Ummmmmm…no. Here is a case where a little, but not enough knowledge of orbital mechanics is dangerous.
Category Archives: Media Criticism
250 Notable Emails
…from Climaquiddick. It’s hard to read these and still believe that “the science is settled.”
One-Way Trips To Mars?
It’s actually the only way that makes sense right now:
The hard part, he says, isn’t subsisting in a hostile environment millions of miles from home but changing the Space Shuttle-era culture of timidity.
It would be easier to just ignore NASA than to change it. I’m working on an issue paper on risk aversion and reward, and how we have to stop fretting so much over killing people if we want to open up space.
Congress’s Five Options
…to reverse the administration power grab. I like John Yoo’s solution, which doesn’t involve Congress at all:
Most importantly, private parties outside government can refuse to obey any regulation issued by the new agency. They will be able to defend themselves in court by claiming that the head of the agency is an unconstitutional officer, and they will have the grounds for a good test case. They can call Richard first, me second, for advice!
I hope we don’t have to wait until the regulations are issued to resolve it, though.
Sorry, Rush
…but Santorum really is a big-government conservative. He may be preferable to Romney, but anyone who thinks he’ll shrink government is fooling themselves.
[Afternoon update]
The Green Movement
…is dead in the water. But it continues to do a lot of economic damage.
A Mother
Postenvironmentalism
…and technological abundance.
Space is going to play an increasing role here, I hope.
Hey, Warm Mongers!
The war is over, and you lost. As he notes, though, they’ve done untold damage to places like California.
“A Travesty For Government Accountability”
The Obama administration continues to use the Constitution for toilet paper. If they get away with this, they’ll regret it when someone else comes to power. And the media, of course, lies for them and calls it a “recess appointment.”
[Thursday morning update]
Barack Obama’s tyrannical abuse of power.
[Bumped]
[Late-morning update]
The Constitution is clear on recess appointments. This isn’t one.
[Update a couple minutes later]
The appointment is Constitutionally dubious, and so is the job itself.
[Update early afternoon]
More thoughts from John Yoo:
President Obama is making a far more sweeping claim. Here, as I understand it, the Senate is not officially in adjournment (they have held “pro forma” meetings, where little to no business occurs, to prevent Obama from making exactly such appointments). So there is no question whether the adjournment has become a constitutional “recess.” Rather, Obama is claiming the right to decide whether a session of Congress is in fact a “real” one based, I suppose, on whether he sees any business going on.
This, in my view, is not up to the president, but the Senate. It is up to the Senate to decide when it is in session or not, and whether it feels like conducting any real business or just having senators sitting around on the floor reading the papers. The president cannot decide the legitimacy of the activities of the Senate any more than he could for the other branches, and vice versa.
Is the president going to have the authority to decide if the Supreme Court has deliberated too little on a case? Does Congress have the right to decide whether the president has really thought hard enough about granting a pardon? Under Obama’s approach, he could make a recess appointment anytime he is watching C-SPAN and feels that the senators are not working as hard as he did in the Senate (a fairly low bar).
I think this will come back to bite him. And it’s all about his reelection.