Solar

I have long been a fervent advocate for the solar grand plan. One of its major flaws, however, is that it assumes technological advancement. This is a just criticism. But lo and behold, even without the level of investment the plan would have brought, the much lower current funding for research has yielded much, much cheaper solar cells that will soon be just as efficient (~20%) as the expensive current silicon ones. The copper-indium-diselinide cells don't need to be vacuum-processed and just just poured and baked (essentially). In a few months, their efficiency has improved from 1% to 9%, and the researchers are optimistic (reasonably so) that the cells will hit 20% within a few years.

A Few Things

I have read the whole internet and here are some things.

Bradford Plumer at TNR about cap-and-trade and how it's worked in Europe.

Gerard Magliocco at Concurring Opinions on different "canonical statutes" that are considered sacrosanct.

Daniel Indiviglio at Atlantic Business on how the unemployment stats are quite off, and how it will spike quite high when matters improve (deceptively). Look for it as an empirical sign of an improving economy.

David Kahane at the National Review is sickeningly filled with hatred for liberals. It's a disgusting bile-filled slab of venom prompted by what he sees as unjust attacks on good ol' Palin by the elitest media. I am not exaggerating.

Stanley Fish (an epic name and a legend in his own time) points out in the Times that the stumbling and shocking nature of the Sanford passionate interview and the Palin stuttering resignation are prompted by genuine emotion, and that shouldn't be overlooked.

Google is releasing an operating system, and the Atlantic Business does a pair of gimmicky posts for both pro and con, and neither one is actually insightful or worth reading. Read the Opinionator about it instead, since it's as good as the Opinionator usually is.

Wonkette mocks Brian Kilmeade from Fox and Friends for accidentally being a hilarious eugenicist

Only one guy voted against a bill in Congress designed to commemorate slave labor's role in the creation of the Capitol, Steve King (R-IA). He says he voted against it to protect our "Judeo-Christian heritage." He goes with Bachmann in the crazy hyperchristian category, a populous segment of politicians.

Conservative Reactions to Palin Resignation

Jonah Goldberg (author of Liberal Fascism and asshole) thinks it's maybe his fault because of his advice to her earlier that day (that seems to mostly just be a rehash of Roger Simon's Politico piece), but still doesn't understand.

Well, aside from my timing being impeccable, the best I can say is I'm flabbergasted.

Not running again could make sense as a pre-presidential move. Resigning strikes me as very strange.

Mark Steyn of the National Review thinks it was stupid.

As a political move for anything other than the 2010 Senate race, today's announcement is a disaster. And I'm not sure it's a plus for the Senate - and, even if it were, the manner and timing suggest it was not a professionally planned event and therefore is unlikely to have any grand strategy behind it.

Bill Kristol of the Sarah Palin Fan Club thinks it's great.

After all, she's freeing herself from the duties of the governorship. Now she can do her book, give speeches, travel the country and the world, campaign for others, meet people, get more educated on the issues - and without being criticized for neglecting her duties in Alaska. I suppose she'll take a hit for leaving the governorship early - but how much of one? She's probably accomplished most of what she was going to get done as governor, and is leaving a sympatico lieutenant governor in charge.

Kellyanne Conway of WomanTrend, a polling company, thinks it's about protecting her family and it's swell.

But, as a private citizen, Governor Palin can unbind her hands, quit swallowing hard, and respond. She can also make a boatload of money with a bestseller or two, a spot on the speaking circuit, and a steady media gig. Palin can steep herself in foreign policy, become an advocate for issues that people actually care about — like special-needs children, a cause for which savaging her would be difficult — and help a national Republican party that is in no position to turn away any volunteers, let alone one for whom thousands cheer at events.

Mary Matalin, noted political consultant and lich, hates Barack Obama and forgot to say anything about Palin.

As we have been saying for decades, elections have consequences, and we are now experiencing the scariest consequence of an election in decades. This president is reordering, at warp speed, the relationship between lawmakers and citizens; he is reshaping the role and scope of a constitutional order two centuries in the making.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) thinks Palin sucks.

I am deeply disappointed that the Governor has decided to abandon the State and her constituents before her term has concluded.

Palin Resigned

Sarah Palin resigned. No one knows why. It surprised everyone in the local Republican party, her spokesperson, her Lieutenant Governor (soon to be Governor), and pretty much the nation. She wasn't under investigation, so this wasn't damage control.

It seems to me that this is pretty obviously her crazy impulsiveness. She quit her job as mayor of Wasilla before she finished, and she quit from the state petroleum board - it's pretty clear that when she sees a bigger goal possible, she is inclined to drop her responsibilities and go for it. She'll certainly make a lot of money and she can spin it enough with her fanatical base so that she'll be okay politically. But I think she has again miscalculated badly: this ends her 2012 hopes, if she still harbors them.

Sanford's Victimization by teh Gayz, Palin Infighting, and Glenn Beck

Let's just let this stand alone and appreciate it. Rush Limbaugh claims that Mark Sanford cheated on his wife with a hot piece of Argentina because gay marriage is legal:

“It’s finally happened,” said Rush Limbaugh, conservative radio personality. “America, I’ve been warning you for years that gay marriage would destroy the American family and look… there they are, a husband, wife, and four children — destroyed. When is this going to stop America? When will the liberals be satisfied? When all the marriages break up? This wasn’t Mark Sanford’s fault, this was Ted Kennedy’s fault. Sanford didn’t cheapen the value of marriage, he was victimized by the cheapening of marriage.”

Hm. Moving on...

Everyone is abuzz over the Pardum piece on Sarah Palin in the current Vanity Faire. And for good reason: it's amazing.

What does it say about the nature of modern American politics that a public official who often seems proud of what she does not know is not only accepted but applauded? What does her prominence say about the importance of having (or lacking) a record of achievement in public life? Why did so many skilled veterans of the Republican Party—long regarded as the more adroit team in presidential politics—keep loyally working for her election even after they privately realized she was casual about the truth and totally unfit for the vice-presidency? Perhaps most painful, how could John McCain, one of the cagiest survivors in contemporary politics—with a fine appreciation of life’s injustices and absurdities, a love for the sweep of history, and an overdeveloped sense of his own integrity and honor—ever have picked a person whose utter shortage of qualification for her proposed job all but disqualified him for his?

Politico has an exceptionally poorly-written article about how this has sparked a lot of infighting, but better is this tidbit from conservative blog RedState, where the Republican enforcement squad is pretty well exampled:

Since everybody else is piling on, let me add my own comment to the fray. If you were one of the people who participated in that Vanity Fair hit piece, and we find out your name, you will be a net drag on any national campaign for the rest of your professional career. Not because you helped the Left go after Governor Palin, but because you are an untrustworthy sneak who is dedicated to propping up the elitist system in DC, not fixing it. Any candidate that hires you will have to overcome the base’s natural reluctance to work with a campaign that would hire someone like you.

Finally, Glenn Beck has written a new book. Beck emerged onto the media scene in my hometown of Tampa Bay, Florida, where he started off as a radio host doing pretty standard crap. He then got a show on CNN Headline News, where he basically just did his radio show while pointing at the camera a lot and putting up bad photoshops. And now of course he is at Fox News, having steadily migrated ideologically. Back in the day, he declared that he didn't follow politics. Then on CNN, he was a hawkish libertarian. Now on Fox, he still calls himself a libertarian, but it's that trendy kind of libertarianism that basically is identical with being a neocon but sounds less mainstream.

He's done a lot of unbelievably hackneyed nonsense, including his 9/12 project, which claims to set out the nine values embraced by America immediately after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Among them are "I believe in God and He is the center of my life." Yeah, since of course that directly opposes the mindset of the radical Muslim attackers. If there's one thing we need, it sure is more people who devote their lives (and deaths) to their deity! It seems like Beck's thoughts after 9/11 were pretty much just "Goddamn do I love the Republican party, let me imagine some of their talking points!"

Beck has written a new book called "Common Sense." The fact that Beck has the gall to crib the title of one of the most influential pamphlets in Revolutionary American history is unbelievable. But far worse is the content.

It is almost without exception the most contemptible pile of regurgitated tripe I have ever seen, because it essentially is what Beck thinks is "common sense." His solutions to things are facile and thoughtless. In most cases, it boils down to "spend less" and "tax cuts." What a new tune.

I dislike Beck intensely.

Random Nutjob: "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. ..."

Glenn Beck: "I totally disagree." (HAHA JUST KIDDING THAT IS A MISQUOTE HE DIDN'T DISAGREE AT ALL)

Waxman-Markey

So Waxman-Markey is the big bill that recently went through the House and is making a run for the Senate. You can usually tell someone's position on it just by how they describe it: if they call it a "climate bill," then they probably want it to pass because they want a looming problem addressed, but if they call it an "energy bill" then they probably don't want it to pass because they think it will cripple America's energy supply and industry. But that's not always true. Sometimes you have to read their nonsense.

Jim Lindgren at the Volokh Conspiracy offers a pretty standard conservative view:

The idea that a government of one country could appreciably change the world's climate over the next 40 years is the ultimate hubris. ... With the Climate Bill, if someone had to waste as much money and destroy as many jobs and as much wealth as possible — and still have only a trivial effect on the environment — the Climate Bill would be pretty much the ideal piece of legislation.

This is a very common sentiment on the right, but it's very unfortunate that it's cropping up at Volokh, which is usually a solid repository of well-thought-out conservative bloggers. It's disappointing they put up such standard hogwash about the bill. Lindgren doesn't bother to offer many facts or silly things in his post, but he has previously supported himself with such gems as this WSJ editorial (the height of scientific data) which is so bizarrely myopic that it's painful. The right's dialog seems to have gone:

1. We'll support this bill if it doesn't cost very much, but it will cost every household thousands of dollars. The CBO will prove it.
2. Well, the CBO actually says it will cost only $175 a year per household, but the CBO study is flawed.
3. The EPA may agree and in fact say it will cost much less than that, but the requirements are still unrealistic. It's part of a renewable energy scam, and global warming isn't going to cause much harm since it will only bring down global GDP by 5%.
4. Okay, that 5% might represent a huge number of extremely poor countries and their billions of residents, but... um...

Unfortunately, that's where everyone seems to end. It doesn't help conservatives that polling has a lot of people favoring this bill: Nate Silver at 538 did his usual mathemagic and found that there was an "indifference point" in household price below which people were willing to pay to help the climate, and Waxman-Markey is below this even by the higher CBO estimate.

Let's put it frankly: from an environmental standpoint, this bill sucks. It demands 20% renewable energy in ten years (with allowances for 5% efficiency savings to be part of this total), when we should be aiming for at least 30% in that timeframe. It tries for a 17% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020, when we should be aiming for double that number. There are no international provisions to speak of. It's not a very good bill.

But it's the best one that can pass, and even then it's going to be tough. Big industries in the Midwest own a lot of people in Congress, even the most socially liberal Democrats, and a hell of a lot of concessions had to be given away to make this happen. Plus, in ten years when disaster hasn't struck from above, it's going to be a great stepping stone to the next effort.

So all in all, I support it strongly. Let's hope it passes the Senate.

Redesign

I'm tweaking my blog's layout a bit, trying out a new graphic at the top and a colors change. I like it.

Republicans 101

Listed in order of prominence:

• Rush Limbaugh - Now widely considered the head of the GOP, this popular radio host who has struggled with addiction to prescription painkillers is reviled by almost everyone outside of a core of strong conservatives. Limbaugh has long led the charge against moderation in the party, snarling at "RINO"s (Republican In Name Only) and heaping vitriol on those who disagree. He did, however, help instill a large part of the notorious GOP discipline (his followers willingly call themselves "dittoheads") - since anyone who steps outside the lines gets immediately and forever attacked.
• Dick Cheney - Another figure who is considered a leader of the party, this former Vice President is also not in elected office. He has spent a great deal of time in political gamesmanship of late, trying to defend the Bush administration. With both him and Rush being so strongly influential yet not beholden to an electorate, the GOP has swerved further and further away from the kind of politics that actually win elections. They have no incentive to promote GOP action on what the people actually want, like the 73% who want a public option in healthcare.
• Newt Gingrich - A former Congressman and Speaker of the House, Gingrich is often remembered for his Contract with America that started a massive Republican resurgence. He is also remembered for the epic showdown with President Clinton about government spending; what began as a fight for "fiscal discipline" was revealed to be more politics and personal when Gingrich snapped that they wouldn't have had to crack down if he hadn't been snubbed by the President and put in the back of Air Force One. Humiliated and removed, he has become yet another highly vocal and influential Republican figure who isn't in elected office.
• Gov. Bobby Jindal - A folksy Indian-American and governor of Louisiana, Jindal's star was rapidly on the rise - he was sometimes called the "Republican Obama" - when he was called upon to issue the response to Obama's State of the Union last year. The miserable effort was bizarre (attacking "volcano monitoring" as wasteful!) and strongly resembled a goofy character named Kenneth on the popular television program and commerical 30 Rock. In short order, his futures dimmed and haven't brightened.
• Gov. Sarah Palin - Yeah. Palin.
• Gov. Mark Sanford, Sen. John Ensign, Sen. David Vitter - All three of these well-thought-of Republicans recently confessed to some degree of hypocrisy, admitting that they cheated on their wives. Sanford's own misdeeds have been the most prominent and serious, as he disappeared without word to Argentina to be with his mistress for most of a week without making any preparations for disaster (such as informing the Lt. Governor).
• George W. Bush - Yeah. Bush.

The GOP is making two severe mistakes: the most prominent Republican leaders are all in unelected positions of demagoguery, and they have purged almost all moderates from their ranks. The effect is to engage in a vicious cycle of inquisition, where the increasing absence of an effective moderating voice has made it almost impossible for Republicans to win in any district but those that are already certain, ghettoizing the GOP in the South and Midwest. Unless the elected leaders of the party assert themselves and manage to redefine the message as the "big tent" that so effectively fooled the electorate for so long, then the GOP may cease to be a serious national party for at least four years. The party system favors a Republican-Democratic duality too strongly to eliminate them forever, but a drastic change or an FDR-style perpetual domination is not impossible.

Jim Manzi at National Review Online

Quoth the jackass:

I’m also glad to see that Ezra Klein is explicit about his acceptance that climate change is expected to have extremely limited effects on the United States for at least the next hundred years. I figure that ought to be pretty important when debating the proper policies for the government of the United States. On the other hand, we continue to disagree about the financial efficiency of the foreign aid program defined by transforming the energy sector of the American economy in order to very slightly ameliorate a predicted problem that might affect people who might live in low-lying equatorial regions of the world decades from now.

Yeah, fuck those people, we'll all be dead, and everyone knows small changes now can't make a big difference in a century.

From "A Farewell to Arms"

Once in camp I put a log on top of the fire and it was full of ants. As it commenced to burn, the ants swarmed out and went first toward the centre where the fire was; then turned back and ran toward the end. When there were enough on the end they fell off into the fire. Some got out, their bodies burnt and flattened, and went off not knowing where they were going. But most of them went toward the fire and then back toward the end and swarmed on the cool end and finally fell off into the fire. I remember thinking at the time that it was the end of the world and a splendid chance to be a messiah and lift the log off the fire and throw it out where the ants could get off onto the ground. But I did not do anything but throw a tin cup of water on the log, so that I would have the cup empty to put whiskey in before I added water to it. I think the cup of water on the burning log only steamed the ants.

Politico reports on widespread rumors Palin is dumping Alaska.

No candidate, including Palin, has yet filed papers with the Alaska Public Offices Commission. Palin’s office declined an opportunity to explain her thinking on the 2010 race, and the Republican Governors Association said it would not comment on discussions it has had with the governor.

But a number of Democrats and Republicans in Alaska and Washington who spoke to POLITICO believe her silence is a sign she will not pursue a second term as governor so that she can play a larger role on the national political stage.

Is she taking Roger Simon's terrible advice?

Two Assessments of Obama

One is from the New Republic's The Plank, and the other is from the National Review Online. I don't think it's too hard to guess which way each one spins.

Let's start with the Plank piece first. It's a brief bit about Obama's style, and I think the often-clever Jonathan Chait is especially insightful in it.

This is a perfect summation of Obama's strategy. It does not presuppose that his adversaries are people of goodwill who can be reasoned with. Rather, it assumes that, by demonstrating his own goodwill and interest in accord, Obama can win over a portion of his adversaries' constituents as well as third parties. Obama thinks he can move moderate Muslim opinion, pressure bad actors like Iran to negotiate, and, if Iran fails to comply, encourage other countries to isolate it. The strategy works whether or not Iran makes a reasonable agreement.

The results remain to be seen. But it eerily resembles the way Obama has already isolated the GOP leadership. Obama began his presidency by elaborately courting the opposition party. Republicans in Congress believed that, by flamboyantly withholding cooperation, they could deny Obama his stated goal of bipartisan harmony and thus render him a failure. Instead, they wound up handing Obama the alternative victory of appearing to be the reasonable party. Polls showed that the public, by overwhelming margins, believed that Obama was trying to work with Republicans and that Republicans were not reciprocating.

While I think Obama is far too moderate on a hell of a lot of issues, I have often and forcefully said that his personal skill is unparalleled at this time. And in a case like Iran, where I can be confident his goals coincide with my own, I believe Obama will play the situation perfectly. In other words, I think it is seldom wise to question Obama's ability, no matter what you think of his ideals. Republicans who think otherwise should ask themselves why exactly he has been drubbing them at every turn.

Thomas Sowell from NRO, on the other hand, has a considerably more acid contribution:

The current intramural fighting among Republicans does not necessarily mean any fundamental rethinking of their policies or tactics. These tussles among different segments of the Republican party may be nothing more than a longstanding jockeying for position between the liberal and conservative wings of the party.

The stakes in all this are far higher than which element becomes dominant in which party or which party wins more elections. Both the domestic- and foreign-policy direction of the current administration in Washington are leading this country into dangerous waters, from which we may or may not be able to return.

He then starts in on some things he thinks Obama has done, and that he thinks are absolutely shameful.

A quadrupling of the national debt in just one year and accepting a nuclear-armed sponsor of international terrorism such as Iran are not things from which any country is guaranteed to recover.

Just two nuclear bombs were enough to get Japan to surrender in World War II. It is hard to believe that it would take much more than that for the United States of America to surrender — especially with people in control of both the White House and the Congress who were for turning tail and running in Iraq just a couple of years ago.

Perhaps people who are busy gushing over the Obama cult today might do well to stop and think about what it would mean for their granddaughters to live under sharia law.

That's right: the National Review is suggesting that Iran is going to nuke the United States, and that the Obama administration will immediately submit. Then Iran will invade us and impose Sharia law.

Let's just consider this for a moment. A mature and presumably reasonable person who works at a respected national magazine is seriously making the suggestion that this is a danger, and that Iran can't be "accepted" as a nuclear power. He doesn't really offer any alternative, of course, because it must be unspoken that there aren't a whole lot of things one can do about it short of war, as North Korea has amply demonstrated over and over ("Yeah, we're nuclear now. Oh, you don't like it? Yeah, that's tough. Screw off, UN.") All you can do is work to remove supplies of raw materials and technology (which no doubt and thankfully Obama is doing behind the scenes, no matter his rhetoric) and use diplomacy.

Then comes the acorn:

Unfortunately, the only political party with any chance of displacing the current leadership in Washington is the Republican party. That is why their internal squabbles are important for the rest of us who are not Republicans.

Ah! So that's why he was frightening us with an absurd "think of the children" scenario: you have to vote Republican so they can save us! He doesn't even argue in the piece for why they have good policies or anything like that... it's simply and irrationally, "If you don't vote Republican in the future you will be nuked."

Absolutely brazen and shameless scaremongering.