Popular Culture

What A Comeback

2 Comments

Wow.

I’d kind of given up on the Wolverines in the first half. Their defense was doing a great job, but they had to, because every time they stopped the Badgers, the offense gave it back to them.

But it looks like they’re going to win a big comeback, from being down 19-0 at the half, to a 27-19 win. Four straight unanswered touchdowns, and they saved a score in the last three minutes with a fumble recovery inside their own red zone. It’s going to be tough for Wisconsin to come back–they need eight points with less than two minutes remaining. Maybe there’s some hope for the season after all.

[Update after the game]

They took it down to the wire. Wisconsin scored another touchdown, but missed the two-point conversion needed to tie, and then put the on-side kick out of bounds, so Michigan squeaked it out. Regardless, it’s still the biggest comeback in school history I think (or at least in the top five) in the 500th game in the Big House, and a good way to kick off the Big Ten season with a new head coach.

Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Death Of A Film Legend

3 Comments

RIP, Paul Newman.

You can’t live a life much more full than he seemed to. And unlike many of his Hollywood colleagues, the one way that he didn’t seem to fill it up was with promiscuity and infidelity. It’s all too rare that an actor is faithful for decades. Of course, as he noted himself, it probably helps to be married to Joanne Woodward.

I hadn’t realized that he was a flier in the Navy in the Pacific. It’s always tempting to say that they don’t make them like that any more, but I suspect that they still do. A lot of them probably served in Iraq in the last few years, and we’ll be hearing from them in the future.

Political Commentary, Space and Campaign 2008

Well, That’s New

1 Comment

At least the first time I’ve heard it.

McCain just called for an end to cost-plus contracts in the debate.

I don’t know if they can be eliminated, but they should sure be cut way back. But good luck with that.

I have to say that so far, McCain is not doing very well. He’s letting Obama get away with a lot of lies and sophistry, calling him on very little of it.

[Update on Saturday afternoon]

I’m pretty sure that this is the first time that cost-plus contracting has come up in a presidential debate. It was really quite bizarre. I can’t imagine that it’s an issue on which the election will turn, and I suspect that 90%+ of the listeners had no idea what he was talking about. I’m not even sure that I know what he is talking about (in terms of what the basis of his objection is, and what specific examples in his experience prompted this strange utterance). I doubt that it had much to do with NASA, though–I’m sure that he was thinking of Pentagon contracts, where much larger budgets are at stake, and there have been some recent notable expensive procurement failures.

The good thing is that it’s clearly something that he takes seriously, and may try to do something about as president. But I suspect that it would require either an overhaul of A109, or at least a major reinterpretation of it by whoever the new SecDef, NASA administrator, and OMB directors are (not to mention GAO). It would constitute an unimaginably major cultural change in the federal procurement community, in a culture that has developed over several decades.

Which is why I first said, “good luck with that.”

[Sunday afternoon update]

Based on some comments, I have a follow-up post to this one.

Political Commentary, Space and Campaign 2008

Well, That’s New

40 Comments

At least the first time I’ve heard it.

McCain just called for an end to cost-plus contracts in the debate.

I don’t know if they can be eliminated, but they should sure be cut way back. But good luck with that.

I have to say that so far, McCain is not doing very well. He’s letting Obama get away with a lot of lies and sophistry, calling him on very little of it.

[Update on Saturday afternoon]

I’m pretty sure that this is the first time that cost-plus contracting has come up in a presidential debate. It was really quite bizarre. I can’t imagine that it’s an issue on which the election will turn, and I suspect that 90%+ of the listeners had no idea what he was talking about. I’m not even sure that I know what he is talking about (in terms of what the basis of his objection is, and what specific examples in his experience prompted this strange utterance). I doubt that it had much to do with NASA, though–I’m sure that he was thinking of Pentagon contracts, where much larger budgets are at stake, and there have been some recent notable expensive procurement failures.

The good thing is that it’s clearly something that he takes seriously, and may try to do something about as president. But I suspect that it would require either an overhaul of A109, or at least a major reinterpretation of it by whoever the new SecDef, NASA administrator, and OMB directors are (not to mention GAO). It would constitute an unimaginably major cultural change in the federal procurement community, in a culture that has developed over several decades.

Which is why I first said, “good luck with that.”

[Sunday afternoon update]

Based on some comments, I have a follow-up post to this one.

Political Commentary

Obama And Gun Rights

3 Comments

Jonathan Gewirtz has some thoughts:

If Obama supported gun rights, many pro-gun people, even Republicans, would support him, because many pro-gun people are single-issue voters on this topic and Obama’s opponent has a spotty record on gun rights. (The NRA and pro-gun rights voters have supported pro-gun Democrats in many elections.) Also, if Obama really supported the right to arms, it’s likely that many additional Republican, libertarian and independent voters would support him because conservatives and libertarians often interpret a politician’s support for the right to arms as a reliable proxy for that politician’s support of other individual rights. This point seems especially strong now, since many Republican voters distrust Obama’s opponent on free speech, business regulation and other big-govt-vs-individual-rights issues.

So on the one hand we have single-issue pro-gun people opposing Obama on guns, and on the other hand we have people who are primarily Obama partisans, not gun people, arguing that pro-gun people should trust Obama on guns. Who should we believe?

I know who I believe.

I’d also point out that this is one more area (like being post racial, and moderate) where the real Obama is being airbrushed by his supporters to appear to be something he is not.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

A History Of Thuggery

1 Comment

Patterico has the story:

…the DNC threatened Sinclair Broadcasting’s broadcast license over an anti-Kerry documentary called ‘Stolen Honor.’ Kerry spokesthug Chad Clanton was quoted as saying: ‘I think they’re going to regret doing this, and they better hope we don’t win.’ He hastened to add that it wasn’t a threat.”

Do you Obamaphiles really want these people in charge of the Justice Department? That doesn’t scare you just a little bit?

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Gas Lines

15 Comments

I keep hearing about shortages and lines in the south. The last time we had gas lines on any major scale was in the seventies, when oil prices were kept artificially low by federal fiat. Is that what’s happening here? Are the “anti-gouging” laws keeping prices too low, and discouraging new supply? For instance, if you can’t get any more for it in North Carolina than you can in Ohio, where’s the incentive to spend the money to ship it in from there?

Can anyone in the areas where the lines are tell me?

Space

What Is China Doing In Space?

18 Comments

Who knows?

Judging by this, we can’t rely on anything they tell us about their progress.

China’s state news agency published a despatch from the country’s three latest astronauts describing their first night in space before they had even left Earth.

Including a fauxtograph.

We didn’t fake the moon landings, but given this, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Chinese attempt it.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!