Strange, because I don’t personally know anyone who’s been affected (that I know of).
Legalized Theft
SCOTUS has finally ruled that states can’t raise money with huge fines and civil forfeitures. RBH wrote the opinion.
Now, let’s take on prison rape.
Socialism
The Millennials can’t remember very much – and they don’t learn very much either. It’s easy being hot for socialism or communism when you actually have a very little idea of what it is and what it did throughout the 20th century. And the Ys have that ignorance in spades; one third of them think that George W Bush killed more people than Stalin and 42 per cent have never heard of Mao – but over 70 per cent agree with Bernie Sanders. Some research suggests that only 15 per cent actually have a correct understanding of socialism. It’s not just politics; the Millennials are the most woefully undereducated and miseducated generation in a very long time. To be fair, that’s not strictly their fault; that attaches itself again to their Boomer grandparents who have been in charge of our failing education systems during this time. Combine the modern indoctrination-cum-dumbification taking place in schools and universities with the attention span-killing impact of information technology and social media, and you have a barely literate cohort, which is simply not equipped with the necessary mental tools to learn about the real world even if they wanted to.
Any surprises that socialism is now nearly synonymous with Gen Y?
This is a disaster.
[Late-morning update]
Socialists are parasites.
Yes.
SpaceShipTwo
Their launch window opened this morning at 7 AM. I’d thought about driving up, but it’s going to be pretty cold up there, and I didn’t think the weather would cooperate. It did turn out that they scrubbed. I think Friday’s the most likely day now, because another storm is coming through tonight and tomorrow.
Hey, Illinois
Want to lose even more residents (and revenue)? Start stealing from their private pensions to pay for public ones.
Your Fifteen Minutes Of Hate
From recent experience, Nancy Rommelmann has a guide to surviving it.
A Failed Coup
VDH performs an autopsy.
Two Hate Crimes On January 29th
One was real, the other seems clearly a hoax at this point, but that’s the only one the media has been reporting on.
And they wonder how they got Trump.
[Update a while later]
“When the [fake racist] letter didn’t get enough attention, he concocted the staged attack.”
NASA’s “Space” Program
It will be a decade and a half, and $50B, with little spaceflight to show for it.
Europe And Its Space Race
Will SpaceX shut it out?
Probably. Not that he could really do anything about it, but I warned Clay Mowry years ago that Ariane 6 would be obsolete before it flew. Which is probably why he went to Blue Origin.