Quotable

On Isaac's post regarding Governor Palin, it's turning into a jungle over there:

That's your final answer, Brian? Is there any action, any at all, that a Republican can take that makes you say "hold on, WTF, I can't justify this?" Is it all ultimately just a game for you, you pusball? Does nothing matter other than making whatever argument is at hand? Is there finally no limit to your mendacity and your smarminess? At long last, sir, have you no decency whatsoever?
- lefty

Sigh. One of many insults hurled at her, me, and Republicans in general. Their desperation is hysterical. I guess that's what I get for pointing out facts.

The depths Democrats will go to defend their (unqualified) candidate and discriminate against Governor Palin is impressive.

The Palin Pick: THIS is Change we can actually believe in

Six months ago I wrote this:

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin brings a lot of things to a potential national ticket. First off, she already has a record as a reformer. She challenged a Governor of her own party in a competitive primary and defeated him easily. She also brings a different demographic to the ticket. While Senator McCain can easily be portrayed as an old Washington insider, scarred from battles both real and political, Governor Palin will give voters something different. A feeling of vibrancy, of renewal. About as far away from being a Washington insider as you can possibly get. She's so popular, both inside and outside of Alaska, that a Draft Palin for VP movement has existed on the internet for over a year....

...The people of Alaska probably don't want to lose Governor Palin yet, given that she has just started her work as their Governor. However, I'm not sure there are many other choices Senator McCain can make that would energy the base as much as the selection of Governor Palin would. I hope that Senator McCain calls her to serve her country, something she would do admirably

So needless to say, I am downright giddy today. So you can consider this and the shoutout Media Superstar Mark Newgent gave me on WBAL today as part of my Victory Lap.

Needless to say, I am surprised, and I shocked, I am ecstatic, and I am extremely enthusiastic about this pick. Sarah Palin is the future of the Republican Party. She's both conservative's conservative, and a reformer. She took on the corrupt Stevens/Young/Murkowski wing of the Alaska State GOP and has succeeded in changing her state and her party for the better. THIS is the type of change that Barack Obama wishes he could bring; Sarah Palin has been there, and she's done that already.

What's best is the fact that it seems like the Palin Pick left Team HopeChangeHope in complete disarray, with the Obama Camp launching an insulting attack on Governor Palin's experience (never mind the fact that she has more experience than Tim Kaine, an Obama shortlister, plus they skewered small town America to boot) before Obama himself had to try and smooth over the damage prior to the start of his three day campaign trip through several swing states. The left blogosphere is reacting poorly too. America's biggest hatesite, DailyKos, is laying into Governor Palin, with posters there calling her selection unserious, a distraction, the worst VP pick ever, and asserting that her husband is the "Shadow Governor." So much for supporting the equality of the sexes fellas.

Obviously, Senator McCain did something right in order to get the Obama folks in a panic and the leftroots in a lather.

The Maryland leftroots have not reacted too poorly to date, though I want to point out something Isaac said:

I think we can also discard the question of whether the candidates have enough experience, since Palin has even less political experience than Barack Obama.

Except it doesn't. Sarah Palin has more experience in government than Barack Obama does. She has no less foreign policy experience than he does. And, unlike Obama, she is the # 2 on the ticket. Obama's glaring lack of experience to be President still shines through. Friends, this is what we have been waiting for. This is what we have wanted to see all along. We have had our ideological issues with Senator McCain, but he has selected as his running mate somebody who most embodies the conservative movement and the movement of reform. I wrote a while back:

the problem with Republican politics in the 21st century is not the ideology of conservatism, but leadership that itself is not conservative. Once we figure out how to fix that, Republicans will reassume the mantle of ascendancy that we lost when Congressional leadership went native a few years back.

THIS is the first step back. Governor Palin is a conservative reformer, and one with results to boot. This is how we are going to restore conservatism in the Republican Party. Senator McCain did us and the nation a great service through her selection.

Barack Obama talks about change, but who wants the failed liberalism of the past thirty years disguised as change? Barack Obama is the posterchild for identity politics and the politics of failure. McCain-Palin is the ticket that will truly be able to reform Washington.

Sarah Palin represents change that we can actually believe in...

The O'Malley Deficit

There is other news today. Martin O'Malley's deficit was a major story in the Washington Post today:

Maryland could face a budget shortfall of up to $1 billion in its next fiscal year despite a series of tax increases and spending reductions that were intended to largely solve the state's chronic fiscal problems.

The grim assessment, contained in a letter this week to leaders of the General Assembly, blames a sluggish economy that has significantly slowed tax collections and urges "that swift action be taken to mitigate the problem."

"If the current doldrums are seen to persist through fiscal 2010, we could be looking at . . . a problem of up to $1 billion," wrote Warren Deschenaux, the legislature's chief fiscal adviser. "Although time will tell, at this point it sure looks like we are in for a bumpy ride."

Republicans and the conservative bloggers greatly savaged O'Malley's budgetary policy. To raise taxes and simultaneously increase spending is foolhearty, arrogant, and immoral in the best of circumstances. It is damn near criminal in a poor economy, as O'Malley and the General Assembly decided was a good during the Special Session and the 2008 General Assembly session. We have noted time and time again about O'Malley's irresponsibility when it comes to fiscal matters. And time and time again, we have been proved right.

Annapolis Democrats like to pretend that our economy is recession-proof. In April, I wrote:

The state budget should have adequately prepared for increases in Medicaid and unemployment claims when the General Assembly adopted it last week, but I'm sure that pet projects were more important to legislative leadership than this already existent spending.

The argument that Maryland does not spend enough and that we should continue to maintain current spending levels during the O'Malley Recession flies in the face of responsible government....

And we have been proven right time and time again that increased spending to cover pet projects and to make special interest groups happy is more important than being responsible fiscal stewards. They continue to spend it like they stole it.

Clearly, with diminishing tax revenues due to the combination of higher costs of living, the national recession, and the O'Malley tax hikes, the state is now reaping what it has sowed. The O'Malley Recession and how given us the O'Malley Deficit. There are only two ways out of this. The question now is whether O'Malley and his reckless spenders are going to do the right thing (cutting taxes and cutting spending) or the wrong thing (raising even more taxes).

I look forward to showing them the way to their reckoning.

Yowzah

Just watch it (H/T Ed Morrissey)

Stating the Obvious

Another study proves once again that red-light cameras are dangerous:

Well, according to study after study, rather than improving motorist safety, red-light cameras significantly increase crashes and therefore, raise insurance premiums. In fact, the only studies that have shown any benefit to red-light cameras were either done by the IIHS…the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, or researchers funded by them. How very strange, don’t you think? The most recent study revealing the truth about the cameras was done by researchers at the University of South Florida College of Public Health.

“The rigorous studies clearly show red-light cameras don’t work,” said lead author Barbara Langland-Orban, professor and chair of health policy and management at the USF College of Public Health. “Instead, they increase crashes and injuries as drivers attempt to abruptly stop at camera intersections.”

Comprehensive studies from North Carolina, Virginia, and Ontario have all reported cameras are associated with increases in crashes. The study by the Virginia Transportation Research Council also found that cameras were linked to increased crash costs. The only studies that conclude cameras reduced crashes or injuries contained “major research design flaws,” such as incomplete data or inadequate analyses, and were always conducted by researchers with links to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The IIHS, funded by automobile insurance companies, is the leading advocate for red-light cameras since insurance companies can profit from red-light cameras by way of higher premiums due to increased crashes and citations.

I have noted before that my own anecdotal evidence confirms this to be true, and it just passes the common sense test.

This is the inherent problem with red-light cameras and speed cameras; they create dangerous situations for drivers, and serve little purpose other than revenue enhancement for states and localities. How many crashes and how many injuries will it take before the General Assembly puts a halt to these cameras?

Come Again?

As usual, the Annapolis insiders provide us with a startling look into their lack of reality:

The president of the Maryland Senate said yesterday that Sen. Ulysses Currie's work for a regional grocery chain should be investigated by the General Assembly, but Sen. Thomas V. Mike Miller dismissed speculation that he would ask the Prince George's County Democrat to step down from his leadership post.

"Senator Currie, in my opinion, is guilty of making a terrible mistake," said Miller, who is attending the Democratic National Convention here. "Knowing him, I believe it was absent-mindedness. Still, he lobbied the government on behalf of a private entity for personal profit."

Say what? Guilty of making a terrible mistake?

What I think Senator Miller meant to say was "guilty of violating ethics laws and unfit to serve in the State Senate."

Sadly, the story gets worse:

Despite his censure of Currie's actions, Miller again dismissed rumors yesterday that he would ask his political ally to step down as head of the Senate committee that oversees the state budget.

"Senator Currie is going to remain chairman ... through all of these difficult budget negotiations," Miller said, referring to the problems that could be caused by anticipated state revenue shortfalls. "And if, in fact, he is charged by the federal government, then we will look at it again."

So we have somebody who has violated ethics laws and engaged in what seems to be bribery and public corruption, and of course had contraband narcotics found at his home, and Miller is going to leave him in charge of the budget? Is this some sort of bizarro universe we find ourselves in?

The ridiculous thing, however, is the fact that Miller legitimately believes that Currie did no lawful wrong and should remain in the Senate. Had Currie been a Republican, however, don'tcha think that Miller would be constructing the gallows?

There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that Senator Currie broke at least ethics laws, and possibly many many more while serving as a State Senator. He is unfit to serve as a Senator, and certainly unfit to serve in a position of trust and authority as Chairman of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee. Senate leadership needs to wake up and do the right thing.

Vegas, Baby

I think it's starting to become apparent that the relocation of the Washington Nationals isn't really working out for a lot of people:

Ah, the dog days of summer. Time to kick back, relax on the porch with a tall glass of lemonade and listen to the quintessential sound of the season: the ballgame on the radio.

These days, however, hardly anyone's tuning in.

The Washington Nationals, last in the National League East and closing fast on a 100-loss season, have attracted the smallest radio following in the major leagues, according to audience research from Arbitron.

How low? So low that even the microscopic numbers reported by the rating service might be too low to be statistically valid.

The team's broadcasts on the station formerly known as WWWT (107.7 FM and 1500 AM) attracted a cumulative weekly audience of about 26,500 from May through July, the most recent period measured by Arbitron.

The Nationals' following on radio isn't even in the same league as teams with similar records, even those in metropolitan areas with far fewer people than Washington.

And here is the kicker:

The low figures give the Nationals the unusual distinction of being a team that has far more people watching its games in person (average attendance has been 29,990 per game) than listening to them on radio.

So explain to me again why the D.C. City Council appropriated $611 million to build a new stadium for a team that in no way, shape, or form can make it financially?

Look, I've been to two Nats game this year. The new ballpark is nice (certainly nicer than the dump they use to play in), albeit nondescript. But nobody is going to the games. Nobody is listening to the games on radio, and nobody is watching them on television. How is this team going to survive?

Does anybody doubt that the Washington Nationals will be based out of Las Vegas or some other metropolitan area within ten years?

You Gotta Wonder

Maybe this explains why the left wing doesn't get economics. FSP'er Scott Goldberg said this:

In order to help John McCain find out exactly how many houses he actually owns, I have decided to stop drinking Budweiser beer. Hopefully, his wife's income will slow down long enough to get an accurate count before they buy a few more places.

Yeah....well, Hensley & Co. distributes Anheuser-Busch products in Arizona. The decision for Maryland's left wing to stop drinking Budweiser will have zero economic impact on the McCains. In fact, Goldberg's protest does what Maryland liberals love to do best: take money from local businesses, specifically one of the ten Anheuser-Busch wholesalers who distribute their products here in Maryland.

Goldberg's comment is as silly as four years ago when some Republicans stopped buying Heinz ketchup. I'm not going to stop buying a quality product just because somebody I don't like is making money off it (though by no means am I calling Budweiser a quality product).

The Weakness of the Biden Pick

The continued, ongoing feigned enthusiasm that the FSP crowd is pretending to have for the selection of Joe Biden as The One's running mate notwithstanding, Obama's selection of Biden makes sense for several reasons.

1. The decision was not political: like the selection of Dick Cheney in 2000, Joe Biden does not assist with any electoral math (unless you count his connection with Scranton, a city he has not lived in for 53 years, as mattering, which I do not). Obama was going to win Delaware anyway, and Joe Biden is not going to bring any new state to the ticket.
   
   
2. Foreign Policy: If there is any one area that Barack Obama has shown himself to be clueless above all other areas it's in foreign policy. Like him or not, Biden has an extensive and noted background in this area. And even from the Republican perspective, it's not all bad.
   
   
3. Energy: Joe Biden, for all his faults, takes Amtrak too and from Wilmington every day, as you might of heard in the press the last few days. What better way to differentiate the ticket from the Republicans by highlighting somebody who uses (for this country) alternative transportation?
   

Of course, that's about all the positives you can accentuate for Obama in this regard. Now, how does the Biden selection accentuate the fact that Obama's campaign is in trouble?

1. This is not HopeChangeHope: Joe Biden was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972. Barack Obama was 11. It's usually a good idea to select a running mate who does not contradict the major theme of your campaign merely by his selection. The only Senators with more seniority are Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy, Daniel Inouye, and Ted Stevens; that's not exactly a distinguished list of Senators.
   
   Think about this as far as change goes. Have at this quote:
   

   So now Biden is Obama's pick, and he's clearly not a reinforcing one. If Obama's core message is "change" and "judgment" based on his prescience on the Iraq War vote, well then, Biden is the exact opposite of those things. And the media has reacted accordingly.

   Who said that? Kos.
   
   
   
2. War, War what is it good for?...or not: Joe Biden voted for the war. Barack Obama didn't. Since Obama got where he is today predicated a lot on the fact that he wasn't at the pay grade to vote on things like war back in 2002, and despite the fact that Obama admitted that Bush's surge plan worked, it seems a little curious to pick a running mate who you stadfastly disagreed with.
   
   
3. Who's leading the ticket?: Yesterday Barack Obama made a gaffe on the stump (what's new?) and introduced Biden as "The Next President of..." before correcting himself. Of course, that's the thing a lot of people see. Democrats like to kvetch that Dick Cheney has been pulling the strings of this White House; couldn't their fears come true again with Biden, the ultimate insider, running with Obama? Because Biden has literally been a major player in D.C. since Obama was in middle school.
   
   
4. Gaffe, Gaffe, Gaffe: Biden has a tendency to shoot his mouth off at times which he really should keep it shut. And hey, that's a sometimes admirable thing and a way to actually get to the truth of the matter, but Biden makes it an artform. Of course, if you a Barack Obama, you're probably hoping and praying to keep Biden away from a live mic for the next 72 days because you know that he is going to spout off about something.
   
   
5. The Senator from MBNA is Recognized: While Obama has his ties to a convict and a terrorist, there was a reason that Biden was known as the Senator from MBNA. He often put the credit card company first and foremost in his mind during his service as a U.S. Senator. And true, MBNA was a large employer for his home state of Delaware (after fleeing high taxes in Maryland, incidentally) Biden went above and beyond for this big business. Given the "credit crunch" here in the U.S., can Obama afford someone with such close ties to big credit?
   
   
6. Truthiness: The use of accurate facts and original material has never exactly been Biden's strong suit, a point that Dan Spencer at RedState strongly reinforced today.

The moral of the story is this. Obama selected Biden from a position of weakness, not a position of strength. Biden was picked to overcome Obama's noticeable shortcomings in experience and knowledge. And Biden was selected in an effort to stop the bleeding. Somebody in Obama's campaign thinks that the selection of Biden is going to shore up concerns with Obama's inexperience, and that the selection is going to reinforce the ticket's foreign policy credentials. Problem is, the selection only accentuates the weaknesses the American people already knows Barack Obama has.

And let's face it; running mate selections made from a position of weakness never really work.

• Gore picked Lieberman because he was the polar opposite of Bill Clinton;
• Mondale picked Ferraro because of the movement to select a female running mate, and because he needed to try something to save off Reagan.
  
• Reagan picked Schweiker at the 1976 Republican National Convention in an effort to balance the ticket, and it cost him the nomination.
  
• McGovern picked Eagleton in 1972 because Ted Kennedy said no, and because he needed somebody to run with him.

Will the Biden selection rank up there? Probably not? But it makes it clear that the Obama campaign is on the run.

Let's hope that Senator McCain makes a wiser selection...

Rodricks a waste of printable space

Dan Rodricks, as usual, proved he's not that smart today with his column regarding Michael Phelps and the drinking age.

Rodricks tries to make the argument that because Michael Phelps was arrested for drunk driving at 19, clearly it proves that the drinking age should not be lowered from 21 to 18.

That's his entire argument. As illogical as it is. Never mind the fact that drunk driving is a crime separate from that of underage drinking. Never mind the fact that he makes no other connection between Phelps' arrest and the drinking age. Rodricks just wants the reader to make some sort of unspoken, innate connection between drunk driving and lowering the drinking age.

It is reasonable to believe that the drinking age should remain 21. Rodricks argument, however, is somewhere between ridiculous and nonexistent.

Maybe if the Sun really wanted to attract readers, they would stop redesigning the paper every six months and instead replace columnists like Rodricks with reasonably talented, reasonably intelligent writers who can defend their positions in a logical, reasonable manner. Because let's face it, printing a Rodricks column is little more than a waste of paper and ink.

Hope? Change? Nope

If what ABC is reporting is true (H/T Erick Erickson), and that Joe Biden is now receiving Secret Service protection, can somebody explain how somebody who has been a United States Senator for 36 years signify the "HopeChangeHope" that Obama allegedly represents?

Class? Class? Bueller?

He doesn't. It's just another realization for a lot of people that Obama is just like any other politician, just in a slightly more scandalized format...

It Must be a Dream

Absentee posted it last night at RedState, but this deserves the widest dissemination possible:




October 3rd can't get here soon enough...

Brian's List

On RedMaryland Radio tonight, we discussed this story from Blender Magazine about the top 10 songs selected by Senator Obama and Senator McCain. So Greg Kline and I came up with our list of top songs (well, mine went to 11). And we are posting both of our lists, and letter our listeners/readers decide whose list is better (look to the right, and you'll see the poll).

Here's the list, which Greg spent no shortage of time ridiculing me for:

1. "Dream On" Aerosmith
   
"Dream All Day" The Posies
2. "Black Metallic" Catherine Wheel
"Friends in Low Places" Garth Brooks
3. "Wonderwall" Oasis
"Johnny B. Goode" Chuck Berry
"Welcome to the Jungle" Guns n Roses
4. "(Sitting on the) Dock of the Bay" Otis Redding
   
"Fall to Pieces" Velvet Revolver
5. "Sultans of Swing" Dire Straits
"I Guess That's Why they Call it the Blues" Elton John

Cleaner Energy through more Lane-Miles?

This is the kinda thing that, if it works, is really cool:

Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute have just done a batch of research that they hope will help turn the world's roads into cheap collectors of solar power.

They started with the assumption that asphalt gets frakking hot when the sun shines on it, and then started making some serious leaps.

First, they decided to figure out what part of the asphalt gets hottest, which turns out to be about two centimeters below the surface. Then they tried to figure out how to make it even hotter. The painted an anti-reflective coating to their test blocks, and then added highly thermally conductive quartzite to the mix.

The result is blacktop that gets even hotter and stays hotter for longer than regular asphalt. Of course, this left them with the problem of how to get the energy out of the road. By laying down a series of flexible and highly conductive copper pipes before pouring the asphalt they were able to pump water through the asphalt, picking up the heat, for use in power generation.

This is the kind of private sector innovation that needs to be encouraged. The private sector, working to harness the resources that we have, to address our power concerns. I love the idea.

Maybe we can get Paul Foer to be reasonable about supporting constructing more lane-miles yet...

Bottoms Up

We talked extensively about this on RedMaryland Radio tonight, but I wanted to say a few things here about this:

Top university officials in Maryland - including the chancellor of the state university system and the president of the Johns Hopkins University - say the current drinking age of 21 "is not working" and has led to dangerous binges in which students have harmed themselves and others.

Six college presidents in Maryland are among more than 100 college and university presidents nationwide who have signed a statement calling for a public debate on rethinking the drinking age.

"Kids are going to drink whether it's legal or illegal," said Johns Hopkins President William R. Brody, who supports lowering the drinking age to 18. "We'd at least be able to have a more open dialogue with students about drinking as opposed to this sham where people don't want to talk about it because it's a violation of the law."

The presidents of the University of Maryland, College Park; Towson University; the College of Notre Dame of Maryland; Goucher College; Washington College and the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute signed the statement, along with the presidents of Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State University.

"How many times must we relearn the lessons of prohibition?" the statement says. "Adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military, but are told they are not mature enough to have a beer."

And I say "here, here." The only reason that we have a "national" drinking age is because the Federal Government tied in highway funding to the 21-year old standard; if your drinking age wasn't 21, you didn't get your share of the pie. And that's a pretty dumb way to make public policy and and a cheap way to coerce states into doing what you can't do legislatively.

If you are old enough to sign a contract, serve in the military, and do things that require you to attain the age of 18, you are old enough to purchase and consume alcohol legally. This is a no-brainer and I have no idea why this movement hasn't come sooner than it has. The commitment to keeping 21 as the legal drinking age makes little legislative or policy sense, and certainly does not pass the test of common sense. The Presidents should be applauded for supporting logical action.

My only disappointment? My alma mater, which is a signatory to the foolish American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, couldn't be bothered to sign on to this much more useful endeavor...

The Bay Bridge, Traffic Safety, and the Human Condition

A couple of stories tie together here today.

First off, the Sun's resident totalitarian Michael Dresser wants to turn the Bay Bridge into Big Brother's Rumpus Room:

That's why there is nowhere in the state where the case is stronger for vigorous use of video technology to enforce the law. Not just to issue automated speeding tickets but also to identify other offenders who can be pulled over once they're off the bridge. I'd like to see a defendant in District Court try to explain away video evidence of tailgating.

There's also a strong argument that traffic violations on the authority's bridges and tunnels deserve tougher sanctions. If fines are doubled in work zones, why not triple them on the Bay Bridge and other toll facilities? (The Harbor Tunnel, Fort McHenry Tunnel, Key Bridge, the U.S. 40 bridge over the Susquehanna and the U.S. 301 bridge over the Potomac. I'd exempt the toll section of Interstate 95 because it doesn't raise the same issues.)

It wouldn't take long before folks absorbed the message that Maryland toll bridges and tunnels are someplace where you drive as if your mom were in the car.

Of course, what Dresser suggests is patently illegal under state law. And frankly, it's a bit Pollyannaish too. Only a liberal would dare suggest that the presence of a camera is going to deter insane or criminal behavior. If they did, the areas around police cameras in Baltimore would be the safest places in Maryland. Why is that not so? Because cameras can only punish the act. They do not prevent the act itself and thus do nothing to protect the public safety, as liberals like to suggest.

Using technology to catch drivers on the Bay Bridge would be no different, and would probably serve only one purpose; revenue enhancement. We have see speed and red-light cameras across the country installed in places where they serve little purpose but to line the pockets of local government, to say nothing of the fact that they create traffic headaches and likely cause accidents. Of course, facts never stopped Dresser from promoting nonsense before...

While Dresser wants to baby us, an article in the Wilson Quarterly goes in a....different direction:

In the last few years, however, one traffic engineer did achieve a measure of global celebrity, known, if not exactly by name, then by his ideas. His name was Hans Monderman. The idea that made Monderman, who died of cancer in January at the age of 62, most famous is that traditional traffic safety ­infra­structure—­warning signs, traffic lights, metal railings, curbs, painted lines, speed bumps, and so ­on—­is not only often unnecessary, but can endanger those it is meant to protect.

As I drove with Monderman through the northern Dutch province of Friesland several years ago, he repeatedly pointed out offending traffic signs. “Do you really think that no one would perceive there is a bridge over there?” he might ask, about a sign warning that a bridge was ahead. “Why explain it?” He would follow with a characteristic maxim: “When you treat people like idiots, they’ll behave like idiots.”

Emphasis mine....and read the whole thing. Because Monderman was right. The nanny state, in all of its forms, creates nothing but babies, people who cannot function without government oversight. Overregulation, overprotection dumbs us down. It's why kids who used to ride their bikes without helmets in the middle of the road to play ball at a neighbors house stay inside because parents are afraid of getting sued for a cut sustained on their property and overprotective parents want to dress their kids up enough pads before getting on a bike to take part in a jousting event. Is it any wonder kids are sedentary and show no interest in fiddling with things, and no interest in being outside?

And that is the kind of logic that people like Dresser wants to apply to the highways, and people like Dresser want to apply to every situation. They want to over-regulate to the point where nobody is safe. Sure, Monderman's principles on traffic control are revolutionary and perhaps a little too over the top. But are they really any different, as I noted before, from the laws of the Autobahn which has few regulations, but find those regulations strictly enforced? At the very least, Monderman's ideas appeal to our basic principles that the government that governs best governs least, and idea subscribed to by the majority of averaged Americas.

Finally, as a tribute to Monderman and finger in the eye of Dresser, I heartily endorse this idea from Donald Sensing:

So it's less polluting to drive than fly, right? And it appears that is is rapidly becoming just as quick to drive as fly on not only short-range flights, but increasingly on medium-range flights as well.

So here's my global-warming-fighting plan: significantly increase the speed limits on the nation's interstate highways. That will make driving rather than flying even more appealing, more financially attractive and less time consuming.

By "significantly increase" the speed limits, I mean to triple-digit speeds. The present limit in Tennessee in 70 mph. So let's reset it to 100, minimum.

Here, here. A plan that fights global warming, a plan that provides for greater national security, and a plan that embraces Monderman's idea for relatively unregulated roads. Quite Panglossian.

When can we sign up?

RedMaryland radio is back Tuesday

RedMaryland Radio, hosted by Greg Kline and yours truly, is back on the air Tuesday evening at 6:30 on Oldies 970, WAMD in Aberdeen.

No guests this week, though I guarantee that this is going to be an interesting and somewhat different version of the show.

Have a question for us? Comments you want us to read on the show? Let us know at our new show email address, redmarylandradio@gmail.com. And be sure to check out our website at redmarylandradio.com. Be sure to listen to past shows posted under the "Past Shows" section of the site.

Check us out: (H/T Radio Locator)

I Get Letters

Needless to say that yesterday's post about Paul Foer earned me a nastygram....from Paul Foer:

from	Paul Foer
to		brian@briangriffiths.com
date		Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 7:36 AM
subject		Thanks for all the free publicity of my ideas......

We've never met, yet you sure have taken an interest in me. I appreciate the fact that you read Capital Punishment, take me so seriously and pay so much attention to what you label as my "fringe left" views that you feel compelled to tell even more people about it--who then visit my blog. I think it's funny that you say I resort to "yelling" because I put a few sentences in bold. At least I don't resort to immature name-calling.

Regarding the Bay Bridges, you confidently feel that we'll alway have the energy available to power all the vehicles you anticipate for years and years to come. Okay. Talk about sticking one's head in the sand. There's plenty of it at the beach, so enjoy your next trip there...over two spans or ten....why not just build a fifty lane bridge? More bridges everywhere.....

It's bad enough that your views don't consider the tremendous changes we will are undergoing now, but to attack someone whose views you don't like or agree with is just silly. Now you'll turn around and whine that I'm like the people described in "Liberal Fascism" or some such thing. But you don't know me. You know nothing about me.


Paul Foer

Wow. Foer does realize that I am not promoting his ideas....I'm mocking them for their lack of foresight, thought, and reason.

If that weren't bad enough, he then tries to completely change the argument. At no point in my rebuttal of his post did I talk about fuel. Why? Because something is going to power cars. I don't know if it will be gas, ethanol, sawgrass, hydrogen, or chicken droppings, but the people of this country will be using cars. That's not going to change anytime soon. People have been using personal, land based conveyances since a minor invention 5700 years ago. If Foer believes that is going to stop, that we won't evolve to cleaner fuels, than he is even more naïve than I thought he was.

This is my favorite part:

but to attack someone whose views you don't like or agree with is just silly. Now you'll turn around and whine that I'm like the people described in "Liberal Fascism" or some such thing.

You mean like this?

No, Mayor Moyer, you're just a mean-spirited, angry, paranoid incompetent as mayor. You are not a bad person. Rough around the edges perhaps. Quick to anger. Not always warm and fuzzy. We can handle that. But please, we have a municipal government to run, a corporate body, and it just keeps getting worse.

Yeah, couldn't imagine how I'd find you a hypocrite.

Besides Foer. I know what your game is. You make money off of the transit industry, so naturally he is going to denigrate alternatives in an effort to put some money in his pocket. It kinda reminds me of this (warning, language):



Foer also makes money on boating, including gas-guzzling motorboats. So I'm not exactly sure I want to get preached at on the environment by somebody who makes a living on things that guzzle more gas than my Saturn.

I point out people like Foer because these are the people who think they know better than you. Paul Foer thinks he is better than me, better than you, and better than anybody involved in politics or government. In truth, he's just a bitter guy, mad that he wasn't old enough to be a hippie, so bitter that even reasonable liberals like Bruce Godfrey have trouble getting a meaningful conversation out of. I point people like Foer out because these are the people that are brining nothing constructive to the political conversation, and people like him need to be exposed for what they really are.

Senseless Jackassery

Eric Luedtke decides to try to score political points with tragedy and a senseless act of violence:

CNN is reporting that Bill Gwatney, the Chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party, was shot and killed today by a gunman who entered the office to seek him out. No word yet on the motive, but there is of course the possibility that this is a copycat of the attack on the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, which was targeted for political reasons.

That's right, Luedtke wants to throw the right-wing under the bus for this hours after a senseless murder.

I certainly for one grieve for Gwatney and his family. Nobody should be killed for their political views if that is indeed the case. But this is certainly not the time for the finger pointing and speculation that Luedtke engages in. That's senseless jackassery and is totally inappropriate.

The Cost of Ethanol Subsidies

I have noted on more than one occasion that the insistence on the use of corn-based ethanol as an alternative fuel is having serious impact on our economy, higher food costs, as well as a negative impact on our environment. Check out this video from Reason.tv which further discusses the role of ethanol and ethanol subsidies in our environmental degradation:



This is insistence on ethanol as an alternative fuel really needs to be reconsidered before we do further damage to the economy and to the environment...

No need to wait to start building Third Span

Long before Sunday morning's tragic accident on the Bay Bridge, the need has been existent for a new span across the Chesapeake Bay. This has little to do with the accident, and everything to do with traffic, congestion, and public safety.

Well Paul Foer, ever the voice of failure and bad public policy, spouted off about how horrible that thought was:

It was not long after the recent fatal crash on our Bay Bridges (yes there are two of them as well as the bridge-tunnel near Norfolk) that some clamored for another crossing, a third span...yada yada yada...Okay-how often is there a fatal or serious crash on the bridges? Well they happen, but seriously, how often? Any more than on any other busy road? Of course the aftermath of tie-ups is worse, but does this mean we need another bridge? Sure, if you just want to build and develop and slash and burn, go ahead and make another bridge.

Of course, the construction of the new bridge has little to do with growth and little to do with development. Those are county zoning issues that are not impacted by the state. True, it may make the Eastern Shore more accessible, but isn't that the point of building a new span? Not necessarily for development, but to allow to improve the economy and to provide a more adequate public safety capability for the Shore?

I mean, does anybody really want to see a 25-mile backup on Route 50 if thousands of Eastern Shore residents are trying to evacuate to the Western Shore due to an imminently landfalling hurricane? Because even with a contraflow traffic pattern, five lanes going westbound would not be able to handle that capacity in an emergency, and if an accident were to close one of the spans during that evacuation the impact could be catastrophic.

Foer continues:

But we cannot build our way out of this one. The first crossing was in 1952 and then just 21 years later we opened a second one. Even if we could and did build a third to open in five years or so, would we find ourselves crying for another--a fourth crossing in the year 2020 or 2025? And we must ask ourselves that given what we can reasonably expect about the future of oil and all energy, as well as the environmental concerns, are we sure we really want to keep building as usual, imposing 1950's solutions on 21st and 22nd century challenges? If traffic is the problem and cars and roads make traffic, why would we want to continue adding cars and roads in order to alleviate traffic? Surely the argument is vastly more complex than I make it here, but we must really face the facts and ask ourselves if building more roads and highways is a viable or even sustainable option.

Obviously, Foer wants to talk about the need for a fourth span when we haven't even built the third span. As usually, Foer goes straight for the strawman argument that we may need to do more in the future. Well, not if you plan appropriately now. I have called for a six-lane span to be built at the current site, which would allow for eleven lanes of traffic crossing the Bay. And the span can even be constructed in a manner that allows multi-modal transportation options, including light or heavy rail, and dedicated rapid bus transit lanes. That's not a "1950's solution"; that's a solution that looks toward the future and allows for considerable relief options for transportation planners.

And if Foer wants to make an environmental argument, I say this: isn't it more environmentally sound for traffic to move at a reasonable rate than to have a five-mile backup of cars inefficiently spewing pollutants into the atmosphere?

Then, because Foer has no intelligible points to make, he switches over to yelling:

THE DAYS OF CHEAP OIL ARE OVER. EVENTUALLY WE WILL RUN OUT. EVERY ALTERNATIVE IS FRAUGHT WITH DIFFICULTY AND DOWNSIDES. HOWEVER, WE MUST FACE THE FACTS AND THEY ARE THAT WE CANNOT BUILD OURSELVES OUT OF TRAFFIC CONGESTION. IT MAY HAVE WORKED IN SOME PLACES FOR SOME TIMES, BUT THOSE DAYS ARE BEHIND US.

Of course, we can build ourselves out of congestion by adding highway lane-miles to our infrastructure. Foer says we can't, because only because the thought makes him unhappy and he likes to pout. Obviously if you expand highway capacity, you reduce highway congestion. Even a third-grader could figure that out.

The ostrich philosophy of the left, that by sticking our head in the sand and hoping our traffic problems disappear, is problematic. We do not have a transportation infrastructure that can sustain the amount of traffic in the area, the legacy of the de-mapping trend from the 60's and 70's (something I wrote about three years ago). Not dealing with the issue, by not adding more lane-miles to Maryland's transportation system, we are doing little but to further degrade the economic, public safety, and yes environmental posture of our state..

We have the capability to do this, to not only build a third span, but also improve mass transit options, through privatization as I have long been advocating. This project needs to be started, and started as quickly as humanly possible.

Take the Hint

Well, the joker who came up with the "Big O" is just not going to take no for an answer:

At first, Rick Husong was stunned by the overwhelming wave of negative and sometimes crude reactions to his bid revealed in Whispers last week to build a pro-Sen. Barack Obama movement around a hand salute dubbed the Big-O. Among the hundreds of comments posted on the Whispers site were those comparing it to a gang gesture, a Nazi salute, or worse. "This is how Sieg Heil got started. And, no I'm not saying Obama is Hitler. I just think people should be careful about slipping into a personality cult for a charismatic leader," wrote Jake of Tennessee. Husong tells me that he was pretty depressed by the reaction to his idea and free design offered on the website of Loyalty Inc., his California creative company. That is until he heard of a fan walking on Venice Beach wearing a T-shirt displaying the artwork. In fact, despite the tsunami of criticism, the artwork has been downloaded 7,700 times and his site has been hit 214,000 times since the first Whisper went live. "I would call that a raving success," he says, adding that he plans to make his Big-O the "peace sign of our generation."

Well, don't let abject failure and public humiliation keep you down, right?

And then Husong, the founder of this "movement" goes off into space cadet territory:

He also E-mailed me last night to say that the hits on the artwork have inspired him to push even harder to build a movement around the hand signal. Here's what he wrote: "Our symbol 'O' is about much more than Barack Obama. It's a symbol of unity, hope, solidarity, and an end to the divisiveness that has plagued this country for too long. It is the peace sign of our generation; a sign for those who are tired of the fear, the hatred, the greed, and the ignorance. There will be resistance, democracy requires it, but we believe that the good in the American people will persevere.

The peace sign of our generation? A slick, corporately produced hand symbol that is reminds people that Barack Obama is little more than a slick, media production? All flash, no substance. That's what he wants to publicize a hand symbol for? At least the peace sign was an organically developed hand gesture, developed by people who were part of a movement. It was not something that an advertising agency came up with, like this one is, for a candidate who is desperately trying to create an air of substance around his candidacy.

The good news is that while Obama supporters figure out new and creative ways to show their loyalty and subjugation to Obama cult, their savior is out losing the election, so I suppose they need to find something to pump them up.

Astroturfing Health Care

FSP is shopping this on its front page in an effort to astroturf the creation of a socialist health care system:

Quite simply, with rising health care costs (including $50 billion per year to pay for insurance industry advertising) being born out by working families and American businesses, health care is a top economic concern. To keep American workers at their best, and to keep American business competitive in the world, something has to change.

Nancy Pelosi has recently declared health care expansion to be #2 on her list of legislative priorities, right after ending the Iraq war. In the past month, tens of thousands of Americans have told us they want quality, affordable health care for all. Now it's time to ask Congress.

So, Congress, which side are you on? Are you with us for quality, affordable health care for all? Or are you with the insurance companies, working to preserve our broken system?

We've set up a quick and easy way for you to contact your Members of Congress and ask them if they support our vision for health care reform. Just click here and enter in your phone number and address. Choose the elected official you want to talk to and in a few moments, we'll call your phone and connect you automatically.

Over the next few weeks, we want to make 100,000 calls to Congress, asking every Member which side they are on. We need your help to do it, so please click here to call!

I'm not really going to get into the idea of public health care, because there is a general consensus that it would be a disaster. But there are a few things that bother me with this, not the least of which is the fact that the author of the piece, Jason Rosenbaum, is employed by the Health Care for America Now group and Isaac chose not to point that out, which is disappointing.

What is not surprising, however, is the fact that the fringe left needs to try and create a groundswell of support for the issue of socialist health care. Because there is no support for it. The general public understands that when you have government run health care, you get government run solutions. The quality of care is diminished. The availability of care is diminished. Even the most important preventative procedures get a patient waitlisted and people resort to their own measures. Think of an HMO on steroids, and that's what the Democratic plan is.

Jon Henke wrote a piece for The Next Right yesterday afternoon that is very timely, given the left's attempt to further ruin American health care:

However, there are three problems with what Krugman claims about Medicare being "immensely popular"...

1. The recipients of Medicare get it, basically, for free. Since they're not paying for it at the point of purchase, it's not surprising that they think it's quite a nice thing.
2. Indeed, a lot of the real costs of Medicare lie in the future. And they are enormous. The costs are being hidden for now, while voters mostly approve of the more tangible benefits. Should voters ever have a chance to make a real cost/benefit trade-off, we'll see just how much they actually value it.
3. But, you might argue, polls show that 76% of Americans approve of Medicare. And so they do. But look what else those polls show about public approval of Medicare...

And that, my friends, is the problem. The most important plank of the Democrats plan is that it is a single-payer system available to everybody. But it is hard to create support for such a system when:

1. The costs of such a system would require draconian tax increases in an economy that cannot handle them;
2. The existing public health system already in place is one of the most reviled programs in government.

As usual, with the left it's about power, not about helping people, the same people who block affordable health care to the poor. The public would be best to ignore the health care solution the left wishes to manufacture support for.

Anne Arundel Young Republicans are back

The reconstituted Anne Arundel Young Republicans will be holding an organizational and membership meeting this Thursday, August 14th at 7:30 PM at MD GOP Headquarters, 15 West Street Annapolis.

At this meeting, dues will be collected for all members, and officers will be elected as the club is once again established.

This meeting will begin shortly after the conclusion of the McCain Open House being held at GOP Headquarters from 4-7 PM on Thursday.

Please spread the word far and wide so that we can ensure good attendance as we work to rebuild this club.

Why # 2 Matters

Back during the primaries, the McCain Campaign floated a trial balloon about John McCain only serving one term as President. So it was only a matter of time before that idea resurfaced as it did this weekend:

John McCain's White House campaign manager refused to be pinned down Sunday on whether the 71-year-old Republican might commit to serve only one term as president if he is elected in November.

Rick Davis, interviewed on Fox News Sunday, was asked if the Arizona senator might pledge at next month's Republican convention to serve a single term and decline to run for re-election in four years' time.

"You're going to have to come to the Republican convention to find out what's going to happen there," Davis said ahead of the September 1-4 gathering in Minneapolis-St Paul, Minnesota.

Asked if he was ruling out the idea or not, the campaign manager said: "I'm not talking about it at all."

Obviously, Davis' refusal to talk about it means, at the very least, they have considered it in the past. Perhaps the campaign's refusal to go into details it to maintain an element of strategy and surprise, but still the idea has obviously been discussed within the campaign braintrust.

But if Senator McCain is going to do this, he is going to have to do what is right for the country and for the party, not just what is right for the election. Clearly, moreso than even the usual situation for a running mate, McCain's selection will clearly be the frontrunner in 2012. It means that McCain's selection of a running mate needs to be a conservative that we can trust to govern, and not just the right guy who happens to be from a swing state.

If Senator McCain is to only serve one term as President, he needs to select somebody in the mold of a Jindal, Palin, or Cantor moreso than the mold of a Crist or Pawlenty. If he is going to make such a bold announcement, he needs to make the right choice to serve as Vice-President. He owes that to the people who support him.

Just Pathetic

Need I say more (H/T Moe Lane):

And now, if a Los Angeles creative agency gets its way, Sen. Barack Obama will see fans meet him with his own salute like the one above. "Our goal is to see a crowd of 75,000 people at Obama's nomination speech holding their hands above their heads, fingers laced together in support of a new direction for this country, a renewed hope, and acceptance of responsibility for our future," says Rick Husong, owner of The Loyalty Inc. Husong tells me that he got the idea after seeing the famous Obama-Progress poster by artist Shepherd Fairey. "We wanted to get involved some way," he says. So, the agency came up with their own a symbol of hope and progress that also plays off Obama's name. "We thought, 'Let's try and start a movement where even while walking down the street, people would hold up the O and you would know that they were for Obama,' " says Husong.

What a pathetic, cheap, and desperate attempt to create gravitas and a sense of community around Obama.

Unfortunately, I can think of a couple of other movements started where people could identify their fellow travelers while walking down the street. Let's just say those didn't turn out too well....

The Free Market Strikes Back

We have talked a lot about the economic damage that may potentially be brought be the overzealousness to implement new eco-friendly standards and laws. Well over in England, the party is over and the free market is reasserting itself:

Julie Burchill can't stand them. According to her new book, Not in my Name: A Compendium of Modern Hypocrisy, she thinks all environmentalists are po-faced, unsexy, public school alumni who drivel on about the end of the world because they don't want the working classes to have any fun, go on foreign holidays or buy cheap clothes.

Michael O'Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair, agrees. In an interview with Rachel Sylvester and me, he told us that the "nutbag ecologists" are the overindulged rich who have nothing better to do with their lives than talk about hot air and beans.

So the salad days are over; it's the end of the greens. Where only a year ago the smart new eco-warriors were revered, wormeries and unbleached cashmere jeans are now seen as a middle-class indulgence.

But the problem for the green lobby isn't that it has been overrun by "toffs": it's the chilly economic climate that has frozen the shoots of environmentalism. Espousing the green life, with its misshapen vegetables and non-disposable nappies, is increasingly being seen as a luxury by everyone.

Read the whole thing.

It's nice to see that we have clearly reached a tipping point when it comes to the environmental movement. Sure, it's easy to be somebody like Al Gore and (claim to) live a life in balance with the Earth, and with carbon offsets, and all that rot. But while this rich environmentalists can afford to take major steps in order to (claim to) be more environmentally friendly, clearly not everybody can live that way.

The reactions that we see in stories like this, and the reaction to yesterday's issue in Germany gives me more hope that economic factors will continue to keep radical environmentalism at bay, and allow the public and private sectors to assume more reasonable stances in regards to conservation and environmental protection.

So this is the crap that Maxwell wants to spend money on

So apparently, the attitude in new Anne Arundel County schools is to make benefit glorious leader:

In the new Nantucket Elementary School, between the cafeteria and media center, is the "Wall of Inspiration."

It features posters of famous quotes and people - writers, philosophers, civic leaders. One has a quote from Mother Teresa: "We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do."

Another has a quote from Walt Disney: "If you can dream it, you can do it."

And right in the middle, across from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Rose Kennedy, next to the great men and women of our time, is county schools Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell.

"Children and people are the heart of everything we do. And every move we make for better or worse impacts our children," the poster reads, below a photo of Dr. Maxwell helping a student with her schoolwork.

It's bad enough that the School System would approve such a frivolous expense in the first place. But Maxwell's inclusion on such a wall, and the fact that taxpayer dollars were spent to fund it, is appalling. I'm sure, however, that Tricia Johnson and Teresa Milio Birge will think that this is a perfectly acceptable use of taxpayer dollars. Too bad they don't face real competition at the ballot box this fall....

The Collision of Flash and Substance

Blair Lee, as usual, makes a very common-sense argument against the new arena in Baltimore by reminding readers:

When Baltimore goes, hat in hand, to Annapolis or Capitol Hill we hear about the city's terrible murder rate, unemployment rate, property tax rate, test scores and tax base. We hear about abandoned housing, population decline, drug addiction and the concentration of poor people. Baltimore will sink into the Patapsco without huge infusions of state and federal aid they say.

But when Baltimore politicians run for re-election or seek statewide office we hear about Harbor Place, gleaming waterfront condos, new biotech centers, skyrocketing housing prices, rising test scores, property tax cuts and the return of the middle class.

It must be difficult for city politicians to keep their stories straight lest they forget and give the wrong speech to the wrong audience.

As I have been saying for a long time, there are a number of problems that the city of Baltimore has before tackling the issue of a new sports arena. Schools are and remain a disaster. The population is continuing to decline. The drug culture continues to run roughshod through the poorest parts of town. Crime remains high for a city of its size. These are all concerns that state and city leaders should be focused on.

But, of course, dealing with serious issues such as education and crime control aren't as flash and aren't as sexy as a brand spanking new arena and other construction boondoggles:

Baltimore loves construction projects whether they make sense or not, especially if state taxpayers foot the bill. We poured millions into the Columbus Center and various city museums that went bust. Likewise, the $600 million light rail system is a loser and the millions we spent on the Hippodrome Theater simply put the Morris Mechanic Theater out of business. Then there are the state-financed Ravens and Orioles Stadiums, terrible business deals for the state but "must-haves" for the city. But at least the two stadiums have tenants.

That's the kind of thing that gets positive press from the tv stations and constant genuflection from Dan Rodricks. Arenas are flash, but not nearly as positive as dealing with the issues that immediately impact every man, woman, and child living in the city of Baltimore and yes, the surrounding suburbs.

As Lee points out, the city is still suffering the consequences of O'Malley's Folly from his term as Mayor of Balitmore, insisting on a taxpayer funded Hilton hotel in downtown despite the complete lack of need for it, despite the avoidance of the market to determine a need for the construction of such a hotel, and despite the clear example that Myrtle Beach, Sacramento, and St. Louis gave for the city leaders long before the commencement of construction here.

The moral of the story, as usual, is that Maryland Democrats have issues finding appropriate things to spend money on.

All of which makes this video that much more infuriating.

Take a look at the record. Sadly, the day that Martin O'Malley puts the people first as opposed to his political career will be the first day that he actually does that. If O'Malley put people first, there would be no new hotel in Baltimore, nor would there be higher taxes or even a hint that a penny of taxpayer dollars would be directed to help fund construction of this new arena. Unfortunately, O'Malley as well as leadership in Baltimore looks prepared to make the same mistakes again...

The Fifth Column

Looks like we now know why CASA of Maryland is so hellbent on flouting our immigration laws:

Casa of Maryland got a $1.5 million shot in the arm Tuesday from the Venezuelan-owned oil giant Citgo, money that will support programs across the state and bolster a long-planned employment center in Langley Park that could open as early as October.

Citgo's donation will be spread over three years, beginning next year. It is the biggest corporate donation the immigrant advocacy group has ever received.

It is sad and pathetic that such an organization would willingly accept a large donation from the government of a tyrannical communist dictatorship that limits the freedom of their people and threatens geopolitical stability in the Western Hemisphere. CASA in the past has chastised those who oppose its support of illegal immigration, and chastised those who questioned their motives. But it is clear that the motives are CASA are no motives that are in the best interest of the United States. Nobody of sound moral fiber would accept Chavez's blood money as they did...

Life in a Vacuum

Is there life in space? (And no, that's not a rhetorical question about Democrats...)

Fans of extraterrestrial life may have been disappointed when internet-fed rumors of Martian life ended in a NASA press conference on soil composition.

But they can take solace in a newly popular theory that suggests the rest of space may teem with microbes.

This once-controversial notion holds that the universe is filled with the ingredients of microbial life, and that earthly life first came from the skies as comet dust or meteorites salted with hardy bacteria.

"Studies have shown that microbes can survive the shock levels of being launched into space," said Charles Cockell, a microbiologist at the Open University. "And as more and more organisms are discovered under extreme conditions, it's become more plausible that things could survive in space for the time it takes to go from one planet to another."

Not long ago, Cockell's claims would have been greeted with scientific derision. But as scientists learn more about Earth and space, the theory, which goes by the grandiose name of "galactic panspermia," seems less far-fetched.

It sounds like something that makes little sense, when you consider that all of us learned in school that life cannot survive in a vacuum. But let's face it, think about the living organisms that we have found here on earth. So called extremophiles that survive or thrive in conditions that may include extremely high or low temperatures, extremely high pressures, etc. Obviously, the existence of extremophiles here on earth would lead astrobiologists to consider the idea that if life can exist in extreme environments on earth, what is to say that such organisms cannot live or thrive off of earth as well?

Obviously, the science of all of this is still in its formative stages, and nothing can be proved or disproved. But clearly there are a lot of questions that remain in regards to the origins of life on Earth, and perhaps the further study of galactic panspermia will really provide us with scientific data on the origin of life.