I’m still not over this bug. I was pretty much done with the chills, sweats and fever a week ago, but it’s transmogrified into something more like a head cold. My nose has pretty much dried up now, and my voice no longer resembles that of a frog, so I can do business on the phone again, but it’s settled into my lungs now, and my energy level remains pretty low. Today is coughing-up-a-lung day (though sometimes it feels like I might reach down deep and hock up a kidney). I don’t think it’s turning into pneumonia, but I’ll keep an eye on it. All I know is that I don’t have much energy. The good news is that I’m catching up on my reading, including finally getting around to Jonah’s book
Category Archives: Political Commentary
Count Me As A 9/11 American
I’m sure as hell not an Abu Ghraib American. Obama seems to be, though.
[Update early Friday evening]
Here are more thoughts from Jennifer Rubin:
One might argue, as many of us here have, that his association with Wright was more than a failure to anticipate public reaction: it was a moral and intellectual failing. (Juan Williams, as he has before, explains this in today’s Wall Street Journal with searing clarity.) Yet she has a point: does Obama lack a “feel” for ordinary voters’ sensibilities?
Well, of course. His life experience is utterly unlike the average voter’s. On his journey from Hawaii to Indonesia to Hawaii to Harvard, he probably ran into a lot of critiques of American culture and not very much bowling. He hasn’t, it looks like, developed an internal compass that warns him when something may be offensive or off-putting to ordinary Americans.
Yup. Like some of my commenters, who will thus be quite shocked when he gets blown out this fall by those same “ordinary Americans.” It’s actually quite amusing how the supposed “party of the people” has become so elitist, and gotten so out of touch.
America’s True Shame
I don’t often agree with Ezra Klein, but he hits this one out of the park:
Criminals aren’t sent to prison so they can learn to live outside of prison; they’re sent to prison to get what they deserve. And that paves the way for the acceptance of all manners of brutal abuses. It’s not that we condone prison rape per se, but it doesn’t exactly concern us, and occasionally, as in the comments made by Lockyer, we take a perverse satisfaction in its existence.
Morally, our tacit acceptance of violence within prisons is grotesque. But it’s also counterproductive. Research by economists Jesse Shapiro and Keith Chen suggests that violent prisons make prisoners more violent after they leave. When your choice is between the trauma of hardening yourself so no one will touch you or the trauma of prostituting yourself so you’re protected from attack, either path leads away from rehabilitation and psychological adjustment.
I think that we have a lot too many people in prison, but that aside, with the possible exception of rapists (for whom it might be an appropriate eye-for-eye punishment) no one should have to fear being raped in prison. I think that it’s shameful that our society tolerates this. If we want to be explicit and openly declare that we are sentencing drug offenders and others to be raped, then we should do that, but if not, then we should put an end to it. I accept no excuses from the penal community. If they didn’t want it to happen, they could stop it.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time someone has pointed this out, and sadly, it won’t be the last, either. I see no groundswell of support to do anything about it.
America’s True Shame
I don’t often agree with Ezra Klein, but he hits this one out of the park:
Criminals aren’t sent to prison so they can learn to live outside of prison; they’re sent to prison to get what they deserve. And that paves the way for the acceptance of all manners of brutal abuses. It’s not that we condone prison rape per se, but it doesn’t exactly concern us, and occasionally, as in the comments made by Lockyer, we take a perverse satisfaction in its existence.
Morally, our tacit acceptance of violence within prisons is grotesque. But it’s also counterproductive. Research by economists Jesse Shapiro and Keith Chen suggests that violent prisons make prisoners more violent after they leave. When your choice is between the trauma of hardening yourself so no one will touch you or the trauma of prostituting yourself so you’re protected from attack, either path leads away from rehabilitation and psychological adjustment.
I think that we have a lot too many people in prison, but that aside, with the possible exception of rapists (for whom it might be an appropriate eye-for-eye punishment) no one should have to fear being raped in prison. I think that it’s shameful that our society tolerates this. If we want to be explicit and openly declare that we are sentencing drug offenders and others to be raped, then we should do that, but if not, then we should put an end to it. I accept no excuses from the penal community. If they didn’t want it to happen, they could stop it.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time someone has pointed this out, and sadly, it won’t be the last, either. I see no groundswell of support to do anything about it.
America’s True Shame
I don’t often agree with Ezra Klein, but he hits this one out of the park:
Criminals aren’t sent to prison so they can learn to live outside of prison; they’re sent to prison to get what they deserve. And that paves the way for the acceptance of all manners of brutal abuses. It’s not that we condone prison rape per se, but it doesn’t exactly concern us, and occasionally, as in the comments made by Lockyer, we take a perverse satisfaction in its existence.
Morally, our tacit acceptance of violence within prisons is grotesque. But it’s also counterproductive. Research by economists Jesse Shapiro and Keith Chen suggests that violent prisons make prisoners more violent after they leave. When your choice is between the trauma of hardening yourself so no one will touch you or the trauma of prostituting yourself so you’re protected from attack, either path leads away from rehabilitation and psychological adjustment.
I think that we have a lot too many people in prison, but that aside, with the possible exception of rapists (for whom it might be an appropriate eye-for-eye punishment) no one should have to fear being raped in prison. I think that it’s shameful that our society tolerates this. If we want to be explicit and openly declare that we are sentencing drug offenders and others to be raped, then we should do that, but if not, then we should put an end to it. I accept no excuses from the penal community. If they didn’t want it to happen, they could stop it.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time someone has pointed this out, and sadly, it won’t be the last, either. I see no groundswell of support to do anything about it.
Want To Poke Anti-War Hollywood In The Eye?
Go here.
Endings Versus Beginnings
Jeff Foust has a report on an interesting talk by Charles Miller that I missed yesterday.
Jim Muncy Speaks
Says that we have to engage SEDS, both because it’s a good source of enthusiastic people who will work cheap, and more importantly because we aren’t getting any younger, and we have to start nurturing young people.
He’s here from Washington, and he’s here to help.
Depressing to sit in meetings in Washington listening people talk about The Vision, and hearing the same things he heard about X-33, SEI, Space Station Freedom, etc. They don’t even seem to learn any new lies.
It is silly season in Washington. Working on the budget. It’s an election bill so they won’t even finish the budget before the election. Wants the election to be over, and has wanted it to be over for months.
Does it matter? Probably not. He and Lori Garver did a “debate” (really an assessment of the candidates at the time) a month and a half ago. Hillary is probably the most supportive of space spending. Fairly pro defense for a New York Democrat. Has in tepid words endorsed the idea of the vision. Also said positive words about private companies and working with them. Has not specifically endorsed Ares.
McCain’s experience with space has been primarily concerned with cost control and getting the job done right.
Obama is the most interesting, and unclear what he thinks. But there is potential for something different, because he says Shuttle is boring. Instincts are not to support current NASA approach. But worst thing would be to continue Ares I and Orion and delay lunar missions. Could create opportunities, or not. Crisis is coming, and crisis represents opportunities. NASA and Air Force are not monoliths.
“You should see the list of things that Orbital wants from Florida to get them to move ther e from Wallops.” There are figures inside the establishment calling for different approaches. Senator Nelson is writing a bill that increases COTS by several hundred million dollars to augment SpaceX and bring in an additional provider for crew transport. He recognizes that this is the only way to have a chance of closing “the Gap.” Senator Shuttle recognizes that he has to bring private space companies to Florida.
We’ve seen NASA put out an RFI for human suborbital science from the private sector. Things are changing. But don’t assume that NASA and the Air Force have come around in general. Also don’t assume that NASA or the Air Force are going to write you a check. Have to figure out what their real mission/requirements are.
We are the PC industry of space. It wasn’t just the people running the computer centers and mainframes thinking that PCs were choice. The challenge was getting the people who used computers then to think through what they did, and how they did it, and imagine doing it differently, and how they could use these new small computers. There are half a dozen people like Ken inside of NASA, but that’s not enough. We have to do their job (which is also our job) which is to figure out how to provide value to them
from their perspective. What he does for a living is help companies do that.
We have to figure out how we play a role in this future, and if an Obama becomes president, and we can’t continue to fund space on an ICBM budget, and we want to continue to send people into space, we will have to come up with new ways.
ESAS is not the same as the Vision. The Aldridge Report is right. It’s not perfect, but it’s largely right. It’s not a blueprint, which is why Griffin was upset with it, and wrote one of his own instead.
Work together, build alliances, come up with concepts to get to market sooner. As the dinosaurs die off, there will be some scraps for the mammals, and room to grow. We are coming to the attention of powerful people, which is a good thing. There are good times ahead, and people are figuring out that there is something wrong. The house of cards is going to fall. Can’t say well, but it’s going to fall.
Mike Griffin might be arrogant (and he has enough degrees to justify that) and he may be building the wrong rockets, but he has also been putting money into commercial activities while he builds das rocketz. We haven’t proven ourselves. Elon still hasn’t launched a payload to orbit. John Carmack still hasn’t won his two million dollars. Only Burt has an accomplishment to date. We can’t just be intellectually correct. We have to show the world that we can do it.
Moral Courage
Does Obama lack it? I could never find anyone who could explain to me why his “race speech” was so courageous, though it was acclaimed as such in the media.
As one commenter notes, he’s no Ward Connerly.
Damn You, Global Warming
Damn you! It’s interfering with the Canadian seal hunt
“It’s a very slow start,” said Phil Jenkins, spokesman for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, noting that sealing boats were finding it difficult to get to the herds because of thick ice.
Emphasis mine. Just another one of those insidious effects.