Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Train Wrecks In Space

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Thoughts from Wayne Hale (who I hope I’ll see tomorrow in Las Cruces) on how to avoid them:

I have a cheap seat view of the Orion/SLS development. My basic observation: those efforts are drowning in ‘process’. The biggest threat to their success is not technical; it is schedule and cost. If the design and development processes drag the projects out too far, Congress or a new Administration will throw up their hands and call a halt to the whole thing. They did once before; my intuition is that they will again unless something significant happens.

The secret of a good program – as a very senior spacecraft designer once told me – is knowing how much is enough and then not doing anything more.

Right now, inside NASA, we have trained our workforce to do it perfectly. And perfection is very costly and takes a long time. Over in the Commercial Crew Program, the senior leadership is making some progress in toning down the drive for perfection. It is a slow effort and uphill at all times. Over in the Exploration systems area, it all seems to be going the other way. Whatever anybody calls necessary for safety or improvement – without evaluating the real cost or schedule or other impact – seems to be adopted.

So I am guardedly optimistic about the commercial teams actually succeeding in flying humans in space in the next couple of years.
Not so much optimism for the exploration systems, drowning in ‘process’.

The sooner it’s canceled, the better, but I’m sure we’ll waste more billions on it before it happens.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

The Recycling Religion

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Thoughts from John Tierney:

I realize that true believers don’t need rational reasons for their religion, but it would be nice to see a little soul-searching in regard to some stats in the article: To offset the greenhouse impact of one passenger’s round-trip flight between New York and London, you’d have to recycle roughly 40,000 plastic bottles, assuming you fly coach. If you sit in the front of the plane, it’s more like 100,000 bottles — and you have to make sure not to rinse any of them with hot water, because that little extra energy could more than cancel out any greenhouse benefit of your labors.

They were told there would be no math.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

The Riddle Of Obama

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Thoughts from Neo-neocon:

Obama is here to punish America for its sins, and he’s been very successful at that. That the left and many liberals continue to love him, continue to support him, is a puzzlement to many people. But why wouldn’t those who have been successfully taught that America is a great evil in the world—birthed in evil, steeped in evil, and empowered by evil; especially racial evil but also countless other evils big and small—applaud his efforts?

Yup.

Plus, thoughts from a few days ago about facing the truth about the president.

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

How To Reduce Mass Shootings

3 Comments

Let’s try treating boys better.

It won’t completely eliminate them, but there would be a lot of societal benefits to it.

[Update a while later]

How many girlfriends did the gunman have?

Just this week, on Tuesday, using the handle lithium_love, he commented on a post titled “How many girlfriends have you had?” by saying “0. Never had anyone.” When pressed further by another user, he responded “Well, it means I’ve never been with anyone, no woman nor man (nor dog or animal or any other).” Then, on Wednesday, responding to a comment that he “must be saving himself for someone special,” he said, “Involuntarily so.” It was a day before the killings.

“He did not like his lot in life, and it seemed like nothing was going right for him,” a law enforcement official said, describing the writings found at the crime scene. “It’s clear he was in a very bad state of mind.”

You don’t say.

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

John Koskinen

Jim Jordan says he’s going to be impeached.

I hope so. It’s about time someone in this criminal organization masquerading as a government was impeached. They should impeach Gina McCarthy, too.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s someone else to make a salutary example of:

Roth’s report, released Wednesday, found that 45 agents and supervisors had peeked at Chaffetz’s personnel file, which was stored in an internal Secret Service database. The report said 18 supervisors, including the deputy director and Clancy’s chief of staff, knew that the information had been accessed inside the agency. But the report said Clancy was a notable exception and had never been informed.

Clancy now says he knew that the unflattering information was being shared inside his agency and was told about it by a top deputy before it was leaked to the news media, officials said.

As a result of his new statements, investigators from Roth’s office plan to reinterview Clancy about his revised account, the officials said.

With a corrupt Justice Department, impeachment is the only available means of accountability. Even if the Senate won’t removed, no one should want that on their resume.