Boeing and Lockmart still seem on board with the new rocket development, despite Congressional idiocy. Of course, they know that the only way to survive against SpaceX is to build a new rocket.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
Great Moments In Socialism
[Late-morning update]
Related: Five economic myths that will not die.
A lot of economics is counterintuitive to many.
Luxurious College Apartments
When people ask why college tuition is so high, defenders of the higher-education system point to things like “Baumol’s cost disease” (costs in industries without much productivity growth tend to rise, because they have to compete for labor with more productive industries) and declining state contributions to public colleges. No doubt these play a part. But this cannot explain the vast upgrades in college residential amenities that have taken place in the 20 years since I graduated from college, when a student union and some ivy on the walls was about the best you could expect.
But of course, our parents were paying for it, and they didn’t care whether we had a swimming pool. A certain Spartan element was supposed to be part of the ritual of college attendance, just as it had been when they were in college. What changed? I suspect the answer is that rising tuition, and the increasing reliance on student loans, has placed more of the financial responsibility into the hands of students. And the students shop for colleges based on … well, about what you’d expect when you give tens of thousands of dollars to 18-year-olds and ask where they’d like to spend the next four years.
This is policy insanity.
The Space-Policy White Paper
Keith Cowing has some thoughts, with which I largely agree. This was clearly a compromise, in which the SLS/Orion supporters and Commercial Crew supporters agreed to come together to support each others’ programs, and present a united front. Unfortunately for the former, one program makes sense, and the other doesn’t. At some point, it will die, but not before billions more are wasted on it.
On The Radio
I did a show this morning with Jim Muncy and Paul Sutter at the NPR affiliate in Columbus, OH. I thought it went pretty well.
When Glaciers Are Sexist
I think we’ve come to the point at which academia is just one huge case of Poe’s Law.
Bloomberg
The risk he will not take:
…when I look at the data, it’s clear to me that if I entered the race, I could not win. I believe I could win a number of diverse states — but not enough to win the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to win the presidency.
In a three-way race, it’s unlikely any candidate would win a majority of electoral votes, and then the power to choose the president would be taken out of the hands of the American people and thrown to Congress. The fact is, even if I were to receive the most popular votes and the most electoral votes, victory would be highly unlikely, because most members of Congress would vote for their party’s nominee. Party loyalists in Congress — not the American people or the Electoral College — would determine the next president.
I’m always amused at the horror of some that a president might be selected exactly the way the Founders intended it.
Commercial Crew
“Building in safety from the ground up.”
Note the theme that safety is the highest priority, and no discussion of how much this is all costing, or how much it’s delaying ending our dependence on Russia (which is part of the cost) in addition to delaying an increase in ISS crew size (which is also part of the cost).
Sydney Blumenthal
Here are the 23 classified emails he sent Hillary.
Remember, he wasn’t even allowed to work for the State Department by the White House. She basically ignored them. Anyone not named “Clinton” (or, rather, not a high-level Democrat) would have been indicted over all this long ago.
How Inevitable Is Trump?
Not as much as some want us to think.
#ProTip: If you want to have a high probability of stopping Trump, get behind Cruz. If you want to throw the dice, try to get to convention.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) March 7, 2016
[Late-morning update]
Kurt Schlichter has sympathy for the Donaldites.
So do I, but The Donald isn’t their (or anyone else’s) salvation.