Alaskan Observations
I‘ve put my full Alaska travelogue up at the other place, if you’re interested in the rather lengthy description and pictures of my trip.
But there is a bit of a political interest, in that one of our stops was in Ketchikan.
Ketchikan, Alaska is where the famous bridge to nowhere was supposed to be built. We saw the place where it was supposed to be constructed, crossing over the Inside Passage from Ketchikan to Gravina Island, where the airport–and about 50 inhabitants–is located. The bridge was supposed to cost $315 million, before the project was killed. Because that part of the inside passage is part of the Alaska Marine Highway, the plans were for it to be tall enough to allow cargo and cruise ships to pass under it safely.
The thing is, though, is that Ketchikan cannot be reached by land. It can only be reached by boat or airplane. So the whole point of the project was to build a bridge to connect one remote island that can only be reached by air or sea, to another remote island that can only be reached by air or sea. And spend a third of a billion dollars to do it.
They’ve already got a ferry service that runs every 15-30 minutes depending on the time of year. Practically everybody has a boat. So, now that I’ve been there and seen the place, I guess that cancelling the bridge was a good thing. Call me a selfish jerk, but you don’t get to choose to live on a remote island and then demand my tax money to build you a bridge, because living on a remote island is inconvenient.
Previously, I opposed the Bridge to Nowhere out of simple principle. But now that I’ve gone there and personally seen the place, I realize how dumb an idea it actually was.
Anyway, here’s some more video that I shot.
QandO Welcomes It’s 6,000,000th Visitor
I know – there are blogs out there that do 6,000,000 in a year. And we’ve been at it a lot longer than a year. But I’m pretty proud of that number. It took us a long time to turn a million. Not as long to turn 2 million. Then we were turning a million in about a year. Now we’re getting a million visits, per sitemeter, in less than a year.
Readership is up (from about 2,200 visits a day to over 3,000). Page views, which to me are really the key, are over 9,000,000 and the average time spent per visit (which is an even bigger key) is at a minute fifty seconds. That’s pretty darn good in the big scheme of things.
Thanks to all our loyal readers (and yes we do enjoy hearing from you and appreciate all the tips you send – don’t stop doing either) and I especially want to thank our commentariat. We have a good group of intelligent commenters, for the most part, who keep it lively and impart a pretty enjoyable sense of community – especially Ott Scerb.
Heh … anyway, thanks a million, very poor pun intended, for another great QandO year.
~McQ
Why The UN Will Love Obama’s Speech (updated)
It appears that today is the day for rather scathing assessments of President Obama in the British press. This one by Nile Gardiner. He points out that the third-world debating club, known as the UN, will certainly deliver a standing ovation to their favorite US president in a while. But, says Gardiner, we should understand the context of that ovation:
Obama’s popularity at the UN boils down essentially to his willingness to downplay American global power. He is the first American president who has made an art form out of apologizing for the United States, which he has done on numerous occasions on foreign soil, from Strasbourg to Cairo. The Obama mantra appears to be – ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do to atone for your country. This is a message that goes down very well in a world that is still seething with anti-Americanism.
It is natural that much of the UN will embrace an American president who declines to offer strong American leadership. A president who engages dictators like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez will naturally gain respect from the leaders of the more than 100 members of the United Nations who are currently designated as “partly free” or “not free” by respected watchdog Freedom House.
And, frankly, he fits there much better than he does here, because the UN is a palace of speeches with little or no action. It is becoming clear to many of us that the proper job for Barack Obama isn’t President of the United States, where you’re actually expected to turn your speeches into action, but Secretary General of the UN, where speechifying is the ultimate action – well, that and spending donor money, covering up for peacekeepers who rape those they’re there to protect or “oil for food” type scandals, and generally denouncing the UN’s host country.
I mean, as Gardiner points out, Obama’s perfect for the job.
Simply put, Barack Obama is loved at the UN because he largely fails to advance real American leadership. This is a dangerous strategy of decline that will weaken US power and make her far more vulnerable to attack.
At a conference in Russia recently, former Secretary of State Madelyn Albright said that the US no longer wants to be first among nations. Barack Obama will make that clear again today, I think. I’m not sure why that’s important to them, but I do know, as Gardiner points out, in the realm of global politics, showing weakness is a very dangerous game to play.
UPDATE: Wow … exactly on form. Obama is becoming predictable. Give me a venue and I can pretty much predict what he’ll say. If it is the UN or a speech before an international group, he’s going to apologize for the US. And of course, Qadhafi will love it.
~McQ
Liked But Ineffective?
I saw this on CNN’s Political Ticker this morning about NY’s Gov. David Paterson:
A new poll suggests that nearly three out of four New York State voters like Gov. David Paterson — but don’t think he’s getting the job done.
The Siena College Research Institute survey released Tuesday morning also indicates that more than six out of 10 say Paterson doesn’t have the leadership skills to be governor and feel he’s not effectively dealing with the problems facing New York.
The irony is the guy who has told him he shouldn’t run for the governorship seems to be thought of in much the same vein, not that you’d ever read that here. But the Brits, even in left-wing papers like the Guardian, aren’t at all shy about making the charge:
Many leaders and supporters are beginning to wonder what is causing this growing gap between the Barack Obama that many people saw on the campaign trail, and the Obama they see in the White House? Beyond Obama’s oratorical skills, which excited not only American voters but people all over the world, he is mostly untested as a politician. His previous experience was only a few years in the US Senate and a few years more as a state senator. A sinking feeling is arising among many that President Obama may not be up to the task, that he may not possess the artful skills needed to accomplish even his own goals.
Suddenly the left discovers his lack of experience and realizes he has absolutely no leadership experience and has demonstrated no leadership skills since assuming office. Wow, where have they been?
But the sparkling speeches have continued, haven’t they?
Of course, being a left-wing rag, the Guardian tries to make excuses for Obama by citing the Senate as a reason Obama has been able to move his agenda. Apparently the author is unaware that the Senate has been around since the creation of the government and other presidents have managed to get their agendas passed.
Yes, we’re back to the leadership question (or lack thereof).
But, back to the point, you have to appreciate the delicious irony of one liked but ineffective politician telling another liked but ineffective pol not to run for office. You can’t help but wonder, assuming things continue on the path they’re now on, if such a message will be conveyed by someone to Obama in 2012? Perhaps it will be delivered by Hillary Clinton when she throws her hat in the ring?
~McQ
CBO Fact Checks Obama – Again
Yes those party poopers at the Congressional Budget Office are at it again. This time they’ve found the Obama claim that “seniors won’t see any of their Medicare benefits cut under the planned health care reforms” to be, well, not true.
The head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, told senators Tuesday that seniors in Medicare’s managed care plans would see reduced benefits under a bill in the Finance Committee.
The bill would cut payments to the Medicare Advantage plans by more than $100 billion over 10 years.
Elmendorf said the changes would reduce the extra benefits that would be made available to beneficiaries.
My guess is Doug Elmendorf will probably not make the White House Christmas list this year.
~McQ