Letters to the Editor
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Okay, I may be nuts, but...
Does Newt in that illustration look like Marvin Belli, the "friendly" angel in that episode of Star Trek?
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How Idiots Reboot Failed Ideologs
I give you this story as an example.
It is bad enough that the MSM reinvigorates the likes of all the failed politicians , dead wrong foreign policy wonks and discredited economists , but now this ! Please
I'm tired of these despicable personalities coming back from the dead, and notice they are all Republicans.
get a clue ....
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I hate saying this but he sounds smarter than Gore
Gore often sounds like he's preaching a sermon in church. And he dumbs things down so much it makes me cringe. Like he's talking to children. I cannot stand that. It makes me feel manipulated and I hate it.
Newt's politics are not the same as mine, but he sounds like he's trying to build bridges here. With adults.
I think the bridges he's trying to build matter more to the future than the ones he burned down in his previous media incarnation.
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What a shame for Salon
that Newtie isn't running. He would have been a perfect running mate for Salon's other favorite Republican, Mike Huckabee.
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Gets what he gave
"bipartisanship is date rape"
"I do not respect his right to hold a different opinion"
Newt may not remember saying these things, but the rest of us do.
It's amazing (HAH!) how when the Republican star was on the rise, he had no end of contempt for Democrats, but now that the Republicans have driven the military, economy, product safety, moral authority, and everything else straight into the crapper, now he's all about reaching out (for power) and sharing.
I remember that when Clinton was in office, Clinton let the Republicans have a no questions asked "No" on Supreme Court Justice nominees. Oddly, that policy left the oval office with the Democrats.
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Prizes are actually a pretty good idea
Not that I'm very fond of Newt, but the whole "prize" incentive structure is actually a good way of promoting environmental research (and research of any kind, really.)
Our current system generally sponsors research through the use of subsidies, which pretty much amounts to corporate welfare. Research subsidies are handed out whether or not any results are achieved, and distributed by politicians who need to bring home the bacon for their constituents and campaign contributors to remain politically viable. Thus, getting research money is as much a function of a given (usually corporate) researcher's connections in DC as it is a product of the research's actual merit.
Taking most of the money we currently spend on research subsidies and switching to a "prize" incentive structure would reward merit, not political lobbying. Promising research would be pitched to private venture capital or evaluated within the appropriate departments of organizations, with the lucrative prize being a substantial potential return on the investment.
Currently, DC sets the research goals (which it should do) and also picks and chooses the fortunate few that are funded to achieve those research goals (which it shouldn't do, and is an invitation to graft and pork). With a prize incentive structure, DC still sets the research goals, but the market picks and chooses who gets the seed money to work towards those goals. The market is pretty good at selecting for merit, even if it's terrible at achieving any goals other than making more money. Prizes are a form of indirect regulation in that they force the market, simply by virtue of its rapacious greed, to pursue a socially desirable goal.
On the other hand, Newt's tax credits idea is simply stupid. Corporations already have enough ways to evade taxes, we don't need to give them another.
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Wonders never cease
I have just read an interview in which I find Newt Gingrich to be a reasonable man. (He even managed to mention France positively.) I'm numb with shock.
A message to the majority of the letter writers here: "it's very unlikely that we're going to solve the environment on a purely partisan basis" is an insightful statement, no matter it comes from Mr. Gingrich. Ditto the comments on China and India. Of course, we're never going to "solve" the environment as such, but we need to confront it and mitigate its problem. All talk about Democratic ascendency aside, half of voters surveyed are still leaning toward the Republican front-runner. If they are not on-board with environmental solutions then there will be no environmental solutions. It's as simple as that. Nixon went to China, remember.
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Incentives
ISTR that the U.S. telecom industry made a pitch to the government back in the 1990's: They claimed they needed tax breaks to finance a new fiber-to-the-home infrastructure that would support 45 megabit residential service.
They got tax breaks that ultimately totaled $200 billion, and we got 1 megabit DSL over ancient copper wires. The telecoms are rolling in money, and the U.S. has fallen to 15th place in broadband penetration.
Now the telecoms are finally working on fiber-to-the-home, but this is a new effort for which we're going to pay again, this time by giving the telecoms absolute control over how those connections may be used.
What did we get for $200 billion in tax incentives? Nothing.
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No thanks
Newt may be a bright guy with some good ideas, but he is first and foremost an unethical jackal with zero credibility.
Others here have posted some of the gems from his past life - you know, the three decades where he singelhandedly changed the national political environment to one of rabid, nasty, unrelenting partisanship? Yeah, that past life - but my favorite was when he commented on the Susan Smith case.
For those who don't remember, Susan Smith was the woman who strapped her kids in their carseats and rolled her car into a lake in South Carolina after realizing that a man she had become obsessed with wanted nothing to do with her ... because she had children. Of course, after first blaming the dissappearance of her kids on an unnamed black carjacker (this is the south, after all) the truth came out and Newt decided he had to pounce on the case by issuing a statement blaming the whole mess on the lack of moral leadership shown by the Democratic Congress.
Days after this, Newt was swept to power as the republicans regained control of the House for the firt time in decades. Days after this, it came out that Susan Smith's emotional problems originated in the fact that she had been molested for years by her stepfather, a longtime leader of ... wait for it .... the "Moral Majority" in South Carolina.
Of course, this little example was just a side show in Newt's big revival tent of scum and in no way was responsible for his ascent. But it captures almost perfectly the man's worldview, in that there are no limits to what he will do and say so long as it furthers his ambition. He is simply the most amoral politician we have seen in our lifetime, and we forget this at our peril.
Newt may be trying to reinvent himself as a reasonable man who just happens to have a different way of getting towards the same goal as others, but this is simply false. Newt is an evil scumbag. Period.