Category Archives: History

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

Roy Moore

34 Comments

A lot of people are calling him a pedophile. He’s an awful human being, but he’s not that. I got into a stupid Twitter war this morning on that issue.

A pedophile is someone who has a desire for sex with actual children (and by children, I mean people who have not attained puberty, not teenagers). We have seen no evidence of that. But for simply pointing that out, I was accused of being one myself for “defending” him (I’m not, and I didn’t defend him, other than to point out that his attempted statutory rape is not pedophilia). And because I have a mustache.

Contra what so many confidently and ignorantly informed me, pedophilia has nothing to do with the age of the perp. It doesn’t matter how old Moore was when he attempted sex with these young women (and yes, a female who has started menstruating is a young woman, not a “child,” though she may be emotionally). All that matters is the age of the victim.

Business, Economics, History, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society, War Commentary

The Old Space Age Began

11 Comments

Today is the 60th anniversary of Sputnik. I have some thoughts over at The Weekly Standard. I’ll have more later today at PJMedia.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Henry Spencer reminds me that upon the successful launch, Korolev supposedly said “The road to the stars is now open.” A little premature, I think…

[Update a while later]

For a detailed history of the program, go read Asif Siddiqi over at The Space Review (it’s part one, the second part will appear next Monday).

[Update a couple minutes later, after going through the Siddiqi piece]

This is excellent. It is likely now the best available history of its development.

[Update a few minutes later]

Anatoly Zak reminds us that Sputnik wasn’t about the satellite; it was about the rocket.

[Update a while later]

More from Siddiqi on recent translations. Kind of amazing how much we still don’t know about space history six decades later.

[Update a while later]

How dreams of space-faring zombies resulted in Sputnik. Well, sort of.

[Update late morning]

Here‘s Chris Gebhart’s take.

[Afternoon update]

My (other) take is now up over at PJMedia. As usual, most comments are ignorant and/or idiotic.

[Update a week later]

Part 2 of Siddiqi’s new history is up now.

[Bumped]

History, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Left

5 Comments

…is sitting on the biggest crime ever committed by a sitting president.

As many have pointed out, this is the Democrats’ Watergate, where the president actually committed the crimes of surveillance and siccing the IRS on his political enemies (unlike Nixon, who simply attempted to). Beyond that, one of the reasons why Lynch refused to let Clinton be prosecuted is that it would have almost certainly implicated Obama as well.

[Late-morning update]

Unmasking, yet another abuse of power. It may not have been illegal per se, but it was certainly that.

History, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Maxine Waters

11 Comments

Impeachment is whatever Congress says it is.

Well, pretty much, yeah. This isn’t right, though:

“Bill Clinton got impeached because he lied,” Waters declared. “Here you have a president who I can tell you and guarantee you is in collusion with the Russians, to undermine our democracy. Here you have a president who has obstructed justice, and here you have a president that lies every day.”

…Unless Trump can be accused of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” he cannot be impeached.

While Waters claimed Clinton was impeached for “lying,” he was actually impeached for perjury — lying under oath.

Actually, he was impeached for multiple counts of obstruction of justice, including not just perjury, but suborning perjury from others via bribes and physical threats to a woman’s family, for the purpose of preventing someone he’d sexually harassed from getting a fair trial.