From Brian Swiderski.
The main problem with his thesis, though I agree with much of it, is that no one said “failure is not an option” in the sixties. That happened with Gene Kranz’s book and the movie, in the nineties.
Monthly Archives: February 2013
Another American Revolution
Is one in the works?
That’s the road we’re on, if Washington doesn’t change direction. And of course, it’s why the political class is so desperate to disarm us. Just as George VIII was.
Planetary Science
…and sequestration. Which is looking more and more likely.
Obviously, if I were running the agency, and didn’t care what Congress thought, I’d just cancel SLS and Orion. Webb should go, too, but the sequestration goal can be met with those two alone. I’d cancel Webb if I could redirect the money elsewhere. But Charlie and Lori aren’t going to have that option as long as Dick Shelby and Barbara Mikulski are calling the shots. So we’ll continue to waste billions on unneeded rockets and capsules, and an overpriced telescope, while planetary science goes fallow.
SLAPPing The Mann Again
We filed our final response to Michael Mann’s ridiculous lawsuit on Friday. It’s the last filing prior to a hearing on the motions to dismiss, which will likely occur in April. CEI General Counsel notes:
As our reply demonstrates, while Mann paints himself as a reluctant warrior in the global warming debate, he’s quick to fling epithets at his critics. Mann characterizes his opponents and their positions, variously, as “pure scientific fraud,” “bogus,” “hired assassin,” “shills,” “crimes against humanity,” and the ever-useful smear of “denier.” The professor claims that he’s been exonerated by numerous investigations, but those reports raise more questions than they answer. And his view of First Amendment freedoms is so incorrect that, in addition to the Nobel Prize he wrongly thinks he won, he may now end up with a Pulitzer — but it won’t be for nonfiction.
From the filing itself:
Idiotic Arguments
The trumpets had sounded long in advance on the main claim for Mr. Hagel—i.e., that his experience as an enlisted man, a combat veteran, had endowed him with special expertise not given to others, on matters of war, on our nuclear capacity, the size of our defense budget, a capacity to take the measure of Iran and North Korea.
Mr. Hagel had come by this wisdom, we were informed, because he had been at the front, seen men die, and knew, as we were frequently reminded, what the ordinary soldier thought and felt. All of this, the argument ran, gave him a unique capacity to head the Defense Department.
Could rational men and women seriously credit such a claim?
They think that we’re as stupid and illogical as they are. This is almost as nutty as thinking that shouting “What difference does it make?” is somehow an effective rejoinder to your mendacity.
Not all that many decades ago, it would not have been considered exceptional that a senator or congressman had served in the military. The halls of Congress were packed with Americans who had seen war. It says something about the political class today that the experience of having served in the military is such a rarity that it is seen, not infrequently, through a distorting lens. In no other period in the country’s history would it have been considered unseemly, indeed ungrateful, that a combat veteran nominated for high office should be forced to face aggressive questioning.
Indeed.
“I Learned To Hate White People”
Ah, diversity.
The War In New York State
Who is it against?
These new brown shirts don’t understand the cause of the American Revolution.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that again. They’ll lose (again), but a lot of good people will die, and a lot of wealth will be destroyed, even more than by the wealth destroyers currently running the federal government.
The Sixteenth Amendment
It’s a grim centennial.
Containment Breach
Ed Driscoll has a roundup of commentary on all the president’s nominees.
Aaron Swartz Died
…for Piers Morgan’s sins.