Fresh from having “We Con The World” pulled from Youtube, she takes another sharp jab at the world media.
Category Archives: Media Criticism
So Publish The Damn Iowahawk Book Already
Go sign the petition. The background is that Dave was in negotiations with a publisher, but they decided not to go for it, because they didn’t think it would sell ten thousand copies.
[Friday morning update]
If you go to the petition site, DO NOT DONATE any money, at least with the intent of getting it to Burge, because he won’t get a dime. That’s the petition site’s business model.
[Update mid morning]
Iowahawk has shut down the petition, lest anyone else get fooled.
It’s still a good idea, though. Maybe I should set one up here. I’ve been thinking about doing it for a market test of a space policy book.
An Immodest Journalist
…with much to be modest about. As one commenter says, what is this, 2004?
[Update a few minutes later]
Jeez. Here’s another one:
Is journalism 100 unpaid bloggers all talking and yattering at once, or a city filled with amateur citizen journalists uncoordinated in all their efforts? Those bloggers and citizen reporters are as close to real reporters as karaoke is to Frank Sinatra live and in person.
Never mind that most of those “real reporters” are clueless about most of the subjects on which they report, and most of whom have “educations” that have imparted little of real-world value.
Bob Etheridge’s New Career
Iowahawk has the scoop.
Telling It Like It Is
Bob Bigelow doesn’t suffer the fools who have been stupidly criticizing commercial space gladly:
We are becoming a member of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation at this time to join with like-minded organizations, who want to see America be able to compete again in the global space launch marketplace, and push back against the pernicious misconceptions that are being perpetuated to harm the Administration’s commercial crew initiative.”
“Specifically, I’m appalled by the condemnation of commercial crew as being somehow less safe than government programs, and the refrain that commercial companies need to prove they can deliver cargo before they deliver crew. In regard to the latter, a leading contender for commercial missions, the Atlas V, has had 21 consecutive successful launches. This rocket is arguably the most reliable domestic launch system in existence today. It strains the bounds of credulity to claim that any new rocket would be able to trump the safety of a system that has an extensive record of flawless operations.”
“Moreover,” Bigelow added, “we’re extremely pleased to be part of the Boeing team constructing the CST-100 capsule under the auspices of NASA’s own Commercial Crew Development program. Boeing’s unparalleled heritage and experience, combined with Bigelow Aerospace’s entrepreneurial spirit and desire to keep costs low, represents the best of both established and new space companies. The product of this relationship, the CST-100 capsule, will represent the safest, most reliable, and most cost-effective spacecraft ever to fly. Again, I don’t understand the critics who say ‘commercial’ entities can’t safely build a capsule. Why is it that Boeing, the company that constructed the ISS itself, can’t safely build a capsule that would go to their own space station? These are the sorts of questions and issues that we will be posing in Washington as a member of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.”
“Pernicious misconception” is actually kind of a nice phrase for it. I’d like to see more details on the “CST 100” capsule. I wonder what the TLA is? Crewed Space Transportation? And what happened to 1-99? 😉
Explaining Health Care Costs
Change I Can Believe In
Have we finally reached the point where we can tell the truth about the president and not be called a racist?
But Don’t Call Them Fascists
Ed Schulz says that the president should act like a dictator tonight. Does he mean that Obama should be “the decider”?
[Update a while later]
This seems related somehow:
Remember, there are Americans who believe that if you run into your congressman and ask him a question, the congressman has a right to not merely hit you in response, but to have you arrested. And their vote counts every bit as much as yours.
Not that it’s an excuse, but it looked to me in that video like Etheridge was at least two sheets to the wind, with a third coming loose.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Oh, and no need to play Name That Party! They just lie about it. Because obviously, only Republicans are violent and have scandals.
Clueless In London
Giles Whittell had a misanalysis of the US space program at the Times of London yesterday (registration required):
President Obama is nothing if not rational. He came to office facing the collapse of the US economy and has since ordered a freeze on discretionary non-security spending. He has ring-fenced his education budget, committed the Treasury to paying $1 trillion (£690 billion) over ten years on health insurance subsidies, and still has two wars to fund. In the circumstances, Nasa’s quixotic lunge toward Mars with a “new generation” of distinctly old-fashioned rockets looked vulnerable at best. If Mr Obama has his way, it will be doomed.
I would dispute the assessment of the president’s rationality, but NASA (why can’t the Brits learn to capitalize acronyms?) wasn’t making a “lunge toward Mars,” quixotically or otherwise. It wasn’t even making a “lunge” toward the moon. It was more of a slow crawl, unlikely to ever get there. And it was a smart decision, regardless of the economic environment. No matter how wealthy we are as a nation, it would be foolish to spend tens of billions on so little capability as Constellation offered when we could have much more for much less, and much sooner.
The last graf doesn’t make much sense, either:
There are stronger strategic arguments for maintaining America’s lead beyond Earth’s orbit. If it steps back, China will become the world’s dominant space-faring nation and its goals there remain unclear. Mr Obama understands this. He also knows that the idea of journeying to the next frontier retains a powerful hold on the American psyche, which is why he claims that his plan to outsource research and development for new propulsion technologies will lead eventually to Mars. Yet the frail US economy leaves his hands tied. For at least ten years American astronauts will fly to space in Russian capsules, or not at all — because American consumers borrowed too much for their houses.
It’s not clear who would be the dominant space-faring nation if we were to truly “step back,” (in reality, by any sensible understanding of the phrase, there are no space-faring nations on this planet, and there never have been). China is certainly in no hurry to go anywhere, at their current pace, and the Russians remain far ahead of them. But as I noted in a comment over there, the notion that it will take ten years to put a capsule on a Delta or Atlas, or to get Dragon ready for crew, is a ludicrous one. And it was going to be at least seven years before Ares/Orion would be ready (for a cost of at least a billion dollars a launch, a point that the defenders repeatedly ignore).
Anyway, as a result of the shoddy reporting, Daffyd Ab Hugh (is that a pseudonym?) has an uninformed Anti-Obama rant over at Hot Air:
…it’s hardly a surprise that Barack H. Obama is in the process of killing the Constellation program proposed by (of course) President George W. Bush to return human beings, Americans, to the Moon, this time to stay; to explore lunar science and geology, investigate the origins of our solar system, and exploit the vast mineralogical, energy, and environmental resources found on our nearest neighboring planet.
No, it’s not a surprise to anyone who read the Augustine Report (and particularly to those who read between the lines) — the program was a disaster. But it wasn’t proposed by George Bush, and that’s not why it’s being cancelled. Bush proposed the Vision for Space Exploration, which survives in much better shape than it did under Constellation (with the exception of an explicit goal of moon first). Constellation was Mike Griffin’s deformed brain child.
And in quoting Congressman Bishop, he fails to note that he is the Congressman from ATK, whose oxen is most severely gored by the Constellation cancellation — the SRBs are built in his district.
I actually agree with the criticism of the president’s indifference to (and ignorance, perhaps even loathing of) American exceptionalism, but there are many better pieces of evidence for it than finally fixing a screwed- up space policy. I might email Ed Morrissey to see if I can get space for a rebuttal.
If Abolishing the Department Of Education Is Extreme
…then call me an extremist, too.
And extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.
[Update a few minutes later]
Bring it on, Senator. In fact, that’s a job I wouldn’t mind having.
Interestingly, Brownback is one of the few Republicans to have expressed support for the president’s new space plan. Probably because he asked Pete Worden’s advice.