Some thoughts on Planetary Resources and Peter Diamandis’ abundance thesis over at Zero Hedge. I need to give it some thought, but I think there is a definitional issue here of what constitutes a “resource.” It’s somewhat related to the question of whether gravity existed before Newton invented it, though a little less philosophical. I’m on a couple deadlines right now, but have at it in comments.
The New Holocaust Deniers
Some thoughts from Robert Zubrin on the environmental movement. They’re not just deniers — many of them are enablers and cheerleaders.
Liberty
I’m at the ATK press conference. I’ve been tweeting @Rand_Simberg
[Thursday morning update]
It was hard to get everything accurately while tweeting, but NASASpaceflight has a good technical description of the system. The key thing I didn’t catch until talking to Rominger later at the reception is that it’s not using the Orion tractor abort system.
The Muslim Brotherhood
President Narcissist
Thoughts on Mr. I, Me, Mine:
So what is the problem with a charismatic, narcissistic president? After all, most presidents by definition must be somewhat self-absorbed. Yet the rub is that the world has tuned Obama out. All his prime-time rhetoric from Afghanistan, the cool multicultural accentuation of Pakîstan and the Talîban, the photo-op reminders that it was Obama who ordered the mission that took out bin Laden — all this meant nothing to the Taliban, who will now patiently wait us out, unleash a North Vietnamese–like offensive very soon, and remind us that just because we don’t believe there are still things like victory and defeat in our messy wars, that does not mean there are not.
In other words, I worry that Vladimir Putin, the Iranian theocrats, the North Korean apparat, the Chinese central committee, the Muslim Brotherhood, and all the others who detest the United States have sized up Barack Obama. For 40 months they have acknowledged that his postracial image and his youthful charisma, as David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs rightly insisted, threw them for a loop — for a while. And that “for a while” is now ending, replaced with a new belief abroad that the more Obama talks about himself and his team, and the more emphatic he becomes with his “Make no mistake about it” and “Let me be perfectly clear” vacuities, the more he can at first safely be ignored, and then, quite soon, safely be taken advantage of.
Let’s hope it’s not for more than a few more months.
More Republican Space Socialism
I have a rundown on the latest antics on the Hill over at Open Market.
Mining Asteroids
An interview with Tom Jones, over at the WaPo.
Building The Star Ship Enterprise
Well, you can’t say that this guy isn’t ambitious.
Pirates
Speaking Truth To The Academic Mob
Naomi Schaefer Riley defends herself in the WSJ:
Scores of critics on the site complained that I had not read the dissertations in full before daring to write about them—an absurd standard for a 500-word blog post. A number of the dissertations aren’t even available. Which didn’t seem to stop the Chronicle reporter, though. And 6,500 academics signed a petition online demanding that I be fired.
At first, the Chronicle stood its ground, suggesting that my post was an “invitation to debate.” But that stance lasted for little more than a weekend. In a note that reads like a confession at a re-education camp, the Chronicle’s editor, Liz McMillen announced her decision on Monday to fire me: “We’ve heard you,” she tells my critics. “And we have taken to heart what you said. We now agree that Ms. Riley’s blog posting did not meet The Chronicle’s basic editorial standards for reporting and fairness in opinion articles.”
When I asked Ms. McMillen whether the poem by fellow blogger Ms. Barreca, for instance, lived up to such standards, she said they were “reviewing” the other content on the site. So far, however, that blogger has not been fired. Other ad hominem attacks against me seem to have passed editorial muster as well.
In a sane world, banks would put a high premium on a loan to get a degree in anything “studies.”
For those who haven’t been following this, Nick Gillespie has the whole story.
[Update a few minutes later]
More from Ron Radosh.