War Commentary

Another Doctor Evil

What was this guy up to?

Zorkot, a third-year medical student at Wayne State University, was allegedly armed with an AK-47 assault rifle and dressed in black clothing with camouflage paint covering his face when he was arrested Saturday in Hemlock Park.

Emphasis mine. What is it with medical students and doctors, and terrorism? This is just one more nail in the coffin of the absurd notion that terrorism is a result of poverty (assuming, of course, that he is a terrorist).

And instead of “Name That Party!” we get to play “Name His Religion!”

There are Christian Arabs (particularly Lebanese) in Dearborn, but somehow, I’m guessing that this guy is no Methodist.

Education

Restoring Liberal Education

Peter Berkowitz has a proposal.

Unfortunately, with our current educational system, the problem starts long before students get to college.

[Mid-morning update]

Are we sending too many kids to college?

…the needless pressure to get educational credentials draws a large number of academically weak and intellectually disengaged students into college. All they want is the piece of paper that gets them past the screening. Most schools have quietly lowered their academic standards so that such students will stay happy and remain enrolled. Consequently, they seldom learn much

Political Commentary

A Point In His Favor

At least in my eyes. Fred Thompson doesn’t go to church regularly, and isn’t afraid to say so.

I’ve nothing against church goers in general, or even church-going politicians, but I’d much rather have one who doesn’t wear his religion on his sleeve. Particularly compared to hypocrites like Bill and Hillary Clinton, who primarily went as a photo op, Bible in hand, usually when trying to tamp down a scandal.

General

Snuck Up On Us

Well, it turned out that Humberto formed in the Gulf, instead of east of the Antilles. The tropical depression out there will probably become Ingrid in the next day or so. I don’t like the looks of the track. I’m not in the center of it, but it looks like it could go anywhere from the Florida straights to the Carolinas. Of course, it’s so far out that there’s no way to know–it could also end up heading north and out to sea. I just hope that we know better by Saturday, when we’ll have to decide whether or not to shutter before I go out of town.

Space

Confusion

Mark Whittington doesn’t seem to understand the differences between SpaceX and RpK:

Charles Lurio has an interesting explanation why Rocket Plane/Kistler couldn’t raise funding for its COTS space craft and is now in great jeopardy of imploding. it’s [sic] all NASA’s fault. Of course that doesn’t explain why Elon Musk’s SpaceX seems to have no trouble raising private capital for the very same COTS competition that RP/Kistler seems to have failed at.

Well, actually, it does. SpaceX has no trouble raising private capital because a) it needs a lot less money and b) it has an angel investor, named Elon Musk. SpaceX has not been raising outside investment to date, whereas RpK has to. In addition, SpaceX anticipates other markets than COTS (and would be continuing to move forward in its absence, just as it was before COTS occurred), whereas it’s not clear if RpK (at least the “K” part of it) has a business plan that closes without it. So, yes, obviously, if NASA appears to be potentially fickle about whether or not it will eventually purchase COTS services at all (which it has), let alone from RpK, it will scare off needed institutional investors.

The real concern, though, as Charles pointed out, is that this can have a wider negative effect on space investment in general, even though there may be no logical relationship between the RpK deal and others.

And this is more of his typical nonsense:

Nothing is quite to irksome [sic] than to see people who pretend to be big boosters of commercial space who expect NASA or the government in general to guarantee the success of each and every commercial space company.

As usual, he does not (because he cannot) provide an actual quote or citation to support the assertion that there is anyone who has any such expectation. Because the only kind of arguments that he’s capable of knocking down are ones that no one actually makes.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!