…may continue until Monday night. We’re in Stinson Beach for the weekend for a mini-vacation.
[Sunday-evening update]
We have no television here, other than a big screen with a DVD player, but I’m not sure I’d watch the president’s latest attack on the American people even if I did.
That’s been true throughout this administration. Nothing changed but the name.
Know who else is a disgrace? The Republican senators who confirmed them.
…are narcissistic, and mostly female.
But wait! I thought feminists told us that it’s women who are oppressed!
…but at what cost? My thoughts on the latest battle in Islam’s war with us.
To lay the blame for what happened Wednesday in San Bernardino on Barack Obama might seem excessive. But if not on him, who? From the day he took office, the president has been engaged in a game of outright denial that Islam has anything to do with what is wrong in the world.
In fact, if he ever points a finger, it’s usually at Western imperialism or Christianity or Republicans or Benjamin Netanyahu (to name a few of his favorite enemies).
But never at the I-word.
To paraphrase H.L. Mencken, “When somebody says it’s not about Islam, it’s about Islam.”
Syed Farook did not go to Saudi Arabia to study Zen Buddhism.
America, and its trailing entities in Europe, has a problem now of gargantuan proportions. Barack Obama was and is precisely the wrong man, possibly the worst conceivable man, to be president of the United States at this point in history. No one more invidious could be invented.
Still amazing that he got elected once, let alone twice.
Thoughts on Judith Curry, from Matthias Shapiro.
[Friday-morning update]
The post seems to have disappeared. I’ll ask him what the deal is.
NASA Watch has a draft of the NAC statement on LEO operations and ISS transition. It’s as though it’s posted from an alternate reality:
Even after a shift of focus to cis-lunar space and beyond has occurred, NASA may need to maintain some capability to get astronauts into low Earth orbit. If the Agency concludes that such a capability is necessary, it would be unwise to assume the existence of commercial demand for human access to LEO that may or may not materialize. Taking steps to encourage commercial activity in LEO may not be adequate to guarantee a successful transition.
So WTF is this supposed to mean? By NASA “maintaining some capability,” do they mean on a NASA owned/operated rocket? When Commercial Crew is operational (and there is zero reason to believe that won’t happen, regardless of how much Congress attempts to delay it with budget cuts), that will be how NASA gets its astronauts into LEO. Even in the very unlikely event that no commercial demand emerges, that capability will remain in place for as long as NASA wants to use it, at a much lower cost than NASA has ever gotten anyone into space. So can someone on the NAC explain to me what this word salad means? What are they proposing? Because if they’re proposing SLS/Orion, that’s economically insane.
This looks like an interesting (and likely very entertaining) Senate hearing:
Witnesses:
Dr. John Christy
Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama in HuntsvilleDr. Judith Curry
Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of TechnologyDr. William Happer
Cyrus Fogg Bracket Professor of Physics, Princeton UniversityMr. Mark Steyn
International Bestselling Author*Additional witnesses may be announced
Stock up on popcorn.
It looks like she was an architect of the Benghazi lie.
I’m sure you’re as shocked as I am.
Comparing and contrasting NASA and private industry. I prefer the term “space transports” to RLVs, though.