Not only is the winning design for the new U.S. embassy in London embassy horribly ugly, but so are all the runners-up. Why do so many architects think their buildings have to eschew traditional design conventions to be any good?
Simon Heffer offers some unkind words about the man who could be Britain’s next prime minister (maybe). “Cameron shifts easily on such issues because he has very few principles, other than his belief in himself as prime minister. If it is feasible one day to reward marriage through the tax system, he will do so. If it is not, he won’t really care less. Such is the mindset of the former public relations man, whose elastic intellect can be placed on whatever side of whatever argument.”
And last but not least, Wired’s article about Google’s algorithm provides not only a fascinating look at search technology but an interesting case study of an organization that consistently innovates.
Secretary of Defense Gates criticizes European governments for failing to provide adequately for their own defense. But it’s little wonder that they don’t manage these things themselves when the United States has for so long offered a security guarantee.
There’s a major flaw in carbon-trading schemes, Jeremy Warner argues: no wealth is actually being created by these trades. “Unlike traditional commodities markets, which will eventually involve delivery to someone in physical form, the carbon market is based on lack of delivery of an invisible substance to no-one.”
The Obama administration has devised a new way to save money: stop subsidizing banks that offer student loans. Fair enough. The New York Times reports, however, that the government intends to continue funneling taxpayer money to schools and students and spend the “savings” from the subsidies elsewhere: “the savings would be used to aid early-childhood education, community colleges and needy college students.” Another way to save taxpayers money would be to, you know, not spend it.
An Ohio clergyman suggests that lawmakers shouldn’t live in housing affiliated with religious organizations. Why? The Washington Post says “he called it a matter of church-and-state separation, with this a potential example of undue church influence on government through members of Congress.” Of course, the First Amendment was crafted to keep government out of religion — “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” – not to keep religion out of government.
And last but not least, George Will offers his entertaining take on the state of the world at CPAC:
Jonah Goldberg points out the obvious flaw in the left’s critique of the filibuster: “Of course the filibuster is undemocratic. This is not some bombshell revelation. And yet in indictment after indictment of the filibuster — and the Senate generally — you hear people level the ‘undemocratic’ charge as if it should be dispositive. The Senate was never intended to be all that democratic.” Besides, the left’s attack on the filibuster is opportunistic and politically-motivated, just like the GOP’s similar argument in the 2005 debate over judicial nominees. The filibuster may thwart the “will of the people” at times, but the Founders were right to understand that this isn’t always a bad thing.
In an astounding letter in the Financial Times, Manfred Körner argues that green policies aren’t really about climate change at all but rather about achieving the left’s economic agenda. “Leaving the scientific issue aside,” he writes, “climate change advocates have built the necessary broad emotional and moral thrust behind the issue to make economic change acceptable and awaken a sense of urgency.” Still more astoundingly, he audaciously cites Joseph Schumpeter to make the case for such economic policies — never mind that Schumpeter’s concept of “creative destruction” is premised on individuals freely choosing their own paths, not command-and-control bureaucracies.
And last but not least, Google has unleashed Google Buzz, a social media aggregator that plugs into GMail. David All points me to Robert Scoble’s pessimistic take on the new product. I’m less sure it’s doomed to mediocrity. For one thing, it’s built right into Google’s widely-used e-mail program, which is widely and frequently used.
Peggy Noonan argues that British-style Question Time between lawmakers and the chief executive isn’t what America needs. Why are conservatives on board with this effort at all, save for short-term political reasons? After all, it was progressives like Woodrow Wilson who argued our Constitution should be more British.
Ross Douthat says Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal offers a way forward: “Ryan’s roadmap holds out the possibility of at least some common ground between the limited-government right and the redistributionist left — and long-term solvency into the bargain.” Reihan Salam, meanwhile, defends Ryan’s plan from its critics on the Left and concludes that it “offers a stable, sustainable course for the welfare state that promises to be far more stable than a centrally directed alternative that burdens the federal government with more complexity than it can successfully manage.”
Perhaps the best advertisement of Sunday’s Super Bowl was also the funniest:
In one scene, a half-dozen “Green Police” officers surround a man who fails to sort his garbage correctly. Government agents also arrest homeowners for “offenses” like using unapproved light bulbs and running hot-tubs at impermissible temperatures. Later, agents shut down a highway to search cars for environmentally-unfriendly contraband. This is perhaps the best, and funniest, argument I’ve seen against the increasingly intrusive green agenda.
Yet the ad turns out to be for carmaker Audi and — implausibly enough — in support of the green agenda. At the end, an Audi driver bypasses the highway checkpoint because his car meets with government approval, and a tagline is superimposed: “Green has never felt so right.” Audi admits in a press release that the ad is tongue-in-cheek, yet they also praise the work of the “real Green Police,” the nanny-state bureaucrats around the world who enforce environmental pieties.
If Audi intended to draw on consumer sympathy for green technology to drive car sales, this ad missed the mark. What viewers are sure to remember are the images of the government devoting tremendous resources to impose arbitrary environmental rules on ordinary Americans. These images are sure to resonate all the more since the ad isn’t really so far-fetched: not only are there real “green police,” the federal government is considering new measures to enforce its intrusive emissions regulations. As one friend quipped, “I have never been so moved not to recycle.”
CAP responds to Citizens United: ”Indeed, with hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate profits at stake every time Congress begins a session, wealthy corporations would be foolish not to spend tens of billions of dollars every election cycle to make sure that their interests are protected.” Of course, it’s the fact that billions are at stake whenever Congress meets that’s the real problem. Ilya Somin, meanwhile, defends free speech rights.
