Category Archives: Political Commentary

Political Commentary

Complete Lack Of Self Awareness

No, this doesn’t pass the laugh test.

The sad thing is, one laughs so one doesn’t cry. They really think that this is a reasonable argument. I hope that the judge actually laughs while turning them down.

Seriously, what kind of political dementia would imagine that the purpose of the judiciary is to ensure a results-oriented outcome for a political party, when the Constitution doesn’t even recognize political parties? The same sort, one suspects, that drive most egalitarian impulses of leftists. As long, of course, that some are more equal than others.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

It’s A Feature, Not A Bug

2 Comments

…Steny:

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D.-Md.) said on the House floor last night that if the balanced budget amendment Republicans are supporting is ratified and included in the Constitution it would make it “virtually impossible” to raise taxes.

Gee, wouldn’t that be awful? Does he really think this helps his case?

There are actually a lot of problems with the BBA, but this isn’t one of them.

Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Academic Bubble

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Is it about to burst? Given the degree to which it’s been driven by government money, and the coming fiscal meltdown, I’d say so.

…consumers seem to be reading the cues in the marketplace.

An increasing number of students are spending their first two years after high school in low-cost community colleges and then transferring to four-year schools.

A recent Wall Street Journal story reported that out-of-staters are flocking to low-tuition North Dakota State in frigid Fargo.

I went to community college my first two years before transferring to Ann Arbor, where I picked up all the basics for engineering — calculus, physics, chemistry, etc. I’m convinced that I got both a cheaper and better education there than those who were freshman and sophomores at Michigan, based on their descriptions of their classes (giant lecture halls taught by grad students for whom English was a second language). But I missed out on a couple years of the “college experience.”

[Update early evening]

The bubble will pop this decade, and here’s one reason why.

[Bumped]

Political Commentary, Space

No Surprise Here

17 Comments

If you are wondering whether or not Rick Perry is running, I think this is pretty good evidence — he’s slamming Obama for something he didn’t do:

The Obama administration has left “American astronauts with no alternative but to hitchhike into space,” Perry said in a press release.

…Perry criticized the lack of a clear path forward for NASA.

“Unfortunately, with the final landing of the Shuttle Atlantis and no indication of plans for future missions, this administration has set a significantly different milestone by shutting down our nation’s legacy of leadership in human spaceflight and exploration,” Perry said.

There are plenty of plans for future missions — people either remain blind to them, or are pretending they don’t exist for political reasons. And to blame Obama for shutting down the Shuttle with no immediate replacement is absurd. This is one of the few things that he really can blame on George Bush. There was nothing that Obama could have done, coming into office two and a half years ago, that would have had anything flying right now (at least nothing that Congress would have found politically acceptable), and it was really even too late to keep the Shuttle going. If he’s made a decision to do that then, they might have been able to start flying again in a year or so from now, but there would have been no consensus for spending the money necessary to do so. Space policy was a mess then, and it still is, but that’s mostly due to the porkers in Congress, and at least we’re not wasting as much money on Constellation, and particularly Ares I.

Anyway, I don’t know if Perry believes this, and is just ignorant of space policy (likely) or if he’s just cynically mistating to take advantage of an opportunity to bash his potential future opponent on an historic day. I do hope that he can be educated on the policy, but I fear that he will be “educated” by the likes of Kay Bailey Hutchis…

Hmmmmmmm….

This could present an interesting opportunity…

Political Commentary, Space

Lunch With An Astronaut

29 Comments

And interesting end-of-Shuttle post from Karl Schroeder (at Charles Stross’s blog):

A couple of years ago I sat down to lunch with a prominent astronaut, a Shuttle commander and space station veteran. We talked about space development and alternative paths to what NASA has actually done since 1970. I told him that what I’d been waiting for ever since Skylab was a variable-gravity research station, because it hadn’t taken us long to accumulate lots of evidence that lack of gravity is bad for the human body, and because lower gravity was the only physiological variable for the Moon, Mars and other possible destinations that we couldn’t currently test for. It’s also one of the most important; a variable-gravity station could tell us whether unaltered humans could live long-term on Mars, for instance. The astronaut asked me how I would be build this station, and I said, “Rotate two booster modules, one habitable, linked by tethers.” Much like Skylab, and very simple to construct.

He shook his head. “Tethers in space,” he said, “break.”

I blinked at him. “Well, if they break, you build ’em stronger, make ’em out of something else, or you use a number of them.” I didn’t quite say, “This isn’t rocket science,” but really, it’s basic engineering.

He shook his head even more vehemently. “Tethers in space,” he snapped past gritted teeth, “break.”

I had no reply. I had been watching him; he became visibly tense every time the conversation moved away from strict NASA doctrine.

If accurate, it does sound like a strange exchange. It’s like saying “rocket engines blow up” in response to a proposal to launch a rocket. Clearly, tethers have broken in space, but it’s a bizarre logic to thereby infer that all tethers in space will break. If you put in the proper structural safety factor (and aren’t heating it up by running a current through it electrodynamically), of course there is no reason that a tether need break. Being an astronaut is no guarantee of being a good engineer (or even necessarily logical). And many of them, of course, don’t have an engineering background.

[Via Chris Gerrib]

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

More Denigration Of American Entrepreneurs And Industry

26 Comments

…by so-called conservatives:

Let’s look at what the Obama budget proposes. It ends our manned moon and space exploration, but it proposes a total NASA spending increase by $1 billion. So NASA won’t be totally out of business. His FY2011 budget proposed $19 billion, with emphasis on science, not on manned space flight. He wants to end NASA’s manned space flight program and rent space on Russian spacecraft. He wants to turn space transportation over to private, commercial companies, such as Space X, United Launch Alliance, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, Bigelow Aerospace and others. There is only one problem with privatization with space flight – it does not work. Space X is where NASA was in 1960 with Project Mercury. The ability to put humans into orbit exists only on paper.

Really? The Falcon 9, which has had two successful flights with no failures, and the Dragon capsule, which flew into orbit and returned safely last year, “exists only on paper”? And a capsule that can carry seven crew is “where NASA was in 1960 with Project Mercury,” which could only carry a single person? Really?

Whence comes this compulsion from many supposed anti-government and free-market types to deliberately slander private industry? Do they really hate Barack Obama that much?