Category Archives: Political Commentary

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Atlas Empire Strikes Back

4 Comments

With FUD:

Unlike Vulcan, which is still a paper rocket, and Falcon 9, which has yet to fly defense missions, Atlas V has 53 successful missions under its belt. This long history of reliability will be an attractive selling point for the government customer, which is intolerant of launch risk, especially when lofting payloads sometimes costing as much as $1 billion.

Furthermore, Atlas V has earned a reputation of being on time, a key requirement for some missions with very tight launch windows. Some government officials are concerned SpaceX has not consistently performed in optimal launch windows.

“Compared to starting with a clean-sheet launch system, upgraded launch pad and clean sheet engine, we believe that re-engining the Atlas V is the lowest cost, risk and schedule solution to getting the U.S. off of dependence on Russian engines,” King tells Aviation Week in an email. He notes that the company has been under contract to NASA for the past two and a half years developing and demonstrating kerosene-powered booster stages and engines. This work will provide lessons on the Atlas V re-engining project.

Here’s their problem, though:

Aerojet Rocketdyne officials have been openly frustrated by slow progress by the Air Force in crafting a strategy for a propulsion program. A traditional Pentagon contractor with less access to private funding, Aerojet Rocketdyne has been lobbying hard for government money to augment its work on the engine while propulsion for Falcon variants and the Vulcan are privately funded.

This means the Aerojet/Dynetics/Schafer team will likely rely on a more traditional government funding model to bring their design to fruition while ULA and SpaceX tap private cash at a time when defense spending is under pressure.

Led by the old guard of Griffin and King, it’s a thrashing dinosaur.

Here’s more at Reuters.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

The Bin Laden Raid

1 Comment

Did Obama lie about it?

Probably, he lies (or at least deludes himself) about most things. The problem is, the source is Sy Hersh, so there’s no way to tell what the real story is.

[Update a while later]

I’d note that if he wasn’t buried at sea, that would be a good thing. I still think that, if he was given a traditional Islamic burial, it was a monumentally stupid thing to do.

As an aside, it’s hard to believe I wrote that four years ago. Where does the time go?

Political Commentary, War Commentary

King Salman

1 Comment

He’s not going to visit the US for now.

Probably waiting until Valerie Jarrett is no longer in power. This is what “smart diplomacy” looks like, I guess.

[Update a few minutes later]

More links and thoughts from Elizabeth Price Foley.

[Update a few minutes later]

[Afternoon update]

What the Saudi snub really means, and other disconcerting thoughts from Mike Morell:

I’d be a little careful in saying that this is an intentional snub. We may learn in next 24 or 48 hours that it’s really health reasons or something. … But having said that, there is deep, deep frustration on the part of our Sunni Arab allies in the Middle East with U.S. policy. They are deeply concerned about Iran and the challenges it poses. To them Iran is a much bigger threat than al Qaeda and ISIS. They’re worried about us from two perspectives. Are we taking Iran as seriously as we should? And are we as focused on Iran’s regional behavior as we are on the nuclear program? The deeper fear they have is that over time the United States sees Iran as a more natural partner than the Sunni Arabs. You see these deep concerns reflected in what they say and do. My view, strongly held, is that we should be helping them push back against the Iranian desire for dominance in the region.

President Jarrett disagrees.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, War Commentary

Blasphemy

17 Comments

…is not bigotry.

For that matter, neither is not wanting to decorate a cake for a gay wedding. It’s a shame that this even has to be said.

[Sunday-morning update]

Thoughts on freedom of speech from Mark Steyn:

It’s not Pamela Geller who emboldens Islamic fanatics, it’s all the nice types – the ones Salman Rushdie calls the But Brigade. You’ve heard them a zillion times this last week: “Of course, I’m personally, passionately, absolutely committed to free speech. But…”

And the minute you hear the “but”, none of the build-up to it matters. A couple of days before Garland, Canadian Liberal MP (and former Justice Minister) Irwin Cotler announced his plan to restore Section 13 – the “hate speech” law under which Maclean’s and I were dragged before the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission and which, as a result of my case, was repealed by the Parliament of Canada. At the time Mr Cotler was fairly torn on the issue. We talked about it briefly at a free-speech event in Ottawa at which he chanced to be present, and he made vaguely supportive murmurings – as he did when we ran into each other a couple of years later in Boston. Mr Cotler is Jewish and, even as European “hate” laws prove utterly useless against the metastasizing open Jew-hate on the Continent, he thinks we should give ’em one more try. He’s more sophisticated than your average But boy, so he uses a three-syllable word:

“Freedom of expression is the lifeblood of democracy,” said Cotler, who was minister of justice under Paul Martin.

“However…”

Free speech is necessary to free society for all the stuff after the “but”, after the “however”. There’s no fine line between “free speech” and “hate speech”: Free speech is hate speech; it’s for the speech you hate – and for all your speech that the other guy hates. If you don’t have free speech, then you can’t have an honest discussion. All you can do is what those stunted moronic boobs in Paris and Copenhagen and Garland did: grab a gun and open fire. What Miliband and Cotler propose will, if enacted, reduce us all to the level of the inarticulate halfwits who think the only dispositive argument is “Allahu Akbar”.

Alas, we have raised a generation of But boys. Ever since those ridiculous Washington Post and AP headlines, I’ve been thinking about the fellows who write and sub-edit and headline and approve such things – and never see the problem with it. Why would they? If you’re under a certain age, you accept instinctively that free speech is subordinate to other considerations: If you’ve been raised in the “safe space” of American universities, you take it as read that on gays and climate change and transgendered bathrooms and all kinds of other issues it’s perfectly normal to eliminate free speech and demand only the party line. So what’s the big deal about letting Muslims cut themselves in on a little of that action?

Why would you expect people who see nothing wrong with destroying a mom’n’pop bakery over its antipathy to gay wedding cakes to have any philosophical commitment to diversity of opinion? And once you no longer have any philosophical commitment to it it’s easy to see it the way Miliband and Cotler do – as a rusty cog in the societal machinery that can be shaved and sliced millimeter by millimeter.

[Bumped]

[Update a few minutes later]

Reasons why Pam Geller’s cartoon contest is no different than Selma.

[Update a while later]

Say what you will about Bill Maher, but at least he’s consistent when it comes to bashing religions. He doesn’t give Islam a pass. And, as usual, Lincoln Chaffee is a moron.