This looks like an interesting article, if I ever get around to reading it.
Is anticrastination doing something immediately?
Geopolitics In Space
I talked to Glenn Reynolds yesterday about our Russian entanglement. Just civil, though, not the military space problem.
[Afternoon update]
Space News had a blistering editorial on Monday, excoriating the fools on the Hill:
Those who bemoan NASA’s reliance on Russia, yet shortchange the very program designed to fix that problem, are at the same time adamant that the agency spend nearly $3 billion per year on SLS and Orion, vehicles that for all their advertised capability still have no place to go. Their size and cost make them poorly suited for space station missions, even as a backup to commercial crew taxis, and in any case the first SLS-Orion crewed test flight won’t happen before 2021.
NASA currently lacks an independent crew launching capability because of decisions made a decade ago, the consequences of which were fully understood and accepted at the time. The longer this situation lasts, however, the more culpable the current group of decision-makers will become.
In that vein, the current criticisms of NASA and the White House might be viewed as a pre-emptive strike by lawmakers who sense their own culpability. But in pressing arguments that fail to stand up to even modest scrutiny, they not only undermine their credibility, they give NASA cover to pursue a Commercial Crew Program approach that might not be sustainable.
What a pathetic lot they are.
[Bumped]
3-D Printed Guns
Should we be afraid of them?
…should we be afraid to live in a world where anyone can afford the equipment to manufacture a gun in his or her basement? I hope not—because that’s the world we live in now. Guns are comparatively simple devices. In fact, plenty of custom firearms are manufactured today using equipment that wouldn’t be out of place in a basement. Just as the sets of “plastic guns” and “3D-printed guns” are not identical, the sets of “3D-printed guns” and “homemade guns” are not identical. At the moment, virtually every homemade gun is constructed using some technology other than 3D printing.
Yes, as with most hoplophobia, this is silly.
Climate Change
We shouldn’t worry, we should just accept that this will happen and we should adapt to it and regard it as a business opportunity.
Its arrogant to assume that climate will remain static.
The whole language of climate change is designed to confuse the public and policy makers
Bob Carter says the IPCC has accomplished the inversion of the null hypothesis, where the onus is now on disproving dangerous anthropogenic climate change
We should focus on protecting people from natural hazards, and not worrying about what is causing them
It makes sense to encourage alternative energy and see what happens.
Bob Carter closed with this: no scientist can tell you whether it will be warmer or cooler in 2020, so we should prepare for both.
Yes. We don’t know much more than we do know.
And as she notes, the people speaking sensibly are independent or retired, not those receiving government funding.
A Clash Of Sticks
“…were [Mann] to prevail in the upcoming Mann vs Steyn trial of the century at the DC Superior Court, it would be the biggest setback for the First Amendment in the half-century since New York Times vs Sullivan.”
A brief history of the case to date, from Mark Steyn.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court of Virginia upheld the university, Mann, and secrecy.
[Update a while later]
“Don’t start deleting those emails just yet, Mikey“:
One thing the order does is give the green light to the University of Virginia to crank up the incinerator for the biggest destruction of research material in a critical area of public policy – not to mention what my old colleague at the Telegraph in London, Christopher Booker, called the other day “the worst scientific scandal of our generation”. Before they grab the matches and gasoline, however, please note that my lawyers have requested a lot of the same material for Mann’s defamation suit against me. I’ll have more to say about this later today.
We’ll see.
A Rudderless NASA
More thoughts from Mr. Papadopoulos. I don’t have time for a detailed critique right now, but I find it amusing that he thinks Neil Tyson is a reliable source about the history of exploration:
“In the history of civilisation, private enterprise has never led a) large, b) expensive, c) dangerous projects, with unknown risks,” said astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, during a talk for Big Think. “That has never happened.”
That is just nonsense on stilts, based on apparently a grade-school understanding. Columbus himself had already raised half the money privately. Cabot’s expedition was privately funded, based on a patent from Henry VII. Hudson’s expeditions were funded by British merchants who were seeking the Northwest Passage. The mouth of the Columbia was discovered by a seal trader. The vast majority of exploration of the Americas and the West was privately funded.
[Update at noon]
I’d forgotten about this post from last year. There is no evidence that Columbus got any money from the government.
Idiot Education Administrators
This time, it’s not a public school, but college.
And as Glenn Reynolds notes, these morons now outnumber faculty on campus:
I’d sue all of these people personally, and make their lives a living hell until they left or were fired. And they should have to go through a forced psychiatric evaluation, too, to look at their tendency to abuse power and trust.
Yes.
Fort Hood, “Gun Free” Zone
There’s only one real solution to this problem. Let the soldiers defend themselves on their own bases in the US, as they do when deployed.
Conservatives In The Mist
It’s perennially amusing to see these people leave their bubble occasionally and get shocked by these strange and surprising creatures.
The IRS Scandal Isn’t At All Like Watergate
In Watergate, you didn’t have Republicans in Congress colluding with the White House to sic the IRS on political enemies.