I thought capitalism & private enterprise would make space travel more efficient

I’m such a fool. You’d think competition and privatization would improve the space program, but now we’ve got multiple examples of corporate failure.

I’ve mentioned the embarrassment of Boeing’s Starliner capsule, which seems to be a total piece of junk. It got astronauts up to the International Space Station, but it’s so untrustworthy that they’re considering using SpaceX to rescue them.

Except…Boeing and SpaceX space suits are incompatible. The astronauts might be stuck up there for as much as 8 months, or they can chance it and descend in a capsule with no suits. It’s probably OK. They have an old-fashioned fix: prayer.

Meanwhile, another billionaire has stepped up and is buying a trip into orbit. This is not just a joyride, he says, they’ve got a serious scientific purpose. That purpose is unclear. They’re going to go into a high orbit on a SpaceX Dragon capsule, high enough that it will pass through the Van Allen belts, and while they’re there, Jared Isaacman and one of the crew will go on a tethered spacewalk, exposing themselves to increased radiation. I don’t know why. It seems to be more of a daredevil gimmick.

Extra bonus stupidity: the Dragon capsule does not include an airlock, so they’re simply going to vent all of the atmosphere inside the capsule, forcing the other 3 crewmembers to sit in their spacesuits so Isaacman can go outside and wave at the camera. Yay! Decompression is fun!

Can we just put NASA back in charge? Bring back the grown-ups to run the show.

Keep Bill Maher away from kids

I avoid watching anything to do with horrible old Bill Maher, but here’s a video of people talking about Bill Maher. It seems he has a segment called “Bill Maher talks to kids” which you might imagine is an attempt at being avuncular and wise, but no…he strolls out carrying a drink, sits down and makes some innuendo about Viagra, talks about porn, and suggests that these 8-16 year old kids are trans, because he has these assumptions that young people are all transitioning. It is the creepiest thing you’ll see today, I hope.

These aren’t secret clips and outtakes from the show — Bill Maher actually took the whole hour long segment of an icky old drunk guy talking about sex and porn, and laughing at gay and trans people, and intentionally put it on the internet for everyone to see. Will HBO do anything? Nah. Free speech! It’s not bad if it’s heterosexual grooming.

Did you know that Kamala Harris is a communist?

Some billionaires told me so.

Meanwhile, the communists I know are all saying “Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and the rest: We don’t need your “promise of America”—we need a revolution to put an end to your system” and are pointing out that Harris and Walz are “putting the joy in genocide”. I guess they aren’t real communists? I should listen to Trump & Musk when they tell me what communism is?

It’s all so confusing.

It’s always a good time to be an atheist

The Intelligent Design creationists had a discombobulating conversation that they thought was brilliant, but just left me wondering what planet they live on. They were discussing when it was a better time to be an atheist, and apparently it was in 1890, when being an atheist would prohibit you from entering a major university.

Jay Richards: The fact that we now talk about the universe as having an age is a significant update from a century and a half ago. It leads to new questions. Is it unique? Was there one beginning? Can we talk about the beginning? But that’s a different sort of situation. And so, I think if you’re thinking in terms of worldviews, I would much rather be a materialist where everyone assumed the universe was eternal than be at a moment in which virtually everyone, whether skeptic or believer, says, “Well, the universe has an age, so it’s got a finite past.”

Peter Robinson: You’d rather be a materialist in the 1890s…

Jay Richards: Exactly.

Peter Robinson: Than today?

Jay Richards: Yes, and I think it’s much easier to be a theist when standard cosmology says “Well, the universe hasn’t always been here.” It’s no longer a good candidate for an ultimate explanation if it had a beginning.

Jay Richards is not an atheist, of course, which makes one wonder about his ability to see the world from the perspective of an atheist. But OK, he considers himself an authority on the godless. That does not surprise me at all.

As an atheist and a materialist, though, I can say pretty definitely that the better time to be a materialist is when we have more information about the material world, which ought to be obvious. The big difference between scientists and the clowns at the Discovery Institute is that we welcome new information and aren’t trying to force-fit the universe into a mold decided upon by ancient civilizations.

So our universe had a beginning? We happily filed that data away with all the other facts about the material nature of the world. There’s nothing in that observation that implies a supernatural or magical origin — in fact, to the contrary, what led to that conclusion is physical observation and measurement, and physicists, not theologians, are exploring the 13.8 billion years of its existence.

News for Jay Richards: the Big Bang is not evidence for Jesus. It’s a bad time to be a theist when your god is getting squeezed into smaller and smaller gaps, and godless science is doing a better job of explaining how the world works than your holy book.

I am a fake midwesterner

Every year about this time I feel like an imposter. I have lived here for 24 years, my mother was born here as were both of my grandmothers, but never once have I attended the Minnesota State Fair. This is a Big Thing around here, and I’ve never even been tempted.

Worse, a huge feature of the fair is the long list of featured foods, which includes a horrifying quantity of deep-fried awfulness. I’m sorry, but Deep Fried Ranch Dressing?

Ranch dressing filling made with ranch seasoning, buttermilk and cream cheese in a panko shell, deep-fried and dusted with ranch powder. Served with a side of hot honey sauce crafted with Cry Baby Craig’s hot sauce. (Vegetarian)

It’s vegetarian! I think it’s how plants kill herbivores, though.

That’s the apotheosis of Midwestern culinary excellence, and just thinking about it makes me queasy. I don’t even like regular ranch dressing (another thing that flags me as a foreigner), but deep frying it just makes everything worse.

You’ll have to look at the list and let me know if anything looks appealing at all. Maybe the Chile Mango Whip, and the paella looks normal.

Checking the fact-checkers

There was a channel on YouTube called “Cinema Sins” (maybe there still is) which would go through recent movies, nit-picking over every continuity error and anachronism and just stuff they didn’t like. It became a parody of itself, though, because the creators were locked into the paradigm of finding as many errors as possible — their entire schtick was based on tallying up huge numbers of sins to the point that they had to start inventing them. Shaun dissected them thoroughly. That ‘sin counter’ tally on their videos had to keep going up, you know!

The latest sport on Bluesky is doing a Shaun to the newspaper fact-checkers who are struggling so hard to justify their existence by finding something, anything to criticize about speeches at the Democratic National Convention. In particular, I see a lot of piling on of the odious Glenn Kessler. The poor man takes his job very seriously. He’s motivated to make sure he gets column inches by finding something to write about, which would be a worthy occupation, except that he keeps calling into question statements that aren’t literal quotes. “Summarizing” or “condensing” the overall message of a political group is a sin!

For instance, one speech highlights the family policy of the Republican party.

“Page 451 says the only legitimate family is a married mother and father where only the father works.”

— Colorado Gov. Jared Polis

It’s a matter of interpretation. Polis was one of several speakers during the convention who have highlighted passages in a Heritage Foundation report called “Mandate for Leadership,” a 922-page catalogue of conservative proposals that is popularly known as Project 2025.

But the report’s Page 451 does not use the words that Polis suggested he was quoting, nor does it say that mothers should not work. On that page is a proposal for the Department of Health and Human Services to promote “stable and flourishing married families.”

But here’s what page 451 says. It’s true, Polis was not accurately quoting the literal words of Project 2025.

Goal #3: Promoting Stable and Flourishing Married Families. Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society. Unfortunately, family policies and programs under President Biden’s HHS are fraught with agenda items focusing on “LGBTQ+ equity,” subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage. These policies should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families. Working fathers are essential to the well-being and development of their children, but the United States is experiencing a crisis of fatherlessness that is ruining our children’s futures. In the overwhelming number of cases, fathers insulate children from physical and sexual abuse, financial difficulty or poverty, incarceration, teen pregnancy, poor educational outcomes, high school failure, and a host of behavioral and psychological problems. By contrast, homes with non-related “boyfriends” present are among the most dangerous place for a child to be. HHS should prioritize married father engagement in its messaging, health, and welfare policies.
In the context of current and emerging reproductive technologies, HHS policies should never place the desires of adults over the right of children to be raised by the biological fathers and mothers who conceive them. In cases involving biological parents who are found by a court to be unfit because of abuse or neglect, the process of adoption should be speedy, certain, and supported generously by HHS

It’s only hinting at their plans with explicit opposition to LGBT+ equity, the nuclear family, and the importance of working fathers. We also have all the other things Republicans have said about their desire to return to a stereotyped version of 1950. Good work, Glenn.

Most irritating is this complaint about Tim Walz characterizing a well-known Republican policy.

“They’ll repeal the Affordable Care Act. They’ll gut Social Security and Medicare, and they will ban abortion across this country with or without Congress.”

— Vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz

The problem?

This is speculative. Trump has insisted he will not touch Social Security or Medicare — and he largely kept to that pledge during his presidency.

He also said he wouldn’t touch Roe v. Wade, as did several nominees to the Supreme Court. Yet somehow, it got “touched” and touched hard. Does Kessler assume that Republicans never lie? Programs like Social Security and Medicare and abortion are popular, so politicians avoid being direct in their plans, because that would make them lose. Glenn Kessler plays the Republican game of pretending circumlocutions are effective at hiding their intent.

As for abortion, Trump has said the Supreme Court sent the matter to the states and that each state can set its own policies. But many conservative allies are eager to restrict abortion rights even further, perhaps using old laws on the books (such as the Comstock Act of 1873) in new and aggressive ways. Walz hinted at that by saying Trump would act “with or without Congress.”

Go back to that Project 2025 document Kessler just cited as evidence that, oh no, the Republicans aren’t actually interested in restoring the Patriarchy. Search for the word “abortion”.

There are 199 mentions.

You’ll have no problem finding quotes to substantiate Walz’s wild assertion.

That’s enough. Nitpicking the plain sense of Republicans, or the slimy evasions of certain fact-checkers, has already bored me and is an endless sinkhole of evasions and lies.

I was against Walz before I was for him

Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota, accepted the VP nomination last night. Here’s his speech from last night.

It was a ‘greatest hits’ kind of speech, where he threw out all the familiar slogans that the Democrats have found to resonate with the public. That’s fine; I agree with the sentiments, and will be voting for Harris/Walz in November.

I figure I’d better come clean and confess that I was not happy with Walz. You can go through the archives here and find all the posts where I commented on him, so I’ll save you the effort and repost some excerpts for you so you can tell me I was wrong.

My number one complaint was his close connection to the National Rifle Association. This was a major political issue in his campaign, as he proudly advertised the fact that he was an NRA supporter.

In the Minnesota caucuses, Democrat Tim Walz came out in first place in the race for governor. He was my last choice. He’s a Democrat who is good at getting the rural — that is, conservative Democrat — vote, and I scratched him off my list for consideration on the basis of one crucial fact: he’s got an A+ rating from the NRA. Nope. That’s like getting praise from the KKK; it might appeal to a certain demographic, but that’s one demographic I’d like to see ignored.

Another factor was the condescension by the DFL. They figured that NRA hook was sufficient to capture the yokels of rural Minnesota. It probably worked, since he won the 2018 primary.

I took a look at the Minnesota primary election results. There weren’t really any surprises, although there was one disappointment.

The disappointment is that Tim Walz will be the DFL candidate running for governor in November. I despise Tim Walz — he’s a conservative Democrat who has been in the pocket of the NRA for years. What’s particularly galling about it is that I keep seeing people saying that they voted for Walz because he was most appealing to outstate (the obnoxious term people in the Twin Cities use for the region outside the Twin Cities) voters, so they were supporting the DFL candidate most likely to win over those Neandertals who don’t reside in the metropolitan region.

I live in “outstate” Minnesota. Grrrr. Don’t assume we’re all gun-totin’ rednecks out here.

And yes, he was a conservative Democrat. I didn’t vote for him in the primary (although I did in the general election) because there was a good strong liberal Democrat running against him.

The frontrunner is Democrat Tim Walz. I scratched him off my dance card long, long ago: he’s got an A+ rating from the NRA. That ought to be the kiss of death for any politician any more.

On the other hand, Rebecca Otto has the recommendation of environmentalists and climate scientists like Michael Mann, along with an excellent record as the state auditor. She’s pro-democracy and pro-environment.

An A+ from climate scientists vs. an A+ from the freakin’ NRA. This one’s an easy choice. I want Rebecca Otto for governor of Minnesota.

Walz did get better, fortunately, and he changed, becoming more progressive in the course of his term. I’ll admit that I was proven wrong (although I’ll bet there are a lot of rural voters in these here parts who now rue the day they voted for him), and he turned out to be a very good governor.

Still, the NRA? Jesus. I think I was justified in not trusting him.