Category Archives: Political Commentary

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

“Team Obama Grows Stupid”

8 Comments

I disagree with Michael Barone:

The same people who directed the campaign that defeated Hillary Clinton and routed John McCain, a campaign that raised far more money and attracted far more volunteers than any before it, have within a year come up with a legislative program that is crashing in ruins and that, to judge from recent polls, has left the Democratic party weaker than I have seen it in almost 50 years of closely following politics.

The 2008 campaign was an impressive achievement. So, in a negative way, is the 2009 legislative program that has left the Democrats in such woeful shape in 2010.

My disagreement is that I don’t think they were ever smart. They beat Hillary because there was a lot of antagonism toward her in her own party, and because her campaign was complacent, and “inevitable.” They beat McCain because people were angry at Republicans, he ran a lousy campaign, the economy melted down, the media were cheerleaders and refused to cover or vet him, and people wanted to feel good about voting for the black guy. And even with all that, he only got 53%. I don’t now, and never have subscribed to the notion that he “ran a brilliant campaign.” He was just the right guy in the right place at the right time. And now that the campaign is over (though you’d never know it from his rhetoric) and has to actually govern, something that he’s never had to do before, the shortcomings are apparent. Unfortunately for them, they believed too much in their own press releases, and the fawning media coverage. Fortunately for the country, he’s inoculated us against leftists for another generation.

Political Commentary, Science And Society

What A Concept

30 Comments

If you’re going to do good science, release the computer code:

…if you are publishing research articles that use computer programs, if you want to claim that you are engaging in science, the programs are in your possession and you will not release them then I would not regard you as a scientist; I would also regard any papers based on the software as null and void.

So would, and do I. A large part of the gullibility of the general public and the media on this subject is that it doesn’t understand how computers, and programming works.

I also find it ironic that econometrics is much more rigorous, in terms of the need to present code for publication, about this than climate “science.”

[Update a few minutes later]

There’s a discussion at Slashdot about this. FWIW.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

The Limits Of Blaming Bush

3 Comments

Veronique De Rugy:

In my article in The American, I suggest the following: Let’s assume that all the spending before this year is Bush’s fault. Then, using data in President Obama’s budget request for fiscal 2010 and data from the fiscal 2011 budget request, I made this chart that projects spending each year from fiscal 2010 until fiscal 2019. The purple bars represent the spending amounts the president requested in February 2009. The orange bars represent the growth in the projected spending request between February 2009 and February 2010.

In his latest budget request, President Obama added roughly $1.6 trillion in spending over the next ten years on top of what he requested last year. Can President Obama blame that extra $1.6 trillion on former President Bush? No.

He can’t stop, though. It’s all he has.

Political Commentary, Space

The New Space Race

22 Comments

Paul Spudis continues to mourn the Vision for Space Exploration. I don’t think it’s lost yet — what was really cancelled was ESAS and Apollo on Geritol. There is not currently a specific goal, but I think that it’s still possible to reform (in the literal sense of that word) the VSE over the coming months, refocused on the original intent of lunar utilization. With regard to the Chinese, I am completely unconcerned about whether or not they plant a flag. If they show signs of doing resource utilization, though, I’ll be more concerned, and I suspect that the political establishment will as well, kicking off a true new race. But we won’t know that for years, at their current snail’s pace.

[Update a few minutes later]

Speaking of going back to the moon, Jon Goff has more thoughts on one-way-to-stay trips, which are probably the only way we’ll get back in the next decade. I’m wondering if it’s possible to do a “stone soup” project, and get commercial entities (e.g., Caterpillar) to donate components for the mission for PR purposes.

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.