Jeff Faust has a very good rundown on our apparent inability to deal with this subject rationally. As regular readers know, this is one my main hobbyhorses, because it is likely to result in continued flawed policy decisions.
All posts by Rand Simberg
Dribble
I’m going to say this once, and once only.
I’m getting very tired of you droolers out there who, having apparently never seen the word in print, and being unable to aurally distinguish between the bilabial fricative “b” and the labiodental fricative “v,” write “dribble” when they mean “drivel.”
That is all.
Assisted Suicide?
Just as a reminder, while yesterday’s Apollo anniversary was of course much more significant, at least over the long haul, it was also the tenth anniversary of an event that started a very troubling chapter in our politics–the untimely death of Clinton White House counsel Vince Foster.
Joe Farah has a rundown on why, whatever the truth (and it may never be known due to the flawed nature of the investigation), we should remain very skeptical of the official story.
Cue Wagner
The anti-globo morons have come up with some brilliant and practical ideas to deal with the G8’s choice of Sea Island for the next summit.
A posting by the group Food Not Bombs in Berkeley, Calif., said it may build a “a floating food warehouse and communal kitchen to serve delicious vegan meals to participants arriving at the island by kayak.”
Or perhaps protesters could take up a collection to buy one of Sea Island’s 500 “cottages,” which range in price from $1.3 million to $18 million.
“If ten-thousand people chipped in half a grand each, we could collectively own it, and then throw a REALLY BIG HOUSEWARMING PARTY,” wrote a messager using the name “mj,” who included a link to real estate listings on Sea Island’s Web site. “It’d have to be illegal to keep us off the island.”
But here’s my favorite:
One messager using the name “wispy” suggested trying to breach the island with flotilla of boats flying pirate flags and blaring composer Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.”
I love the smell of salt-sprayed vegans in the morning.
Cancel The Cosmic Caterer
Looks like the space wedding is off.
I guess that innovative-uses-of-space stuff runs hot and cold in Russia.
Indispensable
Via Geek Press, the ultimate grand list of overused SF cliches. This should be a mouse click away from any aspiring SF writer, if you don’t want to add to the burgeoning pile of turgid and laughable dreck out there, and further decrease the percentage of non-crud in Sturgeon’s Law.
I particularly enjoyed the cliched settings and characterizations:
Cities of future are depicted as though sanitation workers have been on strike from now until then.
Planets with the same exact climate planet-wide (planets without atmosphere excepted).
Alternative Earths where society is just like some society of the past, with some technodoodads added.
Bad guys who miss everything they shoot at.
Beginning warriors who hit everything they shoot at.
All genetically superior humans have an innate drive to rule, conquer, or kill everyone else.
And silly science:
A hole the size of a barn is made in the hull of a space ship; decompression of the ship’s atmosphere takes a half minute or so.
A hole the size of a dime is made in the hull of a space ship; decompression of the ship’s atmosphere takes a half minute or so.
A large nuclear explosion can be obtained by putting several smaller de-vices together.
The same energy beam which causes rocks, buildings and robots to violently explode produces only a puff of smoke and a bit of burnt flesh and clothing when used on a living being.
These are by no means the best–they are merely representative–go read the whole thing.
The Republican Spending Orgy
More and more conservatives are starting to notice.
In the first three years of the Bush administration, government spending has climbed – in real, inflation-adjusted terms – by a staggering 15.6 percent. That far outstrips the budget growth in Clinton’s first three years, when real spending climbed just 3.5 percent. Under the first President Bush, the comparable figure was 8.3 percent; under Ronald Reagan, 6.8 percent, and under Jimmy Carter, 13.3 percent. No, that’s not a mistake: Bush is a bigger spender than Carter was.
To be sure, Bush’s budgets have had to account for Sept. 11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But even when defense spending is excluded, discretionary spending has soared by nearly 21 percent in Bush’s first three years. In Clinton’s first triennium, nondefense discretionary spending declined slightly. If their budgets were all you had to go by, you might peg Bush for the Democrat and Clinton for the Republican.
New Space Blog
On this Apollo anniversary, go check out The Speculist. There’s not much information about the proprieter, but the focus seems to be on space and the future.
Talking About Apollo And The Role Of Ritual
Bill Simon and I will be on David Livingston’s “The Space Show” this evening (4 PM PDT) to discuss the thirty-fourth anniversary of the first Moon landing, and the ceremony that we developed to commemorate it. It’s only broadcast in the Seattle area, but you can stream it here.
The year 34 AE (After Evoloterra)
Five hundred million years ago, the moon summoned life out of its first home, the sea, and led it onto the empty land. For as it drew the tides across the barren continents of primeval earth, their daily rhythm exposed to sun and air the creatures of the shallows. Most perished ? but some adapted to the new and hostile environment. The conquest of the land had begun.
We shall never know when this happened, on the shores of what vanished sea. There were no eyes or cameras present to record so obscure, so inconspicuous an event. Now, the moon calls again ? and this time life responds with a roar that shakes earth and sky.
When the Saturn V soars spaceward on nearly four thousand tons of thrust, it signifies more than a triumph of technology. It opens the next chapter of evolution.
No wonder that the drama of a launch engages our emotions so deeply. The rising rocket appeals to instincts older than reason; the gulf it bridges is not only that between world and world ? but the deeper chasm between heart and brain.
— Sir Arthur C. Clarke (L’Envoi)
[Update at 3:05 PM PDT]
There’s more at Winds of Change, including Jews in space…