Jeff Foust has the story of Thursday’s scheduled flight.
If that’s the “biggest thing that NASA is doing this year,” it’s a sad testament to how little the agency is doing.
[Afternoon update]
Sorry, link was missing, fixed now.
The House Benghazi Report
Ten major takeaways from it that the media are completely ignoring.
Of course they are.
The Next “Space” President
Chris Carberry says it’s time to stop waiting for him (or her).
I agree. The notion that a presidential speech can advance us in space is a remnant of the Apollo Cargo Cult.
Orthorexia
When “healthy” eating becomes unhealthy.
There may be reasons to be a vegan, but health is not among them.
[Update late morning]
Both Anne Hathaway and Bill Clinton have given up on their vegan diets:
Hathaway recently confessed that eating endless meals of tofu and garbanzo beans seemed to be sapping her energy. She told the Insider that when she was filming Interstellar, the action-packed scenes overwhelmed her.
Seeking a solution, Hathaway decided to try feasting on fish and shifting to a low-carb diet. The decision to push away those plant-based platters and experiment with an animal protein-powered plan came in the middle of filming a water scene, which required that she suit up in a heavy garment.
“I fell off so hard…. So you imagine what that’s like — what it’s like running through water and then you wear a 40-pound suit on top of it, so for me it was intense. I was facing my life, I don’t know how many days in a row of, like, garbanzo beans on a plate.”
And with an apology to PETA, Hathaway says that she doesn’t plan to return to her vegan lifestyle. She even dug into a plate of eggs and sausage during a recent Harper’s Bazaar interview. Anne noted that the difference between eating a vegan diet and consuming animal protein was notable overnight.
“I just didn’t feel good or healthy,” Hathaway recalled of her vegan days.
You don’t say.
The Congressional Budget Office
John Fund says it’s time for a new director.
I agree. I’d also note that while there is no certainty to dynamic scoring, it’s guaranteed that a static analysis is wrong.
[Update early afternoon]
Peter Suderman discusses the pros and cons of keeping Elmendorf.
The Ferguson “Protests”
They’re not protests, they’re pogroms aimed at the middle class:
Backed by looters and violent people, liberals are telling the American middle class they do not want you. They want an America where you are either a billionaire knocking down tax subsidies, or jobless and on federal assistance. . . . The looters won, thanks to President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and Governor Jay Nixon — Democrats all — who ignored the truth and the facts of the case to fan the flames of violence, across the country. People have begun calling these the Obama Riots. Expect more.
Sadly, yes.
[Update a few minutes later]
[Update a few more minutes later]
Middle-class Americans are hardest hit by ObamaCare. As by all of the Democrats’ policies. And as Glenn notes, the Republicans are fools to try to go after tech money. They should be advocating populist policies that go instead after Hollywood and the Silicon Valley oligarchs.
[Update a while later]
Speaking of the Silicon Valley oligarchs, how they created huge homeless camps.
Is Our Journalists Learning?
As others note, I’m sure that Sarah Palin could explain the meaning of the word to Katie.
Orion
Eric Berger has the latest installment of his series on NASA’s drift (which is likely to become a book, I think):
NASA’s rank-and-file believe America wants a space program pushing outward, and upward.
“We don’t think of our jobs here as white-collar welfare,” Kramer said. “We have a real passion for what we do.”
Of course you don’t. You have to motivate yourself to go to work. But that doesn’t make it untrue.
I weep to think what that billion dollars per year could be doing if applied to something useful.
[Update a while later]
I should note that I have worked on many projects that I considered a pointless waste of money, because it was my job assignment. While I’m probably more cynical than most, I did eventually tire of helping Congress waste the taxpayers’ money, which is why I quit the mainstream industry two decades ago.
Obama And The Democrats
How he marginalized the party.
I used to say in the nineties that the best thing Bill Clinton did was to end the Democrat dominance of Congress. Obama may have finished the job for a while.
Firefly Space
A profile of the new company at Ars Technica.