History, Media Criticism, Popular Culture

The King Who Wasn’t Crowned

5 Comments

Thoughts on the Father of our Country:

Rather than calling for royal robes and a crown, Washington said no. Even more important, despite his own dreams of glory, he was horrified that he had somehow inspired the idea in the first place.

Today, most politicians would be calling for the tailor and jeweler: Politicians at every level seem more worried about personal glory than public service. It is not that ambition is wrong or incompatible with a sense of duty to one’s country over one’s self; it is that ambition must be properly channeled and understood.

The current political class is a pretty sorry lot compared to the Founders. Screw “Presidents'” Day. I’m flying the flag tomorrow.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space

Space-Policy Stupidity On Stilts

3 Comments

Doug Mohney wonders why the Texas congressional delegation seems to have its collective head up its fundament:

Two problems exist for the Congressional delegation from Texas if they continue to push SLS funding at the expense of fully funding NASA Commercial Crew program. First, it would appear that they advocate a policy that has the United States continue to purchase transport to ISS from Russia until SLS is built — rather than “insourcing” the dollars and work to American companies.

Second, if Russia’s spotty track record with the pieces to its manned launch system continues, a Soyuz failure leaving the $100 billion space station unmanned and untended — or worse, deorbited — could have a significant impact on the 15,000 employees employed at Houston’s Johnson Space Flight Center (JSC). If ISS goes down, there’s no need to have a Mission Control Center for its operations or the many other NASA employees and contractors supporting space station operations.

SLS mostly benefits Alabama, Florida and Utah — there is very little in it for Texas, which just makes this all the more stupid.

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

The Climate Fraud

8 Comments

Ross Kaminsky called it:

If those climate alarmists who went after me (for what I said explicitly in my note was “my speculation”) had any honor, they would not just apologize, but feel some guilt for being associated with the religion of climate change whose high priests could sink to identity theft because they feel “frustration” at not being able to get the rest of the country to join their rent-seeking, anti-human cult.

In the meantime, I take some satisfaction in believing, though I’ll never know for sure, that my article gave Mr. Gleick some incentive to confess, before the FBI agent came to his door. Or perhaps he just didn’t want to spend the money on a new (non-Epson) scanner.

Note also the comments from Judith Curry, who has been one of the few people in the climate community actually acting like a scientist.

[Update a few minutes later]

The Johann Hari of climate “science.”

Kind of funny the sort of people they’ll hand out “Genius Awards” to.

[Update a couple minutes later]

But it was only a first offense: Gleick has apparently been removed from the AGU Task Force on Scientific Ethics. Gee, I’d have thought he’d be a poster boy.

[Update a few minutes later]

Related: Don’t know much about science books.

[Update a while later]

In apologizing, Gleick blames his victims:

Once you begin to believe that the success of the Cause justifies deceit and theft, how long until you begin making excuses for other crimes committed on behalf of the Cause? I do not accuse Peter Gleick and his fellow fanatics of any Stalinist ambitions, but when we see them engaged in Stalinist methods — publishing forged documents to smear their critics – aren’t we justified in suspecting that they are not otherwise honest?

Actually, I suspect that some of them harbor Stalinist ambitions (e.g., Holdren). What a piece of work this guy is.

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