Five spiral crash defined

As a consequence of my last post, it seems a number of readers are coming to my humble blog seeking a definition of "five spiral crash." Well, I'd never heard the term before either, but I gather it's the sort of thing aviators (as George W. Bush once was) might say about a plane spiraling downward a number of times before ending up like this.

Bush on cluelessness, cruel hoax, etc.

George W. Bush made his share of mistakes. More than his share. But I think he comes across here as pretty perceptive overall:

Latimer said Bush liked Mitt Romney best and that he was "clearly not impressed with the McCain operation." Latimer said the former president wanted to appear with McCain at a campaign event in Phoenix, but after he was told the then-Republican nominee couldn't get enough people to show up, he called it a "cruel hoax."

"'He couldn't get 500 people? I could get that many people to turn out in Crawford.' He shook his head. 'This is a five-spiral crash, boys.'"

Bush presumed Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee, according to Latimer, and was extremely critical of Barack Obama. Latimer said Bush was "ticked off" after one of Obama's speeches and he said the future president wasn't "remotely qualified" for the challenges of the job.

"(Bush) came in one day to rehearse a speech, fuming. 'This is a dangerous world,' he said for no apparent reason, 'and this cat isn't remotely qualified to handle it. This guy has no clue, I promise you,'" Latimer said.

Latimer also made the controversial assertion that after Sarah Palin was tapped as McCain's running mate, Bush reportedly asked whether she was "the governor of Guam" and said that she was "not even remotely prepared." A former Bush and Palin aide has challenged the accuracy of the charge.

Me: that would be former governor of Guam now.

Meanwhile on Saturn

A lightning storm's been going on for eight months.

Kling on crisis causes

Recommended reading: "Not What They Had in Mind: A History of Policies that Produced the Financial Crisis of 2008," by Arnold Kling. Anyone thinking the crisis boils down to some simple cause or two, or that it can aptly be blamed either on "government" or "the market" to the exclusion of the other, should read this fascinating paper.

Republican slouching?

Current reading: Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party, by Max Blumenthal. It's a leftist view of the religious right. As I'm not a fan of leftists or the religious right, it'll probably leave me with some mixed emotions. But we'll see. I note that it opens with a discussion of R.J. Rushdoony, whom I'd long thought of as a fairly marginal (albeit deeply reprehensible) figure. (Walter Olson wrote an eye-opening article about Rushdoony and his Christian Reconstructionism for Reason back in 1998.)

Space solar skepticism

Some skepticism about space-based solar power here. I find the email from Martin Hoffert particularly interesting. He's concerned that promises of near-term viability, as with the PG&E project, will damage the genuinely promising long-term prospect of beaming solar power to Earth. That strikes me as plausible. 2016 is not very far away, though a lot could happen over a longer time -- albeit not necessarily "50 years from now (or maybe never), long after the climate is destroyed," as Joe Romm puts it. Meanwhile, building more nuclear plants would be wise.

American Thinker v Frum

When you don't have much of an argument, you can always just point out your opponent is Canadian, as one J.R. Dunn at the American Thinker says of David Frum. Actually, "Canadian-born U.S. citizen" would've been a better description of Frum, per Wikipedia, though I must admit I never demanded David's papers before I started writing for New Majority.

As for the claim that NM is "not accomplishing much" in trying to revamp conservatism, I would think conservatives of all people should be wary of counting out any motivated group trying to redirect a political party in a different ideological direction. Who would've thought the Goldwater campaign and people around it had accomplished much of anything, circa Nov. 3, 1964?

Cirque in space

This is interesting:

The Canadian billionaire founder of Cirque du Soleil said on Thursday he would fly into space later this month to show a fairy tale dream can come true -- and would put on a show while there.

Guy Laliberte, 50, known worldwide for his innovative circus shows, said he was taking nine clown noses into orbit to bring the International Space Station's entire crew into another novel performance, to be webcast live on www.onedrop.org site on October 9.

One of the keys to space exploration's future is making it entertaining (and I don't say this as a complaint); clown shows in orbit, customer-operated rovers on the moon, it's all good.

UPDATE 9/11: Some more on private-sector space in the Economist: "Flying High."

Inflation's meaning(s)

Since much criticism (here, for example) of my End the Fed review has focused on my criticism of Ron Paul for defining inflation as any expansion of the money supply, I refer critics to this paper (PDF, and yes, it's from the hated Fed) "On the Origin and Evolution of the Word Inflation." In brief, the classical economists of the 19th and early 20th century regarded inflation as too much money circulating, not as any increase in the money supply. Example:

…inflation occurs when, at a given price level, a country’s circulating media— cash and deposit currency—increase relatively to trade needs. (Emphasis in original.)
—Edwin Walter Kemmerer (1918)

Paul, by contrast, defines inflation as monetary expansion in absolute terms, and that's why it's a neologism -- it reflects neither the widely accepted modern definition (general increase in prices) nor the classical view.

Yes, I work for the Illuminati

At Scientific American, Michael Shermer has a column on a subject of no small importance these days: "Why People Believe in Conspiracies."

Health care history

I missed Obama's speech tonight because I was too busy watching a DVD of I Claudius, but my radio interview of last night on the history of health care politics is available temporarily here.

Financial history readings

Greetings, Ron Paul fans and others. While you're here, you might want to click through to some of my articles on financial history. For example, here's one on Alexander Hamilton (not the villain you've been taught he was on the LewRockwell blog), another on the Panic of 1907 (some background on why there is a Fed) and one on World War I and the gold standard (note that a great deal of government activism was required to keep the standard in place).

Ron Paul review

Over at New Majority, I review Ron Paul's fatuous anti-Fed book.

Be careful with that canister

Highly recommended: District 9. There are moments in that movie where you're just rooting for the right characters to be vaporized.

Nixon on health care

Via Tyler Cowen, I find Richard Nixon' s proposal for universal health care coverage. I note only that it has a funny line near the end:

The plan that I am proposing today is, I believe, the very best way. Improvements can be made in it, of course....

I'll be talking about health care reform history on the Gabe Wisdom Show on Tuesday, 9/8 at 7pm ET.

End Fed book

Current reading: End the Fed, by Ron Paul. According to a blurb, Arlo Guthrie had his mind changed by it. I will read it closely.

UPDATE: My review is here.

Lighting watch

Those of us who've married into the lighting-design world take a particular amusement at this:

Ideal use for compact fluorescents: 'As lighting to interview my daughter's boyfriends...'

Next Right is right

Mark me down as a Jon Henke fan. WorldNetDaily is an embarrassment to conservatism and, for that matter, humanity.

Europa vanishing

Some more news about Europa: it's disappearing tonight, along with Jupiter's other Galilean moons.

String theory and the Fed

This comment, posted by a Murray Rothbard/Ron Paul enthusiast in reply to my post here, sets a new standard for incoherence. Excerpt:

Okay, so if you're to accept one of the 26 dimensions of the string theory being tossed around, perhaps one of those can be a flat universe, with 3rd dimension equaling time, instead of the 4th. Who knows, you may be correct in that universe. But, that's a hypothetical based on an unproven hypothetical theory. And, that's how much stock I put in your uninformed, misinformed denial of the FACT that the FED is private entity.