Have you?
I’ve Signed The Pledge
Have you?
Life Despiced
One can look at the radar for south Florida, and see that we’ve had our rain for the next few days.
As time goes on, uncertainty (at least about things amenable to modeling and based on solid laws of physics) is reduced yearly.
Economically, it’s a good thing to know that there’s no rain in the next few days. It makes it easier to plan irrigation, boat outings, etc. And that’s a good thing, and one not to want to end.
But still, there’s a nostalgia (at least for those, like many of my generation, who remember the uncertainty) of not knowing what was to come next. To anticipate the unanticipatible. While the gain is better than the loss, the loss remains.
This Explains Much
Jimmy Carter and the ghost of Begin.
Despite how lame Jerry Ford was, my vote for that man was the worst of my lifetime. And not just because it ruined my perfect record ever since of not voting for a Democrat for president.
The Blind Leading The Blind
Iran has been getting pointers on rocket design, from that noted space power, North Korea.
Good luck with that. Not.
Dinesh D’Souza
…is taken to school by Jamie Glazov, who by far has the best of the argument.
D’Souza comes off, to me as either extremely naive, or disingenuous, or both.
Dinesh D’Souza
…is taken to school by Jamie Glazov, who by far has the best of the argument.
D’Souza comes off, to me as either extremely naive, or disingenuous, or both.
Dinesh D’Souza
…is taken to school by Jamie Glazov, who by far has the best of the argument.
D’Souza comes off, to me as either extremely naive, or disingenuous, or both.
The Arab-Persian War
That’s largely not being covered by the press.
The Saudis are even, secretly, cooperating with the Israelis. Iran has always been seen as a greater danger to Israel than the surrounding Sunni Arab nations. Hizbollah, which is a Lebanese Shia organization, made a name for itself during its disastrous attack on Israel last Summer. Although Hizbollah lost by every measure, they won in the arena of public opinion. Both the Israelis and Saudi Arabs (and Sunni Arabs in general) hated that.
Growing Consensus?
It looks like a lot of people are starting to agree with me that we need more responsive military space systems:
Peter Hays, a Science Applications International Corp. employee and senior policy analyst supporting the plans and programs division at the Defense Department’s National Space Security Office, said that small, distributive space-based systems could particularly benefit compared with larger satellites – speeding up a shift that already started. The new attention could even re-energize the U.S. aerospace industry, he said.
“It could be a fire under people that was lacking,” Hays said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if other things get energized.”
Of course, as I predicted (hardly a feat worthy of Kreskin) we have the usual foolishness from the usual suspects:
“American satellites are the soft underbelly of our national security, and it is urgent that President Bush move to guarantee their protection by initiating an international agreement to ban the development, testing, and deployment of space weapons and anti-satellite systems,” said Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), House telecommunications and Internet subcommittee chairman.
Yes, as I noted in my article, this is exactly what they’d like. If Congressman Markey (and others like him) actually were on the side of the Chinese, how would they behave differently?
[Update late afternoon]
Useful comments in the comments section. It seems to me is that what we want is not a treaty to ban ASATs, which is certainly impractical (and would be to our great disadvantage). A much better model is a convention, similar to Geneva, in which we stipulate the manner in which anti-satellite warfare is to be conducted, in order to eliminate, or at least minimize, collateral damage. I haven’t thought about it much further than that, but it’s what Theresa Hitchens et al have in mind, we’re probably on the same page. But I suspect that’s a different page than Rep. Markey.