Whenever you hear a politician start a sentence with, "If we can put a man on the moon ...," grab your wallet.
The latest example of anthropogenic-lunar empowerment is global warming. Al Gore and Barack Obama routinely cite the Apollo program as proof that we can make good on the president's messianic campaign pledge to stem the rising tides and hasten the healing of the planet.
President Obama says he wants to invest massively in scientific research, eventually spending 3 percent of gross domestic product on scientific research and development, with a big chunk devoted to energy research.
But at the same time, the Democrats are pushing their cap-and-trade scheme -- the Waxman-Markey energy and climate bill -- through Congress, and it surely won't work. The Apollo engineers' motto was "Waste anything but time."
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Waxman-Markey seems to do that one better, promising to waste everything, including time. It's a legislative blunderbuss that fails any remotely honest cost-benefit analysis, as Jim Manzi painstakingly demonstrates in the current issue of National Review. Under the bill, the government would sell or give away waivers -- call them ration cards -- for carbon emissions, worth tens of billions of dollars. The system is destined to become politicized. Waivers will be granted to favored industries and donors in states with political clout.
