It’s essentially illegal. My latest column, about NASA in the movies and in real life, at USA Today.
Category Archives: Law
New NASA Human Spaceflight Rules
I have trouble caring about this, given the programmatic unlikelihood of SLS/Orion.
Obama’s Clinton-Email Comments
The FBI isn’t happy.
It shouldn’t be. This was blatant political interference with an ongoing investigation (as was his “not a smidgen of corruption” comment about the IRS).
[Update a couple minutes later]
Oh, just noticed this obligatory “But Booooosh!”
Mr. Obama is not the first president to generate criticism for weighing in on cases. George W. Bush was criticized when he told an interviewer that he believed Representative Tom DeLay of Texas was innocent of illegal fund-raising charges. Mr. DeLay’s conviction was overturned last year.
Did I miss the part where the prosecutor in Texas worked for the president?
A much older case is when Nixon weighed in on Charles Manson’s guilt. That was another one where it wasn’t as big a deal, because it was a local prosecution, not a federal one.
[Update a while later]
“Gross negligence” and Espionage Act violations.
I’ll bet a lot of the agents working the case would like to see the book thrown at her. But Lynch will never do it.
Planetary Protection
This whole debate assumes that the only purpose of space exploration is science. But if we want to settle space, we have to accept the fact that we are going to “contaminate” it with earthly life.
Meth
It’s not an argument for drug prohibition; it’s a demonstration and consequence of the failure of drug prohibition.
News College-Bound Men Can Use
Four questions men should ask when selecting a college:
Since most college handbooks now define sexual assault broadly to include pretty much everything, one’s best bet is to avoid sex in college altogether. Colleges have enacted policies that allow non-students to bring accusations against students, so dating off campus isn’t safe either.
There’s really nothing that can be done to protect oneself from an accusation in the current climate. Sorry to sound so dire, but when a school puts up posters suggesting that even a sip of alcohol renders a women unable to give consent, things have gotten dire.
…I apologize if this seems like fearmongering, but college campuses are no longer safe for students accused of sexual assault. Due process rights have gone out the window because, activists tell us, this issue is so important that draconian measures must be taken. Their message is clear: Due process is fine and dandy for criminal courts, but this is a college campus, damn it, due process has no place here for those accused of felonies.
This is all making on-line education look better and better. And once again kudos to Ashe for being all over this beat.
Hillary’s Server
It was even less secure than previously thought.
This is my shocked face.
As someone noted on Twitter, this is the equivalent of leaving a new Mercedes out on the street with the key taped to the outside of the windshield.
Space Pirates
Michael Listner explains in excruciating space-law detail why Mark Watney isn’t one.
John Koskinen
Jim Jordan says he’s going to be impeached.
I hope so. It’s about time someone in this criminal organization masquerading as a government was impeached. They should impeach Gina McCarthy, too.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s someone else to make a salutary example of:
Roth’s report, released Wednesday, found that 45 agents and supervisors had peeked at Chaffetz’s personnel file, which was stored in an internal Secret Service database. The report said 18 supervisors, including the deputy director and Clancy’s chief of staff, knew that the information had been accessed inside the agency. But the report said Clancy was a notable exception and had never been informed.
Clancy now says he knew that the unflattering information was being shared inside his agency and was told about it by a top deputy before it was leaked to the news media, officials said.
As a result of his new statements, investigators from Roth’s office plan to reinterview Clancy about his revised account, the officials said.
With a corrupt Justice Department, impeachment is the only available means of accountability. Even if the Senate won’t removed, no one should want that on their resume.
Investigating Extraterrestrial Water
There’s been a lot of misreporting on this issue all week, that I’ve been admonishing people about on Twitter. Michael Listner explains the issue: No, the Outer Space Treaty does not prevent us from approaching water on Mars.