Political Commentary

Stupefying Ignorance

Brits think that Israel is the worst country in the world. Imagine how bad it must be. Worse than North Korea. Worse than Zimbabwe or, for that matter, every country in Africa. Worse than Syria.

Simply amazing. The BBC has done its propaganda job well.

[Update a few minutes later]

It’s not quite as bad as I thought–it was an on-line survey. Still it amazes me that anyone can have such a stupid opinion.

[Update on Wednesday morning]

Melanie Phillips has a more comprehensive explanation:

Britain is gripped by an unprecedented degree of irrationality, prejudice and hysteria over the issues of Iraq, the terrorist jihad and Israel. All three are intimately linked; all three, however, are thought by public opinion to be linked in precisely the wrong way. This is because all three have been systematically misreported, distorted and misrepresented through a lethal combination of profound ignorance, political malice and ancient prejudices.

This systematic abuse by the media is having a devastating impact in weakening the ability of the west to defend itself against the unprecedented mortal threat that it faces from the Islamic jihad. People cannot and will not fight if they don

Administrative

Head Code

That’s how I’m currently pronouncing my new ailment, which is a “head cold.” I feel like someone scooped all the gray stuff out of my noggin and replaced it with moldy cotton. Probably little blogging for the time being.

Space

Rocketplane Man

I’ve done interviews in the past with Gary Hudson and Jeff Greason, but Mitchell Burnside Clapp, of Rocketplane Ltd. Inc., has eluded me up until now (primarily because my pursuit has been inexplicably less than hot).

Mitchell Burnside Clapp is the CEO and founder of Pioneer Rocketplane and the Director of Flight Systems at Rocketplane Limited. He graduated from MIT in 1984 with two degrees in Aerospace Engineering, one in Physics, and another in Russian, establishing an apparent trend of being constitutionally unable to limit himself to just one field of endeavor. During 1988 he attended the USAF Test Pilot School, whence he graduated in that year to work on the YA-7F program, serve as an instructor on the school’s staff, and later as the Air Force’s flight test person on the DC-X program. It was this experience that led to his initial involvement with the alt.space community, and indirectly to his development of aerial propellant transfer technology to enable horizontal takeoff, horizontal landing spaceplanes.

When I first met Mitchell, he was a major assigned to the USAF Phillips Laboratory, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Shortly after that (but hopefully not as a result of our meeting), he left active-duty military service in 1996 to found Pioneer Rocketplane, which won a series of contracts from NASA, the DoD, and the state of California as well as significant private investment and contracted efforts. He is also the CEO of another technology startup called Short Order Video.

He claims (with some reason, I might add) to have a wife, several patents, three children (two beautiful daughters, and a son, of whom Mitchell is apparently too charitable to provide a physical description, though I’m sure he’s probably a strapping handsome lad as well), two houses, a dog, a cat, many songwriting credits, a growing expertise in wine, and (as he apparently attempted to demonstrate here) pitiably little skill at writing biographical information about himself. I should add that in addition to Russian, and almost-passable English, as a result of misspending much of his youth in one of the most lord-forsaken corners of the Outback, he speaks the most difficult language of all, so well that it’s totally incomprehensible when the listener is not under the influence of heavy drink.

Over the past couple weeks, I’ve belatedly engaged Mitchell in an email give and take, and hope that you find the results interesting and worth the wait.

Continue reading Rocketplane Man →

Space

Phantom Book

A few years ago, under commission from the Sophron Foundation, headed by Tom Rogers, who was (and I hope still is, given his time on this earth) a noted proponent of space tourism, I wrote a long essay on the near-term prospects for space tourism. It was printed, but just a few copies only for the use of the foundation as a printout of a Microsoft Word file. To the degree it was published at all, it was on the web, at one of my own websites, and at Space Future.

Subsequently, somehow, Amazon has decided that it’s actually a book, out of print.

I’ve already received notification from an emailer that they’ve backordered a copy, whenever Amazon gets some in st0ck.

How did this happen? Does anyone have enough insight into the workings of Amazon to know?

Philosophy

A Need To Believe

Apropos the ongoing ID discussion, John Derbyshire has an interesting post:

Horrors like the S. Asian tsunami have very little to do with free will, of course, and much more to do with the great cold indifference of the universe. Very hard to square with an involved Deity. I can’t do it myself, yet I am constitutionally unable to NOT believe in that Deity. I think I’ll go lie down for a while.

Just as he is unable to NOT believe in it, I am similarly unable to believe. I wasn’t very old before I realized that the God thing just didn’t make much sense to me (but on the other hand, making sense is beside the point, isn’t it?). I just don’t get it. I feel (which to say, using a different meaning of the word, “sense”) no presence of a deity in the universe, though I find that universe awesome, whether gazing at distant images through a telescope, or viewing a plain from atop a mountain, or contemplating the peace of a grove of redwoods.

But from talking to people who do believe, it’s clear to me that their belief, and sense of a God’s presence, is very real, and I think that it foolish and presumptious to deny it for them. They have their reality, and I mine. And of course, my inability to believe troubles me not at all. I not only have no sense of God, I also have no sense of a need for one.

I think that there is a spectrum of levels of belief (just as there’s one for degrees of homosexuality). At one end are the clear unbelievers (such as me), and at the other end are the clear believers, and there are many in the middle whose belief is affected mostly by life circumstances.

Logic would dictate, of course, that we aren’t all correct–either there’s a God or there isn’t, but then, logic only applies if one’s belief system thinks that a requirement. Which is why it’s impossible to prove something to someone whose means of attaining knowledge isn’t logic driven, and who uses a different set of axioms.

It’s entirely plausible to me that for those who feel His presence, God is as real as anything else in this existence. But not for me. And because of this, while what happened in south Asia this past week is unspeakably tragic, it disrupts my worldview not at all. I have nothing with which it must be reconciled.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!