AFP:
“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.
I would prefer that our government focused on ways to improve our quality of life, rather then actively working to make us unable to drive, hungry, and cold.
And if any of you think that these sort of problems are unavoidable, read this first (via Instapundit)
Like plenty of other toy guns, the Nerf N-Strike Vulcan EBF-25 Blaster ($40, nerf.com) has a pneumatic pump that’s used to fire off single rounds.
But six D batteries turn the hybrid Blaster into a foam-shooting tommy gun—feeding a 25-dart belt through a fully automatic chamber at more than two shots per second. The result: the fastest, most powerful Nerf gun ever and the one best equipped for mowing down moving targets.
Gonna have to get one!
In a much-anticipated ruling issued Thursday, the California Supreme Court struck down the states ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional.
Several gay and lesbian couples, along with the city of San Francisco and gay rights groups, sued to overturn state laws allowing only marriages between a man and a woman.
“There can be no doubt that extending the designation of marriage to same-sex couples, rather than denying it to all couples, is the equal protection remedy that is most consistent with our states general legislative policy and preference,” said the 120-page ruling.
It said that the state laws language “limiting the designation of marriage to a union between a man and a woman is unconstitutional, and that the remaining statutory language must be understood as making the designation of marriage available to both opposite-sex and same-sex couples.”
I happen to be in favor of gay marriage, I am convinced that it does little if any harm, and considerable good in promoting equality and freedom. However, I don’t think that this sort of court decision is a good way to achieve that goal, especially over the express will of the populace, as the people of California have already demonstrated.
One place where I break from many conservatives is on immigration. This morning I saw a particularly bad argument from Mark Steyn (via Instapundit) on The Corner on National Review Online
When advanced economies admit ever larger numbers of unskilled workers (plus a chain of relatives through “family reunification”), they are importing poverty. The President says this is to do “the jobs Americans won’t do”. For the sake of argument, take him at his word. So why won’t Americans do them? Because they’re a great way to ensure you live in poverty. So we import foreigners to be our poor people. Can we import just the right number to ensure that poverty doesn’t “grow”? Unlikely.
There are arguments to be made both for and against immigration, but you can’t be in favor of mass unskilled immigration and then pledge to fight the “war on poverty”. It’s like spooning out a bathtub with a thimble while leaving the faucets running.
The first statement is unagruably true. Allowing in a lot of poor people is indeed importing poverty (something like, give us your poor.) However, many of us believe, myself included, that a whole lot of the poverty in the world is because of bad systems. Totalitarianism or simple garden variety corruption that stifles innovation and free enterprise, trapping millions of people into abject poverty.
What is particularly disturbing about this argument though, the idea that ‘fighting poverty’ and bringing poor people into our own country is somehow incompatible is that it is first based upon some idea that poverty we don’t have to look at doesn’t exist. One way to fight poverty, probably the most effective and cheapest way, is to allow poor people trapped by destructive systems to move to a place where those systems are less destructive.
Indeed, this method usually is not only ‘free,’ it is an economic benefit to the nation accepting these people. Yes, when they come here they are only able to get ‘poor’ jobs, but they, and their children, are now in a system where much more of their potential can flourish, unleashing the human energy and creativity. As an added bonus, the sort of people that are willing to leave the comforts of their own culture and try for a better future are exactly the sort of people that you can expect to produce economic growth. They represent the essence of American values. I want more of that type of person in my nation, as their economic activities both now and in the future, will raise my standard of living.
(Steyn’s post is apparently jumping off from this post by Mark Krikorian which is even worse)
Soldiers, paramilitary police and civilian rescue workers struggled against rainstorms and fog Tuesday to reach thousands of people trapped under the rubble of schools, hospitals and residences collapsed by Mondays deadly earthquake in central China.
The death toll exceeded 12,000 and was expected to rise as rescue efforts continued and the scope of the damage became clearer, particularly in hard-hit Sichuan province. The official New China News Agency reported that more than 18,000 were trapped under debris in Mianyang City. Another 2,000 people were found dead and 4,800 were missing in the little town of Mianzhu, near the quakes epicenter in Wenchuan county, the news agency reported.
The quake measured 7.9 on the Richter scale as it rolled through a half-dozen Chinese provinces and rattled buildings as far away as Vietnam.
Its been a pretty bad month for natural disasters, lets hope there won’t be any more for a while.
I recieved my Kindle yesterday, the e-book reader from Amazon.
So far, I love it. It is great for just sitting and reading, the device ‘dissappears’ and after a few minutes it feels just like reading a book, except it is even less intrusive as the page turning is just a twitch of the thumb. The ability to purchase e-books from Amazon and get them instantly is also great, although I view that feature with some trepidation, as I fear how much money I will spend that way.
I haven’t really played around with the web interface very much, seems functional but only barely and I can get to my gmail account no problem. That isn’t really what I want the device for, but it is a nice little bonus feature.
The main thing for me is being able to read absolutely comfortably, both from a visual perspective and also different positions and stuff. I often read several hours a day, and if Kindle didn’t ‘work’ for that, I would be very unhappy. Thankfully though, it is supperior, rather then inferior to a book in that regard. It is easy to hold and turn pages in just one hand, and equally easy for left hand or right hand use. It is about as light as an average paperback book.
The second thing that I was looking for is portability and storage. Since I already have a full room in my house that is overflowing with my books, being able to start converting my library to an electronic format is a huge plus. Being able to take a couple thousand books with me in my pocket is also pretty cool.
The only thing that I regard as a downside in converting to Kindle is the ability to loan books to my friends. I think pretty much all of my friends have gotten involved in a series or two based upon my loaning them of a book to get started with. Beyond the simple joy of sharing something nice, this also leads to a lot of enjoyable discussions and speculation sessions. Doing that with the kindle is of course pretty much impossible, but we’ll see how much that matters over time. Perhaps I will resort to giving more books as gifts to keep that dynamic going.
As of right now anyway, I am very happy with the device.
The Chaitén volcano in southern Chile blasted ash and what appeared to be lava a dozen miles into the air on Tuesday, leading the government to order the immediate and complete evacuation of everyone living within a 30-mile radius of it.
Until now considered to be inactive, Chile’s Chaitén volcano erupted Friday and led to the evacuation of everyone living within a 30-mile radius of it.
Preceded by dozens of tremors, the volcano — until now considered inactive — began erupting last Friday. It covered about 60 square miles with more than 15 inches of ash, rendering the air unbreathable, contaminating water sources, killing livestock and destroying all small- and medium-scale agriculture in this rural and mostly impoverished area 800 miles south of the capital, Santiago.
Having been ashed on by two volcanos myself, Mt. Saint Helens and Mt. Pinatubo, I have a fair amount of sympathy for the people facing this disaster.
Russia’s deployment of extra troops in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia has brought the prospect of war “very close”, a minister of ex-Soviet Georgia said on Tuesday.
Separately, in comments certain to fan rising tension between Moscow and Tbilisi, the “foreign minister” of the breakaway Black Sea region was quoted as saying it was ready to hand over military control to Russia.
“We literally have to avert war,” Temur Iakobashvili, a Georgian State Minister, told reporters in Brussels.
Asked how close to such a war the situation was, he replied: “Very close, because we know Russians very well.”
Of course one hopes that such a thing can be averted. Conflict between Georgia and Russia could have all sorts of negative consequences.
Today’s primaries prompted a few thoughts that I think are worth sharing.
If the Democratic Party has any one unifying theme, it is providing influence and power to those who are marginalized by society. The downside of this, is that the marginalized by society are quite likely to make bad decisions. In some cases this is a result of the marginalization (less educational opportunities, a worse home environment) and in other cases the marginalization is a result of poor decisions. Now of course luck exists, some people are bad off simply because of some bad breaks, but in general I think this holds true.
It is curious, to me at least, that the Democratic nomination process almost explicity acknowledges this fact, Super delegates are able to ’save the party’ from the poor decisions of its members.
I noted to some friends during the 2000 Florida election debate how interesting it was that the tactics of the two parties actually mirrored some of their core philosophies. The Democrats basically took that line that people needed help to vote correctly, and every effort should be undertaken to provide that help, while Republicans provided a narrative that people should be self reliant and if they can’t follow the rules, then their votes shouldn’t count. I don’t know if the arguments would have been different if the situations were reversed of course, but I do find it somewhat comforting that even in a fairly legalistic argument the core values of each party were reflected.
I think that the Democratic Primary process is another example of this. It both reflects the desire of the party to provide a voice for those who are weak, and a desire to protect those same people from their own decisions. Now, I have some disagreements with this philosophy, and I have even more disagreements with how it is often implimented, but it is nice for me to see the consistancy of this philosophy with the proceedures set up by the party, even in such an arcane area as nominee selection.
I expect that Clinton will win Indiana by about 7 or 8 points and that Obama will win North Carolina, but only by about two or three points. This result won’t change the dynamics in the race all that much, but it will certainly give Clinton plenty of reason to continue, especially considering that not to long ago Obama was up in North Carolina by 20 points.
If Clinton actually pulls off a victory in North Carolina, a long shot, but not impossible, I think it will be a very big deal, perhaps enough to convince the needed Super-Delegates to swing to her side. Of course if she loses both, her campaign is probably over.
It will be interesting to watch what happens.
