Category Archives: Business

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Anti-American Forces At NASA?

40 Comments

Bob Zimmerman is concerned.

If it’s not the intent of this to aid Russia, that’s certainly the effect.

And yes, this is concerning:

But the sources familiar with the matter said the companies must address “most” of those concerns before flying astronauts and, eventually, tourists to space. [emphasis mine]

NASA has no business dictating what standards will be met for private spaceflight participants. Someone needs to stomp on this right now.

[Update a few minutes later]

And just by coincidence, as NASA continues to want to purchase more rides from the Russians, another Fregat upper stage failed today.

[Late-morning update]

Looks like while there may have been an anomaly, the mission was ultimately a success.

[Friday afternoon update]

Well, that piece by Reuters didn’t age well. Seems kind of dumb to have run it when the flight readiness review was scheduled for the very next day.

[Bumped]

Business, Economics, Education, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Socialism

6 Comments

…as the Millennial religion:

The Millennials can’t remember very much – and they don’t learn very much either. It’s easy being hot for socialism or communism when you actually have a very little idea of what it is and what it did throughout the 20th century. And the Ys have that ignorance in spades; one third of them think that George W Bush killed more people than Stalin and 42 per cent have never heard of Mao – but over 70 per cent agree with Bernie Sanders. Some research suggests that only 15 per cent actually have a correct understanding of socialism. It’s not just politics; the Millennials are the most woefully undereducated and miseducated generation in a very long time. To be fair, that’s not strictly their fault; that attaches itself again to their Boomer grandparents who have been in charge of our failing education systems during this time. Combine the modern indoctrination-cum-dumbification taking place in schools and universities with the attention span-killing impact of information technology and social media, and you have a barely literate cohort, which is simply not equipped with the necessary mental tools to learn about the real world even if they wanted to.

Any surprises that socialism is now nearly synonymous with Gen Y?

This is a disaster.

[Late-morning update]

Socialists are parasites.

Yes.