November can’t come soon enough.
[Update a while later]
The official “apologizes” for the comment. That’s OK — we know what he really thinks now. It was a Kinsleyan gaffe aka a Freudian slip.
Category Archives: Economics
Tomorrow’s Announcement
Here’s a WSJ piece on it. If they do actually move an asteroid, under current precedent, they’d own it.
I won’t be covering it in real time, because I’ll be at a workshop at JPL giving a talk on propellant depots. Interestingly, Dennis Wingo gives a talk following mine on extraterrestrial resource utilization. It seems like a lot of things are coming together at the same time.
[Evening update]
Sorry, workshop link was wrong. Fixed now, I hope.
Oh, The Humanities
A better question is, should they be, at least in anything resembling their current form. It won’t change until parents realize what a massive fraud the whole thing is.
Just A Coincidence, Obviously
Wealthier states that had strong Democrat connections got most of the “stimulus” money. Based on the reaction to the economy, it mostly “stimulated” campaign donations.
Fracking In Britain And Europe
How long will the Brits allow this kind of policy insanity to continue?
Discovery, We Hardly Knew Ye
I have some thoughts about the belated mourning of the Shuttle program, over at PJMedia.
More Space Property Rights Commentary
It’s sort of turning into a telephone game, like this piece:
Simberg, an aerospace engineer, says a new law granting the United States conditional permission to claim extraterrestrial land is internationally legal. His view: failure of the 1979 Moon Treaty to get even one signature nullifies the Outer Space Treaty.
a) The Moon Treaty has fourteen countries who have acceded to it.
b) I didn’t say that the Moon Treaty’s failure nullifies the OST.
Other than that, they get it completely right.
Urban Renewal
Is it time to demolish HUD? Long past time, I’d say.
Charles Stross On Amazon’s Business Model
In which he ignorantly bashes libertarians:
I’m not going to lecture you about Jeff Bezos either, although I do want to note that he came out of a hedge fund and he’s ostensibly a libertarian; these aspects of his background make me uneasy, because in my experience they tend to be found in conjunction with a social-darwinist ideology that has no time for social justice, compassion, or charity. (When you hear a libertarian talking about “disruption” and “innovation” what they usually mean is “opportunities to make a quick buck, however damaging the long-term side effects may be”. Watch for the self-serving cant and the shout-outs to abstractions framed in terms of market ideology.)
Emphasis mine. Jonah Goldberg, hit this guy with a cluebat.
The Property Rights Debate Continues
I report on the latest Alan Boyle piece over at Open Market, with a bonus comment from Glenn Reynolds.