Well, this is annoying. Mark Whittington needs to work on his, apparently.

He claimed that:

…some people…on the one hand, preach libertarian cant and, on the other hand, demand government pay money up front, before the promised hardware is even built, not to mention delivered.

We asked him for an example of such a person.

Bizarrely, he responded with:

Unlike Kistler, t/Space will not try to develop their system with commercial money but will seek a fixed-cost contract, milestone payment approach with NASA.

By what tortured logic does he think that this means that the government would “pay money up front, before the promised hardware is even built, not to mention delivered”?

Apparently he doesn’t understand the meaning of the words “milestone payment approach.” Or else he doesn’t understand the meaning of the words “up front,” or “before hardware is built” or “delivered.” Either way, it’s a head scratcher of a post.