I stopped voting Libertarian for local candidates, leaving lots of blanks on my ballot. Next year, I
The New Civil Rights Movement
Gee, maybe they need giant paper mache puppets. That always gets press coverage:
A group of 12 students chose to wear empty holsters to class this week at the University of Idaho as part of the nationwide protest.
Aled Baker, a junior, said he loses his constitutional right to protect himself and others when he steps on campus.
“It’s null and void when you go on campus,” the mechanical engineering student said.
Baker, a sportsman and hunter, has a license to carry a concealed handgun and hopes the protest will get people talking about the issue.
The Second Amendment continues to be the one that dare not speak its name.
And the Brady bunch stands in for Bull Connor and George Wallace.
“You don’t like the fact that you can’t have a gun on your college campus? Drop out of school,” said Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Disarming law-abiding citizens today, disarming law-abiding citizens tomorrow, disarming law-abiding citizens forever.
Wednesday Conference Summary
From Jeff Foust.
It’s Not Global Warming
The California fires were started by those wascally Jews, and here’s the proof.
It’s Not Global Warming
The California fires were started by those wascally Jews, and here’s the proof.
It’s Not Global Warming
The California fires were started by those wascally Jews, and here’s the proof.
And Then There Was One
Leonard David reports that, like last year, Armadillo will be the only competitor this year for the Lunar Lander Challenge.
While it would certainly have been more interesting, and I’m sure that the X-Prize Cup folks are disappointed, the important thing about prizes is that they’re won, not how many competitors there are. Good luck to John and the team. But of course, as they saw last year, there are no guarantees, except that they won’t have to break any ties. As Yoda would say, they will either do, or do not.
Che Guevara…
I am actually quite optimistic that at least some (more) lefties will wake up, as time goes by, to the absurdity of them being in alliance with radical Islamists. The only rationale for this otherwise ridiculous arrangement is (see above) that the enemy of your enemy (the USA) is your friend, no matter what. If you really do think that the USA is the biggest baddest thing in the world and that curbing its power is the only thing that matters (think Hitler Churchill Stalin), then this alliance makes a kind of primitive sense. Although even if you do think that, encouraging the development of rampant capitalism everywhere except in the USA would make a lot more sense. That really would reduce the USA to the margins of history. But, if you think that lefty-ism is anything at all to do with positive support for civilisation, decency, freedom, female (in particular) emancipation, life being nice even if you do not submit to Islam etc., then you should surely turn your back on all such alliances.
Million-Dollar View
I’m not in the room, but sitting out on the patio checking email, listening to the speakers on the…speakers. Listening to an astronaut (not sure which one) describing his flight experiences, and the awe and wonder of seeing an 800-mile-long aurora borealis from orbit. Listening to the whole panel (including Anousheh Ansari), I’m once again boggled at people who think that the spaceflight experience will be a “fad,” or that once a few people have done it the interest will drop off, or that no one will want a repeat trip.
[Update late afternoon]
Clark Lindsey has much more extensive coverage of the space tourism sessions.
At The Symposium
The wireless seems to be working all right, though it’s a tad slow.
No big news this morning. There was a press conference with Elon Musk, Alex Tai, Clay Mowry (of Arianespace) and Peter Diamandis.
The most notable thing about the conference was the fact that there was someone there from Arianespace. The giggle factor continues to diminish.
In response to the first question, from me, Alex said that they are not in a position to make any announcements as to what happened in Mojave–that is for Scaled and Northrop-Grumman to announce when they have made a determination. He said that how they will respond will be at least partly a function of what caused the accident, but that they are in a reevaluation period with regard to propulsion, so that it’s possible, but not definite that there will be changes (this is a paraphrase, not a quote). In response to a related question, he noted that propulsion has never been on the vehicle critical path, so the accident didn’t necessarily set them back. It remains to be seen whether or not it will be a factor, and going to a new propulsion system could potentially slip the schedule, which remains internal (off-the-cuff comments from Richard Branson aside).
Perhaps more thoughts later.
[Update a few minutes later]
Clark Lindsey is live blogging, and has some results of the morning sessions here and here.