Category Archives: History

Business, Economics, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Flint Crisis

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It’s not just a water crisis. Like many cities, Flint is the culmination of decades of Democrat malgovernance. It’s a few days old, but Shikha Dalmia has been on the case:

…IMHO, if liberals were truly interested in helping Flint residents rather than simply sacrificing them to the altar of the God of Beneficent Government, they should approach private philanthropists for donations to buy out the houses of Flint’s residents and let them flee to better climes where jobs are more plentiful and the government less intrusive. (Houston, anyone?) Giving each Flint resident $10,000—or $40,000 to a family of four—will require about $4 billion, which is hardly beyond the means of the wealthy trinity of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Mark Zuckerberg. And surely there are others whose help liberals will allow Flint victims to accept!

And what about the city of Flint? Indeed, if liberals were really as caring as they claim to be, they would shift their focus from saving geographical areas to saving living, breathing human beings.

But if they really, really want to do something about it, they should hand it to private developers to turn it into a giant landfill to bury liberal good intentions.

Reminder: they may be good intentions (though I think it’s more about power and corruption), but there is little “liberal” about this.

Business, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Middle Finger Of God

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Some worthy thoughts on mendacious politicians, the Clintons (but I repeat myself), and Donald Trump:

I’ve talked enough about the virtue of politeness and persuasion in politics. But how about a little disdain for unrestrained political carelessness? Trump’s total lack of ideological or intellectual rigor and consistency is making fools of people who once claimed they cared about such things.

Trump’s schtick as a sprinkler system of insults is getting everyone dirty. He throws mud on anything and anyone in his way. But that muck washes off quite easily. What stains down to the soul is the eagerness to apologize for, or even celebrate, the filth. In his professional life, Trump has left a trail of wreckage. His own James McDougals are strewn about like victims after a tornado. And his defenders celebrate this as proof he’s a great businessman.

Now the F6 is heading for Washington. His fans remind me of the naïve fools in Independence Day who welcome the aliens with cheers and handmade signs on rooftops, incapable of fathoming that they will be greeted with a death ray. The analogy breaks down because the dupes on the roof didn’t pave the way for the invaders. Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters have been crucial in bringing the Middle Finger of God to our doorsteps.

It is an amazing phenomenon.

Business, Economics, Education, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Explaining Trump’s Appeal

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A timely essay on the current state of the nation from Charles Murray.

[Sunday-morning update]

A bridge too far: I agree with Ace that Trump finally damaged himself last night, at least with actual Republicans. It’s one thing to say we had bad intel; it’s entirely another to say that Bush deliberately lied us into war. That’s the ravings of the left, not a leading Republican candidate.

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

Thirty Years On

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This is the thirty first year my birthday has been marred by the event. Leroy Chiao thinks that we shouldn’t have retired the Shuttle, but he assumes we did it for safety reasons. As I note in the book, Shuttle was retired because it cost too much, and the fleet had gotten too small to sustain it properly.

[Update a while later]

My thoughts on the anniversary, and lessons not learned, over at USA Today.

[Update a few minutes later]

Clark Lindsey has a link roundup on the anniversaries.

[Update a while later\

Doug Messier has some thoughts, and a warning to the space upstarts.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Heckling Hillary

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Katherine Prudhomme explains why she did it:

The next thing I heard about Hillary Clinton and sexual assault was in December, when a questioner asked Hillary if Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones should be believed. Hillary responded that, “everybody should be believed at first until they are disbelieved based on evidence.” What evidence is now out there that would cause us to disbelieve them? Why didn’t the media ask her about it afterwards? I’ve watched this story more closely than most since 1999 and I didn’t know what evidence Hillary was talking about.

On New Year’s Day, I found out the Clinton campaign was going to be in my town that Sunday. I signed up using my real name, got a confirmation number, and thought all day about whether yelling out these questions at Hillary Clinton, which I’d asked so many times and heard so many dismissive answers to, was the right thing to do.

The only other option I faced was accepting that the people of this country and our leaders don’t care about rape and sexual assault victims when a powerful man is accused of them. That man is then above the law. When the woman closest to him enables his behavior and protects him from discovery by threatening his victims to remain silent, and then is presented to me as a champion of women, the disconnect is more than I can take. I felt like the little boy who yells out that the emperor has no clothes on. I decided that I had to go there and ask my question in any way that I could and would do so at the moment the question portion of her event began.

I went into the venue early, got a seat up at the front and waited. I even told the talkative, friendly man sitting next to me exactly what I was going to do. He thought it was a bad idea and tried to talk me out of it. I was expecting to be thrown out of the event or arrested, but I believed so much in my cause that I did it anyway.

Hillary told me last July in Gorham that she has no idea who Broaddrick is. Now she claims there is evidence to prove that Broaddrick is lying. That makes no sense. Why didn’t Lisa Myers find anything to discredit Broaddrick? Why didn’t NBC’s army of lawyers find anything? They would have welcomed any reason not to show that interview, but they did not find it.

People should be doing this to the rape enabler everywhere Her Highness goes, and force the media to cover it. There is no law that the Clintons don’t consider themselves above, including violent rape.

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

Apollo, I Love You

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…but:

So maybe Apollo went too far too soon and set an impossible target against which everything since has been measured. It wasn’t about primarily about exploration, although that did happen, and it certainly wasn’t about sustainability, but it has cast a long shadow over what has come since.

Am I committing some sort of heresy by saying these things? Well, all I can say is that the people who made Apollo happen are still my heroes. I still get a lump in my throat when I think what they did, the risks they took and the certainty they had in their belief that it was worth it. Armstrong himself has now left us, his surviving fellow moonwalkers are now old men – still active, still advocating the next big step, but a vivid reminder of the time that has passed since Apollo.

I guess my conclusion is that the further we get from those days, the more anomalous Apollo appears – an amazing adventure that will stand out as future generations look back on the twentieth century, but not something that can be repeated. We live in a different world now.

Yes. We need to stop trying to do Apollo to Mars. It isn’t going to happen, and moreover, it shouldn’t.