Category Archives: Political Commentary

Political Commentary, Space

The End Of The Apollo Cargo Cult?

64 Comments

I have a longish rebuttal to Tom Jones up at Popular Mechanics.

[Update a few minutes later]

In case you’re confused, there are a couple problems with the piece that I’m trying to get fixed. First of all, obviously, that was supposed to be two billion dollars per launch not two bucks per launch (if only…). And I’ve quoted Tom Jones in the first paragraph on the second page, and farther down the page, Charlie Bolden, but there are no quote marks right now, so it makes it look as though their words are mine.

[Late afternoon update]

Jeff Greason weighs in on fairing-size issues in comments, and Jon Goff has some thoughts on heavy-lift technologies.

[Update a few minutes later]

The quotes on page two have been fixed, but we still have dollar-store prices for Ares I flights.

[Early evening update]

Ken Murphy says it’s the dawn of a new space enterprise.

Political Commentary

John Murtha

9 Comments

RIP.

As I was taught, if you don’t have anything good to say…

[Update a few minutes later]

I assume that there will be a special election. I’ll bet that a Republican will have a good shot at taking the seat.

[Update a couple minutes l later]

Yup, a special election on primary day, May 18th, and it’s the only district in the country that voted for both John Kerry and John McCain. The only thing, really, that kept getting him reelected was the pork. Looks like a likely Republican pickup to me.

[Late afternoon update]

An obit from Rick Moran. With the good, the bad and the ugly.

Political Commentary

The Human Rights Facade

1 Comment

…is beginning to crumble.

There is a vital role for groups like HRW and Amnesty to play in the world. Properly understood, their mission is to use their moral authority to shame and condemn tyranny and those who wish to make the world a hospitable place for tyrants and terrorists. But moral authority requires moral clarity. HRW and Amnesty have been overtaken by activists who use their position to wage easy campaigns against open societies instead of taking on the more difficult, thankless, and sometimes dangerous struggle against closed ones.

Kind of like the global warming scam. Amnesty International should be ashamed, but it’s apparently incapable of it.

Political Commentary, Popular Culture

Best Ad

22 Comments

I missed the first half (after giving up on our Costco trip yesterday, being unable to find a parking space and having forgotten that everyone would be stocking up for the game today, we went about game time. Lightest traffic ever…), but my favorite ad in the second half was Audi’s. Selling us green cars by showing us our ecofascist future…

[Update a few minutes later]

I agree:

I can’t wait for the video showing Hitler’s reaction to Peyton Manning’s fourth-quarter interception.

I think that it says something about the culture that, sixty-five years later, Adolf Hitler has become a pop-culture joke. Unfortunately, I think that the ideology of radical Islam and Allah will be much more resistant. Partly because when we make fun of Hitler, there aren’t riots in the streets, with threats of decapitation.

[Update a few minutes later]

Did the Colts get the kiss of death?

He also thought the Olympics were a shoe-in for Chicago because of his involvement (epic fail), that Corzyn would win in New Jersey, Deeds in Virginia, Coakley in Massachusetts, and that he would by himself succeed in Copenhagen. That’s 0-5 there tough guy! From NFL.com: President Obama predicts Colts victory in Super Bowl XLIV.

I’m guessing that there are a lot of donkeys who will be begging The One to stay the hell away from their campaigns this fall.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Obama Isn’t A Keynesian

7 Comments

He just thinks he is:

If Keynes were alive today, what would he think of President Obama’s fiscal policies?

He would roll over in his grave if he could see the things being done in his name. Keynes was opposed to large structural deficits. He thought that they chilled rather than stimulated the economy. It’s true that we’re stuck with large deficits now. The goal should be to reduce them, not to take on new spending that makes them worse.

Today, deficits are getting bigger and bigger with no plan to significantly lower them. Keynes understood what the current administration doesn’t understand that the proper policy in a democracy recognizes that today’s increase in debt must be paid in the future.

We paid down wartime deficits. Now we have continuous deficits. We used to have a rule people believed in, balanced budgets. And now that’s gone.

But misinterpreting Keynes allows them to pursue their political agenda of growth in government.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

The Great IPCC Meltdown

6 Comments

…continues:

When the glacier story broke, IPCC apologists returned over and over again to a saving grace. The bogus glacier report appeared in the body of the IPCC document, but not in the much more carefully vetted Synthesis Report, in which the IPCC’s senior leadership made its specific recommendations to world leaders. So it didn’t matter that much, the apologists told us, and we can still trust the rigorously checked and reviewed Synthesis Report.

But that’s where the African rain crisis prediction is found — in the supposedly sacrosanct Synthesis Report.

So: the Synthesis Report contains a major scare prediction — 50% shortfall in North African food production just ten years from now — and there is no serious, peer-reviewed evidence that the prediction is true.

But there’s more. Much, much more.

You wonder at what point, if any, the warm-monger worshippers will realize that they’ve been scammed?

And as Mark Steyn notes (again), it’s not just a science scandal, it’s a scandal of gross journalism malpractice.

[Update a few minutes later]

Time to follow the money.