The one question that should be asked at every hearing.
The Pork Problem
Eric Berger explains why human spaceflight is such a mess.
The “Cutting-Edge” SLS
These aerospace execs are living in some kind of alternate reality. Or at least pretending to, to placate the Congressional porkers.
Civil Forfeiture
It’s one of the most gross injustices allowed in our legal system, but a federal case may make it easier to defend against it. As Glenn says, there should be punishment of officials who engage in this legalized thievery.
[Update in the afternoon]
Here’s a good piece on the subject in The Economist.
Richard Cohen, Bigot
Hey, can I play this game?
Let’s try:
“People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the junior senator from Texas — a white man who actually believes in the anarchy and selfishness of ‘limited government,’ and opposes communism and even socialism, (Should I mention that he claims to be Hispanic?) He represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts — but not all — of America. To leftists, this doesn’t look like their country at all.”
[Thursday-morning update]
Thoughts on Cohen’s Tea Party fantasies from Dave Weigel.
Raising The Statistical Bar
This is an interesting change, and not one good for the warm mongers. It points out another reason that much of climate science is junk science. It’s not reproducible.
The Law-School Opinion Coccoon
Some thoughts on why so many were surprised about the notion that ObamaCare might be unconstitutional.
I think the same insularity is responsible for much of the (non-existent) “consensus” in climate science.
The Sun
Meanwhile, people obsess about carbon on the basis of junk science.
The Anti-Science of Jenny McCarthy
Julia Ioffe is righteously pissed off:
At this writing, I have been coughing for 72 days. Not on and off coughing, but continuously, every day and every night, for two and a half months. And not just coughing, but whooping: doubled over, body clenched, sucking violently for air, my face reddening and my eyes watering. Sometimes, I cough so hard, I vomit. Other times, I pee myself. Both of these symptoms have become blessedly less frequent, and I have yet to break a rib coughing—also a common side effect. Nor do I still have the fatigue that felled me, often, at my desk and made me sleep for 16 hours a night on the weekends. Now I rarely choke on things like water, though it turns out laughing, which I do a lot of, is an easy trigger for a violent, paralyzing cough that doctors refer to not as a cough, but a paroxysm.
Somehow, I doubt that most of these people are Republicans.
Low-Cost Propellant Depots Habitats
Jon Goff has some thoughts.
I’d note, though, that Bigelow prefers the adjective “expandable,” rather than “inflatable.”