Bits and Pieces for January 11, 2012

New Hampshire. Romney and Obama both win, as expected. For a lot of stories, go to Memeorandum, which has a lot of links. Good site.

Pay particular attention to Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog. Although he is a liberal and it is a New York Times blog, he is probably the best analyst out there these days. Pretty positive outlook for Romney, as one might expect.

Obama's War on Energy. John Hinderaker has a blurb over at PowerLine about this, with a good chart. He concludes, correctly:

The real question, of course, is how much petroleum is being recovered from public lands. Because of three years of Obama anti-energy policies, energy development is down substantially:

Oil production on federal lands is down 13 percent in 2011: 97,721,813 barrels in 2011 versus 112,124,812 barrels in 2010.

This is what happens when we have an administration that thinks Americans consume too many resources, which is to say, live too well.

 Mr. Obama’s 99% — Are We Poor or Just Unequal or Both or Neither?

Victor Davis Hanson has an excellent essay up exploring the differences between the 99% and the 1% that has been in all the news lately. I highly recommend it. He concludes:

Keep all that in mind as we enter the most divisive, class-warfare campaign in recent memory. We are living in the upside-down world Orwell wrote about. A president who likes upscale golf a lot, and Martha’s Vineyard even more, who has hired three “fat cat” bankers as his chiefs of staff (how odd that Emanuel and Lew probably both made a lot out of the Freddie/Fannie bubble), and who is the largest recipient of Wall Street cash in history now argues that half of America suffers from the hands of “them.”

Being unequal is not poor. And not having what the “rich” have hardly means having it bad. Sorry, that’s just the way it is.

FuturePundit reports that full genome sequencing costs are dropping to close to $1,000 per genome. The way things are going it won't be long before it is affordable for anyone that wants it.

These low prices are going to drive up the rate of full genome sequencing. Therefore expect to see an explosion of discoveries on what the many genetic variants mean. What I'm especially looking forward to: genetically derived personal advice on ideal diet, exercise, sleep, and other lifestyle choices.

I have had a small bit of mine sequenced, and the information derived is quite interesting. I got my testing at Family Tree DNA and tranferred it and had additional testing at 23andMe as well. It is all pretty interesting.

A Future History. Came across this wandering around some science blogs. Kind of wild speculation, but interesting. Much seems impossible, but I remember my Dad telling me in the 1950s (I was reading science fiction of the day) that men would never go to the moon. Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon less that three years after he passed away. For those who may be interested in space, this is an interesting read.

Here are the writer's prediction for 2015:

By 2015:
By now, Virgin Galactic will have flown dozens of tourists into space, and anticipation will be growing for the next step – Bigelow’s orbiting hotels. It should come as no surprise that many couples are already making advanced bookings with a wink toward zero-gravity sex. The Google Lunar X-Prize will have been won and a few companies vying to dominate the resulting private space probe market. Exoplanets continue to be discovered, with a few Earth-sized planets plus many more large planets in habitable zones, but as yet no confirmed Earth-like planet.

With commercial launch capabilities now obvious even to Congress, plus growing space programs in other nations, the ambivalence toward NASA is finally subsiding. Human spaceflight, beyond the recreational commercial near-Earth activities is now being pursued in the form of multinational programs and the negative stigma of nuclear space propulsion and power is waning. NASA has a large role in making that happen, along with a resumption of the research to bring the more-difficult space technologies to fruition.

There are a lot more predictions. Go to the site and see what they are.

Twinkies. Has filed for bankruptcy according to the WSJ. It owes the union nearly $1 billion, and can't pay. It has tried to sell out, but there are no buyers. Too bad.

Paying College Athletes is a Terrible Idea. So says Mark Emmert in today's Wall Street Journal.

There are fundamental flaws in the pay-for-play mantra. Proponents naively think that paying players will solve all the problems involving agents, team boosters and others who are willing to break rules. They are wrong. The stakes will simply be raised to bribe athletes to attend a school, support them financially for the agent's future gain, or help them cheat in school. No, paying players a salary would make the situation worse.

Can't say I disagree  but what he proposes may do the trick. The problem is that the NCAA doesn't have the guts to really enforce the rules, and larger schools get away with a lot of violations, and aren't really punished when they are caught. It is a lot easier for an Oklahoma or Ohio State or an Oregon or a USC to get away with it because the NCAA is dependent on schools like that for their money. They don't make any off of Arkansas State, or similar schools.

We have to be willing to take hard stands based on our principles. Rather than push college athletics further and further from academics, we need to bring it closer. The values of our colleges and universities need to be consistent across the campus, classroom and playing fields. Coaches, administrators and student-athletes need to be held to the same standards and expectations as all members of the community.


That's what we started in the fall: clearing the way for student-athletes to get a $2,000 miscellaneous expense allowance, awarding multiyear scholarships, raising academic standards, simplifying the rule book, and toughening the penalties for egregious rule breakers.

I will have to see it to believe it.

Is Romney the only Republican candidate that has not alienated more than one half of the Republican Party? Jay Cost over at the Weekly Standard suggests that it is atleast so in New Hampshire.

We have heard a lot over the last couple months about the anti-Romney sentiment in the Republican party. However, this statistic suggests that, in New Hampshire at any rate, Romney is the only candidate with whom a majority of the party is satisfied. The rest of the candidates seem to have alienated more than half of the GOP.

There is more analysis in the story. Read the whole thing at the site.

Did Ron Paul win the liberal crossover vote in New Hampshire? So say Jim Hoft, who has the exit polls here. Go read it all at the site.