The free-market case against it. It’s crony socialism.
Category Archives: Business
“Twilight Creeps Too Slowly”
Some thoughts on being a slow-boiled frog.
It’s A Great Day For Texas
First they get a new commercial space company, and now they’ve rejected ObamaCare. And California continues to swirl the bowl, with Sacramento and the morons who’ve sent people there reaching for the handle to give it another pull.
Virgin Galactic’s Latest Plans
Rob Coppinger has the story, over at Fox News(!?).
I wonder if their orbital stage will be a hybrid? If they do team up with George Whittinghill, it seems likely.
The XCOR Midland Press Conference
It’s not webcast, but here’s a twitter stream for it.
“Greason: “Mojave has been a good for XCOR, but it’s time for us to prepare for the next phase of our plans.” #XCORMidland”
[Update a few minutes later]
Clark Lindsey has the official press release. I’m a little surprised that I didn’t get one — I would have thought I’d be on Mike Massee’s mailing list.
This Is What Pseudoscience Looks Like
My thoughts on the latest attempts of the warm mongers to hijack the weather to advance their political agenda, over at PJMedia.
[Update a few minutes later]
June 2012 temperatures are not that remarkable.
[Update a while later]
Well, this is disappointing. Joel Achenbach has fallen prey to the myth.
Political Particle Physics
Iowahawk reports on a new pseudoscientific breakthough:
The landmark experiment in Quantum Rhetoric began early this week after legal particle cosmologist John Roberts published a paper in the Quarterly Journal of Tortured Logic that solved the long-debated Pelosi’s Paradox in Universal Health Care Theory.
“Pelosi’s Paradox states that in order to find out what is in a health care bill, it would have to be passed,” explained physicist Steven Hawking. “But in order to be a law it would have to be constitutional, which means someone would have to know what was in it, which would mean it couldn’t have been a bill in the first place. Think of Schroedinger’s Cat, except with a lobotomy.”
Actually, I don’t think that Nancy Pelosi has the requisite equipment for a lobotomy.
Post-Credentialism
Some thoughts on the higher-education mess from Phil Bowermaster.
So Much For Peak Oil
This is an amazing chart. Not that it makes sense economically, but we can be “energy independent” any time we decide to be.
XCOR’s Move To Texas
Jeff Foust reports that it’s not a move — it’s an expansion:
“XCOR sees this as an expansion opportunity,” a source familiar with the deal said in a phone interview today, emphasizing that XCOR would be expanding to Midland, not moving there entirely from Mojave. “They plan on maintaining a presence in Mojave. This is all about growth.”
More details are expected at a press conference Monday at 3 pm EDT in Midland featuring XCOR and local officials. Some open questions about the planned deal include the timing of XCOR’s arrival in Midland and whether Midland International Airport plans to seek a launch site operator’s license (aka spaceport license) from the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, which would be needed if XCOR planned to conduct test of operational Lynx flights from the airport. (There’s also the issue of integrating a flight test program into the normal operations of a commercial airport like Midland’s; one of Mojave’s strengths is that it is well-suited to experimental aircraft and spacecraft tests.)
So it sounds like they’ll keep Lynx development in Mojave, and not disrupt it with a move.
But still, if California wasn’t the worst place to do business in the country, they’d be happy to grow there instead. But until that changes, all of their growth is likely to be into other states. And California will continue to circle the drain economically.