Category Archives: Business

Climate Change

A terrifying new book:

The fact that the media and popular culture and academia have veered from one panic-inducing disaster scenario to another one which completely contradicts the first one is funny enough in its own right. But reading The Weather Conspiracy: The Coming of the New Ice Age opened my eyes to an even more significant aspect of this serial crisis-mongering:

The “solutions” prescribed to solve both Global Warming and the looming Ice Age are exactly the same.

In both cases, proponents of the theory-du-jour say that in order to stave off disaster, we must reverse the march of civilization, stop our profligate use of carbon-based fuels, cede power and money from the First World to the Third World, and wherever possible revert to a Luddite pre-industrial lifestyle.

Gee, it’s almost like there’s a political agenda behind this stuff.

Teachers In Space

…is now Citizens In Space:

“The development of low-cost reusable suborbital spacecraft will be the next great enabler, allowing citizens to participate in space exploration and space science.

“Citizens have told us that education is not just a process that occurs within the public schools. Science fairs, hackerspaces, museums; private, religious, and home schools — all have a role to play. Today, we are listening to those citizens.

“We want to put a thousand astronaut teachers into American schools . We want to engage America’s students and reach out to the public through museums, science centers, and other venues. We want to make space research and space exploration part of the mainstream, not treasures locked away in the ivory tower.

“When Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad was asked what it was like to fly in space, he said, ‘Everyone should go!’ We agree.

I agree, too. At least those who want to. It’s too bad the people in charge of the government space program don’t agree.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s the new web site.

The “Stimulus”

How it failed.

[Monday morning update]

How Big Government screwed up the Big Spend:

Biden said the stimulus would “literally drop kick us out of the recession.” But Grabell concludes that “the stimulus ultimately failed to do what America expected it to do — bring about a strong, sustainable recovery. The drop kick was shanked.”

And that’s about what you might expect from a White House run by brilliant theoreticians with no one around to do a reality check. Let’s contrast Team Obama with Team Reagan. The Gipper’s cabinet had Donald Regan, former CEO of Merrill Lynch; George Schultz, former president of engineering firm Bechtel; Caspar Weinberger, also of Bechtel; Malcolm Baldridge, CEO of manufacturer Scovill. And, of course, there was Reagan himself, the former two-term governor of America’s most populous state.

It’s depressing.

[Bumped]