America's Algae-Fueled Military

The U.S. Navy has successfully tested an algae-fueled boat, the first step in its plan to power its fleet with up to 50 percent green and nuclear fuels by 2020:

"Fuels made from algae oil burn more cleanly than fossil fuel, but preventing climate change is not a major factor in the Pentagon's calculations. 'Our programme to go green is about combat capability, first and foremost,' Cullom said. 'We no longer want to be held hostage by one form of energy such as petroleum.'

Over the last year, the Pentagon has become increasingly vocal about the burden of running oil convoys in battle zones. Fossil fuel is the number one import to US troops in Afghanistan, and the slow and lumbering convoys of oil tankers are an obvious target for enemy combatants.

Fossil fuels are also horrendously expensive. By the time it reaches a war zone, the true cost of a gallon of petrol is well over $400."

The good news for the rest of us is that this kind of innovation often pushes its way into the civilian marketplace, and at a cheap price made possible by the military's economies of scale. Hegemony can be environmentally sound!

More to the point, there's not much direct incentive for most Americans to change their lifestyles because of climate change: They're not the ones feeling the pain. So alternative energies are probably going to have to be developed as a plausibly inexpensive alternative to fossil fuels to get the world sincere about kicking the oil habit. The military is willing to pay $400 a gallon to get its oil to Afghanistan; it would rather find a cheaper way. That's the opportunity that should be seized.

Jonah Goldberg: Philly Isn't 'Real America'

Jonah Goldberg mocks an upcoming Katie Couric travel itinerary:

"James’ post is great as it is, but might I just add that the places Katie Couric has been visiting aren’t really in the middle of the country. With the exception of Chicago, which is at least the gateway to the Midwest, Philly, Boston, and New Brunswick (!?!) are all part of the Bos-Wash corridor, accessible by the Acela. As someone who has crisscrossed the entire country by car numerous times, let me suggest that you haven’t seen much of the “middle” of this country — washed or unwashed — going by that itinerary. I mean, who says, “I’ve got to break out of my New York cocoon and see some of real America. Let’s go check out Philly and Boston.”"

For what it's worth, the Northeast Corridor contains roughly one-sixth of America's population. The middle of the country -- where "real" Americans live -- doesn't actually have that many Americans. Couric might want to expand her travels a bit, but a Philadelphian might actually be a more "typical" American than, say, somebody living in South Dakota.

More About the Sexy Sarah Palin Cover

A reader checks in:

"I'm going to not go out on a limb and guess you're unfamiliar with the B-movie classic, 'The Attack of the 50-Foot Woman.'"

I got the reference. But I'm guessing there were ways to depict Palin and make this -- or a similar -- reference without undressing her. Maybe I'm just cranky and humorless. But I do think some otherwise-feminist-leaning folks are willing to indulge in a little sexism where Sarah Palin is concerned, and I'd rather not be a participant in that.

Republicans: Not Serious About the Deficit

Jonathan Chait:

"Looking ahead to controlling Congress, Republicans again propose to eliminate Paygo, as they did under Bush. But this time they propose to replace it with a different rule, Cutgo, which would require that new spending be offset with spending cuts. That would indeed be an effective way to limit new spending programs. Of course, it would retain the ability to pass tax cuts with no offsets whatsoever. The decision once again reflects the core Republican belief that tax revenues do not need to bear any relationship to expenditures."

A few days ago, I said the problem with the Tea Party "revolution" is that it's poised to return to power the exact same people who ran Congress during most of the last decade and helped turn the budget surplus into a deficit. The GOP is really good -- awesome, in fact -- at the rhetoric of cutting government and cutting taxes. They only ever deliver on half that equation. The results will be disastrous.

Democrats: 'If We're Gonna Lose, Let's Go Down Running Away From Every Legislative Accomplishment We've Made'

The Onion, of course:

"WASHINGTON—Conceding almost certain Republican gains in next month's crucial midterm elections, Democratic lawmakers vowed Tuesday not to give up without making one final push to ensure their party runs away from every major legislative victory of the past two years.

Party leaders told reporters that regardless of the ultimate outcome, they would do everything in their power from now until the polls closed to distance themselves from their hard-won passage of a historic health care overhaul, the toughest financial regulations since the 1930s, and a stimulus package most economists now credit with preventing a second Great Depression."

The Wonderful Wizard of Genocide

Via Tom Ricks, an 1891 editorial by that L. Frank Baum:

"The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.'"

I'm going to go ahead and say he was a bad witch.

Jimmy McMillan in The Guardian: The Rent. Too. Damn. High.

I thought his moment was over after the SNL parody, but keeps on entertaining with this amazing column in The Guardian:

"The rent is too damn high.

That's what I was thinking when the five guys jumped me as I was walking down a street in Brooklyn at two in the morning. At least, that's probably what I was thinking, since that's what I'm thinking most of the time.

I didn't see them, obviously. I don't have Spidey sense; I don't have peripheral vision. I'm a 10th degree black belt in karate, but, in the real world, there is no 'crouching tiger'. There's a car, exhaust steaming out like dragon's breath. I was pushed through an open door."

I don't believe this is a parody.

Was the New Deal Responsible for American Prosperity?

Harold Meyerson makes the case:

"In fact, the New Deal order produced the only three decades in American history -- the '50s, '60s and '70s -- when economic security and opportunity were widely shared. It was the only period in the American chronicle when unions were big and powerful enough to ensure that corporate revenue actually trickled down to workers. It marked the only time in American history when, courtesy originally of the GI Bill, the number of Americans going to college surged. It was the only time when taxes on the rich were really significantly higher than taxes on the rest of us. It was the only time that the minimum wage kept pace (almost) with the cost of living. And it was the only time when most Americans felt confident enough about their economic prospects, and those of their nation, to support the taxes that built the postwar American infrastructure."

I'm not so certain about cause-and-effect here. Meyerson notably omits that three decades he cites above were when the United States had a head start on the rest of the world that either had been devastated by World War II (Western Europe) or wasn't positioned for economic growth (Eastern Europe). Prosperity is easy to come by when you're the only guy on the block capable of making things.

That said: I agree with Meyerson that it's shameful that America's economic gains during the last 30 years have accrued almost entirely to the rich. And I realize that an 800-word column isn't the place to do extended economic analysis. But I suspect that the prosperity of mid-century America was about more than high tax rates for the wealthy.

Afghanistan Quagmire Watch

Washington Post:

"An intense military campaign aimed at crippling the Taliban has so far failed to inflict more than fleeting setbacks on the insurgency or put meaningful pressure on its leaders to seek peace, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials citing the latest assessments of the war in Afghanistan.

'The insurgency seems to be maintaining its resilience,' said a senior Defense Department official involved in assessments of the war. Taliban elements have consistently shown an ability to 'reestablish and rejuvenate,' often within days of routed by U.S. forces, the official said, adding that if there is a sign that momentum has shifted, 'I don't see it.'"

S. Neil Fujita, RIP

I didn't know his name until today, but I love his work. New York Times: "S. Neil Fujita, a graphic designer who used avant-garde painting and photography to create some of the most striking album covers of the 1950s, and who designed the visually arresting book jackets for “In Cold Blood” and “The Godfather,” died on Saturday in Greenport, on the North Fork of Long Island. He was 89."

Philadelphia Needs to be More Business-Friendly

It's become apparent to me in two years of living in Philly that starting a new business is a regulatory nightmare: I spent this year watching an acquaintance delay the opening of a new coffee shop from the beginning of the summer to the end largely because of the runaround he got from the Licenses & Inspection Department. There's also the oppressive tax situation: When bloggers get hit with a hefty business tax because they earned a few dollars in Google AdSense revenues, you know the situation's out of whack.

So Robert McNamara's op-ed in today's Inky rings true to me: This city really is strangling entrepreneurship:

All too often, city rules and regulations boil down to the whim of the inspector or official an entrepreneur is dealing with. All too often, their whim is simply to say "no." Instead of giving new businesses the time and space they need to grow, the city immediately hits them with an array of taxes, fees, and demands that are simply implausible, like requiring a start-up business to waste precious and often limited financial capital renting commercial office space instead of operating out of an entrepreneur's home.

The city's rampant overregulation, tremendous burdens placed on would-be entrepreneurs, and, above all, the pervasive culture of "no" are putting a stranglehold on entrepreneurial activity. Wracked by a budget crisis, the city inexplicably continues to expend extraordinary resources making it more difficult to start businesses, which could be expanding the city's tax base.

There are some solutions out there! Council members Bill Green and Maria Quinones-Sanchez have introduced a bill that, among other things, would exempt a new business' first $100,000 in sales from the city's business tax. I don't know all the fiscal implications of this -- Philadelphia, like other cities, has had its share of budget problems in recent years -- and I'm generally not a believer that reducing taxes results in increased tax revenues. But I suspect that making it easier for entrepreneurs to get started in Philadelphia can only help the city's tax base over time. What we're doing right now isn't working.

Whoa, Inky, Slow Down!

I think I get some of the processes involved here, but it's still weird to see the Philadelphia Inquirer's "Too Bad the Phillies Lost" editorial a whopping four days after the season ended. Not everybody has moved on, I understand, but it still seems less than real timely. If you can't say it within two days, Inky, maybe you want to move on quietly. This just makes you look old and slow.

Enough With The Rand Paul Stomping Already

I was shocked at the video of a Rand Paul supporter stomping on a MoveOn supporter -- but, weirdly, I think we're making too big a deal of it. If there was a small army of Rand Paul supporters marching through Kentucky, stomping on the necks of sign-holding liberals, I'd be concerned. But one incident doesn't tell us anything, really, about the underlying dynamics of a candidate or the ideology he shares with his followers. I got tired of conservatives smearing "SEIU thugs" based on one incident last year; I'm already tired of this.

My Small, Car-less World

I took a train the the Philly suburbs on Saturday to watch the (damnit) concluding game of the NLCS, passing by a lot of interesting little Philadelphia sub-communities that I probably would've explored by now ... if I had a car. So I relate to Atrios' thoughts on what car-lessness does to your world:

"Obviously cars are useful things in that they let you basically go 'anywhere' at relatively low perceived marginal cost (one problem with the way we pay for cars is that a lot of things which are really marginal costs are perceived as fixed costs by people). I think I've been car free for about 6 years now, and where I can go reasonably is dictated by where I can walk, where there's decent public transportation access, where is accessible by a cab ride I'm willing to pay for, or what's accessible by a carshare car that I'm willing to pay for. While there isn't a perfect mapping, carshare costs make perceived fixed costs (insurance, maintenance, car payments) into marginal costs to some degree. All that makes the accessible world quite a bit smaller."

This is all true. I live in Center City, and 95 percent of what I do in town is generally in Center City. That's not all bad: There's lots to do in Center City! I like my neighborhood, and I like the neighborhoods that I can walk to in 20 minutes or less -- which is quite a huge chunk of town. But it is limited. I mostly enjoy living without the car -- and I really appreciate not having the expenses -- but the limits of my travel sometimes make me wonder if living in a big East Coast city has made me more provincial than when I was living in Kansas.

SEIU Thugs in Action!

Sorry. Wrong thugs!

Victor Davis Hanson is Wrong About Wikileaks

Hanson: "We are engaged in a great experiment to see whether the U.S. military can still persist in a conflict when it knows that any and all of its private communications can become public — and will be selectively aired and hyped by people with a preconceived bias against it. Had the public known in real time from periodic media leaks about operational disasters surrounding the planning for the D-Day landings, intelligence failures at the Bulge or Okinawa, or G.I. treatment of some German and Japanese prisoners, the story of World War II might have been somewhat different."

Perhaps, but the release of the the Afghanistan and Iraq documents by Wikileaks has been done in something less than real time. Is there a D-Day operation that has been compromised by the leaks? Not that's been publicly demonstrated, at least. Learning about things years later is not the same as "real time."

And the United States at least had a clearly defined mission in World War II. We knew who we were fighting, what a victory would mean and what a loss would mean. We're nearly a decade post-9/11, having meandered through a pair of quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan, the only thing we really know is that we're supposed to keep fighting. The Wikileaks documents bring some clarity, at least, to the question of the results of that fighting.

Mother Jones and Sarah Palin

Here's the new cover of Mother Jones:

I don't like it. Hey, I get it: Sarah Palin's an attractive woman. I even think so. But I'm trying to think how folks on the left would react to, say, a National Review cover with Hillary Clinton or Kathleen Sebelius in a bikini top, engorged with rage and lust. I think Sarah Palin is a destructive force in American politics, but I hate to see ostensible feminists resort to objectification just because it's somebody on the other side.

Somewhere, Fans of 'Rambo III" Weep Gently To Themselves

Who honestly thinks this is a good idea?: "Russia's military could return to Afghanistan for the first time since the Red Army was forcibly expelled by US-backed mujahideen fighters in 1989. The proposal is part of plans now being discussed by Nato officials ahead of a landmark alliance summit next month, to be attended by the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev."

I know things aren't going well in Afghanistan. But if a big part of our problem there is that we're seen as occupiers -- and it is -- then maybe inviting in the occupiers we once helped kick out of the country sends the wrong damn message. This war is making our leaders stupider and stupider.

Cato: Let's Cut the Defense Budget

I know the Cato Institute is just a "glorified PR firm for Koch Industries," but this paper defies easy labeling as lockstep Republicanism. Benjamin Friedman and Christopher Preble make the case for reducing defense spending by $1.2 trillion over 10 years.

They write: "Concern about deficits has prompted greater scrutiny of all federal spending. But the cuts here would be prudent even in an era of surpluses. The United States does not need to spend $700 billion a year — nearly half of global military spending — to preserve its security. By capitalizing on our geopolitical fortune, we can safely spend far less."

That's deficit-busting I can handle!

Gay Marriage and Activist Judging

Reason's Jacob Sullum offers the strict-constitutionalist case for gay marriage: "I realize opponents of same-sex marriage think they have good reasons for denying gay couples the rights and privileges that straight couples enjoy, and they would argue that homosexuals and heterosexuals are not “similarly situated.” But you know what? Screw them. I am tired of defending the constitutional principles that social conservatives use to restrict liberty, because they so rarely return the favor by supporting those same principles when the effect is to expand liberty. When a supposedly principled originalist like Antonin Scalia can endorse a ridiculously broad reading of the Commerce Clause because the case involves pot, why should I stick my neck out by arguing that the original understanding of equal protection precludes its use in gay marriage cases?"