Space

Asking The Wrong Questions

I was forwarded this email today by Mark Reiff:

My name is xxxxxx and I am a journalism student at xxxxxxxxxxx. I am currently writing a story about international collaboration in space exploration, with a focus on newer agencies and their impact on exploration overall. I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me or put me in touch with a policy analyst or expert who could. I couldn’t find a number for you, so I’m including my questions at the end of this e-mail. But if you’d rather chat on the phone, you can reach me at xxxxxxxx or on my cell at xxxxxxxxxx. My deadline for this is Friday, March 4, so any help before then would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much!

1. What motivates countries to join the space race?
2. How do new entrants impact foreign relations?
3. How do foreign relations impact scientific exploration?
4. How does scientific exploration impact foreign relations?
5. What political impacts does joining the space race have on a country?
6. How does president Bush

Political Commentary

Still Crazy After All These Months

Pat Hynes, of Ankle Biting Pundits (formerly CrushKerry.com), sinks his teeth into Howard Dean’s achilles tendon:

Instead of working the media, Dean kicked off his much-ballyhooed tour of “Red America.” But the tour got off to an unfortunate start for the chairman. In Kansas, Democrat Governor Kathleen Sebelius made sure she was all booked up and unable to meet with him. Dean was reduced to begging yokels to do more to help the cause. “I’m asking you to run for the school board, I’m asking you to run for the city council, I’m asking you to run for library trustee.” Pity the poor rural Kansan when the Dean-inspired Democrat candidate for dog catcher busts out into a chimerical conspiracy theory about the neo-cons at the next community candidate forum.

Space

False Advertising

This looks like an interesting event, but at almost fifteen hundred dollars to attend, it’s way out of my price range.

And this is simply false:

Flight School is new for us – and new for space and aviation, which doesn’t yet have a single gathering where pioneers and entrepreneurs can talk strategy, tactics…and experience, whether in space and aviation or in the Internet computing industry.

Actually, there has been an annual event (and arguably two, if you count the Space Frontier Foundation meeting) that does exactly that for years, and it only costs a hundred dollars to attend.

In fact, it’s just a couple months from now, and I’ll be planning to attend. I’d encourage anyone else interested in alt-space to do so as well. If I had unlimited time and funds, I’d love to attend Esther Dyson’s event, but I suspect that Space Access will continue to be the best such conference, and certainly the best value, for some time to come.

Political Commentary

The “Arab Street”

Remember all the warnings we’ve had over the years from the wise heads in the punditocracy, how if we supported Israel, or removed the Taliban, or removed Saddam, or dissed Arafat, or promoted democracy in the Middle East, that the “Arab Street” would rise up in anger?

Well, I guess they were finally, after all those years of false predictions, proven right.

I think that Syria is finding itself in a quagmire. So is the MSM.

[Update at 1:48 PM EST]

Rick Savage emails:

I’m waiting for Ted Kennedy to proclaim that Lebanon is Syria’s Vietnam, and demand an immediate pull out!

I’m waiting, but I’m not holding my breath.

Probably a good plan…

Political Commentary

The “Arab Street”

Remember all the warnings we’ve had over the years from the wise heads in the punditocracy, how if we supported Israel, or removed the Taliban, or removed Saddam, or dissed Arafat, or promoted democracy in the Middle East, that the “Arab Street” would rise up in anger?

Well, I guess they were finally, after all those years of false predictions, proven right.

I think that Syria is finding itself in a quagmire. So is the MSM.

[Update at 1:48 PM EST]

Rick Savage emails:

I’m waiting for Ted Kennedy to proclaim that Lebanon is Syria’s Vietnam, and demand an immediate pull out!

I’m waiting, but I’m not holding my breath.

Probably a good plan…

Political Commentary

The “Arab Street”

Remember all the warnings we’ve had over the years from the wise heads in the punditocracy, how if we supported Israel, or removed the Taliban, or removed Saddam, or dissed Arafat, or promoted democracy in the Middle East, that the “Arab Street” would rise up in anger?

Well, I guess they were finally, after all those years of false predictions, proven right.

I think that Syria is finding itself in a quagmire. So is the MSM.

[Update at 1:48 PM EST]

Rick Savage emails:

I’m waiting for Ted Kennedy to proclaim that Lebanon is Syria’s Vietnam, and demand an immediate pull out!

I’m waiting, but I’m not holding my breath.

Probably a good plan…

Political Commentary

More On Sully’s Pointlessness

I wondered what Andrew Sullivan’s point about Bush and big-government conservatism was last week. Ramesh Ponnuru has responded to his post in a similar manner:

His thought experiment, meanwhile, is thoughtless. For it to begin to work, his President Al Gore would have had to have overthrown the Baathist regime in Iraq, enacted Health Savings Accounts, cut taxes, proposed a free-market reform of Social Security, nominated conservative judges, and so forth. (There have been more conservative policy achievements under this president than there were at the height of Gingrich’s revolution, a fact which certainly tempers my nostalgia for it.) Is Sullivan really suggesting that opposing Bush and backing John Kerry would have been the truly conservative thing to do in the last election? Oh right: That is what Sullivan thought. Now he’s complaining that NR refused to join him in his folly.

Political Commentary

More On Sully’s Pointlessness

I wondered what Andrew Sullivan’s point about Bush and big-government conservatism was last week. Ramesh Ponnuru has responded to his post in a similar manner:

His thought experiment, meanwhile, is thoughtless. For it to begin to work, his President Al Gore would have had to have overthrown the Baathist regime in Iraq, enacted Health Savings Accounts, cut taxes, proposed a free-market reform of Social Security, nominated conservative judges, and so forth. (There have been more conservative policy achievements under this president than there were at the height of Gingrich’s revolution, a fact which certainly tempers my nostalgia for it.) Is Sullivan really suggesting that opposing Bush and backing John Kerry would have been the truly conservative thing to do in the last election? Oh right: That is what Sullivan thought. Now he’s complaining that NR refused to join him in his folly.

Political Commentary

More On Sully’s Pointlessness

I wondered what Andrew Sullivan’s point about Bush and big-government conservatism was last week. Ramesh Ponnuru has responded to his post in a similar manner:

His thought experiment, meanwhile, is thoughtless. For it to begin to work, his President Al Gore would have had to have overthrown the Baathist regime in Iraq, enacted Health Savings Accounts, cut taxes, proposed a free-market reform of Social Security, nominated conservative judges, and so forth. (There have been more conservative policy achievements under this president than there were at the height of Gingrich’s revolution, a fact which certainly tempers my nostalgia for it.) Is Sullivan really suggesting that opposing Bush and backing John Kerry would have been the truly conservative thing to do in the last election? Oh right: That is what Sullivan thought. Now he’s complaining that NR refused to join him in his folly.

Media Criticism

Missing WMD

Weapons of Mass Distraction, that is. Remember all the stories, led by the New York Times, the week before the election about Al Qaqaa, and the missing munitions, and (of course!) the incompetence of the Bush administration in not guarding them properly? Remember how we haven’t heard anything about it since?

Byron York does:

The obvious question is whether the Times pushed the Al Qaqaa story hard in the days in which it might have an effect on the presidential election, and then let up the moment the election was over. Okrent conceded that that might appear to be the case. “I would say at the very least that the dates they were running stories certainly can leave an impression,” Okrent told NRO. “But I’m not ready to convict, at least not yet.”

No. But then, he never is.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!