Clark Lindsey has an extensive discussion going in comments. One point that came up is something I’ve been wondering about. Virgin has been talking about passengers in the White Knight 2, doing parabolas or other experiences. As Paul Breed points out, they won’t be able to do this unless they certify it as a commercial aircraft (I would assume under Part 127). I wonder if they’ve budgeted in time and funds for that certification, which could increase the cost of the program an order of magnitude or more.
A Political Shocker
Arlen Specter is going to cross the aisle, and run as an actual Republican.
From Democracy To Mobocracy
The country’s in the very best of hands.
More Obama Witticisms
Treacher has collected several that haven’t made the news yet.
The Wizard Of Oz
…as an economic parable. I’d read this once before. It does make a lot of sense, given the time in which it was written.
Juxtaposition
These are pretty clever shots.
A Space Libertarian Follow Up
I just ran across this (five-year-old) post of mine that seems relevant to the recent discussion (which has a fascinating discussion by Carl Pham in comments on the nature of law, dictatorships and the state):
As a comment outside the context of the debate, Dr. Kurtz’ position is one shared by many, but the point is not that space is by its nature a libertarian utopia, any more than (and yes, I know he dislikes the analogy, but that doesn’t make it invalid) were the Americas two and a half centuries ago. Yet somehow we created a form of government here previously unseen in the history of the world, that was quite libertarian in philosophy (certainly much more so than either major party today).
From the standpoint of forming new societies, the point of settling space is that it’s a tabula rasa, and that many different groups and ideologies will find room there to do social experimentation. This is a factor that is independent of technology. Yes, cooperation will be required, and perhaps even laws, but there’s nothing intrinsically unlibertarian about that. Ignoring teleological arguments about our duty to be the vessels that bring consciousness to the universe, this is to me the greatest value of space–an ongoing large petri dish in which groups of like-minded people can continue to seek improvements on society, unconstrained by existing governmental strictures that are now dominant on this planet.
There’s some good discussion in comments there as well.
From Christianism To Europeanism
Some thoughts:
Liberals are determined to mock and ridicule the notion that Obama’s moving America in a European direction. But of course he is. Liberals have been — unapologetically — pushing America in that direction for generations.
Anyway, what I didn’t get into in the column is how this contrasts with the theocracy-panic of five minutes ago. Back then, the liberal consensus was that we need to be very, very, very scared that the bible thumpers were going to take over everything and turn us into a Handmaid’s Tale (itself a classic example of paranoid fiction). But back then, if I had suggested that America’s rich history of religious tolerance and pluralism could stand up to the Orwellian onslaught of Bush’s Office of Faith Based Initiatives, I would have been laughed off as ludicrously naive.
But when Obama is literally spending trillions of dollars to move us in a European direction, conservatives like Mark Steyn, Charles Murray, and others are supposedly daft for thinking this is anything worth worrying about.
It’s just the substitution of one religion for another — worship of the state.
The Science Of Battlestar Galactica
An interesting interview by Alan Boyle. I too find it annoying that people not only believe that a human body will explode in vacuum because they saw Outland or Total Recall, but will ignorantly argue the point with those of us who know better.
The JournoList Is Not An Echo Chamber
…an echo chamber…an echo chamber…an echo chamber…an echo chamber…
[Late morning update]
More thoughts from Mickey, who is despairing of ever getting an invitation.