Humor, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Only Because Yasser Arafat Didn’t Have Any

39 Comments

Seen on Facebook: “Barack Obama has launched more Tomahawk missiles than all other Nobel Peace Prize winners combined.”

Probably more Predator drones, too.

[Update a while later]

Credit where it’s due. A rare self-deprecating moment for the president. I think that even he, with all his ego, realized and realizes how ridiculous that award was, and how it may have been the last straw in finally discrediting it.

This is truly becoming farcical:

We bombed Qaddafi’s forces because they were killing civilians. So Qaddafi’s forces began dressing like civilians. So the rebels began killing civilians. So NATO is warning the rebels not to kill civilians, otherwise NATO will bomb the rebels. But the rebels are dressed like civilians.So NATO may end up killing civilians.

In other news, the administration continues to debate arming the rebels who are dressed like civilians. But Qaddafi’s forces are also dressed like civilians. So we may be arming Qaddafi’s forces who are killing civilians while we also bomb the rebels who are killing civilians and bombing civilians who really are civilians but look like Qaddafi’s forces who are killing civilians.

Who’s on first?

Via Jonah Goldberg, who writes in his weekly G-File:

The New York Times reports that NATO has told the rebels that if they kill civilians then NATO will bomb them, too.

As a commenter in the Corner put it, this is reminiscent of that scene in Bananas where the operatives are talking en route to a hot zone:

“Any word on where we’re going?”
“I hear it’s San Marcos.”
“For or against the government?”
“CIA’s not taking any chances. Some of us are for it, and some of us are gonna be against it.”

More seriously, has there ever been a war where we’ve gone from taking sides in the fight to saying, “You kids play nice! Don’t make me come in there!” (Honest question, has there ever been a great power that has in effect acted like a schoolyard referee, making sure that both sides “fight fair”?)

It would be American exceptionalism at its finest. If the president believed in that sort of thing.

And we have a Secretary of State who thinks that Bashar Assad is a reformer.

The country’s in the very best of hands.

[Bumped]

Business, Economics, Space

A Static Analysis

16 Comments

Paul Spudis says that propellant depots are a necessary but not sufficient condition for opening up the solar system.

Well, in the long run, sure. But as Clark Lindsey notes, in the short term, I think that a dollar spent on reducing launch costs will have a lot higher ROI than a dollar spent on getting propellant from the moon. That’s just the harsh economic reality, largely because reducing launch costs is a very low-hanging fruit, given how ridiculously and unnecessarily high they currently are. Elon has already started to show the way, and fully reusable space transports that develop out of the suborbital and other markets will accelerate the process. Once we solve that problem (and it won’t take that long, once we get serious about it, which will start when the markets flower), then ISRU will start to look a lot more attractive, because doing it will be a lot cheaper as well.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!