While a cascade in LEO is something to be very concerned about, this Pop Sci article gets this quite wrong:
If a chain reaction got out of control up there, it could very quickly sever our communications, our GPS system (upon which the U.S. military heavily relies)…
Most communications satellites are in GEO, thousands of miles above LEO, and GPS are in twelve-hour orbits, also very high, but not as high as GEO. Most of our communications would remain intact, as would GPS.
A long but interesting analysis. It has Barack Obama’s number, too.
What will the president do if he loses the Congress? I think the parallels with Wilson are interesting, but not compelling.
James O’Keefe has copped a misdemeanor plea. David Schuster (and Chris Gerrib) are in mourning.
Or rather, opacity. The Department of (In)Justice is being sued to release the New Black Panther documents. As the article notes, if the Republicans take over one or both houses in November, they’ll have a lot tougher time stonewalling next year.
Citizens Against Government Waste has come out with a white paper opposing continuing Constellation, and to buttress their case, they cite the piece I wrote at National Review a few weeks ago:
An April 21, 2010 editorial in the National Review referred to Constellation as “a programmatic disaster,” while the Washington Post has referred to it as “ill-conceived” and “under-funded.” For the National Review and the Washington Post to agree, something must be seriously off-track.
This implies that it was an editorial position of the magazine, which it was not, though the WaPo’s was. National Review has taken no editorial stance on the issue, as far as I know (though it would be interesting to see what it would be if they did). It was just part of a give and take between me and Bob Costa.
[Update a few minutes later]
I should also note that the WaPo and I don’t really agree, other than that Constellation should end. They want to end human spaceflight entirely, at least if it’s funded by NASA. Of course, the hysterical opponents of the new plan, who apparently can’t read a budget document or the myriad RFIs that have been coming out recently, think that the two are synonymous.
But I’ll bet that Pinch Sulzberger still doesn’t know why his paper is going out of business.
And more thoughts from Matt Welch on the media narrative and its double standards:
Constituents Using a Forum to Register Displeasure With Representative: Spooky!* 700 Angry Protesters on a Bankster’s Front Lawn: “About damn time”
Can you imagine if DC police had escorted a mob to the house of a news exec during the Bush administration? See, that would be fascism. But Obama’s purple-shirted thugs? Not so much.
As the professor notes, imagine the White House press corps accepting a private lecture on what kinds of questions to ask from, say, Ari Fleischer. They’re supposed to be watchdogs, but when there’s a Democrat in the White House or running Congress, they’re lap dogs.
Lileks finds an interesting quote from prohibition days:
There may be no clearer demonstration of the drys’ pragmatic acceptance of every variety of ally than a comment made by Mabel Willebrandt – a federal official, a feminist, a progressive – when she was asked about the faithfully dry Ku Klux Klan: “I have no objection to people dressing up in sheets, if they enjoy that sort of thing.”
I’m always amazed at how many “progressive” ideas (gun control, minimum wage, unionization) have their roots in racism (the fascist dictator Woodrow Wilson being a canonical example). People who want to call themselves “progressive” today (like Hillary Clinton) might be amazed too, if they knew their own intellectual history. Speaking of which, I loved this:
True story. A few years ago, when Katie first came to CBS News, I worked as the editor of her blog “Couric & Co.” One afternoon, I had a meeting with her in her office overlooking the CBS newsroom. Her suite of offices is gorgeous: white-on-white, with a marble desk and gorgeous black-and-white prints on the walls.
(Think “The Devil Wears Prada,” and you’ll get the picture. Staffers used to refer to it as “The White Palace” or, more derisively, “White Castle.”) On the back wall is a lovely, dramatic picture of Jackie Kennedy and her children. Other iconic women on the walls included Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt, Audrey Hepburn. When Katie arrived for our meeting, I was admiring the pictures, but noticed one woman who was unfamiliar to me. “Who’s that?,” I asked.
“Margaret Sanger,” she replied.
So is Katie into eugenics, too? Is she a fascist, or an historically ignorant dolt?