All posts by Rand Simberg
The Orion Heat Shield
NASA still doesn’t understand the root cause.
Once SpaceX works out the heat shield problems on Starship, it won’t really matter.
A Voice Of Reason From Gaza
But the idiot protesters are too ill-educated to listen.
Meanwhile, punish the professors, not the students.
Why not both?
Taking The Stairs
…is a key to a longer, healthier life.
I’m not surprised. If it’s less than four or five flights, I’ll always take stairs, rather than an elevator, if I can, both because it’s better for me, and I don’t like waiting for elevators. I occasionally beat the people in the elevator.
But more importantly, given my relative lack of opportunities for elevator versus stairs, our house is built upside down. That is, the living area is upstairs, and bedrooms are upstairs. The front door is at the top of a long outside staircase, and the first thing we do in the morning, generally, is to go upstairs to the kitchen. We probably do those stairs dozens of times a day, given that my office is downstairs, and we are both retired/working from home.
The house design has the additional benefit that it’s better for sleeping, because the downstairs bedrooms are cooler than upstairs, even when we have skylights open in the living room.
Another Framing Of Trump?
This is huge if true. Apparently, the government shipped pallets of marked classified documents to Mar a Lago, then raided the place, “found” them, charged Trump, and covered up what they did. If the judge hadn’t ordered documents to be unredacted, we’d never have known. She seems like a hero of the Republic to me.
This Is The Way 1968 Ends
Thoughts on the nature of student revolutions. TL;DR: They end in totalitarianism.
Prescriptive Racism
As I’ve long noted, Democrats never became less racist. If anything, they’ve become even more so with their insane obsession with race.
Along those lines, Free Black Thought seems like a good cause to support.
Dealing With China In Space
Greg Autry discusses his new book (with Peter Navarro).
Decolonize Academia
Now.
I agree that the loans are at the heart of the problem.
The State Of The Nation
From “Cynical Publius” on X (frustrating that I can no longer embed posts in WordPress).
The citizens of the United States of America are in deep trouble. Why? I’ll tell you why.
The following are objectively true statements about the United States of America in 2024. These statements are not in any way hyperbolic, and they represent a stark reality that not even the most rabid Fascist Democrat can deny. Here they are:
1. The leader of the nation’s opposition party is currently defending himself in a series of contrived #lawfare criminal and civil suits reminiscent of fascist Hitlerian/Stalinesque show trials of the 20th Century, for the primary purpose of making it extremely difficult for him to be elected as President of the nation.
2. On campuses throughout the nation, Jewish students are being persecuted and attacked in a manner reminiscent of the German Nazi Party’s Kristallnacht of November 9 and 10, 1938.
3. In many states across the nation there are no voting laws enforced that effectively verify that ballots come from qualified citizen voters.
4. Individuals who peacefully protested the matter of #3 have been imprisoned by the federal government in inhumane conditions for literally years without trial.
5. The nation’s Southern Border is wide open to the point where any person who is capable of walking can cross into the nation AND receive free money and support necessary to survive. There is no mechanism to ensure that criminals and terrorists are not taking advantage of such situation.
6. The current President constantly displays symptoms of advanced elder dementia.
7. The current President has repeatedly labeled the opposition party as a “threat to democracy,” often alongside visual imagery similar to that used by Hitler and other fascist leaders of the 20th Century.
8. The nation’s debt equals over 120% of its annual GDP.
9. As a consequence of inflation and interest rates, most middle class citizens of the nation cannot afford to purchase a home.
10. The political party that controls the Presidency and the Senate has actively supported sending tens of billions of dollars to foreign governments who are credibly accused of money laundering funds provided to such party members, while not providing remotely similar assistance to the residents of the State of Hawaii who were burned out of their homes.
11. The nation’s military has equipment readiness rates making it incapable of fighting effectively, while instead focusing on “diversity” initiatives that promote race/gender/sexuality over war fighting skills and competency.
12. The overwhelming majority of the nation’s mass media refuses to report on any of the above matters, and in most cases the people running such mass media have close familial and personal connections to the people directly responsible for the above matters.
These are symptoms of a nation on the verge of disintegration. Moreover, these are qualities consistent with failed fascist regimes of the 20th Century.
What are we going to do about it, Patriots?