All posts by Rand Simberg

Space, Space History

Losing A Champion

4 Comments

I didn’t see Len Cormier at Space Access in March, though he has rarely missed one in the past. Now via an email from Pat Kelley, I learned why:

I’m sad to announce that Len Cormier is losing his battle with cancer. I spoke with him today, and he’s in a hospice awaiting the end. I’ve had the privilege of his friendship and professional partnership for over ten years, and I hate to see this come to an end before my goal of at least giving him the satisfaction of seeing a project birthed from his incredible intellect at least get started.

Len is not terribly religious, but I know he would not be offended by good wishes, prayers, or whatever means you may choose to honor him. I will miss him.

I don’t know how far from the end it is, and where there’s life there’s hope, so I won’t talk about him in the past tense. But if he doesn’t make it, it will be a damned shame. No one living has been talking about affordable access to space, and worked as hard at it as Len, having been an advocate for almost half a century. He was also one of the gentlest men, in the gentleman sense, that I’ve ever met, always gracious, even in the face of unreasonable criticism and often vituperation.

It’s a tragedy that he is leaving us just as the funding dam is starting to break on the kinds of projects that he has been advocating for so long, and that he won’t see the results. He should go knowing, though, that he played a significant role in laying the ground work for it, and inspired many who will carry on in his stead. Despite his failure to achieve his audacious goals, I think that he’ll be far more than a footnote in the history of astronautics.

[Update a few minutes later]

Another email comment from Rick Jurmain:

Len’s a man with dreams too grand for a single lifetime. That’s as it should be.

Or, to paraphrase Sunset Boulevard: He is big. It’s the space program that got small.

It’s been an honor to work with Len. I’ll remember him.

Humor, Political Commentary, Satire

The Next Star Chamber Defendant

Iowahawk has dug up an old Canadian radio program that is sure to be banned in the Great White North. Warman, of the Mounted:

From the Maritimes to the Yukon, the Great White North was once a lawless land where cruel and offensive opinions roamed free – until one man stood up and brought them to justice. One mighty masked man, clad in the scarlet breechcoat of the Royal Canadian Mounted Human Rights Police, astride a golden disabled lesbian steed, with his faithful transgender Indian scout at his side. Together they rode from Yellowknife to St. John’s, keeping Canadians safe from the spectre of multicultural insensitivity.

The Canadian Broadcast Corporation invites you to return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear as we tell the tales of that legendary singing Human Rights Mountie. It’s time for excitement – it’s time for lawsuits – It’s time for… Warman of the Mounted!

It’s a particularly exciting episode. I expect we’ll see him in the HRC docket presently.

Political Commentary

Obama And Black Liberation Theology

3 Comments

Some useful thoughts from Jonah Goldberg on the “social gospel.”

[Update a few minutes later]

His last point is an important one, I think (and why Obama may actually have a prayer of being elected, sadly):

Anyway, I guess the point is that the politicized Christian rhetoric, or Christianized political rhetoric isn’t unique to this obscure black church in Chicago or even to the work of black theologians generally. Rather, it is much more central to the progressive tradition generally. As Joe Knippenberg and other’s have argued Obama’s Christianity is the Christianity of Jim Wallis and others who think God is a welfare state liberal. And while I can understand why many on the right would want to paint Obama as “out there,” I’m not as convinced that that’s the case. Indeed, I think the more lasting and serious threat comes from an impulse that’s much closer to home, as it were.

Still, I think that his war views will sink him, if his social, soft fascist views don’t.

[Update Monday evening]

Some observations about Obama’s “sacrifice.” But hey, isn’t sacrifice what messiahs do?

Political Commentary

This Is Leadership?

3 Comments

“Cassandra” has some very pungent commentary on Senator Obama and his church of twenty years:

What Barack Obama appears not to have noticed (at least judging by his public statements) is that if a preacher makes political statements in church about race that, had they been made by a white person about a black person, would be considered by any reasonably objective person to be racist, you have a veritable trifecta of newsworthiness. Where he repeatedly keeps missing the clue bus is here: American society has changed to the point where pretty much every white person I know would not feel comfortable staying in the room, were a white preacher to make comparable statements about blacks. People would deal with it in their own way.

There might be complaints. There might be calls for his resignation. Some might just leave the church quietly after the service. What I cannot under any circumstances imagine is a white audience hooting and hollering in open approval of such “destructive and divisive” rhetoric because it was rooted in the “white church” tradition. I cannot imagine the media giving a white politician a pass if he either defended or refused to denounce such words.

I cannot imagine the media maintaining that it was acceptable to passively listen to such rhetoric without objecting because it “did not reflect his beliefs”

I think that this comment (early on, so you won’t have to scroll far if the comments build) is important as well, and one that Americans of African descent should (or at least should have–it’s probably too late now, at least in terms of the nomination) carefully consider:

Given Obama’s damnfool fiscal policies, it is a good bet that he will take this country into the toilet, both domestically and on the foreign front, and go down in history as a worse president than Jimmy Carter.

How that will set back the cause of blacks as PotUs cannot be underestimated. If he does as crappy a job as I’m certain he will, then anytime anyone seriously suggests another black man — no matter how talented or able — for the PotUS, the response will be “look what happened with Obama!”.

And no matter how stupid and racist that idea is, it will have just enough appeal that it will be an albatross few blacks will be able to overcome. And so it will be literally several decades until another black man has a serious chance to become president.

So even if you strongly support the idea of a black as president — even if you want one a lot — you should have brains enough to realize that
a) Obama is not the right man for the job in the first place
b) it would be a bad thing for race relations to place so woefully ineffective a man into such a position.

Unfortunately, I think that’s right (though I hope it’s wrong). Which is another reason to not want Obama to be president.

On the other hand, regardless of what Hillary! says tomorrow night, I won’t believe that Obama is the nominee until the end of the convention.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Canadian Kangaroos

8 Comments

Andrew Coyne is live blogging the “Human Rights” Commission star chamber for Mark Steyn and MacLeans. He’s hoping that his magazine will lose:

Don’t tell my employers, but I’m sort of hoping we lose this case. If we win–that is, if the tribunal finds we did not, by publishing an excerpt from Mark Steyn’s book, expose Muslims to hatred and contempt, or whatever the legalese is–then the whole clanking business rolls on, the stronger for having shown how “reasonable” it can be. Whereas if we lose, and fight on appeal, and challenge the whole legal basis for these inquisitions, then something important will be achieved.

I liked this:

Oh God: they’re talking about who they’ll be calling on Friday. Five days in a windowless room. If that’s not a human rights violation…

And this comment on the Orwellian nature of the law:

Under Section 7.1, he continues, innocent intent is not a defence, nor is truth, nor is fair comment or the public interest, nor is good faith or responsible journalism.

Or in other words, there is no defence.

It’s a good read, so far.

[Update about half an hour later]

Some thoughts from Mark Steyn:

The Canadian Islamic Congress lawyer says that freedom of speech is a “red herring”. If it were, it would be on the endangered species list.