…and the far one. Thoughts from Rick Tumlinson on where we go next in space policy.
When Porch Couches Are Outlawed
Only outlaws will have porch couches. And the terrorists will have won.
Ann Arbor without porch couches is like…well, OK, I’m lousy at similes, but it’s sure not like Ann Arbor. The house across the Blakely Court from us had one.
Obama’s Radical Past
Stanley Kurtz has some highlights from his new book
Stanford McCarthyism Follow Up
Powerline has the story. The letters to the editor in the Stanford Daily are blistering. It’s time to put these campus fascists on notice.
Pedagogy
An amusing XKCD.
That was the question I always had when people explained how wings worked and the Bernoulli Effect. The answer, of course, is that there are lots of ways to get lift, but that this is the most efficient one with the least drag. You can get lift from a barn door. Stick your hand out the window in a fast car, and you can get lift by just increasing the angle of attack, but the L/D is terrible. So when aerobatic planes are upside down, they have to keep nose up (down, from the pilot’s perspective) and up the thrust quite a bit to maintain altitude.
Jewtopia
I have an opportunity to see it this weekend. Any reviews from non-leftists (i.e., not the typical play reviewer)?
The Power Of Self Delusion
Guevara was a vicious, megalomaniacal sociopath who wanted to be the next Stalin or Mao. (Indeed, Stalin in his younger days was a figure very much like Guevara.) He overtly and clearly stated his desire to destroy America and to exterminate millions of Americans in the process.
Yet today he is considered to be a figure worthy of admiration by the far (20% most) left in America. Go to any college campus and you will see admiring posters and t-shirts. Even Robert Redford, one of the few leftists who actually spent tens of millions of dollars of his own money on charitable causes, made a hagiographic movie about Guevera.
The vast majority of leftists, however, know nothing about the real Guevera. All they know is the hagiography that came straight out the Cold War-era Soviet propaganda mill. Worse, they don’t even bother to question the hagiography at all. If you try to confront them about their mindless adoration, they will reflexively change the subject to some real or imagined evil of non-leftists somewhere in the world’s history. They are emotionally incapable of thinking about Guevera in anything but positive terms.
Gee, I think we’ve seen some of that recently, on this very blog.
NASA Is Authorized
The president signed the bill today. As Jeff Foust notes, the main thing this does is to start the clock ticking on some reporting requirements for the agency. I assume that they’ve already been working on the analyses. I hope that they’re done and released more transparently than ESAS was.
The Future Of Human Evolution
What will it look like when we can really take control?
I have no profound thoughts, except that I suspect that we’ll be surprised.
Hopes For Export-Control Reform
…fading? It’s going to be pretty tough to do anything with the new Congress in this regard. It just requires too much education.