Disqus - Latest Comments for aog

Re: THE NEW SPACE RACE: Rocket Lab suffers launch failure. Rocket Lab's string of 20 consecutive suc

Annoying Old Guy — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 16:50:16 -0000

That's success for you - no one seems to remember when SpaceX was a single launch failure from bankruptcy.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/0...

It doesn't worry me much - in the current state of play, any of these players who go bankrupt will be bought up and resume launching.

Re: THE NEW SPACE RACE: Rocket Lab suffers launch failure. Rocket Lab's string of 20 consecutive suc

Annoying Old Guy — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 16:45:28 -0000

I always presumed there were insurance clauses that pay off if the launch fails. So the customer gets a cash payout that "makes them whole" in the insurance style. Obviously the insurance rates will depend heavily on reliability, so it's self correcting. Too much failure and you can't insure profitably.

Re: WELL, LIKE MOST COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD THEY HAVE LOUSY POLITICAL LEADERSHIP: Germany Is Losing Its

Annoying Old Guy — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 13:45:10 -0000

I would suspect Poland or Hungary.

Re: THE SIMPLEST WAY TO EXPLAIN THE BEHAVIOR OF ANY BUREAUCRATIC ORGANIZATION IS TO ASSUME THAT IT IS CO

Annoying Old Guy — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 01:04:07 -0000

Two fun facts about C.D,

1. He’s a published author, his latest is “Dark Harvest” in the action / adventure genre.
2. He is starting to make his own films based on his books. He did a fundraiser aiming at 50K pounds but only got 2.5 million pounds.

Re: DON’T GET COCKY: This Year’s Red Wave Puts New York Governorship in Play… for Real. “According t…

Annoying Old Guy — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 15:32:04 -0000

No, the real concern is vote selling. With anonymous voting, i can sell my vote all I want and still vote as a like. If there is some way to prove how I voted, then I have to do so. In practice this means there's very little literal vote buying. That would change massively without anonymous voting.

Re: Did Trudeau Create a Dangerous Run on Canadian Banks by Freezing Protesters' Bank Accounts?

Annoying Old Guy — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 21:15:46 -0000

If these people could think through the consequences of their actions, they wouldn't be progressives.

Re: EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: White House: Okay, yes, we’re now officially calling this an “invas…

Annoying Old Guy — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 17:05:24 -0000

^ This. Putin is a Tsar. He's following basically the same internal and external policies.

Re: OLD AND BUSTED: Going “Green.” The New Hotness? Spending Green! Climate activists spend millions …

Annoying Old Guy — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 13:51:15 -0000

Exactly. "Reversibility" is a key feature for any serious mitigation because of the dubiousness of the problem. One should also note that "blocking the Sun" doesn't mean a 100% block. Even a 1% change in insolation would have a massive impact. What's been alluded to elsewhere is, what happens when two nations have different views of what the optimal amount of insolation change should be? It's not going to be China blocking the Sun and charging for sunlight, it's going to be the PRC adjusting insolation to be optimal for China and not caring what happens elsewhere.

Re: The Democrats' Miscalculation of the Importance of Parental Rights

Annoying Old Guy — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 10:01:12 -0000

A couple of points -

1. There's a significant correlation between having children and not being a Progressive. It's not unreasonable to presume that childless Progressive are all in for state control of children.

2. This poll is bogus, with regard to Progressives really believing a school board should control what's being taught. Find a public school board enforcing discipline, or teaching that biology is real, and those same Progressives will tell how how evil school board control of the curriculum is.

Re: Non-white people can be racist

Annoying Old Guy — Sat, 16 May 2015 08:19:37 -0000

No, adding "negatively" makes it an incorrect definition. It's like arguing if a glass is half full or half empty - I don't discriminate negatively against group A, I discriminate positively in favor of group B. Either you're discriminating on the basis of race, or you're not.

Re: Halal in the Family

Annoying Old Guy — Tue, 12 May 2015 12:31:45 -0000

You mean like the intellectuals in the Iranian revolution? Or the homosexual supporters of Hamas? It seems a weak argument.

Re: Halal in the Family

Annoying Old Guy — Tue, 12 May 2015 11:26:59 -0000

"identifies herself as a “pork-eating, alcohol-drinking, premarital-sex-having Muslim.”" thereby showing a complete misunderstanding of the problem. Non-muslims don't care about any of that. It's the "not killing people for blasphemy and apostasy kind of Muslim" that is wanted.

Re: Attackers killed outside “Draw Muhamad” contest

Annoying Old Guy — Mon, 04 May 2015 10:40:19 -0000

Presuming the attackers were Caliphascists, one is left wondering why Gene thinks it is *Geller* who is portraying Muslims as violent extremists.

Also, simply because Geller and Charlie Hebdo have different points of view doesn't make this not a response to the massacre of Charlie Hebdo. Your final paragraph is a non-sequitor. I wonder if you think Geller or her associates would have massacred the Charlie Hebdo staff had they in fact mocked her? If not, perhaps there is some slight difference between those "religious fanatics".

Re: ARE YOU KIDDING ME? DC Comics Caves To Social Justice Whining About New Batgirl Cover - Chicks on the Right

Annoying Old Guy — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 15:42:40 -0000

Yes, I was thinking about precisely that myself. If you can effectively only tell actual stories about men, then you'll only get stories about men. But as others have noted here, this isn't about anything other than the SJW's putting iron in their fist and money in their pockets. All other concerns are secondary.

Re: ARE YOU KIDDING ME? DC Comics Caves To Social Justice Whining About New Batgirl Cover - Chicks on the Right

Annoying Old Guy — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 15:26:38 -0000

The Joker has been depicted doing far worse to *Batgirl*. Look up "The Killing Joke" which is considered a classic and see what happened to Batgirl in that story. But I don't remember any protests back then...

Re: Galloway and the David Duke fan

Annoying Old Guy — Sun, 04 Jan 2015 17:21:24 -0000

You could look at this report where the organizer of the event claims Scalise was not there.

Re: Unicorn Governance : The Freeman : Foundation for Economic Education

Annoying Old Guy — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 20:54:10 -0000

There's some decent science fiction that has workable socialism / communism. It invariably involves building / creating / genetically engineering "unicorns". An example would be Iain M. Banks "The Culture" which is run by hyper intelligent incorruptible artificial minds. One might argue, though, that it's actually "zooism" because the humans are to a large extent inhabitants of a zoo run by the Minds. It's a reason I have some respect for the Extropians - "humans not good enough? We'll make better ones!".

Re: Unicorn Governance : The Freeman : Foundation for Economic Education

Annoying Old Guy — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 20:50:02 -0000

Not necessarily. One can easily envision there being a "Laffer Curve" of government scope vs. liberty. Just because decreasing government scope in our present circumstances would be an improvement doesn't mean the limit of that process (anarchy) would in fact be optimal or even better than the current state.

Re: Poll: Even People in Illinois Say Illinois Worst State to Live In

Annoying Old Guy — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 22:38:04 -0000

They do know that, and this is what they choose. I know so many people who agree with this view of the state and its ruling class, then go out and vote for the same people. It's as if the people they vote for and the "incompetent crooks running this state" are completely different sets of people.

Re: ¡No Pasarán!: "No One Is!" Leftists and Their Calculated Lies Intended to Pacify the Bitter Clingers

Annoying Old Guy — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 09:55:16 -0000

Your Jed Babbin link is broken.

Re: baldilocks--Member of the Funny Name Club

Annoying Old Guy — Mon, 06 Jan 2014 10:22:47 -0000

I think it's more clever than that - suppose the Romney family had excluded that grandchild for this reason. Then they could be attacked as "racist exclusionists" embarrassed by the child's race. Setting down that marker makes the Romney family "racist" regardless of what they actually do. That, I submit, is the real point.

Re: Judge overruled: Texas abortion restrictions take effect

Annoying Old Guy — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 17:02:36 -0000

Um, that's precisely what this law does, apply the same regulations that govern other outpatient surgical procedures to abortion. Do you think that is a reasonable or unreasonable thing to do?

Re: Judge overruled: Texas abortion restrictions take effect

Annoying Old Guy — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 14:15:44 -0000

Yeah, strong health and safety regulation is a Good Thing, until it interferes with something you favor. Understood.

Re: Judge overruled: Texas abortion restrictions take effect

Annoying Old Guy — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 12:16:17 -0000

If this is a major event for a woman, shouldn't she be protected through proper regulation, rather than left to the abusive hands of an unregulated free market? Aren't people, especially the disadvantaged, deserving of such regulatory protection by the state? HP commentors tell me all the time that businesses such as these have no real civil rights and therefore can (and should) be regulated by the State. How can anyone want to leave these desperate women to be preyed upon by the unregulated free market?

Re: Economic disaster? Bring it on!

Annoying Old Guy — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 21:08:33 -0000

Um, no, I'm not. That budget doesn't erase the prior 4 years of dereliction, especially during the years when the Democratic Party controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. What stopped them then? I also note that the GOP Senate opposition was based on no tax increase, which seems quite reasonable given the massive tax increase that will hit in 2014, called the "Affordable Health Care Act". I'll be paying around $6K-$8K more, so I support that requirement. I know, it's Josh's view that we should have a de facto one party state, where only one side gets to make demands. But I'm just not that kind of guy.