Orson Scott Card on Media Bias

We should be glad that a bad decision during the Clinton administration took this long to spiral completely out of control. Of course we might feel even better if the Democrats in Congress had allowed the Republicans to fix it before the crash (or even helped them).

Meridian Magazine:: Ideas and Society: Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?:
"This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.
The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)
. . .
This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?
. . .
after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought his advice — you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.
. . .
Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust is earned.
. . .
Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter — while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?
. . .
This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie."

The election is in less than 2 weeks

In my experience, government is the worst possible provider of any service people need (charities & religious organizations are much more efficient), so choosing between two big government candidates isn't my idea of fun. It is stunning how much more we expect from government than we did 30 years ago, and how much less we get than we expect.

I suppose we get the government we deserve . . . I could do without a tax increase at this time in my life, but with Congress spending like drunken sailors for the last couple of decades that seems inevitable anyway.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." (Benjamin Franklin, 1755)

I keep reminding folks that we elect a president, not an emperor.

It has often been observed that government by a president from one party and a congressional majority from the other party is the best possible situation for us the Citizens & Taxpayers. Having the majorities differ between the Senate and the House is nearly as good. W had a congressional majority on his side for a while, but squandered it by never using his veto pen while they spent like drunken sailors (apologies to real sailors).

If you hope for a more conservative government, then study up and vote your entire ballot. Those people running for state and local offices are the pool from which we'll get our next round of national leaders. Pick some with the guts to oppose special interests and rescue our country from the bureaucrats.

Obama Would Unleash EPA's Radical Environmentalism

We in the US frequently lead the world by example. We didn't sign the Kyoto Accords because they were disproportionately harsh on first world industrial nations, and didn't address the enormous pollution problems from emerging industrial powers like China and India. Now it looks like Candidate Obama wants the US to lead the world into economic ruin before energy alternatives are feasible - I think the world may just sit back & watch instead of following us.

Obama's Carbon Ultimatum - WSJ.com:
"Liberals pretend that only President Bush is preventing the U.S. from adopting some global warming 'solution.' But occasionally their mask slips. As Barack Obama's energy adviser has now made clear, the would-be President intends to blackmail -- or rather, greenmail -- Congress into falling in line with his climate agenda.

Jason Grumet is currently executive director of an outfit called the National Commission on Energy Policy and one of Mr. Obama's key policy aides. In an interview last week with Bloomberg, Mr. Grumet said that come January the Environmental Protection Agency 'would initiate those rulemakings' that classify carbon as a dangerous pollutant under current clean air laws. That move would impose new regulation and taxes across the entire economy, something that is usually the purview of Congress. Mr. Grumet warned that 'in the absence of Congressional action' 18 months after Mr. Obama's inauguration, the EPA would move ahead with its own unilateral carbon crackdown anyway.

Well, well. For years, Democrats -- including Senator Obama -- have been howling about the "politicization" of the EPA, which has nominally been part of the Bush Administration. The complaint has been that the White House blocked EPA bureaucrats from making the so-called "endangerment finding" on carbon. Now it turns out that a President Obama would himself wield such a finding as a political bludgeon. He plans to issue an ultimatum to Congress: Either impose new taxes and limits on carbon that he finds amenable, or the EPA carbon police will be let loose to ravage the countryside.

The EPA hasn't made a secret of how it would like to centrally plan the U.S. economy under the 1970 Clean Air Act. In a blueprint released in July, the agency didn't exactly say it'd collectivize the farms -- but pretty close, down to the "grass clippings." The EPA would monitor and regulate the carbon emissions of "lawn and garden equipment" as well as everything with an engine, like cars, planes and boats. Eco-bureaucrats envision thousands of other emissions limits on all types of energy. Coal-fired power and other fossil fuels would be ruled out of existence, while all other prices would rise as the huge economic costs of the new regime were passed down the energy chain to consumers.
. . .
Climate-change politics don't break cleanly along partisan lines. The burden of a carbon clampdown will fall disproportionately on some states over others, especially the 25 interior states that get more than 50% of their electricity from coal. Rustbelt manufacturing states like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania will get hit hard too. Once President Bush leaves office, the coastal Democrats pushing hardest for a climate change program might find their colleagues splitting off, especially after they vote for a huge tax increase on incomes."

Ben Bova to the new President: Energy From Stars

Ben Bova explains far better than I can why Solar Power Satellites may be the most cost effective solution to our current energy problems. Clean energy that isn't affected by weather, available in quantities that enable us to wean society from petrochemicals at a slow enough rate to prevent further injury to our economy.

An Energy Fix Written in the Stars - washingtonpost.com:
"You're heading into some rough times as you move into the White House, Mr. Future President, what with the economy in recession, financial markets in turmoil, global warming, terrorism, war and soaring energy prices. But I can offer you a tip for dealing with that last issue, at least: Look to the stars.

That's right. You can use the powerful technology we've forged over a half-century of space exploration to solve one major down-to-Earth problem -- and become the most popular president since John F. Kennedy in the process.
. . .
Solar energy is a favorite of environmentalists, but it works only when the sun is shining. But that's the trick. There is a place where the sun never sets, and a way to use solar energy for power generation 24 hours a day, 365 days a year: Put the solar cells in space, in high orbits where they'd be in sunshine all the time.

You do it with the solar power satellite (SPS), a concept invented by Peter Glaser in 1968. The idea is simple: You build large assemblages of solar cells in space, where they convert sunlight into electricity and beam it to receiving stations on the ground.

The solar power satellite is the ultimate clean energy source. It doesn't burn an ounce of fuel. And a single SPS could deliver five to 10 gigawatts of energy to the ground continually. Consider that the total electrical-generation capacity of the entire state of California is 4.4 gigawatts.

Conservative estimates have shown that an SPS could deliver electricity at a cost to the consumer of eight to 10 cents per kilowatt hour. That's about the same as costs associated with conventional power generation stations. And operating costs would drop as more orbital platforms are constructed and the price of components, such as solar voltaic cells, is reduced. Solar power satellites could lower the average taxpayer's electric bills while providing vastly more electricity.
. . .
Some people worry about beaming gigawatts of microwave energy to the ground. But the microwave beams would be spread over a wide area, so they wouldn't be intense enough to harm anyone. Birds could fly through the thinly spread beams without harm. Nevertheless, it would be best for the receiving stations to be set up in unpopulated areas. The deserts of the American Southwest would be an ideal location. You could gain votes in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and California!

It's ironic, but when solar power satellites become commonplace, the desert wastes of the Sahara and the Middle East could become important energy centers even after the last drop of oil has been pumped out of them. SPS receiving stations could also be built on platforms at sea; Japan has already looked into that possibility.

I admit, solar power satellites won't be cheap. Constructing one would cost about as much as building a nuclear power plant: on the order of $1 billion. That money, though, needn't come from the taxpayers; it could be raised by the private capital market. Oil companies invest that kind of money every year in exploring for new oil fields. But the risk involved in building an SPS, as with any space operation, is considerable, and it could be many years or even decades before an investment begins to pay off. So how can we get private investors to put their money into solar power satellites?

This nation tackled a similar situation about a century ago, when faced with building big hydroelectric dams. Those dams were on the cutting edge of technology at the time, and they were risky endeavors that required hefty funding. The Hoover Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam and others were built with private investment -- backed by long-term, low-interest loans guaranteed by the U.S. government. They changed the face of the American West, providing irrigation water and electrical power that stimulated enormous economic growth. Phoenix and Las Vegas wouldn't be on the map except for those dams.

Solar power satellites could be funded through the same sort of government-backed loans.
. . .
It will take foresight and leadership to start a solar power satellite program. That's why, Mr. Future President, I believe that you should make it NASA's primary goal to build and operate a demonstration model SPS, sized to deliver a reasonably impressive amount of electrical power -- say, 10 to 100 megawatts -- before the end of your second term. Such a demonstration would prove that full-scale solar power satellites are achievable. With federal loan guarantees, private financing could then take over and build satellites that would deliver the gigawatts we need to lower our imports of foreign oil and begin to move away from fossil fuels.

I know that scientists and academics will howl in protest. They want to explore the universe and don't care about oil prices or building new industries. But remember, they howled against the Apollo program, too. They wanted the money for their projects, not to send a handful of fighter jocks to the moon. What they failed to see was that Apollo produced the technology and the trained teams of people that have allowed us to reach every planet in the solar system."

Criminals target criminals in U.S. kidnap capital - Phoenix

It is sometimes hard to know who to root for - ordinary citizens in Phoenix don't usually know that these things are going on. Enough word of it gets into the press to ensure that a lot of Phoenicians have concealed carry permits. ICE says the increase in abductions is a consequence of tighter border security cutting into criminals profits. On the other hand, if the border was really secure, then criminals from Mexico wouldn't be stalking other criminals in Phoenix would they?

Criminals targeted in U.S. kidnap capital | Reuters:
"PHOENIX (Reuters) - The criminal underworld in the sun-baked Arizona capital of Phoenix has long enjoyed the hot money profits from illicit smuggling of drugs and people over the border from Mexico.

But now its members are living in fear as they are stalked by kidnappers after their proceeds, authorities say.

Police in the desert city say specialized kidnap rings are snatching suspected criminals and their families from their homes, running them off the roads and even grabbing them at shopping malls in a spiraling spate of abductions.

'Phoenix is ground zero for illegal narcotics smuggling and illegal human smuggling in the United States,' said Phil Roberts, a Phoenix Police Department detective.
'There's a lot of illegal cash out there in the valley, and a lot of people want to get their hands on it.'

Last year alone, Phoenix police reported 357 extortion-related abductions -- up by nearly half from 2005 -- targeting individuals with ties to Mexican smuggling rings.
. . .
Police say the kidnappers are most often Mexican criminals, sometimes helped by local street gangs in Phoenix. They single out cash-flush targets from among the drug traffickers and "coyotes" -- as human smugglers are known -- in the criminal community.

Cell members may trail identified targets for a couple of days, looking for the moment to pounce. Others may be asking around, looking for likely victims, often big spenders "who throw their money around" in bars and clubs, Roberts said.

Aside from the smugglers themselves, victims have included their wives, girlfriends and even children. They are often held in darkened rooms where they are routinely beaten, tortured or sexually assaulted to extort a ransom that can range from $50,000 to $1 million."

Cheap access to space - 10, 20, 100 years?

Sometimes referred to as beanstalks, or even sky-hooks, the space elevator will probably be the main shipping workhorse from orbit to Mars and the Moon. With Earth's higher gravity, it is a more difficult technology, but if we can get it working then continuous access to space is assured at a price we can afford.

For more information, visit the Space Elevator Reference site.

'Space elevator' would take humans into orbit - CNN.com:
"LONDON, England (CNN) -- A new space race is officially under way, and this one should have the sci-fi geeks salivating.

The project is a 'space elevator,' and some experts now believe that the concept is well within the bounds of possibility -- maybe even within our lifetimes.

A conference discussing developments in space elevator concepts is being held in Japan in November, and hundreds of engineers and scientists from Asia, Europe and the Americas are working to design the only lift that will take you directly to the one hundred-thousandth floor.

Despite these developments, you could be excused for thinking it all sounds a little far-fetched.

Indeed, if successfully built, the space elevator would be an unprecedented feat of human engineering.

A cable anchored to the Earth's surface, reaching tens of thousands of kilometers into space, balanced with a counterweight attached at the other end is the basic design for the elevator.

If it sounds like the stuff of fiction, maybe that's because it once was.

In 1979, Arthur C. Clarke's novel "The Fountains of Paradise" brought the idea of a space elevator to a mass audience. Charles Sheffield's "The Web Between the Worlds" also featured the building of a space elevator.

But, jump out of the storybooks and fast-forward nearly three decades, and Japanese scientists at the Japan Space Elevator Association are working seriously on the space-elevator project.

Association spokesman Akira Tsuchida said his organization was working with U.S.-based Spaceward Foundation and a European organization based in Luxembourg to develop an elevator design.

The Liftport Group in the U.S. is also working on developing a design, and in total it's believed that more than 300 scientists and engineers are engaged in such work around the globe.

NASA is holding a $4 million Space Elevator Challenge to encourage designs for a successful space elevator.

Tsuchida said the technology driving the race to build the first space elevator is the quickly developing material carbon nanotube. It is lightweight and has a tensile strength 180 times stronger than that of a steel cable. Currently, it is the only material with the potential to be strong enough to use to manufacture elevator cable, according to Tsuchida.

"At present we have a tether which is made of carbon nanotube, and has one-third or one-quarter of the strength required to make a space elevator. We expect that we will have strong enough cable in the 2020s or 2030s," Tsuchida said.
. . .
Tsuchida said some possible locations for an elevator include the South China Sea, western Australia and the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean. He said all of those locations usually avoided typhoons, which could pose a threat to the safety of an elevator.

"As the base of space elevator will be located on geosynchronous orbit, [the] space elevator ground station should be located near the equator," he said."

The End Of An Era?

Our 535 congress critters just can't resist using their power and our money to do a bit of social engineering. The trouble is, they aren't very good at it, and we get to clean up their messes.

Edgelings.com » The End Of An Era:
". . . the United States government has embarked on two pieces of social engineering in the last few years. One was to make oil expensive as expensive as possible to drive people to greater use of alternative energy sources - because anything less would be irresponsible and destructive to the environment. The other was to enshrine home ownership (i.e., easy-to-obtain mortgages) as a new American right - because anything less would be unequal and racist.

None of us voted on these decisions - indeed, neither was even spoken about directly, much less debated. But nevertheless, both became national policy… and both have sparked national, now international, crises. Then, once they became crises, both were blamed on ‘greedy capitalism’, instead of what they really were: legislative interference into market forces.

Fine. We’ve been through this before, and no doubt we will see similar, government-induced crises again - inevitably accompanied by Administration officials and our elected representatives pointing at everyone but themselves.

But what makes this particular economic crisis so appalling, at least from this vantage point, is the sheer scumminess, corruption, short-sightedness and general incompetence of everyone involved. At least in the business world, especially in the take-no-prisoners world of high-tech that kind of venality and ineptitude either gets you fired or kills the company; by comparison, in Washington, it puts you in charge of the recovery effort.

Nobody in this mess has covered himself or herself in glory. President Bush seems to have had the right instincts on this, but as a lame duck who long-ago burned up all of his public support, he mostly seems dithering and toothless. The Democrats declare that the nation is at risk… then go about as usual turning the bailout bill into another yet another partisan pay-off scheme to fund the next round of crisis-creating social engineering. It is a measure of just how corrupt the Dems have become that Senators Dodd and Frank, who perhaps more than anyone in Washington are responsible for this crisis, not only are allowed to keep their committee seats, but run the press conference on the bail-out.
. . .
The crowning moment of course comes just before the vote on the bail-out package when Speaker Pelosi decided, putting the needs of her country first, to use the podium to attack the Administration and the GOP.

The Republicans, as we all heard, maturely responded to Pelosi by banging their little fists on the floor and refusing to play any more. Wah-wah-wah. Remember when Republicans were the outsiders in D.C.? Now they are such corrupt Washington insiders that, like a group of palace courtiers, they are willing to put the entire U.S. economy at risk over protocol and etiquette.

As for the two Presidential candidates, the less said the better. Senator McCain, sensing a great PR opportunity to show that he is both a leader and a Beltway Pharisee, blasted into Washington, made a lot of noise, accomplished little, and was all-but run back out of town. Senator Obama, who appears to be up to his neck in Fannie Mae ‘contributions’, did as he always does: said a few platitudes, (metaphorically) voted “Present” and took off as quickly as he could.

Meanwhile, while this absurdity is going on, the stock market tanks, and the U.S. economy loses $1 trillion."