Any time you sw the word “federal” or “republic” in the name of a country you knew it was a dictatorship. Any time you see the word “simple” or “easy” in the title of a piece of Microsoft software, you know you’re in for three days of screaming at your computer.

Many leftists love to talk about Hussein’s plans for government investment in alternative energy making parallels with the invention of the internet. Those parallels are 99% wrong. The only 1% agreement comes from the fact that both had (have) some degree of government involvement.

When the US goverment invested to create the computer and networking technologies that many years later gave birth to the personal computer and the internet, it wasn’t investing with the intent of creating succesful businesses but with the sole purpose of developing technologies for the military in the context of the Cold War. It was the world of private investors who took the technologies developed in research labs and research universities with governmnet funds that created the personal computer and internet industries. In other words, the government didn’t intend to create Microsoft, Cisco, Apple, Yahoo or Google when it made its investments in ARPANET back in 1969. The idea that the Federal Government can correctly invest in technologies with the purpose of making those technologies the undelying pilar of the industries of tomorrow is 100% ill-conceived. In fact, from all the current government programs, it’s again the investments of the Pentagon (DARPA) that look more promising, for instance, the money invested in the DARPA challenges for automated car driving won by Stanford (2005) and Carnegie Mellon (2007). But then again, the only intent of the government in that program is to develop technology to save the lives of American soldiers in the battlefield.

Hussein is clueless and ignorant about how the Internet came about. His Obots followers are even more clueless!

“We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels, fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead.”

One wonders what the construction unions will have to say about this. Would union membership be a requirement on these projects?

One of the reasons road construction is so expensive is the Davis-Bacon Act.

Chief among the burdensome provisions is the application of federal prevailing wage standards (Davis-Bacon Act) to all construction funded by federal dollars. Because the prevailing wages established by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) are generally higher than open market wages, federally funded construction projects generally cost more than they would without such regulations. The Davis-Bacon Act adds an estimated 5 percent to 38 percent to construction costs.

Building long-haul transmission lines, though, will run into endless challenges on both environmental and NIMBY grounds, and Obama…assuming that he is serious about all this and not merely posturing…will likely find that his former activist allies are now opponents whom it will be very difficult to either co-opt or defeat.

In general, “progressives” are in favor of energy sources until they become practical and then they suddenly see their downsides…

Obama finally came out from hiding to talk a bit about the economy. One of my liberal friends found this the most exciting aspect of his speech: “We’ll be working out the details in the weeks ahead, but it will……