Space

Good News

Jeff Foust says that, when it comes to commercial space, NASA may at long last be (in the word of Paul Dietz, a frequent commenter here) bowing to reality.

I suspect he’ll have more tomorrow at The Space Review.

Clark Lindsey also has an interesting wrap-up on the subject from Jim Muncy in Las Vegas:

Getting another “big idea” accepted is also making progress. Large scale space settlement must become the primary goal of the space program. No Antarctica-like outposts on the Moon but Las Vegas-es instead. Griffin, in fact, stated in testimony to Congress that human expansion into the solar system is his long term vision for space policy. However, this big idea is still foreign to many at NASA, in Congress, the press and the general public.

We have to continue to work to change that.

War Commentary

A Political Rorschach Test

One of the reasons that our nation, and indeed the world, is so divided on the so-called War on Terror (which, I remind once again, is really a war on a new form of totalitarian fascism wearing the not-that-much-less malign face of Islamic fundamentalism), is that we have major divisions over what motivates the people who make war on us.

In one sense, it’s like the old fable of the blind men and the elephant. If you’re a traditional leftist, you see everything through the lens of capitalist, colonialist oppression, and suicide bombers look like stalwart and admirable fighters against The Man. To people like Michael Moore, they are simply freedom fighters, just like the Minute Men of our own revolution. (Of course, they only use this comparison when they’re trying to make the enemy look appealing to those who disagree with them because, in fact, some of the time they’re actually instead denigrating George Washington and his troops, and comparing them to terrorists, which is apparently only a bad thing when they’re Americans.)

If you’re a multi-culturalist, you see them as misunderstood, their culture under daily siege from an unrelenting barrage of western music, and sexual images, and women with flesh exposed to the world. It’s only understandable that they would want to strike out, and even end their lives when they hear about their holy book being defiled:

He said Tanweer had never mentioned links with any militant group.

Social Commentary

Weird Bleg

For any Catholics out there (and I don’t mean cafeteria Catholics), is gambling a sin? If you went to the Vatican, and asked the Pope if it’s OK to lay some money down on the horses, would he say, “go for it”?

Media Criticism

Media Bias

It was quite amusing tonight to watch “Fox News Watch,” a show supposedly based on analysis of media performance, and to see the two libs on the panel, Neil Gabler and Jane Hall, dissing Judy Miller, as apparently the traitor to the cause. I was a little disappointed that one of the two supposedly “conservative” panelists (Cal Thomas or Jim Pinkerton) didn’t call them on it, and ask them directly who they thought she was protecting, because it’s clear to me that they’re deluding themselves that she’s protecting Karl Rove.

Space

Reading Comprehension Problem

Well, this is annoying. Mark Whittington needs to work on his, apparently.

He claimed that:

…some people…on the one hand, preach libertarian cant and, on the other hand, demand government pay money up front, before the promised hardware is even built, not to mention delivered.

We asked him for an example of such a person.

Bizarrely, he responded with:

Unlike Kistler, t/Space will not try to develop their system with commercial money but will seek a fixed-cost contract, milestone payment approach with NASA.

By what tortured logic does he think that this means that the government would “pay money up front, before the promised hardware is even built, not to mention delivered”?

Apparently he doesn’t understand the meaning of the words “milestone payment approach.” Or else he doesn’t understand the meaning of the words “up front,” or “before hardware is built” or “delivered.” Either way, it’s a head scratcher of a post.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!