Wise(r) Use of Government Funds

This link from NASA shows a spirit of Yankee Ingenuity which reinforces all the good stereotypes about NASA while attacking some of the bureaucratic impressions the agency has (justifiably) been saddled with. It discusses how two satellites, somewhat long in the tooth and short on power, were destined to become space junk, yet were given a new lease on life, and on exploring, by catapulting them into a new orbit -- the orbit of the moon. Originally designed as satellites to investigate how solar rays affect earth, their earth-centric orbits caused them to spend more and more time in the dark, unable to re-charge their batteries. Rather than give up, however, the cracks at NASA came up with a better idea: put them into another orbit! By use of some pretty fancy work along the earth-moon Lagrange line, our astronomers flung them away from earth, but let the moon catch 'em. Now the mission has gotten a brand-new shiny name (kinda like in the movie Air Force One when the rescue plane changes its callsign after Harrison Ford tosses Gary Oldman into the Caspian), and a new lease on life to see how solar rays affect the moon.

What's particularly heartwarming about this story is that it uses existing government resources to expand its scope of research. It seems hardly a day goes by where we don't hear about ridiculous government waste, or duplication, or agencies explaining that "if we only had more money, we could...." Here, we see the best sort of government management: when the administrators think about investment and loss, opportunities to get the most bang for the buck, rather than insuring they spend every last nickel to ensure the same budget next year, and taking opportunities when they come, rather than waiting for the window to close, shrugging their shoulders, and saying, "well, if we had only had more money."

That's not to say that NASA doesn't have its own stories of waste, like any bureaucracy. And undoubtedly NASA is unlikely to advertise the cost of any mission on its own website. But it seems like stories like this are an example of "good" government, rather than what is so often the opposite.

A Dirty Campaign

...in 1800!

http://www.reason.tv/video/show/the-negative-campaign-of-1800

"John Adams is a hideous hermaphroditical character."
"Jefferson is the son of a half-breed Indian squaw raised on hoecakes, and Hamilton is a Creole bastard brat of a Scotch peddler."

Onion imitates life

Onion article from October 18.

Reuters from October 14.

Catching Up.....

Your correspondent has recently been busy with visitors and other obligations, but finally has a chance to resume the blog. So first I guess a couple links.... the first from the "nice" Václav and the second from the "naughty" Václav -- Presidents Havel and Klaus, respectively. First, this piece (co-written by Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu) exhorts the Chinese regime to free Liu Xiaobo, pointing out that the ugly and backwards dictatorship of Burma Myanmar Burma (I'm an optimist!) is the only nation in the world which has locked up a Nobel Prize recipient.* The second piece comes from President Klaus, discussing the global warmists' agenda in the Financial Post. Klaus points out that various interests benefit from the idea of a global warming "crisis," and many more have invested their reputations and careers in "proving" the crisis. Moreover, Klaus attacks both the self-interest of the messengers and the message itself -- indeed, he largely attacks the ideology in ethical, rather than strictly economic, terms. In other words, he deploys they same ethical arguments about humanity that the more impassioned and (dare I say) emotional warmists use. He finds that the manufactured crisis is not only an economic problem, but a human-freedom problem.

The contrasts between these two men is one that I continue to find fascinating here on this side of the Atlantic. If history repeats itself, then surely we still see the split between the Jeffersonians and the followers of Adams. Both represent aspects of modern (post-18th Century) liberal society, with fundamentally different ideas about the role of the state in society, and indeed, the compatibility of the needs of society and the needs of the individual. Many Czech friends seem to know too much about the two as human beings, and so the advantage of being a foreigner-philosopher is the ability to separate their individual personalities (Klaus' legendary arrogance, Havel's tactical shortcomings as President) from their greater Weltanschauung. It is hardly surprising that they cannot stand each other, yet one can find in both great abilities to contribute to the debate about the role of the individual in society.

Moving right along, this article is amazing. Turns out there's not just water on the moon, but maybe even silver, and a whole bunch of interesting gases. Colonize it and On To Mars!

More to come soon, I promise!


* By the way, this is, of course, not entirely true: Jay Nordlinger explains here. But Myanmar's is the only current regime. The others were National Socialist Germany (1935's Carl von Ossietzky), the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Sakharov in 1975), and the socialist regime of Poland (Wałęsa in 1983) were the others. Additionally, 1927 Laureate Ludwig Quidde was imprisoned by Kaiser Wilhelm in 1896. Thankfully, these other regimes are all consigned to the ash heap of history.

Greetings from Olomouc....

This'll make you angry.

Sorry to my legions of adoring fans -- your correspondent has been busy with a presentation at a conference in Olomouc, the former capital and largest city of Moravia. (More on all of that -- the presentation, the conference, and Olomouc -- in the next few days.)

 

Liu Xiaobo

Congratulations to Mr. Liu for his courage, his fortitude, and his humanity. Nice work this year, Nobel Committee.

James M. Buchanan...

It's his 91st birthday today! Yay!

And Another Thing!

This should be required reading (from Yuval, who rarely writes non-required reading) for anyone under the age of 35. (Your correspondent is 31, and terrified of the situation Dr. Levin describes).

Tag der Deutschen Einheit

Today Germany celebrates the 20th anniversary of reunification, (see here for Spiegel's terrific collection of photos) and it's another opportunity to examine the process of unification, the concept of "Ostalgie," and determine what progress has been made and what still needs to happen for Germany to truly unite. Twenty years on, we can see that the former East is wealthier than before, yet problems such as left- and right-wing extremism continue to plague many cities in the former DDR. This is in part due to the relative lack of investment, and thus of jobs, in the east, which continues to suffer from considerably higher unemployment than that of the western Länder -- according to ARD, unemployment continues to be above 12% in all but one of the Länder of the former DDR (Thüringen sneaks in at 11.4%), while it remains below 9% in every West German Land except the city-state of Bremen. (See here for a great graphic showing the discrepancies 20 years on.)

The big speech this year was made by Christian Wulff, the Bundespräsident, in Bremen. Every year, the Day of German Unity is celebrated in a different city (as well as in Berlin). Wulff noted the importance of German unity extending to German Muslims, as well as to the citizens of the formerly SED-controlled part of Germany. (Nevertheless, the British Foreign Office and the American State Department issued warnings telling their respective subjects and citizens to "be vigilant" about terror attacks in Europe this week.) Yet he also noted that "those who disdain our country and our values must be resisted." Speigel described the speech as relatively non-controversial, but also somewhat forgettable -- a hit, but probably not even a stand-up double, much less a home run. Kanzlerin Merkel, on the other hand, focused more on those whose lives had been drastically changed by die Wende, and noted that many people over 50 in 1990 were often frustrated in their efforts to find work after 1989, and look at reunification with a bitter eye.

In the end, though, the victory of freedom over servitude and of democracy over dictatorship is something worth celebrating. The reunification process was not and still is not perfect, as Kanzlerin Merkel and former presidential candidate Joachim Gauck pointed out. Challenges remain for Germany's citizens, of West and East alike. Nevertheless, a unified Germany is an important symbol of what can be achieved, particularly with a sober attitude toward personal responsibility in the service of liberty.