Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Outer space
So, I get up this morning to a rather odd
headline on the Washington Post (the internerds edition): "Bush Sets Defense As Space Priority". The long and short of it seems to be that we--more accurately, the Bush Administration--has asserted the right to universal hegemony over outer space. As a hypoetetical, this is, I suppose, something that is worth discussing--weighing the pros and cons, etc. However, the timing, to me, is just bizarre. Matt Yglesias
puts it nicely:
This seems like a fairly peripheral concern at the moment -- there's no pressing space-based threat. At the same time, one imagines that countries like Russia and China aren't going to be thrilled with this idea. Coincidentally enough, right now we're trying to secure a higher level of Russian and Chinese cooperation over North Korea, which is a fairly pressing issue. So was it really necessary to announce this just now? Does the White House even think about that kind of stuff -- the idea that we should set priorities and try to avoid pissing people off over third-tier issues right when we're potentially on the verge of accomplishing something important?
I suppose one could think of more sinister explanations for the "why now" question, but that would make my head hurt. For now, we'll go with incompetance.
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