An asteroid has just hit the aerospace dinosaurs, in Europe, China, Russia, and here.
Category Archives: Business
The TSA
Time (way past time, really, it should never have been created) to abolish it.
[Wednesday-morning update]
More thoughts from Veronique de Rugy.
Safe Is Not An Option
I didn’t expect the book to be available for purchase at Amazon for another couple weeks. This
Working on e-versions now.
Blue Origin’s New Engine
I’m glad they’re making progress, but I don’t understand why they want a hydrogen engine for a booster, particularly for suborbital. The exhaust velocities don’t match well, and you have a lot of handling and bulk-density issues.
A Fight Over Contraception
As she says, it’s ludicrous to expect a completely predictable and routine expense to be covered by insurance. It’s all about rousing up the troops in the fake “war on women.”
International Air Travel
We’ve come a long way.
California High-Speed Land Grab
Despite the fact that the project is essentially dead, the state is continuing to move forward with eminent domain.
4K Televisions
Why you shouldn’t buy one this year.
In addition to the standards issues, I don’t think there’s much content yet.
Derailing High-Speed Rail
I’m glad that the idiotic project is dead, but it should have died for sensible reasons, instead of being strangled by California’s (and the federal government’s) own red tape:
Our legal systems are increasingly so cumbersome, so slow and so expensive that they are a serious drag on productivity and growth. Just as teachers unions oppose reforming public schools that cost too much and do too little, professors and administrators fight to preserve a dysfunctional university system, and a multitude of vested interests drive up costs in the health system, the “legal system lobby” is more interested in the financial health and social power of its members than in the public good.
The whole system, both in California and in DC, needs an overhaul.
The Bad-Faith Presidency
If he were awoken at 3 a.m. and told he had to make the case for nationalizing the banks by denying he was nationalizing the banks, he would do an entirely creditable job of it, even without a TelePrompTer. The salesmanship for Obamacare represents in microcosm the larger Obama political project, which has always depended on throwing a reassuring skein of moderation on top of left-wing ideological aims.
All politicians are prone to shaving the truth, giving themselves the benefit of the doubt and trying to appear more reasonable than they are. Obama has made it an art form. Bad faith is one of his signal strengths as a politician, and makes him one of the greatest front men progressivism has ever had.
He will never admit his deep bias toward the growth of the federal government for its own sake, or that he doesn’t care that much if Iran gets the bomb, or that he is liquidating the American leadership role in the Middle East. No, no—he is just trying to make government work, giving diplomacy a chance and pivoting to Asia, respectively.
It’s a shame more people didn’t catch on the the con last year.