Monthly Archives: February 2013

Rand Simberg: NASA’s mission is not safety

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Rand Simberg has an article on USA Today. This week is the anniversary of the three worst accidents in NASA’s history: the Apollo 1 fire, the Challenger explosion, and the Columbia break-up. Space is still a very dangerous place, and getting there is risky. His comments (but read the whole thing):

But should safety be NASA’s highest priority? If it is, then that means other things, such as actually accomplishing things in space, are a lower one. The surest way to make sure our astronauts don’t die in space is to keep them on the ground. And indeed, that is more and more what we do, choosing robotic exploration over opening the frontier to humanity.

The obsession with safety is sincere, if unspoken, testimony to just how unimportant we consider the opening of that final and harshest of frontiers. The last time space was important was when we were racing the Soviets to the moon more than four decades ago. Now, we no longer consider it worth the risk. Had we taken such an attitude in Panama, no one would have turned the first shovel of dirt.

As NASA has dithered, private investors who understand the true scope of opportunity in space as well as the dangers are stepping up by investing in new ships, technologies and commercial ventures.

This sad week, perhaps the best way to honor the men and women who gave their lives would be to recognize that they did so willingly, and set forth a bold national frontier-opening policy, including recognizing that it has never happened without human bloodshed. As John Shedd wrote last century, “A ship in a harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are for.”

via NASA’s mission is not safety: USA Today.

This $#!+ Just Got Real! – Roswell Flight Test Crew

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Everything is a crime:

It’s hard to know where to even begin with this proposal. I’ll just pluck some of the low-hanging fruit to get the ball rolling.

The bill defines a drone as a “an unmanned flying machine that is capable of [among other things] capturing images of objects or people on the ground.” I’d argue that, by this definition, all but the very smallest and lightest indoor RC aircraft are “drones,” because they are “capable” of capturing images – if you attach a small camera to them.

That is something that should have every RC pilot in the state worried. For those of us in the FPV community, it’s much, much worse. The moment this bill becomes law, I become a criminal – guilty of a Class B Misdemeanor. My crime? Possessing multirotor aircraft equipped for FPV flight operations.

That’s right – merely possessing a “drone” is a crime, even if you never fly it. Other Class B Misdemeanors in Oregon? Carrying a concealed switchblade or stealing $50 worth of merchandise.

If you actually fly a drone, that’s a Class A Misdemeanor, equivalent to carrying a concealed firearm without a license or driving drunk.

Let’s forget for the moment about the folks who enjoy flying FPV (or RC) for fun – instead, let’s consider the broader implications of this proposal for Oregon as a whole. I find it astonishing that while business and community leaders are hard at work, trying to get Oregon designated as one of six civilian drone test sites nationwide – because it has the potential to put our state at the forefront of a field that will be a major economic driver for the next several decades – some anonymous neo-luddite in the state senate is trying to slam our borders shut to this industry.

via This $#!+ Just Got Real! – Roswell Flight Test Crew.

Posted in: Law |

The case for torture: Ex-CIA officials explain “enhanced” interrogations. – Slate Magazine

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This whole article is important, but this point (number 12 of 13) really stands out. Drone strikes have increased dramatically under Obama, and many civilians are being killed. There is no real oversight. We gain no intelligence.

If you refuse to exploit prisoners, you’ll end up killing your enemies instead. All three panelists trashed the Obama-era conceit that we’re a better country because we’ve scrapped the interrogation program. What we’ve really done, they argued, is replace interrogations with drone strikes. “We have made it so legally difficult and so politically dangerous to capture,” said Hayden, “that it seems, from the outside looking in, that the default option is to take the terrorists off the battlefield in another sort of way.” Rizzo agreed, and he paraphrased The Godfather to suggest that the new policy is bloody and stupid: “You can’t kill everybody.”

via The case for torture: Ex-CIA officials explain “enhanced” interrogations. – Slate Magazine.

Armed guard disarmed teen in Atlanta school shooting, says police chief | The Salt Lake Tribune

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Schools Superintendent Erroll Davis said the school does have metal detectors.

“The obvious question is how did this get past a metal detector?” Davis asked about the gun. “That’s something we do not know yet.”

The armed resource officer who took the gun away was off-duty and at the school, but police didn’t release details on him or whether he is regularly at Price. Since 20 children and six adults were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in December, calls for armed officers in every school have resonated across the country.

via Armed guard disarmed teen in Atlanta school shooting, says police chief | The Salt Lake Tribune.

Reflections of a Former Fetus and Former Incubator | Public Discourse

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But the people of Stop Patriarchy cannot stop themselves. Once convinced of their opening premise, they have no choice but to try to suppress all the differences between men and women. Everything that has to do with reproduction must be suppressed or neutralized.

The goal is clear: The only good woman is a neutered woman. The only good man is a gay man, who poses no sexual threat to women. The only good child is a chosen child. They do not seem to realize that this commodifies the child, making him or her an object to obtain if we want one, and a problem to solve if we don’t want one. Nor do they seem to realize that today’s young people intuit this, which is why so many of the Walkers for Life carried signs saying, “I am the Pro-Life Generation.”

We may be tempted to “click away” from Stop Patriarchy and ignore them as obviously deluded people who shouldn’t be taken seriously. But that would be a mistake. For this very same thought pattern lies behind the HHS contraceptive mandate and the War on Women rhetoric promoted by the political party now in power. And the party out of power seems either unwilling or unable to confront the ideology for what it is: the ideology of a totalitarian movement, bent on denying and wiping out the most basic facts of our human experience.

We should cut no slack, give no quarter, concede no ground, to these enemies of the human race. Not out of politeness, nor out of courtesy, and certainly, not out of fear. Ignoring people because they are irrational has probably been one of our biggest tactical mistakes. Though Stop Patriarchy’s irrationality makes them hard to argue with, they are deadly serious, and we need to be as well.

via Reflections of a Former Fetus and Former Incubator | Public Discourse.