Transterrestrial Musings

Practice What You Preach

Hillary!'s supporters are going to love this bit of hypocrisy:

The average pay for the 33 men on Obama's staff (who earned more than $23,000, the lowest annual salary paid for non-intern employees) was $59,207. The average pay for the 31 women on Obama's staff who earned more than $23,000 per year was $48,729.91. (The average pay for all 36 male employees on Obama's staff was $55,962; and the average pay for all 31 female employees was $48,729. The report indicated that Obama had only one paid intern during the period, who was a male.)

McCain, an Arizona senator, employed a total of 69 people during the reporting period ending in the fall of 2007, but 23 of them were interns. Of his non-intern employees, 30 were women and 16 were men. After excluding interns, the average pay for the 30 women on McCain's staff was $59,104.51. The 16 non-intern males in McCain's office, by comparison, were paid an average of $56,628.83.

The Obama campaign did not respond to written questions submitted on the matter Thursday by Cybercast News Service .

No, I imagine not.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:32 PM

More Non-Defense Defense

Like Steve Cooke, Dave King defends ESAS/Ares:

Direct 2.0, the concept in question in the June 23 Times article, falls significantly short of the lunar lander performance requirement for exploration missions as specifically outlined in Constellation Program ground rules. The concept also overshoots the requirements for early missions to the International Space Station in the coming decade. These shortcomings would necessitate rushed development of a more expensive launch system with too little capability in the long run, and would actually increase the gap between space shuttle retirement and development of a new vehicle. Even more importantly, the Ares approach offers a much greater margin of crew safety - paramount to every mission NASA puts into space.

To accomplish the nation's goals in space, we need more than a new rocket. We need a robust, multipurpose space fleet.

Again, this is all simply argument by assertion. Show us the numbers and the assumptions. The notion that Direct 2.0 falls short of the lunar lander performance requirement is pretty funny, considering that Ares 5 does as well. This makes one think that there may be a problem with the requirement. The second paragraph is semantically meaningless. Is he saying that Direct is "a rocket" but that Ares 1 and 5 are a "fleet"? Why is Direct not multi-purpose? In what way is Ares "robust" that Direct is not?

Not that I'm a big Direct fan, of course. A lot of these issues would be solved by simply coming up with an architecture and operating philosophy that allows the use of existing vehicles, something that was clearly never under consideration.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:17 AM

Jaw Dropping

I heard the interview with Wesley Clark on Face The Nation yesterday, and was awestruck by how stupid the former General came off as in his pathetic attempt to defend Barack Obama on foreign policy. So was Ed Morrissey. And I have to say, good for Bob Schieffer in calling him on his inane comments.

[Update at noon]

Here's more on Clark and his slander of McCain. I liked this excerpt:

"Interviews with a wide variety of current and retired military officials reveal that Clark was disliked by only three groups: Those whom ranked above him in the chain of command whom he ignored, his peers at the same rank whom he lied to, and those serving beneath him whom he micromanaged. Other than that, everyone liked him."

Also note that he's not the only Democrat denigrating McCain's war record.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Vets For Freedom have a response for General Clark.

[Early afternoon update]

"You stay classy, Democrats."

[Another update a couple minutes later]

That's not the Wesley Clark I knew.

Man, it's got to be getting crowded under that bus.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:33 AM

Apollo Uber Alles

Dwayne Day is complaining today at The Space Review about my and others' use of the word fascism to describe NASA's human spaceflight program, though he doesn't call me out by name (interestingly, when you do the Google search he suggests, this post doesn't even come up in the top ten, though it's only a link away from some of them).

I'll make two points. First, if he actually read Jonah's "screed" (his word), it isn't obvious from this review. For example, he says that Jonah doesn't criticize conservatives for their own fascist tendencies in the book, but that's patently false. And he seems to fall back on the old leftist paradigm that the epitome, almost definition of fascism were the Nazis and Mussolini's Black Shirts:

Fascist governments do not allow other competitors to exist. The first thing they do when they gain power is to eliminate their opposition at the point of a gun. Usually they started with the primary threat, the communists, then the fascists turned their weapons on less organized and non-political groups, like the Jews and the gypsies. Fascist groups have also reveled in their militaristic attributes such as discipline and uniforms and strength and weaponry. The groups most identified with fascism--the Nazis and the Italian fascists--were paramilitary organizations that sought to enact their goals through force. It is impossible to separate fascist ideology from the methods used to implement it.

Take out the words "communists," "Jews," and "gypsies," and in what way does this not describe Stalin's USSR? Did they not eliminate their opposition at the point of a gun? Did they not have "discipline and uniforms and strength and weaponry" (recall all those May Day parades with the missiles and tanks rolling down the streets, and goose-stepping Soviet troops)? Did they not "enact their goals through force"? Is not the same true of North Korea? Or Cuba?

What Dr. Day is talking about is what fascists do when they actually gain power, but fascism is not just the use of force. It is a set of ideas, to be implemented by whatever means necessary.

My second point, as I wrote in the previous post, is that those ideas are described in Jonah's book, particularly in reference to Apollo.

From the first edition, pages 210-211 (my annotations are in square brackets, and red), "Even Kennedy's nondefense policies were sold as the moral analogue of war...His intimidation of the steel industry was a rip-off of Truman's similar effort during the Korean War, itself a maneuver from the playbooks of FDR and Wilson. Likewise, the Peace Corps and its various domestic equivalents were throwbacks to FDR's martial CCC. Even Kennedy's most ambitious idea, putting a man on the moon, was sold to the public as a response to the fact that the Soviet Union was overtaking America in science..."

He went on. Again, the red text is my annotation of his words.

"What made [Kennedy's administration] so popular? What made it so effective? What has given it its lasting appeal? On almost every front, the answers are those elements that fit the fascist playbook: the creation of crises [We're losing the race to the Soviets! We can't go to sleep by a Russian moon!], national appeals to unity [They are our astronauts! Our nation shall beat the Soviets to the moon!], the celebration of martial values [The astronauts were all military, the best of the best], the blurring of lines between public and private sectors [SETA contracts, anyone? Cost plus? Our version of Soviet design bureaus?], the utilization of the mass media to glamorize the state and its programs [The Life Magazine deal for chronicling a bowdlerized version of the astronauts' lives], invocation of a "post-partisan" spirit that places the important decisions in the hands of experts and intellectual supermen, and a cult of personality for the national leader [von Braun..."Rocket scientists"...not just Kennedy Space Center, but (briefly) Cape Kennedy]."

Obviously, this can go overboard, and Dr. Day has some legitimate complaints. While certainly leftists use the term (as Dr. Day describes) to simply insult anyone who disagrees with them and shut down discussion, and have done so for years, that is not the way that it is being used here, at least not by me. I don't think that it's an insult to call something fascist (though I've certainly been called that enough times myself when that was the clear intent). I am not merely being Seinfeldian when I always append the phrase "not that there's anything wrong with that" to my usage of the word. I really mean it. Hitler gave fascism a bad name. Not to imply, of course, that I think that these are good ideas. Just that they're not intrinsically evil, and many millions of people in this country apparently buy into them, as demonstrated by Obama's campaign success.

In any event, I do think that it is a useful prism through which to view the program for the purposes of analyzing it, and trying to develop a more useful space policy. If we can recognize it for what it is, we stand a much better chance of moving things in a more useful direction, and one more in keeping with traditional American values, and classical liberalism.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:42 AM

Better Diagnostics

...through metabolites:

Douglas Kell, a researcher at the University of Manchester in Britain, has already created a computer model based on metabolite profiles in blood plasma that can single out pregnant women who are developing pre-eclampsia, or dangerously high blood pressure. Research published last year by Rima Kaddurah-Daouk, a psychiatrist at the Duke University Medical Centre in America, may not only provide a test for schizophrenia, but also help with its treatment. She found a pattern of metabolites present only in the blood of people who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. The patterns change according to the antipsychotic drugs patients take and this may throw light on why some respond well to certain drugs, but others suffer severe side-effects.

This seems very promising, and near term. This part is a little misleading, though:

Studying genes alone does not provide such detail. Genes are similar to the plans for a house; they show what it looks like, but not what people are getting up to inside.

This implies that the genome is a blueprint--that the body is built by following a plan. But that's a bad analogy. A much better one is a recipe. First do this, then do that. If it were a blueprint, identical twins would be truly identical, and indistinguishable. But because it's a recipe, there are subtle differences (e.g., fingerprints) because the genome doesn't specify the body design to that high a level of detail, and much can depend on womb environment (one reason to think that this could be a strong factor in the creation of homosexuals, in addition to genetic predisposition).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:43 AM

Two Movie Reviews

Kyle Smith isn't impressed with WALL-E. Lileks loved it (though he's an admitted Disney/Pixarphile).

Guess I'll have to see for myself now.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:36 AM

June 29, 2008
WASP Nation?

I've always thought that Allan Lichtman is an idiot. His book, per its title, and as reviewed by David Frum confirms my beliefs. One doesn't have to be a conservative to think that much leftist criticism of conservatism is completely clueless, and brainless.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:28 PM

More Stuff White People Like

Changing their middle name to "Hussein." As Glenn notes:

Our own lives are weak and meaningless. Only through identification with a great leader can they achieve substance and purpose. Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:03 AM

That About Sums It Up

Eric Raymond and I are on the same wavelength:

Gun owners who are (like me) libertarians and swing voters are in the same fix as SayUncle. Many of us have good reasons to loathe McCain; mine, as I've previously mentioned, is that I think BCRA (the McCain-Feingold campaign finance "reform" act) was an atrocious assault on First Amendment liberties. Others can't stand McCain's position on immigration, or the idiotic blather he tends to spew on economics-related subjects. But for those of us who think Second Amendment rights are fundamentally important, voting for anyone who would appoint more anti-firearms judges (a certainty from Obama given his past views) is just not an option.

That translates into votes for McCain. Probably including (though I shudder and retch at the thought) my vote. It's not like there's any chance Obama's going to push for the repeal of BCRA. So I'm left with a choice between a candidate hostile to both my First and Second Amendment rights and one that supports the Second Amendment. (Normally I'd vote Libertarian, but the LP's isolationist foreign-policy stance seems so batty after 9/11 that I can't stomach that option in this cycle.)

Yup. One of the arguments that McCain will make with the bitter gun clingers is that he will be able to provide a Supreme Court that strongly, not narrowly supports gun rights. That's going to be very important now as the various cases work their way through the courts to define the limits of the "newly found" (that is, one that has been there since the Founding, but which many have attempted to pretend didn't exist for the past several decades) right.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:52 AM

Boostback

Jon Goff has another installment in his excellent series of tutorials on future space transport concepts. The interesting thing, as he points out, is that one can see a clear development and technological maturation path to these types of affordable systems via operational suborbital vehicles, both horizontal and vertical.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:26 AM

Hooking Them Early

Behold, Space Camp Barbie. Maybe math isn't as hard as she thought.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:17 AM

June 28, 2008
A Solution To The Ares 1 Problem

A tuned mass vibration damper:

Due to both the immense size of Taipei 101 and the fact that it sits just over 600ft from a major fault line, engineers had no choice but to install one of this size at a cost of $4m. Too heavy to be lifted by crane, the damper was assembled on site and hangs through four floors of the skyscraper. It can reduce the building's movement by up to 40%.

And only 728 tons. Hey, the vehicle's already overweight. What's a little more?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:52 PM

Wonder How Many There Are?

I'll bet that the Obama campaign does, too and worries about it. Hillary! supporters for John McCain:

I believe strongly that all of us should now unite for McCain because he needs all of badly...I am sure all of us won't vote for Obama and then all of us want Hillary badly to return 2012.....

The only way to make sure that Hillary will be our President 2012 is to make sure that McCain will win 08....

You know that's what Hillary! is thinking, regardless of the "Unity" speech.

[Afternoon update]

Here's someone else who is bitter, though it's not clear if he's clinging to God and guns:

A senior Democrat who worked for Mr Clinton has revealed that he recently told friends Mr Obama could "kiss my ass" in return for his support.

A second source said that the former president has kept his distance because he still does not believe Mr Obama can win the election.

Whatever else you want to say about Bill Clinton, he's not politically stupid. Though perhaps his judgment is slipping, based on the behavior in the campaign (which could in fact be a result of his heart surgeries). Either way, this isn't going to help heal the rift.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:55 AM

Thanks, Florida!

Florida just bought 300 square miles of cane fields in the everglades to return them to wetlands. They paid $1.75 billion. That buys out US Sugar that was responsible for 10% of the US sugar lobby. In April, in response to one of Rand's posts, I wrote that we needed to find a way to buy out big sugar. For 6 MT times $0.10 implicit subsidy/lb, that's $1.2 billion/year. US Sugar's share of that is $120 million per year. So $1.75B is a pretty good price for their concession.

Sweet deal, Rand! Thanks for taking one for the team as a Floridian to lower sugar prices nationwide.

Posted by Sam Dinkin at 07:24 AM

June 27, 2008
Caulking Up The Leaks

I've noticed since upgrading to Firefox 3 that my browser (and general system) performance has been much better. An independent consultant claims that it's now the most efficient browser on the market in regard to memory leaks, at least for Windows, and Safari has problems (though it's not clear whether that's just on Windows, or on Macs as well).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:37 PM

Has North Korea Been Defanged?

Wretchard says perhaps:

Time will tell whether the Six Party talks will succeed in denuclearizing the Korean peninsula or whether it will founder, as did the Agreed Framework before it, on some new difficulty. But two factors make the new agreement more robust than the 1994 agreement. First, the multilateral format means that any North Korean double-cross would alienate not only the United States, but South Korea, Japan, Russia and most importantly, Pyongyang's patron China. North Korea has a lot more to lose by welshing on the Six Party Talks than it did on the Agreed Framework.

Secondly, because their fissile production line will effectively be dismantled -- the Yongbon cooling will be demolished -- North Korea's remaining blackmail leverage consists of a mere handful of low-yield nuclear material. And with the United States positioned to watch Pakistan and Iran, the future of any clandestine program is in serious doubt.

Expect complaints from the Bush deranged in the peanut gallery, though.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:11 AM

The Better Part Of Valor

The Canadian Human ~~Wrongs~~Rights Commission has dropped the charges against MacLeans and Mark Steyn.

In a sense, it's too bad. They were probably starting to feel the political heat. Now they will be free to go on and continue to abuse the free-speech rights of less prominent people, rather than being reined in as they should be.

[Update a few minutes later]

Ah, no worries. They can move right on to the next heretic:

Earle says Canadians are too politically correct.

"They pissed me off so I said some rude things. Does that mean I should go to court because ... they were based on some kind of minority or discrimination or something-something?"

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal will decide whether Earle's comments, which the complainant Lorna Pardy claims were "homophobic," violated the Human Rights Code on the basis of her "sex and sexual orientation."

Earle is now looking for a lawyer and he's hoping his newfound fame might help pay his legal bills. He's planning a comedy fundraiser for next month.

The complainants, of course, will have their legal bills paid by the province. Not that the lawyer will do him any good. It is foreordained that he will lose.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:36 AM

Obama's Accomplishments

Jim Geraghty has some observations:

It's easy to wonder whether the candidate who talks about "real change" and pledges a government that will "heal the sick" and "stop the oceans from rising" actually knows how to get big things done - or whether he had the patience. Obama would seem to have the skills and brains to be a legendary community organizer, or state legislator, or U.S. senator. But momentous accomplishments in each of those positions take time, and at each level, Obama hit a wall, and turned his attention to a position of greater power.

This election will be about form (and glamour) over substance.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:59 AM

Impeach Bush

I agree with Jonah Goldberg that George Bush did commit an impeachable offense when he signed McCain-Feingold. He took an oath of office to defend and uphold the Constitution, yet when confronted with legislation that he himself declared to be unconstitutional, he signed it anyway, and punted to the Supreme Court which (as has been the case much of late, though fortunately not yesterday) flubbed it as well. I wish that someone, like Karl Rove, had said, "You know, Mr. President, that's a violation of your oath of office. It's an impeachable offense." But Karl Rove was never going to do that--the bill was perceived to be too popular.

I don't think that he should have been removed from office for it, but he should have been impeached. It might have wonderfully concentrated his mind for future signings. And that of future presidents as well.

Of course, that was never going to happen, because the grounds of impeachment would have been that he signed an unconstitutional bill that Congress had passed, so why would they complain? It would have required that the Congress itself take the Constitution seriously, something that, as Jonah points out, hasn't happened in decades. And of course, if they did, they never would have passed the abominable legislation in the first place and given the president an opportunity to violate his oath of office.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here's a useful follow-up post on how disastrous the 17th Amendment has been:

The reason why Congress debated whether proposed legislation violated the U.S. Constitution in the 19th century is that U.S. Senators were elected by the state legislatures at that time. The U.S. Senate was a check on the power of the federal government by giving the states as a group a collective veto over proposed federal action. Any time a state governor or a powerful state legislator was unhappy about the federal government trampling on the prerogatives of a state, they could call their man in Washington and have him do something about this problem. A U.S. Senator knew he had to keep the governor and majority leaders in his state legislature happy or he was out of office. This meant keeping the federal government small and not going beyond the enumerated powers listed out in the U.S. Constitution. Also, it meant being able to explain the constitutionality of proposed legislation to a small number of very sophisticated constituents back home at the various state capitals.

The tragedy of the Civil War was that, in order to rectify the (perhaps unavoidable at the time) toxic nature of the founding, and grant universal freedom, it ended up significantly enhancing the power of the central government far beyond what the Founders ever envisioned.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:14 AM

Is Philanthropy In Our Future?

Some thoughts at The Speculist.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:29 AM

PDR Problems?

I'd sure like to know a lot more about this:

Recently, an attempt at a PDR by ATK was called up short by the minions. Not even a goatee could make you feel warm and fuzzy that day. Having failed in their quest to show some level of design maturity, ATK was not even allowed to finish their presentations and were sent back to the showers to try again. And, oh, by the way, none of the ARES 1 designs at PDR, including the upper stage, include any of the modifications that will be required to turn the bladder basher into a real human space transportation system. That will come later. Makes one wonder why the PDR was scheduled if the design is that immature and missing pieces, don't it?

If true (and there's little reason to think otherwise, despite the happy talk from Jeff Hanley), how long will this farce go on?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:17 AM

June 26, 2008
They're Entitled To Their Opinion

...but are Supreme Court justices entitled to their own facts?

The call for impeachment in comments is a little harsh, but shouldn't there at least be a call for extreme embarrassment and apology? I mean, this was a fundamental plank in the foundation of the dissent, and none of the justices, or their clerks, caught it?

It makes one wonder how unfactually based many of their other opinions are. And it really emphasizes that "opinions" are all they are, which is a pretty sad commentary on the state of the SCOTUS. Unfortunately, an Obama would appoint more just like them.

[Update a few minutes later]

Jim Lindgren writes that Breyer's dissent is self refuting.

If you're waiting for me to be surprised, don't hold your breath. This court is an embarrassment. Or at least a minority of it is.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:53 PM

The Civil Disobedience

...begins.

I explained to Chief McCann my history as a freedom activist. Notably, my role in helping defeat the Communication Decency Act back in 1996.

I told him that I had been intending to speak with him for several weeks, to inform him that I intend to begin exercising my right to open carry of a firearm (quite legal in Pennsylvania and in most other states as well). I explained that I thought it best he and the local police knew of this in advance in order to avoid any unfortunate misunderstandings. See opencarry.org for background on this fast-growing form of civil-rights activism.

I also told him that, in the wake of the Heller ruling, I intend at some future point to deliberately violate the Pennsylvania state law forbidding concealed carry without a state-issued permit. The Heller ruling does not enumerate those among permissible restrictions, and I would be happy to be PA's test case on this point. As a citizen of the United States (I explained) I believe I have not only the right but the affirmative duty to challenge unjust and unconstitutional laws; and that since the founders of the U.S. pledged their lives and fortunes and sacred honor to sign the Declaration of Independence, merely risking imprisonment to challenge this law seems to me no more than my duty.

And by a tested and true freedom fighter.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:28 PM

Comparing People To Hitler

It's just one of those things that white people like to do. This part is a little off, though:

It's also critical that you avoid the fatal mistake of getting creative and comparing people you don't like to other evil dictators, such as Joseph Stalin or Fidel Castro. With few exceptions, white people are actually fond of almost any dictator not named Hitler, and your remark that "this is just like something Mao Zedong would do" will be met with blank stares and possible social alienation. This is because, with the exception of Hitler, oppressive dictators share a passion for many of the things white people love- such as universal health care, conspiracy theories, caring about poor people while being filthy rich, and cool hats. Stick to the script and compare things you don't like to Hitler, and Hitler alone.

While it's good advice, actually, being the National Socialist Party, the Nazis did in fact have universal health care. Well, for the people they didn't exterminate, anyway. But that was true for Stalin, Castro and Mao as well. I think that the problem here is that the white people who like to do this don't really understand how much else Hitler had in common with their other socialist dictator heroes.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:56 PM

Mark The Date

I just got an email from Pat Kelley:

I received a call from Anne Greenglass to tell me that Len's ashes will be interred at Arlington cemetery with full military honors on September 17. Any of Len's friends and cohorts who are in the Washington area on that date are welcome to come to the service. As we get closer to the date if I have any more information I will pass it along.

He's referring to Len Cormier, who died of cancer a few days ago.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:54 PM

A Wider Majority Than Reported?

I haven't read the dissents on this morning's ruling (and don't know if or when I will, given time constraints), but is it possible that the majority isn't as narrow as it looks? Four justices ruled that the DC ban was Constitutional, but they didn't necessarily do so on the basis that the right to keep and bear isn't individual. For instance, as Ed Whelan notes:

Stevens doesn't dispute that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, but he finds the scope of that right limited to using weapons for certain military purposes. He argues that the text of the Second Amendment (5-17), its drafting history (17-27), and the Court's precedents--especially its 1939 ruling in United States v. Miller (42-45)--support his reading.
Breyer argues that even if the Second Amendment does protect a right of personal self-defense, D.C.'s law is constitutional because the burdens it imposes are not disproportionate in light of the law's legitimate objectives. (That sure sounds like a meaningful test, doesn't it?)

So now we have at least six justices who agree that it is an individual right (Whelan doesn't say what Breyer's opinion on that score is, since Breyer doesn't accept that the ban would be Constitutional under that interpretation). And since Ginsburg and Souter joined the Stevens dissent, and didn't write one of their own disputing the individual right interpretation, doesn't it really make it at least eight to one?

I think that it's going to be pretty untenable at this point to argue that the right is a collective one in light of both the ruling and the dissents.

[Evening update]

Dale Carpenter agrees with me, and confirms that the acknowledgment of it as an individual right was in fact unanimous:

Chief Justice Roberts came in with the hope of producing more unanimous decisions from the Court. While today's decision was 5-4, it was actually unanimous on one point: there is an individual right protected by the Second Amendment. The split came over the important question of the scope of the right and whether the D.C. law itself was constitutional, but the underlying individual-right theory prevailed over a collective- or states-right interpretation that would give no single person the ability to challenge any type of arms regulation. Thus, an idea that not so long ago seemed radical and even frivolous to many academics and judges now has the assent of all of the Justices, representing a wide range of views about constitutional law and theory.

Emphasis mine. It was a huge victory when Bellesilles' propaganda was shown to be fraudulent. I think that it was the beginning of the end for the nonsensical notion that the right only applied to members of the National Guard, partly because the proponents had so overreached with his nonsense about few people having or using guns in colonial times. He has a lot of other good comments about the ruling as well.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:05 PM

Senators Lecture George Bush

...about space policy

The three say they don't know for certain why the White House has failed to provide the appropriate guidance and funding needed to implement the Vision, "though we suspect it can be explained by Bush not knowing all the facts about what the real impact of NASA's annual budgets has been since the loss of the Columbia in 2003."

I think the problem is less in the funding, and more in the lack of guidance. Once Griffin was hired, the White House apparently decided that it was mission accomplished, and refocused to much more pressing issues, despite the fact that NASA's implementation seems to fly in the face of the original vision and the recommendations of the Aldridge Commission.

And Clark Lindsey gives them a lecture of their own:

These Senators don't seem to know that NASA could have chosen to pursue an innovative low cost approach to space development and lunar exploration rather than choosing a very long and very expensive path to two new vehicles, both of which will be very costly to operate. These Senators apparently don't even know about COTS, the one modest effort taken by the agency towards lower costs for space hardware development and operations.

Well, what most Senators don't know, particularly about space, could fill a small library. Maybe even a large one.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:18 AM

Gun Ban Down

I'm disappointed that it was such a narrow majority:

District of Columbia v. Heller (Second Amendment challenge to D.C. handgun ban): Scalia majority opinion striking down ban. 5-4 ruling. Breyer dissent, joined by Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg. (No concurring opinions.)

If Obama does somehow get into the Oval Office, I'm glad that this case was handled this year. Almost certainly whoever his choice of nominees would be would have gone the other way. Of course, for the Dems, it will only be maintaining status quo, since it's the "liberal" justices that are most likely to step down soonest, I think.

Souter in particular was a disastrous pick for a supposedly Republican president.

Anyway, now on to the next case, depending on who brings it (I'm guessing someone in Chicago), which will bring in the Fourteenth Amendment and incorporation. But at least the court is now on record as having declared the right an individual one (again, I'm saddened, but no longer shocked, that four justices bizarrely think otherwise).

[Update a few minutes later]

I'll add that, based on what I've seen so far, it looks like the majority got it right. It's an individual right having nothing to do with state militias, but not an unlimited one. A gun ban in shopping malls or campuses is stupid, but not unconstitutional.

[Update a little after 11 AM EDT]

Eugene Volokh already has some initial thoughts, with more surely to come later, after the opinion is read. This is an interesting political point:

This split should be useful to either of the Presidential candidates who wants to make either gun control or gun rights into an election issue -- my guess is that this is more likely to be McCain. Expect McCain ads in states where there are likely many pro-gun swing voters stressing, "your constitutional right to keep and bear arms hangs by one vote." Also expect fundraising letters to likely pro-gun contributors stressing this at length.

Also expect questions of Obama whether he continues to support the gun ban in Chicago. And whether he still thinks that gun sales should be banned within five miles of a school (i.e., almost everywhere).

[Afternoon update]

I haven't read the dissents (and don't know if or when I will, given time constraints), but is it possible that the majority isn't as narrow as it looks? Four justices ruled that the DC ban was Constitutional, but they didn't necessarily do so on the basis that the right to keep and bear isn't individual. For instance, as Ed Whelan notes:

Stevens doesn't dispute that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, but he finds the scope of that right limited to using weapons for certain military purposes. He argues that the text of the Second Amendment (5-17), its drafting history (17-27), and the Court's precedents--especially its 1939 ruling in United States v. Miller (42-45)--support his reading.
Breyer argues that even if the Second Amendment does protect a right of personal self-defense, D.C.'s law is constitutional because the burdens it imposes are not disproportionate in light of the law's legitimate objectives. (That sure sounds like a meaningful test, doesn't it?)

So now we have at least six justices who agree that it is an individual right (Whelan doesn't say what Breyer's opinion on that score is, since Breyer doesn't accept that the ban would be Constitutional under that interpretation). And since Ginsburg and Souter joined Stephens dissent, and didn't write one of their own, doesn't it really make it at least eight to one?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:50 AM

Is Big Government A Mac?

Or a PC?

[Update in the afternoon]

Why we should want big government to be a PC:

You know I love the products, but Apple is a fascist company. I should know -- I worked there. Even got personally cussed out by Steve Jobs (may his name be praised forever).

Apple products are based on centralized command-and-control. Apple makes the hardware, software, and -- increasingly -- many key applications ("everything inside the state, nothing outside the state"). The Apple faithful believe that the computing world dominated by Microsoft is bad (if not outright evil) and must be redeemed. If only everyone changed to their way of computing, we would reach computing nirvana. And society would be changed for the better, too. If only.

The analogy may be getting a little strained.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:47 AM

An Engineering Manpower Crisis

There's an interesting article over at the NYT about the Pentagon's difficulty in getting good engineers, particularly systems engineers.

In short, the pay is too low, it's not seen as exciting as a lot of the other opportunities for new grads (e.g., Google, or other fields such as finance), programs take too long and are technologically obsolescent, and there's too much bureaucracy. Sounds kind of like the reasons I left fifteen years ago.

This was amazing to me, but I guess that after almost three decades in the business, it shouldn't be:

Their report scolded the Air Force as haphazardly handling, or simply ignoring, several basic systems-engineering steps: considering alternative concepts before plunging ahead with a program, setting clear performance goals for a new system and analyzing interactions between technologies. The task force identified several programs that, hobbled by poor engineering management, had run up billions of dollars in overruns while falling behind schedule.

I've seen this happen at NASA many times over the years, but that doesn't surprise me because space isn't important. National defense is, or at least should be. One wonders how to change the incentives in the system to get better performance. Part of the problem is that the services themselves, particularly the Air Force (with which I have the most experience) don't value procurement highly enough as a career path. It's a lot easier to become a general via the cockpit than it is through logistics or development. The other problem is that you often having young lieutenants and captains given responsibility for programs of a size far beyond what they'd be managing at a similar experience level in private industry. This is good from the standpoint of encouraging recruitment, but it often means that they lack the experience to handle the job, and even (or especially) when they're good, they may be promoted up and out of the program. That's one of the Aerospace Corporation's primary functions--to provide program support to the blue suits, and maintain an institutional memory to make up for the fluidity of personnel changes of the AF staff.

In theory, it's a big opportunity for people like me (I actually have a masters degree in aerospace program management), but it's hard to get consulting work as an individual due to arcane procurement rules. Also (though the article didn't mention it) it's a hassle to deal with a clearance, and I'm not in any rush to renew mine, though I'm starting to consider it, because I really do need the income. Blogging just isn't paying the bills.

Oh, one other thing. The description of the problems above bears a strong resemblance to a certain controversial large NASA project, where maintenance of the job base and pinching pennies seems to take precedence over actually accomplishing the goal. Or "closing the gap."

[Via Chicago Boyz]

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:24 AM

More "Change!"

Though not necessarily change you can believe in. That's not the Mike Klonsky I knew.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:28 AM

When The Power Went Out

...at Lileks' place:

It happened when it usually happens, too - every gets home, flips on the air conditioner and turns on the TV, and the brittle infrastructure, held together at the moment with masking tape and some alligator clips, spazzes out completely. This will continue - there's a controversy going on here about some new power lines and generating plants. A judge blocked the latter, because the utility hadn't invested enough in wind power, as per the law. That's the sort of sentence that makes your heart very heavy: a judge ruled that they can't build the power plant. I'm all for trying everything - wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, switchgrass, algae, hydrogen, steroidally enhanced gerbils running in cages attached to generators, steam, hydro, shale, and installing small pedals in movie theaters people can push to power the projector, but DO SOMETHING. NOW.

The world has gone nuts. People complain about high energy costs, and the Democrats' response is to fight every sensible attempt to increase supply, and tell us that the price isn't high enough. And so far, they seem to be paying no penalty at the polls for it. It would help, at least a little, if we didn't have a faux Democrat (at least when it comes to economics) at the top of the Republican ticket.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:45 AM

Obama's Ethanol

If ethanol is so great, why doesn't he support its importation from Brazil? Surely it's not because he's in the pocket of ADM?

ADM is based in Illinois, the second-largest corn-producing state. Not long after arriving in the U.S. Senate, Obama flew twice on corporate jets owned by the nation's largest ethanol producer. Imagine if McCain flew on the corporate jets of Exxon Mobil.

Corn-based ethanol gets a 51-cents-a-gallon tax subsidy that will cost taxpayers $4.5 billion this year. McCain opposes ethanol subsidies while Obama supports them. McCain opposed them even though Iowa is the first caucus state. Obama, touted by Caroline Kennedy as another JFK, was no profile in courage in Iowa.

...Last year, as President Bush was about to sign an energy cooperation agreement with Brazil, Obama said the move would hurt "our country's drive toward energy independence."

Really? The only thing it might hurt is Obama's drive to the White House.

Must be that new politics. You know, "change"?

And it's also amusing to note that the Democrats don't want to wait for drilling to pay off, but they're perfectly happy to wait for switch grass.

[Mid-morning update]

Further thoughts:

If it's intended to cut the nation's energy bill, Obama's ethanol policy makes no sense, if it's intended to secure the nation's energy supplies, Obama's ethanol policy makes no sense, if it's designed to improve the nation's relationship with a major Latin American trading partner, Obama's ethanol policy makes no sense, but, if, on the other hand, it's just another example of good old porkbarrel politics, Obama's ethanol policy makes a great deal of sense.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:11 AM

June 25, 2008
Ouch

"Obama's positions are like diapers: they are discovered to be full of carp, and then they are changed."

Not clear whether the misspelling was deliberate or not, but we get the point.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:13 AM

The Return Of Tammany Hall

...and its senior senator, Chris Dodd. Luckily, he's a Democrat, so it's no big deal. They're never corrupt, and never do anything without the best interests of the people in mind.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:56 AM

Blogtalking Space

Sorry I didn't mention it yesterday so you could listen live, but hey, the ability to download and listen at your own convenience is one of the features of the Interweb. Last night I did a one-hour interview with Rick Moran on space stuff. Download it here.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:47 AM

Rewiring Our Brains?

Is the Internet changing the way we think?

Over the past few years I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn't going--so far as I can tell--but it's changing. I'm not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I'm reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I'd spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That's rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I'm always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

It's anecdotal, but I've noticed the same thing. I used to read many more books (and magazines, such as The Economist) than I do now. Almost all of my reading occurs on line, and I am much less able to focus than I used to be. But it's not clear whether this is an effect of aging, or new habits. More the latter, I suspect.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:38 AM

June 24, 2008
Criminal Against Humanity, Part Two

More thoughts on James Hansen's demand of an auto de fe by those in the pay of Big Oil (further cementing the notion that this isn't science--it's a religion). No one expects the WARM MONGER'S INQUISITION...

Read the comments.

I do wonder if this is a violation of the Hatch Act.

[Wednesday morning update]

Four heresies.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:56 PM

"Not Silent"

As usual, Doug Cooke defends ESAS:

The "direct" variation fails to meet NASA's needs on several grounds. It is vastly over-capacity and too costly to service the International Space Station, but worse, its lift capacity would not be enough for NASA to maintain a sustained presence on the moon.

Advocates for the "direct" variation are touting unrealistic development costs and schedules. A fundamental difference is that the Ares I and Orion probability of crew survival is at least two times better than all of the other concepts evaluated, including "direct"-like concepts.

Also as usual, he provides no evidence for his assertions. We are simply supposed to accept them because Doug Cooke says so. Have we ever seen the actual report that came out of the sixty-day study, with a description of methodology and assumptions? I haven't.

I'm not necessarily a big fan of "Direct," but his statement raises more issues than it answers. Why doesn't the "lift capacity allow a sustained presence on the moon" in a way that ESAS does? Why should it be assumed that NASA's new launch system will service space station? I thought that this was what COTS was for? What are the marginal costs of an additional Jupiter launch versus Ares 1?

Give us some numbers, and provide a basis for them, and we might take this seriously.

[Wednesday morning update]

More thoughts and comments at NASA Watch, and from Chair Force Engineer.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:02 PM

Yeah, I Know

I have a lot of work to do, and I'm not in a very bloggy mood today.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:32 PM

Sympathy

Rich Lowry is feeling sorry for Senators Dodd and Conrad.

You know, people who don't know what a kind-hearted and sensitive soul Rich is might think that he's being sarcastic.

Seriously, if these were Republican Senators, you know that the media would be howling about it, with demands for hearings and Justice Department investigations. But they're not.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:09 AM

June 23, 2008
"Criminal Against Humanity"

That's what Barack Obama, and anyone who supports US ethanol price supports and tariffs against Brazilian imports is.

I agree.

By the way, so are Algore and James Hansen...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:13 PM

An Ally In The War?

This would be an interesting development:

As Father Dall'Oglio warns darkly, Muslims are in dialogue with a pope who evidently does not merely want to exchange pleasantries about coexistence, but to convert them. This no doubt will offend Muslim sensibilities, but Muslim leaders are well-advised to remain on good terms with Benedict XVI. Worse things await them. There are 100 million new Chinese Christians, and some of them speak of marching to Jerusalem - from the East.

As Spengler notes, the Muslims should be worried. That truly would be the first real challenge to them, if not since the founding of the religion, at least since the Crusades.

Whose side do you think that the left will take? How many guesses do you want?

[Evening update]

In comments, Carl Pham asks:

What's to be appalled about in the Crusades, eh? Is this just regurgitating some politically-correct pap y'all were fed in public school?

I'm only appalled by the Crusades in the same sense that I'm appalled by the Middle Ages in general (I don't actually recall learning about them in public school, which in itself, regardless of the learning content, is an interesting commentary about public school in the sixties and early seventies. It's no doubt worse now, since it's better to know nothing of the Crusades than to be mistaught them).

And in being appalled, I'm judging it by modern sensibilities. As I said, Islam was more (much more) appalling in its behavior.

Then. And more importantly (and even more), now.

But I'm sure I'll get more Anonymous Morons in comments, whom I'll take great pleasure in appropriately naming, unwittingly making my point about which side the leftists will take.

Also:

If you want to look for unpleasant proselytizing by Christian nations, take a look at South and Central American under the Spanish in the 1500s and 1600s. The Crusades do not quality. Islam is only pissed about them because they coincided with the high-water mark of Islam's own effort to conquer the world.

Agreed. Latin American's dismal state is a consequence of having been colonized by Spain (and it was a Christian Spain). It continues to be mired in a feudal culture, which has only transmogrified into a socialist/fascist one, as exemplified by "liberation theology." Which is (unfortunately) not that far off from the "black liberation theology" of Senator Obama's former church.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:21 PM

The Seal Is Dead

Or is it a sleeping possum?

Am I the only one to think that this was a misfired strategy by Obama to be all things to all people? The latte drinkers would be impressed by the Latin, and the possum would appeal to the bitter guns'n'God clingers. You know, the ones with the bumper stickers that say "Eat More Possum"?

Nahhh, the campaign is clever, but it's not that clever. Or maybe it's too clever by half.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:08 PM

"New Deal Narcissism"

Amity Shlaes, on Barack Obama:

The New Deal exists principally on an emotional plane for Obama. To him the New Deal is something you play like a song, to make you or your constituents feel better. Let me be clear: It's too early to judge Obama on economics. But he does seem unaware of the economic consequences of government expansion that happens under the New Deal name.

Politicians generally act as if there is no cost to reconnecting with voters by building new New Deals. But the whole exercise of writing law out of New Deal nostalgia is a form of national narcissism. Call it New Deal narcissism.

We could afford to burnish our social contracts if there were no competition from abroad. But there is.

Which is one reason why the so-called progressives hate globalization. And ironically, one of the primary reasons for the Great Depression, and certainly for its length and depth, was economic isolationism in the form of Smoot-Hawley. The New Deal was a flawed, fascist attempt to make up for our economic disengagement from the world. The war ended the depression. Unfortunately, much of the New Deal, and the mentality that led to it, remains in place. Obama is simply the latest Great Man, a man of Change, and Action, to want to preserve and expand it.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:31 AM

Resume Padding?

In Obama's campaign ad:

Even under the most generous reading imaginable could any of that count as passing legislation that extended health care for wounded troops? The Chicago Tribune noted the problem on its blog last week but defended Obama by pointing out that John McCain didn't vote for the bill either. That would be an interesting piece of information if John McCain had cited this bill as among his chief legislative accomplishments.

The Obama team's desire to pad the resume is understandable -- it's awfully slim after all. But this kind of dishonesty will catch up with them...or at least it should.

Yes, it should, but maybe it won't. Bill Clinton's supporters didn't seem to mind that he was an inveterate liar. But Obama's supporters (which includes much of the media) not only don't mind, but actually hope he is.

[Afternoon update]

Is he finally losing his teflon?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:06 AM

Hate Crime

I'm sure that Ian McEwan will be arrested presently:

'As soon as a writer expresses an opinion against Islamism, immediately someone on the left leaps to his feet and claims that because the majority of Muslims are dark-skinned, he who criticises it is racist.

"This is logically absurd and morally unacceptable. Martin is not a racist.

'And I myself despise Islamism, because it wants to create a society that I detest, based on religious belief, on a text, on lack of freedom for women, intolerance towards homosexuality and so on - we know it well.

It will be interesting to see if the authorities come after him for this bit of politically incorrect truth telling. He's lucky he doesn't live in the police state of Canada.

Speaking of which, Professor Reynolds has a pithy comment:

When the stormtroopers wear clown shoes instead of jackboots, it's easy to forget that they're still stormtroopers.

And so far, the circus up there continues.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:49 AM

Not Ready For Prime Time

More historical ignorance from Senator Obama:

Obama's unfavorable comparison of the legal treatment at Gitmo with that at Nuremberg suggests either that he doesn't know what he's talking about - or that he feels free to exploit the ignorance of audiences that don't know the truth of the matter.

Hey, it's all about fooling the rubes. The sad thing is that the press never questions him on this kind of thing.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:14 AM

Media-Induced Malaise

Lileks has more thoughts on the subject:

It is amusing, really - after sticking people's heads in the muck every day for years, promoting every faddish scare, fluffing the pillow beneath every yuppie worry, swapping the straight-forward adult approach to news with presenters who emote the copy with the sad face of a day-care worker telling the children that Barney is dead - in short, after decades of presenting the world through the peculiar prism that finds in every day more evidence of our rot and our failures, they wonder why people are depressed. Hang the banner, guys: Mission Accomplished.

Of course, not everyone feels this way; I'd guess that people who watch television news are more inclined to pessimism. But there's another side to this: the pessimism among some may not stem from some impotent feeling that one is a cork toss'd in a sea of cruel destiny, that you can't do anything, that nothing will get better - no, the pessimism may arise from the suspicion that there's something abroad in the land that's had a good hardy larf about "Horatio Alger" and all the other manifestations of individual initiative for 30 years. The cool kids and the clever set have always smirked at that sort of stuff. You can get them going if you make a speech about our ability to solve things, but you'd better phrase it in the form of a government initiative, or brows furrow: well, then, how do you propose to do it?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:04 AM

Cognitive Dissonance

It looks like Virginia Postrel's thesis is starting to be borne out:

It is weird how so many who claim to like Obama hope he is lying.

Or maybe it's not weird at all.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:39 AM

June 22, 2008
Why Wait For The Election?

Mickey Kaus:

If you wanted to emphasize to voters that the Democrats' nominee is a bit stuck up, it would be hard to do better. I suppose he could start requiring reporters to stand when he enters the room. ... The seal probably started out as a bit of fun. But unless David Axelrod is insane, the thing will never be seen again.

Let us ponder the possibility that Axelrod is insane. After all, he let this thing happen in the first place...

Anyway, the next step to me would be to have a band strike up "Hail the Messiah" (only a slight variation on "Hail to the Chief") and project a holographic halo over his head whenever he enters the room.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:34 PM

Where Is The Money Coming From?

And where is it going, in commercial space?

I have to say, I thought this was pretty funny:

Virgin Galactic has already been watching its back with the EADS suborbital space plane (pictured above), set to make its first flight by 2012. But now there's cash across the pond. "We have invested substantial money into this project," Auque said without citing exact figures. "The problem is that we need to create this market."

I doubt very much that Virgin Galactic is worried that EADS Astrium is going to raise a billion dollars to build a suborbital tourist vehicle. There's a reason that Auque didn't cite "exact" (or even approximate) figures. He expects to do it mostly with someone else's money, if he can find a sucker (like ESA?).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:40 AM

Post Election Selection Trauma

I'm with "Demosophist":

Obama is formidable, ruthless, smart, charming and probably unbeatable. I see a landslide brewing. If it happens, we will see a first 100 days comparable only to Reagan's, when the country made a 180 degree turn.

I just want to make clear that I don't think the US taxpayer should be liable for the massive psychotherapy costs should things not work out this way.

Hey, as that compassionate "conservative" George W. Bush once said, when someone is hurting, the government's gotta move!

More seriously, on the general theme of the post, I think that AL has far too much faith in Obama.

[Evening update]

For those who don't understand the reference of the post title, here it is, from three and a half years ago. I remember it well, because south Palm Beach County seemed to be one of the epicenters of the phenomenon.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:29 AM

The Chicago Way

...with handguns:

Politicians are not violent by disposition. They live in some of the safest neighborhoods, with wrought iron fences, automatic garage doors, cameras on light poles and armed police bodyguards.

Meanwhile, the taxpayers, who live without bodyguards, are told that if they want to protect themselves with a handgun just like the politicians, they themselves will be criminalized.

It is all about power in the end.

The founding fathers understood this, and crafted the Constitution accordingly. They understood Chicago before it was.

Hey, gun laws are for the little people.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:21 AM

Being All Judgmental

That's what Rachel Lucas is doing. Well, someone has to do it, since society at large seems to have abdicated its role.

Like her, I was struck by the stupidity of this, reported apparently completely unironically, as though it made, you know, sense:

The Gloucester baby boom is forcing this city of 30,000 to grapple with the question of providing easier access to birth control...

Well, hey folks. It's hard to see what that would do for this particular little baby boomlet.

There may be some problems that are solved by easier access to birth control, but brainless young women going out of their way to get knocked up isn't one of them. I think, for that, there will have to be some other solution (unless by "easier access," they mean tubal ligation).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:34 AM

June 21, 2008
The Wrong Black Candidate

Noemie Emory writes that Obama's problem is not race--it's arugula:

..let us imagine a different candidate, one who looks like Barack Obama, with the same mixed-race, international background, even the same middle name. But this time, he is Colonel Obama, a veteran of the war in Iraq, a kick-ass Marine with a "take no prisoners" attitude, who vows to follow Osama bin Laden to the outskirts of Hell. He comes from the culture of the military (the most color blind and merit-based in the country), and not the rarefied air of Hyde Park. He goes to a church with a mixed-race congregation and a rational preacher. He has never met Bill Ayers, and if he did he would flatten him. He thinks arugula is a town near Bogota and has Toby Keith on his favorites list. Would he strike no chords at all in Jacksonian country? Does anyone think he would lose 90 to 9 in Buchanan County? Or lose West Virginia by 41 points? For those Jacksonians who would be fine with a black man in the White House (not as tiny a group as Newsweek thinks), Colonel Obama is the one we are waiting for. When we will get him is anyone's guess.

Interestingly, the Republican candidate in my district in Boca Raton, Florida, seems to be "Colonel Obama." Except his name is Colonel West:

WEST, WHO DISMISSES Obama as "an empty suit," normally doesn't raise the race issue himself, preferring instead to emphasize what he calls "American issues" of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Riding the strength of that message, West says he's not intimidated by the Democrat's money advantage. "We don't need to match Ron Klein dollar for dollar," he says. "There's a difference between being a fundraiser and being a leader."

Reflecting on his own experience of being pushed out of the Army for doing what he felt necessary to protect his troops, West touches on the theme of character that is central to his campaign.

"In life, you're going to get knocked down," he says. "The measure of someone's character is what you do after you've been knocked down."

It should be an interesting race.

[Sunday morning update]

Wow.

In the course of investigating how Rush Limbaugh and I could be in the same congressional district (he's way up north near Jupiter (the island, not the planet), I think, while we're down south), I looked at the district boundaries. I'd never really paid that much attention. Now that's a gerrymander on steroids. Someone ought to challenge it.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:53 PM

A Mundane Singularity

Here's a nice compendium of what we could achieve, and not that far off, without molecular manufacturing, AI and fusion.

The haters of humanity will hate it, of course.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:35 PM

Deep Misanthropy

Ed Driscoll has some thoughts on haters of humanity, who are now making Hollywood films to convey their views.

Hey, how about if we save the earth by migrating into space?

Somehow, I don't think they'll like that, either.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:25 PM

Another Good Reason To Do It

If Israel attacks Iran, El Baradei will resign. Could we count on him to follow through, though?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:15 AM

June 20, 2008
Theophobia

I think that this is a much more justifiable term than "Islamaphobia" or "homophobia."

But then, maybe it is just bigotry.

[Saturday update]

They're not theophobes. They're just theophobic about conservatives. So, that's all right then.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:13 PM

This Could Be Very Useful

A commercial space wiki. I'll have to add it to the blogroll (even though, technically speaking, it's not a blog. But I don't have a wikiroll...).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:52 AM

Pushing Back

...against the pessimism. I think that Stephen Gordon is right in comments. People are optimistic in their own lives, and think that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, because they watch and read too much news.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:33 AM

Waking Up?

Have Hezbollah sleeper cells in Canada been activated?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:50 AM

Bombing John McCain

...with Google:

Bowers chose the news articles by matching the topics to existing polling data that shows what issues likely will turn voters off to McCain. He also makes sure that the articles come from news organizations like CNN.com, which already are highly ranked in Google search results, he added.

"We're just using McCain's own words -- everything we are targeting are things McCain has done or said himself. There's no bias at all. There are no opinion pieces. They are all news pieces that quote McCain himself. Obviously it is manipulating, but search engines are not public forums and unless you act to use them for your own benefit your opponent's information is going to get out there. This is the sort of 'Do It Yourself' activism that is very much in line with the tone of this campaign," Bowers said.

Somehow, based on some of Google's actions in the past, I suspect they don't mind.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:43 AM

President Of The World

Byron York writes that Obama is running for president of the wrong country:

I have a friend in London, very Euro in outlook, who is terrifically frustrated and worried about the election.

His chief concern: the role of Americans. "It's a pity that Americans are the ones who elect the president," he says. "It would be much better if the people of the world voted on the American president."

And guess who would be elected in such a scenario? Here's a hint: It's not John McCain.

Of course, as he points out, this is the only country in which he'd have a chance of running.

Anyway, I hope they're very disappointed in November.

[Evening update]

Here's some cold water thrown on the hopefuls for a world-president Obama:

...frothing phantasms over how Mr. Obama's "imagined persona" -- as a Muslim or a third world person -- are already crowding this view, fanning out of the airwaves of Al-Jazeera TV into effervescent Arab websites and public opinion polls, all murmuring about miraculous turnabouts and new alliances.
An Obama administration shall deliver a free Palestine, a defanged Israel liberated enough of its Jewishness to welcome millions of returning Muslim Palestinians, instant friendship with Iran's mullahs, a handover of the Golan Heights, and prompt departure from Iraq.

Mr. Obama needs to burst these bubbles, as none of this is likely.

Yup.

Unfortunately, in his attempts to square these circles, he'd be likely to do a lot of damage, Jimmy-Carter style.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:37 AM

June 19, 2008
More On Canadian Kangaroos

Thoughts from a Canadian artist:

Under Bill C-10, film producers will no longer be able to use tax credits as collateral when receiving their interim loans from banks (thus lessening their chances of securing these loans), nor will they be able to work them into their cash flow as a way of funding post-production needs. However, there is nothing stopping these producers from getting their money from another source. There is also absolutely nothing stopping them from making their films in this country, regardless of the content. All the bill says is that some films will not be made on the public dollar.

Compare that to what could happen if a human rights tribunal decides against Maclean's: It could order the private magazine to publish material and images against its editors' wishes. Let me repeat that: The state will order Maclean's to publish something it does not want to publish. Isn't that what China does? So why don't ear-to-the-ground, free speech-loving Canadian artists denounce it?

First they came for the right-wing **sholes. But I'm not a right-wing **shole, so I said nothing...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:13 PM

Let's Hope So

Is John McCain ready for a flip on ANWR?

For years, McCain has opposed drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

But McCain said he'd be willing to reconsider that stance as well.

"I would be more than happy to examine it again," McCain said.

A perfect way for him to do it would be to actually go there (as he's rightfully demanded that Senator Obama go to Iraq), and then standing there, in the barren wasteland, cameras rolling, point out the area that would be affected, how far away the beautiful mountains are, how tiny a percentage of the area would be impacted, etc., and say "I have always been in favor of the environment, and have opposed drilling up here for that reason. But with gas at four dollars a gallon, much of the price being driven by speculation that Congress will continue to oppose opening up new supplies, and now that I've seen how minimal the impact will be on the refuge as a whole, I agree that it's perfectly reasonable and appropriate to tap this huge resource for the American people, and the world."

It would be a huge win for him politically, and it has the additional virtue of being good policy.

By the way, this wouldn't be a "flip flop," which is a term that applies to changing one's position multiple times depending on the political winds. This would be a single flip, based on dramatically changing economic circumstances, rather than politics. As Keynes once said, "when confronted with new facts, sir, I change my opinion. What do you do?"

One other point--this would also be a perfectly reasonable justification for Obama to change his position on Iraq, given the progress in the last year. But unlike a McCain flip on ANWR, it might kill him politically, by sending the nutroots to Ralph Nader.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:37 PM

Another Reason To Kill The Mortgage Bailout

It's not as though it needed another one. But check this out:

At a time when concerns about both identity theft and government spying are paramount, Congress wants to create a new honey pot of private data that includes Social Security numbers. This bill reduces privacy across America's payment processing systems and treats every American small business or eBay power seller like a criminal on parole by requiring an unprecedented level of reporting to the federal government. This outrageous idea is another reason to delay the housing bailout legislation so that Senators and the public at large have time to examine its full implications.

You know, the revolutionaries in Boston had it right. Time to revive tar and feathers.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:49 PM

What Is He Saying?

Ann Althouse is trying to figure out Obama's position on Gitmo. His flowery rhetoric doesn't offer much of a clue, apparently.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:04 AM

Which Is A Greater Environmental Risk?

Off-shore drilling, or oil tankers? Of course, many "environmentalists" would like to ban both. And have us go back to chopping wood, and forty acres and a mule. As long as we aren't too cruel to the mule.

But it's pretty clear to me that off-shore drilling with modern technology is much lower risk, in terms of oil spills, than having foreign-flagged tankers operating in our waters. This kind of false sense of safety, and misplaced priority is common. For instance, some people avoid flying, because they fear it, and drive instead, vastly increasing their risk of being killed on the trip. I don't know whether people who oppose oil drilling are being similarly irrational, or if they simply recognize it as an easier target than ending oil imports, so they grab whatever low-hanging fruit they can to minimize our oil consumption (and drive up the price, which is perhaps part of the goal).

Also, as noted here, banning drilling off US shores doesn't eliminate the risk of spills from drilling. It just moves it to other (and perhaps even more environmentally sensitive) places.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:52 AM

Change!

An Obama administration would be a third Clinton term. Except without Bill and Hillary. Er...and presumably the sex scandals. Though there seems ample material for other kinds, given his campaign so far.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:15 AM

The Rough Road To Space

I have a new piece up over at Pajamas Media on space transportation and the Interstate Highway System.

Hey, it was Mike Griffin who made the analogy, not me.

I should also note that while the title is mine, the subheadline is theirs.

[Late afternoon update]

Only Mark Whittington would have the native talent to so misread this piece as to think that I was "expressing astonishment." Of course, it's not the first time that he's fantasized about my views.

[Another update]

Now Mark is fantasizing that I actually want, or expect NASA to build the Interstate to space.

Well, it's totally in character for him.

I sure wish he'd learn to read for comprehension.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:02 AM

The Obama-Pooh Collection

Hilarious.

Or it would be, if there weren't a significant possibility of this guy actually getting into power.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:40 AM

Fight The Smears

The smears against Muslims, that is:

Apparently, it is OK for Mr. Obama to be associated with terrorists like William Ayers or racists like Jeremiah Wright, but God forbid somebody would call him a Muslim! No, he won't stand for that kind of smear! We admit that most terrorists are Muslims, but most Muslims are not terrorists and the statement on Mr. Obama's website is insulting to hundreds of millions of people.

How could a man who discards his family heritage in favor of political expediency be even considered for presidency of the United States? Where are all the so-called "Islamic civil rights groups" like CAIR, MPAC, ISNA, MAS, etc. who are quick to defend every Islamic terrorist, but are silent when Muslims in general are being denigrated? Would Mr. Obama have the same reaction if someone claimed that he was raised as a Jew? We sincerely doubt that.

Muslims Against Sharia demand immediate removal of "SMEAR: Barack Obama is a Muslim" statement from the official Barack Obama's website as well as an apology for giving the word "Muslim" a negative connotation.

They're right. This is delicious.

Maybe Obama should take the Seinfeld approach. "I am not a Muslim. Not that there's anything wrong with that."

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:26 AM

He's No Jimmy Carter

Unlike Jimmy Carter, Obama apparently will lie to us.

Of course, I'm not aware that Obama has ever made a Carter-like pledge.

By the way, I don't mean to imply that Carter doesn't speak falsehoods. I just think that he's delusional enough to believe them.

[Update in the early afternoon]

Here's more on Obama's campaign-finance hypocrisy.

...public financing and lobbyist money are yet additional examples of how Obama is on both sides of every issue -- Iraq, the Cuban embargo, a divided Jerusalem, NAFTA et al. Is the press at all interested in pointing this out?

That was a rhetorical question, right?

[Update a few minutes later]

Just to be clear, I'm not criticizing Obama for declining public financing per se. I think that public financing is an ugly chancre on the body politic, and I cheer when it's foregone. I wish that McCain would do the same thing. Unfortunately, he'd look even more hypocritical if he did so, due to his having become the point man for all of these idiotic and unconstitutional campaign finance laws. He could use this as an excuse to follow suit, saying that he had no choice, given Obama's going back on his word, but we all know that if he did, the howls from the media would be deafening.

Well, according to the BBC, he didn't lie. He just "reversed his promise."

Well, that's all right then.

It's only fair to note that technically, they're correct. If Obama said it while having no intention of doing it at the time, it would be a lie, but we can't get into his mind. Sometimes promises aren't kept, but that doesn't mean that they were a lie at the time they were made. I was always annoyed when people told me that George H. W. Bush lied when he said "read my lips, no new taxes." A broken promise is, in fact, not the same as a lie. But it's a reason to not consider voting for someone.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:30 AM

Let's Hope It's No Fluke

A cure for cancer from immunotherapy?

Ed Yong, health information manager at Cancer Research UK, said: "It's very exciting to see a cancer patient being successfully treated using immune cells cloned from his own body. While it's always good news when anyone with cancer gets the all clear, this treatment will need to be tested in large clinical trials to work out how widely it could be used."

However, the treatment could prove extremely expensive and scientists say that more research is needed to prove its effectiveness.

On the other hand, it may prove to be not that expensive at all. It seems to me something quite amenable to economies of scale, and reduction of cost through technology advances.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:17 AM

Made Of Math?

An interesting theory of life, the universe and everything. How would one test it, though?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:50 AM

McCain's Infant Strike Force

Malicious and mendacious propaganda from Moveon.org? Say it ain't so!

This reminds me of that idiotic interview that O'Reilly did with Michael Moore a few years ago, when Moore kept asking O'Reilly if he would send his child to Iraq. If O'Reilly had been on his toes, he would have pointed out that a) no "children" are sent to Iraq and b) that the adults who do so have signed up for the service voluntarily, and don't need their parents permission, and are not "sent" by their parents, unless their parents happen to be their commanding officers. But this mindless trope of the left will never die.

[Afternoon update]

This is a pretty funny comment, over at Maguire's place:

Don't be misled by the name, lady: the 3rd Infantry Division is not made up of infants.

Hey, you can't expect them to know about this stuff.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:17 AM

Nothing New About That

Keith Cowing thinks that the Coalition for Space Exploration is asking the wrong questions.

If the Coalition for Space Exploration really wants to further the notion of a robust taxpayer-funded program of space exploration - one based on a solid footing of public support - then they need to start paying attention to what their polls actually say and stop trying to skew the results to say something that the numbers do not support. If, however, they want to support space exploration - regardless of how it comes about - then they need to re-examine their motives - and ask different questions.

People might not want to pay more taxes for space exploration, but they might be interested in buying a ticket.

Indeed.

As usual (and perhaps inevitably), an organization ostensibly set up for the purpose of supporting space exploration in general ends up being a NASA cheerleader. That's partly because a lot of the funding for it comes from the space industrial complex. In any event, these polls should always be taken with a grain, if not a whole shaker of salt. They're based on public ignorance, and once again demonstrate that support for the current plans are a mile wide and an inch deep.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:37 AM

Why This Is Such A Depressing Election

"Messrs. Obama and McCain both reveal a disturbing animus toward free markets and success."

Indeed.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:22 AM

"Slo Mo" Disaster

Alan Boyle has an interesting story on flood prediction. Well it is to me, anyway.

Robert Criss, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, agreed that the forecasts have been "remarkably accurate" - within the limits of the system, that is. He noted that the flood wave is working its way down the Mississippi River at about walking speed, giving the forecasters time to analyze the water's course, and giviing emergency officials time to react.

"It's like a traffic jam. The cars move slowly through the jam, and this big stuff is coming our way slowly and inexorably," Criss said.

The damage will be in the billions. And of course, some will say that this is a sign of climate change. But the real reason that the cost of these disasters is increasing is not because the weather is any different than it has been in the past but rather because people foolishly build in flood plains, because they don't understand the nature of statistics. There is no such thing as a "hundred year flood," at least in the sense that you can expect that there will be one per century, and after you've had one, you're safe for another hundred years. All it means is that statistically, one would expect one to occur that often, on average. Having one does not inoculate you from having another the next year (or even the next month), any more than chances that the next coin flip will be heads is increased by a previous tail. It's fifty-fifty every flip, and it's one in a hundred every year (assuming that the estimate is correct). This is the same kind of thinking as the guy who always carried a bomb on the plane with him, on the logic that the chances that there would be an airplane with two bombs on it were minuscule.

A perfect example is the 2004 hurricane season, which I drove over from California in early September to enjoy. I arrived in Florida just in time to put up shutters and batten down the hatches in our new house, when Frances hit us.

It was the first time a major storm had hit the area in many years, and most of the people who had lived here, even long-time residents, had gotten complacent. In fact, I recall sitting next to someone on a plane to LA earlier that summer, shortly after we'd bought the house, but before the storms. He was a real estate agent in Palm Beach County, and I mentioned that one of the things I didn't like about moving to south Florida was the hurricanes. He waved it aside, saying, "we don't get hurricanes here." I just shook my head.

Anyway, three weeks later, just as we were getting power back on and cleaned up from Frances, we got hit by Jeanne, which made landfall in almost exactly the same place (up around Fort Pierce). So this was not only a "hundred year" (or perhaps a "thirty year") hurricane, but we had two of them within a month. And of course, the cost of hurricanes will continue to grow, not because hurricanes are getting worse, but because, as in the midwest, and partly out of statistical ignorance, we continue to provide them with ever more, and ever more expensive targets.

[Update a couple hours later]

Jeff Masters thinks that climate change is causing 500-year floods to become more frequent. I don't think we have enough data to know that for sure (particularly since things have actually been cooling down in the last few years), but as he points out, another anthropogenic effect is the draining of wetlands for farming and building of levees to protect them. Levees work fine (until they suddenly don't) but they intensify effects down stream.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:00 AM

Evolution In Action

And not just in the Pournelle/Niven sense--literally:

...sometime around the 31,500th generation, something dramatic happened in just one of the populations - the bacteria suddenly acquired the ability to metabolise citrate, a second nutrient in their culture medium that E. coli normally cannot use.

Indeed, the inability to use citrate is one of the traits by which bacteriologists distinguish E. coli from other species. The citrate-using mutants increased in population size and diversity.

"It's the most profound change we have seen during the experiment. This was clearly something quite different for them, and it's outside what was normally considered the bounds of E. coli as a species, which makes it especially interesting," says Lenski.

But a dog didn't turn into a cat, so no big deal.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:47 AM

Cyd And The Cape

Both are discussed today over at Lileks' place. Also, judicial overreach in the Great White North.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:39 AM

June 18, 2008
Important Topic Du Jour

Chinese food does not make use of ground beef.

Discuss.

(Why yes, I am planning dinner. Why do you ask?)

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:01 PM

A Great Dancer, Gone

Cyd Charisse has died. I hadn't realized this before, but she was about a month younger than my mother. Here's a French fan site.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:44 AM

Keep In The Vote

Burt Prelutsky hopes that teenagers won't go to the polls:

Whenever I suggest that teenagers shouldn't be allowed to vote for anything but student body president or prom queen, I know that someone is bound to say, "If they're old enough to fight and die in Afghanistan and Iraq, they're old enough to vote."

To which I invariably respond, "You're absolutely right. If they're serving in the military, I agree they should be able to vote. But if they're still in school, still getting an allowance and using their mom or dad's credit card to buy gas, I say they have no more business electing the president than my dog Duke does."

Let's face it, ladies and gentlemen, if we raised the voting age to, say, 25, the Democratic party would go the way of the dodo and the Whigs. Liberals want young kids voting for pretty much the same cynical reason they want to extend suffrage to illegal aliens, convicted felons and dead people.

It takes a certain mentality, a certain degree of gullibility, after all, to believe plutocrats like the Clintons, the Kerrys, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Michael Bloomberg and George Soros.

I'd expand that to hope that teenagers of all ages stay away from the voting booth.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:45 AM

A Year Later

What happened to the benchmarks?

In the wake of the September testimony, anti-war lawmakers and media outlets refused to let up on the benchmark mantra. For them, victory or defeat in Iraq hung on those 18 points. Party big shots like Harry Reid and Joe Biden publicly cited the failure to meet the benchmarks as evidence that Iraq was hopeless. House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn issued a statement saying: "Despite the clear evidence that the Iraqi government has failed to make the necessary political progress and deliver on 15 of 18 benchmarks outlined by the Bush administration, the president wants to establish a permanent presence or 'enduring relationship' in Iraq, continuing to sacrifice an unacceptable level of American blood and treasure."

Well, if the benchmarks were all-important to Democrats in the fall of 2007, they have become meaningless to them in 2008. When is the last time you've heard a benchmark reckoning from Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi? The reason for the deafening silence on this matter is simple. The military and political progress in Iraq has proved so monumental that the majority of the benchmarks have now been met.

I agree with the author that Congress should come up with some benchmarks for itself.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:14 AM

Just A Coincidence, I'm Sure

RIchard Fernandez connects some dots that may account for Senator Obama's shifts in Iraq policy:

The shifts in Barack Obama's policy toward Iraq show a remarkable correlation with the rise and fall of Tony Rezko's business prospects in the Chamchamal Power Plant. As the story of the Rezko syndicate is exposed in his Chicago trial, the subject of its Iraqi commercial interests will come under a brighter light. Barack Obama has already said of his convicted ex-fundraiser, "this is not the Tony Rezko I used to know."

For some reason, the MSM doesn't seem interested in this kind of stuff.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:02 AM

Gay Wedding Blogging

From Virginia Postrel:

This is not just rude. It's bad politics. If you want to get Californians to vote against a state-constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, you should keep the obnoxious leftist lawyers out of sight and highlight the happy families--preferably with kids, mothers-in-laws, grandmas, siblings, etc. joining the celebration.

I suspect that California's gay community is going to ultimately regret this judicial overreach. Particularly if it results in California going to McCain in November.

[9 AM update]

Eugene Volokh has some thoughts on the collision between gay rights and religion:

Instead of gay marriage causing a collision, both gay marriage and religious conflicts with antidiscrimination law are themselves the product of a much larger trend that is moving the tectonic plates of our culture. That trend is the increasingly common view that homosexuality is a natural and harmless variation of human sexuality, that gay people are entitled to be judged on their merits and not on the basis of outdated opprobrium, and that these beliefs should to a significant degree be reflected in law.

Many people in our society object strongly to this trend. I think the law should make room for them to a considerable extent. It should be possible, in particular, to recognize gay marriage and to continue to protect religious faith at least to the extent we have already done so when religious views about marriage diverge from the secular law of marriage. Of course no religion should be required to change its doctrine to recognize gay unions. Of course no religious official should be required to perform a same-sex marriage (or an interracial wedding, as some once did, or a second-marriage wedding, as some do now, or any other wedding he objects to). These things have never been required and nobody is asking that they should be.

While marriage and religious belief are one creature in the minds of many people, they are separate things in the law. Catholicism and Orthodox Judaism, for example, refuse to recognize secular divorce. But few argue that we should refuse to let people divorce for this reason. One can be divorced under the law but married in the eyes of the church. The statuses can be separated without a diminution of religious liberty. And nobody thinks that this de-linking of the two constitutes official oppression or the obliteration of religious freedom. Similarly, in principle, it should be possible to have a regime in which same-sex couples are married under the law but not married in the eyes of a given religion -- all without extinguishing religious faith.

A lot of this would go away if the state got out of the marriage business.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:18 AM

June 17, 2008
Superbrowser

Firefox 3 has been released. Here's a review. I've been using the beta for a while, and I've had some issues, but they seem to have worked them out. It now supports all the plugins I used in Firefox 2, and it's a lot better in terms of memory management, and it doesn't crash or even slow from too many open tabs (a big problem with 2.0). The best thing, to me, is that it seems to be able to handle a lot of Explorer-centric sites, so it may finally allow me to abandon Microsoft and go full Linux (particularly with continuing improvements in Wine).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:43 PM

Iraq Is Not Gaza

So writeth Michael Totten. I agree.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:38 PM

Throw In A Lube Job, Too

Bruce Webster has an idea for a campaign to get Congress' attention.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:20 AM

Learned Nothing, Forgotten Nothing

Andy McCarthy says that Barack Obama is the September 10th candidate:

The fact is that we used the criminal justice system as our principal enforcement approach, the approach Obama intends to reinstate, for eight years -- from the bombing of the World Trade Center until the shocking destruction of that complex on 9/11. During that timeframe, while the enemy was growing stronger and attacking more audaciously, we managed to prosecute successfully less than three dozen terrorists (29 to be precise). And with a handful of exceptions, they were the lowest ranking of players.

When an elitist lawyer like Obama claims the criminal-justice system works against terrorists, he means it satisfies his top concern: due process. And on that score, he's quite right: We've shown we can conduct trials that are fair to the terrorists. After all, we give them lawyers paid for by the taxpayers whom they are trying to kill, mounds of our intelligence in discovery, and years upon years of pretrial proceedings, trials, appeals, and habeas corpus.

As a national-security strategy, however, and as a means of carrying our government's first responsibility to protect the American people, heavy reliance on criminal justice is an abysmal failure.

Obama is going to be pounded on his appalling historical ignorance throughout the campaign. "Auschwitz" was just the beginning.

[Update at noon]

Apparently the McCain campaign thinks that this is a major vulnerability for Obama:

As the war of words between the two presidential campaigns is escalating, McCain advisers and surrogates unleashed some of their harshest language yet in describing Obama.

On a conference call with reporters, former CIA chief James Woolsey and others said Obama's policy regarding the handling of terrorism suspects would create an opening for more attacks like those on Sept. 11, 2001.

Randy Scheunemann, McCain's foreign policy adviser, said Obama represents "the perfect manifestation of a Sept. 10 mindset."

"If a law enforcement approach were accurate, then you wouldn't have had Sept. 11," Kori Schake, a McCain policy adviser, said.

I think it's going to be 1972 all over again. The reason that the "superdelegate" concept was come up with was exactly to prevent this. It would seem that they're not doing their job.

Of course, it's still several weeks until the convention. If I were the McCain campaign, I wouldn't actually be pounding Obama this hard until he is safely the nominee. It probably helps Hillary! more at this stage than it does them, particularly since the public has a short attention span, and isn't necessarily going to remember this by November.

[Mid-afternoon update]

Another history lesson for Obama:

Yasin fled the United States after the bombing to Iraq, and lived as Saddam Hussein's guest in Baghdad until the invasion. He is still free, and wanted by the FBI.

Picky, picky, picky.

Anyway, it can't possibly be true. As everyone knows, Saddam had absolutely no connection to terrorism, or World Trade Center bombings.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:51 AM

Hard Wired

There seems to be a clear link between brain structure and sexual orientation. This should put to rest any notion that it's a "choice" for anyone but bi-sexuals (and this might imply that there are quite a few, since there could be a continuous variation between symmetric and how asymmetric one's brain is). As I've long said, there are those who are clearly irretrievably heterosexual (like me) and homosexual, but the debate rages on among the bis, who assume that everyone is like them.

[Via Geek Press]

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:45 AM

Glide Back

Jon Goff has put up the fourth installment of his survey on space transport concepts. As he noted earlier, it could be the basis of a useful textbook on the subject, with a lot more work and analysis (and accompanying graphs and figures). When I was on The Space Show the other day, David got a chat from an aerospace engineering student about when he'd learn how to design low-cost launchers, because he hadn't seen anything about that in any of his course work. This would be the text for such a course.

As Jon notes, TPS is a common thread in making reusable entry vehicles practical and cost effective. The Shuttle tiles are too high maintenance, and risky (as we saw with Columbia). However, a lot of these issues go away if the vehicle "swallows the tank" (as Rockwell and others proposed in their X-33 concepts). No external tank dramatically reduces the risk to damaging the tiles, and containing a hydrogen (or even hydrocarbon, though to a lesser degree) fuel tank makes the vehicle much more "fluffy"* on entry, considerably reducing the heat load. Because of the ET, Shuttle had unique TPS issues that future vehicles are less likely to have to worry about. And also, as Jon notes, XCOR is in the process of building exactly the type of "X-vehicle" that will be useful to start to prove out both trajectory and TPS concepts, something that NASA should have done years ago, and probably would have had it still been NACA.

[Update late afternoon]

Notwithstanding the silly microkerfuffle in comments, I should add that when I came up with the term "fluffy," it didn't occur to me to apply it to a vehicle. I really intended it to apply to something that actually is fluffy (i.e., homogeneously undense, e.g., liquid hydrogen), rather than something that has low average density, but very high local density with vast volumes of low or zero density. We should probably come up with some other word to describe a large empty tank, to distinguish between the homogeneous and heterogeneous cases.

*A word I came up with years ago at Rockwell to mean the opposite of "dense." Others may have come up with it independently.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:18 AM

Guilt-Free Petroleum

Some thoughts from Thomas James:

...the amusing part is that it is theoretically a carbon-negative fuel source -- the microbes take more carbon out of the atmosphere than what they excrete as a useable oil (if that doesn't seem to make sense, recall that the microbes themselves require carbon for their own structure).

On the other hand, since this approach requires genetic engineering, the watermelons and luddites will no doubt put the kibosh on it regardless of its benefits -- the only thing more intolerable than the idea of environmental-guilt-free petroleum sustaining the Western lifestyle of individuality, independence, and material happiness is the knowledge that that guilt-free petroleum comes from "frankenbacteria."

They'll hate it even without the bioengineering. As noted, it doesn't require us to tighten our hair shirts, or depopulate the planet.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:11 AM

First View

...of the Lynx. Rob Coppinger is in Mojave, taking pictures.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:44 AM

Thoughts On The Number Six

Over at Rockets and Such.

So, it goes from Ares 5 to Ares 6, and it still doesn't satisfy the mission requirement. And now it has outgrown the MLP.

There's a concept in the development of a space vehicle known as "chasing your tail," in which the need to add something to the vehicle (like adequate structural strength, with margin) results in more weight, which results in the need for bigger or more engines to push it, which results in the need for more propellant capacity to accelerate the added mass, which results in...

And the design won't close.

Now in fact, it is probably possible to get this design to close--bigger vehicles are easier in that regard than small ones. But regardless of the size of the vehicle, mission needs are always going to grow (and they still don't really have solid numbers on the EDS/Altair/cargo requirements). So it won't be able to get the mission concept (one and a half launch) to close, particularly as we move beyond the moon, even if it can be done for the moon.

The rationale for the heavy lifter has always been to avoid the complication of orbital assembly (apparently, the false lesson learned from our success with assembling ISS is that we should throw away all that experience, and take an entirely different approach for VSE). But it's already a "launch and half" mission, needing both Ares 1 and Ares 56, so they're not even avoiding it--they're only minimizing it. And even if the lunar mission doesn't outgrow the Ares 6, it won't be able to do a Mars mission in a single launch. So if we need to learn to do orbital assembly (and long-term propellant storage) anyway, why postpone it? Why not take the savings from not developing an unneeded heavy lifter (and new crew launch vehicle), and invest it in orbital infrastructure, tools and technology to provide a flexible system that can be serviced by a range of launch vehicles, without the single-point failure of Ares? These are the kinds of issues that a new administrator will have to consider next year.

And don't get me started on the Ares 1 problems:

The currently favored mitigation approaches - still undergoing a trade study - for thrust oscillation will add around 500 lbs to Orion for shock mounting on the crew seats and vital components.

So, because the geniuses behind this concept decided to put the crew on top of the world's biggest organ pipe, they'll add a quarter of a ton to an already-overweight vehicle with no margin, so that the astronauts will (might?) be able to survive watching the rest of the capsule being vibrated even more intensely around them.

There is a word for this. It starts with a "k" and ends with "ludge." And then there's this.

Thrust oscillation is now categorized as a 5x4 risk for the upper stage.

I'm not sure which axis is which in that formulation, but it either means that there is a very high likelihood of a catastrophic outcome, or that that it is probable that there will be a near-catastrophic outcome. And no mitigation has yet been found.

They really need to consider going from one and a half launches to (at least) two launches of a single medium-sized vehicle type. Two launches is two launches, it would save them a huge amount of development costs, provide much better economies of scale in operation and production, and get completely around the "stick" idea, which is proving to be a programmatic disaster waiting to happen, if it hasn't already. Let us finally end the cargo cult of Apollo, and develop real infrastructure.

[Late morning update]

Here's more discussion over at NASA Space Flight.

[Update a few minutes later]

In a post from a week ago, Chair Force Engineer has some related thoughts as well, on the wisdom of choosing solids at all:

The solid-liquid trade study is one that couldn't have been adequately analyzed during the 60 days of the ESAS study, and will likely end up as an interesting footnote in the Ares story. The question is whether the Ares story will fall into the genre of historical nonfiction, or fantasy and tragedy. If the latter is true, perhaps liquids were the answer after all. But the decision to not cap the weight of Ares V (even at the expense of payload) is one that taxpayers shouldn't forget if the massive rocket, and its shiny new infrastructure, ever get off the drawing board.

It seems pretty clear (as it did at the time) that the decision to build "the Stick" was pre-ordained, and that the sixty-day study was a rationalization, not a rationale, and that none of the CE&R recommendations were seriously considered. An Administrator Steidle would no doubt want to revisit it.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:01 AM

June 16, 2008
Seek, And Ye Shall Find

Another huge oil discovery in Brazil.

What's amazing is not so much that Congress won't allow us to pump oil, which we badly need to do. They won't even allow us to look for it, especially if it's in a "pristine" (aka barren coastal plain, frozen in the winter and a mosquito-infested bog in the summer) region, at least according to Senator McCain.

What are they afraid we might find?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:13 PM

Only Cat 5?

For that kind of money, I'd expect Cat 8, at least.

An audiophile and his money are soon parted.

[Update a few minutes later]

As noted, the Amazon customer reviews are hilarious.

[Update in the evening]

Stephen Dawson (from Down Under) has a defense (albeit pretty flimsy. as he admits) of Denon.

I have to admit my disappointment as well. I'd always respected Denon up until this. As someone in comments said, one hopes that the marketing person responsible will have a few of these cables run through them from one end to the other. Or be keelhauled with them.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:29 PM

Len Cormier's Final Flight Plan

I just got the sad news from Pat Kelley:

Len took his final journey this morning, passing peacefully. His family is going to have his ashes interred at Arlington cemetery, but I have no schedule. For those who wish to express condolences, you can reach his life partner, Anne Greenglass via email, [email me for the address if you want to do so--rs].

I tried to address this notice to all the people on my list, but I'm sure there are others I may have missed, so please forward this to anyone else you feel would want to know. I do intend to continue trying to get backing for Len's last design (Space Van 2010) as a tribute.

Len was a truly unique man, and a rare breed these days. Always the gentleman, honest to a fault, and always ready to give credit where it was due (and sometimes even allowing the unworthy to take credit for his work, for the sake of an important effort). He is unreplaceable, and will be sorely missed.

Ad astra, cum laetitia, Len.

[Previous post here]

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:58 AM

The George Romney Democrats

James Kirchick writes that the Democrats are trying to lie their party to victory, and the country to defeat in Iraq:

In 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee unanimously approved a report acknowledging that it "did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments." The following year, the bipartisan Robb-Silberman report similarly found "no indication that the intelligence community distorted the evidence regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."

Contrast those conclusions with the Senate Intelligence Committee report issued June 5, the production of which excluded Republican staffers and which only two GOP senators endorsed. In a news release announcing the report, committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV got in this familiar shot: "Sadly, the Bush administration led the nation into war under false pretenses."

Yet Rockefeller's highly partisan report does not substantiate its most explosive claims. Rockefeller, for instance, charges that "top administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and Al Qaeda as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11." Yet what did his report actually find? That Iraq-Al Qaeda links were "substantiated by intelligence information." The same goes for claims about Hussein's possession of biological and chemical weapons, as well as his alleged operation of a nuclear weapons program.

Four years on from the first Senate Intelligence Committee report, war critics, old and newfangled, still don't get that a lie is an act of deliberate, not unwitting, deception. If Democrats wish to contend they were "misled" into war, they should vent their spleen at the CIA.

Yes. Bill Clinton's CIA, since George Bush foolishly left George Tenant in charge of it, even after 911, and never even seriously attempted to clean house, other than the failed attempt by Porter Goss. The president got bad intelligence. But the Democrats are being mendacious in their selective memory and rewriting of history.

I loved this:

A journalist who accompanied Romney on his 1965 foray to Vietnam remarked that if the governor had indeed been brainwashed, it was not because of American propaganda but because he had "brought so light a load to the laundromat." Given the similarity between Romney's explanation and the protestations of Democrats 40 years later, one wonders why the news media aren't saying the same thing today.

I assume that the last phrase is simply a rhetorical flourish. There's no reason to wonder at all.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:56 AM

The Way Forward

Very little in this essay is new to people who have been following the arguments in space policy circles for years, but it's useful to pull it all together into one place, and bring it up to date. I and many others have long advocated that we need to resurrect NACA (which was absorbed into NASA half a century ago) and start developing technology that can support private industry, as we did for aviation. With the new private space passenger vehicles now starting to be developed, the time is ripe for it, and Jeff Foust and Charles Miller have made a very powerful case. This should be must reading for both presidential campaigns.

[Update mid morning]

This piece I wrote a few years ago on the centennial of flight seems pertinent.

[Mid-afternoon update]

More commentary over at Jeff's site, Space Politics.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:10 AM

Another Kind Of Space Elevator

Jon Goff has an interesting post on a reusable two-stage vehicle concept.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:53 AM

June 15, 2008
Losing A Father On Father's Day

There are no doubt many people empathetic for Luke Russert today, losing his father, with whom he apparently had a very close bond (and a father who had a very close bond to his own father), two days before Father's day, and fresh out of college.

But I feel particularly so, having been in a similar situation, many years ago.

There were a lot of similarities, but three big differences.

First, while Luke had just finished college, I was in the middle of finals of my second-to-last semester. It was May, in Michigan, only a month before Father's Day. Fortunately, all of my professors were understanding, and allowed me to make up, including delaying the publication of the final report of a class space systems engineering project to which I had to contribute, being a major contributor. I recall sitting on the porch in Ann Arbor, on one of those perfect early summer days in June, after we laid my father to rest, in which the temperature, humidity and sunlight were exactly as intended, writing in longhand (which I hated) the orbital mechanics aspects of the concept to be handed to the Aerospace Engineering Department secretary for inclusion. I also remember Professor Don Greenwood, who literally wrote the book on dynamics, giving me some extra time to study for the oral exam that was part of his graduate course, and passing me, no doubt from pity.

Unlike Luke, I graduated from college without my father having been able to see it happen, something which he no doubt often doubted (as did I, often) would ever happen.

Second, and trivially, my father was not a world-famous newsman, though he was as well-respected in his much smaller community of Flint, Michigan. He had been the producer for many years of the A.C. Spark Plug (now Delphi, and no longer part of GM) spring and fall concerts at the IMA Auditorium, in which he had lined up major stars of the era, including Edie Adams, Peter Palmer, Anita Bryant, and many others, with the contributions of the GM divisions vocal chorus clubs and its many talented employees. I recall going out to Luigi's for the best pizza anywhere with them, a restaurant which still has many pictures of those stars on its walls.

I recall from my own eulogy that I gave at the Unitarian service, that he was an inverse Will Rogers--that he never met a man who didn't like him. I also remember stealing a line from Barney Miller--that whenever someone would tell me what a great guy my dad was, I'd say, "Yeah, he's a block off the young chip."

But another big difference, perhaps the biggest, is that while, as Luke did, I lost my father to a heart attack (at an even younger age than Tim Russert--fifty five), it didn't happen suddenly. It took him over a month to die. It was his second (the first being over a decade earlier, when in his mid forties). The fact that I had to go back and forth between Flint and Ann Arbor to see him for three weeks contributed to my lackluster late-semester academic performance. It really wiped out the last of the semester, but it gave me the chance, unlike Luke, to say goodbye.

Fortunately for Luke, he perhaps didn't have as great a need, though the pain must have cut through him like a knife, being an ocean away when he heard the news, and knowing that there would be no last words. But Luke by all reports had a great relationship with his dad, and perhaps, let us hope, that no last words were necessary.

Almost three decades later, I feel as though I squandered my opportunity, being young and stupid. I felt that he didn't understand me, and what I was about or trying to do. I know now, as I approach the age of his dying (though I hope to live many years longer), that we were in many ways much more alike than in the superficial ways that, as I thought then, we were different. There are many things that I would say to my father given another chance, even only knowing what I knew then, but not having the wisdom to do so. We had had our differences, and even lying in the hospital, his lungs filling with fluid, slowly drowning him from the congestive heart failure, I couldn't tell him that I loved him, but I think that he knew I did. I can only console myself now with that hope. I would hope that had he lived, he would have been proud of what I have done with my life though, in honesty, I'm not always that proud myself. There are many mistakes that I've made, but almost always in good, if naive intent.

The hardest part of that month was that I was the one who had to tell his widowed mother, a woman who had come to this country early in the century, and lost many of those she left behind in Europe to the Holocaust, that he, her only child, who had survived many missions in the waist of a B-25 over Italy, and was the only member of the crew to get out of the last mission without being killed or captured, had died. I still remember her audible grief. "He was my Einstein," she cried, she wailed. I held her, and cried with her. She went back to her condo in Miami Beach, and died herself less than three years later, no doubt from heartbreak.

I doubt if he reads this blog, but on the off chance that he does, on this Father's Day, Dad? Thank you for everything. I love you.

Happy Father's Day.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:25 PM

June 14, 2008
A Turnaround?

OK, now Obama seems to like guns. At least as long as he's the only one allowed to have one.

But you have to admit, it is the Chicago way.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:56 PM

You Have A Right To Vote

...but only as long as you vote the right way:

"We're told we can vote no, that the system requires unanimity. But when (a `no' vote) actually happens, every time, the EU tells us: You really only have a right to vote yes," said Dublin travel agent Paul Brady, who voted against the treaty. "You know, I love traveling through Europe, but I don't really want to live there all the time. I'd like to stay as close to America as Europe."

Perhaps the Irish have saved western civilization again. But only until the next attempt to undemocratically foist it on European citizens.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:30 PM

How Far Will They Go?

Some interesting legal speculation on the upcoming Heller decision to rule on the constitutionality of DC's gun ban, and on the meaning of the Second Amendment.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:49 AM

What Is The New Space Suit?

In all of the reports I find on the award of the new suit contract to Oceaneering, I can't find any technical details on it (I suppose a lot of the info for both competitors is embargoed for proprietary reasons). But from the pictures, it looks like a hard suit. Does anyone know? If so, that would be the second revolution. The first, of course, is Ham Standard/Sunstrand finally losing their decades-long monopoly, going back to Apollo. It's nice to see David Clark back in the game as well, after all those decades. I wonder if they'll be using a glove concept based on Peter Homer's?

[Update in the afternoon]

Louise Riofrio has more thoughts. Apparently, though, this wasn't a design competition--it was a competition to see which contractor was more generally qualified to build suits. Process over product...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:46 AM

Ceding The High Ground

Jeff Krukin writes that Europe is leaving NewSpace to the US, out of (among other things) foolish class envy:

the views expressed by European Commission Vice President Guenter Verheugen speak volumes about the attitudes of the European political establishment toward entrepreneurial space activity (NewSpace). Referring to public remarks by Guenter, Astrium Chief Executive Francois Auque said, "I was even told that this project was morally blameworthy because it targets an audience of the rich people."

Well, that's why many of our ancestors left Europe.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:13 AM

June 13, 2008
Irony

The only question, really, is whether or not it was intended...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:52 PM

Facts Matter

Jennifer Rubin reports on a very interesting briefing on Iraq:

I asked O'Hanlon whether his previous criticism that Barack Obama was in denial about facts on the ground still stood. In a lengthy answer he and then Pollack avoided a partisan hit on Obama and I think revealed their true purpose: to inform the public and policy matters about the real situation in Iraq and allow Democrats to in essence climb back off the surge opposition policy limb they have crawled out on. (This is my description; they were quite tactful and even optimistic that this is a time when political leaders can reorient themselves to new facts.) Both indicated that it would be a mistake with critical provincial and national elections upcoming in 2008 and 2009 to begin an abrupt withdrawal in 2009. O'Hanlon offered that Democrats could take credit for having pressured Iraqis on a political front with the clear message that our presence would not be indefinite and that they should accept that "the good news is you may be able to leave earlier than proposed based on progress and not on defeat."

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:27 PM

Shocking News News

Tim Russert has apparently died of a heart attack. Condolences to his family.

I suspect that given how unexpected this was, it will shake up NBC news quite a bit.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:04 PM

Schizophrenic

Jeff Foust has a tale of two bills. As he notes, the language in the authorization bill is great:

It is further the sense of Congress that United States entrepreneurial space companies have the potential to develop and deliver innovative technology solutions at affordable costs. NASA is encouraged to use United States entrepreneurial space companies to conduct appropriate research and development activities. NASA is further encouraged to seek ways to ensure that firms that rely on fixed-price proposals are not disadvantaged when NASA seeks to procure technology development.

I wonder if the part about fixed-price contracts was in response to pressure from XCOR specifically, or perhaps from the Personal Spaceflight Federation?

Anyway, nice as it sounds, the only bill that really counts is the appropriations bill, which (again as he notes) cuts COTS funding.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:45 AM

More On ANWR Versus The Grand Canyon

From Jonah Goldberg, who has been to both:

This isn't to say that the Grand Canyon isn't a beautiful place; it inspires awe among those who visit it. ANWR (pronounced "AN-wahr") inspires awe almost entirely in those who haven't been there. It is an environmental Brigadoon or Shangri-La, a fabled land almost no one will ever see. That is its appeal. People like the idea that there are still Edens "out there" even if they will never, ever see them.

Indeed, if Americans could visit the north coast of Alaska, as I have, as easily as they can visit the Grand Canyon, the oil would be flowing by now.

[Afternoon update]

McCain's attitude: Let them eat honor:

At a town-hall meeting in Philadelphia, McCain said he could no sooner drill in ANWR than in the Grand Canyon. This is like comparing a roadside flea market to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Five million people a year visit the Grand Canyon, whereas 1,000 visit ANWR. Why would anyone want to go? It's a frozen wasteland during the winter and a mosquito-infested bog during the summer.

McCain opposes drilling off the shores of Florida and California as well, saying that the states should be able to decide. But Alaska desperately wants to drill in ANWR. Its opinion apparently doesn't count. In an interview on the Today show, McCain ridiculously held out the prospect that advances in alternative energy might lower the price of gas by November. He's touting fanciful revolutionary breakthroughs within months without acknowledging the real technological advances that make it possible to drill with minimal environmental impact.

He's blowing a huge political opportunity.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:59 AM

Good Spacy Linkage

Over at the latest Carnival of Space.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:34 AM

Lileks Gets All Sarcastic

You're probably shocked. I know I was:

I'm guessing the profit isn't 51 cents. But whatever it is, it's too much! I've heard some people yearn for a windfall profits tax that would reinvest the money in alternative energy, or rebate it back to the consumer. Fine. Apply that to your business. Here's the acceptable profit level. You don't get to make any more than that. If you do, the state will confiscate the property and divide it among your competitors, or give it back to your customers. Have a nice day. But oil is different. It's necessary! So is food. Farmers are doing well. Let us therefore set the acceptable level for corn farmers, take away the excess profits, invest it new forms of sweeteners or biofuels farmers cannot yet produce, and give people rebates for Splenda to compensate for the price of high fructose corn syrup.

It's not that we cannot produce any more oil; you suspect that some are motivated by the belief, perverse as it sounds, that we should not. We should not drill 50 miles off shore on the chance someone in Malibu takes a hot-air balloon up 1000 feet and uses a telephoto lens to scan the horizon for oil platforms. Also, there are ecological concerns. (The ocean is a wee place, easily disturbed.) There's something else that may well be my imagination, but I can't quite shake the feeling: high gas prices and shortages of oil make some people feel good. This is the way it has to be. Oil is bad. Cars are bad. Cars make suburbs possible. Suburbs are the antithesis of the way we should live, which is stacked upon one another in dense blocks tied together by happy whirring trains. So some guy who drives to work alone has to spend more money for the privilege of being alone in his car listening to hate radio?

Good.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:08 AM

June 12, 2008
The Top Ten

...male bashing ads.

I'm sure that the Canadian Human Rights Commission will be weighing in any minute.

[crickets chirping]

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:47 PM

A Hopeful Long Shot

Some interesting progress in polywell fusion.

"We're fully operational and we're getting data," Nebel said. "The machine runs like a top. You can just sit there and take data all afternoon."

So was Bussard correct? Will it be worth putting hundreds of millions of dollars into a larger-scale demonstration project, to show that Bussard's Polywell concept could be a viable route to fusion power?

Nebel said it's way too early to talk about the answers to those questions. For one thing, it's up to the project's funders to assess the data. Toward that end, an independent panel of experts will be coming to Santa Fe this summer to review the WB-7 experiment, Nebel said.

"We're going to show them the whole thing, warts and all," he said.

Because of the complexity, it will take some interpretation to determine exactly how the experiment is turning out. "The answers are going to be kind of nuanced," Nebel said.

The experts' assessment will feed into the decision on whether to move forward with larger-scale tests. Nebel said he won't discuss the data publicly until his funders have made that decision.

Let's hope it pans out. If so, Bob Bussard will be smiling from the grave, or wherever he is.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:04 PM

How To End The Shuttle Program

Louise Riofrio has an interesting idea, but I haven't given it enough thought to have much of an opinion.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:54 PM

Sauce For The Goose

John McCain continues to justly call for Obama to visit Iraq, and talk to General Petraeus (without preconditions). Well, I think that if Senator McCain would visit ANWR, he might discover that it is nothing at all like the Grand Canyon. Of course, Obama is not in a position to call him on that, since he opposes drilling there (and everywhere else, as far as I can tell) as well.

[Update a minute or two later]

Here's a great suggestion:

Another way McCain can move toward an ANWR solution is to educate himself on small-footprint drilling practices. He should talk to some oil company guys, get the facts, and then announce STERNLY that he will only support the exploration in ANWR if it strictly adheres to "environmentally friendly low-impact micro-drilling standards" and DEMAND that no more than .5% of the land in that area be compromised in even the slightest way.

Bingo. The oil companies can all drill within those parameters now and McCain can appear as the reasonable tough guy he wants to be.

Unfortunately, I think he's too stubborn and fixed in his views to do such a thing.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:56 AM

Fighting Global Warming

With geoengineering. But the hair shirters don't like it:

Stabilization can only be achieved by cutting current carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent. This means implementing highly unpopular policies of carbon rationing and higher energy prices. So some climate change researchers and environmental activists worry that the public and policymakers will see geoengineering as way to avoid making hard decisions. "If humans perceive an easy technological fix to global warming that allows for 'business as usual,' gathering the national (particularly in the United States and China) and international will to change consumption patterns and energy infrastructure will be even more difficult," writes Rutgers University environmental scientist Alan Robock.

Well, boo frickin' hoo.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Commenter Chris Potter has a pithy translation: "If there's no good reason for people to do what I want them to do, they won't do it."

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:42 AM

Nuance

I'm kind of scratching my head here. Can an Obama supporter explain to me how he can accept the resignation of someone who doesn't work for him? Maybe it's just more of that change you can believe in...

Actually, it would be pretty amusing if someone in the press asked him that question. Don't hold your breath, though.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:29 AM

The Web-Savvy Obama Campaign

LGF has the story.

The man's good at giving speeches, but he doesn't seem to be able to identify or hire good staff. Do we really even want him picking cabinet members, let alone running the country?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:32 AM

June 11, 2008
Not Your Father's Space Program

Or your grandfather's either. Fresh from ISDC, Glenn Reynolds has a piece on the state of the private space industry, over at The Atlantic.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:59 PM

I'm Sure It's Just A Coincidence

Another jump in oil prices.

Think it has anything to do with the fact that both presidential candidates favor a hidden tax on energy and oppose expanding domestic oil production?

You know, in the past, when I've said that prices in this range are not sustainable, I always assumed that, at least at some point, sanity would reign in Washington. What a dumb assumption.

[Thursday morning update]

Wise words from Lileks:

...there's hope. An article in the paper last week said that the gyrations in the oil market may indicate that the laws of supply and demand no longer apply. Well, clever us, to live in an age where immutable laws are abolished with ease; no doubt faster-than-light travel is now possible as well. Whenever someone says that the old laws no longer apply, it's a sure sign that the laws are about to reassert themselves with brutal force.

Three-buck gas by October? Likely.

As Carl notes in comments, even when you know you're in a bubble, you don't know when it's going to pop.

[Update a few minutes later]

Four-dollar gasbags:

Anyone wondering why U.S. energy policy is so dysfunctional need only review Congress's recent antics. Members have debated ideas ranging from suing OPEC to the Senate's carbon tax-and-regulation monstrosity, to a windfall profits tax on oil companies, to new punishments for "price gouging" - everything except expanding domestic energy supplies.

Amid $135 oil, it ought to be an easy, bipartisan victory to lift the political restrictions on energy exploration and production. Record-high fuel costs are hitting consumers and business like a huge tax increase. Yet the U.S. remains one of the only countries in the world that chooses as a matter of policy to lock up its natural resources. The Chinese think we're insane and self-destructive, while the Saudis laugh all the way to the bank.

And unfortunately, both presidential candidates are economic ignorami:

Recent weeks have seen some GOP stirrings on Capitol Hill, but John McCain has so far refused to jettison his green posturings, such as his belief in carbon caps and his animus against offshore development. A good reason for a rethink would be $4 gas. At present, it is charitable to call Mr. McCain's energy ideas incoherent, and it may cost him the election.

Of course, Obama's even worse, but even if McCain wins, it will be a lot closer than it need be. And prices will continue to soar. Needlessly.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:08 PM

Weird Racial Chauvinism

Victor Davis Hanson has thoughts on the wrong reasons to support Obama:

Aside from the obvious point that we should not pick our presidents on the basis of whether those in mostly autocratic, non-democratic societies approve, there is something very tribal and racialist about all this chauvinism.

If a white male Christian of European ancestry were suddenly a likely successor to the Mubarak dictatorship, or were next in line to take over the Mugabe kleptocracy, or were stealing Venezuela from Hugo Chavez, or were going to be elected the next leader of South Africa, it would be of less than zero importance to me, and I would hope to other Americans of similar backgrounds. And I think most of us would shudder should an Englishman or Australian say "I just hope your next President is another white male Christian like McCain." I was in Greece in 1988 when the socialist liberal Greeks went ga-ga over Mike Dukakis solely on the basis on his shared ethnic background and it seemed pretty absurd, especially when many promised they would change their dark view of Reagan's America if a Greek-American were elected President.

So, one, I don't see what is so great when a foreigner tells an American journalist that his view of America might change should we elect a person closer to his own perceived racial or religious self-image. Seems instead illiberal, tribal, and retrograde. And two, if Egyptians, Iranians, Congolese, or Bolivians want real changes in their own lives, then they should look to their own autocratic systems, not the United States that can do little to alleviate their mostly self-inflicted miseries other than to continue to shell out hundreds of billions in petrodollars and ever more humanitarian aid.

It's all about the identity politics. You know, that "new politics" we've been hearing so much about.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:52 AM

Must Be That New Politics

Why does the Obama campaign continue to lie about McCain's position on Iraq? It's not like they haven't been called on it before, multiple times. Do they think we're stupid?

That was a rhetorical question.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:16 AM

GLAST Headed To Orbit

It looks like Boeing had a successful Delta 2 launch (delayed by twenty minutes) today. I guess that since it doesn't need any specific orbit, as is needed for an ISS launch, there was no critical launch window. I went outside to watch, but as usual, saw nothing. The only launch I've ever seen from the house is a Atlas night launch.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:35 AM

Crunched

Probably light blogging. I'm on a schedule crunch for a deliverable.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:25 AM

June 10, 2008
This Seems Like Good Economic News

Is the "wealth effect" a myth?

If so, it means that the popping of the housing bubble won't have the dire effect on economic growth that many have predicted.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:26 PM

Never Attribute To Malice

...that which can be accounted for by stupidity and ignorance. I agree with this commenter:

If you were referring to almost any other sitting Senator, I would agree. Boxer, however, may very well believe everything that she said. She's 18 different ways of stupid.

He's being unkind. I can think of several other Senators about as bad. Because the bill doesn't explicitly specify a price, she probably really does believe that it won't result in a price change, because people like her really do believe that they can, through legislation, outlaw the laws of economics. No doubt she also believes that if Congress were to simply pass a law making gasoline two bucks a gallon, it would work just fine. And I suspect that Joe Lieberman, bless his neoconservative heart, believes it as well.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:56 AM

What's Wrong With Redneck?

Andrea Mitchell felt compelled to apologize for calling southwest Virginia "real redneck country."

Well, she's right, it is. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I think that what she should be apologizing for (which perhaps she is, obliquely) is the insinuation that that's a bad thing. While I understand that a lot of southerners take umbrage at the word, it's really just a synonym for Scots-Irish, and it came over with them from England (and no, it has nothing to do with working in the hot sun). It was a phrase used to describe Presbyterians from northern England, who wore red collars. They were the people who settled Appalachia (and other regions). Eastern Virginia (and Maryland and Delaware) was settled by the so-called Cavaliers of southwest England, who had lost the Civil War to the Roundheads.

I think, though, that in the mind of east (and west) coast media elites like Andrea Mitchell, "redneck" is synonymous with "hillbilly," which is unquestionably an uncomplimentary term, and why the apology was necessary. It's also a mark of the cultural ignorance of those same media elite about flyover country.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:49 AM

What To Take With You?

I agree with the commenters who say that almost anyone from the modern era transported to medieval Europe would be unlikely to live more than a few days. I'd certainly have pretty bad odds.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:33 AM

A New Project In The Works?

Alan Boyle has an interview with Paul Allen. This isn't right, though:

Adrian Hunt, the collection's executive director, told me that putting a pilot in the V-1 turned out to be a terrible idea.

"The theory is that you open the cockpit and you jump out just when you're getting close to the target," he said. "There's a slight design fault there. Once you open the cockpit, that's the intake for the rocket - and it tends to suck in things, including people.

"...intake for the rocket"?

It was a pulse jet.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:04 AM

Judgment

Obama is always telling us he doesn't need experience, because he has good judgment. Well, one would never know it by the people he associates with. Or brings aboard to vet vice-presidential candidates.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:39 AM

From The Basement Of The Ivory Tower

Here's a depressing piece on people who shouldn't be in college but, due to various societal pressures, are.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:19 AM

June 09, 2008
Stupid Idea Alert

No, even the premise was crazy:

While the premise of the 55mph speed limit was a perfectly valid one, the effectiveness of the rule was debatable. There is certainly no doubt that driving at a lower speed would consume less energy. The problem lies in the fact that the national 55mph speed limit was perhaps the most universally ignored law in history apart from prohibition.

Just what was it about the premise that was "valid"? That if everyone drove fifty five instead of seventy that it would save gas? Well, I guess. But so what? Why fifty five? Why not fifty? Why not forty five?

I have never seen any kind of quantitative analysis that provided a rationale for any particular speed limit (at least one designed to save gas and lives). What's magic about the double nickel? (In this regard, it is subject to the same reductio ad absurdum as the minimum wage). Hey, I have an idea that would save a lot of gasoline. Let's ban cars, motorcycles and trucks from the highways. Don't allow anything on them with an internal combustion engine. That would solve the problem. And it makes just as much sense as an arbitrary federal speed limit. The only difference is that the absurdity of the proposal is much more obvious.

Despite their lack of analysis, proponents also claimed that arbitrarily capping legal speeds at fifty five promoted "safety." The only rationale for this notion basically boiled down to "speed kills," which is a pithy phrase, marred only by the fact that it doesn't correspond to empirical reality. Even ignoring the very real fact that there was no significant increase in traffic fatalities after the idiotic law was repealed in the nineties (in fact, I think they went down), it doesn't take into account the fact that time is money. If truckers followed the law, it would add a day to a cross-country trip, which means a day's delay in the delivery of needed goods, and either more cost for the driver's time, if he's paid by the hour, or a cut in his profits if he's paid by the mile. If a long-distance commuter did so, it might add fifteen or twenty minutes each way. He might have to get up earlier, so the extra time spent behind the wheel might come out of sleep time, thus increasing the possibility of an accident due to drowsiness. Also, slower speed means longer trip times, which might mean driving later into the night to get to the same destination, again increasing the chance of drifting off.

At four dollars a gallon, if gas is really saved at fifty-five, there is plenty of incentive for individual people to slow down on their own, if it makes sense to do so overall. But they're in a position to make the trade off in a way that no legislator in Washington can ever be. We had a couple of decades in which to experiment with this foolish notion, and it was found wanting. Like Prohibition, let's leave it in the dustbin of history.

One other point. I remember when the Republicans won the Congress back in 1994. I had some hope that there would be at least some rollback from a lot of the statist nuttiness that had been accumulating since The New Deal and The Great Society. Those hopes were mostly forlorn, with the rare exception of welfare reform, and George Bush has put the final nails in the coffin of the Gingrich revolution. But one other rare exception was the repeal of the fifty-five speed limit. If that particular bit of idiocy is reinstated, I'll really feel that it was all for naught.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:16 AM

Orwellian

What is happening to Canada?

So Ed Stelmach's "conservative" government now believes that if it can't convince a Christian pastor that he's wrong, it will just order him to condemn himself? Other than tribunals in Stalin's Soviet Union and Mao's China, where is this Orwellian "order" considered to be justice?

This is like a Third World jail-house confession -- where accused criminals are forced to sign false statements of guilt. But the thing about jail-house confessions is that they at least pretend to be real. The forcible nature of them is kept secret. Not here: Andreachuk just comes out and says it: you're going to say you're sorry, even if you aren't.

That's a bizarre "remedy". It's meaningless, other than as a thought crime. We don't even "order" murderers to apologize to their victims' families. Because we know that a forced apology is meaningless. But not if your point is to degrade Christian pastors.

What will happen to the pastor if he refuses? Who will end this madness?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:33 AM

Obama Doesn't Have Charisma

He's glamourous. Virginia Postrel, a glamour maven, explains:

Charisma is a personal quality that inspires followers to embrace the charismatic leader's agenda (an agenda that, in the original sense of the word charisma, is seen as divinely inspired.) Glamour, by contrast, encourages the audience to project its own yearnings onto the glamorous figure. So, in this case, Sebastian Mallaby imagines that Obama will find "a way of crawling back from his embarrassing talk of reopening NAFTA." Mallaby maintains his own views about what's good for economic growth; he doesn't defer to Obama's own vision.

When voters motivated by charisma disagree with the leader they've backed, they support him anyway and possibly even change their minds about the right policy course. When voters motivated by glamour disagree, they become disillusioned and angry.

Let's hope for a peak of that come around late October.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:13 AM

June 08, 2008
Fast-Forward Radio

Sorry for the short notice, but I forgot to mention that I'll be on Fast-Forward Radio tonight, in less than an hour. Fortunately (assuming you care) it will be available for download later.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:20 PM

Failed Darwin Attempt

First off, let me say that I was not previously aware of a web site called Weird Asia News. But given how many people live in Asia (and how generally weird the place is, at least to non-Asians), it's an obvious and probably abundant source for such stuff.

Anyway, here's a fun one--a Peeping Tom who fell ten stories while trying to video a woman in a shower with a cell phone. And survived.

And naturally, there's an amusing Free Republic thread devoted to the incident.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:17 PM

Tremble, World

Scott Lowther has a blog. Geez, they'll let anyone have one of those things.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:36 PM

The Politics Of Shale Oil

You know, it's almost like they don't want us to increase the supply. If the Republicans were smart, they could make this a potent campaign issue in the fall. Of course, if the Republicans were smart, I'd probably be a Republican.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:05 PM

Just One More Reason

...not to vote for Obama. He seems to have no respect whatsoever for the Second Amendment. But that should be no surprise, given his positions on other subjects.

[Afternoon update]

Why are anti-gun activists so violent? I think that the commenter has it right. As is often the case with so-called liberals, it's projection. They figure that we're as violent as they are, so they don't want us to have guns.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:08 AM

June 07, 2008
Messianic Mass Movements

Michael Ledeen has a good opinion piece in today's Journal, that I think is a must-read. And no, he's not talking about the Obamanians.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:33 PM

We're Saved!

Iowahawk remains in the race. I have to say, there are certainly some aspects of his platform that are not without appeal.

Drilling and exploration are important, but this only addresses the "supply" side of the equation. We must also tackle our insatiable "demand" for energy. Thanks to my Piranha Doctrine foreign policy, America's military will be freed up to go after America's worst energy demand scofflaws -- the celebrity asshole community. Under my administration the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be directed to treat as hostile all private jets flying into Los Angeles airspace, backed up with coordinated pinpoint bombing of mansions and Priuses within the Malibu triangle. Not only will this reduce prices at the pump, it will increase the supply of much needed scrap metal and lumber.

I like the Piranha Doctrine as well. Though Park Slope may not have enough open territory for the cougar reserve.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:10 AM

June 06, 2008
A Tour Of What We Liberated

On the anniversary. Enjoy.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:16 PM

A Glimmer Of Hope?

As current blog readers know, I've been pretty much of an agnostic as to which candidate would be best for space policy (at least in terms of actually advancing us toward becoming a spacefaring society). But I just saw a very interesting rumor over at Space Politics. The post is about whether McCain likes Mars, and was influenced by reading The Martian Chronicles (which are not, contrary to common belief, science fiction, but rather fantasy, like much of Bradbury's work).

But the rumor is in comments, from two separate commenters:

My understanding is that Craig Steidle is formally advising the McCain campaign, and may be determining McCain's NASA policy...

...Admiral Steidle has also adopted an EELV-based approach for Shuttle replacement, albeit with the Orbital Space Plane (OSP). I think it would be very easy for him to embrace an approach using a downsized Orion/CEV on top of an EELV.

The Admiral had a very forward focused program that didn't play favorites with any of the NASA centers, particularly Marshall. This ticked off several of the congressional delegations. But I have a feeling that the Alabama contingent may not hold as much sway over the upcoming years.

It's interesting that you brought up the Admiral here. I've heard rumors from several sources that he would be the likely NASA Administrator if McCain is elected. Unlike the current Soviet-style Design Bureau Culture at NASA, Steidle is a believer and practitioner of good old American free enterprise and competition.

Steidle was in charge of the VSE before Mike Griffin came in (O'Keefe was much more hands-off as an administrator, particularly because he wasn't a rocket scientist, and didn't pretend he was). Mike Griffin essentially tore up everything that Steidle was doing by the roots, and instituted his own plan. So while Steidle is hardly perfect, he'll be a big improvement, and get the program back on track as it was when he left, with the loss of three years or so. If this rumor is true, for this reason alone, McCain now looks like a far preferable candidate to Obama, in terms of space. Of course, for me, and many others, space remains a lower-priority issue. But it does provide a reason to vote for McCain (as opposed to against Obama), which I've been having trouble coming up with.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:29 PM

Clintonian

The headline of this story is that "Obama denies a rumor," but he doesn't really, at least from what I can tell from the reporting:

Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday batted down rumors circulating on the Internet and mentioned on some cable news shows of the existence of a video of his wife using a derogatory term for white people, and criticized a reporter for asking him about the rumor, which has not a shred of evidence to support it.

"We have seen this before. There is dirt and lies that are circulated in e-mails and they pump them out long enough until finally you, a mainstream reporter, asks me about it," Obama said to the McClatchy reporter during a press conference aboard his campaign plane. "That gives legs to the story. If somebody has evidence that myself or Michelle or anybody has said something inappropriate, let them do it."

Asked whether he knew it not to be true, Obama said he had answered the question.

But as far as I can see, he hadn't, unless there were words spoken that were not reported.

Let us parse.

"We have seen this before. There is dirt and lies that are circulated in e-mails and they pump them out long enough until finally you, a mainstream reporter, asks me about it."

True enough. Who can deny that there is dirt and lies circulated in emails? But that doesn't necessarily imply that the particular topic under discussion is a lie (though it's arguably "dirt," regardless of its truth value).

"If somebody has evidence that myself or Michelle or anybody has said something inappropriate, let them do it."

Again, this is not a denial. It's simply a challenge to produce proof (or at least evidence). And in the follow up, he apparently refused, once again, to deny it. It was what is called in the business a "non-denial denial."

This is the game that Bill Clinton used to play a lot. When confronted about something, he would feign outrage, and attack the questioner, and say something like "I'm not going to even dignify that with a response." But he wouldn't actually deny it. The most classic case was the Juanita Broaddrick rape accusation. He never denied it. If anyone thinks that he did, provide a transcript. He sent out his lawyer to deny it, but his lawyer has no knowledge of whether it is true or not, other than hearsay from Bill. He wasn't in the room with them.

This looks like exactly the same behavior. Of course, part of the problem is that he's not sure what it is he should be denying, because the rumors are all over the place as to what she said or did. But it would have been better to say something like, "I've seen all these rumors running around on the Internet about some imminent bombshell concerning my wife, and I can tell you categorically that they are not true."

That would be a denial. But he didn't say that. I wonder why?

[Update a few minutes later]

I agree with the commenters that he shouldn't be put in a position of denying non-specific rumors (as I noted in the last paragraph above). My main point, actually, is simply that the Politico headline is wrong, and misleading, because he hasn't denied them (though he obviously hopes that we, like the reporter, thinks that he has).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:32 PM

In Defense Of A Small Town

A lovely evocative essay, from Jim Manzi. Though it's not really the subject, it's an appropriate one somehow, for the anniversary of D-Day. This is what blogging is all about.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:44 AM

More Vampire Rights

Jon Schaff, who started the subject, has what he hopes is the last word. I have to confess being a little lost in the conversation, not having been a Buffy fan.

And if it's the end of the vampire discussion, perhaps it's time we moved on. To zombies.

[Update mid-Friday afternoon]

Well, I should have Googled the subject; we could have saved ourselves a lot of discussion. Here's a Rothbardian treatise on the subject from three years ago:

In The Ethics of Liberty, his great reconciliation of Austrian economics and natural law ethics, Murray Rothbard commented that a new species of beings having "the characteristics, the nature of the legendary vampire, and [that] could only exist by feeding on human blood"(1) would not be entitled to individual rights, regardless of their intelligence, because of their status as deadly enemies of humanity. I wish to discuss this issue in more detail and argue that Rothbard, who was kind of a night owl himself, was unfair to those mysterious creatures. The libertarian theory of justice would in fact easily allow for a peaceful coexistence with vampires.

But of course. Just no non-consensual neck biting.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:00 AM

Why I Like Reading Blogs

I hadn't thought about it before until I saw this post by Kate Woodbury, but it's because blog posts contain a lot of the words "I" and "me."

Since "no first-person" inevitably results in bad writing (an overabundance of passive voice; the use of "one" or "student" instead of "I"), I always tell my students, "You may use first-person in my class. In other classes, check with the instructor."

I never thought much about WHY teachers were telling students this. I vaguely remember someone telling me not to use first-person, and I vaguely remember ignoring that someone; other than that, it didn't seem like an important issue.

However, I recently discovered at least one reason teachers ban first-person: prevented from using first-person, students will set aside me-centered thinking and use credible evidence; that is, rather than saying, "I think this, thus it is true," students will write, "According to expert X . . ."

I don't buy this argument; in fact, I think banning first-person usage ends up doing more damage than good. If the problem is the lack of expert/credible sources in students' writing, not using first-person doesn't solve the problem; it just covers it up. After all, a first-person's account could be more credible than an "expert's" account. I'd much rather read a student's personal/eyewitness account of 9/11 than a thousand third-person conspiracy theories.

The key is in the first sentence. Being forced to write in third person often results in stilted, boring prose. Unfortunately, the modern journalistic ethos, probably hammered into them in J-School, is that "objective" news stories must be written third person. This is why good bloggers (even taking away the bias) write far better and more readable pieces, than most conventional journalists. They don't have to do it with one "I" tied behind their back.

[Via her post on liberal fascism and Calvinism]

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:10 AM

Sixty-Four Years On

Some thoughts on D-Day, from Jennifer Rubin.

One of the reasons that I do my WW II reporting parodies is to show that, over half a century after the achievements of the "greatest generation," modern Americans and modern journalists have no concept of the losses and sacrifice of a real war, as demonstrated by all the whining about Iraq.

[Update mid afternoon]

Roger Kimball has received an early report of the progress on the beaches:

June 6, 1944. -NORMANDY- Three hundred French civilians were killed and thousands more wounded today in the first hours of America's invasion of continental Europe. Casualties were heaviest among women and children.
Most of the French casualties were the result of the artillery fire from American ships attempting to knock out German fortifications prior to the landing of hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops. Reports from a makeshift hospital in the French town of St. Mere Eglise said the carnage was far worse than the French had anticipated and reaction against the American invasion was running high. "We are dying for no reason," said a Frenchman speaking on condition of anonymity. "Americans can't even shoot straight. I never thought I'd say this, but life was better under Adolph Hitler."

The invasion also caused severe environmental damage. American troops, tanks, trucks and machinery destroyed miles of pristine shoreline and thousands of acres of ecologically sensitive wetlands. It was believed that the habitat of the spineless French crab was completely wiped out, threatening the species with extinction.

Of course, they bungled the occupation, too.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:48 AM

Geoengineering

A brief survey of potential global warming solutions. What is more interesting to me than the engineering is the politics and ethics of all this. Asteroid diversion falls in the same category. But at least some of these things could drive a need for low-cost space access in an unprecedented manner.

But this is one that doesn't really seem to be in this category, unless it were mandated. It's more of a "think globally, act locally" approach:

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the ultra-low-tech approach of painting rooftops white to reflect sunlight.

We've been thinking about doing that anyway, just to reduce our air conditioning bill. With a gray cement tile roof, that soaks up a lot of sun, it's hotter than Hades's kitchen in the attic this time of year, and that could really cool things down.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:30 AM

A Political Chameleon

Victor Davis Hanson:

Obama has required a vocabulary of needed ostracism, as he insidiously sheds most of his prior life and environment of the last twenty years. Wright, Moss, Pfleger, Ayers, Rezo, etc. are all figures that have to be "disavowed" or, better, Trostkyized in some fashion. The method apparently is to suggest that they, not Obama, have suddenly changed (when, in truth, they, not Obama, have remained entirely consistent) and are now out to hurt or embarrass Obama (when, again, they are surprised that their longtime predictable behavior is suddenly producing different results).

Like many of his prior positions on the Middle East, Iran, guns, abortion, taxes, the war, etc. Obama must metamorphosize from a hard-core Chicago racial leftwing activist, into a liberal idealist who transcends politics.

Will it work? Two things are in his favor. One, his message is messianic ("this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal"), and the devoted not only don't want to know of their prophet's mortal lapses, but like all devotees will turn in anger on those who remind them of such mortality. Second, many of these bombs have been exploded in the primaries, months before the election. Even in Chicago, there are only so many Rezkos and Wrights.

Change you can believe in?

Not me.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:22 AM

Setting The Record Straight

The commentary continues over at Clark Lindsey's place about how long it will/should take to get low-cost access into space. I probably should respond to this one comment, though, since it seems to be advancing a lot of mythology about me and weightless flights.

Rand Simberg is a right wing nutjob, but, he is a true believer in space. He went with Weaver Aerospace to sell Zero-Grav flights to Ron Howard for the Apollo 13 movie. He had the proposal, he had the aircraft, he had a credible charter operator. NASA dove in and gave the flights away for free. Sadly, Simberg then went and did the same deal for "From the Earth to the Moon" and NASA did it to him again.

Well, to start off, of course (and nothing to do with space), but I'm neither "right wing" or a "nutjob." As far as I know.

But to deal with the more substantive statements, this is mostly wrong. I did put in a proposal to Ron Howard's production company for Apollo XIII, and I did have a charterable 727 lined up. Our plan was to palletize the movie set, and use the freight doors to load and unload between shoots, so the airplane could continue to be used for other things. We weren't going to get a special type certificate for it, as Zero-G did (at a cost of millions of dollars and many years), because it was going to be flown on an experimental certificate out of Vegas or Mojave. This was all greased with the local FAA FSDO, with whom we had worked to do T-39 flights for R&D, using Al Hansen's plane in Mojave (he's Burt's next-door neighbor).

But NASA didn't "dive in and and give the flights away for free." NASA originally sent Howard's people to me, and I had a meeting with them in Century City, when they asked me for a proposal. I submitted the proposal, and was told by the executive producer that they were looking it over, but before they were going to make a commitment, they wanted to try if in the K-bird first, to see if filming was practical in that environment. I was suspicious, but there wasn't much I could do. At the same time, they were telling NASA that we couldn't do the job, and that they had fulfilled their obligation to try to find a commercial provider, so now they had to use the KC-135. So they basically lied to both me and JSC. I don't think they got free flights--I believe that JSC was reimbursed some (probably arbitrary, since NASA never knew what the Comet really cost) amount per hour.

Somewhere I actually documented the history for NASA, and sent it to June Edwards (I don't know if she's still with the agency) at Code L (legal office) at HQ, when she had to do some fact finding at the behest of Dana Rohrabacher's office. Unfortunately, I lost it in a hard disk failure a few years ago.

Anyway, NASA was not the villain. We were both lied to by people in Hollywood (I'll give you a minute to express your shock at the very thought of such a thing).

Oh, and as for "From the Earth to the Moon," I never had any involvement in it whatsoever. It was basically a lot of the same people, given that it was a Tom Hanks production, and they just went back to NASA. I saw no point in wasting my time trying to put together another proposal that would be sure to be rejected.

And of course, when Lee Weaver was killed in an auto accident, a couple weeks before 911, that was pretty much the end of any interest I had in getting a weightless flight business going, after almost a decade of struggle, and a lot of debt, with which I'm still burdened.

Peter had money lined up for Zero-G, and I didn't see any way to break in, when it was uncertain how large the market would be. Also, if I'd known what he had to go through to get the special type certificate for the airplane from the FAA, I'd have probably not even attempted it. He might even feel the same way, for all I know, but he's through the tunnel now.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:49 AM

Mormons And Infrastructure

Jon Goff has a truly excellent post on what will be required for space settlements, with useful historical analogies. I've always considered the LDS analogy quite apt, both in terms of types of technologies and infrastructure needed for the emigration, and the motivations. As he notes, unfortunately, the space community often uses unuseful historical analogies and/or fails to recognize where they break down.

But what he describes would be a true "Interstate Highway System" for space, as opposed to what Mike Griffin considers one (Ares/Orion).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:25 AM

June 05, 2008
Short Oil Futures

An interesting point:

...once most of the former big fuel subsidizers have removed much or all of their subsidies, world demand for oil is likely to level off, or possibly even plunge. And if the latter scenario prevails, then the petroleum futures speculators will be running for the hills, in the midst of a bursting oil bubble, much like real estate speculators fled upon the bursting of our recent housing bubble in the States. All bubbles are self-correcting, one way or another.

Yes. Few people appreciate how much demand has been artificially spurred by subsidized fuel in many large countries. When their governments can no longer afford to continue to do so (as they can't for long at current prices), watch crude plunge.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:27 AM

Pressing (Non)Human Rights Issue Du Jour

Do vampires have rights?

Jonah wants to know if an atheist would think that vampires have rights.

I guess that they probably have some rights. I mean, I'm willing to grant them the right to be a vampire. That is, if they want to live forever, turn into a bat occasionally, not show up in mirrors, and avoid sunlight and garlic and crosses, and so on, it's no skin off my nose (or blood out of my neck). But (like some conservatives' view of homosexuals), I'm not willing to grant them a right to indulge in their (un)natural desire to drink blood. Particularly mine. I think that the Christian formulation would be hate the blood sucking, but love the vampire. But of course, this was about what atheists think.

Though if the blood sucking is consensual, it might be all right. But can it really be consensual? I mean, the consent can't be very informed. You can describe what it's like to be a vampire until the cows (and vampires) come home, but is that enough to allow someone to enter into such an arrangement*? It seems like the argument against whether or not someone should have the freedom to sell themselves into slavery. Is it society's business to be regulating consensual blood-sucking activity, given that it has irreversible consequences (other than in the movies)? Perhaps.

The blood sucking aside, though, I don't see (given the limited thought I've given to the proposition) why vampires should have any fewer rights than the rest of us. It certainly seems discriminatory, and a hate crime of the first rank, to think that one has license to stick wooden stakes through their hearts, simply because they're vampires. But if they've been engaged in non-consensual insanguination and vampire recruitment, then it seems as though it would be a preemptive act of self defense, albeit taking the law into one's own hands.

Sorry, fascinating topic, but I think I'm starting to ramble. If I gave it more thought, I might come up with a more coherent treatise.

* Come to think of it, this has some parallels to some conservatives' argument that gays have to "recruit" young boys, because they're unable to procreate. This is a notion that I always thought nonsensical--no one can be "recruited" to be gay unless they're already at least bisexual. I have never been unsure about my sexuality--was approached once when I was fourteen or so, and I wasn't recruited--I was disgusted at the thought.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:22 AM

I'll Drink To That

Alcohol seems to reduce arthritis risk.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:41 AM

Malice In Wonderland

Mark Hemingway has an idiot's guide to the idiocy going on in Canada at the Human Wrongs Tribunal. He also has an interview with Andrew Coyne, the MacLeans reporter who has been live blogging the proceedings.

I hope that this will finally get the attention of the media in Canada, who so far seem clueless. As Mark points out, a lot of people have been abused under this system for years, but because they were politically incorrect as victims, the press paid it no mind. With apologies to Pastor Niemoller, this may be the motto of the CBC:

First they went after the racists
And we did not speak out, because we are not racist
Then they went after the pastors preaching against homosexuality
And we did not speak out, because we are not against homosexuality
Then they went after a Christian publisher who refused to print pedophilia
And we did not speak out because we are not Christian
Then they went after the Knights of Columbus
And we not speak out because we are not Knights of Columbus
Then they went after the Western Standard
And we did not speak out, because we are not a right-wing rag
Then they went after MacLeans
And we did not speak out because we hate Mark Steyn
We don't expect them to come after us, because we're afraid to say anything that might offend any Muslim, and we fear the consequences of doing that even more than we fear the HRC.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:15 AM

"That's Not The Tony Rezko I Knew"

So Obama is shocked that his friend has been convicted?

If he's this naive and trusting (and clueless) about his close associates, that they can fool him for years as to their true nature, why should we trust him to deal with foreign enemies?

And was he paying Rezko off to keep him quiet? Sixty-four grand is a lot of money, particularly when Michelle is complaining about having to pay off college loans. If he's just a lousy businessman, who doesn't know the value of money, is that a good resume for the chief executive of the country?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:50 AM

Forty Years

I recall waking up to my clock radio, which was announcing that Bobby Kennedy had been shot and killed the night before in LA, on June 5th, 1968. It was quite a shock to someone growing up in a family of Democrats, coming so soon after the King assassination, and a reminder of the assassination of his brother less than five years earlier.

Now, decades on, it's pretty clear to me that, like his brother, he was vastly overrated, but his death was a tragedy nonetheless. Not because we were deprived of a great leader, but because we imagined we were, and it was traumatic, particularly for the left. To the point that, like JFK, though he was killed by a leftist (in this case a vengeful Palestinian) they had to concoct bizarre theories to make it appear to be a "right wing" conspiracy. Both the Kennedy assassinations are wounds from which so-called liberals have never really recovered, or gotten over their anger.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:26 AM

Unimpressed

John Bolton doesn't think much of Obama's foreign policy plans, or historical knowledge. Neither do I.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:22 AM

One For The Ladies

Ken Murphy has the latest Carnival of Space up, with an emphasis on women in space, and a lot of ISDC links.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:08 AM

The Singularity

Several essays, over at IEEE Spectrum. I haven't read them yet, but they look interesting.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:58 AM

Why Hollywood Sux (Part 34,652)

It's not bad enough that they are so deficient in creativity that they have to make flicks out of old television shows and comic books. Now they're reduced to remaking stupid schlock that should never have been made the first time. Behold, what the world has been awaiting--a new version of Capricorn One. Well, at least they won't be likely to compound the cinematic crime by including OJ, this time.

On a cheerier note, there's apparently a much better (to put it mildly--I shouldn't even be discussing them in the same post) SF movie on the way.

...what I have is a story where businessmen and engineers are the heroes, the protestors are the bad guys, people accept risk willingly and some of them die for it, where they do amazing things and go to astonishing places on their own dime, where nuclear power is good and essential and the motivation is not money or power but freedom and a love of humanity, and where America and all she stands for is a beacon in a darkening world.

It's a crazy bizarro world of science fiction!

Hollywood would never make anything like that.

Good luck, Bill--we'll be looking forward to seeing it, and ignoring the other.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:01 AM