Category Archives: Political Commentary
The Eightieth Anniversary
I just realized that it was eighty years ago that the stock-market crash occurred, setting off the initial recession that Hoover and Roosevelt turned into the Great Depression. And we don’t seem to have learned the lesson. In fact, George Soros is spending millions to ensure that we don’t. Thanks, George!
[Update a few minutes later]
A little relevant history.
Not So Great A Success
Apparently, in addition to the recontact after stage separation and tumbling second “stage,” the parachutes on the Corndog failed and damaged the cases of the first stage. But hey, what do you want for half a billion dollars? I mean, besides a whole new launch company and launch vehicle, as SpaceX managed to do for that amount.
[Update a few minutes later]
The obvious question, of course, is if the recontact damaged the chute system.
Wordless Music
Does it mean anything?
The Most Transparent Administration In History
That phrase is going to seem as ironic as the Clinton pledge to be “the most ethical one.”
The administration repeatedly has stiff-armed Congress, the media, outside organizations and even a prestigious independent government commission. It has raised “none of your business” from an adolescent rejoinder to a public policy – to keep the public in the dark.
What is most disgusting is the hypocrisy, after all the sanctimonious criticism of Bush and the Republicans. It’s akin to Nancy Pelosi’s pledge to “drain the swamp” of the Republican “culture of corruption.” Yeah, tell it to Chris Dodd and Charlie Rangel.
An Innocent Mistake I’m Sure
The administration is overstating jobs “created or saved” by orders of magnitude.
Economic Freedom Fighters
Success Of The Corndog
Clark Lindsey has some useful thoughts. As he notes, it would have been pretty amazing if this test had failed, considering what a trivial thing they were doing, and how much they spent on it. If it had failed, it would (or at least should) have been the end of NASA, or at least Marshall, as a credible developer of rockets (not that they should have such a reputation now, given the history of the past three decades). Another SpaceX could have been founded and another Falcon 9 developed for the cost of that test. Which tells you all you need to know about the cost effectiveness of the NASA jobs program.
[Update a few minutes later]
Jeff Manber says that it was the wrong test, at the wrong time.
[Thursday morning update]
Chair Force Engineer has some thoughts on the Potemkin Rocket:
While Ares I-X was a low-fidelity test of a bad rocket design, the test’s fundamental flaws should not detract in any way from the Ares I-X program personnel who devoted the last three years of their life to making this test a success. While I strongly believe that Ares I-X should have waited until the 5-segment SRB was available, Ares I-X still taught NASA personnel much about ground handling operations and ocean recovery for the Ares rockets.
It would be churlish to imply that people who work on a bad project are bad people, and I’ve never intended to do that. I know from personal experience in the industry that sometimes you have to do what you have to do, and the real tragedy is that so much talent, and not just taxpayers’ money, has been wasted on this program. It was a huge opportunity cost, in time, dollars and people. The people who work on it both happily, and otherwise, deserve plaudits for doing as good a job as they could under the circumstances. Let’s just hope that their talents can soon be turned to more useful ends.
False Dawn
…in applied research, all of those new discoveries are ultimately going to slow or stall because the ‘pull’ of innovators who want to put those technologies to work, is fading. Sure, some big and aggressive companies like Intel will put some these inventions to work. But the big pull has always come from the thousands of fast-moving, risk-taking new start-up companies who find unexpected (and sometimes vast) new applications for those technologies.
Those companies aren’t there anymore. The crucial center of the tech world – new and fast-moving companies – the meat in the technology sandwich – is gone. Under the press of an economic slowdown, government regulations that have handcuffed entrepreneurs and venture capitalists – and perhaps most of all, an Administration that increasingly seems actively hostile to entrepreneurship and small business – high tech is hollowing out.
It all still looks good – the new cars in Silicon Valley traffic, the announcements of exciting new inventions – but there is no there there. It is a comforting illusion, one that has us believing that good times are just around the corner, that the next Apples and Googles are waiting in the wings to help restore the country to economic leadership and prosperity, and that Silicon Valley will once more become the generator of millions of new jobs across the land.
But it isn’t true. Over the last couple months, I’ve seen some spectacular new start-up companies, some with finished products on the market. All of them are starving from lack of capital –and their business plans, which would have attracted tens of millions of dollars two years ago, earning only shrugs and apologies from straitened venture capitalists and banks. My guess is that several hundred new start-ups in Silicon Valley have already been lost, with no sign anywhere on the horizon.
SOX is a big part of it, but the general political climate, in which “profit” is a four-letter word, and we have a president who elevates “public service” and denigrates business is a big one, too. And we won’t be able to do much about either for another year. Though if the polls are looking good to throw the kleptocratic anti-freedom rascals out next summer, perhaps the recovery can start a little sooner in anticipation.
What He’s Really Hiding
Frank J. says that the birth certificate issue has nothing to do with Kenya:
…while Obama’s original birth certificate has never been made public, Hawaii has issued a certificate of live birth that declares Barack Obama to be a forty-eight-year-old man. Usually I’d consider something like that official enough, but evidence has mounted that’s made me doubt it. First it was his weakness on foreign policy. Then there were his complaints about Republican opposition. Next was just how easy he is to push around. Finally, there is his whimpering about Fox News. Now, I think we owe it to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers to analyze Obama and ask ourselves: Are these the actions of an adult male or a whiny, sissy little girl?
This is an important question, and we should treat it seriously. Now I know partisan hacks are going to scream, “He’s not a little girl! Shut up shut up shut up!” But the evidence is devastating. Just look at Obama’s foreign policy since taking office. As enemies like Iran oppress their people and move towards obtaining nuclear weapons, does he strike back against them forcefully like any real man would? No, that’s too scary for him. Tough talk like that would make him hug his dolly. He just wants to talk and be nice so no one yells at him.
He even tried inviting Iran to a barbecue. That sounds a lot like a sissy little girl too afraid to stand up to people. Any day now, he might invite Ahmadinejad over to play house with him. Obama even took missile defense out of Eastern Europe because he didn’t want people getting all angry — just the sort of thing a little girl would worry about. For wimpy actions like this, Norway awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize, which is basically a prize awarded to people in recognition of them being dainty little girls.
Tut, tut, tut. Such disrespect of the Commandress-in-Chief.
I have to agree with many of the commenters, though. This is insulting to little girls everywhere.