Some thoughts on Rep. Wilson, Barack Obama, and the South. I agree with Glen Wishard’s comment about the casual bigotry of “liberals.”
Category Archives: Political Commentary
An Impression Of The Protest
…from Matt Welch, who wandered out to the mall to see it..
[Late evening update]
Per the discussion in comments, a graphical tale of “left” versus “right” events on the mall.
[Late Sunday night update, with a bump]
Henry Vanderbilt (who should start a blog on space transportation and other topics) sends an analysis of the crowd size via email. He says it’s clearly six figures — hundreds of thousands: Continue reading An Impression Of The Protest
The Washington Tea Party
Mark Hemingway has a report, with pictures.
ULA Unleashed
I was hoping I’d be back in California in time to attend the AIAA meeting this coming week in Pasadena, because it looks like it will have some very interesting (and perhaps politically explosive) technical papers. As Clark Lindsey notes, the United Launch Alliance has apparently been spending a lot of IR&D on some (up to now) politically incorrect ideas. They’ve developed a complete lunar architecture concept that uses only EELVs and derivatives of them for depots and landers (though they note that other launchers could complement it as well).
As Clark did, I’m going to repeat the introduction from Frank Zegler’s paper, in particular:
The present ESAS architecture for lunar exploration is dependent on a large launcher. It has been assumed that either the ARES V or something similar, such as the proposed Jupiter “Direct” lifters are mandatory for serious lunar exploration. These launch vehicles require extensive development with costs ranging into the tens of billions of dollars and with first flight likely most of a decade away. In the end they will mimic the Saturn V programmatically: a single-purpose lifter with a single user who must bear all costs. This programmatic structure has not been shown to be effective in the long term. It is characterized by low demonstrated reliability, ballooning costs and a glacial pace of improvements.
The use of smaller, commercial launchers coupled with orbital depots eliminates the need for a large launch vehicle. Much is made of the need for more launches- this is perceived as a detriment. However since 75% of all the mass lifted to low earth orbit is merely propellant with no intrinsic value it represents the optimal cargo for low-cost, strictly commercial launch operations. These commercial launch vehicles, lifting a simple payload to a repeatable location, can be operated on regular, predictable schedules. Relieved of the burden of hauling propellants, the mass of the Altair and Orion vehicles for a lunar mission is very small and can also be easily carried on existing launch vehicles. This strategy leads to high infrastructure utilization, economic production rates, high demonstrated reliability and the lowest possible costs.
This architecture encourages the exploration of the moon to be conducted not in single, disconnected missions, but in a continuous process which builds orbital and surface resources year by year. The architecture and vehicles themselves are directly applicable to Near Earth Object and Mars exploration and the establishment of a functioning depot at earth-moon L2 provides a gateway for future high-mass spacecraft venturing to the rest of the solar system.
Frank would probably never have been able to publish a paper like this when he was at Lockheed, which still has a major stake in Orion, and the Boeing people are similarly constrained for now, as long as they hold out hope for continuation of their upper-stage work on Ares I. But Frank is at ULA now, and ULA owes NASA nothing, particularly after having their launchers spurned when Griffin came in. That, combined with the fact that Ares’, and indeed Constellation itself’s blood is in the water means that they can come out boldly with the kind of innovation that NASA has been avoiding for over four years, and kick Constellation while it’s down. If we get back to the moon with a NASA program, it’s going to look a lot more like this than the current plans.
[Update a few minutes later]
Chris Bergen also has an extensive summary of the proposal.
A Lecture For Barack Obama
…from Jack Webb, and Harry Morgan.
Start The Countdown
I’m waiting for the first leftist and ACORN defender to accuse the people who did the secret video of the prostitution counseling of being racist.
I’m also sure that ACORN defenders will assure us that these people (who were fired tonight) are just a couple bad apples and, despite the old aphorism, didn’t spoil the whole bunch. That the two young (true) journalists were just lucky, and hit the jackpot, finding the only rotten non-golden delicious in the organization in their first and only attempt.
Right.
[Friday evening update, about 22 hours later]
Can I call them, or can I call them? It only took a day or so.
[Bumped]
The Tony Soprano Health Insurance Plan
Some trenchant thoughts on the Dems’ plan to take over the health-care system, from Shikha Dalmia.
Still Crazy After All These Months
Clark Lindsey, on the irony of Mike Griffin’s continuing complaints about having his expensive toys taken away.
Truthers Versus Birthers
Some thoughts from Jonah Goldberg:
The question of which scenario is more plausible is neither academic nor trivial. This summer, a host of columnists, commentators, and activists, seemingly taking their cues from a White House and DNC public-relations offensive, declared that the rise of the “birthers” was a fatal indictment of modern conservatism and the Republican party. The refusal of the birthers to give up their cockamamie theory was proof that the GOP had succumbed to the “paranoid style.” Indeed, according to some liberal commentators, the birthers were the potential wellspring for a nascent Nazi movement in America. Never mind that the vast majority of leading Republicans and conservatives — from Newt Gingrich to Ann Coulter — rejected the birthers categorically.
Fast-forward to the last week or so. Van Jones, an avowed “Communist” and passionate supporter of convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, was a truther par excellence. Contrary to many reports, he didn’t merely sign 911truth.org’s petition in 2004, he helped organize one of the first truther groups as early as 2002.
When these and other revelations came to light, Jones resigned his post as White House “green jobs czar.”
The reaction from much of the liberal establishment has been fascinating, hypocritical, and deeply creepy.
Not out of character for them, unfortunately.
Remember
I was in San Juan, getting ready for a flight back to LA, watching Fox’n’Friends before going to the airport. When I saw the second plane hit the towers in real time, I knew there was no point in going to the airport. I also knew we were at war. That war hasn’t ended — the enemy still wages it against us. BUt the current administration doesn’t really seem to believe it. They can’t even bring themselves to call it a war, and they seem to gag on the word “victory,” or “win.” All they know how to and want to do with wars is “end” them.
[Update a few minutes later]
Reflections from Lileks:
It’s all so far in the past, isn’t it? The ten-year-old you had to sit down and console and reassure is off to college. The President is retired – seems like he left two years ago. The wars grind on, but as far as the front pages are concerned, they’re like TV shows that lost their popularity but pull enough viewers to avoid cancellation. (The video store doesn’t even carry the DVD of the first two seasons anymore.) We’re used to the hole in the ground where the towers used to be, and if they announced they won’t rebuild, but will pave it over and use it for parking, people would shrug. We haven’t forgotten that the towers fell, but no one remembers what they planned to replace them with. The towers they planned looked empty in in the pictures – shiny, contorted, as if twisting away to avoid a blow.
Right after the towers fell, people who’d never liked them as architecture wanted them back just as they were. Get back up in the sky! But it hasn’t happened. Even if they build the replacement towers, there’s still a space in the sky where no one will ever stand again. We could stand there once. That we couldn’t stand there eight years ago was their fault. That we cannot stand there today is ours.
Back to normal. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.
[Update a few minutes later]
Michael Yon has a report from Helmand Province in Afghanistan, eight years later. Hit his tip jar.