What He Said

Mitch McConnell, 2005:
"[T]he Republican conference intends to restore the principle that, regardless of party, any President's judicial nominees, after full debate, deserve a simple up-or-down vote. I know that some of our colleagues wish that restoration of this principle were not required. But it is a measured step that my friends on the other side of the aisle have unfortunately made necessary. For the first time in 214 years, they have changed the Senate's 'advise and consent' responsibilities to 'advise and obstruct.'"

Mitch McConnell, 2016:
“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,”

It is perhaps worth pointing out that the American people elected Barack Obama to a four-year (not a three-year) term as President in 2012.

Newton's Fig

I seem to recall someone complaining about an elementary physics error in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. I think I just hit the relevant passage.

If you took a long fall inside a ship - say, down the engine shaft on a big homesteader - you'd have enough time to shout the word "falling!" This would prompt the local AI to turn off the adjacent artigrav net. Your descent would abruptly end, and you'd be free to drift over to the nearest railing.

Force equals mass times acceleration; cancel the force, you cancel the acceleration. This does diddly-squat to the velocity, which will persist until another force is applied - e.g., by contact with the other end of the engine shaft.

:shakes head: