Category: Current Events

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Tuesday’s Brain Dump: The End is Still Nigh

Sarah Hoyt, always with the good advice, this time on raising kids when the world’s gone nuts. Here’s hoping she finally gets well soon, because we need all the non-nutty people we can get. Behold:

Bank of America shows which side it’s on in the gun control debate. Hint: it ain’t free markets or liberty. Not that it’s the least bit surprising.

Dog Bites Man: Has the Muslim Brotherhood successfully infiltrated the US Government? Well, yes. Also not surprising in the least, since that’s kind of what the Brotherhood’s founding charter SAYS THEY PLAN TO DO. Yeesh, am I the only one out here paying attention?

Another Dog Bites Another Man, or why Brent Musberger is still a turd blossom.

And Now for Something Completely Different, or Man Bites Dog: Well, when you’ve earned Iran’s endorsement then of course you’re a shoo-in for the top job at the Pentagon.

Good luck with this plan. Does the GOP still suffer under the illusion that the Dems actually share the same goals? Remind me, how many times did Lucy have to yank the football away from Charlie Brown before he finally wised up? Oh, never mind…

Finally, from the “I can’t be overdrawn, I still have checks left!” school of fiscal policy: The Dr. Evil ONE TRILLION DOLLAR Commemorative Coin. As seen on TV! Or as one astute analyst commented, it would be“like a Simpsons episode” (hey, maybe we could buy a monorail with it):

“What about us brain-dead slobs?”

“You’ll all be given cushy jobs!”

“But Main Street’s still all cracked and broken…”

“Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken!”

Why some people with “serious” reputations (or access to NY Times bylines – ahem) would advocate this insanity is beyond me. And it would be pure insanity – and to my mind, final proof that the Cloward-Piven strategy does hold sway with certain Democrats.

If this came to pass, that’d be the point where I cash out my 401k and go Full Prepper, because that’d be the only way to get by in a country that’s gone Full Retard.

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The End is Nigh

Happy last day on earth, everyone!

Between the Mayan calendar and an impending Christmas trip to the in-laws, I don’t know how much time there’ll be for posting tomorrow. If you don’t read anything else today, go to Ace of Spades for the single best collection of helpful advice for today’s world that I’ve seen in a while.

That is all, carry on…

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Outrage

I can’t even begin to get my head around what happened yesterday in Connecticut. Watching it unfold on TV made me literally sick to my stomach, while fighting to keep myself from bawling in front of a room full of guys. But I suspect they all felt the same way. Normally a talkative bunch, we were all remarkably subdued. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that most of us are parents of small children who were in school at that moment.

And by the way, I don’t want to hear a single damned word about gun control: Gun Violence up 89% in the UK

The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year  –  a rise of 89 per cent.

In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold.

In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled.

Note that this is in a country which has some of the most onerous gun laws in the world.

Gun control is an attempt to impose a mechanical solution on a cultural problem. Our society is sick, and disarming the law-abiding is not the solution. I know that’s not what gun-control advocates think they’d be doing, but that’s what the end result would be. The only way it works is by the fantasy of completely eliminating every single firearm from the face of the Earth. Otherwise, bad people will find a way to get their hands on them.

As has been said about universal nuclear disarmament, one cannot put that genie back into the bottle.

To my mind, there are two fundamental steps that would go a long way toward preventing more of these outrages (“tragedy” would imply this was somehow accidental):

1. Roll back the liberalization of mental health laws that make it nearly impossible to commit the truly ill. I know why it was done, but would submit that we are far worse off having so many people on the streets who would’ve been hospitalized 40 years ago. I have some personal, painful experience in this area and it is by the grace of God that things didn’t turn tragic.

2. Allow concealed-carry permit holders to exercise their licenses. A little plastic “Gun Free Zone” sign by the main entrance does nothing to deter a psychopath bent on mayhem, but a stable adult packing heat might. It certainly seems to have worked in those states that allow it, though like any other statistical analysis I’ve seen it abused from both directions. I will say this: every time CCW is allowed somewhere it hadn’t been before, none of the wild-west violence predicted by the anti-gun crowd ever happens.

If you’re afraid of guns, I get it. I’m afraid of them, too: it’s called having a healthy respect for stuff that can kill you. However, I’m far less afraid of the one in my own hand than the one in somebody else’s. All of this gun-control blather is pointless anyway: we have a right to ownership protected by the Constitution. And for the moment, that still counts for something. If you want to change it, circulate a bill to repeal the 2nd Amendment and get it through the Constitutional process: 2/3 majority vote in Congress and 3/4 ratification by the states.

Hey, I didn’t say it’d be easy. In the meantime, here’s more food for thought from Vox Day:

Say what you will about homeschooling, but if your child is taught at home, he’s not going to be shot there by some disgruntled school employee, student, or parent.  And the idea that gun control laws will make any difference whatsoever with regards to this sort of thing is risible, given that it is already illegal to carry guns onto school property, to say nothing of shooting people there.

And this may be worth keeping in mind when the inevitable push for gun control begins: “The worst mass school murder in American history took place on May 18,1927 in Bath Township, Mich., when a former school board member set off three bombs that killed 45 people.”

We live in a depraved world that doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Watch your six, people.

12/16 UPDATE: Via Ace of Spades, a mother’s anguished account of life with a mentally-unstable child: I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me.

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Thursday Brain Dump

Once again, not much time for anything else so ya’ll line up at the trough…

Rand Simberg weighs in on the likelihood of Golden Spike’s commercial lunar missions. From someone who knows of which he speaks.

Aerospace companies at increasing risk of industrial sabotage from the Chinese. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Following that train of thought: European research into hypersonic suborbital airliners. Well, a guy can dream, but this looks like more EU BS. Studies are fine; research is necessary. But why pretend like they’re ever going to get serious about actually building something?

And for something more down to earth: Airline veteran turns the tables on obnoxious passengers. Takes two to tango.

End of the world watch: “QE3: This Time, It’s Personal!”: Stepping on the accelerator as we head over the cliff. Apparently the old “I can’t be broke, I still have checks!” line is a joke to some and a guiding philosophy for others. I don’t really care what your politics are, just know that this will not end well unless we can somehow grow the economy at a rate that will eventually surpass the Fed’s money-printing velocity. And let’s face it, pro-growth policies are not exactly flowing out of Washington these days. Our only real hope is the domestic energy boom underway in the Appalachians and Dakotas, which so far are not hamstrung by a need to access Federal land. If the EPA can be kept from strangling that baby in the crib, we may have a fighting chance. Better hope so, because otherwise an inflection point is coming and reality will not be denied for much longer.

What’s really infuriating about all this political theater is that those of us who’ve tried to learn History’s lessons are going to suffer from the foolishness of those who refuse to (or believe they’re smarter than their forebears). In the end, human nature is what it is. There is nothing new under the sun.

 

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Daily Brain Dump

Since I’m in the middle of a big push to finish Terminal Velocity, there won’t be a whole lot of blog pontificating going on here for the next several weeks. Sorry, but there’s only so much time in the day.

To fill the void, I’ll be posting links to stories that catch my interest. Hopefully they’ll catch yours as well. If something really interesting happens, I might even comment on it (surely the suspense is killing you).

I can hear it now: “Nope, it’s not killing me, and don’t call me Shirley.”

So here’s what’s going on in our world today…

Giant killer asteroids to barely miss Earth tonight. Sleep well, kiddies.

Robert Ballard finds evidence of Noah’s Flood. In case you ever thought wayward asteroids were our only problem.

Elon Musk on Mars and Interstellar travel. Nope, he’s not building a warp drive anytime soon.

Michigan becomes a right-to-work state, predictable hilarity violence ensues. Seriously? If your little club is so friggin’ awesome, why do you need the force of law to retain dues-paying members? Welcome to the free market, beeches.

Behind the yoke of Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner. Yeah, I’d take one.

Why going to the trouble of hiking and camping is worth it. Because nature rocks.

How little we really know about dinosaurs. And by extension, our own world. What might we imagine present-day animals to be if they had to be reconstructed from the same available fossil record? Hint: tree-climbing goats. But no sharks with frickin’ lasers…again.

Wrath of Khan character officially revealed for Star Trek Into Darkness!   Sadly, it’s not the one we’re all hoping for. Yet.

Nope. Not today.

P.S. And if you’re looking for some good holiday reading, Perigee is only 99 cents this week!

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Working On The Railroad

Funny, it doesn't LOOK golden...For those of you not familiar with the American history of Westward expansion (that wasn’t summed up in popular lore by an old Iron Maiden song), the “golden spike” refers to the completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad. It signified the opening of the West, and allowed us to transition from pioneering to something more permanent.

The railroad made life easier for settlers who before could only live off the land, and allowed more people from “Back East” to head West. A century later, this all provided rich fodder for Clint Eastwood movies, but that’s another story.

Today, “Golden Spike” also refers to a new company intent on getting people back to the Moon by the end of this decade.

Like everyone else in the space-nerd corner of the blogosphere, I’ve been eagerly awaiting today’s announcement (no, not the one for the new Trek movie – but hey, that works too). I hadn’t posted anything on it because recent rumors suggested that one of the company’s investors happens to be a gentleman whom I work for.

Sadly, it now appears those rumors aren’t true – because you’d better believe I’d have been all up in his office looking for a foothold in the new company.

Though it does appear to have signed up some serious investors and human spaceflight experts. It’s also nice to see that they’re pushing a framework along the lines of what I’d been holding to for a long time:

That is, rocket science ain’t exactly rocket science anymore. 

In particular, there are ways to get to the Moon that don’t necessarily demand a Saturn V-class launcher. If these guys are serious about a “cislunar superhighway”, then that presumably means they’re serious about orbital depots, reusable landers, and maybe even Aldrin cyclers.

Aldrin cyclers are – surprise – named for the second man to walk on the moon, Buzz Aldrin. He earned the first PhD in Orbital Mechanics from MIT, years before there was even a manned space program. His doctoral thesis in orbital rendezvous became NASA’s standard, especially after he and Jim Lovell were forced to prove the concept when their radar on Gemini XII failed.

Dr. Aldrin proposed a system of reusable spacecraft that would semi-permanently orbit between two bodies: in this case, Earth and Moon. They would be on long, low-energy orbits, maybe two weeks each way (recall that Apollo missions only took 3 or 4 days each way).  The idea is they would be constantly shuttling people and stuff between the two, and could be met by other spacecraft at either destination.

So instead of a crew needing a big one-way booster to lunar orbit, maybe they’d only need to get up to a high Earth orbit with their stuff and dock with the Cycler while it’s swinging by.

Of course nothing lasts forever up there, which is where the fuel depots come in. If that technology could be mastered (and a lot of really smart people think it could be, rather soon) then it opens up all sorts of possibilities: namely, smaller and more frequent launches. Reusable landers. Semi-permanent cyclers.

If it sounds like I’ve been thinking about this a lot, it’s because I have been. All of this cislunar-infrastructure-stuff (say that three times fast) is an integral part of the Perigee sequel, working title I Have No Freaking Idea What to Name This Book Yet. But I’m still leaning towards Terminal Velocity or maybe Farside Down.

In the meantime, I hope this group can put together enough money to actually do something but there’s a long, sad history in this business of people with grand ideas and no money. It’s certainly more plausible than just five or six years ago, and one encouraging aspect of today’s announcement is that no one’s laughing them out of the room: major newspapers, networks, and magazines are all featuring this story today.

That’s because Musk and SpaceX have shown us how it can be done. If they can drive down launch costs as much as they’re hoping for, then Golden Spike has a realistic chance to move this project beyond PowerPoint. Unless at least a few billionaires sign up to bankroll a flight, all of this is just neat-looking vaporware until they start putting money down for someone to bend metal.

No bucks, no Buck Rogers. Or so I’ve heard…

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Thanksgiving

Today I am thankful for many things: my family, my job, and my good health. I am thankful for a God who loves us and who has reconciled us to Him through the gift of grace. I am thankful for living in a free Nation that recognizes my right to believe, and to advocate for that belief. I am thankful for the men and women I served with, and who defend that Nation today.

I’m also pretty dang happy about this:

This will be my first attempt at smoking a turkey, so the family will all be especially thankful if Dad doesn’t screw the pooch.

Speaking of Thansksgiving pooch-screwin’, here’s a timeless classic that deserves its place in the holiday pantheon alongside Alice’s Restaurant and Charlie Brown:

Eat up and enjoy!

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Ding Dongs

Because simply calling them “economic illiterates” doesn’t quite get the point across harshly enough.

When the freaking Teamsters agree with management and accept concessions, shouldn’t that be an indication that hey, this is kind of serious?

Something like this happened with Eastern Airlines back in the late ’80s. Despite having their mechanic’s union steward holding a seat on the board of directors, it still didn’t satisfy them. If anything, their leadership used that privilege to just create more hate, discontent, and chaos. Labor strife got so intense that, near the end, company chairman (and Apollo 8 CDR) Frank Borman reportedly carried a concealed pistol in an ankle holster.

The end result? One union eventually drove a once-great airline into the ground. On purpose, to prove a point; never mind their thousands of colleagues who had no say in the matter and were dragged down with them.

I can’t imagine the fury such people at Hostess must be feeling right now. Why couldn’t anyone understand that 80 or 90% of something is far better than 0% of something? Take the deal, suck it up, and use the time you just bought to find a better job. And if you can’t find a better gig, be patient. Life sucks for a lot of people these days and it ain’t about to get any better.

The only explanation for this kind of behavior is greed, bound to a sense of entitlement, with a healthy dose of economic ignorance. I’ve never understood this notion that businesses are just sitting on enormous piles of cash with no better purpose.

Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. Either way, it’s not like there aren’t other obligations. Just because a company has cash reserves doesn’t mean they should hand over all of it to their employees. What happens if they have a bad year? You’d kind of want those reserves on hand to cover your bills – which includes making payroll.

In other words, it’s the same principle we should all be using to manage our personal finances. If I get a raise (cough, hack…’scuse me, gagged on something there), it doesn’t mean my kids are suddenly going to see a big increase in their allowance. And I love my kids a whole lot more than our employers love us.

Let’s face it: work sucks. That’s why it’s called “work” and not “fun”. Sometimes we’re fortunate enough to land at good companies with good leadership; sometimes we’re working for the pointy-haired boss in the Dilbert comic. I’ve had both, and have never comprehended the strike mentality that tries so hard to squeeze more blood from the stone. If your gig blows that bad, then find another.

Perhaps I’m too harsh, but my heart goes out to the innocent bystanders in this mess. That includes the Hostess employees who were just cast into financial turmoil by a few boneheaded coworkers, and the rest of us who are now well and truly screwed when the zombie apocalypse finally arrives:

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Life Goes On

Yeah, the blog was pretty quiet yesterday. I wasn’t in much of a writing mood.

So things didn’t turn out like I’d hoped, but it did for the majority of my countrymen. We’ll see how it works out. Until such time, here’s a useful quote from Heinlein that is often cited at Professor Reynolds’ place:

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as “bad luck.”

Keep that in mind in the days ahead.

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