Category Archives: Media Criticism

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

George W. Hoover

4 Comments

Ilya Somin says that George Bush should, finally, stop giving a bad name to free markets:

Bush’s belated support for free markets follows in Hoover’s footsteps. After leaving office in 1933, Hoover wrote books and articles defending free markets and criticizing the Democrats’ New Deal. Some of his criticisms of FDR were well-taken. Many New Deal policies actually worsened and prolonged the Great Depression by organizing cartels and increasing unemployment. But by coming out as a free market advocate, the post-presidential Hoover actually bolstered the cause of interventionism because he helped cement the incorrect impression that he had pursued free market policies while in office, thereby causing the Depression. Bush’s post-presidential conversion creates a similar risk: it could solidify the already widespread impression that he, like the Hoover of myth, pursued laissez-faire policies which then caused an economic crisis.

What should Bush now do if he genuinely wants to help the free market cause? The best thing would be to take up economist David Henderson’s half-joking suggestion that he “express his regret at nationalizing airport safety, carrying out illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens, raiding medical marijuana clinics, bailing out General Motors, AIG and other companies, and socializing prescription drugs for the elderly [the biggest new government program from the 1960s until the present financial crisis].” Bush could also point out that he advocated an ideology of “compassionate conservatism” that included vastly expanded government, and an “ownership society” that (in his own words) involved “us[ing] the mighty muscle of the federal government” to incentivize dubious mortgages of the kind that helped cause the financial collapse of 2008. The greatest contribution Bush can now make to free market policies is to dispel the impression that he pursued them while in office.

Unfortunately, as Somin points out, the likelihood that he will admit his perfidy to markets, or the disastrous nature of many of his domestic policies, is pretty low, so the best thing he can do for free markets now is to just shut up.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

A Vision Of The Future In Space

5 Comments

In comments over at Space Politics, “Ray” responds to the Ares boosters over there (who are hilarious in their blind adulation of the program, or would be were it not so sad — as I say over there, they haven’t just drunk the kool aid, but are snorkeling around in an Olympic-sized pool of it):

Kaylyn63: “…fasten your seatbelt and hang on for the ride Ares is going to give the United States”

Ares has already taken the United States on quite a ride, so I can only imagine what’s next:

– ISS science and engineering cut beyond the bone
– ISS dumped in the ocean in 2015
– Ares 1 delivered in 2017 – 2019 to service the long-gone ISS
– huge commercial space opportunities lost for U.S. industry
– NASA Aeronautics vanished
– Planetary science robotics, including missions to scout human spaceflight destinations, fading to a shadow
– NASA research, development, and technology demonstration work cut and limited to Ares investigations
– NASA Earth science missions few and far between
– Ares V delivered in 2030, but no budget to put anything on it
– EELVs, Falcons, and Taurus II greatly underutilized (and thus more expensive per launch than necessary) by the loss of commercial crew transport to LEO, fuel launches, early destruction of the ISS, and lack of budget to launch robotic missions – resulting in U.S. launch industry not being competitive in the global marketplace

Thanks, Ares!

So speaketh the ghost of Christmas future. If the goal was to destroy most of the useful things that NASA is, and could be doing, then perhaps it is the “Invention of the Year” after all. It has managed to accomplish much along those lines already, even though it won’t fly for years…

The frightening thing is that Chairwoman Giffords has bought into the hype as well. Of course, she has sort of a conflict of interest, in that she’s married into NASA.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Strength

26 Comments

…through dithering:

OK, I get that the political piece is vitally important, and for Eikenberry, up to his armpits in scheming warlords and bureaucrats in Kabul with his frontline diplomats daily engaged in pitched and desperate note-passing against an entrenched corruptancy, the light at the top of his own well probably is awfully dim and far away. This is a highly complex situation. Thinking outside the box, maybe it does make sense to put the cart ahead of the horse. It is intriguing, though, that in the middle of a hot war in which a determined, murderous enemy is making gains, there are ”options beyond military planning” that are so pressing that they actually trump military planning. Sounds like the president, in a show of resolve, wants to signal more firmly to Karzai and the scheming warlords that the United States is prepared to hold its breath until the Afghan people turn blue, or that the United States might even take its bat and ball and go home. Also, to signal to the United States military that he won’t be pushed around if it kills them.

One bright spot, in the Vietnam avoidance agenda. Remember how they accused LBJ of picking targets from the Oval Office? Can’t accuse Obama of that. He’s actively not picking targets from the Oval Office.

Amazing.

Media Criticism, Space

This Is Like A Bad Joke

13 Comments

Time has named the Ares-I the “Invention of the Year“:

TIME’s best invention of the year may send Americans back to the Moon and put the first human on Mars.

Do they even know that it can’t deliver people beyond earth orbit? On the other hand, it is really tall…

This kind of technological illiteracy is pathetic, but it’s what I’ve come to expect from the likes of Time.

[Mid-morning update]

From a reader:

My company was selected for a Time “Invention of the Year.” Hooray, we thought. Then the phone calls from Time started. A bored 20-something with a false Valley girl accent called to talk to the inventor of the thing we had been nominated for. We responded that there was no one person, it was a company-wide effort. It took, and I do not exaggerate, at least 30 minutes to get it through her head that “company” meant “more than one person.” Then the so-called fact checker wanted to know how the one person got the idea for the invention. We patiently explained that it was the company’s job to make such products and that more than one person had contributed to the idea and the building of our nifty little gadget. The fact checker did not know the difference between a pound and a kilogram, had no knowledge of basic chemistry, had never heard of the founders in our field, and didn’t even know what our gadget looked like. Subsequent calls did not remove the impression of careless indifference. Time never did get the story right.

Since that day I have never trusted a single story from Time. Not one. If the writers and editors can’t understand the difference between a pound and a kilogram, what else are they missing?

A lot. It’s a lot easier to just grab a press release from NASA PAO than to have to actually understand what the hell you’re talking about..

[Mid-afternoon update]

More thoughts on the cluelessness of this from Keith Cowing.

Humor, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

I Never Believed The Letters In Penthouse

8 Comments

…until it happened to me. An amusing publishing tale by Claire Berlinsky. I loved this:

I wrote the article, along with a sidebar about Sifu Emin’s top ten tips for defending yourself in hand-to-hand combat. It was a great assignment. I got to call people like Bob Wall and Chuck Norris to ask them who, in their view, was the most lethal man in the world.

Actually, to be honest, I couldn’t get through to Chuck Norris. I tried, but his secretary got frosty on me when I said I was writing for Penthouse. “Chuck,” she said sniffily, “is a conservative.”

Now, when I heard this, I was a bit surprised. I’m not really used to the insinuation that there might be a problem with my commitment to conservatism. “Ma’am,” I said finally, “I’m a conservative, too. In fact, I think my conservative credentials will impress him. Please let him know that I’m Margaret Thatcher’s biographer, okay? Really, I’m on his side.”

“You’re what?”

“I’m the author of ‘Why Margaret Thatcher Matters.’ In fact, I’m more conservative than Chuck.”

“Well” (doubtful). “I’ll give him the message.”

“I have a subscription to National Review, for God’s sake.”

“I’ll let him know.”

“Seriously, Ma’am, I make Chuck look pink.”

I think my tone probably put her off, though; she refused to put me through. Probably for the best. I mean, who wants to deal with Chuck Norris’s socialist nonsense?

Read all.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

What Happened To The Cold War?

21 Comments

Younger people can be easily forgiven for not understanding the significance of what happened in Berlin two decades ago, both because they have little personal memory of what it was like to live under the nuclear threat, and because the teaching of history in public schools is so appalling. But Walter Shapiro remembers. It’s well worth reading for those who don’t realize how close we came to Armageddon on multiple occasions through those decades.

The president, of course, has no such excuse. He was born at the height of the war. Unfortunately, he was raised by people on the other side.