I wonder if this, combined with recent problems with their space systems, are an indication of a much deeper systemic rot?
High-Speed Rail
Unlike the California plan, this might make sense. No serious mountains between Dallas and Houston.
Scott Pruitt And The Environment
Yes, this is an argument about what constitutes “pollution” and how best to deal with it, not whether or not we are indifferent to it. But of course, if the Left had no strawman arguments, they’d have no arguments at all.
The Second American Civil War
Thoughts from Dennis Prager:
This Second Civil War, fortunately, differs in another critically important way: It has thus far been largely nonviolent. But given increasing left-wing violence, such as riots, the taking over of college presidents’ offices and the illegal occupation of state capitols, nonviolence is not guaranteed to be a permanent characteristic of the Second Civil War.
There are those on both the left and right who call for American unity. But these calls are either naive or disingenuous. Unity was possible between the right and liberals, but not between the right and the left.
Liberalism — which was anti-left, pro-American and deeply committed to the Judeo-Christian foundations of America; and which regarded the melting pot as the American ideal, fought for free speech for its opponents, regarded Western civilization as the greatest moral and artistic human achievement and viewed the celebration of racial identity as racism — is now affirmed almost exclusively on the right and among a handful of people who don’t call themselves conservative.
The left, however, is opposed to every one of those core principles of liberalism.
Which is why we should stop letting them purloin the word.
Another way of framing it is as another American Revolution (which the Civil War could be considered to be, but fortunately a failed one, at least in terms of the Democrats’ desire to preserve slavery). Calhoun called the War of 1812 a second revolution, in the sense that it wrung more recognition from the British of American sovereignty, and the Whiskey Rebellion could be considered one as well. I think that if Hillary had won, the pressure from the states for an Article V convention would have become overwhelming. It’s less clear what a Trump victory will mean, but there is no doubt that the current divisions and clashing visions of America are as great as any time since the War Between The States.
The Space Shuttle
Amy Shira Teitel explains why she’s not a fan:
“I Heard Them Scream ‘Get Me Out Of Here.'”
“…then there was silence from the pad.”
Eric Berger writes about Apollo 1, on the fiftieth anniversary. I remember it, the day before my birthday. It was a huge wake-up call for the Apollo program, which ultimately resulted in beating the Soviets in the space race less than two years later, with Apollo 8.
Site Problems
We had a corrupt data base that was confusing MySQL, but things should be fixed now.
Anti-Biotic Resistance
Reversing it with a single molecule.
Faster, please. I don’t want to go back to the early 20th century.
SpaceX’s Next Launch
…won’t have sufficient performance margin to bring the first stage back. Though I’m not sure what she means by “Heavy satellites need a lot of extra speed at liftoff.”
Trump’s Inauguration
His speech was the most Jacksonian since (Founder of the Democrat Party) Andrew Jackson. And I suspect he’s more interested in emancipating slaves than keeping them in shackles. The Democrats always get mad when you threaten to free their slaves.