Business, Space, Technology and Society

SpaceX Test Flight Booboo

24 Comments

I’m at the Tall Ship Festival, but hearing that they lost a vehicle, maybe Grasshopper. Fortunately, with their production line, shouldn’t take long to replace.

[Late-evening update, after getting back from Port of LA]

Yes, I was using the informal “Grasshopper” to refer to SpaceX VTVL R&D test vehicles. It was the F-9R, version 1. Gywnne had said last year she was actually disappointed that they never lost the initial Grasshopper, because it meant they hadn’t been pushing the envelope enough. Looks like they solved that problem today.

Oh, and they had a successful static fire at the Cape today of the vehicle for next week’s Asiasat launch.

[Update a while later]

OK, Jeff Foust has the story up at New Space Journal.

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Public Schools As Child Abuse

37 Comments

Example #1,456,382:

To be thorough, they should have searched the neighbor’s yard for a dead Triceratops, too. Everyone involved in this tragedy should be flogged naked through the streets, then put in the stocks wearing a dunce cap.

Hey, the kid deserved it! He’s probably also a young-earth creationist, what with his apparent belief in the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Real Villain Of Ferguson

51 Comments

It’s LBJ’s (not so) Great Society.

Yes. It’s been a half-century of social disaster for blacks.

[Wednesday-morning update]

Jason Riley tells some hard truths:

Once upon a time, Eric Holder called for us to engage in a conversation about race. If that conversation were to be frank, it would have to start with the brute and ugly fact pointed out by Jason Riley. I do not doubt that racial prejudice still exists, but it does not constitute a serious obstacle to African-American advancement. The most grievous problems that African-Americans face today have little or nothing to do with the conduct of ordinary white people. Of course, they may well have something to do with white conduct in the past, which has a lingering effect. But nothing can be done about that. Long before they encountered George Zimmerman and Darren Wilson, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown were on the downward path. Given their taste for dope, their instinct for defiance, and their predilection for violence, they were both likely to end up as killers or as killed.

If Barack Obama and Eric Holder were actually interested in the welfare of the likes of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, they would level with their fellow African-Americans. They would initiate a genuinely frank conversation about race aimed at altering African-American conduct. As things stand, they are only interested in manipulating African-American fear and anger for short-term political gain — and the same can be said for the scoundrels (largely white) who manage CNN, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, Pravda-on-the-Hudson, and Pravda-on-the-Potomac and who treat the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown as national news.

Yup. When it comes to discussing race, it’s not we who are the cowards. It’s the race hustlers like Al Sharpton. And Eric Holder.

[Bumped]

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