Category Archives: Technology and Society

Law, Philosophy, Technology and Society, War Commentary

Hillary’s Email Setup

7 Comments

Twelve red flags about it.

Only twelve?

But her supporters won’t care; she’s a Democrat. Moreover, she’s a Clinton.

I love this: “How many people who are paying a company to host their data ask the company to stop backing it up? This is where the story gets good.”

[Update later afternoon]

At this point, what difference does it make?

Without the avalanche of distraction, hypocrisy, willful ignorance, and outright lies that the liberal elite and their human centipede press corps employed over the last few decades to ensure their corrupt, mouth-breathing, and/or perverted Democrat heroes are never held accountable, Trump would not be possible. We might still care about quaint things like character, competence, and not being a loathsome piece of human refuse.

But we don’t. Not anymore.

Hillary’s formulation of “Nothing matters, no one cares” is just a little different. For her, it’s “What difference, at this point, does it make?” You know, that comment she made when some congressmen – not including any Democrats – tried to hold her to account for getting four Americans killed and lying to not only their families’ faces but to our faces about it.

And the people who aren’t in Hillary’s trick bag are supposed to care that Trump’s a jerk?

They don’t, by and large. Sure, Trump makes what we conservatives all agree is a distasteful comment insinuating that a federal judge’s rulings would be governed by an inherited characteristic, in this case his ethnicity. The mainstream media goes nuts at how horrible Trump is for assuming that an inherited characteristic might govern someone’s actions in public office. Then a day later, the media experiences a collective climax over the fact that a woman has been nominated, and they think it’s great because that inherited characteristic will govern her actions in public office.

Read the whole thing.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society, War Commentary

“The Worst Mass Shooting In History”

46 Comments

Yes, stop saying that, media idiots:

Will you people quit keeping a leaderboard? There are sick f***s watching you that take that as some sort of challenge as they update their .xls spreadsheets.

[Update a few minutes later]

I knew they were racists, but why do Democrats hate gay people so much they want to shoot up their nightclubs?

[Update a while later]

Log Cabin Republicans: The problem isn’t homophobia, or guns, but the homophobia of Islam. The Pink Pistols agree that it’s not about the guns. FWIW.

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

The Obama Space Doctrine

12 Comments

Congress recognizes that it’s coming to an end:

Although the House language must still go to conference with the Senate, it seems unlikely anyone in that body will fight too hard to save the asteroid mission, Capitol Hill sources told Ars. Even if the administration vetoes the bill, it doesn’t really matter to Congress, because key members of Obama’s leadership team, including NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, will probably be gone next year. This year’s legislation effectively lays down a marker for negotiations with the new occupant of the White House in 2017.

The key legislators behind the new exploration approach for NASA, California Democrat Mike Honda and Oklahoma Republican Jim Bridenstine, at first blush seem an unlikely pair. Honda consistently ranks among the most liberal House members and Bridenstine among the most conservative. But with this new legislation, they have come together out of a desire for NASA to reconsider the Moon as a pragmatic interim destination before going to Mars.

“There is no better proving ground than the Moon for NASA to test the technologies and techniques needed to successfully meet the goal of sending humans to Mars by the mid 2030s,” Honda told Ars. “I am proud to lead the Congressional effort to ensure that NASA develops a plan to fully take advantage of potential partnerships with commercial industry, academia, and international space agencies to send affordable missions to explore and characterize the lunar surface.”

Loren Grush similarly writes that abandoning the moon was a mistake. I think she misses a key point here, though:

…perhaps the biggest strength of a Moon colony is how quickly NASA could pull it off. Studies have suggested that a crewed mission to the lunar surface could be done with existing rockets, such as the Falcon 9 or the Atlas and Delta rockets from United Launch Alliance, at a relatively low cost.

This is true of Mars, as well, at least if we consider Falcon Heavy. In fact, it’s the only affordable way to do it, given that Congress isn’t going to raise NASA’s budget to fund Mars hardware in the face of the continuation of the unneeded SLS.

Finally, Keith Cowing notes that the Planetary Society has an ulterior motive in continuing to support ARM:

The real reason why the Planetary Society supports ARM is that it delays sending humans to Mars. One look at their Humans Orbiting Mars report and you’ll see that they want to take longer to get to Mars and only play around on Phobos when they get there. Their own staff overtly state their reluctance to send humans to the surface.

Friedman’s statement that ARM cancellation would mean that “there will be no human space exploration earlier than 2030” demonstrates a certain level of cluelessness on his part. I guess he missed all of that SLS/Orion-based Deep Space Habitat goodness that was all over the news a month ago.

Lou Friedman wants us all to think that dire consequences will result if ARM is cancelled. I’d suggest the opposite: by focusing NASA’s limited resources on the things that actually get humans to Mars sooner – we will actually get humans to Mars – sooner.

I don’t care about Mars, but people who do should be loudly opposing SLS.