Jay Reding.com

Ron Moore is planning a prequel series to Battlestar Galactica called Caprica. There’s quite a bit of backstory to the first Cylon war that could be explored, but I’m not so sure that yet another SF prequel is that good an idea…

Mitch Berg notes that there are calls to end the Federal Emergency Management Agency and replace it with a new, more independent agency.

It made a certain amount of sense for FEMA to be part of the Department of Homeland Security. The whole point of the DHS was to facilitate information sharing between agencies and coordinate efforts better – and there’s no doubt that FEMA would have a role in the aftermath of any future terrorist attack. However, it was clear that after Katrina, FEMA was no longer capable of doing its job in its current form.

If we’re going to replace FEMA, we need to do a better job. The federal government needs to support local first responders first. First responders need to have the tools and skills to deal with disaster situations, and the federal government can and should have a supporting role, but too often the federal bureaucracy hinders, rather than helps, disaster recovery. We can’t federalize everything – and the best way to save lives is to have the people whose jobs it is to protect a specific area be training and supplied with everything they need to do their jobs.

Unfortunately, we all know that government tends to inject itself everywhere, whether it is wise or not – which is why the replacement agency for FEMA will undoubtedly have twice the budget, four times the waste, and ten times the bureaucracy.

James Taranto at Opinion Journal notes that Tony Snow hasn’t spared Bush from some rather harsh criticisms. Snow wrote a column last month that was none to favorable to the President:

American conservatives have discovered the will-and-morale-sapping properties of political power. A Republican president and a Republican Congress have lost control of the federal budget and cannot resist the temptation to stop raiding the public fisc.

George W. Bush and his colleagues have become not merely the custodians of the largest government in the history of humankind, but also exponents of its vigorous expansion. The president has taken lately to crowing that the Medicare prescription drug benefit will cover 95 percent of all drug expenditures for some of the nation’s old and poor, and is telling younger Americans they have a duty to enroll their parents in the new regime of socialized pharmaceuticals.

My reaction to this: it’s about damn time. I always found the arguments that Bush surrounded himself with yes-men (and yes-women) to be somewhat spurious – then came Harriet Miers. A debacle of that magnitude could only come about in an Administration that had grown insular and isolated from political common sense. I believe that many of the problems that Bush is having in connecting with the public originate from this essential problem – and as much as it pains me to say it, some of the critics of the President were right. (As in “a broken clock is right twice a day” right.) Bush needs someone who’s willing to say “this is a politically tone deaf idea, and we’re going to get our asses handed to us if we propose this. Let’s rethink this.”

Even when Bush has been right on the policy, his political presentation sucks. He’s mishandled a lot of very crucial issues, and his second term has been rudderless and filled with vague promises and no real policy direction. The issues we face, energy, Iraq, terrorism, the economy, globalization, etc., all require active political leadership from the Administration – despite the unending hostility of the mainstream media.

I hope Tony Snow doesn’t change his positions and acts with the reputation for integrity he earned during his tenure as a journalist – the Administration badly needs someone willing to stand up and keep them from making the boneheaded political mistakes they’ve made over the last two years.

Via Instapundit comes an interesting discussion of energy policy and personal behavior. Nick Schultz, writing in Forbes notices that despite increases in gasoline prices over the last few months, people aren’t really changing their behavior that much and despite the increase in gas prices over the long term consumer confidence remains extremely high. Schultz believes he knows why:

The answer might be in some of the long-term trends that the short-term media lens is too cramped to see. Energy prices may be rising, but energy itself is much less important to consumers and to the overall economy than it once was.

According to the Bureau of Economic Affairs ( see chart here), American consumer spending on energy as a fraction of total personal consumption has declined considerably since 1980. Whereas 25 years ago, one in every ten consumer dollars was spent on energy, today it’s one in every 16. In other words, what it takes to heat and cool our homes and drive to and from our jobs and vacation destinations is relatively less costly than it was then.

This goes a long way toward explaining why even when gas prices rise this summer–higher than they were throughout the 1990s–people will still be driving more; it’s much more of a value than it was a generation ago.

What’s more, so-called energy intensity is declining rapidly. That means we produce more with less energy. According to Economy.com, “The U.S. economy has undergone major structural changes over the last two decades, becoming more energy efficient, thus reducing its overall dependence on energy. … The energy intensity of the U.S. economy has declined by roughly 40% since the first oil crisis (as of 2001).”

Reynolds also points to this chart showing inflation-adjusted gas prices over time – while energy costs are high, they’re not as high as they once were, and the amount of production you get per unit of energy has increased since the last major gasoline crisis in the late 1970s.

Alternate energy sources would be nice, but Popular Mechanics has done the real world math and found most of them lacking. It takes one barrel of oil energy to produce roughly 35 barrels of oil " meaning that petroleum is an incredibly energy-efficient fuel source. There isn’t anything we have that’s a realistic substitute for oil. We can make things more and more efficient, but that eventually succumbs to the law of diminishing returns. The one set of laws Congress can’t dick around with are the laws of physics – and those are the ultimate determinant of what works and what doesn’t.

Ultimately, we can’t rely on unrealistic solutions for energy production. Wind, solar, and geothermal production are excellent supplements to our energy supply, but they can’t replace oil. Hydrogen cars aren’t yet practical, but may be some day. Hybrids are becoming more and more practical, but they still don’t make economic sense yet. We can, and should conserve energy wherever possible by shutting off lights, driving sanely, and walking more. But mandating those things on a government level aren’t the right solution.

If anything, government power can make things much worse. Socking oil companies with fines will only reduce refining capacity, which is already dangerously low. Artificially lowering prices will inevitably lead to massive shortages. Continuing to subsidize inefficient methods of energy production takes away from the economic incentive to create efficient ones.

Markets are all about the laws of supply and demand – laws which are designed to deal with situations just like the current energy problem. Allowing the market to come up with the solution rather than overreacting based on fear and temporal political advantage is the smartest course of action – not that such a thing will prevent Congress from doing it.

At least Apple has more respect for their customers than to treat them all like criminals.

The White House will announce that FoxNews reporter Tony Snow will be the next White House Press Secretary. Snow’s a good pick for the job – he’s an excellent reporter, he knows how to work a room, and he can build some badly-needed bridges between the Administration and the media.

Of course, being the Press Secretary for a White House popularity is in the toilet is a thankless job, but at least Bush will have someone in that position who will be able to speak well under fire and present a better public face for the Administration. McClellan was never the sort who could really engage the press, and going into a White House press briefing is about like swimming with sharks – the second they sense blood in the water, they’re in a feeding frenzy.

Bush needs to do much to reverse the free-fall in his approval ratings, which are now in the territory usually reserved for child molesters, bubonic plague, and people who talk during movies. Hell, I’m not remotely impressed with his performance as of late, and apparently to some I’m part of his “cheerleading squad”. (Which reminds me, where did I put those pom-poms?) The skyrocketing prices in gas are severely hurting Bush’s approval numbers, and there’s little he can do. The only thing keeping the GOP from cratering is the fact that the Democrats are all that much worse.

Snow has a tough job, probably one of the most thankless there is. However, if there’s one person who would be up to the task, it’s him.

Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi has appeared in a video released on the Internet giving the clearest look at the enigmatic terrorist leader yet. Why al-Zarqawi, who normally was masked, now appears comfortable speaking so openly is anyone’s guess. It could be that al-Zarqawi has fled Iraq and found a place where US forces are unlikely to find him, or that he’s decided that being more open will increase his cachet with other terrorist leaders. Or, he could be making a power play within al-Qaeda, trying to establish himself as the sheikh of the organization as bin Laden remains pinned in the remote Afghan/Pakistan frontier. There have been some persistent rumors that there’s been some friction between the al-Zawhiri/bin Laden leadership and al-Zarqawi’s wing of al-Qaeda.

In any event, al-Zarqawi is taking a considerable risk by appearing in this video (assuming that it is really him, which does seem likely). Based on the increasing backlash against al-Zarqawi’s violence against fellow Muslims in Iraq and Jordan, al-Zarqawi may be forced to make bolder moves to further the operations of his branch of al-Qaeda. The bolder the move, the more the risk, which may help the US, Iraqi, and coalition forces take down the terrorist once and for all.