Looks like it’s the end of Rockets’n’Such. I wonder if we’ll ever find out who it was? I never really understood the need for the allegories. They often seemed to get in the way of communication, even for those familiar with the program.
Category Archives: Media Criticism
Really Tall
Clark Lindsey makes a failed attempt to suppress snark about Ares 1-X.
More Augustine Links
Some thoughts from Popular Mechanics, and from Alan Boyle. Also, Clark has some more.
I would note carefully point five of the PM piece. I don’t think that most people really appreciate just how FUBAR NASA is in its current form.
More Augustine Links
…over at Clark’s place.
[Update a couple minutes later]
And a lot more at NASA Watch.
[Update a few minutes later]
One of Clark’s links is particularly interesting. Now that the report is out, Jeff Greason is unleashed: “It’s time to base US space policy on the truth.”
I’ve had some similar conversations with Jeff throughout the summer, but kept them off the record at his request. I suspect we’ll be hearing a lot more from him now, though.
Barack’s Socialist Mop
I have some thoughts on cleaning techniques over at Pajamas Media.
[Mid-morning update]
The trolls have showed up in comments over there, predictably accusing administration opponents of racism. Well, I have to ‘fess up. About the only thing that I like about the president is that he’s black. So I guess I am a racist.
ISPC Reporting
I couldn’t make it to the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight this year (for the second year in a row), but Alan Boyle did, and he has a report on yesterday’s talks, including two disparate views from Augustine panel members Lester Lyles and Jeff Greason. Regular readers will know that I’m with the latter. The panel results will be revealed in less than three hours, in a press conference to be broadcast on NASA TV. I’m encouraged that the airmail analogy has become a prevailing NASA meme. But unsurprisingly, Senator Shelby has already launched a monumentally ignorant pre-emptive strike against it.
Something that I’ve noticed in the debate is that, while opponents make cogent arguments against Constellation, and shoot down the arguments of proponents, the latter simply ignore the opponents arguments, and simply continue to repeat the same nonsense. For example, I never hear anyone defending Constellation address the operational affordability issue that Jeff and Sally Ride made last summer, in which they stated that the program would have to be cancelled for lack of budget even it if was delivered, developed, for free. And the press, even most of the space press, seems too clueless to parse or sort the arguments, instead turning it into a Battle of the Astronaut Stars (as though astronauts are experts in launch economics).
[Update a few minutes later]
Jeff apparently also demolished the nonsense (and Shelby’s primary “argument”) that Ares is safer than other approaches. I would also add the (politically incorrect) point that in fact safety should not be the highest priority. Anyone who says that it is is unserious about opening up space. In one sense, the Ares proponents are right about it being the safest vehicle. If a system is so expensive you can afford to fly it rarely, or not at all, you’re unlikely to lose many people on it.
Whales, Fish And Minnows
Roger Pielke explains how the left-blogosphere works. I would note this in particular:
In the case of Romm and Delong they also engage in outright lies and character assassination. Neither links to my own words on my blog, apparently afriad of what might happen if people view what I have to say directly, rather than their cartoonish caricatures. Gavin Schmidt of Real Climate contacted my university once and demanded that they sanction me for opinions that he did not like on my blog, under a vague threat of harm to reputation. Joe Romm has ordered the media not to talk to me (given the response, I assume that the folks who listened to him were the same folks who feed him quotes;-). What is even more disturbing is how these folks interact on a personal level. I was completely taken aback by the unprofessional email responses I received from Brad DeLong yesterday. I have occasionally seen faculty members throw hissy fits in a faculty meeting, but never have I seen the degree of unprofessional behavior displayed routinely by professionals in the liberal blogosphere. What is with these guys?
I’ve noticed this, too. While obviously the exceptions are many, I’ve noticed in general that leftosphere bloggers are much less professional and much more incivil in both public and personal communications than those on the so-called “right,” who tend to be more courteous even in disagreement. For example, some have done studies that found use of the F-word and other crudities much more prevalent to port than starboard. And I (and Roger) are not the only people who have noticed this, which makes me think that it’s something more than anecdotal. As to theories of why that may be, I’ll let others speculate.
The Myth Of The Multiplier
Why massive Democrat payoffs to their constituencies at taxpayer expense aren’t stimulative.
End The Tyranny
What kind of man would think that this is attractive?
Answer: a gay fashion designer.
How much longer are women going to allow some Paris pouf who doesn’t find women attractive to dictate what they should wear and how much they should weigh? How much longer are they going to put up with being forced to look like skinny boys with long hair (and sometimes without the long hair)? What will it take for them to rebel against the schmecker-in-a-concentration-camp look, and demand that actual voluptuous women, the kind that heterosexual men like, be considered alluring again, as they once were in the fashion world and Hollywood?
And yes, before you comment, I know that Ralph Lauren has a wife and kids. But I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that he likes guys, too. And even if he doesn’t, he goes with the anorexic flow because he thinks that’s how you make money in this sick business.
[Update a few minutes later]
How did we get from Marilyn Monroe to Kate Moss? I’m wondering if this had something to do with it. Has the pill made women want their men to look more like women, and for themselves to look more like boys? There’s a lot we don’t know about hormones.
It’s A Quagmire
The White House is bogged down in its war with Fox News:
…while the President drapes his unpopular policies with concern for the well-being of American journalism, more and more editors, reporters, and even unionized janitorial staff are beginning to oppose their commander-in-chief for trying to “win” an unwinnable war with their hands, instead of just using executive powers to ban all dissenting speech.
“I’ve been in the media for a long time, I signed up because I hate this right-wing, knuckle-dragging, imperialist system, and I would gladly sacrifice any number of my fellow Americans to advance my agenda – but this is a dumb war and a rash war,” Keith Olbermann of MSNBC told The People’s Cube outside a congressional office he visited to demand a government crackdown on dissidents. “Why must we in the field put our reputations on the line when this Congress has the power to simply confiscate Rupert Murdoch’s assets and put Beck, Hannity, and Coulter in jail?”
They seem to be losing the battle for the hearts and minds. Of course, in Olbermann’s case, there’s nothing to be won there in the latter case.
I particularly like this: “The dangerous prospect of an informed voter loomed large in the Obama administration’s plans of a pre-emptive strike.”