How James Comey succeeded where Richard Nixon failed.
Category Archives: History
And Then There Were Four
Alan Bean has left the earth for the last time.
I just saw Buzz last night at the ISDC awards ceremony, which was probably the most encouraging in the history of that meeting, in which (amid saving The Expanse for another season, with many of the cast and production crew present) Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, laid out his vision for humanity in space that was shared by all in that room. There will be a party tonight, and I don’t think the organization will have had a more joyous one in its history. It was fitting that it occurred in the very same hotel where the very first conference was held, thirty-seven years ago.
Mueller’s Appointment
…was probably unconstitutional.
Which would be all of a piece with the other actions of Obama administration officials.
[Update a few minutes later]
Related: James Comey in panic mode.
At this point, I think he should be wearing orange.
Asimov And O’Neill
The Space Studies Institute has resurrected a old television discussion of the prospects for space colonies.
It’s interesting to note that when this occurred, we didn’t know how much hydrogen was available on the moon and in the rest of the solar system.
ObamaCare
Did Congress render the entire statute unconstitutional in December?
Sure looks like it to me. If Roberts is consistent, he’ll have to strike it down now.
Iran
Yes. Best outcome will be a revolution replaced by a more western democracy, but unsure what the likelihood of that is.
Today’s X-Rated Links
A visit to a s3x-robot factory, and the furniture of Catherine the Great. Latter definitely NSFW.
Give ‘Em Hell Harry
Was Truman the proto-Trump?
Trump is only shocking to people unfamiliar with presidential history.
Obama’s Legacy
Yes, and sow the ground with salt.
America The Weird
Victor Davis Hanson on the appeal of the West:
America remains the exceptional Western nation, whose influence and stature transcend the size of its economy and population, and its vast land mass of rich natural resources. Its cocktail of property rights, unfettered oil and gas development, muscular national defense, gun rights, religiosity, free-market economics, limited government, philanthropy, and great private universities is, again, unlike anything in the West.
Likewise, its excesses that arise from the marriage of free-market affluence and constitutionally protected unfettered expression, in the eyes of the world, appear often as license and indulgence. Certainly, the First and Second Amendments, the National Football League, rap music, the U.S. Marine Corps, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the Ivy League, or 24/7 cable news could not originate elsewhere.
The result is that America exists both as the world’s refuge and its beacon, the sole place where individuals can find a safe harbor. Only in America can the individual remain free and able to live his life under the assumption that the major decisions of his life are his own and not predicated on state approval. Only in the United States does the rags to riches story still exist, given that neither regulation, the deep state, nor an entrenched aristocracy can fully suppress entrepreneurs or aspiring capitalists.
A key goal of my Outer Space Treaty project is to extend this to the solar system. Speaking of which, Michael Listner has an analysis of the latest U.S. legislation along these lines.