This week’s episode expands the format to include a guest appearance by environmental scientist Ken Green, who recently joined the ranks of contributors to Steve’s “Political Questions” Substack (sign up for free if you haven’t already), where this week he celebrates the demise of the “Endangerment Finding” that derives from the Statute-That-Cannot-Be-Named in John Yoo’s presence. But along the way Ken raised an eyebrow for certain enthusiasms of the MAHA movement, which in turn raised the eyebrows of a certain “Lucretia,” so we decided to let then havie out a bit.

The result of one of our livelier episode ever, where discussion of “junk food” and other aspects of America’s nitrition was conducted against the background noise of John Yoo munching on a bag of Cheetos.

Who knew that John Yoo is a total science fiction geek?! I’m going to have to go back and scour his law review article footnotes to see if I can detect esoteric references to Sci-Fi classics, which, it turns out, he has thoroughly familiarity.

Ken Green channeling Jayne Cobb.

Okay, this episode, intended as a respite from all-issues-all-the-time for the holiday week, also doubles as pure James Lileks bait. Back when Ken Green and I were resident scholars at the American Enterprise Institute, lunchtime conversation often turned to science fiction, and especially our favorite hobby horse—how much we both hated “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” TOS is the only Trek worthy of honor! And William Shatner’s voyage into space this year proves that, as Ken puts it, “Shatner wins!”

But we also branch out beyond the Trek world to talk of other science fiction adaptations, including whether Dune is filmable at all, whether Fox TV might have actually done us a favor by canceling the great Firefly before Joss Whedon could screw it up with his political correctness, why Babylon 5 and Eureka are the best sci-fi shows  most people missed, why Steve thinks The Expanse will not age well, along with the two big questions: DC versus Marvel, and why do libertarians tend to be such huge sci-fi fans in the first place.

We do take a few minutes to look at some recent developments in the world of climate change (speaking of science fiction), as Ken was once an official reviewer for the IPCC on its climate science reports. Plus, you’ll also learn a quick hack for instantly identifying a TV show or movie that has been filmed in Canada. News you can use! And happy holidays.