Category Archives: Political Commentary

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

Stupid Commentary On Bigelow

36 Comments

Was this supposed to make any sense?

Robert T. Bigelow, of Bigelow Aerospace and the Budget motel chain, believes he can build the space stations, and others will be able to fly paying customers, including NASA astronauts, into orbit—all for less money than NASA and other government space agencies currently pay to transport and host spacemen and spacewomen.

Truthdig is not entirely convinced this is such a good idea. In a year of oil spills, runaway Toyotas and toxic happy meals, we’re not so sure about turning over exploration of the final frontier—and transportation of our astronauts—to private profiteers.

Apparently the word “profit” remains a dirty word to some. Which is why it continues to amaze that this new policy came out of the Obama administration.

And of course, we know how scrupulous that “non-profit,” NASA is about flight safety. Why, it’s only killed fourteen astronauts in the past quarter century.

[Update a few minutes later]

The other dumb thing about this is the notion that any space activity is “exploration.” This is one of the ignorant straw-man shibboleths of the bashers of the new plan (notably, by the moronic commenter “DCSCA” over at Space Politics) — that “exploration” is being turned over to private enterprise, which they claim won’t work, because it’s not profitable. But all that the plan actually calls for is to get NASA out of the business of transportation to LEO, so that they can finally focus on real exploration.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Why Are They Surprised?

53 Comments

Now Lanny Davis is joining in the chorus of Those From Whose Eyes The Scales Have Fallen:

Helen Thomas, who I used to consider a close friend and who I used to respect, has showed herself to be an anti-Semitic bigot. This not about her disagreement about her criticisms of Israel. She has a right to criticize Israel and that is not the same as being an anti-Semite.

However, her statement that Jews in Israel should leave Israel and go back to Poland or Germany is an ancient and well-known anti-Semitic stereotype of the Alien Jew not belonging in the “land of Israel” — one that began 2,600 years with the first tragic and violent diaspora of the Jews at the hands of the Romans.

If she had asked all Blacks to go back to Africa, what would White House Correspondents Association position be as to whether she deserved White House press room credentials — much less a privileged honorary seat?

Two points. OK, three. First, and this is a general point, not just to Lanny, but all those who thought that Helen Thomas was a friend. With all due respect, if you (and all the others who profess shock) are surprised at this, you are an idiot. I was completely unshocked. Of course, I was also completely unshocked that the president has proven to be both a massive redistributor and destroyer of wealth , indifferent to the interests of our friends and solicitous to those of our enemies, and (fortunately) utterly incompetent at carrying out his ultimate goals.

Second (or first point and a half). If Lanny thought that Helen was his friend, it was only because she was a Democrat, and generally (with a few interesting exceptions) carried the water for the Clinton administration, for which he was one of the chief butt boys.

Third point. There is a bizarre flaw in his logic. If one wants to draw an analogy with blacks, it would certainly not be a call for the latter to go back to Africa. Africa, is, after all, whence the blacks (for the most part, ignoring Australian aborigines, etc) actually came. A similar call for Jews to go to their homeland would be for them to go to…wait for it…Israel. Last time I checked, neither Poland or Germany were their ancestral homelands. Those were places to which they were forced to go to be oppressed, and then murdered en masse, after the Diaspora.

First Markos, and now this. Does no one on the left understand anything about history or geography? Even about their own people?

[Monday morning update]

Some Muslims are more equal than others:

I realize that nine Islamist activists who love to sing the evergreen “Death to Jews” — really, innocent folklore in those regions — killed by Israeli soldiers is an act without comparison in the world. It is the lowest and vilest thing that happened since the Holocaust. How dare they kill peace-loving Islamists who sing innocent lyrics like “Death to Jews”?

Still, think about what happened there in China. An astonishing 140 Muslims killed by the Chinese police. Okay, it’s not like nine killed by Jews, but it’s pretty bad.

Nah, it’s no big deal. Chinese, after all, are not Jews.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Don’t Know Much About Geography

16 Comments

Did anyone else notice this morning on This Week that Markos thinks that Turks are Arabs? He said that in alienating Turkey, Israel was “turning a major Arab ally against us.” I was waiting for George Will to give him the Maher treatment, but I guess he was too polite. Or else he didn’t notice, either. Anyway, no one, including Liz Cheney, called him on it.

[looking…]

Here’s the transcript:

MOULITSAS: Well, you know, first of all, the with us or against us approach which is what got us in a lot of the trouble that we are in today. I mean the fact is whether Israel had the right to do what it did or not, they handled it so poorly that they basically alienated much of the world. They alienated an important Arab ally in Turkey, and they put the United States in a really difficult position.

Yes, a very difficult position indeed, given the impossibility of having Turkey as an Arab ally.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, War Commentary

It’s The Thirties Again

4 Comments

Time to blame the Jews. You know the old saying that beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes right to the bone? Whoever came up with that had Helen Thomas in mind. The doddering moron should have been put to pasture years ago.

[Update a while later]

A story of two Rachels:

Rachel Thaler was a British subject. Yet not a single British journalist has ever mentioned her, profiled her, interviewed her parents or other British relatives, or published her diary in a Fleet Street newspaper – except for a single solitary mention by the great (Jewish) comedienne Maureen Lipman noting that nobody ever mentioned her, or the other victims of Palestinian terrorism.

Ah, but Israel is an “apartheid state”, and the Palestinians are the Europeans’ unending adopt-a-Third-World-pet project. I write in the new National Review (on sale now-ish) that, if old-school judenhass was a by-product of more or less traditional racism and conventional nationalism, the new judenhass advances under the cover of “anti-racism” and “multiculturalism”. The oldest hatred didn’t get that way without the ability to adapt.

What’s really frightening is how many useful Jewish idiots they have.

[Update a few minutes later]

So, should the Jews apologize to Turkey, or go back to Germany and Poland?

[Early afternoon update]

The most ancient virus to infect the soul:

Flare-ups of the virus have been common across Europe throughout the last 2 millennia, but an overwhelming series of eruptions in Europe from England through the lands controlled by the USSR, required a global intervention before the conflagration was deemed to be put out. This, of course was an illusion, since like the root burns engendered by forest fires, it only smoldered underground in the human and social hosts for decades before erupting once again in the vast Petri dish of the Middle East.

With the advent of the “Palestinian cause” becoming chic in Western, European, and Liberal circles — driven at first by Socialist Progressive romanticism in the late 1960s and early 1970s — being infected by virus has once more become acceptable to exhibit socially in certain ways. Indeed, in many circles and societies, having the virus has lately become a highly prized fashion accessory to popular academic, media, and state ideologies. It is now actually a badge of pride in many Western circles to appear at various events wearing gold-plated buboes inset with multi-faceted Kaposi’s sarcoma that contain the virus at their core. Many now believe this intellectual adornment to actually be beautiful.

In a recent mutation, the virus has shown that it can leap the blood/brain barrier and actually infect Jews — if they feel safe within their “advanced” society. The current term for this mutation is “Juicebox Mafia” in which self-styled “intellectuals” of Jewish lineage actually feel it is “intelligent” to call for a world in which it is easier for Arabs and other Islamic groups to kill Jews wholesale. This sort of strange host to the virus is replacing the previous host termed “the self-hating Jew.” The reason for the rise of the Juicebox Mafia is unclear, but it may well have to do with desires for celebrity and paychecks that exceed the desire to live.

Or maybe “intellectuals” aren’t very smart.