The bomb suspect was allowed on a plane despite being on the “no-fly list.”
The country’s in the very best of hands.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
More Nostalgia
…from Gene Kranz:
In an interview on the balcony of the U.S Space & Rocket Center near a life-sized model of the Saturn V rockets he launched four times, Kranz said he’s worried about losing unique NASA expertise.
“I believe that our nation cannot afford this kind of an impact,” the 76-year-old Kranz said. “We have the most talented team of people – scientists, engineers, mathematicians, technicians.
“I was there when we started and had to build this kind of a team,” Kranz said. “It took three to five years to get the people in place and get them trained, and we had a very healthy aircraft industry at that time that we could get people from.
“Once you send this team away,” Kranz said, “I think they have totally underestimated the difficulty they’re going to have getting a team capable of designing, building and testing a spacecraft.”
“This team” hasn’t successfully designed, built or tested a spacecraft since the seventies. All it’s done is operate one, at humungous costs. In particular Marshall’s history over the past three decades is a litany of failure. As Mike Griffin said, part of the purpose of Ares was to actually create such a team at Marshall, via on-the-job training. So if you’re worried about a “team” being broken up, that horse was out of the barn long ago.
The Huntsville-designed Saturn V “was a darn well-designed spacecraft,” Kranz said. “I wish we had it today.”
I’ll bet you do. Unfortunately, it too was horrifically expensive. The only reason that we built as many as we did was that it was important to beat the Soviets to the moon. It had little to do with space, per se. And Marshall has done little since to justify its existence, because NASA has become unimportant (space was never important, even during Apollo), and instead merely a jobs program. But ironically, as the Space Frontier Foundation points out to the hypocritical Senator Shelby, it has apparently become too big to fail.
[Update a while later]
An emailer who wishes to remain anonymous writes:
The team Gene remembers was destroyed in 1969-1970, in the first space draw-down. (As I recall ABC made a movie about it called “An American Tragedy.”) The competent technical people left the agency and the incompetent bureaucrats remained behind because it was the only job they could do. Add to that the destruction of US’s industrial base by the EPA and safety-firsters, and the Communist take-over of the educational system, and that explains the rotten mess visible today. I’m surprised we manage to launch anything at all.
Back in the mid eighties, someone at JSC told me that the reason that the space station was such a mess was that it had become a make-work project for deadwood from the Shuttle development program as it wound down. I won’t mention the name, but it was someone high in the organization at that time, and now retired.
The New Oligarchs
Thoughts on the Wall Street Democrats:
…every time the president accuses Republicans of trying to “block progress” or of defying “common sense,” as he did that night, he is executing a dangerous tightrope walk. His party’s electoral fortunes depend on his making forceful calls for reform of our banking laws. His party’s fundraising fortunes depend on his ensuring that no serious reform—of the kind that endangers the big banks’ size and power—ever happens. That may be why the Democrats’ strategy of painting the Republicans as obstructionists on finance reform has gained little traction. By the same token, if Republicans ever did get serious about reforming the banks—and even about breaking up an industry that has turned into a Democratic war chest—they would put Democrats in mortal peril. There seems no chance of this. Obama’s taunts show a confidence, verging on certitude, that Republicans’ hypocrisy is as deep as his own.
Sounds like the Republicans suffer from false consciousness. I still think that low marginal rates are a good idea, though.
Note To Kevin Drum
I am not a conservative, though I do speak fluent conservative, which is why I’m trying to sell conservatives and Republicans (and the intersection of those two sets, which is smaller than any imagine) on the new program.
And yes, we did have dinner the other night, with Marc Danziger and Michael Totten, and others, in Manhattan Beach, and a good time was had by all (as far as I know).
[Update a few minutes later]
Clark Lindsey responds to the Charles Homan piece at the Washington Monthly.
Iowahawk’s Writing Style
Explained. Be sure to poke around the site — he’s got some other new stuff up.
It’s Official
California is the worst state in the country in which to do business. I can believe it.
It’s a tragedy what the vandals in Sacramento have done to such a beautiful and naturally wealthy place.
Close Call
…but SCOTUS will find the individual mandate unconstitutional. Let’s hope.
Imagine
I’ve discussed this before, but here are some thoughts on one of the dumbest songs ever written (Give Peace A Chance is a runner up). It never previously occurred to me, though that Lennon might have actually been mocking his own fans with it. I suppose it’s possible.
Vulnerable House Seats For The Donkeys
Geraghty counts more than ninety of them. I think he got tired toward the end.
Lutherans, No Doubt
Or maybe Episcopalians.
Eight have been arrested in Pakistan in connection with the Times Square bombing attempt.
They were probably upset about health care.
[Update a few minutes later]
More thoughts from Mark Steyn:
To the traditional who-ya-gonna-believe-me-or-your-lyin’-eyes cliches, Mayor Bloomberg has now added the inspired line that the amateurish loner with no connection to terrorism “didn’t like the health care bill”. I do hope they ask Faisal Shahzad his views on the individual mandate.
Any moment now, Janet Napolitano will announce that effective immediately it will be illegal to remove your sweat shirt in a public place.
By the way, there are so many of these isolated extremists and lone wolves, they surely belong to the United Amalgamated Union of Lone Wolves and Isolated Extremists. So their cadillac health care plan probably has an Obamacare opt-out anyway. Very odd.
Why do public officials so reflexively dissemble and misdirect every time? In the end, all they’re doing is undermining confidence in the integrity of their own institutions. That doesn’t seem a smart move.
It could be because they’re not very smart. Apparently that’s not a criterion for becoming the mayor of a major city, or a federal official.
[Update a couple minutes later]
The bomber had to have had help:
While officials called the bomb itself “crude” and “amateurish”, they now privately acknowledge that the preparation, advanced espionage and meticulous orchestration of events required to insert a Sport Utility Vehicle into a curbside parking space anywhere in New York City reflects a high-level of intellectual and technical sophistication.”
“You don’t just drive into New York and park your car,” the source said. “Without a real-time satellite video feed and agents on the ground in constant communication with the driver, that kind of operation can take hours on a good day. Even with all of those resources, the perps still had to count on a certain degree of luck.”
More evidence that it was sophisticated white guys. And they only have to be lucky once…
[Update a few minutes later]
It’s the Jihad, stupid.