Pure-strain Clinton Road fetish

Apparently Larry Summers sees cause of optimism in a decline in the number of Google searches for "economic depression." Maybe. I find a noticeable slice of my modest traffic results from people searching for "recession comparison." However, that remains small compared to the more popular subjects of "Clinton Road, New Jersey," "pure-strain gold" and "catwoman fetish."

I do notice this, however: Far fewer people than last year are searching for "Palin Roslin."

Jupiter defense

It appears an asteroid or comet has hit Jupiter. We are, all of us, fortunate that Jupiter is there, since its gravitation pulls in objects that might otherwise make it to the inner solar system and hit Earth. However, we can't rely on Jove to do the job in all cases, so developing some defensive capability of our own would be a wise approach.

Birth-certificate madness

It's hard to think what better friends the Obama administration could have than these people. Right now, Obama is losing popularity, because of justified concerns about Obamacare, cap-and-trade and other policy initiatives. What the Republicans need to do is present a reasonable alternative. Instead, we have these birth-certificate cretins foaming at the mouth.




Via Little Green Footballs and the Washington Independent.

Apollo and Mars

George Musser, friend and colleague from Scientific American, points out that the U.S. might already be on Mars, if we'd built on the Apollo technology rather than replacing it with the shuttle. Harrison Schmitt made a similar point to me in my piece on Apollo missions that never flew -- though Schmitt, unlike Buzz Aldrin, thinks bypassing the moon now to aim at Mars would be a mistake. I tend to think Mars just isn't going to happen anytime soon, and that learning how to live on and use the resources of the moon will get humans to Mars in due course. Back in the 1990s, I was persuaded otherwise for a while by Robert Zubrin's arguments for a direct-to-Mars approach, but the nineties were a heady time and some realism is needed as well.

Republican scientists redux

For a sampling of conservatism's dismal state today, check out this Free Republic thread about my article on scientists and Republicans. A consensus quickly formed there that the Pew poll, showing only 6 percent of scientists to be Republicans, was distorted because it focused on government and academic scientists, not engineering types employed by industry. The Freepers failed to notice that the poll did a breakout of party affiliations among scientists by employment sector.



So there you have it -- a whopping 10 percent of industry-employed scientists are Republicans. Can such horrendous numbers be improved? Only if conservatism moves away from the dumbed-down, ears-closed, eyes-shut know-nothingism of, for instance, Free Republic.

Astronaut-scientist-politician

Harrison Schmitt, whom I interviewed for my Apollo piece, has a lot of interesting ideas about future exploration. Think what a space program we'd have had if he'd become president. And even with just a longer time in the Senate, he would have done much to prevent the current Republican-scientist divide.

Canceled Apollo missions

To mark the upcoming 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, I wrote a piece for Scientific American about the Apollo missions that never flew. Excerpt:

When Apollo 11 landed on the moon, NASA's plan was to continue manned lunar missions through Apollo 20. But history turned out differently. The last three missions, still in planning stages, were canceled. Hardware that would have flown to the moon ended up as museum exhibits. And scientists and space enthusiasts were left to contemplate what Apollos 18 through 20 might have accomplished.

Whole thing here: "Down to Earth: The Apollo Moon Missions That Never Were."

WWI radio

Tonight I appeared on the Gabe Wisdom Show to talk about finance and the First World War. Audio of the interview is currently available here. UPDATE: And will soon be available here.

Republican science row

My post at New Majority on "Why Scientists Hate Republicans" is up. Excerpt:

The Pew Research Center has come out with a poll comparing scientists’ attitudes (on scientific and other matters) with those of the general public. Among its revelations was that Republicans comprise 6 percent of scientists. That’s not a typo. Meanwhile, 55 percent of the scientists polled were Democrats, 32 percent were independents, and others were none of the above.

Throw in the scientists who are independents but lean toward a party, and the numbers change only modestly: the GOP figure goes up to 12 percent, while the Democrats get 81 percent.

The rest includes some thoughts on what to do about it.

King Tut book

Current reading: In the Valley of the Kings: Howard Carter and the Mystery of King Tutankhamun's Tomb, by Daniel Meyerson. Some parts are more interesting than others, but I guess archaeology is like that.

Republican scientists: there could be more of them

From a new Pew Research Center survey of scientists:

Only 6 percent of the scientists surveyed were Republicans? If that's reflective of scientists overall, it's a problem for Republicans. But it's also a lost opportunity when you consider that on some issues, Republican views match scientists' preferences pretty well. Consider this table:

If Republicans talked more about nuclear power, particularly as being part of the mix needed to address the possible consequences of the Earth getting warmer, it would be a lot harder to characterize Republicans as the know-nothing party on science. Throw space solar power and algae biodiesel into the mix, and you have the beginnings of a pro-science Republican energy policy.

UPDATE 7/15: I've got a good deal more on this here.

Young Earth assumption

"This Earth's been here 6,000 years ... it's been here 6,000 years, long before anybody had environmental laws, and somehow it hasn't been done away with." -- Arizona State Sen. Sylvia Allen (R), providing an example of why Republicans currently are not winning the college-educated vote.



Via Little Green Footballs and Bad Astronomy.

Tangled strands of libertarianism

Via Arnold Kling, I came across Tyler Cowen's list of five strands of libertarianism: (1) Cato-influenced; (2) Rothbardian anarchism; (3) Mises Institute nationalism; (4) Jeff Friedman and Critical Review; and (5) "Hayek libertarianism."

The list strikes me as a bit odd. The Rothbardian and Mises Institute strands strike me as basically the same thing (and "nationalism" seems a misnomer for the latter), and there seems to be a good deal of overlap between the Cato-influenced and "Hayekian" (not sure why that's in quotes) strands. As for Jeff Friedman and Critical Review, they don't impress me as very important, though that may reflect some (rational?) ignorance on my part.

One could come up with a simpler categorization scheme (e.g. "hard" versus "soft" libertarianism, distinguished by their radicalism or moderation) or a more complicated one (with say left-libertarianism and conservative fusionism as categories). But however you slice it, libertarianism means a lot of different things, many of them mutually incompatible.

For my part, I want nothing to do with Cowen's strands 2 and 3, but think 1 and 5 have much to offer (especially if they don't succumb to getting entangled with strands 2 and 3, as Reason magazine did for much of last year with its ill-considered touting of Ron Paul).

Renewable energy fiasco

Renewable energy is quickly shaping up as a case study in how government takes difficult problems and makes them worse. From a WSJ news piece:

The U.S. government stimulus package passed in February promised to reinvigorate the renewable-energy industry with new capital and programs, but the prospect of large flows of government money to the industry is holding up private-sector investment.

New incentive programs haven't yet been defined, and uncertainty about program rules has deterred investors from backing companies that also may get government money. At the same time, companies are holding off from accepting private capital because of the possibility of getting it more cheaply from the government.

"It artificially slowed the recovery," Matt Cheney, chief executive of Renewable Ventures, the U.S. subsidiary of Fotowatio SL, a Spanish developer of renewable-energy projects, said of the stimulus plan.

Bureaucratic inertia is the ultimate renewable.

New Majority redux

Take a look at the revamped New Majority. A new format and a continuing mission of trying to penetrate the cotton that currently fills many conservative ear canals and heads. At least that's my take on it, and I'm glad to have some involvement.

Where Rumsfeld went wrong

My review of By His Own Rules: The Ambitions, Successes, and Ultimate Failures of Donald Rumsfeldis up at New Majority. Excerpt:

Bradley Graham’s By His Own Rules is a valuable, thorough and fair-minded look at the long career of Donald Rumsfeld, with particular emphasis on Rumsfeld’s tenure at the Pentagon in the Bush years. The story that emerges is that of an intelligent, hard-working, innovative, abrasive, blinkered and oddly indecisive secretary of defense, whose failings contributed to catastrophe in Iraq.

Whole thing here.

Powell transmogrified

Colin Powell is right, both as Obama critic and as celestial entity.

Regarding Palin

It seems to me that this most likely is the end of her political career. The core complaints against her are that she doesn't have enough experience for national office, and that she's an erratic personality. I don't see how resigning counteracts those critiques. Caveat: A really erratic politician might think she can win despite the above.

Lolita doom debate audio

For those who missed last night's Debate at Lolita Bar on "Is America Economically Doomed?" -- or who just want to relive the experience -- I've posted audio (sound quality imperfect despite my growing amateur audio engineering skills) at the following links:

Part 1.

Part 2.

The files will be there for 30 days from whenever last downloaded, although they may also find a more permanent home.

I voted yes, by the way, despite having some disagreements with both sides.

Divine intervention

I'm usually skeptical when people claim that God advised them to take a particular political position. But in this case, the advice seems pretty good.