John McCain says that he has anger management issues. He also has adherence-to-the-Bill-of-Rights issues, but he won’t admit to that.
You Don’t Say…
John McCain says that he has anger management issues. He also has adherence-to-the-Bill-of-Rights issues, but he won’t admit to that.
Circles Inside Circles
Michael Ledeen writes about the French connection.
Prescient
Sadly, the current misbehavior in Europe reminds me of this post from last summer:
Sixty years after Paris was seized by the “Allies,” and the beginning of the American occupation, France remains a failed nation, mired in political corruption and beset by vast pockets of Muslim extremism and anti-semitism, into which the gendarmerie fear to tread…
…The growing Islamic insurgency in the suburbs of the capital and other cities is particularly troubling, and even after six decades of training, it’s not clear that the native security forces are up to the job, with many of them refusing to even enter disputed areas.
Advantage, Transterrestrial!
Chinese Space Riddle
Rand, Jeff and Dwayne are treating a 40-year delayed entry into the “US-Soviet space race” (or perhaps the Chinese would prefer “space era”) as newsworthy. For its military threat or for its ability to shed light on perceptions and the press. I think the interesting story that no one is telling is why the Chinese mimic the dead end space programs of the US and the USSR. It’s some kind of misguided nostalgia or timewarped hero worship. It is captured well by Ursula Le Guin’s The Telling. What does China think it will get out of a space program other than some more confidence from its neighbors that its missiles can hit their targets? Spinoffs? National prestige? This kind of grand challenge from yesteryear is weird nostalgia like the Space Cowboys movie. (I hinted at this last year, but no one seemed to pick up on it.)
The trick is to harness this misguided lunacy to use it to improve international relations and lower the cost of space access.
I wonder if the same people who discount SpaceShipOne’s and Falcon’s cheap space access are playing up China’s old tired expensive space access as a worrisome game changer. Maybe it’s the same reason we dissed China’s currency policy–to get them to keep doing it to waste their money.
Will The EU Survive?
I don’t know if it has anything to do with the Eurointafada, but support for the union is at an all-time low:
Particular dismay with the EU was found in Britain, where a majority
Revisionist History
From Bubba:
He told us during a Q&A segment that one of the hardest parts of his 8 years was not being able to find bin Laden although his administration looked desperately for him.
Like when he turned down the Sudanese when they offered him up on a platter?
I think that Bill Clinton looked about as hard for bin Laden as OJ did for the real killers.
Read the whole thing–there’s disgustingly more.
Newspeak Alert?
I can’t figure out from this space.com article on the new commercial ISS procurements why it’s characterized as NASA ‘subsidizing” commercial space development. Why is it a subsidy to provide money for services, but not to issue a cost-plus contract?
[Update a few minutes later]
Clark Lindsey asks the same question:
So when the Air Force contracts with airlines to deliver people and cargo to foreign miltary bases, is it “subsidizing” the airline companies? More likely it is doing so because outsourcing the deliveries is a lot cheaper and quicker than using its own vehicles to do the job.
Play Your Way To Space
One of my partners in blogging crime has announced a new space-related venture.
No Chinese Space Race
Dwayne Day debunks sensationalistic misreporting about the Chinese space program.
Despite Western media