Get drunk and vote for McCain.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
Hofstadter’s Law
That’s the recursive bit of wisdom that Douglas Hofstadter came up with, that goes “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.”
Jeff Foust has a good example of it today, as he examines the state of the suborbital industry. It looks now like no one is likely to enter commercial service prior to 2010, unless Armadillo can make it. Which brings up a little problem.
When the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act (CSLAA) was passed in 2004, the industry got regulatory relief for eight years–until 2012–in which FAA-AST would not regulate the vehicles with respect to passenger safety, as long as there were no accidents involving passenger loss. This was in recognition of the fact that a) the agency didn’t really know how to do that and b) if it attempted to do so, the industry might be still born as a result of a costly and time-consuming regulatory overburden. The eight-year period was provided to allow the companies time to develop and test vehicle design and operational concepts, with informed consent of the passengers, that would provide a basis for the development of such regulations as the industry matured (as occurred in the aviation industry in the twenties and thirties). In light of the SS1 flight in fall of that year, there was an expectation that there would be other vehicles flying in another two or three years (as Jeff notes–Virgin was predicting revenue service in 2007), which would have provided a five-year period for this purpose.
But if few, or none are flying until 2010, that leaves only two years before the FAA’s regulatory power kicks in, which will be an insufficient amount of time to meet the intended objectives of the original maturing period.
Assuming that the logic still holds (and it certainly does for me, and I assume most of the industry and the Personal Spaceflight Federation) the most sensible thing to do would be to simply extend the period out to, say, 2018. Unfortunately (at least in regard to this issue), the most sensible thing is unlikely to happen.
In 2006, control of the Congress passed to the Democrats, which means that Jim Oberstar of Wisconsin took over as chairman of the relevant committee. He was opposed to the regulatory relief, railing against it as a “tombstone mentality” (whatever that means). He was unmoved by the argument that overregulating now would save passengers, but only at the cost of none of them ever getting to fly. Being in the minority at the time, he lost the battle, but now that he’s in charge, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to get an extension from him. In fact, even an attempt to do so might result in losing it altogether if the issue is revisited under his jurisdiction.
For those hoping for what would seem to require a miracle–Republicans regaining control of at least the House, this would be one more reason to wish for that, if they’re fans of this nascent industry. Either that, or at least hope that Oberstar (and his partner in dumbness, Vic Fazio) moves to a different committee.
[Afternoon update]
Not that it affects the point in any way, but as a commenter points out, I goofed above. Oberstar is from Minnesota. I could have sworn he was a Badger.
If It Wasn’t For The Seriousness
…”of running the country, the Dems would be the comedy hit of all time.”
Quote from comments. I have to agree.
Coincidence?
I don’t know how many major American politicians have died on Independence Day. The most famous examples, of course, are Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who both died on July 4th, within a few hours of each other, half a century after the signing. But whatever the number is, there’s now one more. Here are some more thoughts on the man, written in February, in the context of a review of a biography that came out several months ago.
I was never a big fan–while I think that the complaints about the affirmative action campaign ad were overblown, I do agree with John Hood’s assessment:
…by mixing a defense of property rights with less-savory references to “Negro agitators,” out-of-state provocateurs, and Martin Luther King’s subversive friends, Helms and other Southern commentators ended up weakening the very limited-government principles they espoused, with unfortunate and lasting consequences for American liberty. To make a truly persuasive libertarian case against federal regulation of private business decisions, it would have been necessary to marry every criticism of government overreaching with calls for the South’s social and moral transformation and clear denunciations of racist business owners. Given that the segregation syndrome was largely the work of decades of intrusive laws and electoral abuses by state and local governments, there was at least a plausible conservative case to be made not just for federal intervention, but also for anti-discrimination laws to dismantle white supremacy and remedy the social and economic consequences of past state coercion.
Yes.
But he was also, by all accounts a kind and personable man, and a tireless fighter for human freedom as well, as the Solzhenitsyn story reveals. As one of those who helped win the Cold War, that part of his legacy shouldn’t be overlooked by those who can only blindly (and probably unfairly, given all the caricatures) perceive a racist.
Is Correlation…
Maybe. The problem is, McCain is likely to be as bad in some ways, with all of his stupid talk about “obscene” profits.
More Space Fascism Commentary
Thomas James notes some irony in Dwayne Day’s piece:
…when one follows the Google search link he does provide, a good number of the results have to do with James Hansen calling for trials of oil executives and others who question the political orthodoxy of global warming…trials whose political nature and predetermined outcome would no doubt have pleased the arguably fascist Roland Freisler.
Not exactly the point that Dr. Day was trying to make, I suspect.
[Previous post here]
[Update a couple minutes later]
Speaking of fascists, Thomas also offers a preview of August in Denver:
…come on…”Students for a Democratic Society”? As if the hippie nostalgia of Recreate 68 wasn’t bad enough, we now have someone reanimating that corpse? I thought it was the right that supposedly clung to the faded glories of a distant golden age.
OK, so I guess it won’t be another Summer of Love.
Never Again
Eric Raymond sees the same disturbing things I do in Senator Obama:
I am absolutely not accusing Barack Obama of being a fascist or of having the goals of a fascist demagogue. I am saying that the psychological dynamic between him and his fans resembles the way fascist leaders and their people relate. The famous tingle that ran up Chris Matthew’s leg. the swooning chanting crowds, the speeches full of grand we-can-do-it rhetoric, the vagueness about policy in favor of reinforcing that intoxicating sense of emotional identification…how can anyone fail to notice where this points?
There are hints of grandiosity and arrogance in Obama’s behavior now. As the bond between him and his followers become more intense, though, it is quite possible they will not remain mere traces. I’m not panicked yet, because Obama is still a long way off from behaving like a megalomaniacal nut-job. But if the lives of people like Napoleon, Mussolini, or Hitler show us anything it’s that the road from Obama’s flavor of charismatic leader to tyrant is open, and dangerously seductive to the leader himself.
There is one more historical detail that worries me, in this connection. There is a pattern in the lives of the really dangerous charismatic tyrants that they tend to have originated on the geographical and cultural fringes of the societies they came to dominate, outsiders seeking ultimate insiderhood by remaking the “inside” in their own image. Hitler, the border Austrian who ruled Germany; Napoleon, the Corsican who seized France; and Stalin, the Georgian who tyrannized Sovet Russia. And, could it be…Obama, the half-black kid from Hawaii?
Again, I am not accusing Barack Obama of being a monster. But when I watch videos of his campaign, I see a potential monster in embryo. Most especially do I see that potential monster in the shining faces of his supporters, who may yet seduce Obama into believing that he is as special and godlike as they think he is.
I don’t know if the McCain campaign has the savvy or moxie to properly go after Obama, but I think that there will be a lot of 527s who will, once the campaign really starts in the fall.
Cultural Suicide?
That was Glenn’s title for this post by Eric Raymond. I couldn’t think of a better one.
This is a real problem and one that is dramatically underreported.
Obama’s “Freedom From Faith”
Jim Geraghty has some observations.
But I found this interesting (not that I hadn’t seen it before):
…many religious believers probably couldn’t imagine anything worse than not having their relationship with God. They don’t see their relationship with their Creator, by whatever name they call the divine, as something they could be “free” from, and in fact a fairly common definition of Hell is in fact “complete separation from God.”
This is one of those intellectual gulfs that separates me from believers. I not only can imagine not having a relationship with God, but I live the dream. Yeah, if I really believed in the fire and brimstone thing, and the imps <VOICE=”Professor Frink”>and the poking and the burning and the eternal tooooorment…glavin…</VOICE>, then I might decide that sinning wasn’t worth it. But if hell be “complete separation from God,” something that I’ve had all of my life, bring it on. All it gets from me is a shrug.
Liberals and Conservatives
…and civil rights:
The Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, upholding the Second Amendment right of individuals to own firearms, should finally lay to rest the widespread myth that the defining difference between liberal and conservative justices is that the former support “individual rights” and “civil liberties,” while the latter routinely defer to government assertions of authority. The Heller dissent presents the remarkable spectacle of four liberal Supreme Court justices tying themselves into an intellectual knot to narrow the protections the Bill of Rights provides.
I think that this is also an excellent example of how confusing and misleading, and useless really, the two labels are.