Another Infamous Anniversary

Jeff Greason of XCOR Aerospace notes that:

29 years ago today, the Apollo 17 mission left the Moon.

We have not been back since. Barring a miracle, the 30th anniversary of the event will pass in similar condition.

No special call to action — but every year, about this time, I note the anniversary. It would be nice if we could arrange some kind of formal observance for the 30th anniversary, although I don’t know what. Ceremonially bury a Saturn V model? Burn Nixon in effigy? I don’t know…

Well, actually the decision had already been made (by the Johnson Administration) by the time he took office, though of course, he could have reversed it. But there was no public support for further Apollo missions, let alone a lunar base. We had beaten the Russians, which was the only reason that NASA got the money to go to the Moon.

Ultimately, when we return to the Moon, it will be because there’s a profit to be made. Jeff and his team, and others, are following that path, which will, in the long run, be a more effective means of opening up space than waiting in futility for a visionary president, particularly given the fickleness of politics.

Why Didn’t They Respect Us?

Charles Krauthammer has a piece in this week’s Time about why we’re winning the war against Islamicism. It was always pointless to ask “Why do they hate us?” They hate us for reasons that we can do nothing about, and still remain ourselves–they hate us because we are not radical Islamicists. The question we should have been asking instead is “Why don’t they respect us”? Well, now they do, and the “Arab street” has been silenced.

We can now, however, carry on with a confidence we did not have before Afghanistan. Confidence that even religious fanaticism can be defeated, that despite its bravado, it carries no mandate from heaven. The psychological effect of our stunning victory in Afghanistan is already evident. We see the beginning of self-reflection in the Arab press, asking what Arab jihadists are doing exporting their problems to places like Afghanistan and the West; wondering why the Arab world uniquely has not developed a single real democracy; and asking, most fundamentally, how a great religion like Islam could have harbored a malignant strain that would rejoice in the death of 3,000 innocents. It is the kind of questioning that Europeans engaged in after World War II (asking how Fascism and Nazism could have been bred in the bosom of European Christianity) but that was sadly lacking in the Islamic world. Until now.

Why Didn’t They Respect Us?

Charles Krauthammer has a piece in this week’s Time about why we’re winning the war against Islamicism. It was always pointless to ask “Why do they hate us?” They hate us for reasons that we can do nothing about, and still remain ourselves–they hate us because we are not radical Islamicists. The question we should have been asking instead is “Why don’t they respect us”? Well, now they do, and the “Arab street” has been silenced.

We can now, however, carry on with a confidence we did not have before Afghanistan. Confidence that even religious fanaticism can be defeated, that despite its bravado, it carries no mandate from heaven. The psychological effect of our stunning victory in Afghanistan is already evident. We see the beginning of self-reflection in the Arab press, asking what Arab jihadists are doing exporting their problems to places like Afghanistan and the West; wondering why the Arab world uniquely has not developed a single real democracy; and asking, most fundamentally, how a great religion like Islam could have harbored a malignant strain that would rejoice in the death of 3,000 innocents. It is the kind of questioning that Europeans engaged in after World War II (asking how Fascism and Nazism could have been bred in the bosom of European Christianity) but that was sadly lacking in the Islamic world. Until now.

Why Didn’t They Respect Us?

Charles Krauthammer has a piece in this week’s Time about why we’re winning the war against Islamicism. It was always pointless to ask “Why do they hate us?” They hate us for reasons that we can do nothing about, and still remain ourselves–they hate us because we are not radical Islamicists. The question we should have been asking instead is “Why don’t they respect us”? Well, now they do, and the “Arab street” has been silenced.

We can now, however, carry on with a confidence we did not have before Afghanistan. Confidence that even religious fanaticism can be defeated, that despite its bravado, it carries no mandate from heaven. The psychological effect of our stunning victory in Afghanistan is already evident. We see the beginning of self-reflection in the Arab press, asking what Arab jihadists are doing exporting their problems to places like Afghanistan and the West; wondering why the Arab world uniquely has not developed a single real democracy; and asking, most fundamentally, how a great religion like Islam could have harbored a malignant strain that would rejoice in the death of 3,000 innocents. It is the kind of questioning that Europeans engaged in after World War II (asking how Fascism and Nazism could have been bred in the bosom of European Christianity) but that was sadly lacking in the Islamic world. Until now.

The ABM Plot Thickens

Loon^H^H^H^Hanalyst Joel Skausen has the real scoop on why Bush is abrogating the ABM Treaty. He wants to force Putin into a decapitating first strike before it’s too late, so that the Trilateralists can then institute a World Government. You’ll never get this story from the Grey Old Lady.

Sometimes I wonder if Republican operatives pay people to publish this kind of stuff to keep Bush in the center, under fire from both sides…

What Part Of “Server Too Busy” Didn’t You Understand?

I had a weird experience this morning in browsing Nasawatch (a recommended site, by the way, for those interested in space policy and doings–Keith doesn’t always get it right, but it’s a good source for scuttlebutt that often turns out to be quite correct). I clicked on a link to a story at Spaceref, and got a long delay as it tried to access the server. Like watched pots boiling, watched browser windows never load, so I gave up and switched to a different one momentarily (I run Opera, which allows one to have multiple windows open simultaneously). When I went back to check progress, I saw a simple message–“HTTP/1.1 Server Too Busy.”

I backed up to the main page, and tried the link again. This time, without delay, I got the same message. Theorizing that I was possibly looking at a cached page, I hit the reload button. This time, it came back with the same message, but in a font at least ten points larger–“HTTP/1.1 SERVER TOO BUSY.” I could almost have sworn that it was shouting at me.

OK, OK, I’m sorry. I’ll try later.

Did someone really anticipate that someone might do a reload in such a situation, and deliberately write code that would up the font size? Or has the combination of Moore’s Law and the interconnectivity of the net finally hit critical mass in servers, and intelligence (and irritation with us lower, less-intelligent life forms) is becoming an emergent property?

Theories welcome.

What Part Of “Server Too Busy” Didn’t You Understand?

I had a weird experience this morning in browsing Nasawatch (a recommended site, by the way, for those interested in space policy and doings–Keith doesn’t always get it right, but it’s a good source for scuttlebutt that often turns out to be quite correct). I clicked on a link to a story at Spaceref, and got a long delay as it tried to access the server. Like watched pots boiling, watched browser windows never load, so I gave up and switched to a different one momentarily (I run Opera, which allows one to have multiple windows open simultaneously). When I went back to check progress, I saw a simple message–“HTTP/1.1 Server Too Busy.”

I backed up to the main page, and tried the link again. This time, without delay, I got the same message. Theorizing that I was possibly looking at a cached page, I hit the reload button. This time, it came back with the same message, but in a font at least ten points larger–“HTTP/1.1 SERVER TOO BUSY.” I could almost have sworn that it was shouting at me.

OK, OK, I’m sorry. I’ll try later.

Did someone really anticipate that someone might do a reload in such a situation, and deliberately write code that would up the font size? Or has the combination of Moore’s Law and the interconnectivity of the net finally hit critical mass in servers, and intelligence (and irritation with us lower, less-intelligent life forms) is becoming an emergent property?

Theories welcome.

What Part Of “Server Too Busy” Didn’t You Understand?

I had a weird experience this morning in browsing Nasawatch (a recommended site, by the way, for those interested in space policy and doings–Keith doesn’t always get it right, but it’s a good source for scuttlebutt that often turns out to be quite correct). I clicked on a link to a story at Spaceref, and got a long delay as it tried to access the server. Like watched pots boiling, watched browser windows never load, so I gave up and switched to a different one momentarily (I run Opera, which allows one to have multiple windows open simultaneously). When I went back to check progress, I saw a simple message–“HTTP/1.1 Server Too Busy.”

I backed up to the main page, and tried the link again. This time, without delay, I got the same message. Theorizing that I was possibly looking at a cached page, I hit the reload button. This time, it came back with the same message, but in a font at least ten points larger–“HTTP/1.1 SERVER TOO BUSY.” I could almost have sworn that it was shouting at me.

OK, OK, I’m sorry. I’ll try later.

Did someone really anticipate that someone might do a reload in such a situation, and deliberately write code that would up the font size? Or has the combination of Moore’s Law and the interconnectivity of the net finally hit critical mass in servers, and intelligence (and irritation with us lower, less-intelligent life forms) is becoming an emergent property?

Theories welcome.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!