Have they figured out how to shut down metastasis? Let’s hope.
The Director’s Cut
When I wrote The Path Not Taken, over four years ago, for The New Atlantis, the original draft had to be cut to meet page-count requirements on the dead-tree edition (and it was also edited somewhat for style and content). I’ve decided to put the original, unedited draft on line for those interested, because it made some points that ended up on the cutting-room floor in the published piece, particularly regarding vehicle reliability.
It’s an even longer read now than the published one, but enjoy. Or not.
An Upside-Down Space Carnival
…over at Ian Musgrave’s place, Down Under.
“Lies Take Longer To Coordinate”
Jim Geraghty remembers some history.
Epic Fail
That’s what Iowahawk says that his five-year plan was:
I started this blog with a simple goal in mind: to attract gullible millions into a worldwide online cult and then bilk them of their life savings. Five years, 450-odd posts and almost that many pageviews later, my actual market appeal has proven somewhat more selective. Extremely more selective. Still, it’s much more than I deserve, and I’d like offer my very sincere thanks for your patronage. I sure hope you had 1% of the fun reading the junk I post here as had typing it, even if (especially if?) you don’t see eye-to-eye with me politically. If any of it annoyed you I hope that deep down, were also a tiny bit amused.
I (and I suspect many others) disagree (and I say this as someone who was beating on him to get a blog via email for many months prior to its inception). His top-twenty-five hits are spectacular, and somehow, I had missed the liberal elevator pitches, which are hilarious (as are some of the reader contributions in comments).
Here’s to at least another five years of the unexcellable Hawk.
What They Need
…but won’t get. Iain Murray describes what will be necessary for a successful auto industry:
…the best way to save the auto industry remains a deregulatory bailout, reducing government-imposed burdens on the industry, and in particular Congress backing off on its destructive CAFE requirements.
One of those government-imposed burdens is the Wagner Act and the NLRB that enables the UAW to maintain a stranglehold on the industry. Unfortunately, all of the above, while the most needed, are also the most unlikely things to be had from the new regime. If anything, as I’ll note in a Pajamas column tomorrow, they’re only going to make things worse.
From “Dictator” To “Czar”
Jonah Goldberg with some brief thoughts on the unconscious fascism of the denizens of the Beltway.
[Update in the afternoon]
Mickey has a good point:
We need a Czar Czar, to crack the whip on all the czars. … P.S.: Also a federal czar policy. Right now, czar decisions are made on an ad hoc, case-by-case basis, with no attempt at czar harmonization.
It seems like a logical next step.
Hope, And Change (Part Whatever)
A lot of space enthusiasts have been enthused about Obama’s pick for Commerce Secretary, based on his support for commercial space. Unfortunately, his staff is under investigation for a pay-to-play scandal. I’d like to say I’m shocked, but there’s an old saying (and I’ve had some experience with it in looking for spaceport consulting work) that New Mexico is “Louisiana with jalapenosgreen chiles.” And this doesn’t help much with the transition, on top of the Blogojevich thing.
You Don’t Say
Historians say that Obama is no Lincoln. Imagine my disappointment to learn this.
Broken-Window Fallacy Redux
In a discussion of Peter Diamandis’ recommendations to NASA (most of which I broadly agree with), Ferris Valyn makes the classical error in discussing government spending:
As for your other point:
You’re contradicting your statement that there is no guaranteed ROI. Money spent on NASA is money NOT spent on everything/anything else. You are assuming your conclusion is true and using that in your argument to prove your conclusion [otherwise known as “begging the question” — rs]. That’s not allowed.
Money spent, whether wisely or not, always grows the economy. Whether its the 60 cents I spent to buy gum, or government buying a new power plants, that money always grows the economy. The fundemental question is, whether it grows the economy in a way that we want to grow it. And while I will agree that we haven’t proven that space development grows the economy 100% in the way we want, I would argue that space development has a large preponderance of evidence supporting it.
No, it is quite possible to spend money and shrink the economy (and few entities are better at doing this than governments — see, for example, Soviet Socialist Republics, Union of). For instance (to use the classical example), we could institute a government program to pay half of the populace to dig holes, and the other half to fill them. How fast does Ferris think that the economy will “grow” under such a program?
This is also one of the classic lousy arguments that space advocates use to advocate. I discussed it in a column a few years ago. Space spending has to be justified on its merits, in terms of the return we get for it in terms of actual space activity. It can’t be justified simply as “spending” that “always grows the economy,” because there are potentially many other means of “spending” (such as simply letting the taxpayers keep their own money) that are much more effective at doing so.