Category Archives: Media Criticism

The Big Green Lie

Exposed:

Greens who feared and climate skeptics who hoped that the rash of investigations following Climategate and Glaciergate and all the other problems would reveal some gaping obvious flaws in the science of climate change were watching the wrong thing. The Big Green Lie (or Delusion, to be charitable) isn’t so much that climate change is happening and that it is very likely caused or at least exacerbated by human activity. The Big Lie is that the green movement is a source of coherent or responsible counsel about what to do.

The greens claim to be diagnosticians and therapists: that they can both name the disease and heal it. They are wrong. The attitudes and political vision of a group of NGO pressure groups may work when it comes to harassing Japanese whale ships in the Antarctic; this vision and these people come up short when set against the challenge of moderating the impact of human industrial activity on the earth’s climate system.

They come up short in many areas.

Another Blow To The Space Policy Myths

Some people have been counting on the CAIB to support their nonsensical assertions about safety of government versus commercial vehicles. Well, they’re out of luck:

Our view is that NASA’s new direction can be a) just as safe, if not more safe, than government-controlled alternatives b) will achieve higher safety than that of the Space Shuttle, and c) is directly in line with the recommendations of the CAIB.

Just one more nail in the coffin of space policy mythology. There may be good arguments against the new plan, but for the most part, for the past few months, most of the ones I’ve seen have been both tragic and hilarious in their illogic and non-factuality.

[Update a few minutes later]

In reading the whole thing, I think they’re being far too kind (though I understand that they have to be diplomatic):

Second, the CAIB recommended that future launch systems should “separate crew from cargo” as much as possible. This statement is sometimes taken out of context. What it does mean is that human lives should not be risked on flights that can be performed without people; the new plan to procure separate crew and cargo transportation services clearly is consistent with the CAIB’s recommendation. But the recommendation does not disallow the use of a cargo launch system to also fly, on separate missions, astronaut flights. Indeed, the fact that Atlas V and Delta IV are flying satellites right now, including extremely high-value satellites, has helped to prove out their reliability. And the many satellite and cargo missions that Falcon 9 is planned to fly will also produce the same beneficial result.

This is a very important point. First, that people have always misunderstood the “separate crew and cargo” lesson. To the degree it ever made any sense at all (we don’t do it for trucks, or airplanes), it never meant to have different vehicle designs for crew versus cargo. And one of the craziest notions that the Ares defenders had was that it would be “designed” to be so safe that crew could fly on it on its second flight, whereas rockets with a proven record of dozens of consecutive successful flights under their belts were somehow less “safe” than one with only one flight. As the CSF pointed out today:

The demonstrated track records of commercial vehicles, combined with numerous upcoming manifested flights, means that the family of commercial vehicles already has, and will continue to have, a much stronger track record than other vehicles such as Ares I. The Atlas family of rockets has had over 90 consecutive successes including 21 consecutive successes for Atlas V, and additional unmanned flights will occur over the next few years before any astronaut flights begin. Similarly, many flights of the Delta and Falcon vehicles have already occurred or will occur before astronauts would be placed onboard. Astronauts will not be flying on vehicles that lack a solid track record.

By contrast, NASA was planning to place astronauts on just the second full-up orbital flight of the Ares I system. Ares I would have many fewer test flights than Atlas V, Falcon 9, or Delta IV. Furthermore, the first crewed flight of Ares I will not occur until the year 2017 as determined by the Augustine Committee. Thus, at the planned rate of two Ares I flights per year, it would take the Ares I rocket until at least the year 2025 to match the demonstrated reliability that the Atlas V rocket already has today. That is, the commercial rocket has a fifteen-year head start on safety.

Demonstrated reliability through multiple actual flights to orbit is crucial because paper calculations have historically been insufficient to capture the majority of failure modes that affect real, flying vehicles—especially new vehicles flying their first few missions. As the Augustine Committee stated, “The often-used Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) … is not as useful a guide as to whether a new launch vehicle will fail during operations, especially during its early flights.” Demonstrated reliability is crucial.

And it’s something that would have taken decades for Ares to develop, given its horrific costs and low flight rate.

And then it’s nice to see people with these credentials dispense with this nonsense:

It has been suggested by some that only a NASA-led effort can provide the safety assurance required to commit to launching government astronauts into space. We must note that much of the CAIB report was an indictment of NASA’s safety culture, not a defense of its uniqueness. The report (p. 97) notes that “at NASA’s urging, the nation committed to build an amazing, if compromised, vehicle called the Space Shuttle. When the agency did this, it accepted the bargain to operate and maintain the vehicle in the safest possible way.” The report then adds, “The Board is not convinced that NASA has completely lived up to the bargain.”

To put it mildly. And there’s no reason that it would be any different in the future. The institutional incentives haven’t changed, and never will, with a government-run program. Private industry has a very strong motivation not to kill people — it could put them out of business. Government agencies, on the other hand, tend to be rewarded for failure.

Just The Facts

The debate over the new space policy has been taking place in pretty much a logic-free and fact-free environment, at least on the part of those who oppose it. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation has released a fact sheet to dispel all of the Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD), much of it nonsensical, that opponents have been tossing up for months. Clark Lindsey has an HTML version.

I found it a little amusing that they counted Jake Garn as an “astronaut.” I doubt if many of the astronauts consider him (or Bill Nelson) one.

What Were They Thinking?

So, I’m watching This Week this morning, and thinking that Jake Tapper is the best host they’ve had since Brinkley left, and of course, the thought is spoiled by an ad of Christiane Amanpour coming on and telling us that she’s taking over next month. At which point, of course, the show becomes unwatchable.

Why in the world did the ABC suits decide that Americans want to get their Sunday morning political news from an Iranian, British-raised anti-American “journalist”? I’ll be watching the ratings, but I won’t be watching the show. Especially if George Will is gone.

[Update a few minutes later]

Speaking of Jake Tapper, this is one of the things that he elicited from the always smarmy David Axelrod:

This morning on ABC News’ “This Week,” Senior White House Advisor David Axelrod insisted that President Obama’s recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick to be the administrator of The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was simply “too important” to wait for a Congressional hearing.

Yes, when it comes to our nation’s health care, we can’t let that pesky “advise and consent” thing and the US Constitution get in the way. It’s for the children.

The Hidden Costs

…of the Jew-baiting in England.

Western anti-Zionists shy away from the dangerous and painful but legitimate and necessary criticism of Muslim radicals. They prefer the easy, cost-free baiting of any Jew proud enough to feel that his or her own people deserve a state. Instead of turning to the Muslims and saying “why can’t you express a fraction of the self-criticism of the Zionists?” they prefer to repeat the most toxic accusations against the Jews and claim: “I’m not saying anything that Jews haven’t said.”

They are the true Islamophobes — afraid to criticize Islam, eager to join in its chorus of hatred.

And in this act of demission before the Islamist challenge, British opinion makers and shapers also submit to their own bullies, their own zealots who push the Jew-baiting beyond the weekend sport of the salons, into the professional arena of anti-Zionist activism. When the founders of Hamas in 1988 penned their genocidal charter that explicitly targeted all infidels, little did they suspect that within twenty years, those infidels would chant “We are Hamas!” in the streets of London. Who could hope for a more useful infidel than that?

In the European past, Jew-baiting may have seemed relatively cost-free. After all, humiliate a Jew and the worst he’ll do is hector you. Sure, sometimes the sport got out of hand, and killing Jews en masse, or forcing them to convert, or kicking them out may have deeply damaged the economy and empowered repressive forces, like the Inquisition, to go after other religious dissidents. But who really noticed?

Today, however, the situation has changed dramatically because Europe doesn’t just run the risk of internal failure, but getting vanquished by an implacable and merciless foe. By failing to denounce toxic Muslim communitarianism and instead adopting its shrill discourse of demonization about Jews, Brits feed the monster that devours them. If it continues apace, if the British do not make Muslim civility towards Jews the shibboleth of assimilation to a free and democratic culture, they risk losing that civil polity entirely. As always with real anti-Semites, the Jews are only their first target.

As Churchill said, they feed the crocodile in the hope it will eat them last.

It’s Not Just Voter Intimidation

More lawlessness at the (In)Justice Department:

In November 2009, the entire Voting Section was invited to a meeting with Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes, a political employee serving at the pleasure of the attorney general. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss Motor Voter enforcement decisions.

The room was packed with dozens of Voting Section employees when she made her announcement regarding the provisions related to voter list integrity:

We have no interest in enforcing this provision of the law. It has nothing to do with increasing turnout, and we are just not going to do it.

Jaws dropped around the room.

Well, I’m not surprised. I’m not sure that this administration is capable of surprising me any more.

Jonathan Chait

versus reality.

We can’t do anything about the White House for another two years, but I’ll bet that a Speaker of the House other than Nancy Pelosi would be a huge shot in the arm for business confidence.

[Update a while later]

The Lady Gaga economy:

Right now, there’s lots of demand for Lady Gaga, say; but maybe too many houses, cars for sale, and hokey Internet startups.

Economic recovery requires massive spending cuts, deregulation, privatization, tax-cutting, avoidance of monetary inflation, and elimination of government-granted monopolies and favors. But, more importantly, economic recovery requires allowing prices and wages to adjust to market clearing levels. Politicians don’t allow that, so downturn is deliberate policy in a sense. Politicians instead stimulate demand in random, whim-driven ways that create new distortions that harm us later (when they’re out of office, or their earlier misdeeds are forgotten or forgiven).

Such policy prescriptions foster political ends that have little to do with actual economic recovery. Recession is already inevitable if government does not perform its core function of preventing the interest group manipulation that distorts smooth economic enterprise. It’s doubly so when politicians deliberately distort the economy’s workings.

Beyond performing its “classical” functions of maintaining order and thwarting contrived scarcity, government can only serve as a transfer mechanism. Inherently limited in what it can contribute to the real economy, it can certainly subtract a lot.

And it certainly has.

[Update a while later]

The Money Honey weighs in:

You are seeing businesses follow the growth outside of the United States. But absolutely – that is the positive. The reason that they’re not hiring right now is because there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty. And that has everything to do with the policies coming out of this administration. Higher taxes in 2011, higher expenses as a result of health care costs. That’s why they’re not hiring.”

Well, duh.