Chris Carberry says it’s time to stop waiting for him (or her).
I agree. The notion that a presidential speech can advance us in space is a remnant of the Apollo Cargo Cult.
Category Archives: Business
Orion
Eric Berger has the latest installment of his series on NASA’s drift (which is likely to become a book, I think):
NASA’s rank-and-file believe America wants a space program pushing outward, and upward.
“We don’t think of our jobs here as white-collar welfare,” Kramer said. “We have a real passion for what we do.”
Of course you don’t. You have to motivate yourself to go to work. But that doesn’t make it untrue.
I weep to think what that billion dollars per year could be doing if applied to something useful.
[Update a while later]
I should note that I have worked on many projects that I considered a pointless waste of money, because it was my job assignment. While I’m probably more cynical than most, I did eventually tire of helping Congress waste the taxpayers’ money, which is why I quit the mainstream industry two decades ago.
Firefly Space
A profile of the new company at Ars Technica.
How The Pilgrims Were Saved
…by ending their attempt at Marxism.
It’s an old story, but many remain unaware of it. I doubt that it’s taught that way in school. It certainly wasn’t when I was a kid. We got the old false story about how the Indians taught them how to farm and fish, and all was well.
“Seven reasons why I made a Thanksgiving resolution to leave it.”
Most of this crap doesn’t bother me, because I don’t really “use” Facebook much. My blog posts get auto-posted there, but I could count the number of times I’ve manually updated my timeline (if indeed I can recall them, which I can’t) on one hand. I guess that for many less tech literate, Facebook became a substitute for a blog, but I’ve never needed one. And I find Twitter much more useful as a link mine.
Junk Science From The FDA
The new calorie-labeling rules are counterproductive, both because people don’t pay much attention to them (appropriately), and because the whole notion of calorie counting as a means of weight control is nutritionally ignorant.
Space Access Update
The latest is out, with thoughts on the recent commercial space setbacks, among other things, including the return of the Space Access Conference next spring.
A Crash In The Mojave
Thoughts from Bill Whittle. I’d note, though, that Siebold was actually unaware that Alsbury had unlocked the feathers. That information came from the cockpit camera, I think.
[Update a while later]
Commercial space setbacks, and why we need to move forward.
Someone should write a book about that.
Obama’s Immigration Speech
It was blatherskite:
As an act of rare semantic derring-do, this was a towering achievement. As a political speech, I don’t think it was very effective. It puts one in mind of the debate in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” which ends when one side manages to prove that black is white — and gets themselves killed at the next pedestrian crosswalk.
To be honest, it’s not clear to me that the president was trying to be persuasive. He seemed, rather, to be triple-dog-daring Republicans to jump off the bridge with him, and if history is any guide, they will probably oblige. But there’s a real risk that Democrats will come to regret having the president jump first.
Reportedly some of them already are. He may have created a wedge issue for his own party.
Gruber The Grifter
Why you don’t want to let “intellectuals” anywhere near power:
Unfortunately, contemporary Washington is calibrated to defer to experts who defer to politicians, providing an intellectual Praetorian Guard for the constant growth of a leviathan. As Denver University professor David Ciepley noted, “Starting in the First World War, and much more so during the New Deal and World War II, American social scientists became part of the autonomous state themselves, helping staff the mushrooming government agencies.” The closer that intellectuals get to politicians, the more weaselly they usually become.
Playing off Mr. Gruber’s derision of average Americans, one wag suggested a new acronym — L.I.E. — for Low Information Experts. Mr. Gruber and many other professors have gotten rich by pretending that government is far more competent than it actually is. Economist Robert Skidelsky, writing about the history of modern socialism, observed that “the collectivist belief system existed independently of the facts of modern life.” The same is true of the academic cadre who profit by vindicating endless government interventions that breed chaos and dependency.
I’d like to think that people will take a lesson from this (particularly with regard to climate models), but history doesn’t make me hopeful.