An informative and balanced post at Sciam: "New GOP Leaders Embrace Science but Don’t Hug Trees," about the implications of Tom Cole and John Culberson's appointments to science-relevant subcommittees. I'm pleased to learn the implications include brighter prospects for a Europa mission. I wrote about Europa some years ago for Sciam, and the ambitious plans I discussed then did not have much political staying power.
On a different topic: "China Going Nuclear." Excerpt: "China’s military capabilities are improving at such a clip that the
entire western United States will be vulnerable to a Chinese nuclear
attack within ten years, according to a new report." This surprises me, but what surprises me about it is I'd assumed it had happened long ago. Meanwhile, the U.S. is having its own nuclear arsenal problems, as discussed in this Bloomberg View editorial, though I don't see that what's discussed there impels the conclusion that the U.S. should downsize its arsenal.
And on immigration, I think Walter Russell Mead makes many good points here: "Obama's Big Miscalculation." To wit: the policy is debatable, the politics are bad.
In any case, we need more of this kind of immigrant (and I'm not making any ethnic point; I'm saying people this smart): "A Grand Vision for the Impossible."
