While I agree with Virginia Postrel that we shouldn’t discount the value of Roger Launius’ list of book recommendations
“Unfair”?
While I agree with Virginia Postrel that we shouldn’t discount the value of Roger Launius’ list of book recommendations
Now The Chinese Have Gone Too Far
This means war.
Good Year Ahead?
Leonard David has an article describing prospects for NewSpace in 2007.
Embracing Their Inner Geek
In a follow-up to the chicks and the singularity article, it turns out that girls are geeks, too.
Mercenaries
The blogosphere is abuzz with this bit of vile nonsense from William Arkin at the WaPo.
Lileks isn’t impressed. Neither are the guys at BlackFive.
Neither am I. Disregarding the notion that those fighting for our country should have at least as much freedom of speech as anyone else (those ingrates!), the notion that they are mercenaries isn’t just wrong–it’s slanderous. As Lileks notes:
But it is the United States and instead this NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary – oops sorry, volunteer – force that thinks it is doing the dirty work.
Oops, indeed. That just slipped out. He temporarily forgot the patriotism that motivates many, and provides a definitional difference between mercs and volunteer soldiers, but thank God he caught himself in time. As for that dirty work, it is best understood in terms of soiled linen, which wives are ALWAYS complaining about. We don
Another First Draft
Iowahawk found an early copy of David Bell’s essay, before the spoilsport editors got hold of it.
So why has there been such an overreaction? Unfortunately, the commentators who detect one have generally explained it in a tired, predictably ideological way: calling the United States a uniquely paranoid aggressor that always overreacts to provocation.
In a recent book, for instance, political scientist John Mueller evaluated the threat that terrorists pose to the United States and convincingly concluded that it has been, to quote his title, “Overblown.” But then he screws up his whole awesome argument by adding that the United States has overreacted to every threat in its recent history, including even Pearl Harbor. Rather than trying to defeat Japan, he argued
Unconscious Racism
I’ve long believed that the left, and Democrats, contrary to popular myth, are much more racist than the right and Republicans. It is they, after all, who believe that blacks can’t make it without help from the government. Here’s an inadvertent demonstration of this paternalism and condescension, from Joe Biden:
Mr. Biden is equally skeptical
Unreliability
Sea Launch lost a rocket and comsat today. Two losses out of twenty-four flights is only a 92% success rate. That kind of sucks for something that costs tens of millions, particularly when the payload also costs tens of millions. That’s not good news for the launch insurance business. It’s also not good news for Sea Launch’s schedule, even if they can figure out what happened quickly, if they have to do major repairs on the floating launch platform (of which they have only one–more fragility in the system).
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s more info. Exploded on the pad. Fortunately, no one was injured, but it’s hard to imagine how they won’t have to do some major repairs back in Long Beach.
We aren’t going to get reliable launch systems until we stop throwing the vehicles away, and fly a lot more.
[Wednesday morning update]
That didn’t take long. Here’s video.
[Update a few minutes later]
Hard to imagine that the platform is even salvageable. And it’s the only one they have. This is a huge disaster for Sea Launch–they could be out of business for a long time. And it’s bad for their customers as well, who will have to look for other rides if they want to hit their own service delivery schedules. This could be a setback for DirectTV HD, among others.
The Goldilocks Economy
Larry Kudlow gave a speech on Sunday in DC on “the greatest story never told.” He’s starting to tell it. You’d think that, with the Democrats running the Hill, the media would like to talk about the great economy now. But I guess they’re still afraid of George Bush getting any credit. (Not that presidents have that much to do with the state of the economy, contra all the people who foolishly didn’t want Clinton removed from office because we had a high stock market, but the tax cuts certainly helped.)