Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Censorship

5 Comments

…can’t cure racism:

Many people may find this disappointing. Indeed, punishing those who engage in offensive expression is perennially popular because it gives the impression that we’re “doing something” about the problem of racism, sexism and bigotry. In France, for instance, Holocaust denial has long been illegal, and just this year the country arrested more than 70 people for praising the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack. France has put real teeth into laws that punish offensive speech.

Yet according to the Anti-Defamation League, 37% of the French harbor anti-Semitic opinions. In the U.S. — which, thanks to the First Amendment, has never banned Holocaust denial or hateful speech — that number is 9%, among the lowest in the world. While this comparison can’t capture all the differences between the two nations, it strongly suggests that punishing expression is no real cure for bigotry, and refusing to punish hateful speech does not lead inevitably to its spread.

Censorship isn’t necessary for those who are confident in the truth of their views. It’s a signal of insecurity and displays a fear that if an idea is allowed to be expressed, people will find that idea too attractive to resist. Somehow, college administrators are convinced that if they don’t officially punish racism, their students will be drawn to it like moths to a flame. But there’s simply no reason to expect that. Given the history of campus activism in our nation from the civil rights movement onward, there are myriad reasons to expect the opposite.

The solution to bad speech is more speech. And, as Instapundit notes, it’s not surprising that a Democrat doesn’t understand (or care about) the Constitution.

Humor, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Claire Berlinski

9 Comments

..is rebranding:

I felt rebranding was in order, though, for it struck me this morning that the photo you have been looking at was taken in 2008. It does not reflect the maturity, wisdom, and insight I have acquired since then.

Nor does it convey the deep and appropriate alarm I wish to suggest when discussing profoundly important geopolitical events such as the rise of ISIS, the return of Russian Imperialism, the criteria I will use to select my next Commander-in-Chief, and the incentives we are creating to rapid nuclear proliferation. Nor, above all, does it convey the most significant geopolitical event of my life: my catastrophic realization that I may have been wrong in my assessment of French demographic trends. So I believe this photo more accurately conveys “the deep and serious questions we must all ask ourselves.”

It also properly suggests that I am older and more knowing. Now, of course it would be beneath me to exploit, for political purposes, my opponents’ youth and inexperience. Nor is it my intention to do so. I am merely concerned about truth in advertising: I am 47 years old. Were you to consider a photo of me at age 39, is might mislead you. You would be ill-served by underestimating my wisdom and gravitas.

Moreover, it would be quite unfortunate were you to meet me in person and think, “But Claire looks older than her photo.” Clearly, it is much more important that you meet me and think, “Goodness. Claire looks even better than her photo.”

I’m sure she does.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Hillary’s Press Conference

53 Comments

Asche Schow has eighteen questions.

They all seem pretty reasonable to me, assuming that she’s a presidential candidate.

Ron Fournier, on the other hand, only three questions (like the three rules of real estate, though with some others): “What are you hiding? What are you hiding? What are you hiding?”

Maybe, after all these decades of criminality and corruption, the media is finally turning on her.

[Update a few minutes later]

Voters have Hillary concerns.

As well they should.

[Update a couple minutes later]

The press conference threatens to be a media fiasco.

That’s probably the intent.

[Update after the big event]

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s a pretty good live blog of the trainwreck.

Business, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

ULA

17 Comments

…may be running out of engines a lot sooner than it thought.

What a policy mess.

And on top of that, the new Falcon 9 may require additional certification:

NASA says if the Falcon 9 is upgraded in the future, the agency will review the performance and design changes and make a judgment as to whether those changes will require a new certification.

“A thrust increase alone would not immediately result in a new common launch vehicle configuration,” Buck says. “However, often such changes are accomplished by major design differences throughout the engine and include propellant tank changes that affect the burn time and vehicle mass significantly,” he says, adding that NASA considers the effect on loads, controls and aerodynamics when making such a determination. If the agency finds modifications that constitute a new launch vehicle configuration, then a certification strategy that complies with NASA regulations would be put in place and that “such a strategy would define the number of flights required to achieve NASA certification,” Buck notes.

LSP says it is unclear how many additional flights of an upgraded Falcon 9 may be necessary, if any.

“It will depend on what changes, their magnitude, and when the contractor would desire to cut them in,” Buck says, adding that the agency does not currently plan to certify the vehicle for higher-risk Cat. 3 missions, which would include planetary and astronomy missions.

And then there’s this:

Both agencies expect to complete their respective Falcon 9 certification efforts mid-year, though NASA says once the vehicle is certified to launch riskier missions, in the future it does not plan to fly science payloads on SpaceX launchers utilizing refurbished Falcon 9 cores.

“Our current Category 2 certification effort assumes the use of an un-refurbished core stage,” says NASA spokesman Joshua Buck, referring to the ongoing effort to certify the Falcon 9 to launch Earth-observation spacecraft, starting with the Jason-3 ocean altimetry mission set to lift off in June from Vandenberg AFB, California.

See, in a sane world, you’d have more confidence in hardware that had already successfully flown, not less. This would be like insisting on a brand-new airplane very time you flew. Hopefully we’ll get there over time.

[Mid-afternoon update]

Note the first comment by Dave Huntsman on this latest demonstration of NASA’s ongoing aversion to reusability, going back to the X-33 fiasco.

Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Solar Radiation In CMIP5 Climate Models

9 Comments

…has huge basic errors:

Why wasn’t this astonishing, large error of basic astrophysical calculations caught billions of dollars ago, and how much has this error affected the results of all modeling studies in the past?

The paper adds to hundreds of others demonstrating major errors of basic physics inherent in the so-called ‘state of the art’ climate models, including violations of the second law of thermodynamics. In addition, even if the “parameterizations” (a fancy word for fudge factors) in the models were correct (and they are not), the grid size resolution of the models would have to be 1mm or less to properly simulate turbulent interactions and climate (the IPCC uses grid sizes of 50-100 kilometers, 6 orders of magnitude larger). As Dr. Chris Essex points out, a supercomputer would require longer than the age of the universe to run a single 10 year climate simulation at the required 1mm grid scale necessary to properly model the physics of climate.

But let’s get a carbon tax, right now!

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!