It’s magic fig leaf day!
The Case For Commercial Rockets
An interview with Gwynne Shotwell of SpaceX.
The Farm Bill
Past time to get food stamps out of it. To the degree that they should exist at all (none), it should be in HHS with the other welfare programs.
Er Ist Kein Bewohner Von Berlin
Or should I just say, “Er ist kein Berliner”?
An uncomplimentary British review of The One’s latest blather in Germany:
In stark contrast to that of his presidential predecessors, Barack Obama’s message on Wednesday was pure mush, another clichéd “citizens of the world” polemic with little substance. This was a speech big on platitudes and hopeless idealism, while containing much that was counter-productive for the world’s superpower. Ultimately it was little more than a laundry list of Obama’s favourite liberal pet causes, including cutting nuclear weapons, warning about climate change, putting an end to all wars, shutting Guantanamo, ending global poverty, and backing the European Project. It was a combination of staggering naiveté, the appeasement of America’s enemies and strategic adversaries, and the championing of more big government solutions.
In other words, business (or lack of business) as usual.
Book Donors
This is the last chance to give me your full name if you are a qualified contributor and want it listed that way. I’m particularly interested in “Leland.”
Bitcoin
Can you live on it? Secret CIA mole Betsy Woodruff gives it a whirl. Unfortunately, it won’t help her avoid the IRS, at least until we rein it in.
The Ice Sheets
Randall Munroe graphically describes why I worry more about global cooling than global warming.
“Art”
A screed:
I’m not in favor of obscenity trials, except when children are involved. You can make the case that a talented photographer forces us to confront adolescent sexuality by taking pictures of naked young people, and I can make the case that he’s a creep, because there has to be something . . . askew in an adult’s makeup to find this a compelling subject that must be expressed explicitly. There is something lacking in the hearts of people who dasn’t admit to themselves that the artist might be trusting the critical establishment to give him cover precisely because he dresses up his dank needs as Art.
If someone wants to protest child abuse, well: a painting of a child with haunted eyes, a dim room, a figure in the background. Color, composition, tone, shadow, the horrible truth implied with all the power Western representational art accumulated over the centuries.
Or, you can glue pictures you got from a google search, printed out and cut up and pasted on screen grabs from porno movies. Because you’re working in the new vernacular, the new global interconnected web of mysterious source material given meaning by recontextualization.
Also, you can’t draw worth a damn, so that whole “painting” thing is off the table.
No one skewers pretentious “transgressives” like Lileks.
The Space Policy Mess
A depressing Twitter discussion.
I wasn’t on Twitter yesterday, or I would have weighed in. I like the comment about re-engineering the solar system to make it SLS/Orion friendly.
As The Middle East Burns
…the White House fiddles:
The combination of grave and growing dangers in the Middle East with a lightweight policy response in Washington is genuinely frightening. We have no doubt that the administration wants a peaceful and stable Middle East that is moving toward greater democracy and greater respect for human rights. We share its desire to see this happen without massive US intervention. But the evidence is mounting that America’s present course in the Middle East is leading to a very bad place; real trouble looms unless the administration can begin to engage in a much more serious and thoughtful way.
Serious and thoughtful ways are not a hallmark of this administration. And this sort of fecklessness is no less than any intelligent person would have expected from the neophyte’s campaign rhetoric in 2008.