The first review I’ve seen of LOTR that doesn’t extol its perfection. It’s written by an admittedly recovering Tolkien fan for the Irish Times, and it’s a good review. I’ve been a little leery of all the others I’ve seen, because they are so utterly uncritical that it strains credibility (I suspect that most previous reviewers have been so overwhelmed by a film that they were very afraid would be a mess, that when it wasn’t, they were blinded to any flaws at all). It still sounds like it’s going to be a great film.

In today’s Telegraph, Mark Steyn has written another polished gem, on culture, politics, sharks and Islam.

A reasonable piece on NASA’s future by Joel Achenbach in today’s Washington Post.

The only part that I found irritating was the following:

Talone said some costs already have been reduced. But a visitor to the space center can see that there’s nothing easy and cheap about safely putting people and hardware into orbit.

Well, certainly a visitor can see that there’s nothing easy or cheap about the way that NASA chooses to put people and hardware in orbit. But one might mistakenly infer from this paragraph that there’s no other way to do it, and Achenbach does nothing to allay that impression.

If you’re a traditional space program supporter, it’s pretty gloomy reading. But it’s necessary reading, for a reality check, and to understand that things have to change. What True Believers in the von Braun vision will find most disconcerting is the end:

At the close of Friday’s hearing, Nelson asked O’Keefe an open-ended question: “What is your vision?”

O’Keefe spoke for several minutes about “prudent management principles,” reinvigorating “the entrepreneurial spirits” of NASA, the importance of collaboration with other elements of the federal government, the need to be mindful of safety and the possibility of taking advantage of this moment when NASA is at a crossroads.

He did not mention space.

That’s OK. NASA doesn’t need vision right now–it had ten years of that under Dan Goldin, and the agency is now an utter shambles. What it needs is some management, and accounting systems, and accountability. O’Keefe is exactly the right kind of guy for that. After he sorts those problems out, and starts to privatize things like Shuttle and ISS, and gets the house in order, it will make sense to start talking about vision.

And at that point, the best vision to talk about will be how to transition the agency from a socialistic Cold-War dinosaur to one that can work innovatively to enable private enterprise to open up space to business and the people, more in concert with the principles upon which this country was founded.

John Carter McKnight has a nice piece on why Bob Zubrin’s proposal for a government-sponsored Mars program would almost certainly be doomed to failure, as demonstrated by Zubrin’s own book. It also contains a good, but concise, description of why the space station was such a programmatic disaster. Highly recommended for anyone interested in space and technology policy.

John Carter McKnight has a nice piece on why Bob Zubrin’s proposal for a government-sponsored Mars program would almost certainly be doomed to failure, as demonstrated by Zubrin’s own book. It also contains a good, but concise, description of why the space station was such a programmatic disaster. Highly recommended for anyone interested in space and technology policy.

John Carter McKnight has a nice piece on why Bob Zubrin’s proposal for a government-sponsored Mars program would almost certainly be doomed to failure, as demonstrated by Zubrin’s own book. It also contains a good, but concise, description of why the space station was such a programmatic disaster. Highly recommended for anyone interested in space and technology policy.

Kimberly Strassel has an eye-opening piece with some useful links in today’s Opinion Journal on how supposed “grassroots” organizations actually outfund and outlobby the “evil corporations.” It also describes the nexus between environmental and leftist groups (as a consequence of leftists’ allergy to technology, because it’s more revolutionary than they are) that I discussed a month ago.

Some superb critiques this morning on two of what have become our elite institutions–academia and the press, by Professor Glenn Reynolds and Matt Welch (including Matt’s comments on Glenn’s piece). Matt does a compare and contrast between an erudite college professor’s (Glenn) thoughtful and penetrating description of the problems within his own profession, and a self-indulgent whine from an LA Times journalist, who is utterly unwilling, even unable, to see the flaws within his, or to acknowledge that they might even exist.

Both are well worth the read, and provide food for thought on the future of blogging. As Glenn says repeatedly, there’s plenty of room at the top–in both the academy and the newsroom.

Great, now the frogs are whining about the possibility that we’ll execute Mr. Moussaoui–turns out he’s a French citizen. Well, they should have kept him in France, and let him blow up the Eiffel Tower. I’m actually not all that big on the death penalty for these creeps (it doesn’t seem like much of a punishment for people who want to suicide and get their 72 virgins), but now I’d like to fry him just to spite the cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

Tell you what, Frenchies, here’s the deal. Why don’t you have a referendum on the death penalty. And while you’re at it, on the Euro. You might be surprised at the results.

Then we might hand him over.

Great, now the frogs are whining about the possibility that we’ll execute Mr. Moussaoui–turns out he’s a French citizen. Well, they should have kept him in France, and let him blow up the Eiffel Tower. I’m actually not all that big on the death penalty for these creeps (it doesn’t seem like much of a punishment for people who want to suicide and get their 72 virgins), but now I’d like to fry him just to spite the cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

Tell you what, Frenchies, here’s the deal. Why don’t you have a referendum on the death penalty. And while you’re at it, on the Euro. You might be surprised at the results.

Then we might hand him over.