Category Archives: Social Commentary

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Lie That Won’t Die

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No, Tim McVeigh was not a Christian:

The DOJ political appointee adds in the article that the upcoming presentation will also focus on Muslim culture with a special emphasis on the fact that the religion is no different from others, even though some in the faith have committed terrorist acts, Christians have done the same. As an example he offers that the worst terrorist attack in the U.S. prior to 9/11 was committed by American Christians in Oklahoma City. He also mentioned the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting last year in which another Christian, an American white supremacist, fatally shot six people and wounded four others.

Tim McVeigh was a self-avowed agnostic. So by definition, he was not a Christian. OK City had nothing to do with Christianity.

And if you read this article about the Sikh temple shooter, you know what you find no mention of? Christianity. Which isn’t surprising, given that he has a picture of himself in front of a swastika, and Hitler himself wasn’t Christian. He was a white supremacist, and it really is a slander to Christians to attribute his actions to that religion.

It’s really amazing how these people try to pretend that Islamist terrorism, like Fort Hood or the Boston Marathon bombing, has nothing to do with Islam, while grabbing for straws and outright lying about non-Islamic terrorism and its non-relationship to Christianity, or religion in general, all in order to strip us of our First Amendment rights. They need to be called on it, each and every time.

[Update a couple minutes later]

I didn’t get all the way to the end, so in fairness, I need to call Judicial Watch on this nonsense:

The president has even ordered the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to shift its mission from space exploration to Muslim diplomacy…

It’s amazing how many people actually believe this, based on nothing but an idiotic interview that Bolden gave to Al Jazeera. I suppose, though, because it seems pretty plausible that this administration would do something that stupid, even though it didn’t.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Private Road To Mars

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Jeff Foust has a roundup of the current news.

As I write in the book, I think that this is by far the most likely means that anyone will get to Mars:

Unfortunately, when it comes to space, Congress has been pretty much indifferent to missions, or mission success, or “getting the job done.” Its focus remains on “safety,” and in this regard, price is no object. In fact, if one really believes that the reason for Ares/Orion was safety, and the program was expected to cost several tens of billions, and it would fly (perhaps) a dozen astronauts per year, then rather than the suggested value of fifty million dollars for the life of an astronaut, NASA was implicitly pricing an astronaut’s life to be in the range of a billion dollars.

As another example, if it were really important to get someone to Mars, we’d be considering one-way trips, which cost much less, and for which there would be no shortage of volunteers.18 It wouldn’t have to be a suicide mission—one could take along equipment to grow food, and live off the land. But it would be very high risk, and perhaps as high or higher than the early American settlements, such as Roanoke and Jamestown. But one never hears serious discussion of such issues, at least in the halls of Congress, which is a good indication that we are not serious about exploring, developing, or settling space, and any pretense at seriousness ends once the sole-source cost-plus contracts have been awarded to the favored contractors of the big rockets.

For these reasons, I personally think it unlikely that the federal government will be sending humans anywhere beyond LEO any time soon. But I do think that there is a reasonable prospect for private actors to do so — Elon Musk has stated multiple times that this is the goal of SpaceX, and why he founded the company. In fact, he recently announced his plans to send 80,000 people to Mars to establish a settlement, within a couple decades, at a cost of half a million per ticket.

And I think that would be the best way to do it. Given that there is no political pressure for sustainable operations or settlement, it would be a mistake to count on the government doing it — it would just be a Mars version of Apollo, with little to show for it ultimately.