Voter ID didn’t reduce turnout, but the IRS may have.
History may very well view the past election as illegitimate. If so, there’s not much we can do about most of the races, but there is a solution for the top one.
Masterb@tion
The politics of it.
As sins go, it’s pretty weak tea to me. And I think it’s actually good for your health, as long as you have a healthy attitude toward it. In fact, I think that it’s sinful and frankly stupid that people would deny sexual pleasure to those unable to find a willing partner. It certainly beats the hell out of rape.
Why A One-Way Trip To Mars?
Three applicants explain.
And over at Space News, Rod Pyle has the story on why Bernie Taupin had it right: “Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids.” What he doesn’t mention is that the issue came up as a result of a question from me to Lansdorp. I think that it would be bioethically irresponsible, given the current state of knowledge, to send a fertile woman there, at least with men along, and it didn’t appear to me that he’d given the matter much thought. I’ll probably write a piece on this, maybe even today.
Lois Lerner
The American people have a right to know both how deep and how high the corruption of our government runs. The White House has an interest in minimizing the scandal, and surely that is Obama’s objective if he is trying to throw Lerner under the bus. Let’s reserve judgment on her and make sure not to let off the hook the man whose re-election the IRS’s abuse of power helped to advance.
I don’t want her scapegoated. As Michael Ledeen suggests, she (and the others whom the administration is trying to sacrifice and scapegoat) should be immunized, so we can get to the truth. And if part of that truth leads to the president, let’s just hope for the sake of the country that the vice president is implicated as well.
Light Blogging
I’m headed down to Long Beach for the Space Tech Expo. I’m not taking a computer, just my phone, so I may put up brief posts, but nothing extensive, or linky.
What Aren’t They Telling Obama
A new trending Twitter hashtag.
Protest The IRS
Tomorrow. At high noon.
It will be interesting to see how the media responds this time. Will the Tea Partiers still be racists, or rebels with a cause?
Looking Ahead To A Bright Future
Glenn Reynolds reviews a new book co-authored by mutual friends — America 3.0
A Do-Nothing Congress
Call me crazy, but this sounds like good news. Given the vast improbability of them doing anything good, nothing seems to be preferable to me.
The New Human Spaceflight Industry
A long piece on personal space travel, over at New York Magazine. I found this interesting:
Wincer is frequently asked if customers can bring children. Several parents have attempted to give flights as sweet-sixteen birthday gifts; one customer, she said, “at the moment is desperate to let her 12-year-old fly.” The FAA had yet to address such questions, and Wincer sees it as a matter of informed consent, of which she thinks a 12-year-old is not capable. Many customers have their own private pilot’s license, and many others are scared of flying or small spaces. She had just read a profile of one client who is terrified of roller coasters: “Jesus,” she said.
One of those things is not like the other. I’m not much of a fan of roller coasters, but that wouldn’t affect my desire for (or enjoyment of) a parabolic flight at all. I’m also acrophobic, but I have no problem with flying. Being high on a structure is a completely different experience than flight, at least for me.
Of course, this isn’t really true, or at least it’s quite misleading:
The primary goal of the shuttle program was simple: to create a reusable space vehicle that could transport materials to and from the International Space Station.
There was no “International Space Station” when the Shuttle was being developed, and wouldn’t be until 1993, though it was meant to be a precursor program to some sort of space station, which was undefined at the time. Of course, ironically, the fact that they built into it the capability to be a short-term space station probably reduced the incentive to actually build one, which is why the first bit of hardware for ISS wasn’t launched until almost twenty years after the Shuttle started flying.