I didn’t hear the press conference today, but I’m hearing from a number of sources that Bibi took the president to school.
Well, he badly needs it. I’m afraid, though, that on issues like this, he’s a slow learner.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That
Newt isn’t having a good week. His phone rang during a speech, and the ringtone is “Dancing Queen.”
It’s A Mystery
Frank Morring has a story over at Aviation Week on Chris Chyba’s testimony to Congress, in which he pointed out the same cost analysis that I did the other day:
Chyba repeated his 2009 warning that NASA has not been able to develop one vehicle and fly another at the same time, given historic budget constraints. But he said NASA may be able to learn from SpaceX as it develops the heavy-lift launch vehicle Congress has ordered it to build for missions beyond LEO.
“The other thing that I think one would want to understand in some detail would be why would it be between four and 10 times more expensive for NASA to do this, especially at a time when one of the issues facing NASA now is how to develop the heavy-lift launch vehicle within the budget profile that the committee has given it,” Chyba said.
I suspect the question was somewhat rhetorical — he probably knows the answer. As far as Congress is concerned, high costs are a feature, not a bug, as long as they don’t get so high that the program dies. Because high costs means lots of jobs for their constituents that they can point to at election time. A more efficient commercial industry would probably create even more jobs, but they would be a lot less visible. And note that whether or not anything is actually accomplished is secondary, if it’s a concern at all. Did anyone in Congress ever complain that Constellation was behind schedule? Maybe, but I don’t recall it. There were no complaints about the program from the rocket scientists on the Hill until it got canceled.
Activists Rally For Space
I have a blog post over at the Washington Examiner about this week’s call to action.
The War On Entrepreneurs
Clint Bolick has some thoughts on free enterprise, the courts and the Constitution.
[Update a few minutes later]
More thoughts on economic freedom from the (unfairly demonized) Charles Koch.
[Update a few minutes after the above]
Are the jobs gone for good? I agree with a lot of the commenters there that it remains a problem of overregulation, and insufficient freedom.
But Don’t Say It’s A Violent Religion
Muslim moms kill daughters for marrying Hindus. Well, obviously, they had it coming.
From Climate Alarmist
…to skeptic:
At this point, official “climate science” stopped being a science. In science, empirical evidence always trumps theory, no matter how much you are in love with the theory. If theory and evidence disagree, real scientists scrap the theory. But official climate science ignored the crucial weather balloon evidence, and other subsequent evidence that backs it up, and instead clung to their carbon dioxide theory — that just happens to keep them in well-paying jobs with lavish research grants, and gives great political power to their government masters.
Follow the real money.
On War
A book review, of an old book:
On War is shaped by Clausewitz’s encounter with the history and ideas of his times; it is also shaped by his experience in one of the first truly modern bureaucracies. (One of the achievements of Frederick the Great that so impressed contemporaries was the meticulous organization of the Prussian army and state.) The relationship of individual genius and vision to bureaucratic routine is a serious strategic problem in the modern world. The virtues that make a great military commander are, as Clausewitz notes, intensely personal: imagination and moral courage being perhaps the rarest and most valuable. These are perhaps the worst qualities for an aspiring bureaucrat to have.
There are desk generals and battle generals, and the unequal struggle between them is a recurring problem — and not just in military organizations. Desk generals excel in the arts of bureaucratic warfare, stick close to the conventional wisdom in all ways, and were brilliantly described in two unforgettable Gilbert and Sullivan songs: Modern Major General and The First Lord’s Song. In times of peace these timeserving mediocrities rise inexorably to the top; wars usually begin with a painful shakeout while the beribboned and bemedaled lunkheads demonstrate their hopeless incapacity at the true military art. Then and only then do the unclubbable and unconventional officers whose only virtue is their ability to somehow win battles gradually edge to the fore and the Grants and the Shermans elbow past the Popes and the McClellans.
In terms of space, NASA has been at peace since the late sixties, and hasn’t had the necessary crisis to bring forth the war-fighting generals, though the current budget crunch may make it happen. We’re starting to see some signs of it (e.g., Phil McAlister). The problem remains, though, that space isn’t important. Until it is, we won’t take it seriously.
Call Your Congressperson
Both the Space Access Society and the Space Frontier Foundation have put out political action alerts. From SAS: Continue reading Call Your Congressperson
High Speed
…failure.
The Obama administration reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer changes his name to “Max Power” (he saw it on a hair dryer). He tells Bart that there are three ways to do something: the right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way. “What’s the Max Power way?” It’s like the wrong way, but faster.