Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Mark Whittington

3 Comments

His latest nonsense:

The problem, from the perspective of commercial space supporters, is that Shank represents an institutional, NASA-centric viewpoint where it comes to space exploration. While at the space agency he supported the Bush-era Constellation program which was subsequently canceled by President Obama. In Congress, Shank helped support the Orion spacecraft and the heavy lift Space Launch System. Many commercial space advocates find these views abhorrent, believing that NASA should simply outsource its space exploration plans to the private sector, to companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin.

I don’t know any commercial space advocates who believe that. What we believe is that there is no need for NASA to be in the launch business.

Shank’s association with Mike Griffin has also raised some hackles. Griffin has been blamed, unfairly for the most part, for the troubles that beset Constellation before it was cancelled. In fact many of these problems, including the fact that the project was underfunded, occurred above his paygrade.

There is nothing unfair about blaming Mike Griffin for choosing a terrible rocket design that was certain to cost more than was allocated for it in the budget sandpile, in the belief that he could somehow talk Congress into increasing his budget.

Business, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

ObamaCare RIP

10 Comments

The Republicans have a plan:

While a full repeal would have to originate in Congress, Price’s nomination promises quick action to roll back regulatory changes that come from the blank-check authority given to HHS by the ACA. The controversial contraception mandate will almost certainly be at the top of that list. Price has opposed that from the moment Kathleen Sebelius issued the regulation, specifically citing its infringement “with our fundamental right to religious freedom.”

Twila Brase, president of the Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom, reminded the Examiner’s Robert King that Price can easily undo most of what Sebelius implemented while waiting for Congress to act. “There are tens of thousands of pages of Obamacare regulations that can be rescinded, amended or left unenforced on the way to repeal, and we encourage him to make every effort to begin shutting down Obamacare by shutting down its regulations.” Such are the vulnerabilities of regulatory legacies.

Democrats have been quick to counter with accusations that Trump and his new administration will leave low-income Americans without health coverage. Obamacare also expanded Medicaid, which most states have adopted, and which accounts for nearly half of the claimed 20 million consumers who gained insurance after its adoption. Repealing Obamacare, its advocates claim, will leave those Americans in the lurch.

Trump’s second appointment this week provides a clear answer to those accusations. Seema Verma will take over the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services after having worked with vice-president elect Mike Pence to craft Indiana’s Medicaid expansion, as well as with Kentucky’s Matt Bevin and a handful of other Republican governors. Verma helped create Healthy Indiana 2.0 plan (HIP), a program that mixes the base coverage of Medicaid with tax credits and HSAs to produce incentives making utilization more efficient and effective.

Live by the pen and the phone, die by the pen and the phone.

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Russia’s Rockets

6 Comments

What’s wrong with them?

“The Russian space sector is short of funding, and may be having difficulties maintaining its quality control standards,” said John Logsdon, a Planetary Society board member and professor emeritus of political science and international affairs at George Washington University.

Additionally, Russia’s workforce is shrinking. Since the 1990s, the country’s population has steadily declined, despite an influx of more than 9 million immigrants. Those migrants have filled some of the country’s job vacancies, but the overall effect, according to the Brookings Institute, is that Russia faces a sharp decline in labor quality.

Worse yet, due to larger economic pressures, the country isn’t able to make large-scale education investments, said David Belcher, an analysis manager at the Washington, D.C.-based Avascent consulting group.

“The effect of that is that they have a skills mismatch in certain industrial sectors, that appears to include the launch industry,” he told me. “The fact that we’ve seen several instances of Russian rockets not working as designed the past few years seems to support that thesis.”

And yet we’re relying on them to get our astronauts to the ISS, because “safety is the highest priority.”

[Mid-afternoon update]

Looks like the stage went kablooey. Which is kind of bad, because it’s the same one they use for crew. Wonder if it would have been abortable?

[Update a few minutes later]

A reminder that Jim Oberg warned about this over a year ago.

Humor, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Buzzfeed

6 Comments

Jon Gabriel gives it a taste of it’s own social-justice medicine. Pretty funny.

Isn’t the notion that homosexual behavior is a sin a pretty mainstream Christian belief?

[Update a while later]

[Late-afternoon update]

[Friday-morning update]

Buzzfeed has provided helpful instructions as to what to do with their “Fixer Upper” article.

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Millennials’ Political Views

12 Comments

…don’t make any sense:

Young people support big government, unless it costs any more money. They’re for smaller government, unless budget cuts scratch a program they’ve heard of. They’d like Washington to fix everything, just so long as it doesn’t run anything.

Hardly surprising, considering that they were “educated” in a government-school system, and then went to colleges infested with mindless leftist professors. And I hate that the pollsters say they’re more “liberal” than older people. No, they’re more leftist.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!