Mike Griffin (who only Tuesday testified before the relevant Senate committee) has already been confirmed by the full Senate, and may be the NASA administrator before the weekend.
People Who Don’t Like HXeCCH Haven’t Tried HXeCCH
I read information about Prof. Robert Benny Gerber and his coauthors
People Who Don’t Like HXeCCH Haven’t Tried HXeCCH
I read information about Prof. Robert Benny Gerber and his coauthors
People Who Don’t Like HXeCCH Haven’t Tried HXeCCH
I read information about Prof. Robert Benny Gerber and his coauthors
The National Debt Is Too Small
Borrowing to build physical and human capital is a way to finance growth. Can you imagine the quality of education and the number of college educated people if there were no student loans? Can you imagine the house you could get without a mortgage? They would not be nearly so nice as if you get a generous loan at a low interest rate. The same is true of our nation’s capital investments. Can someone tell me if we are carrying on our books assets such as the following: the nation
New Witnesses Recount Bolton Reign Of Terror
Questions about John Bolton’s fitness for representing the US at the United Nations were heightened today as more staffers came forward to describe his chronic abuse of his subordinates and volatile, unpredictable temper, as demonstrated in this Senate testimony:
Q: Frank, could we go back? Could you characterize your meeting with Bolton? Was he calm?
MR. FINGAR: No, he was angry. He was standing up.
Q: Did he raise his voice to you? Did he point his finger in your face?
MR. FINGAR: I don’t remember if he pointed. John speaks in such a low voice normally. Was it louder than normal? Probably. I wouldn’t characterize it as screaming at me or anything like that. It was more, hands on hips, the body language as I recall it, I knew he was mad.
Well, you can imagine that when I read this, I was simply shocked at the thought of such a monster representing us at Turtle Bay, reinforcing our international image as an out-of-control cowboy, hands on hips, fingers just centimeters from holsters. I decided to interview some other former staffers to see if this frightening incident was just the tip of an iceberg of hot fury. I got a few leads from the DNC, and came up with some pretty juicy stuff.
First, a “Nita Valium” recounted a fearful encounter with the fiend:
TM: So, what prompted the out-of-control incident that you experienced with Mr. Bolton?
NV: I brought some coffee in to him one morning, and accidentally spilled it on his lap, severely scalding his private parts.
TM: And how did he react?
NV: It was just horrible. He stood up, got a napkin to dry off, wiped off his trousers as best he could, and told me in a tone slightly louder than normal, that I should be more careful. I could tell he was on the very verge of shaking his finger at me. He seems like the quiet type at first, but you can tell that under that mustache, he’s always smoldering, just like Hitler. You never know when he’s going to explode.
TM: Was that the end of it?
NV: Later on, I heard that he had requested that someone else bring him coffee after that. He got his wish–I’ve never been able to do that again. My promising career as a coffee-bringer-to-John-Bolton has been ruined, and I had to settle for a promotion to a different department.
Another former staffer, “A. Peazement,” related the nominee’s response upon being informed that the State Department intended to recommend that North Korea be made permanent head of the UN Committee on Human Rights. He still shuddered in fear at the recollection of the incident, though it was years ago:
TM: So, he didn’t take it well?
AP: No, not at all. He raised his voice almost a half a decibel, and asked me why.
TM: Did your explanation satisfy him?
AP: Well, he said it did, but you could tell he was seething. His voice had the reasonable, calm sound of someone about to explode with fury and fling sharp and heavy items off the top of the desk at you. He was starting to almost frown at me, and I could tell that he was going to put his hands on his hips any minute, but I managed to get out of the room before he could do it.
This correspondent has to ask: How did this brute manage to work in a federal bureaucracy for so many years, with no apparent consequences? How has this kind of behavior gone so unnoticed for so long? How many more sadistic fiends like this are there out there, waiting to be nominated to some sensitive diplomatic post by this bloodthirsty administration? When can we once again be led by people who have the proper temper, and temperament for power?
Preparation
Today is the thirty-fifth anniversary of the day that Apollo XIII developed the “problem” that they told Houston about, when a liquid oxygen tank overpressurized and exploded en route to the Moon. Via email, Jim Oberg points out an interesting article in IEEE Spectrum with the real story, for those familiar only with the movie.
Brilliant Morons
Who are the geniuses who think that a web site has to use the latest and greatest technology in order to accomplish a basic function? There’s nothing I love better than going to some site (like, for example, Bell South’s) to test my internet speed, and then to wait a long time for a page to appear to be doing something, and then be informed that the test can’t be run because I don’t have plug-in “X” installed.
Now plugin X is obviously not required to test an internet connection speed, or to display it, because I can find numerous other sites that will do this for me without requiring a plugin. The poor benighted neanderthals who designed those web sites apparently figured out how to do it with standard HTML, because it seems to work in all my browsers.
Self-indulgent whiz kids who think they’re doing us some kind of favor by insisting on bells and whistles on their web sites should ask themselves: how many people visiting their site will be pissed off if they don’t encounter a need for zippywhammo plugin “X” on their site? I mean, this isn’t http://internetspeedconnectionthemovie.com we’re talking about here.
Now, ask how many people who are trying to get their technical question answered, but can’t because the poindexters who designed the web sites make them go off and download and install software (on a slow network connection, which is what they’re trying to diagnose and fix) before they’ll get the answer, will get pissed off?
Think about it, brainiacs.
Has There Ever Been A Pretty One?
The Boston Herald bravely reports that the “Kennedy Feud May Turn Ugly.”
Actually, they’re pretty hard on my eyeballs even when they’re getting along…
I Have To Ask Again
…with respect to the Sandy Burglar case. What was the Justice Department thinking?
I would have expected this from Janet Reno’s Justice Department, but why from Ashcroft and Gonzales’ Justice Department?