Are you really worse off?
The word “insurance” has lost all meaning when it comes to health care, and the continual confusion and conflation of the two lies at the root of much of the problem. Crazy idea: I want a health savings account to deal with normal medical expenses, and insurance for catastrophes. You know, the way insurance used to be until it got screwed up by wage controls during the war and union negotiators.
Entirely not unexpectedly, they have some terrible suggestions for Trump and NASA:
- Maintain the exploration of Mars as the organizing principle for NASA’s human spaceflight program
- Direct NASA to plan an executable, affordable path for sending humans to Mars orbit by 2033
- Expand NASA’s highly successful science portfolio
- Continue to grow and support the commercial space industry
- Initiate annual five percent increases to NASA’s budget for five years
The only good one is the fourth. Here are mine:
Should they be “permissionless”? Marcia Smith reports on an interesting hearing on the Hill last week, which I attended.
Trump is going to order a government-wide review of it.
If Trump really wants to review wasteful government spending, at NASA he can start with SLS/Orion: https://t.co/eR8yiprfgO
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) March 13, 2017
[Update a while later]
Congratulations to Altius Space Machines for their NASA SBIR Phase II win for cryo propellant transfer technology development. If we canceled SLS/Orion, we could found several thousand efforts like this.
How Scott Pruitt could gut them:
s Pruitt and President Trump look to unwind Obama’s major climate policies, the endangerment finding might be imperiled.
“You know what’s interesting about the situation with CO2, Joe, is we’ve had a Supreme Court decision in 2007 and then the endangerment finding that you’re making reference to in 2009,” Pruitt told CNBC host Joe Kernan, referring to the Supreme Court’s Massachusetts v. EPA decision — the court ruled that greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act and the EPA has to determine whether they should be regulated.
“Nowhere in the continuum, nowhere in the equation, has Congress spoken. The legislative branch has not addressed this issue at all,” Pruitt said.
“The decision in 2007 was not that the EPA had to regulate. The decision in 2007 was they needed to make a decision.”
And what was decided can be undecided. Live by the pen and the phone, die by the pen and the phone. Though I’d like to see Massachusetts v. EPA reversed as well, given that we now know, since the release of the emails from CRU, that it was based on junk science. The notion that plant food as a trace gas is a “pollutant” is nonsensical.
[Update a few minutes later]
Speaking of Massachusetts, it could get up to two feet of snow tomorrow, a week before the vernal equinox. Because, you know, the earth is overheating.
[Update early afternoon]
Yes, Scott Pruitt is right on CO2. But he’s a religious heretic, so he must be condemned.
[Tuesday-morning update]
Let’s talk about Scott Pruitt’s “denial” of global warming.
The CIA has been exploiting security holes in it for years. I’ve got an older phone, so I’m probably vulnerable. On the other hand, I don’t do much with it, so I don’t really care. If I did, I’d upgrade to one with the latest OS that gets regular updates.
It seems to have a rejuvenating effect at the cellular level. I’ll have to start doing this.
I agree with Professor Curry that the media has distorted his statement beyond recognition (and I basically agree with his position, as does she). I also agree that this statement is nonsense:
The right’s refusal to accept the authority of climate science is of a piece with its rejection of mainstream media, academia, and government, the shared institutions and norms that bind us together and contain our political disputes.
The “authority of climate science.” Sorry, but “climate science” has no “authority” (no science does). It and its ignorant defenders have beclowned themselves.
[Update a few minutes later]
Related: A new paper says that only five out of thirty climate models can capture the Asia Pacific Oscillation. But sure, let’s use them as a basis to pauperize much of the world.
[Update a while later]
Oh, look, here’s some insanity from NBC News:
Pruitt’s view is at odds with 99.99 percent of climate scientists, according to peer-reviewed studies.
At least it’s precise, if not accurate.
I think that Kodiak will be hardest hit by this.
Bob Zimmerman has published an interesting and timely paper. I haven’t read it yet, but it can be downloaded from the Center For a New American Security, or from his site.