellian.
Overall, I’d say it’s a useful piece of footage to some extent, but by no means should people go judging the Tea Party by it.
I must seem like a regular “Buchanan Brigade” member, as this is my third post about him in eight days. Nevertheless, his new article about the Tea Party is very interesting, and serves as an effective complement to John Nolte’s attempt to explain the Tea Party that I discussed the other day.
I think Buchanan has sort of articulated what Nolte left unsaid in his article that made it seem a tad vague to me. Like much of Buchanan’s work, it’s all very Spenglerian. Perhaps the Tea Party movement is animated by issues other than just obvious economic ones. After all, rarely do people get so stirred up over economic issues. (They don’t call it “the dismal science” for nothing.)
Then again, like I’ve said repeatedly, it could be Ricardian Equivalence at work.
The Supreme Court rules that videos of animal cruelty are protected by free speech:
“The ruling means that animal cruelty won’t be added to obscenity, fraud and the handful of other categories of constitutionally unprotected speech.”
(Italics mine.)
What do you think? Have they literally “screwed the pooch”?
William Saletan writes:
“There was no America, as a nation, until Britain foolishly behaved as Palin now wants America to behave. Her advice is a prescription for superpower suicide. If she understood the Boston Tea Party as more than a slogan, she’d know that.”
It seems to me like the British Empire declined for very long time–never completely ceasing to be an Empire until after World War II. So, if Saletan is right and Palin’s advice is indeed analogous to the British policy at the time of the Boston Tea Party, we’ve still got about 200 years left.
On the one hand, it’s tempting to give in to this idea that history repeats itself. On the other hand, it strikes me as a rather simplistic analysis. I’m no historian, but I do think that Britain’s superpower status should probably have an asterisk by it, because they almost never successfully beat any similarly-equipped enemy apart from (sometimes) the French. The United States has defeated most of Europe twice.
As an aside, Pat Buchanan–who I wrote a post about last week–has been saying for years that we’re behaving like the British Empire did to trigger its decline. Yet, he seems to be something of a fan of Palin.
(Hat Tip to Andrew Sullivan for the Saletan article.)
Well, I don’t know. But he sure didn’t want to say if President Obama was or not. Here is an excerpt from his interview yesterday on CBS news’ Face the Nation (My comments in red):
BOB SCHIEFFER: A large group of people in the Tea Party think the President is pushing the country towards socialism. Do you believe that?
SENATOR SCOTT BROWN: I know that the President should start to focus on jobs and job
creation and– and– and– and– and that hasn’t been done. [As Benjamin Bell pointed out, Brown voted for a “jobs bill”] Since I’ve been here we’ve done health care, which they obviously rammed through by using a parliamentary procedure that has never been used for something this big ever. And then the bill as we’re finding out is– is flawed, seriously flawed. It’s going to cost medical device companies in my state, you know, thousands of jobs. But then, we’re taking– we’re talking now about regulation reform. [At this point, it’s pretty clear he’s dodging the question.] We’re politicizing that. Maybe– I’ve heard illegal immigration is going to come forth. When we’re in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the only thing they talked about from the Presidents all the way down to the poorest farmer were jobs. Since I’ve been here, I’ve heard zero talk about jobs. [It’s occurring to you that you ought not to have voted for that bill, isn’t it?] So, I’ll let–leave that up to the political pundits, but I know from what I’ve seen that we need to focus on jobs and the President should start to do so.
SCHIEFFER: “But, do you decline to answer my question: is he pushing the country
towards socialism?” [Oh, dear, he’s making you answer the question.]
BROWN: “I don’t think he’s making proper choices when it comes to dealing with the– the free market and free enterprise and allowing businesses to– to really run themselves and create jobs. [So, would that be a “yes”?] And as a result, larger government is happening and we’re creating jobs but they’re all government jobs. And the private sector is definitely– definitely suffering.”
Hmmm. “Dealing with the free market”, eh?
Technically, if you subscribe to a free-market philosophy, you don’t deal with it if you’re in government. That’s the point. You get out of the way of the free market. If you watch the interview, you can see Brown catch himself here.
Scott Brown didn’t look too good to me in that interview, but then again,you’ve got to watch your words when you’re a Republican politician in Massachusetts. Perhaps I’m being too harsh. All politicians dodge questions; it’s just the politicians who don’t do it artfully (like Palin and now, it seems, Brown) who we call out for it.
Hard for me to decide at this point; but I will say this: Gordon Brown has anti-charisma. I don’t know about David Cameron, though.
This is the thing about televised debates: they give charismatic politicians a huge advantage.
Andrew Sullivan writes:
“Palin is not appealing to the Republican super-ego (in so far as one has survived the last ten years); she is directly, umbilically connected to the Republican id (and some other male organs). Her appeal is visceral not rational….
Who else puts all this together for the GOP? No one. Huckabee is crippled by a record of spending and leniency. Romney is crippled by being Mitt Romney and Mormonism. Pawlenty: seriously? Santorum? Ditto. Brown? We are beginning to see the depth of his predicament. DeMint? Rubio? C’mon.
Yes, many tea-partiers do not think Palin is “qualified” to be president. But primaries are won by enthusiasm and star power. Palin has both.”
In other words, she is charismatic. No other known Republican candidate right now is. Sullivan is right to think she has a legitimate shot.
That’s not to say she will be the nominee, of course. She might not be seeking it. She could command nearly as much influence over the political system with less work by continuing to do what she’s been doing. Indeed; in the past, this has been the way of charismatic women. They do not hold the political offices that men do; they instead serve as symbolic figureheads for a movement. That’s hard to do if you’re going to be President.
It doesn’t help her cause that if she did run for President, she’d be going up against an opponent who is stunningly charismatic in his own right. I have to admit that, given the power of charisma that I have cataloged on this blog, it would be interesting to see a Palin vs. Obama election in 2012.
Kurt Schlichter at Big Hollywood asks how people who support Polanski can be for arresting the Pope:
“I don’t know what the Pope did or didn’t do – that’s for the police to deal with, along with the Catholic Church and even God Himself. The chips will fall where they may. But I know what Roman Polanski did, because he confessed to it and then ran away. And no matter how wonderful and transcendent an artist he is supposed to be – I think he’s generally a hack – the same standard applies to him that applies to everyone else.”
Schlichter also criticizes Christopher Hitchens for his plot to arrest the Pope. (Interestingly, he doesn’t seem to point out that Hitchens himself is firmly in the anti-Polanski camp.)
However, Schlichter is right in that this provides a fascinating test of where people stand in the so-called “Culture War”. Many leftist types want Polanski to go free, and favor punishing the Pope. And indeed, this is hypocrisy. But it also reveals much about how each side thinks. Let’s compare the two men’s crimes:
–Polanski drugged and raped a child while they were both under the influence of alcohol. When a Judge reneged on his sentence, he panicked and fled the country.
–The Pope is head of an institution that has, apparently for a very long time, been covering for its child-raping members. The present Pope himself has apparently personally signed off on these cover-ups. It’s important to point out, however, that this is technically irrelevant. Even if he hadn’t, it’s his responsibility as head of the organization.
Polanski’s crimes are those of an individual against a society–an institution. Though he clearly harmed an individual, that individual subsequently forgave him. But, as those who want to punish Polanski correctly note, her forgiveness does not matter. The point of punishing him is to uphold the law, to protect society as a whole from such criminals.
The Pope’s crimes are those of an institution against individuals. Therefore, the people who are pro-Polanski and anti-Pope are, by and large, hedonists and anarchists. The people who are pro-Pope and anti-Polanski are rigorous authoritarians.
My position is that both Polanski and the Pope have committed serious crimes, and both ought to be punished for them. Those on the Right, of course, are loath to admit that an Establishment is corrupt; those on the Left are seemingly in total denial that their anti-Establishment artist actually committed a horrible crime.
