Potpourri XXVI

New from Hu, all sorts of articles about the lack of a NASA Administrator:

• [Florida Today] With leader unnamed, clouds shroud NASA
• [Discovery.com] Next Name on NASA Ballot [Lori Garver?]
• [Space Politics] Nelson: someone is _slow walking_ NASA administrator nomination
• [Aviation Week] NASA Budget Being Drafted Without a Top-Level Advocate

And another from Hu on the 1:10 scale Saturn V launch. That's a lot of rocket for a model!

Even Disney, a very PC company (for anyone who worked there), can be accused of not being politically correct enough.

North Korea is now considered a fully fledged nuclear power. So now what?

Happy Debt Day! Apparently it took only until Friday, April 24, for the government's expenditures to exceed its income. I wonder how long any citizen would stay solvent if we lived that way every year.

The bailout saga continues. The government has developed a so-called "stress test," which will use some as-yet-unknown criteria for determining if banks receiving bailout funds are solvent in the long term. If the banks don't pass this test--again, standards unknown--they might qualify for government takeover. If you read the Wall Street Journal, you'll discover that some banks are contesting the stress test and their classification according to said test, mostly because they don't want to be taken over by the government. The government released a white paper giving some rough outlines of what the stress test involves, but not the specific metrics or the banks tested. One would think, in a rational world, that both sets of facts would be revealed, and that said facts would help investors sort out which banks are what, and where to place or remove their money. However, the actual result of the stress test and the way its standards are being released actually increases uncertainty. Expect the Dow to drop or continue its high volatility until the first week in May, when the government releases the actual results and bank names.

YeeeOOWWWW!!! A guy was killed by having 30 nails driven into his skull. That's a lot of anger. And a lot of nails.

The Capitol was temporarily locked down after another private plane accidentally flew into restricted DC airspace.

Nancy Pelosi and a lot of other self-righteous folks in Congress were briefed about the interrogation techniques being used on the Gitmo prisoners as early as 2002. Of course this isn't news. This was public knowledge by at least 2004, but the press is hoping you'll forget. Don't.

Desperate to keep your state's employees in their jobs? Perhaps you should consider accepting some of the prisoners from Club Gitmo. A prison in Montana is open to the idea. No promises of federal help if they escape or convert some of your prisoners to "the cause," though.

My trip to Europe promises to be more and more interesting. Some power plant workers in France cut off the power at their plants in a protest against partial privatization. Guess I'd better bring along a battery-powered alarm clock. There have also been rumblings of civil unrest in Germany because the government is laying off workers to cut costs in the worldwide recession. Oh yeah, and then there's that massive earthquake in Italy. I might get writing ideas on my trip whether I want them or not.

Oh yes, and as a followup to my rant about the possible prosecution of CIA interrogators, the Obama administration plans to release photos of detainees allegedly abused in the interrogation process. It's all fun and enjoyable as long as it's Democrats bashing Bush people for doing this. It'll be more difficult when similar allegations are made against Obama people by Europe or the UN. I hope they have a good answer for that.

Andrew Chaikin, author of A Man on the Moon, which served as the basis for the HBO series From the Earth to the Moon, now has his own blog. I'm guessing that whatever he says, it's likely to be smart and worth paying attention to. I have yet to see a better portrayal of humanity's first exploration of the Moon than that TV show.

Some links from Father Dan:

• A car run on compressed air? Maybe.
• A Cato Institute posting on the Supreme Court's decision to allow citizens to bear arms in the District of Columbia. I like Fred Thompson's definition of "strict scrutiny" on Law & Order: "Well, Your Honor, strict scrutiny is like regular scrutiny with a girdle on."
• An extreme approach to bicycling. This guy will probably get a job stunt-riding somewhere.

Looking for an entertaining guest speaker or part-time humorist? May I suggest Dalton Hooper, a former manager of mine from Disney. Dalton belongs to the Mark Twain school of storytelling. He doesn't come right out and tell you things, he sort of meanders into them. He's the sort of Southerner that puts people at ease because he's about as laid-back as they come. The country could use a few more like him.

Welcome to Alabama...7 fans injured at Talladega at the recent NASCAR race. I can't get NASA to go in for "extreme space travel," which is probably just as well.

Okay, Darlene the Science Cheerleader posted this a few days ago, and I wanted a chance to discuss it a little more fully here. The X Prize Foundation is holding an auction on eBay for people to bid on the right to have their entire genome sequenced for the benefit of science. I posted some comments on Dar's site, which as of this writing haven't been cleared yet, so I'll summarize them here. I confessed that this auction hit my decided sweet spot between technophilia and technophobia. Would it bring benefits? Undoubtedly. However, in the age of HIPAA and other major privacy issues, would an individual really want the entire Western World to know what makes him/her tick? What will be done with the information? Who will control it? What happens to the individual if that information is put into "non-scientific" hands? What risks are involved? Look, I am not anti-science. I am pro-caution. This is a huge deal, and the technophiles at X Prize and in the genetic engineering community are so gung-ho to think about what can be done with certain information that they don't stop to ask if it should be done. The Sorceror's Apprentice. Faust. Frankenstein. Jurassic Park. We've already had plenty of myths and warnings in our own culture to know that these questions exist. Are we just choosing to ignore them out of ignorance or hubris?

"Let us redefine progress to say that just because we can do a thing, it does not necessarily follow that we must do that thing."
--President of the United Federation of Planets, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Potpourri XXI

Someday I'll write a real posting again--a book review, a long rant, something like that--but these shotgun-pellet postings seem to get the most mileage and require the least work. And, besides, it's Friday, and my brain is a little toasty after a long week.

The Onion has a couple of dillies out there today:

• NASA Embarks on Epic Delay
• Kim Jong-Il Announces Plan to Bring Moon to North Korea

And here are a couple of other space-related items:

• NASA Announces Future Shuttle Launches Will Be Sudden and Without Warning
• Mars Lander Staggers Into NASA Headquarters Drunk, Broke
• Astronomers Admit They Made Neptune Up
• NASA, NASCAR Merge
• NASA Announces Plan to Launch $700 Million Into Space

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On a completely different note, my friend and cowriter Darlene Cavalier the Science Cheerleader will be speaking to the Pittsburgh chapter of Mensa.

Restoring Science to its Rightful Place
by Darlene Cavalier
Darlene Cavalier, a former professional cheerleader, is a writer and senior adviser to Discover Magazine and founder of ScienceCheerleader.com. Cavalier uses innovative approaches to increase adult science literacy, grow the ranks of citizen scientists and create opportunities for the public to weigh in on matters of science policy. She will discuss and demonstrate the approaches and give Mensa members a sneak peak at plans for her next project: ScienceforCitizens.net.

Goooooo Dar!

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This item doesn't surprise my coworker Martin, who continues to lament the ongoing demise of traditional newspapers/media. Bottom line: we're more engaged in politics via the internet than ever before, but it's engagement based on bias (i.e., going to web sites that agree with our own political beliefs).

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Due to expected bad weather on Sunday, NASA's Student Launch Initiative and University Student Launch Initiative activities have all been condensed to Saturday. The student rocket launches will be at the Bragg Farms in Toney, Alabama. Directions below, if you're in the neighborhood of Huntsville:

Directions to Bragg Farms:

1. North on Research Park Blvd. to Pulaski Pike
2. Turn north on Pulaski Pike
3. Go 3.6 miles until Pulaski Pike veers to the left. Instead of following Pulaski Pike, go straight onto Patterson Lane. There will immediately be a sharp right turn.
4. After 0.7 miles, turn left on Murphy Hill Road, which is the road to the left.
5. Take Murphy Hill Road 1.8 miles to Grimwood Road.
6. Turn east on Grimwood Road.
7. Take Grimwood 0.9 miles to Bragg Farms. The farm will be on the southside of Grimwood Road and there should be signs showing where to turn into the farm.

I plan to be there at least part of the day and will have pictures to post tomorrow evening.

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The History Channel is doing a week of specials on what the Earth would be like "After People." I'm of two minds on this. The science fiction fan in me is curious, the conservative philosopher in me asks, "What motivates people to want to imagine things like this?"

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The Obama administration asked Georgetown University to cover up Christian symbols on the lectern and elsewhere during the President's recent speech there, presumably to avoid any sort of endorsement of the faith. This sort of thing is silly pandering to political correctness and non-Christians, and it shows (in my opinion) a bit of disrespect for the faith. Presidents and public officials speak at hotels, conference centers, and other public places, which often attach their logos to the lectern or on the walls. No one expects that the speaker is there as a spokesperson for Marriott or whatever. The workarounds will probably turn out to be more troublesome for Obama than if he had just given the speech and left the symbols alone.

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My friends at Media Fusion, the company that does most of the animation and graphic design work for the Ares Projects, also had a slight role in the Stephen Colbert brouhaha.

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This one was bizarre to me. There are some folks out there who have it in their heads to ban a font type, Comic Sans. Apparently because bad causes have used the font on their messages, it therefore follows that the font is tainted and must be banned. Like Obama's unnecessary covering of Christian symbols at a Christian college, this is just plain silliness.

Do I have anything else to say? Probably, but it's Friday, and I need a little downtime. Peace and happy thoughts, all.

A War By Any Other Name

So now the Pentagon has gone PC...or something. It's no longer the Global War on Terror (GWOT), which was descriptive, if slightly inaccurate (you fight people, not a method). It's now called the Overseas Contingency Operation, which will no doubt soon be acronymized into OCO.

Robert A. Heinlein said it well in Glory Road: "You're just as dead from a police action as you are from a full-scale war." So why mince words? Well, the GWOT itself was a mincing of words. They could have called it the "War on Fundamentalist Islamism" or the "Black September War," or the "War on al-Qaeda," but that would create political trouble, presumably. Instead of Operation Enduring Freedom, they might've chosen "Operation Terrible Resolve," but no one asked me. And a "War on al-Qaeda" would not explain the war in Iraq--at least not as originally cast. Maybe the "War on People Who Attack Us or Threaten to Do So?" Or the "War to Change the Middle East?"

I've got to admit, I'm stumped. The Bush Doctrine of preemptive strikes, denying/destroying terrorist bases, and regime change is part punitive, part transformative, part instructive.

"When will you stop invading us?"
"When you learn to choose better leaders!"

--Exchange between a leader of the Dominican Republic and Woodrow Wilson

Potpourri VI

More reading for today.

Some interesting assorted sites about technology:

• Ars Technica
• The Technology Liberation Front
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation
• A Green Anarchist (and neo-Luddite) site
• iRobot
• And if you didn't read the Kurzweil interview, "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" is seriously worth reading...it's a hardheaded look at the risks of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics.

A couple of links from my buddy Down Yonder, Scott:

• A cultural think tank from New Zealand, the Maxim Institute.
• Access to Energy, a "pro-science, pro-technology, pro-free enterprise monthly newsletter."

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On a completely different note, a couple weeks ago I was talking to a couple ladies I know, and they were telling me about their bowling team. They are not the best bowlers in the world (I can relate). In fact, they laughingly admitted to losing to one guy in a wheelchair and another who is legally blind. I laughed, they laughed, and we moved on to the next topic.

Fast forward two weeks, and now the President of the United States is comparing his bowling skills to kids in the Special Olympics. Now, if he'd actually bowled one of those kids and lost, I'd probably laugh, as I laughed with my friends. It's called self-deprecating humor, and I use it myself. However, if I'm in a public forum, with millions of people watching, I'd probably find some other way of introducing levity. And if I'm President of these United States, I'd arrange to be doubly careful, not because I wouldn't think the remark funny, but because I'd have some awareness that others around me would not. Unfortunately, the teleprompter wasn't on, and Obama made the gaffe.

Instantly and predictably, the Sensitivity, Political Correctness, and Anti-Humor Police were out in force. They demanded he make an apology. In the face of the War on Humor, Obama duly provided his apology. Issue over. Time to lighten up and drop it. We've got global economic problems and serious security issues facing us, and people are freaking out over the president making a stupid remark on a TALK SHOW? And by the way, what's he DOING on the show, anyway? Doesn't he have something better to do?

Anybody ever wonder what happened to gravitas?

Follow-Up: Bad Behavior, Embarrassing Pictures, and Job Security in Internet Age

Having vented previously on people's foolish behavior on the internet, I now must take a contrary stance. Why? Because, while the new reality of the world is that individuals can get fired for bad or embarrassing behavior they exhibit on the internet, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's good or right.

That Obama speech writer was tacky, but did his behavior rise to the level of a punishable offense? Did a hockey player deserve to be suspended from his job because of some sexist, crass remark about a former girlfriend? It depends on who you talk to.

When people talk about "political correctness," this is what they mean. There are just Some Things That Must Not Be Said. It is a manner of thinking and speaking that restrains anything that might be perceived as insulting to particular individuals or groups. Now am I endorsing full-out rudeness, crudity, or impolite behavior? No. However, I know that no one is capable of perfectly well-behaved, appropriate speech, partially because the rules keep changing, and partially just because people are people, and slips of the tongue are likely to happen. In short, we need to lighten up.

The end result of PC-speak is, as George Orwell notes in his description of Newspeak in 1984, to restrict the range of political speech and (by derivation) thought. If you can't say certain things--laughing at or judging particular behaviors--it becomes impossible to offer up alternative views. So today businesses will fire someone because of individual, personal crassness. What will be next? What happens when it's your turn to make a slip that shows up on the internet?

How do we fix this? I have no frickin' clue.