Category Archives: Media Criticism

Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

How Delaying Commercial Crew Is Deadly

24 Comments

Jon Goff says that it could cost thousands of lives:

Just shaving 36 hours off of the availability date of commercial crew could potentially save more lives than would be lost in the worst case Commercial Crew crash. Even if expediting the process, dropping many of the NASA Human Rating requirements, dropping some of the abort tests, and sticking with Space Act Agreements instead of FAR Contracts really meant a massive decrease in actual safety (I don’t think it would) to say a 5% chance of losing a crew on a given flight, over the course of the ISS’s life you would have saved hundreds of times more US lives by taking that course than you would potentially risk in astronaut lives.

I’ll have to incorporate this thought into the book. I made the point, but not quantitatively, just that our approach is an indicator of how unimportant ISS research is, despite NASA lip service.

This is the problem that Bastiat described. Loss of crew is very publicly visible, while the people who die are anonymous and unknown to all except those closest to them, and their deaths aren’t understood to be a result of flawed government policy. This is the same problem that the FDA has, so it ends up inhibiting innovation, destroying jobs and killing people lest it be blamed for letting people die through underregulation.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Hating The Bullies

Some thoughts from Jeremy Boreing, on the anniversary of Andrew Breitbart’s death. Hard to believe it’s been a year.

[Update late evening]

Iowahawk remembers Andrew as well:

Despite the differences in our extroversion (the mere idea of appearing on camera sends me diving under the furniture) I considered him a kindred spirit – another guy who loved his wife and kids, happy despite being sick of the bullshit. Although I can’t claim to have known him as well as others here at Breitbart, I cherished him a friend whose passing is still personally painful.

With all the tributes and venom being churned out today it’s obvious he still looms large in the political conversation, and it’s hard to think of another figure in media or activism who would be a trending topic a year after their death. I think the reason why is that he represented a new kind of cultural/social conservative. Maybe not in the conventional sense (it’s still fun to freak my liberal friends by noting Andrew’s status as a pro-gay marriage, pro-pot decriminalization Jewish activist for women and minorities who loved of 80s New Wave), but on the value of honesty. I’ve heard him referred to as a “reactionary.” I suppose he as a reactionary – in the literal sense – against an increasingly contrived, vapid, narrative-driven news culture, one that attacks and marginalizes any non-conforming message. He studied the bullies’ playbook, called them out, and bloodied their noses. Hard as it may be for these bloody-nosed bullies to believe, it had nothing to do with their ‘liberal’ politics. If there was a parallel universe with a dominant right wing media culture as dishonest and conformist and thuggish as the left wing one here, Andrew would’ve been more than happy to rocket there and punch them in the mouth, too. If that’s what a reactionary is, then sign me up for the t-shirt.

Me too.

Humor, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Satire

A Dispatch From Sequesteria

5 Comments

It’s a report chock full of grue:

Some of us from NRO were assigned to a cluster of hovels and lean-tos that has come to be called Ezra’s Alley. Others of us are acres away, on a strip they call Boehner’s Run. Still others are unaccounted for.

There is word of potable water and even some fuel on the other side of the river. But all of the crossings are controlled by the warlords of Alexandria and their confederates. From the tales told of their depravity, you’d rather drown than be taken alive.

Oh, the humanity.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Where No Man (or Woman) Has Gone Before

18 Comments

My thoughts on Dennis Tito’s press conference yesterday, over at PJMedia.

[Update a while later]

Hmmmm…the post seems to have disappeared. I’ll bug them to find out what happened.

[Update a few minutes later]

I’ve sent an email to find out what happened, but meanwhile, here‘s Marcia Smith’s (semi-skeptical) report.

[Update a while later]

OK, it seems to be back up now.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

America’s “Justice” System

7 Comments

Thoughts from Conrad Black:

American prosecutors win 99.5 percent of their cases, a much higher percentage than those in other civilized countries; that 97 percent of them are won without trial, because of the plea-bargain system in which inculpatory evidence is extorted from witnesses in exchange for immunity from prosecution, including for perjury; that the U.S. has six to twelve times as many incarcerated people per capita as do Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, or the United Kingdom, comparably prosperous democracies; that the U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population, 25 percent of its incarcerated people, and half of its academically qualified lawyers, who take about 10 percent of U.S. GDP; that prosecutors enjoy very uneven advantages in procedure and an absolute immunity for misconduct; that they routinely seize targets’ money on false affidavits alleging ill-gotten gains so they cannot defend themselves by paying rapacious American lawyers, most of whom in criminal-defense matters are just a fig leaf to provide a pretense of a genuine day in court before blind justice; that the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendment rights that are the basis of the American claim to being a society of laws don’t really exist in practice; and that far too many judges are ex-prosecutors who have not entirely shed the almost universal prosecutorial will to crucify.

But other than that, it’s great.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

All The President’s Thugs

30 Comments

Instapundit has a big roundup of links to the Bob Woodward story.

You know, the last time a paranoid socialist president with an enemies list crossed swords with Woodward, it didn’t end well for him. And the media’s hackery/flackery in the service of The One has never been more fully on display.

[Update a while later]

I do have to say that I find Woodward’s naivety in thinking that the president wouldn’t approve of this a little disquieting.

[Update a few minutes later]

That noted right winger Ron Fournier got similar treatment. At some point, the floodgates might open, at least for those few reporters who still imagine themselves to have any integrity whatsoever. I’ll be there are a lot of stories like this out there. And I have to say, I’m not really surprised that it’s Gene Sperling. He always strikes me as a little weasel whenever I see him spinning.

[Update a while later]

A dissenting view from Kevin Hassett: Gene Sperling is no thug.

I wonder who Fournier’s interactions were with? Certainly Plouffe hasn’t covered himself in glory here.

[Update a while later]

Fournier expands on his previous account. It’s still ambiguous, at least to me, whether he’s saying that this is the same WH official who “threatened” Woodward. But I just find this kind of thing mind blowing:

Reporting by Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered Watergate misdeeds and led to the resignation of President Nixon. My tweet was not intended to compare Nixon to Obama (there is no reason to doubt Obama’s integrity — period) but rather to compare the attack to the press strategies of all the presidents’ men.

…This can’t be what Obama wants. He must not know how thin-skinned and close-minded his staff can be to criticism. “I have the greatest respect and admiration for what you do,” Obama told reporters a year ago. “I know sometimes you like to give me a hard time, and I certainly like to return the favor, but I never forget that our country depends on you.”

Emphasis mine.

“…no reason to doubt Obama’s integrity”? Really? No reason at all?

“This can’t be what Obama wants”? Really?

The fish rots from the head down, Ron.

[Update a while later]

Heh: “Washington is the only place on earth where Gene Sperling and Rahm Emanuel can successfully bully people.”