War Commentary

You Have To Be Lucky Every Time

Rush Limbaugh has an interesting interview with Paul Greengrass, the (“liberal”) director of United 93:

GREENGRASS: I’ll tell you one of the most chilling things that I have learned from my experience of looking at terrorism. About 20 years ago the IRA bombed the hotel where the prime minister, Prime Minister Thatcher, and her cabinet were, and about ten people were killed, and Prime Minister Thatcher — who I never agreed with politically in the entirety of her career, but she was our prime minister, and I don’t agree with blowing her up. Luckily she escaped. Later that night, the IRA issued a statement. They said, “Tonight you were lucky. You have to be lucky every time. We only have to be lucky once,” and in that expression is the heart of the mind of the terrorist operation.

“We only have to be lucky once. You have to be lucky every time,” and the truth is we can’t always be lucky.

That’s why we’ve gotta find somewhere solutions to these things, and we have to be prepared, it seems to me, and maybe you and I aren’t going to agree about this, to look at what we do and ask ourselves some tough questions about it. Are what we’re doing, are the things that we do, the things that they want us to do? Because one of the things terrorists want to do is goad us, make us react in ways that make the problem worse. I’m not making a political point now. I’m just, you know, answering the question, and that also is in this film. You know, we, all of us, wherever we stand on the political spectrum, if we’re going to confront this problem and prevail, have got to ask ourselves hard questions and be prepared to challenge our beliefs. Because unless we get some consensus here, we’re not going to prevail.

If you’re going to see the movie this weekend, it’s a good time to reread (or read for the first time, if you missed it) humorist Dave Barry’s staggeringly unfunny, but masterful essay on the event. I wish I’d written it. I wish I had a tenth of the talent it took to write it.

Education

A Lousy Investment

Malcolm Kline says that politicians’ efforts to steer even more money into the black hole of college education is misguided:

In a recent conference call on the plan, both lawmakers rebuffed three attempts to get them on record explaining why college and university administrators have nothing to do with the exploding cost of higher education. It

Technology and Society

Word To The Wise

Hosting Matters probably thought that it was a coup to host Instapundit, and it was, in the sense that they’ve gotten a lot of other high-profile bloggers as well. But there’s a down side. It’s not clear whether or not this DOS attack is an attack on so-called “right-wing” bloggers, but right now, I’m glad that I don’t share a pipe with him, and the others. It should be noted that, even if the attacks appear to be originating from Saudi Arabia, this doesn’t meant that the Saudis are doing it. There’s a reasonable chance that it’s being done by zombie machines directed from elsewhere (perhaps as an attempt to frame the Saudis for it, or just because they may have more unprotected machines).

When one sees the long list of quality blogs that were brought down due to this, it makes one think that there should be some diversification in hosting services, to eliminate this potential single-point failure for a significant part of the blogosphere.

Space

Humor Break

Sorry, but I’m busy with work and continuing kitchen drama. But meanwhile, here’s a knee slapper of a space joke:

Q: How did Mary’s little lamb get to Mars?

A: On a rocket sheep.

Get it?

A rocket sheep?

Huh? Huh?

Feel free to pass it on to everyone you know–share the hilarity!

Space

Keeping An Eye Out

This isn’t news any more (it was published in February), but Paul Dietz had a post that I just found out about describing a new asteroid-hunting scheme that seems very promising:

All NEOs down to a few hundred meters in diameter will be found. If any are possibly going to hit Earth soon, we’ll know.

Good. We can’t do this too soon.

Space

Open Letter to George Bush

Dear Mr. President,

I want to bring to your attention a major opportunity to get people thinking about the future in the only area of federal activity you threatened a veto: Space. There are new opportunities for ordinary citizens to fly into space. Major industrialists Jeff Bezos, Paul Allen, Elon Musk, George French, John Carmack and Jeff Greason have all started rocket companies to carry ordinary citizens into space for far less than the $20 million price to fly on the Russian Soyuz. You have the potential for a major win here. These industrialists will beat China and NASA back to the Moon. Anyone can buy an entry into a skill game for $3.50 to win a trip to space at my web site http://www.space-shot.com

Take some credit for the good news.

Regards,

Sam Dinkin
CEO
SpaceShot, Inc.
3101 Lating Stream Lane
Austin, TX 78746
(512) 750-1751 Sound
(512) 347-9149 Image
http://www.space-shot.com
dinkin@space-shot.com

Education

Yes, And So?

At this point, I’d like to think that teaching Marxism in an economics course is the academic equivalent of teaching Biblical literalist creationism in a biology class. But nutball academics don’t agree, of course:

Siddique plans on filing a complaint with the USG regarding an introductory economics course, because it ignores “Marxist economic viewpoints, privileging capitalist ones exclusively.”

Just a little blowback from the recent efforts to get a little balance into the college classrooms.

Political Commentary

Cut Pork For Thee, But Not For Me

I’d like to think that this polling result is as significant as Instapundit thinks:

Among all Americans, a 39% plurality say the single most important thing for Congress to accomplish this year is curtailing budgetary “earmarks” benefiting only certain constituents.

Sounds like a political tsunami that will sweep away earmarks, right?

Probably not. First of all, though the number is high, it’s not a majority. And even if it were, there’s a familiar phenomenon, in which large numbers disapprove of Congress, but like their own Congress(wo)man. It’s all those other clowns that are the problem. I suspect that they’ll have the same attitude toward pork. They oppose it in principle, but when it comes to benefitting them, I suspect that most people will take the money and let their Congressman run. One man’s pork is another man’s vital district need.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!