The book Debunking 9/11 Myths, has its own blog. Lileks reviewed it himself the other day:
I read the entire book. Sane, logical, unemotional, sensible, comprehensive. There: I
This Is Surreal
Hezbollah says they might withdraw as long as the Lebanese army doesn’t mess with their stuff while they’re gone:
Hezbollah indicated it would be willing to pull back its fighters and weapons in exchange for a promise from the army not to probe too carefully for underground bunkers and weapons caches, the officials said.
Amazing.
Capitalism Bubble
Property prices are rising fast in Eastern Europe according to Financial Times:
…property prices in Riga, the Latvian capital, surged by 45.3% in the year to June, following on from a rise of 73.5% in the preceding year, with growth also buoyant in Bulgaria and Estonia. Mr. Bailey [head of residential research at Knight Frank] attributed this to a “levelling up” of prices across Europe, particularly in the former eastern bloc nations that have joined the European Union. “Wage inflation, growing prosperity and access to less constrained mortgage finance have all contributed to rapidly rising prices,” he said.
The same transformation could occur wherever property rights are dim and mortgage rates are high. I am thinking of Jamaica, Lebanon, Mexico, Iraq and many, many other places around the globe. Dollarize (or Euro-ize) the economy, offer subsidized mortgages, low property and capital gains taxes for houses, no rent control and put home improvement shows on TV and we will have a global home boom. These are sitting assets that can be taxed and repossessed. They create a home ownership culture, security of a locked door and a place to hang mosquito netting. $30,000 of cinder block housing for every 4th person on the globe would be $45T. This is the head end of the promise of capitalism with liquid lending.
Is That The Best He Could Do?
Hey, everybody’s got to be good at something:
A number of people have more than 500 arrests in the city of 226,000 people. The record was held by Edward Rooks, who died in 2004, with 652 arrests.
I Could Write A Long Essay On This
…and probably even get well paid for it, in an influential publication, if I didn’t want to lose my job. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t pay that well…
Proposition (with which I don’t necessarily agree):
NASA’s approach, a return to Apollo (both in terms of the “we need to set a goal and get there,” and the actual hardware concepts) represents the mindset of a cargo cult.
As Rusty Barton noted over at sci.space.policy, in response to this story, “When Boeing started designing the 787, did its engineers go to the Udvar-Hazy Museum and start pulling parts off the Dash-80?”
Discuss.
Why HLVs?
OK, my question to Dr. Stanley is, if it’s a good idea for Mars, why isn’t it a good idea for the moon?
“If you refilled the EDS in orbit [using commercial LEO fuel depots] it could act as the MTV,” says Georgia Institute of Technology aerospace professor Douglas Stanley, manager of the November 2005 NASA exploration systems architecture study (ESAS).
Hold Mah Beer…
Missed the Darwin Award by this much:
His girlfriend said Spangler decided to duct tape the large firework to the old football helmet. He then put on the helmet and ignited it.
Amen To That
I think people tend to draw far too many generalizations on the basis of far too few examples in the launch business.
There is a long essay to be written on this subject.
I agree with this as well:
Ironically, most SpaceX personnel come from Boeing, Northrop and other space companies. It is the sometimes Dilbertian environment, not the individual engineers, that holds those organizations back.
Is The Bush Doctrine Dead?
Norman Podhoretz, in a long essay, asks and answers the question.
OK, Now I Believe In Global Warming
Can’t wait to extrapolate to this decade (aka, “The Naughties“…
[Via an emailer–if anyone knows to whom to credit it, let me know]