My year-end roundup is up now at Popular Mechanics.
Category Archives: Business
Botched Environmental Predictions
Here are eight.
Speaking of which, here’s some new research (yes, “peer reviewed”) indicating that most of the warming modelling done to date is invalid. I’m shocked, shocked.
Decades from now, scientists, real ones, are going to be amazed at the hubris of today’s generation of climate “scientists,” given how little we really understand this complex and chaotic phenomenon.
“Rethink”?
I don’t think we need to “rethink” public employee unions. The word he’s looking for is “outlaw.” There’s a reason, and a good one, that they used to be illegal (including under the Roosevelt administration). They’ve pretty much fiscally destroyed California.
A Man-Made Famine
Fresno is the agricultural capital of America. More food per acre in more variety can be grown in the fertile Central Valley surrounding this community than on any other land in America – perhaps in the world.
Yet far from being a paradise, Fresno is starting to resemble Zimbabwe or 1930s Ukraine, a victim of a famine machine that is entirely man-made, not by red communists this time, but by greens.
That’s why they call them watermelons. There’s not much difference between green and red these days.
Why Did Obama’s Brain Trust Get The Stimulus So Wrong?
Because their model was screwed up. Public choice theory is involved as well.
More People Are Noticing The NASA Problem
Fox News has picked up the story on the rocket to nowhere:
Stifled by legislative bottlenecks, NASA will be forced to continue an already defunct rocket program until March, costing the agency half a billion dollars while adding more hurdles to the imminent task of replacing the space shuttle.
It’s always useful to note that half a billion dollars is about what SpaceX has spent to date on: creating a company, purchasing/leasing/modifying test, manufacturing and launch facilities, developing from scratch and demonstrating engines, two orbital launch systems, and a pressurized return capsule. This is the difference between NASA doing a traditional cost-plus procurement versus a fixed-price one. And it’s not just SpaceX — we’ve seen similar rapid, cost-effective progress from Boeing on their fixed-price commercial crew contract.
And of course, Shelby’s spokesman says that it’s NASA’s fault:
Shelby’s office says that there is no reason NASA can’t move forward.
“NASA is just making excuses and continuing to drag its feet, just as it has done for the past two years under the Obama administration,” Shelby spokesman Jonathan Graffeo said Wednesday.
As I note here, this isn’t NASA’s fault — it’s the fault of a Congress that has set them up to fail. They have two contradictory laws, and they can’t obey one without disobeying the other, so it’s inevitable that they will be acting illegally until Congress fixes it.
The Limits Of Keynesianism
…as demonstrated by Japan. But Paul Krugman thinks that we didn’t borrow enough money.
Restrospective And Prospective
You’ll be seeing a lot of pieces like this one from Leonard David over the next few days, with a look back one year and forward one year at commercial spaceflight. Leonard got quotes from Brett Alexander, Jim Muncy, and me among others. I’ll have a couple up myself, probably early next week, at AOL News and Popular Mechanics.
[Update a while later]
Clark Lindsey has a roundup of the past year as well.
Questions For “Progressives”
A little gentle Socratic method.
More Health-Care Unconstitutionality
The Medicare mandates violate the General Welfare clause.
[Update a few minutes later]
ObamaCare criminalizes medicine. Yeah, HillaryCare tried to do that, too. But that time there were enough Dems smart enough to keep it from happening. No such luck last year.
[Update a while later]
Well, Queen Nancy warned us that we had to pass the bill to see what was in it. But it was important. Who had time to read it?