I get the impression that this “Christmas” thing you hear so much about is getting close. I should probably do something about that. In the meantime, some links:
LinkSwarm for December 16, 2011
December 16th, 2011Christopher Hitchens, RIP
December 16th, 2011Not unexpected, but still sad news to report the passing of one of our more interesting writers. And one of the few “public intellectuals” worthy of the term.
Conservative Commune has still more, including a wide variety of links to other tributes.
Texas Senate Race Update for December 15, 2011
December 15th, 2011The big news in the Senate race is a change to the filing deadlines:
Craig James: Not Universally Loved
December 14th, 2011I know this may comes as a shock to some of you, seeing as how I occasionally write about sports for my other blog, but I don’t have cable, and thus have no first-hand experience of Craig James’ ESPN broadcasting prowess.
However, news of James’ possible Senate candidacy has been racing around the worlds of both politics and sports, and from the commentary there, I think it safe to assert that James is not universally loved:
The same liberal bitterness over any public Republican figure? Maybe, but I’m not getting that vibe reading the comments. And hard-core liberals don’t usually hang out at Big Government.
More James news:
Craig James to Jump Into Republican Senate Race?
December 13th, 2011So says The Dallas Morning News, citing “sources close to his developing campaign.”
I don’t know why he would. I don’t see a lot of running room (no pun intended), it will be very hard to raise money, it’s been a long time since James was top of the football heap, and ESPN analyst is probably not a high-enough profile job for the requisite level of fame you’d need to win the race jumping in this late. And he’s not nearly rich enough to self-fund like David Dewhurst (unless the pre-death penalty SMU football program was even more generous with athlete payouts than we’ve been lead to realize).
If he does get in, he probably hurts Tom Leppert the most, due to the same geographic base in the Metroplex.
Welcoming Eric Holder to Austin
December 13th, 2011Several Austin bloggers are suggesting that people gather to “welcome” Eric Holder to Austin, where he’ll be speaking at the LBJ Library on UT campus. I won’t be able to, due to commitments with my new job, but I encourage others to do so if it fits into their schedule.
And here’s a related cartoon from Frugal Cafe:
Where’s Ricardo? (Plus: A New Democratic Challenger Appears)
December 12th, 2011There’s some news on the Democratic side of the Texas Senate race.
First of all, the name of the DNC’s handpicked candidate, Ricardo Sanchez, does not appear on the list of candidates who have filed for the Texas Senate race.
Well, the deadline is Thursday. No worries. Assuming he wants to run, there’s plenty of time for Sanchez to file for the race.
But what if he doesn’t?
After all, even before his house burned down, there was precious little evidence Sanchez was really interested in running for the Senate. His fundraising is abysmal, his media appearances are rare, his campaign stops even rarer (Ted Cruz and Glenn Addison do more campaigning in a day than Sanchez manages in a month), his social media footprint miniscule, and his buzz factor is non-existent.
Other signs of the moribund nature of Sanchez’s campaign: DSCC chair Patty Murray drawing audible laughs when asked about Democratic chances in Texas. “After being initially hailed as a pick-up opportunity, Texas is off the radar for Democrats. DSCC executive director Guy Cecil suggested as much last month. Murray didn’t even mention Ricardo Sanchez’s name.”
Sanchez peaked when he announced for the race. Ever since then it’s been a long, painful slog, with his only reward the prospect of being slaughtered by Ted Cruz or David Dewhurst in the general election. Is there a serious non-partisan observer anywhere who looks at Sanchez’s dismal campaign and thinks he can win?
Is this how Sanchez pictured his retirement? He seems for all the world like someone just going through the motions.
However, there is one Democratic candidate who has filed for the U.S. Senate race: Daniel Boone! I believe Texans will be favorably impressed with his trackin’ and bear-killin’ skills, and thus might be willing to overlook his Missouri residency and the fact the he’s been dead 191 years.
Sadly for Democrats, the “rippin’est, roarin’est, fightin’est man the frontier ever knew” is not the one running, but rather a retired Air Force Lt. Colonel (which sets up a nice “flyboy vs. grunt” inter-service rivalry if Sanchez does run).
He has a website and a Facebook page. His campaign platform is vague Democratic boilerplate.
But a famous namesake isn’t enough to overcome Ricardo Sanchez, right?
Think again.
Remember Gene Kelly? The perennial office-seeker whose only notable attribute was the name of the famous dancing movie star? He won the 2000 Democratic primary runoff for this very Senate seat (then occupied by Kay Baily Hutchison) over former state legislator Charles Gandy with 58.43% of the vote.
Want to guess what Kelly’s background was?
Would you believe retired Air Force Colonel?
It would be tempting to use the “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce” line, but here the first time was farce.
If Sanchez declines the race, I would say that Boone automatically becomes the frontrunner. And so far Sanchez has run such a lackluster campaign that high name recognition (even misrecognition) might be enough to beat him…
Retired Judge Charles Holcomb Joins the Senate Race
December 12th, 2011Looking over the list of Republican candidates who had filed for the Senate race, I was surprised to see the name of former Court of Criminal Appeals judge Charles Holcomb of Wimberley, who was age-limited out of the office. Despite searching, I was unable to find any campaign website for Judge Holcomb.
So I called him up.
Judge Holcomb was gracious enough to talk a few minutes about why he was running:
BattleSwarm Blog thanks Judge Holcomb for his time.
Never Mind Sucking Up Tax Dollars: The Latest Democratic Donor Cronyism Could Get You KILLED
December 11th, 2011I’m sure by now that everyone who has been paying attention knows the Obama Administration’s insatiable appetite for cony capitalism, especially when it comes to shoveling “green energy” subsidies to Obama campaign donors.
But never mind that. The latest Obama scandal has the potential to kill more Americans than Fast and Furious, maybe by three or four orders of magnitude.
The high level summary: A project backed by a prominent Democratic donor might interfere with GPS.
I used to work at both a GPS company, and a company producing RF chips for commercial computer use, so I have a little more technological background on this issue than some. Here’s a summary of the issue by the former Chief Technology Officer of one of the companies I used to work for:
LightSquared uses spectrum right next to GPS, and they expect to have both terrestrial and satellite broadband links. GPS signals are already quite faint by the time they reach the earth’s surface, and any adjacent interference could severely impact the performance of a GPS receiver – its location accuracy could be impaired, or it may not work at all. There are millions of GPS receivers in both civilian and military systems that could be impacted…it would be impossible to retrofit all of these with a fix, so the onus is on LightSquared to figure out how to avoid interfering with GPS.
GPS satellites broadcast a 50-watt signal from 12,000 miles up, across an entire continent, said Pete Large, a vice president at GPS vendor Trimble Navigation who works with the Coalition. By contrast, the LTE base stations used in the recent tests produced signals of up to 1,600 watts within about a mile of GPS receivers. LightSquared’s signals were stronger by 1 billion times or more, Large said.
So GPS signals get overwhelmed by a local source. What’s the worst that could happen?
Well imagine a Boeing 787 Dreamliner conducting an nighttime instrument approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport when the GPS signal is overwhelmed at a critical phase. Now imagine that same Boeing 787 Dreamliner plowing into downtown Arlington, Virginia at 150 miles per hour, leaving a wake of bloody body parts and burning jetfuel for a quarter-mile.
That’s the worst that could happen.
How likely is that worst case scenario? Well, consider that news just broke of the U.S government test of LightSquared technology. The result?
– Philip Falcone’s proposed LightSquared Inc. wireless service caused interference to 75 percent of global-positioning system receivers examined in a U.S. government test, according to a draft summary of results.
The results from testing conducted Oct. 31 to Nov. 4 show that “millions of fielded GPS units are not compatible” with the planned nationwide wholesale service, according to the draft seen by Bloomberg News.
“LightSquared signals caused harmful interference to majority of GPS receivers tested,” according to the draft prepared for a meeting next week of U.S. officials reviewing the LightSquared proposal. “No additional testing is required to confirm harmful interference exists.”
(Hat tip: Slashdot.)
It was bad enough when the Obama Administration was just wasting taxpayer dollars on well-connected business cronies like Solyandra. But Fast and Furious has helped kill hundreds of Mexicans and at least one U.S. border patrol agent, all for the the purpose of promoting gun control. In trying to help another batch of well-connected Democratic cronies at LightSquared, the results could easily be hundreds or evn thousands dead. And it might not just be one airliner, because there’s no guarantee the accident investigation would find the cause quick enough to prevent a re-occurrence.
Will the Obama Administration back off it’s efforts to ram through LightSquared approval despite the scientific evidence? Will LightSquared stop trying to get the technology approved?
Don’t bet on it. From the same story:
LightSquared is “outraged by the illegal leak of incomplete government data,” Harriman said in an e-mailed statement. “This breach attempts to draw an inaccurate conclusion to negatively influence the future of LightSquared and narrowly serve the business interests of the GPS industry.”
Yeah, the GPS industry does indeed have a strong business interest in not seeing thousands of people die. Whether the the Obama Administration shares that concern enough to turn their back on a major Democratic donor less than a year before the 2012 elections remains to be seen.