XPost: alt.politics.obama, alt.politics.usa, alt.tv.pol-incorrect   
   From: AntEGM111@aol.com   
      
   On Wed, 27 May 2009 05:34:02 -0400, Ubiquitous    
   wrote:   
      
   >By BRET STEPHENS   
   >   
   >Sometimes it takes "South Park" to explain life's deeper mysteries. Like the   
   >logic of the Obama administration's policy proposals.   
   >   
   >Consider the 1998 "Gnomes" episode -- possibly surpassing Milton Friedman's   
   >"Free to Choose" as the classic defense of capitalism -- in which the children   
   >of South Park, Colo., get a lesson in how not to run an enterprise from   
   >mysterious little men who go about stealing undergarments from the   
   >unsuspecting and collecting them in a huge underground storehouse.   
   >   
   >What's the big idea? The gnomes explain:   
   >   
   >	"Phase One: Collect underpants.   
   >	   
   >	"Phase Two: ?   
   >	   
   >	"Phase Three: Profit."   
   >	   
   >Lest you think there's a step missing here, that's the whole point. ("What   
   >about Phase Two?" asks one of the kids. "Well," answers a gnome, "Phase Three   
   >is profits!") This more or less sums up Mr. Obama's speech last week on   
   >Guantanamo, in which the president explained how he intended to dispose of the   
   >remaining detainees after both houses of Congress voted overwhelmingly against   
   >bringing them to the U.S.   
   >   
   >The president's plan can briefly be described as follows. Phase One: Order   
   >Guantanamo closed. Phase Two: ? Phase Three: Close Gitmo!   
   >   
   >Granted, this is an abbreviated exegesis of his speech, which did explain how   
   >some two-thirds of the detainees will be tried by military commissions or   
   >civilian courts, or repatriated to other countries. But on the central   
   >question of the 100-odd detainees who can neither be tried in court nor   
   >released one searches in vain for an explanation of exactly what the president   
   >intends to do.   
   >   
      
      They're called Supermax prisons.   
      
      
   >Now take the administration's approach to the Middle East. Phase One: Talk to   
   >Iran, Syria, whoever. Phase Two: ? Phase Three: Peace!   
   >   
   >In this case, the administration seems to think that diplomacy, like aspirin,   
   >is something you take two of in the morning to take away the pain. But as   
   >Boston University's Angelo Codevilla notes in his book, "Advice to War   
   >Presidents," diplomacy "can neither create nor change basic intentions,   
   >interests, or convictions. . . . To say, 'We've got a problem. Let's try   
   >diplomacy, let's sit down and talk' abstracts from the important questions:   
   >What will you say? And why should anything you say lead anyone to accommodate   
   >you?"   
   >   
      
      It's called reaching out.  It's no coincidence Lebanese voters   
   trounced Hezbollah at the polls after the Cairo speech.   
      
      
      
   >Ditto for Mr. Obama's approach to nuclear weapons. In a speech last month in   
   >Prague, right after North Korea had illegally tested a ballistic missile, Mr.   
   >Obama promised a new nonproliferation regime, along with "a structure in place   
   >that ensures when any nation [breaks the rules], they will face consequences."   
   >Whereupon the U.N. Security Council promptly failed to muster the votes for a   
   >resolution condemning Pyongyang's launch.   
   >   
   >Now Kim Jong Il has tested another nuke, and we're back at the familiar   
   >three-step. Phase One: Propose a "structure." ...   
   >   
      
      Funny thing about North Korea, their missle tests have all been   
   failures, and seismic analysis of their nukes show either yields well   
   below expectations, or outright duds.  Negotiations with them are   
   mostly for show, not to mention the fact they, and thier porous   
   800-mile northern border are primarily China's problem.   
      
      
   >It was also in his Prague speech that Mr. Obama repeated his pledge to   
   >"confront climate change by ending the world's dependence on fossil fuels, by   
   >tapping the power of new sources of energy like the wind and sun."   
   >   
   >Never mind that neither the wind nor the sun are new sources of energy. It so   
   >happens that the U.S. gets about 2.3% of its energy resources from "renewable"   
   >resources of the kind the president advocates while fossil fuels account for   
   >about 70%. The reason for this, alas, has nothing to do with the greed of the   
   >oil majors. But it has much to do with something known as "energy density":   
   >Crude oil has almost three times as much of it as switchgrass, supposedly the   
   >Holy Grail of our green future. A related problem is that heat invariably   
   >dissipates, meaning that it will always be difficult to turn diffuse sources   
   >of energy, like wind, into concentrated ones.   
   >   
      
      It's actually more a matter of an infrastructure built to service   
   fossil fuels: from oil refineries, to coal-burning power plants, to   
   countless vehicles.  It'll take a long time to convert to a   
   fully-electric/hydrogen infrastructure, but it has to start somewhere.   
   Fossil fuels tend to be one-trick ponies (you burn them, or you . . .   
   burn them), wind and solar are just two of the countless examples of   
   how electricity can be generated; one easily visited example being   
   Hoover Dam, showning how much power can be generated from a little   
   running water.   
      
      
   >In Gnome-speak, then, Mr. Obama's energy policy goes something like this:   
   >Phase One: Inaugurate the era of "green" energy. Phase Two: Overturn the first   
   >and second laws of thermodynamics. Phase Three: Carbon neutrality!   
   >   
      
       Phase Two would actually be "Show some initiative, get off our   
   lazy butts, and start changing already."   
      
      
   >Take any number of Mr. Obama's other initiatives. Rescue Detroit? Phase One:   
   >Set a national mileage standard for passenger cars of 39 miles per gallon and   
   >force auto makers to make the kind of cars that drove them to bankruptcy in   
   >the first place.   
   >   
      
     Actually, the reason they went into bankruptcy had more to do with   
   deep structural problems; still making SUVs against the Prius in the   
   face of high gas prices didn't help.   
      
      
   >Reduce the deficit? Phase One: Approve $3.5 trillion in government stimulus,   
   >and then await the mythical Keynesian multiplier.   
   >   
      
      Said "mythical Keynesian multiplier" worked quite well in the   
   1940s, and arguably in the 1930s.   
      
      
   >Pay for a $1.2 trillion health-care reform? Phase One: scrounge around for   
   >about $60 billion in new "sin tax" revenue.   
   >   
      
      Not quite that simple, but still in need of repair.   
      
      
   >Actually, we can easily guess how Mr. Obama intends to make up the difference   
   >on this last item: To wit, by taxing health benefits. Taxes, subsidies funded   
   >by taxes, regulations and mandates will also fill in many (though not all) of   
   >the other blanks. Underpants gnomes: meet Phase Two. Say, what happened to   
   >profits?   
      
      The profits tend to come when the economy gets better, all in due   
   time.   
      
      
      
   --   
      
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