Category Archives: Political Commentary

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

An Open Letter From Ken Langone

16 Comments

Stop bashing business, Mr. President:

A little more than 30 years ago, Bernie Marcus, Arthur Blank, Pat Farrah and I got together and founded The Home Depot. Our dream was to create (memo to DNC activists: that’s build, not take or coerce) a new kind of home-improvement center catering to do-it-yourselfers. The concept was to have a wide assortment, a high level of service, and the lowest pricing possible.

We opened the front door in 1979, also a time of severe economic slowdown. Yet today, Home Depot is staffed by more than 325,000 dedicated, well-trained, and highly motivated people offering outstanding service and knowledge to millions of consumers.

If we tried to start Home Depot today, under the kind of onerous regulatory controls that you have advocated, it’s a stone cold certainty that our business would never get off the ground, much less thrive.

Wreckers.

Political Commentary, Space

Back To The Moon

46 Comments

People are making a big deal of the latest story that Buzz Aldrin has seemingly changed his mind since April about the need to go back to the moon:

Aldrin believes NASA should move in stages toward a manned mission to Mars, by building outer space fuel stations and developing the moon. He said NASA has already spent hundreds of millions researching the projects, and their investment should be utilized — as recommended by Norm Augustine, former chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board and chairman of the Review of the U.S. Space Flight Plans Committee.

What’s more, Aldrin said, the American government should not simply shrug off the considerable experience we have with lunar travel. “The U.S. has the most experience in the world, of any nation, in dealing with the moon,” he told FoxNews.com. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that flexibility is needed here.”

Back in April, this was what was reported:

Aldrin prefers that NASA forgo our moon in favor of a trip to the Martian moon Phobos and then a permanent settlement on the Red Planet itself. President Obama’s proposed $3.8 trillion federal budget request cuts NASA’s moonshot Constellation program, which has cost $9 billion over six years, instead proposing to hire private contractors to fly resupply missions to the International Space Station. It also focuses research money on new rockets that could one day be used to send astronauts into Mars, its moons or an asteroid.

So what happened? Let’s leave aside the common confusion between Constellation and returning to the moon (there are many ways to get back to the moon, almost all of them better than Constellation). Let us also stipulate that Buzz can be…mercurial (no pun intended). It could be that what he meant at the time was that he was opposed to redoing Apollo, which was essentially what Constellation did, by Mike Griffin’s own admission, and that this was misinterpreted as an opposition to going to the moon at all. But even if he has changed his mind, aren’t people entitled to do that?

This is the first time that I’ve heard him talk about “fuel stations,” but once one starts thinking about fuel stations in cis-lunar space, it’s inevitable that one will think about the moon as a source for the fuel (and oxidizer).

A couple months ago, I had (non-alcoholic) drinks with Buzz for an hour and a half after Bill Haynes’ funeral, where we bemoaned the current state of space policy. Afterward, I emailed him the link to my piece from last year at The New Atlantis. Perhaps he read it. It would account for his new-found enthusiasm for fuel stations.

Maybe I’ll give him a call and ask.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

So Why Aren’t There “Shovel-Ready” Jobs?

19 Comments

To read the comments here, it sounds like we’ve reached second-world levels of bureaucracy. It’s like the whole system is just grinding to a halt. And of course, California has become worse than most places, with little prospect for change, given that the electorate continues to go downhill as the productive leave.

[Update a few minutes later]

The Texas model:

What does Austin know that Washington doesn’t? At its simplest: Don’t overtax and -spend, keep regulations to a minimum, avoid letting unions and trial lawyers run riot, and display an enormous neon sign saying, “Open for Business.”

It’s amazing what can happen when you have political leaders who understand, and don’t hate business.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

I Was A Right-Wing Obama Town Hall Crasher

8 Comments

An interesting story:

MTV deserves respect not only for populating the room with relatively articulate conservatives, but for actually giving those differing opinions a chance to be heard — this push on the economy was particularly well-stated. President Obama unfortunately gave little in the way of real answers. He’d hear a personal story or probing question and immediately jump off onto whatever talking point might be related to the question.

As a person, Obama was affable, kind, and gracious. When the camera turned off, he stayed after and talked to the crowd, working his way across the room and shaking hands. There were tears from a few members, and more than one person who sobbed out, “Mr. President, you inspire me more than any other person in the world.”

When he made his way over to me, he shook my hand and wished me good luck.

“Do you want the best piece of advice for a good marriage?”

“Yes sir.”

“Do whatever she tells you to do.”

I thanked him.

It’s a shame that so many conservatives were too wary of MTV to apply.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

“Decolonizing” Space?

12 Comments

I don’t know whether Barack Obama is an anticolonialist or not, but it’s quite ignorant to think that this would be an explanation for ending Constellation, which was not an “ambitious” project. An ambitious project would have been one to make it possible for us to actually colonize the moon, not redo Apollo. NASA is not being “converted” to improving Muslim self esteem, and anyone who actually understands the new policy knows that, but very few people seem to.