Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Stop Slandering The Innocent, Joe

4 Comments

Moe Lane makes a good point about Sestak’s claim that there was bribe attempt, but refuses to say by whom:

Either Sestak is lying about this, in which case he’s, well, a liar who did so for crass political gain; or Sestak’s telling the truth about this, in which case he’s pretty much explicitly participating in a cover-up of a felony. Either way, talking in general terms is not really acceptable. Unless there was an active conspiracy permeating the entire Executive Branch to bribe Joe Sestak, somebody in the White House is innocent of this crime – but until we get the full details of what happens, we won’t know who. And while I may have been heavily critical of the unprofessional behavior of the White House’s staffers, I think it’s hardly fair of Sestak to talk about this scandal in a fashion that implicates all of them.

Of course, the White House could clear things up, and clear the innocent, if it wanted to. After all, Gibbs won’t deny it — he just won’t talk about it.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Space History

Commercial Human Spaceflight Prospects

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Jeff Foust has a good roundup of the current state of play in industry/congressional skepticism about the ability of the new players to do the job.

And Tom Frieling describes an appallingly bad book on space history. This kind of thing is really inexcusable, and may feed ignorance for years. When I do my pieces for The New Atlantis, I circulate drafts among a lot of knowledgeable people, to make sure that I get it right. If I write a book, I’ll do the same thing. But I guess that kind of thing isn’t very important to some authors and publishers.

Media Criticism, Science And Society, Social Commentary

Going Paleo

11 Comments

Here’s an article on a retro diet.

My problem with this isn’t the diet per se (though I do like me them carbs) as the need for exercise. I read somewhere recently that there were huge health benefits to walking five miles a day. I can believe it, but who has the time? The only way I can imagine doing that is if I raised my desk and worked from a treadmill instead of a chair.

The thing that I find most irritating about the criticism (as well as in the health-care debate) is the declaration of life expectancy as a useful parameter. I don’t know what the life expectancy of paleolithic people was, but I’ll bet that diet was not a big factor in determining it. It’s important to understand that average life expectancy isn’t the age at which most people die. If it really was thirty, it was likely due to a) high infant mortality and b) a very violent lifestyle, in which the men were likely to be killed either hunting or fighting other humans, at a fairly young age. I suspect that if you manage to become an “elder” (i.e., someone in your thirties) you’d live a long time.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Reading

3 Comments

…is fundamental:

If they ever read the bill — or admit they do — they’ll find this sort of Yasser Arafat-like equivocation more difficult. Because it will quickly be revealed that their supposedly procedure-only quibbles are in fact objections to the substance — they oppose any methods of controlling immigration that are actually likely to work.

They support only the methods that won’t work — UAVs, “virtual fences,” other technobabble non-solutions — precisely because they won’t work, which is why they have a pass from the Open Borders lobby to support such measures.

Essentially they’re asking the bank robbers what they should do to improve vault security. The bank robbers tell them to leave the vault door open and turn off the alarms and fire the guards, and instead use “smart solutions” to guard the money, like big signs saying “Please don’t take our money.”

Fortunately, polls would indicate that the American people are on to them.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

Find The Missing Point

7 Comments

Sigh:

Success would be a win for commercial backers, but wouldn’t answer serious questions surrounding the approach.

And while failure would provide opponents with ammunition, it’s common for new rockets to have trouble on maiden flights and become highly reliable mainstays.

Those factors point to why the White House and Congress should select a dual-track strategy that would OK commercial companies to move forward while also allowing NASA to continue testing a system involving the Ares 1 rocket.

Note that there is zero discussion of cost in this editorial. Note also the fallacy of the excluded middle.

Mike Griffin sort of made this argument as well, saying that he was hoping for commercial to succeed but needed to do Ares/Orion as an “insurance policy” against their failure. But this is insane. On my planet, you spend most of your money on what you consider most likely, and pay a much smaller amount for an insurance policy (provided by, you know, an actual insurer who writes lots of policies and is betting that your main strategy will work so he doesn’t have to pay out). This “dual-track” strategy is exactly the opposite. They are spending six billion on the primary option, and plan to spend forty billion on the “insurance.” That’s just crazy.

But OK, let’s play along. If you really want a “dual-track strategy,” how about making commercial (in this case, SpaceX) one track and give a cost-plus contract to ULA for the other? Because they’ve already said that they can get there within the six billion. Of course, that’s not fair to SpaceX (at least theoretically) because they would then have to compete with a government-subsidized competitor (though I’ll bet they could still beat their price). But regardless, it doesn’t justify continuing wasting money on Ares.

Oh, and then there’s this:

…experts say it could take a decade before the companies have rockets and spacecraft that are safe and capable enough to fly astronauts.

You can find “experts” who will say lots of things. This wording implies that there are no experts who would disagree with that statement. Or at least its implications. Sure it could take a decade. It could take two decades. It could also take only three years or so. What’s magic about a decade? Nothing, of course, except it gives them an excuse to say that we have to have a “dual-track” (read, pork for Florida) strategy.