I had a post about this last week, but I forgot to remind people today, that I was on The Space Show this afternoon (I took a break from yardwork, where we’re tearing out old hedges, and still finishing up guttering–on the radio, no one can hear you sweating). Here’s a place to comment for anyone who happened to listen in.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
Thoughts On Global Warming
From Freeman Dyson. It’s a long read but worthwhile (as always).
[Update late evening]
Dayo Olopade has an uncomplimentary review of Dyson’s review.
FWIW, I don’t think that GW skepticism is equivalent to Pascal’s wager. But I don’t have time right now to say why.
Hope I live to tell the tale.
More Relationship Advice
It’s round two of Ask Barry!, over at Iowahawk’s place.
Saganites?
I find it amusing that these folks were clueless as to the purpose of the Google Lunar Prize when they signed up:
In my first blog, I wrote why Harold Rosen formed the Southern California Selene Group. In short, he and I registered our team to compete for the Google Lunar X PRIZE to demonstrate that a low-cost space mission to the moon could be accomplished and could lead to lowering the cost of some future robotic missions to planetary moons. Plus, we intended to have fun! Harold and I both are strong supporters of space science and robotic space exploration. (For one, I’m an astronomy and cosmology enthusiast.) We love the kind of work that JPL is doing, for example. But we most definitely are not in favor of human space missions. That is not our goal, nor do we support such a goal.
The Team Summit turned out to be a real wakeup call. In the Guidelines workshop that I attended just last Tuesday, the cumulative effect of hearing all day from Peter Diamandis, Bob Weiss and Gregg Maryniak that the “real purpose” of the Google Lunar X PRIZE was to promote the so-called commercialization of space (which I took to mean highly impractical stuff like mining the moon and beaming power to the earth, as shown in one of GLXP kickoff videos), humanity’s future in space, etc. etc., took its toll. I couldn’t help but think “what am I doing here?” When I spoke to Harold about it on the phone later, he agreed – no way did he want to be involved in promoting a goal he does not believe in.
So, what does this mean? It sounds to me like it’s not just a goal they “don’t believe in” (which is fine–they could not believe in it and still want to win the prize for their own purposes), but rather, a goal to which they are actively opposed, and don’t think that anyone should be pursuing. I’m very curious to hear them elaborate their views, but it sounds like they’re extreme Saganites. For those unfamiliar with the schools of thought, you have the von Braun model, in which vast government resources are expended to send a few government employees into space (this is Mike Griffin’s approach), the Sagan model (“such a beautiful universe…don’t touch it!), and the O’Neillian vision of humanity filling up the cosmos.
So when they say they don’t support such a goal, does that mean they oppose it, and would take action to prevent it from happening if they could? Sure sounds like it. And they take it as a given that lunar mining is “impractical,” but is that their only reason for opposing it, or do they think that it somehow violates the sanctity of the place, and disturbs what should be accessible only for pure and noble science? I’ll bet that they’d prefer a lot fewer humans on earth, too.
[Via Clark Lindsey]
[Update late morning]
Commenter “Robert” says that I’m being unfair to Carl Sagan. Perhaps he’s right–I was just using the formulation originally (I think) developed by Rick Tumlinson, though Sagan was definitely much more into the science and wonder of space than were von Braun or O’Neill… If anyone has a suggestion for a better representative of the “how pretty, don’t touch” attitude, I’m open to suggestions.
Like Mother
Not like daughter. Alice Walker’s daughter rejects gender feminism.
Sounds like she should be grateful she wasn’t born a boy. Who knows how badly she’d have been treated?
527 Fodder
I’ve got to believe that this is going to be the stuff of ads this fall. Do we really want people in this party to control both the Congress and the White House?
Unfortunately, “profit” is a dirty word to John McCain as well. Let’s hope some of his advisors can keep him under control.
[Update later afternoon]
Heh. Will Obama make Maxine Waters his Secretary of Energy?
[Update a few minutes later]
Geez. Maybe she’ll be energy secretary no matter who wins. John McCain:
Um, I don’t like obscene profits being made anywhere-and I’d be glad to look not just at the windfall profits tax-that’s not what bothers me-but we should look at any incentives that we are giving to people, that or industries or corporations that are distorting the market.
And this guy calls himself a “Reagan conservative”?
I think that Mickey has it right. Republicans are suckers.
“Highly Educated Voters”
Some thoughts about the supposed “highly educated voters” who the media told us voted for John Kerry, and are voting (and will vote for) Barack Obama:
I invited the applicants for interviews. These PMI wannabes came off as slick and somewhat rude. I noted something among my subjects, a sense of entitlement, they all, to varying degrees, emitted a message along the lines of “Why are you bothering me with this silly interview? I am obviously brilliant. I have a degree from Columbia. I am not going to spend my whole life as you have in this stupid bureaucracy. I just need this to add to my resume. I am in a hurry.”
I have two bachelors degrees and a masters. Am I highly educated? Well, I’m sufficiently educated not to let Obama pull the wool over my eyes.
Come to think of it, Obama seems to be in a hurry as well.
“Highly Educated Voters”
Some thoughts about the supposed “highly educated voters” who the media told us voted for John Kerry, and are voting (and will vote for) Barack Obama:
I invited the applicants for interviews. These PMI wannabes came off as slick and somewhat rude. I noted something among my subjects, a sense of entitlement, they all, to varying degrees, emitted a message along the lines of “Why are you bothering me with this silly interview? I am obviously brilliant. I have a degree from Columbia. I am not going to spend my whole life as you have in this stupid bureaucracy. I just need this to add to my resume. I am in a hurry.”
I have two bachelors degrees and a masters. Am I highly educated? Well, I’m sufficiently educated not to let Obama pull the wool over my eyes.
Come to think of it, Obama seems to be in a hurry as well.
“Highly Educated Voters”
Some thoughts about the supposed “highly educated voters” who the media told us voted for John Kerry, and are voting (and will vote for) Barack Obama:
I invited the applicants for interviews. These PMI wannabes came off as slick and somewhat rude. I noted something among my subjects, a sense of entitlement, they all, to varying degrees, emitted a message along the lines of “Why are you bothering me with this silly interview? I am obviously brilliant. I have a degree from Columbia. I am not going to spend my whole life as you have in this stupid bureaucracy. I just need this to add to my resume. I am in a hurry.”
I have two bachelors degrees and a masters. Am I highly educated? Well, I’m sufficiently educated not to let Obama pull the wool over my eyes.
Come to think of it, Obama seems to be in a hurry as well.
The Dem’s Dilemma
A concise description of it, over at Ann Althouse’ site (see second comment):
Obama would not be getting the super delegates at this stage if he were not african american.
Hillary has the popular vote. Moreover, if primaries were held again today, Hillary would greatly expand her lead. She would beat Obama by 3/4 of a million votes in Florida and she would crush him in Michigan. In addition, Obama’s big lead from Illinois would shrink.
Today compared to January, what we know about Hillary has not changed. This is not true for Obama. Everything we have learned about Obama in March-May has been negative. The truth is that Obama was unknown on Super Tuesday and people voted for him because they thought he was something other than what he is. Today Obama is more known and the trend of support for him in the battleground states is downward. The super delegates were put in place to pick up on these trends. Unfortuantely, the race issue has tied their hands.
Oh, well. Sux to be them.
It’s a bed they made, though. Sleep tight.