View 385 October 24 - 30, 2005 (original) (raw)
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Well the news is that Miers has withdrawn -- who can blame her? Now the egregious Frum will crow. Rush Limbaugh is trying to make the best of this, and doing fairly well; but the fact remains that the egregious Frum will lord it up, and a number of electoral shock troops who helped produce the Republican majority in 2004 will quietly go home and say to hell with it.
The choice of Miers was perhaps unfortunate and perhaps not, but she had this virtue: she was very unlikely to have wanted what the Left can give, dinner parties in Georgetown, commencement speeches at big universities, and accolade for "growing" in office. We can hope that the next candidate has that virtue. It may be unlikely.
I will continue to say it is no bad thing to have members of the US Supreme Court who did not rise through the judicial route. The American judiciary is a rarefied atmosphere and encourages the habits of power; a judge in his courtroom has very great powers, all of the low justice and much of the middle justice, and becomes used to having that power. Some enjoy it. Judges who came up through the political process have different views. Yes, Earl Warren, perhaps the most destructive Chief Justice this nation has ever had (Taney can vie for the appellation, but we need not debate that here) was without judicial experience; but so were John Marshal and Rehnquist.
We will see what happens next. The President may remember who his friends were. Perhaps.
Both the egregious Frum and the abominable Schumer are crowing. My favorite scenario is that the President appoints Bork. Alas, Bork is too old, so it won't happen. But my favorite scenario would be appointment of someone who will really horrify the Democrats, and then stand behind her. Unlikely, I know.
The Gang of Fourteen will have its influence.
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I found this in my private correspondence from a month ago. It was in answer to a letter asking about neoconservatives and realism in foreign policy. The "realist" position was probably best exemplified by Hans Morganthau, and has a long history. Anyway, I answered:
Once the cold war was over, some of us wanted to revert to the notion of avoiding entangling alliances and not being involved in the territorial disputes in Europe. This was American realism in foreign policy.
The idiocy -- sheer stupid idiocy -- of our involvement in former Yugoslavia, a place where we had no conceivable national interest and where we were unlikely to do any good whatever, should have been the tip-off when it was supported by the neoconservatives. Then too there was the Israeli matter: never a criticism of Israel, always the notion that without the USSR in the pictures we had some great stake in settling the Israel/Palestine mess. Why?
The neo-cons ceased to be realists in foreign policy in the mid nineties. Moreover, they continued to agitate for continued US subsidies to keep Israel socialist. Leave out the notion that it is Israel: keeping them socialist through subsidies is an ideological matter. Israel would be a lot better off without all the socialism. Conservatives know that. Neocons do not seem to. From the collapse of the Soviet Union on the neocon strategy diverged from traditional conservatism.
Eventually the egregious Frum was permitted to read out of the Conservative movement all those who did not support the new neocon Imperialism. I gather National Review has begun to regret that, but not enough to apologize to Stephen Tonsor for allowing the egregious Frum to insult him in the pages of NR.
It was easy to see that the neocons were Jacobins after about 1995.
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A National Technology Goals Foundation
I have often advocated Grand Prizes for space development. A 10billionPrizeforthefirstUScompanytoput31AmericansontheMoonandkeepthemthere,continuously,aliveandwell,forthreeyearsandadaywouldstimulateallthespacedevelopmentwewouldneed,andbuildthetechnologicalbaseforsolarpowersatellites.Forthatmatter,a10 billion Prize for the first US company to put 31 Americans on the Moon and keep them there, continuously, alive and well, for three years and a day would stimulate all the space development we would need, and build the technological base for solar power satellites. For that matter, a 10billionPrizeforthefirstUScompanytoput31AmericansontheMoonandkeepthemthere,continuously,aliveandwell,forthreeyearsandadaywouldstimulateallthespacedevelopmentwewouldneed,andbuildthetechnologicalbaseforsolarpowersatellites.Forthatmatter,a5 billion prize for the first American company to beam a megawatt of power from space to the continental US for a year would be worth a very great deal, perhaps as much as our expensive involvement in the Middle East.
But in fact why should prizes be confined to space? If Grand Prizes and Grand Challenges are a good idea, why confine them to space?
One objection to prizes is that the US constitution isn't set up to allow them: money has to be authorized and appropriated, and how is that to be done for accomplishments that haven't happened and can't be scheduled?
When I discussed this with Congressman Rohrabacher he suggested a National Space Foundation to which the money could be appropriated and which would award the money when the conditions were fulfilled.
On reflection that is a great idea but it can be carried further than space. Imagine a National Technology Goals Foundation, with an annual 2.01billionayearappropriation.The2.01 billion a year appropriation. The 2.01billionayearappropriation.The.01 billion is the entire operating budget of the Foundation. The Foundation sets prizes and amounts. Once a Prize is announced, the money is set aside. Interest from the money (if any) reverts to the Treasury. Prize money not obligated can be added to the total so that prizes larger than $2 billion can be announced.
One suspects that for something like a Moon Colony, Congress could be persuaded to replenish the prize fund, but this is for another discussion, as would be a discussion of studying the economic impact of the Foundation to see if it's worth the money.
It looks like a good idea from here.