General

More Eurowoes

I haven’t previously commented much about it, but it’s been clear for a while that after years of losing market share to them, Boeing now has Airbus on the ropes, and even Der Spiegel is admitting it now. I think that the 380 will turn out to be a disaster for them. Of course, Boeing has to watch their back, as some of the regional jet manufacturers, like Bombardier and Embraer start grabbing market share from their smaller planes for point to point. That’s a good thing, of course, since it will restore some competition to the market that was lost when Lockheed got out of the commercial business and Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas.

Space

Let The Tumbrels Roll

Jeff Foust asks, with regard to Griffin’s reorganization:

At what point does the standard reorganization of officials during a change of leadership become something more like a purge?

I’m not sure exactly where that point is, but it seems pretty clear to me from this WaPo article that, though they don’t use the word, we’re well beyond it.

As I’ve said before, Dr. Griffin is either going to be a spectacular success, or a spectacular failure, but either way, he’s going to do it his way. As the article points out, he’s been thinking about these issues for a long time. If I were in his position, I’d do a pretty thorough housecleaning as well, but I wouldn’t necessarily bring in all of the same people that he will.

[Update in the afternoon]

Via Keith Cowing, here’s a Slashdot discussion of this.

[Another update at 3 PM]

Thomas James says that Griffin is being Machiavellian. He means that in a good way, of course.

Space

False Choices

Jeff Foust points out a couple of editorials in the DC Examiner that set up the false choice of manned exploration versus, well, other stuff. In the one case, it’s earth sciences, though why this is NASA’s job (as opposed to, say, NOAA or NSF) isn’t said.

And both point out the continuing need for resolving my pet peeve, that we have still not had a national debate on why NASA even exists. Until we can develop some kind of consensus on why we have a government-funded space program, and particularly a manned one, we’ll continue have these pointless discussions. As it is now, the purpose is vague and chameleon like, allowing proponents of pork and hobby shops to continue to proliferate.

Political Commentary

Let Them Speak

Federal Air Marshals are suing to have their gag order removed:

The lawsuit alleges that the Federal Air Marshal Service rules are an attempt to smother and prevent the disclosure of information by federal air marshals of agency mismanagement, fraud, waste and abuse. In addition, the lawsuit challenges the Federal Air Marshal Service actions in investigating the Federal Air Marshal Association in an attempt to identify FAMA members, its Board of Directors and other private information about the organization…

…FAMA legal counsel Stephen G. DeNigris called the agency regulations at issue unconstitutional both on their face and in their application. He asserted the regulations were

Political Commentary

Devolution of Federalism

We may have passed the High Water Mark of federalism as I predicted back in April. In Gonzales vs. Raich, the Supreme Court is basically showing that it is a political body just like Congress, the Executive and the Federal Reserve. There may be a longer time between turnover on the Court, but the Justices appear to be responding to conscience and not just the rationality of arguments on their face.

What this means for federalism is that as interests evolve to reflect the growing Republican demographic of a richer, but not too rich society. As more and more are better able to provide for themselves, they see that they give more to the government than they take out. Even as Republican Congresses and Administrations provide huge new benefits, they are still perceived as the party of less government. Nice image if you can get it.

Even if it is just poor execution by Democrats and a overevolved sense of fairness, we are likely on a long-term era of Republican Congress and Presidencies. If only for the reason that there is a whip effect of Republicans winning state houses, then redistricting, there will likely be a 20 year hangover in Congress even if imperial overstretch and an abundance of power splits the Republican party.

What this implies for federalism is that the proponents of the debate will flip. National legislation will be championed by the Republicans while state diversity will be championed by the Democrats.

It has become Democrats like Cuomo arguing that an elitist Senate (with small-state overrepresentation and a super-majority requirement) deserves more power than a populist president when it comes to selecting and approving judges. We will see strange coalitions of conservatives and liberals on the Supreme Court denying federalism on legacy issues. The conservatives to lay the groundwork for a future with much narrower states’ rights and the liberals to be true to principles and to salvage short term political victories (or at least hold the line) on individual cases having to do with the vestiges of challenges to Democrat-approved national legislation.

I predict that there will be a litmus test for new judges not to support federalism. If not by this administration, perhaps the next will get it. So those Justices like Thomas and O’Connor that support federalism on the merits will increasingly be joined by fair-weather federalists from the Left and opposed by the new appointees that will be expected to spread national Republican law throughout the land.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!