De Doc’s Institute for Memetic Engineering And Polymaths’ Pursuits

deserves our contempt for Unfahrenheit 911 – and Claire’s readying a big serving, by way of googlebomb.

Let’s all chip in, shall we, and give this generation’s false Falstaff his Shakespearean desserts…

Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt,
And any thing that may not misbecome
The doughty bloggers, doth we prize him at.

(Whilst I am at it, high time I got off my duff and blogrolled SondraK, who brought War Profiteer Michael Moore’s latest scummy behavior to Claire’s attention. Welcome Aboard, Headmistress!)

UPDATE: Welcome to the Institute, any of you who might have sauntered over by way of Resurrectionsong. As you can see, we’re keeping We Hate Michael Moore Week here at the Institute, with all good cheer. Enjoy your reading!

... quoth De Doc @ 3:48 pm

The Cassini probe will carry out orbital insertion burn within a few hours, if all goes well. More good news for us spacers!

Now, for the day that we might go there ourselves…

Memo to Bert Rutan and all the other X-prize teams: Faster, please.

... quoth De Doc @ 9:38 am

It won’t be a US trial.

It won’t be a UN trial – as if they had ANY moral standing, after years of leaving the monster in place and accepting hush money.

Hussein will face his own countrymen in an Iraqi court.

As he sewed, so let him reap.

... quoth De Doc @ 9:27 am

Iraq… SOVREIGN.

MEMBERS of Iraq’s new government took their oath of office today in a ceremony only hours after the US-run coalition transferred sovereignty, formally ending the US military occupation.

The folks posting about this at Metafilter seem a bit testy.

Pardon me for a moment:

Accomplished Ahead Of Schedule
Accomplished Ahead Of Schedule
Accomplished Ahead Of Schedule
Accomplished Ahead Of Schedule
Accomplished Ahead Of Schedule
Accomplished Ahead Of Schedule
Accomplished Ahead Of Schedule

For the enemies of liberty reading this – the dishonest parasites who would prefer”…Bush defeated and bin Laden still in the wind” – Choke on that.

If that’s not enough to harsh you dhimmis’ mellow, Michele has some Iraqi thoughts on the subject. Go read them, and let the scales fall from your complacent eyes.

The rest of us will do the natural thing for the children of liberty.

We’re going to rejoice.

... quoth De Doc @ 6:58 am

Samizdata fell off my blogrolls when I made the move to Venom Pages. It’s high time I fixed that, espceially since they were the first place that I read of Christopher Hitchens’ savaging Michael Moore’s Unfahrenheit 9/11 (and thus may it ever be named).

If you haven’t read Hitchens’ dissection, go do so. There will almost certainly be more exhaustive fact-checkings, given Moore’s proven record of lying… but I doubt there’ll be a more elegant dissection of this fifth columnist’s magnum mendacium.

And yes, I do mean “fifth columnist”.

What part of “aid and comfort” is unclear here?

... quoth De Doc @ 12:01 pm

I’m not surprised that my dear friend Kelley is taking a break. Or, perhaps, the break took her?

Blog-fatigue, summer doldrums, a broken arm – or some combination of the above; matters not. We miss you, Kelley, and hope to hear from you again. Sooner rather than later, by choice; but take the time you need, and come back when you are good and ready.

We’ll be here.

... quoth De Doc @ 8:04 am

And now begins the Second Spacefaring Age…

Test pilot Mike Melvill landed at Mojave Airport, about 80 miles north of Los Angeles, California, after taking the rocket plane SpaceShipOne to an altitude of more than 100 kilometers (62.5 miles) – the internationally recognized boundary of space.

The first privately funded, non-governmental flight into space… successful after less than a decade of work, at a fraction of the cost that a government would have spent, and with innovative technologies.

If you don’t understand why this is SO important, listen to Dale Amon:

Some of you understand intuitively. Few outside a small circle of friends fully comprehend the magnitude of the breakthrough. Getting into space is not about technology. It is about money. It is about risk, markets, business plans, insurance, and raising capital. It is about the metacontext. The metacontext which died in the desert sun this morning carried built in assumptions that space is for governments; space is expensive; space is too risky for business.

Now we know differently. Paul Allen funded Rutan’s two craft from concept to suborbital space flight for around $20 million. In the aerospace world this is pocket change. Design studies cost that much, let alone TWO working vehicles.

The media came. The coverage has been beyond my wildest expectations. This is the second element required. Not only has the metacontext been smashed; everyone knows it.

Dale speaks of risk. And there were risks; the flight was not without inforeseen perils:

The spacecraft returned safely, but control problems revealed after the flight forced Melville to cut it short and use a backup system to keep SpaceShipOne under control.

He said trim surfaces on SpaceShipOne – movable surfaces on the craft’s wings – jammed during supersonic flight. The craft rolled 90 degrees twice during its vertical ascent and veered more than 20 miles off course in a few seconds.

The Scaled Composites team approach paid off handsomely here: build it, fly it, work out the bugs, fly it again, work out new bugs… and in the process the pilots get experience with the craft they’re going to fly. Steady incremental progress; which, in this case, may have saved the pilot’s life.

SpaceShip One is now being worked over, intensively, by Rutan’s team. Until they know WHY the primary control surface systems failed, they’re not going to rush foolishly into a run on the X prize.

Make no mistake, though. They will be back in space soon…

and sooner than I might have thought, so might we be.

Rutan is already talking about the next step: designing a successor to SpaceShip One, capable of low Earth orbit.

... quoth De Doc @ 11:09 am

Denita…if my hobbies involve pretty sharp things.

Like… for example…

Just sayin’.

... quoth De Doc @ 10:20 pm

Michael Moore has plenty of foreign fans. Not all of them are French:

… in the United Arab Emirates, the film is being offered the kind of support it doesn’t need. According to Screen International, the UAE-based distributor Front Row Entertainment has been contacted by organisations related to the Hezbollah in Lebanon with offers of help.

Moore’s distributors are eating with Shaitan; but they aren’t using a very long spoon, as John Hawkins noted:

… In terms of marketing the film, Front Row is getting a boost from organisations related to Hezbollah which have rung up from Lebanon to ask if there is anything they can do to support the film. And although (managing director Gianluca) Chacra says he and his company feel strongly that Fahrenheit is not anti-American, but anti-Bush, “we can’t go against these organisations as they could strongly boycott the film in Lebanon and Syria.”

Very nice, very tidy. We mustn’t alienate these delicate, sensitive torturers and murderers. After all, if we refuse to accept the jihadi-geld, they might get ANGRY with us. We might lose MONEY. (Which is a reasonable concern, I suppose; it’s not like these spineless snivellers could lose honor or integrity, having none to speak of.)

The article goes on to note something which I suspect Moore would love to keep hidden:

Front Row, which also worked with Moore’s Bowling For Columbine, is setting a precedent with Fahrenheit as it is the first documentary ever to be released theatrically in the territory. Bowling went straight to video and had a healthy run. Indeed, Moore is, explains Chacra, “considered an Arab supporter,” locally. (emphasis added – ed.)

“An Arab supporter”.

Res ipsa loquitur.

If you’re thinking of going to see Moore’s latest film, just remember:

The people who killed Paul Johnson approve.

Lie down with dogs, get up with flies.

... quoth De Doc @ 1:42 am

…I’m going to put a little effort into my blogrolls tonight; I’ve been lax in updating them. (It’s likely to inspire comments and further posts as well, which is all to the good.)

First off: HeinleinBlog, Bill Dennis’s ongoing celebration of Heinlein’s influence – as opposed to Drew Barrymore’s influence. Heh.

The Peoria Pundit’s Heinleinblog is worth perusing if you’re a RAH fan. Not only does it keep track of things like the recent release of we The Living, it brings us articles like this one – which I’d missed, spacer though I am:

An amateur unmanned rocket has been launched into space from the Nevada desert - the first time this has been achieved by a privately-built vehicle.

The Civilian Space eXploration Team’s 6.5m (21ft) GoFast rocket is understood to have exceeded an altitude of 100km.

“It just roared off the pad and flew into space,” said rocketeer and CSXT avionics manager Eric Knight.

The GoFast vehicle and its payload sent back signals from space before falling down to Earth for recovery.
—
The achievement comes at a time when it is widely expected that the first private astronaut will go into space in the next few weeks.

That’s PAST cool ..well into exhilarating.

See what you’re missing? Go thou and read some more…

... quoth De Doc @ 10:59 pm

I am a child of the space race. I watched the Gemini launches, fascinated, on television. I can still remember the scent of the jasmine in the garden, as we sat on the covered porch in Los Angeles, and watched the FIRST “small step for man”. Apollo 13 isn’t a movie for me; it’s part of my memories, from first sick horror to exultant relief at spashdown.

I have lived in amazing times.

And I have lived, thank GOD, to see this:

Historic Space Launch Attempt Scheduled for June 21
Paul G. Allen and Burt Rutan Announce Plans for First
Non-Government, Privately Funded Manned Space Flight

Mojave, CA: A privately-developed rocket plane will launch into history on June 21 on a mission to become the world’s first commercial manned space vehicle. Investor and philanthropist Paul G. Allen and aviation legend Burt Rutan have teamed to create the program, which will attempt the first non-governmental flight to leave the earth’s atmosphere.

SpaceShipOne will rocket to 100 kilometers (62 miles) into sub-orbital space above the Mojave Civilian Aerospace Test Center, a commercial airport in the California desert. If successful, it will demonstrate that the space frontier is finallyto private enterprise. This event could be the breakthrough that will enable space access for future generations.

If that doesn’t thrill you to your very marrow, you might be reading the wrong blog.

I am working the night of the 20th. If I were not, I’d be buying plane tickets right NOW.

As would a million and more frustrated spacers, who want to go. To Mojave… up… and out.

(Also posted at my livejournal).

... quoth De Doc @ 3:50 pm

testing new firmware

testing

(update)…and I succeeded, finally. Note to wireless networking virgins: sometimes you have to change your MTU, regardless of what the default value is. *wry grin* Today’s lesson for me!

... quoth De Doc @ 12:50 pm

They said Hussein couldn’t be brought to account without massive American casualties.
We did.

They said that the uprisings in Najaf couldn’t be stopped, and that the whole country would be ablaze. But the uprisings … have been stopped.

They say we can’t possibly be serious about giving Iraq back to it’s people.

WATCH US.

Thanks to Stephen Green for the link to this excellent script.

Note to the ayatollahs: It’s a REAL easy script to customize.

... quoth De Doc @ 10:13 am

I’d been there. Although, given the tight schedule, I don’t know how much I could have helped with – save pain meds…

Come to think of it, that would have been benison enough. This hurts just to look at!

Kelley, take good care of yourself, and may you get well soon!

... quoth De Doc @ 7:04 am

I was thinking, idly, about countries, and their “archetypal” militaries.

Say, “United Kingdom”, and the military organization that comes to mind is the Royal Navy.
Say, “United States”, and most folks will think first of the US Marine Corps.
Say “Soviet Union”. and those of us who were in the military during the Cold War will think “Red Army armor divisions”.

France? The FOREIGN Legion.

There’s a moral, there, somewhere.

... quoth De Doc @ 8:22 pm

… is also, perforce, a history lesson.

This is dedicated to Michael Feingold, whod a recent piece in the Village Voice… thus:

No U.S. president, I expect, will ever appoint a Secretary of the Imagination. But if such a cabinet post ever were created, and Richard Foreman weren’t immediately appointed to it, you’d know that the Republicans were in power. Republicans don’t believe in the imagination, partly because so few of them have one, but mostly because it gets in the way of their chosen work, which is to destroy the human race and the planet. Human beings, who have imaginations, can see a recipe for disaster in the making; Republicans, whose goal in life is to profit from disaster and who don’t give a hoot about human beings, either can’t or won’t. Which is why I personally think they should be exterminated before they cause any more harm.

Mr. Feingold:

Molon Labe.

... quoth De Doc @ 12:33 pm

Quite literally:

… Many college textbooks to this day even argue that Reagan’s economic policies were flawed because they created record budget deficits. But the textbooks don’t mention that as the national debt rose by $2 trillion, national wealth rose by $8 trillion. They also don’t mention that the Laffer curve worked: Lower tax rates did generate more tax revenues at the federal, state, and local levels. Federal tax collections rose from $500 billion in 1980 to $1 trillion in 1990.

Priceless.

From Stephen Moore’s appreciation of President Reagan, in National Review Online. Do have a look…

... quoth De Doc @ 10:10 am

I think it would please him to be remembered thus.

From the wildly uneven

MSNBC/Newsweek

… As Reagan’s memory faded, the years seemed to fall away: the presidency, the governorship, Hollywood, sportscasting. Among his sharpest recollections was his youth in Illinois. In chats with guests in his Los Angeles office and in bits of conversation with his family at home in Bel Air, he would talk about learning to read newspapers on the front porch with his mother, about playing with his older brother, Neil, about setting off for the picture-perfect little campus of Eureka College. And there were his early days on the Rock River, where he swam in the summers and ice-skated in the winter. A picture of the river hung in his retirement office in Century City, and visitors would ask him about it. Again and again he would tell the story. “You know, that’s where I used to be a lifeguard—I saved 77 lives.” There had been a log, he went on, where he carved a notch for every swimmer he rescued. “It was obviously an important part of his life, something he cherished,” an aide recalled. “Being a lifeguard was ever-present in his memory.” The image lingered when everything else was disappearing.

Those of us who have saved lives know why Reagan cherished the memory.

We cherished Reagan for other reasons, certainly. We had good cause.

Those who were children in the 70s will not easily understand how… bleak… America’s prospects seemed to “conventional wisdom”. Pessimism, lowered expectations, retreat, malaise: our editorials and front pages sounded positively French in their worldview.

Ronald Reagan woke us up.

… We defend freedom here or it is gone. There is no place for us to run, only to make a stand. And if we fail, I think we face telling our children, and our children’s children, what it was we found more precious than freedom. Because I am sure someday—if we fail in this—there will be a generation that will ask.

He reminded us, again and again, what we were sprung from. What our mothers and fathers had hoped we would be. What we could become.

And we woke up.

I believe, in my very marrow, that without Ronald Reagan’s voice, the dismal self-flagellation of the 70s would have led to the suicide of America. We would have become a grey, faceless province of the World Soviet. We would have appeased and accomodated and accepted… and fallen.

Mark Steyn understands the difference Reagan made:

At the Berlin Wall that day, it would have been easy to be clever, as all those ’70s detente sophisticates would have been. And who would have remembered a word they said? Like Irving Berlin with “God Bless America”, only Reagan could have stood there and declared without embarrassment:

Tear down this wall!

- and two years later the wall was, indeed, torn down. Ronald Reagan was straightforward and true and said it for everybody - which is why his “rhetorical opportunity missed” is remembered by millions of grateful Eastern Europeans.

And millions of Reagan’s grateful countrymen, who watched the Soviet Union collapse shortly thereafter.

Without Reagan? The Wall probably would have come down. In a world enslaved, what need for a Wall between provinces? Internal identity cards and passports would have served.

Reagan’s clarity of vision and purpose helped save millions of lives. Russian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian… American.

Perhaps, at the end, that’s how.. that’s WHY… Reagan remembered it.

One man who understood was Yakob Ravin, a Ukrainian émigré who in the summer of 1997 happened to be strolling with his grandson in Armand Hammer Park near Reagan’s California home. They happened to see the former President, out taking a walk. Mr Ravin went over and asked if he could take a picture of the boy and the President. When they got back home to Ohio, it appeared in the local newspaper, The Toledo Blade.

Ronald Reagan was three years into the decade-long twilight of his illness, and unable to recognize most of his colleagues from the Washington days. But Mr Ravin wanted to express his appreciation. “Mr President,” he said, “thank you for everything you did for the Jewish people, for Soviet people, to destroy the Communist empire.”

And somewhere deep within there was a flicker of recognition. “Yes,” said the old man, “that is my job.”

Lifesaver.

We will remember.

... quoth De Doc @ 9:39 am