Category Archives: Political Commentary

Education, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Space

You First, Pete

8 Comments

Lileks, on Peter Singer and other misanthropes.

I don’t believe that there’s any inherent good in having people on earth. We’re fond of ourselves, but that’s about it.

Uh huh. Well, here’s a question I find more interesting than Singer’s threnodies: if there was no sentient life on Earth, would Nature still be beautiful? Everyone loves the beauty of Nature, after all. Everyone agrees it’s a Good and Wonderful Thing, although some think some spiritual experience can be distilled from its contemplation. I don’t – I sense the inconceivable depths of time, the wonders of natural systems, and find aesthetic pleasures if they mesh with my own preferences, i.e., I like the colors of a sunset, but do not like the face of a spider. There is no moral component to beauty, no ethics in a great forest. I like them, but they are not my Brother or Mother anymore than the bear considers me a distant relative. I prefer a certain amount of distance from Nature, as in the form of walls and roofs and clothing and medicine and so on, and if this makes our lives “disconnected” from Nature, then talk to the beaver, who gnaws down trees and dams streams. But we cannot disconnect with Nature; we’re part of it. We’re just the clever part that figured out how to arm ourselves against its indifference.

We pay Nature the compliment of being Beautiful, but that’s a hard-fought luxury. Nature requires the application of judgment to be beautiful. It requires people.

That’s just as true off planet as on.

Business, Political Commentary, War Commentary

A Simple Question

84 Comments

I don’t have time to expand on this right now, but I assume the point is obvious to intelligent readers (as opposed to Obama koolaid drinkers).

Why is it that the president would talk to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions, but he thinks that, in the middle of arguably the biggest domestic crisis of his presidency, it’s a waste of his time to have a conversation with the head of British Petroleum?

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

We Have To Pass The Bill

4 Comments

…in order to find out what’s in it:

“It’s not top-notch coverage by any stretch, but it is better than no coverage,” said Neil Trautwein, a health care lobbyist at the National Retail Federation. “There’s slight irony, given the president’s repeated assertion that if you enjoy your coverage you can keep it, that this would take the coverage away from part-time employees until 2014.”

And these idiots think that health care is going to be a winning issue for them this fall?

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

Stupid Commentary On Bigelow

36 Comments

Was this supposed to make any sense?

Robert T. Bigelow, of Bigelow Aerospace and the Budget motel chain, believes he can build the space stations, and others will be able to fly paying customers, including NASA astronauts, into orbit—all for less money than NASA and other government space agencies currently pay to transport and host spacemen and spacewomen.

Truthdig is not entirely convinced this is such a good idea. In a year of oil spills, runaway Toyotas and toxic happy meals, we’re not so sure about turning over exploration of the final frontier—and transportation of our astronauts—to private profiteers.

Apparently the word “profit” remains a dirty word to some. Which is why it continues to amaze that this new policy came out of the Obama administration.

And of course, we know how scrupulous that “non-profit,” NASA is about flight safety. Why, it’s only killed fourteen astronauts in the past quarter century.

[Update a few minutes later]

The other dumb thing about this is the notion that any space activity is “exploration.” This is one of the ignorant straw-man shibboleths of the bashers of the new plan (notably, by the moronic commenter “DCSCA” over at Space Politics) — that “exploration” is being turned over to private enterprise, which they claim won’t work, because it’s not profitable. But all that the plan actually calls for is to get NASA out of the business of transportation to LEO, so that they can finally focus on real exploration.