I have some words that I can misspell even with spell checks running. I have a special talent that way 🙂

Regarding how I feel about NASA: I think the *space program* deserves funding, and that people have some really bad misconceptions regarding how expensive it is. The annual U.S. military budget, for example, is something like 30 times as large as the space exploration budget. Two months in Iraq costs about as much as NASA’s entire budget.

But just because I support the space program doesn’t mean I can’t see flaws in the NASA organization. I can see incompetence, mismanagement, and political manipulation there as easily as anywhere: I just happen to think that a dollar spent on the space program is a hell of a lot better spent than a dollar on the military.

As for being ‘convinced’ or ‘not convinced’ regarding climate change- it isn’t that black and white for me. As I’ve said repeatedly: I believe that human activity, particularly the way we use hydrocarbons, has a negative impact on the climate. I also believe that we have to make some serious changes, adopting less wasteful and damaging sources of power sooner rather than later. What I don’t feel I can agree with is the view that the *only* conceivable cause of climate change is human activity. I likewise can not accept that we are all doomed within the next decade unless we cut our emissions by 50% (or some other arbitrarily large number).