Sandy Hook
Sorry, but in a free society, some tragedies just can’t be prevented.
Another Legal Blow Against ObamaCare?
SCOTUS is going to take up the religious freedom issue.
I suspect they’ll come down on the side of Hobby Lobby. The real question is whether or not they’ll say it’s severable, or if Roberts decides to fix his previous screwup.
An Underwater Hotel
A new one.
I think they’ll find, as they did in Key Largo, that they’ll have to put curtains on the windows for those people who aren’t exhibitionists, and don’t want the dolphins to watch them copulate.
The Starship Enterprise
ObamaCare isn’t one:
The technocratic idea is that you put a bunch of smart, competent people in government — folks who really want the thing to work — and they’ll make it happen. But “smart, competent people” are not a generic quantity; they’re incredibly domain-specific. Most academics couldn’t run a lemonade stand. Most successful entrepreneurs wouldn’t be able to muster the monomaniacal devotion needed to get a Ph.D. Neither group produces many folks who can consistently generate readable, engaging writing on a deadline. And none of us would be able to win a campaign for Congress.
Yet in my experience, the majority of people in these domains think that they could do everyone else’s job better, if they weren’t so busy with whatever it is they’re doing so well. It’s the illusion of omnicompetence, and in the case of HealthCare.gov, it seems to have been nearly fatal.
Remember, Obama was a better speech writer than his speech writers, knew policy better than his policy advisors, would make a better chief of staff than his chief of staff. He is the Dunning-Kruger effect personified.
ObamaCaliforniaCare
As is noted there, Krugman told us Enron was working fine, too.
23 And Me
I think that the FDA is a much greater danger to public health than DNA testing. It needs to be reined in.
Inspiration Mars
…and its uninspirational end:
…as this latest episode demonstrates, unaffordable programs like the SLS are not a highway to the solar system. They are a roadblock.
Another mission destroyed by the big-rocket myth.
SpaceX SES-8 Launch
The webcast has started, and they’re currently go for launch in about half an hour. It will take a while before they know if they’re successful, because they have to do a restart this time — it’s a mission requirement.
[Update a couple minutes later]
This is a little annoying. The webcast stalls every few seconds, and I have to hit pause/play to get it going again.
Star Wars
Thoughts on when the franchise died.
Frankly, I was never that big a fan. I thought it was highly overrated by a younger generation.