Phil Plait takes down Gingrich's moonbase pander and Rick Tumlinson provides a more nuance look at HuffPo which includes this snippet:
Obama did take action first though, and interestingly, Newt Gingrich and Robert Walker actually came out in support of his initiative -- for about thirty seconds -- before realizing Republicans are not supposed to support anything Obama does, and that most of those defending the socialist approach to space we have followed since Apollo were indeed Republicans... (Oops!)
I sometimes wonder if all matters of state are as complex as the space program. The deeper I dig, the more complex and counter intuitive it becomes.
- A possible terrestrial planet orbiting in the habitable zone of a nearby star has been detected. The skies as seen from this world would be particularly interesting: the star it circles is but one member of a trinary star system.
- Yesterday, the tech laden NASDAQ stock index finally got back to near where it was in the earliest days of the Bush administration, 11 long years ago.
- The Milky Way galaxy has an evil twin? Who knew!
- An article at the WaPo this week reviews some of the anti-evolution craziness coursing through far right statehouses. Check out this little piece of ledge for one example:
A bill in Virginia would make it illegal for state colleges to require a class that conflicts with a student’s religious views. Critics say that would enable a student to receive a biology degree, for example, without studying evolution if he or she objected to it.