Katherine Mangu-Ward has a blog post on yesterday’s presser, with a bonus link to The Onion.
The Ten Best Jobs
…of the future. Three of them are space related. Actually, one of them I sort of do now. But it doesn’t pay very well…
Glenn Reynolds And I
I went over to El Segundo last week and did a PJTV interview with Instapundit about space policy. It’s up now.
Why The Individual Mandate
…is unconstitutional.
I’d like to see a Constitutional amendment (or even a law) that after your third vote for legislation that is ruled unconstitutional, you’re automatically thrown out of office. And the same thing for presidents that sign such legislation. That might instill a little more respect, or at least remove people lacking it.
Not All The President’s Men
All the President’s creeps.
[Update a few minutes later]
I liked this comment:
Obama distrusts and/or despises the U.S. military, so he takes a job as Commander-in-Chief when two wars are ongoing.
Obama has little positive to say about America, so he takes a job where he is the Head of State of a nation he largely abhors.
Obama despises capitalism so he leads a nation that has a reputation as a paragon of capitalism and which built its prosperity on this economic system.
Obama, who perceives himself as black, is an academic racialist and sometime racist who wants to lead a nation that is two-thirds white.
Obama, who believes Western Civilization is ultimately the cause of all that is ill in the world, takes a job as chief executive of the nation that is preeminent in the Western world.
Obama, who is neither Christian nor Muslim and who attended an anti-Semitic church for 20 years, wants to lead a nation whose citizens are mostly Christian and whose history is steeped deeply with Judeo-Christian sensibilities.
Obama is thin-skinned and overly sensitive to criticism, so he takes a job where he is criticized every minute of every single day, all across the world, for some reason or another. Much of the criticism is ill-informed, but some of it is well-informed and cuts right to the bone.
…
…
What could possibly go wrong?
The irony is amazing.
Attitudes And Regulations
…that hold back progress in aging and health breakthroughs.
Worshipping Gaia
Joel Garreau, on environmentalism as religion. It has all the earmarks, and it’s the only one that’s allowed to be taught in the public schools. In fact, with so many adherents in government (and particularly among Democrats) you could even say that it’s a state-sponsored violation of the First Amendment.
An End To Early Primaries
Tom Blumer calls for it. I think it’s ridiculous that the presidential race runs for two years.
Mourning In America
I think that this is going to be a devastating ad in the next few weeks.
For background, go here.
Nooooooo!
Defending the planet is too important a job to give to NASA:
Owing to a 2008 law passed by Congress, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has until 15 October to decide which agency will be responsible for protecting the planet from an asteroid strike. Members of the task force say NASA expects to be given part or all of that responsibility. To meet it, the panel discussed the creation of a Planetary Protection Coordination Office (PPCO) within NASA, with an annual budget of $250 million–$300 million. It would detect and track asteroids — and develop a capability to deflect them.
It’s not just an issue of competence — it comes down to the appropriate role of the agency, particularly in light of the Space Act. We really need to set up a Space Guard to take care of things like this. In fact, this could be an opportunity to do so, and then expand its charter to do a lot of other things that NASA isn’t doing well, such as space rescue and infrastructure maintenance.
[Update a while later]
Via Justin Kugler in comments, here’s a link to a paper written about ten years ago discussing the Space Guard concept. This is going to be elaborated upon in the coming months, because I’ve read a currently unpublished piece that will be released soon, and I think that there will be an article in The New Atlantis about it this winter.