Writes about the funeral of his father, a WW II vet (among many other things). He was three years younger than mine, who has been gone now for forty years.
Category Archives: War Commentary
China And NASA
Are they in a race?
Bryan doesn’t mention the (white) elephant in the room: SLS.
The Truth Comes Out
“Washington has laid all the ugly cards out on the table, and at last we have clarity.”
What a scene it presents. On the one hand is a group of people who think America is the source of all evil that should spend the rest of its historical existence atoning for the mischief it has loosed in the world. On the other hand is a group who believe that for all its faults it is the greatest country in the world and that those who want to destroy it should go back to Somalia. Whichever point of view you subscribe to (or neither) it’s hard to deny that these factions have existed for some time and are only now coming to grips in the open.
Yes.
[Update a while later]
Trump is not a racist: He’s just moving the Overton Window back to normal.
Eastern Europe’s “Subconcious” Fear Of Islam
A history of the Siege of Vienna.
Bastille Day
Yes, it is nothing to celebrate. Might as well celebrate the October Revolution, or the ascent of Hitler.
The First Moon Landing
What most people don’t know about it.
As I’ve noted for years, the reason that we haven’t been able to do Apollo again is that we just barely did it the first time, and it’s extremely unlikely that the stars will align to allow it to happen again. And that is as it should be, for America. There was a very powerful sense in which Apollo was not the right thing for a country based on entrepreneurialism and free enterprise to be doing.
I’m reading Roger Launius’s new book, in which he talks about four perspectives of Apollo. I noted to him privately that there was a fifth, that he didn’t address:
I felt a little left out. I think I represent a fifth perspective, in that I believe that Apollo was both necessary and not a waste of money for what it accomplished (a major non-military victory in the Cold War), but that it set us back in human spaceflight for decades (and continues to do so, as witness the current ongong Artemis fiasco).
He didn’t disagree.
The Coming Boeing Bail Out
I thought at the time that it was a bad idea for the Pentagon to push for consolidation in the 90s, and in particular for the FTC to approve the sale of McDonnell Douglas to Boeing. History has proven me (and others) correct. The article doesn’t talk about space, but NASA’s procurement practices have been as bad as the Pentagon’s, in terms of encouraging and rewarding poor performance.
The American Revolution
No, it was not a mistake.
Scott Adams
The “Anti-Fascist” Fascists
Apparently it’s OK to both physically and verbally attack a gay Asian man for covering “Antifa” riots, both by “Antifa” and the media. In fact, the Portland mayor approves.
Commentary from The Spectator:
…the real enablers here are the politicians and journalists who’ve championed Antifa, such as the CNN presenter Chris Cuomo, as well as the Portland authorities who have consistently turned a blind eye to the criminal behavior of the group. Indeed, Andy himself was assaulted by an Antifa activist at his gym last month and the Portland Police took no action. And he was punched in the stomach while covering an Antifa May Day protest in Portland while a police officer stood by and did nothing.
Let’s hope this sickening attack finally shames the Portland authorities into taking action against the group. Beating up a journalist because he or she criticises your political ideology is what the Nazi party did in Germany in the 1930s.
Don’t count on it. More from Reason, and American Conservative.
[Update a few minutes later]
“Trump supporters should thank Antifa, et al., as they are terrific motivators for Trump’s voters, and, in fact, recruiters for the Trump coalition. It’s already reached the point where Trump, once considered a crazy man, now looks like the reasonable adult in the room.”
[Update a few more minutes later]
Michelle Malkin has set up a fund for Andy.
[Monday-morning update]
By any means necessary — it won’t stop with Andy Ngo.
The Western elite had been dominant for so long that their virtue, no less than their wealth, was undoubted. It was as if Dorian Gray said of his portrait: that can’t be me; I must have been infected by conservatives. The idea that the Thing Western society assured itself did not exist had come for them, at last, was totally unexpected as was the realization that all their tokens of virtue were not keeping It at bay.
Perhaps the magnitude of Hillary’s 2016 loss is only now becoming apparent. Clinton didn’t just lose the White House, she also lost the Democratic center to the radical ornaments. The diminution of Brooks, Stevens, Kristof, and even Biden are the consequence of that defeat. The radicals who once served the useful purpose of putting fear into the other side are taking center stage. It’s not surprising that the French Terror began with the purge of the moderates and the urgency of virtue. As Robespierre put it, virtuous men have no choice but to employ any means necessary:If the basis of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the basis of popular government during a revolution is both virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror is baneful; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing more than speedy, severe and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue; it is less a principle in itself, than a consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing needs of the patrie.
The Thing is older than one would think. And more voracious. The intellectual Old Bolsheviks thought their illustrious records would protect them from the ruffian Stalin. Bukharin, who was eventually executed by Stalin, once said: “Koba, you used to be grateful for the support of your Bolshevik comrades.” “Gratitude is a dog’s disease,” Stalin shot back.
It will get worse before it gets better, unfortunately.
But Ted Cruz has called for federal action against the mayor of Portland: “To federal law enforcement: investigate & bring legal action against a Mayor who has, for political reasons, ordered his police officers to let citizens be attacked by domestic terrorists.”
Yes. This is insurrection.
[Update a while later]
If you don’t stand up for Andy Ngo, you could be next:
What you just saw was a pack of privileged white dudes in masks beating up a smaller guy who’s a minority (Ngo is Vietnamese-American) and a member of the LGBTQ community (he’s gay). These cowards punched him and threw things at him in the middle of the street, in broad daylight, because they knew the cops wouldn’t stop them. It might as well be Alabama in the ’50s. The only difference between Antifa and the Klan is fashion.
First the fascists came for the gay Asians, and I said nothing, because I was not gay, or Asian.
[Update a while later]
Good, Harmeet is on the case:
Here’s the story at the “right wing” Quillette.
[Update a few minutes later]
Leftist “journalists” respond to the attack with the flippancy you’d expect.
[Update a few minutes later]
Yes, it’s insane that we’re having a debate over whether it’s acceptable to violently attack a journalist.