…to the New York Times, on their IRS coverage.
Heh.
An Early Space Visionary
More Nutritional Ignorance
So here’s a study that says that Subway is just as bad for teenagers as McDonalds, based on nothing but counting calories. As though nothing matters except calories.
Ariel Castro’s Crimes
Is he guilty of violating the 13th Amendment? Sure looks like it to me. Though I don’t know if there’s actually a stipulated federal penalty for being a slaveholder.
The “I” Word
Senator Inhofe has invoked it. But here’s the frightening thought (ignoring the near certainty of accompanying race riots): “President Biden.”
Four Dead In Benghazi
A different take on CSNY’s “Ohio.”
The Gas Can
How government wrecked it:
I’m pretty alert to such problems these days. Soap doesn’t work. Toilets don’t flush. Clothes washers don’t clean. Light bulbs don’t illuminate. Refrigerators break too soon. Paint discolors. Lawnmowers have to be hacked. It’s all caused by idiotic government regulations that are wrecking our lives one consumer product at a time, all in ways we hardly notice.
It’s like the barbarian invasions that wrecked Rome, taking away the gains we’ve made in bettering our lives. It’s the bureaucrats’ way of reminding market producers and consumers who is in charge.
At some point, in ways large and small, people will revolt.
ISS Problem
They’ve spotted an ammonia leak in one of the coolant loops. I wonder if they have a capability to do a repair via EVA?
Nobody Knows How to Make A Pencil
We treat technological progress as though it were a natural process, and we speak of Moore’s law — computers’ processing power doubles every two years — as though it were one of the laws of thermodynamics. But it is not an inevitable, natural process. It is the outcome of a particular social order.
Which reminds me of the Heinlein quote:
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
Kevin’s new book
From Second On The Moon
…to the back of the plane:
Aldrin said tonight in front of a packed house in a National Geographic auditorium in Washington D.C. that he presumed he might have a chance to speak with the President about options for space during the flight to Kennedy.
But it didn’t happen. President Obama had nothing to say to the moonwalker and didn’t seem to want to hear anything from Aldrin on the long flight to Florida. So Aldrin sat in the back of Air Force One and never saw Obama – until it landed.
When it landed, Aldrin said he was summoned to the front of the plane. But he found out it was not to talk about space policy. Instead, President Obama wanted Aldrin to emerge from Air Force One next to Obama for a photo op. The moonwalker was to be a mere prop.
I’m shocked, shocked.
Actually, despite the myth, the president has always struck me as a very intellectually incurious man. And this puts the lie, I think, to his comments about how he supports the space program because he remembers the astronauts coming back as a kid in Hawaii. He doesn’t give a damn about space, which is a good thing, because if he did, he’d screw it up like everything else he’s passionate about.
[Update a few minutes later]
Stand by for one of the usual sycophants of The One to stop by and call Buzz a liar in 3…2…1…
[Update late afternoon]
Anyone who wants to buy Buzz’s (and Leonard’s) new book can help me out as well by buying it through this link
Oh, and that story about Buzz punching out Bart Sibrel a decade or so ago? It’s a hoax.
[Late-night update]
My spam filter just caught this comment, from an anonymous someone with a probably made-up gmail address: “Yeah, Rand, f**k you and f**k your affiliate link.”
Note: I added the asterisks, in case anyone was wondering.
I’m not sure to make of that. Why would my trying to make a little money off my website by selling products that my readers might find interesting make someone so angry?