Politics

Good for China. I have two reactions to China’s membership in the manned space club. My first is pleasure. I’m glad there are other countries in the world who are going out there, because we’re sure falling behind. For whatever reason, the United States government isn’t maintaining a serious space exploration effort. That’s one egg I don’t want in a single bucket. In the grand scheme of things, I’d rather China bring the resources of space back to Earth than nobody. I believe that once we start harvesting the asteroid belt, the value will be so clear that you’ll see an explosion of effort in that direction. But someone’s gotta get there first to make the point, whether it’s China or India or a private American company. I’d be a little worried if it turns out to be China, but in the long term it won’t matter as long as someone does it. ...

Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric, is putting together a shadow government in Iraq. The Sunni guerilla action, which continues to take its toll (original), provides excellent cover for the Shiite efforts.

I’ve been chewing over these two posts from Kevin Drum about the Texas Republican Party platform. First off, I agree with him: the platform as a whole is pretty damned radical. I would certainly be interested in hearing President Bush, who presumably has signed a similar document, talk about whether or not he supports all those positions. And much of the platform is way the hell out of the mainstream. However, it’s wrong to say that the platform has no place in American politics. For example, there is absolutely no reason to recoil from the sight of a politician who wants to return to the gold standard. It might not be a bright thing to do, but it hardly signifies the destruction of the republic. Most if not all of the economic planks fall into that bucket. Dumb ideas? Maybe. Radical? Sure. Shouldn’t be discussed in polite company? Uh… ...

The implication of this Metafilter post is that someone is providing soldiers with pre-written letters which they simply sign and send to newspapers. Or, according to this article, someone is signing the letters for them. This kind of thing has been nicknamed astroturf — i.e., a fake grassroots. The Republican Party is fairly fond of it. I think it’s more than usually repugnant when it’s used to misrepresent what our soldiers think, however. The men dying in Iraq deserve better than to have their views hijacked by a public relations flack.

The news that Ivan Reitman was named to Arnold’s transition team is only significant insofar as Reitman’s an old friend of David Cronenberg’s. I’m going to be very disappointed if we don’t start seeing biocybernetic devices propagating throughout California.

If I were part of any sort of political movement in California, I would pay close attention to this map. I would not waste time complaining about how foolish people were. I would figure out why the map looks like that, and take advantage of the reasons. Talking about how it’s time to stop holding back counts as complaining, by the by.

Couple of things you may have missed in the excitement of the recall: Condoleezza Rice is now in charge of Iraq. The State Department couldn’t get it done, and the Pentagon couldn’t get it done, so it’s the White House’s turn. Somewhat surprisingly, nobody told Rumsfeld. Judge Brinkema decided that since Zacarias Moussaoui can’t introduce the evidence that might exonerate him, prosecutors can’t introduce evidence that might convict him (original). The government considered putting Moussaoui before a military tribunal (original), but perhaps realized that it might look as though military tribunals and the enemy combatant label were just terms of convenience. It kind of bothers me that the government is blowing the case against an admitted Al Qaeda operative — get the damned evidence out there and let’s see what’s what already. ...

Charles Kuffner is still the man for Texas redistricting news (original). At the moment, the Republicans can’t agree on a map. The Legislature has adjourned until Wednesday for Yom Kippur. They’ve missed the deadline for redistricting in time to get all the necessary changes made before the 2004 primaries, which means that if they want to redistrict now they have to reduce the importance of Texas in the presidential primary process. ...

Thanks for the responses (and the other responses). The inimitable regis makes the apples and oranges point, which I had in mind as well — the Dixie Chicks aren’t selling politicized songs. She also asks about quality. The book, from the chapters available, appears to be exceedingly poorly written. Merlin notes that “Perhaps not publishing the novel could be seen as a leftist bias.” I’d disagree with that. One reason I care a lot about this particular book is because I’ve become convinced that media transmitters of extremist beliefs is a problem. (But not one that we should solve with censorship.) Baen does publish a reasonable spectrum of material — they focus on military fiction, which tends to be right-wing, but Spider Robinson gives them a touch of left-wing representation. But in general, yeah. ...

Glenn Reynolds, once again, is confused. THE REAL WILSON SCANDAL: Forget Valerie Plame, the big scandal is why anyone in the Bush Administration would ever have tasked a guy with Wilson’s views with an important mission. If you follow the link, you’ll find Bill Hobbs ranting about a speech Joseph Wilson gave on June 14th, 2003. The very perceptive among us will notice that June 14th is somewhat later than the date on which Wilson went to Niger to look into the yellowcake assertions. ...