Miscellaneous Musings

As a follow up to my last post, I should mention another landmark in space exploration that took place in the last few days. The NASA spacecraft Dawn went into orbit around Vesta, the second-most massive (and the brightest) of the asteroids. This is the first mission to any of the large asteroids (a number of missions have visited smaller asteroids). After orbiting and studying Vesta for a year, Dawn is scheduled to fly on to Ceres, the largest asteroid (and under the IAU's current classification, the smallest dwarf planet -- though a number of other bodies, including Vesta, are considered possible dwarf planets), which it will reach in early 2015. This mission marks a significant milestone in solar system exploration and should greatly increase our knowledge of the asteroids.

Back on Earth, however, things don't look quite so good. The extremists in the Republican party are continuing to insist on their nonsensical position on the US federal budget according to which they refuse to consider any form of revenue increase whatsoever in the effort to reduce the budget deficit, an absurd approach to take (especially since one of the biggest reasons there's such a big deficit in the first place is the foolish tax cut enacted during the W. Bush administration). Most of them compound the problem by acting reluctant to cut the defense budget significantly, despite the fact that it makes up half of the discretionary budget. What's more, a lot of them are even calling for measures that would heavily restrict the government's future use of the budget as a policy tool (one of its main functions), such as a balanced budget amendment. If their game of chicken with the debt ceiling and a default by the US government on its debt threatened only the US, it would be bad enough, but it could even endanger the world economy, which is still in rather shaky condition. There are many, many things that could be said about the ridiculousness of the Republican position, but for an overview of how the simpleminded "taxes bad" mindset has taken over the Republican party, see this article.

Of course the idiocy doesn't stop at tax and budget policy. The dim bulbs among the Republicans in the House of Representatives even attempted to repeal the very sensible and easily achievable standards for efficiency in light fixtures (standards which the industry itself supported), calling their efforts an attempt to "save the light bulb". Fortunately their effort failed, but nearly as miserably as it should have. If they had succeeded, no doubt they would have gone on to do away with fuel efficiency standards and even bring back leaded gasoline (after all, we can't have the government telling people what kind of gasoline they can buy, can we?). It's getting hard to think of civil ways to talk about these people....

Finally, having posted on it before, I showed mention the unraveling of the sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Readers may note that I made a point of qualifying my comments about him with phrases like "if [he] is guilty of what he is accused of", so I have always acknowledge the possibility that he was innocent. On the other hand, even if Strauss-Kahn's accuser has proved to be unreliable, that does not necessarily mean he is not guilty, just that it would be impossible to make a strong case against him. It's worth remembering that he is also accused of sexual assault against a young French writer a number of years ago, and there were reports that she was considering bringing charges (depending on the charge, the statute of limitations would not yet have expired). Of course he may be innocent in both instances, but it would be easier to believe that if he gave a convincing explanation of his behavior, including a strong condemnation of anyone who would actually force themselves on someone else (I wouldn't expect him to condemn sexual relations based on consent, and there would be no reason for him to do so -- indeed that would just be hypocritical). As for his political career, whether he can recover remains to be seen. But if there is good reason to believe he is guilty of sexual assault, in France if not in New York, then I would rather hope not. While it's certainly possible for someone with significant moral flaws to be a good leader, and for the most part politicians should be judged for their public actions rather than their private lives, serious sexual assault is a bit too much to accept.