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.
No F’ing Way
…will you get me on this machine.
Too Big A Leap?
Doug Messier wonders if Scaled and Virgin bit off more than they can chew with SpaceShipTwo.
I agree with him that it was a mistake to not fly SpaceShipOne more (and perhaps even commercialize it). I think that they made two misjudgements (well, actually, three). Their determination to stick with a hybrid, the initial decision to develop it within Scaled instead of subcontracting, and an overabundance of faith in Burt (which wasn’t helped by his health problems a couple years ago, though he’s reportedly much better now). The explosion cost them at least a year, and probably more, now that they’ve let a new subcontract to SpaceDev for the propulsion. They would have been a lot better off to just go with a liquid from the beginning (as some of us suggested to them). It might have been too risky to rely on XCOR for SpaceShipOne, because they didn’t yet have the track record, but they should have considered them (or someone else, such as Armadillo) for the new vehicle.
I wonder if they’ve been schedule constrained by budget? If not, a 2011 service date (six years after program start) puts into question the ability of private industry (at least this particular team) to do things much faster than the government.