That’s the title of Andrew Sullivan’s new essay in Time magazine subtitled “Bush thinks he knows what’s good for you, and he’ll spend money to prove it”.

It should come as no surprise that Bush is no libertarian. His rhetoric is full of talk about liberty, and limited government; but his actions indicate he wants the government to control many personal choices and to spend like a Kennedy. This has many people, like Sullivan, who support the war but also genuinely believe in limited government scratching their heads about whether his irresponsible actions are worse than those the likely rival will perform (especially constrained by a Republican congress).

I suspect that Bush will win in any case, but I wish he would consider that he might be costing himself more votes than he’s buying himself with his profligate spending and his religion-guided domestic policy-making. The fans of these policies are unlikely to change their votes because of it, while the critics are seriously considering it.

I also wish he’d consider that the money and liberty he’s using to buy re-election via policy are not rightly his to dispose of. But, I know that’s not the area of morality he cares about.

I don’t have to say anything about Bush’s State Of The Union address, because Alice has already done such a great job of that here
(that link is to her last SOTU post; scroll down to see more).

The New York Times has an article on Google bombing (organizing many web sites to link a string to a particular site, like “miserable failure” to the GWB bio page, in order to manipulate Google results) today.

I made a comment on this a couple of months ago on a blog [old dead link removed]. I think it’s pretty silly. One interesting side-effect I noted, though, is that Google weights the links of sites that are heavily linked-to more strongly, so the target actually is helped a bit by making his links more influential.

So, feel free to Google bomb this site as much as you’d like.

I just posted a criticism of The World’s support of Bush’s new NASA projects here.

Three posts down, I had already expressed my opposition to tax-funded space projects and there’s more detail in the comments to that post.

I’m not utopian. I realize that we’re not living in a world that’s ready for private property respecting anarchy, or even a libertarian night-watchman state. But, that doesn’t mean that we should support the movement in the wrong direction; and that’s what I think an expanded government space program is.

I even recognize gray areas where there might be some role for the government to promote public goods or to reduce “public bads”, but space programs seem to fall well outside these areas. There is no reason that private initiatives can’t provide us with the goods that space research and development will produce. Basic research can be funded privately, technical challenges can be met by voluntarily funding creative challenges like this
one. Profits can be made by providing tourism and entertainment to willing customers.

I love the idea of people exploring and developing outer space. But, I think it’s wrong to force others who are unwilling to pay for it, and to crowd out opportunities for those willing to pursue them privately.

I’m back from a fun week in Vegas.

I stayed away from the news for most of the week. Did anything important happen?

I gather that Bush has come out for some ambitious new NASA projects. I might revisit my criticisms of that soon, but otherwise I’ll take a while to catch up and find something to rant about.

I’m going on vacation for a week (Vegas, baby!), and I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to post anything while I’m gone.

So, don’t be surprised if there are even fewer posts than usual; but don’t stop visiting the site indefinitely, either.

Perhaps an interesting discussion will start up in one of the Comments sections.

I’m opposed to government space programs that are unrelated to defense, but I have to admit that these missions are pretty cool.

I think it’s wrong to fund these projects with tax revenue; but that doesn’t mean I have to ignore how great it is that we can do things like this.

I love that title.

What it really refers to is a very interesting lecture that Michael Crichton gave last year at Caltech about the dangers of using science to promote political projects.

Definitely worth a read.

Link via Instapundit.

Read Mark Steyn’s review of the year’s prospects.

On Gaddafi’s change of heart he writes:

Why exactly did Colonel Gaddafi, within a week of Saddam’s capture, throw open the gates of his WMD facilities to the Brits and Yanks? The Speccie’s esteemed editor, in his interview with Silvio Berlusconi, got the scoop last September, when the Italian Prime Minister reported a recent phone call with the Libyan leader: “I will do whatever the Americans want,” said the Colonel, “because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid.”

Or as I put it in The Jerusalem Post in early May: “You don’t invade Iraq in order to invade everywhere else, you invade Iraq so you don’t have to invade everywhere else.”

I’d like to wish all of you a great new year!

My resolution: 4800 x 4800 dpi