Shimmy dance technique

My latest Research magazine piece, "When Florida Sizzled," about Florida's real estate boom of the 1920s, is now online. Excerpt:

During the winter of 1925, visitors to the new Florida town of Coral Gables were treated to a curious spectacle. There was former Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate and one of the best-known politicians in the United States, sitting under an umbrella touting the attractions of Florida real estate, including its ample access to what Bryan called “God’s sunshine.”

Bryan had been hired by George Edgar Merrick, Coral Gables’ founder, to make daily pitches for the development. The famed orator, moreover, was followed by another crowd-pleaser, shimmy dancer Gilda Gray, who as American Heritage magazine recounted decades later, “shook her chemise with such gusto that it took the viewers’ minds off the prices quoted for lots by salesmen circulating through the audience.”

Whole thing here.

Moon movie

Saw Moon last night. For a while, it was slow and downbeat, borderline depressing, but the ending was excellent and put the whole thing in a better light. In any event, there was nowhere to go but up after some of our recent filmgoing.

Greenhouse non-treason

I'm a pro-nuclear power guy, and I've long been a fan of Glenn Reynolds, notwithstanding my recent criticism here. But referring to a lack of pro-nuclear enthusiasm as "greenhouse treason," even with a waffling question mark, is the kind of inflammatory vehemence that will aid Obama's reelection chances, as people conclude he's better than his over-the-top opponents.

UPDATE: I've thought about this some more, and concluded I missed Reynolds' attempted irony, with the "treason" being to the cause of reducing greenhouse gases, rather than to the U.S. Still, I'd keep the word "treason" out of my political commentary, unless it refers to, you know, treason.

UPDATE 2: And, doing a search on "greenhouse treason," I gather the phrase stems from this bit of Krugmanesque nonsense.

Moon after 2028

Some dreary news:

NASA's goal of putting astronauts back on the moon by 2020 is all but impossible to achieve, a presidential panel was told Wednesday.

An independent study concluded there is little hope NASA could replicate anytime soon what Apollo accomplished 40 years ago. And sources said an undisclosed part of the study showed another moon shot won't happen before 2028 -- nearly 50 years after America's first moon landing.

The political party that manages to fix this, including through privatization, will reap benefits.

And you know this how?

Pravda: Still not an entirely reliable source of information.

Headline: "Life on Mars To Be Found in 2018."

Instapundit shrugs

I'm surprised at the obtuseness of this Glenn Reynolds comment:

VARIOUS PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SENDING ME THIS DAVID FRUM PIECE. I do think that there are a some cheerfully-gloomy folks on the Right, people who would rather talk about how things are going down the tubes than, you know, actually do anything about it. I don’t know why Frum picked Mark Levin as an example, though. Even Levin’s detractors would admit that he’s a fighter, not a Gloomy Gus. And if you actually read Liberty and Tyranny — as I did for my Levin interview, it’s clearly a call to action, not a counsel of despair. What’s more, if you look at things like the Tea Party movement, which Levin supports, there are obvously a lot of people out there doing things, and having fun doing them.

Which is more than you can say for Frum, lately. The tone of his stuff seems closer to the problem he diagnoses than does Levin’s. Pundit, heal thyself.

Frum doesn't criticize Levin for not being "a fighter." He criticizes him for being a hysteric. Sure, Levin wants "action" and he's shouting at the top of his lungs for it. Here's an example of his persuasive rhetoric: "Well I don’t know why your husband doesn’t put a gun to his temple. Get the hell out of here." It's not quite "doing things and having fun doing them."

Palin postscript

Karol Markowicz has a thoughtful, nuanced -- and ultimately negative -- post about Sarah Palin. My take on it is that if Palin has lost Karol, her political career (Palin's, I mean) really is over.

Undocumented visitations

"Have We Ever Been Visited by Extraterrestrials?" Unfortunately I probably won't be attending the upcoming Lolita Bar debate, though I expect it will be interesting. As if often the case, interpretation of the debate question's wording makes a difference; who are "we" and do we really mean "ever"? A starship passing by while Australopithecus was foraging strikes me as less hard to believe than some scenarios.

A later debate will cover the supposed conundrum of whether Obama is a natural-born citizen. I would find that interesting only if it turns out aliens stole the long-form birth certificate.

NGC 1097 is watching

A terrific picture from the Spitzer Space Telescope. Info here.

Garden State

New Jersey politics. One day you're being sworn in as Hoboken's new 32-year-old mayor. A few weeks later, you're under arrest by the FBI.

About 30 people, including some New Jersey mayors and several rabbis, were arrested Thursday in a federal investigation of public corruption, the U.S. attorney's office in Newark, New Jersey, said.

The probe also involves a "high-volume, international money-laundering conspiracy," according to a statement from the office.

Among those arrested in the public corruption portion of the investigation are Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano III, Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, New Jersey Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt and Leona Beldini, a Jersey City deputy mayor.

In case readers are wondering, most of the people mentioned above are Democrats, but Van Pelt is a Republican.

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.