What’s something you think is a good idea but you think is unconstitutional? Or, conversely, what’s something you think is a bad idea but you think is constitutional?
Everyone concerned with the Constitution — and most especially Supreme Court nominees — should be asked this question. And if they don’t have an answer — that is, if they think everything they like is constitutional — then maybe they don’t really believe in the Constitution.
Too many think that the purpose of SCOTUS and the judiciary in general is to give them results they like, as opposed to results conforming with the law and the Constitution. Elena Kagan failed this question in her confirmation hearings, when she said a law mandating the eating of broccoli would be a bad idea, but Constitutional. She got it exactly backwards.
I couldn’t give a heads up, because they only want people on the approved list to call in, but I was the speaker for today’s FISO talk. The audio and PDF are up now.
It’s time to claim your piece. An interesting read on space property rights at Aeon, with a lot of quotes from your humble correspondent. [H/T to Paul Dietz]
Haven’t heard from my old friend (in both senses of the word these days), but Ray Kurzweil has an interview.
Haven’t listened to the whole thing, but so far, he doesn’t seem to have mentioned that he got interested in the subject of nanotech via his interest in space.
A very interesting essay on the nature of Christ, and (among other things) the difference between the virgin birth and the Immaculate Conception:
Christianity like many world religions has often been less than fair in its treatment of women. But at the heart of historic Christianity there has always been the idea that one young single woman’s faithful choice gave God the opening he used to save the whole human race. Christmas is a feminist holiday, a feast that celebrates the free choice of an autonomous woman. As Christianity has risen to become the largest and most widespread religion in the world, women are coming into their own. It cannot be otherwise; Christianity of all the world’s great religions owes its origin to the choice of a woman to cooperate with God.