OK, I attended the LA blog panel last night, and also didn’t go to Heather’s and get smashed. My excuse for not writing anything about it sooner is the same excuse that I had to not get blotto at Chateau Havrilesky–I’m nursing a recuperating Patricia, who’s recovering from some minor surgery. I felt a little guilty about going at all, but in her loving way (of which I am always undeserving) she insisted, so we rented her some movies (it’s amazing how much more quickly movies can be selected when they’re being selected for just one person…), I made dinner for her, and took off for the event. I left later than I wanted, and LA traffic was typical Saturday night–there was no way to get there quickly, so I missed the first twenty minutes or so.

Luke Ford, who was on the panel (sorry, no permalink), has a good rundown of the highlights. It was a rollicking good discussion, and seemed more focused on the dynamics and politics of blogging, rather than last week’s event in Chinatown, which seemed to be more about technology. I didn’t attend that one, partly because it looked a little too hip to me, and anyone who knows me knows that I’m the lord of unhip.

That is to say, I’m not down with it. I’m not even with it.

I don’t even care what “it” is. I’m just not a hep cat.

From what I heard, my impression was correct, and I’ve no regrets in not attending, since it would have meant leaving Patricia alone two Saturday nights in a row. I was quite pleased to attend this one, though. Cathy Seipp did a great job moderating, and because the audience was small, and smart, it wasn’t just a panel discussion–it was a seminar, with a lot of good, civilized give and take from the floor.

What I’d like to focus on are a couple of issues that came up in the discussion.

The first is that there seemed to me an inordinate amount of discussion about the political leanings of the blogosphere, or at least that portion that seems to get the most attention, some of which was on the panel. It was another display of the sterility and uselessness of political labels like “right-wing” and “conservative” and “liberal.” Of the people on the panel, I doubt if any of them would self identify as either “right-wing” or “conservative.” (Though it was pointed out that we did have one religious conservative on the panel–Luke Ford, who’s an unorthodox orthodox Jew, complete with yarmulke, who also writes a lot about sex and porn…) Like Glenn, I’m always surprised to be called either of those things.

My political views are always evolving somewhat, but if I have to be labeled, I consider myself a child of the Enlightenment (not the French-style one, with the guillotines and all), but a classical nineteenth-century liberal. But I don’t think that there’s any one label that can encompass any person who thinks broadly and cogently about issues, and to attempt to apply one is self defeating and pointless.

But many people, including many journalists, have trouble describing someone that they can’t put into a box, so they come up with various litmus tests that allow them to categorize folks. Example: pro removing Saddam, with or without yet another UNSC resolution=”right wing.” Another example: no problem with human cloning=”left-wing or liberal.” Yet another example: Not understanding that the president is a retarded monkey (disregarding the facts that he graduated from Harvard with an MBA, and seems to outwit apparently much smarter non-simians at every political turn)=”right wing extremist.”

Of course, one then has to be careful not to use too many different kinds of test strips, or one gets conflicting results.

I suspect that this is what happens when many people read weblogs. They read it until they see something that produces a bright color change in the pH paper, and at that point they consider the test completed, and blogger categorized. If you consider yourself a liberal Democrat, right now one of your strongest litmus tests might be the war, or even more specifically, an insufficient amount of antipathy to the war, and specifically to this “unelected Administration.” So it’s not surprising that many place “warbloggers” (with whom, on many other issues they might find themselves in agreement) in the camp of the “right.” But I think that this is more of a perception, focused through imperfect prisms of thought, than any reality.

This morning, Dennis “the Menace” Kucinich was on Meet the Press. Russert challenged him to back up his statement that “it’s about oooiiiiilllll!!”

He trotted out the usual (circumstantial only) argument, such as it is: Iraq has oil; the Bush people are oil men; they’ve offered no other reason: therefore it must be oil.

Never mind that Venezuela has oil, Saudi Arabia has oil, Iraq’s oil could be gained without sending hundreds of thousands of troops to the region and risking the lives of military men and women by simply doing a deal with Saddam.

Never mind the fact that the President has been making a case, and that perhaps Congressman Kucinich is simply too dim to comprehend it, or he doesn’t believe it, but to say that the President’s offered no other reasons is simply untrue.

The argument is simply hogwash. Is to say that to be a right winger?

I don’t think that blogging, or success in blogging, is about ideology. It’s about clear thinking, and argumentation based on facts as best they can be ascertained. I don’t know, perhaps, right now, that looks “right wing,” for whatever reason. I still have to go with a much simpler, yet more accurate formulation; in Charles Johnson‘s words, it’s simply anti-idiotarian.

The other issue that came up was as a result of a question by Susannah Breslin to Luke Ford–to wit, since she thought that one of the best things about Luke’s blog was his errrmmm…wide range of content, not all of it family rated: was he concerned about censorship in general, and did he feel that he had to self censor?

Fortunately, Eugene Volokh fielded this admirably, because I found the question almost meaningless as stated. Censorship, like “hate,” and “racism,” has become a dramatically overused word, to the point that it’s losing almost any useful meaning. When a woman who wants to be paid by the taxpayer to smear chocolate on her body loses her NEA grant, she cries censorship, and many agree with her, when of course it’s nothing of the kind.

“Self censorship” is either an oxymoron, or a tautology, or perhaps paradoxically, both. Every writer engages in “self censorship.” Every word I write–even every word that is going into this post, even how to spell it, if you’re an avant-gard poet, is a choice. But the word for it is not really “self censorship.” It’s called editing, and judgement.

I suspect that what Susannah meant was, “do you ever not write something you’d otherwise like to because you fear some kind of repercussions from it?”

And of course, the answer is, of course. All the time.

I also don’t go out to the grocery in my bathrobe, though it might be much more convenient, out of similar fears.

But again, that’s simply judgement. Every action may carry consequences. I might write something that makes people angry, and not want to read my weblog any more. Or perhaps it will reduce their faith in my knowledge, so that they’ll be less likely to take, for example, my space policy advice. I have to judge (and censor, if you insist on using that inappropriate word) whether the words that I’m using, and ideas I’m expressing, are best accomplishing my objectives for that particular post, and for my weblog in general.

Similarly, when I write a column for Fox News, or Tech Central Station, I’m more careful in my word choice and tone than I am on the weblog, because I know that’s what those publications expect, and if I submit (at least consistently) material that they feel inappropriate, or of no interest to their readers, I won’t be writing for them any more. And once in a while (and fortunately, not very often, so I guess I have good judgement), I guess wrong, and submit something that they do decide to change. But that’s not censorship–again, it’s called “editing,” and that’s their job, and I never resent it or consider them censors.

Censorship has a very precise meaning–the prevention, by a government, of a point of view or piece of information being published. Beyond that, everyone has full freedom to publish whatever they want on their blog, and to submit anything they want to other publications. The flip side of that freedom is the necessity to accept the consequences, whether they be loss of readership, rejection of material, or even, in extreme cases, libel suits.

Are these legitimate concerns? Of course. Are they concerns about censorship? Absolutely not. Let us maintain the integrity of the meanings of words; when we lose them, we lose the ability to discuss things intelligently and rationally.

[Update at 8:30 PM PST]

Steven Den Beste has some further thoughts (though probably independently of mine) on the absurdity of boxes for bloggers.

Iowahawk has the story of another rogue regime that hasn’t been getting as much press.

Rod Dreher has an interesting column on a true American religious war.

It’s quite clear now that Columbia was shedding parts over California, and perhaps earlier. It’s starting to look amazing that she made it all the way to Texas. Very interesting article. Check out the time-lapse photo over California, and the animated radar image over Texas.

[Update at 12:30 PM PST]

It just occurs to me that if the Columbia had been headed toward Edwards instead of Florida, the breakup would have occurred far out over the deep waters of the Pacific, and we’d probably have very little physical evidence.

Or instead, wither? Leonard David has a wrap up from some of the industry players post Columbia.

Thomas James has analyzed the Level 1 requirements for the Orbital Space Plane that NASA released this week, sparing me from having to do so.

Thomas James has analyzed the Level 1 requirements for the Orbital Space Plane that NASA released this week, sparing me from having to do so.

Thomas James has analyzed the Level 1 requirements for the Orbital Space Plane that NASA released this week, sparing me from having to do so.

One of the frustrating things about public opinion polls and political debate is the lack of nuance in them.

The potential positions on an issue are generally dichotomized into either a “for or against,” or into two (and only two) different positions, usually one on the “left” and the other on the “right.” And of course, it’s always assumed that if you’re not for one, then you must be for the other, though of course it means nothing of the kind, and ignores a third or fourth or fifth possibility that isn’t even under discussion.

In addition, even poll results that have well-framed questions are often misinterpreted by the poll takers and pundits. As an example, consider the ever popular “presidential approval rating.” The question asks how you think the president is doing. If asked, I would say that I don’t approve of Mr. Bush’s job performance–there are many problems I have with this administration in terms of overspending, incompetence and annoyance on the homeland security front, the War on (Some) Drugs, positions on cloning and research, etc. So simple-minded political analysts would therefore mistakenly conclude that I’d vote for his opponent if the election were held today, which is, of course, nonsense, because I know that his opponent would almost certainly be even worse in other ways.

The problem is particularly bad when it comes to (you knew I was getting to this, didn’t you?) space policy.

There was an infuriating recent Gallup poll commissioned by CNN/USA Today on the future direction of the space program.

The first question was the usual, useless one–would you like to see more, less or the same amount of money spent on NASA? This of course, ignores the issue of whether you approve of the way that NASA spends its money, so it would be hard for me to come up with an answer to that one. It also doesn’t take into account that most people have no idea how much money we spend on NASA in the first place. Inform them first, both in absolute dollars and relative percentage of the federal budget, and you’ll almost certainly get a different answer.

But the next question is the most problematic:

Some people feel the U.S. space program should concentrate on unmanned missions like Voyager 2, which send back information from space. Others say the U.S. should concentrate on maintaining a manned space program like the space shuttle. Which comes closer to your view?

Ummm….none of the above? The question sets up what logicians call a false choice, ignoring other viable options and implying that these are the only two possibilities–either send robots out to “explore space” (since space has no other purpose than to be “explored,” right?) or continue to spend billions of taxpayer dollars sending a few government employees “exploring” low earth orbit.

Given the political vapidity of the questions, the results are encouraging for supporters of the status quo. Even in the wake of the loss of Columbia, support for the “manned space program” remains strong, and support for unmanned space exploration has increased from five years ago.

Of course, the poll is frustrating for those who’d like to see a new direction to our space activities, both because of the results, and the fact that the question of alternatives isn’t even asked.

And as usual, the poll reflects the fact that the people who make space policy are similarly stuck in the same stale thought patterns. The usual dumb and pointless debate of robots versus astronauts has reawakened, with no discussion, useful or otherwise, about what we’re actually trying to accomplish in space, because everyone assumes, mistakenly, that we already know that.

There was, however, one almost-interesting question. Not as interesting as it could have been, but it’s one that was rarely asked a few years ago, before the flights of Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth. It was, “would you like to be a passenger in the Shuttle yourself”?

Not surprisingly, the desire for a Shuttle ride has diminished somewhat since the nation saw seven astronauts incinerated in the skies over Texas three weeks ago, but it still remains high. Three out of ten people would like a ride.

The question, of course, would have been much more interesting if it were more generic. “Would you like to take a ride into space?” “Would you like to visit a luxury resort in orbit?” “How about one on the Moon?”

Here would be my biased poll questions:

“Do you think that NASA should be doing things that make these things possible, or continuing to squander billions sending a few civil servants in circles?”

“Do you want to send your hard-earned money to Washington so that robots can go out to Mars to have all the fun, or would you like to go see the Red Planet yourself, up close and personal?”

“Do you want a space program for robots and NASA astronauts, or do you want one for the rest of us?”

So far, it’s clear that these are not the questions on the table in Washington right now. If they were, NASA wouldn’t be talking about a multi-billion-dollar Orbital Space Plane (OSP) that will cost almost as much to operate as the Shuttle. Instead, the discussion would be about how to develop a vibrant space transportation industry, that can expand and drop costs with an increasing market.

Until these are the kinds of questions that poll takers ask, and pundits and policy makers debate, we can’t expect to break out of the space policy box that we’ve been in for the past half a century, and we’ll continue to make very little progress in expanding humanity, and life itself, off the planet.

Yeah, kick duplicitous snail-eaters while they’re down–that’s my motto…

Tony Blankley isn’t impressed, either.

The list of countries under the French whip is ironic: Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania and Bulgaria. All these countries were on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain during the Age of Communism. They were unlucky enough to be occupied by the Soviet Red Army in the closing months of WWII and thus lived in enforced slavery for half a century. But geography was destiny. France was occupied by American, British, Canadian and other British Empire troops, and was thus saved from such a fate by their English- speaking liberators. It is worth recalling that while French soldiers were throwing down their rifles in 1940 as the Germans advanced, the flower of Polish manhood charged into the invading Nazi tanks on horseback in the last and most gallant cavalry charge in history. Of course, they were killed to the last man. While the Poles were dying with their boots on, the French were living on their knee-pads (during which, they cheerfully ferreted out and shipped their French Jews off to the German death camps). How dare the French attempt to blackmail the Poles — of all people (and the Czechs and Slovaks, who they helped to sell out at Munich).

Ooohhh, that’s gonna hurt tomorrow.