OK, the title is a joke (on the warm mongers) — the phrase “the science is settled” is an oxymoron, and goes against the very nature of science. But there does seem to be a growing “consensus” (another scientific oxymoron) that Louis Alverez got it right three decades ago. The initial resistance, it always seemed to me, to be resistance to the notion by paleontologists, who were extremely terracentric, that something extraterrestrial could have such a sudden and catastrophic effect on the planet and its most dominant order. It didn’t help that it was in a field far outside their domain.
Every time there’s a test of a scramjet, there’s associated overhype about how great it will be for space access. The upcoming X-51 flight is no exception:
Ms. Waldman said in her report that as scramjet technology is developed testers believe that in the near future it could be used to aid warfighters as a weapons delivery system. She said officials believe that in the future the scramjet technology will make space access easier.
“The application really is all about space lift,” Mr. Brink agreed, and said, “This is the one, I think, in the Air Force Research Lab we’re most excited about.”
Mr. Brink pointed out that they currently transport payload into space with the shuttle, which has to carry all of its oxidizers for the propulsion concept. He said the shuttle is a pure rocket system and said if they can incorporate scramjet engine technology into the space lift systems, they wouldn’t have to carry the oxidizers and could carry more payload instead.
Yeah, if there’s any payload left after you count the weight of the engines, which have terrible T/W compared to rockets, and all of the extra drag you incur staying in the atmosphere to collect the oxygen. I’ve discussed this more than once in the past. I’ve never seen a hypersonic airbreathing conceptual vehicle design that was an improvement in performance over a rocket for a space transport, at least if there was any analysis more serious than the above performed on it. Scramjets have plenty of utility for military applications. I wish that people selling the program didn’t always feel the need to oversell it. And if we had a smarter space media, they’d get called on it.
I think that all these rumors and leaks are just guerilla warfare by Ares/Constellation dead enders. And the end is growing near. If you look at the Senate Authorization language, it essentially buys into the new policy, for all intents and purposes.
Several “scientists” are continuing to plot attacks on the “deniers.” And they’re being led by Paul Ehrlich, one of the most discredited pseudoscientific totalitarian doom’n’gloomers in modern history? It doesn’t help that the president’s current science advisor was one of his protégés.
These folks have apparently never learned the old rule about holes.
…if the court would identify an important individual right — in this case, the right to bear arms — and then deny that it applied to the states, those who never accepted the incorporation doctrine might try to “de-incorporate” other rights. That’s not a risk worth taking.
A lot of the gun grabbers want to have it both ways — that the Second Amendment shouldn’t be incorporated, but that other rights do. At least the Times recognizes the inconsistency of this, even if they don’t understand the meaning and purpose of the amendment.
Dwayne Day has an amusing review of what seems to have been a particularly stupid episode of CSI: Miami. I’ve never actually sat through an entire show (the only reason I’ve ever been able to see for watching it is Emily Procter, and that’s not enough, particularly since she doesn’t have anywhere near the southern accent that much of the hype about her would lead you to believe). Are they all this dumb?
Argentines Francisco Lotero, 56, and Miriam Coletti, 23, shot their children before killing themselves after making an apparent suicide pact over fears about global warming.
You know that if this had happened as a result of “right-wing” fear mongering (in this case, warm mongering), they’d be all over it.
As noted, one of the left’s distinguishing features is to continually rewrite its own violent history, and attribute it and project it onto others. In addition to the slander, it also creates a continual amnesia, or ahistorical attitude on the part of new adherents to it who are so mistaught the history.