Category Archives: History

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Boris Johnson

18 Comments

Will he soon be the most popular leader in the world?

I had lunch with Iain Murray in DC a few weeks ago, who went to school with him. It will be interesting, if nothing else. I asked Iain if May was the worst PM since Chamberlain. “Lord North,” he replied.

[Update Tuesday morning]

With him seeming to be the next PM, the New York Sun is waiting for Boris Johnson.

[Update a couple minutes later]

From the third link:

When it comes to rhetoric and eloquence, he is the anti-Trump.

[Bumped]

[Late-morning update]

https://twitter.com/Holbornlolz/status/1153710647592591360

Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

[Bumped again]

Education, History, Humor, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Satire, Technology and Society

“Rapid Fire Bullet Delivery Systems”

5 Comments

I just saw this tweet:

It reminded me of this old post I wrote in the early aughts. Here is the original, with comments at the time.

History, Space, Space History, Technology and Society

Chris Kraft

6 Comments

We continue to lose the giants of that generation.

[Update Tuesday morning]

Heh. “Perhaps the New York Times’ obit for Kraft was already written, as it curiously fails to explore the seething hotbed of sexism and white supremacy that was the early NASA, according to the latest reporting by the New York Times.“

[Update a few minutes later]

Eric Berger remembers an inspirational friend.

Per a commenter there, I’ve also been wondering if he had been hanging on to see the 50th anniversary, and then let go.

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

Apollo And The Treasure Fleets

1 Comment

Gary Oleson has a good op-ed over at Space News. A lot of space enthusiasts misinterpret the lesson of the Ming Dynasty. I wrote a similar piece seventeen years ago. As with most of my old space commentary, I’m always surprised at how well it holds up.

Speaking of old space commentary, I just read this for the first time, written by my former editor at The New Atlantis, in 2003. This was about the time that we first met, probably as a result of a comment I had at my blog about a post of his at National Review. I wrote my first essay for him about a year later.

[Update a few minutes later]

In searching for that blog post, I discovered something funny; it was based on that piece, so it wasn’t the first time I’d read it — I’d just forgotten, it was so long ago. I think what happened is that someone at The Corner commented about my blog post, which caused Adam to engage, and later call me to talk. The rest is history.

The original post, with comments, is here.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Chappaquiddick

4 Comments

Half a century later, still covering for the Kennedy’s.

The media cover up was aided by the fact that it happened during the moon landing.

[Update mid-afternoon]

Fifty years later, the media continues to whitewash Chappaqiddick.

“[The Lion of the Senate] was Kennedy’s nickname. He was like a lion, in the sense that he mated without limit and killed without remorse.”

Heh.

I disagree though, on one of his movie recommendations. There are many better documentaries of how we got to the moon than First Man, which was about Neil Armstrong, not Apollo per se. The best I’ve seen (and I saw it in IMAX at the NASM a few weeks ago) is Apollo 11. The most surprising thing about it, considering how good it is, is that it was produced by CNN. I recorded it a few days ago to watch tomorrow with friends.

Business, Education, History, Mathematics, Space, Technology and Society, War Commentary

Back To Basics

3 Comments

The military is being trained (for the first time in decades) how to manage without computers.

This is good, not just as a defense against cyber attacks, but because it will give them a lot more insight. Even when I started my career in aerospace, I worried that young people were being too confident in computer output, without understanding the fundamentals sufficiently to know whether or not it made sense.