With no presidential candidates, ‘natch. It was Lori Garver representing the Kerry campaign vs Frank Sietzen representing the Bush campaign, and specifically Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration.
Jeff Foust has a brief summary, but there are lots of comments. Keith Cowing has a report as well.
I’ll have some thoughts of my own, and maybe even a column or two, after I get my computer and bandwidth problems sorted out, later this week.
In case anyone was wondering, I lost DSL on Thursday, with no knowledge of when I’ll get it back. I’ve got a hardware modem in my firewall, but it died back in California. I’ve just diagnosed it as having a dead CPU resulting from a dead fan. I found an old K6/2 and fan at a computer place, so I hope I’ll get the firewall back up, and be able to at least use dialup sometime this weekend.
I’m posting this from Patricia’s office.
See you later.
This columnist at the Daily Cal likes the idea of rides in space, but he’s (irrationally and ignorantly) worried about the military implications:
But just as the discovery of oil in the Middle East set the stage for decades of conflict, the prospect of energy resources in space could drive its militarization. Because of its technological advantage, the United States has a clear shot at becoming the first
I wrote recently about the evolution of cooperation, and its implications for Iraq and the Middle East. I noted that the winning strategy in an iterated prisoner’s dilemma game was “Tit for Tat.”
Now I discover that on the twentieth anniversary of the original computer tournament, a new, even better strategy has been discovered.
I’ve complained about this before, but it continues, and it continues to irritate.
I think the president’s doing a lousy job. I think the country’s on the “wrong track.” So according to conventional wisdom, I should be voting for Kerry, right?
Wrong, because I think that he’d be even worse on most issues of concern to me. Am I weird, or are all these so-called analysts misinterpreting poll internals, mistakenly assuming that unhappiness with Bush automatically translates to a Kerry vote?
…why Kerry continues to refuse to sign SF 180 and release all of his military records. There have been rumors swirling about this for a while, but it’s looking more and more like his discharge from the Navy may have been less than honorable.
And much of his subsequent political career has been spent in attempting to repair that blot on his vital narrative of “John Kerry, Vietnam Hero”
There are a number of categories of discharges besides honorable. There are general discharges, medical discharges, bad conduct discharges, as well as other than honorable and dishonorable discharges. There is one odd coincidence that gives some weight to the possibility that Mr. Kerry was dishonorably discharged. Mr. Kerry has claimed that he lost his medal certificates and that is why he asked that they be reissued. But when a dishonorable discharge is issued, all pay benefits, and allowances, and all medals and honors are revoked as well. And five months after Mr. Kerry joined the U.S. Senate in 1985, on one single day, June 4, all of Mr. Kerry’s medals were reissued.
[2:30 PM EDT update]
More thoughts over at the Beldar Blog.
Even if this isn’t the issue, the question won’t go away–why is Kerry and his campaign stonewalling on the service records? If this isn’t what he’s hiding, is it something else? Something worse?
The anti-First-Amendment types are siccing the FEC on the web. How long before they shut down this site because I occasionally have harsh words for Senator Kerry and his blow-dried running mate? Signing McCain-Feingold was one of the most shameful acts of this administration, and that Supreme Court ruling that it was constitutional was a disaster for free speech.
If they really try to regulate the blogs, it may finally start the needed revolution against all of this campaign finance nonsense.
…about Mount St. Helens. At Free Republic.
The comments are hilarious.
The foreign fighters are wearing out their welcome.
Relations are deteriorating as local fighters negotiate to avoid a U.S.-led military offensive against Fallujah, while foreign fighters press to attack Americans and their Iraqi supporters. The disputes have spilled over into harsh words and sporadic violence, with Fallujans killing at least five foreign Arabs in recent weeks, according to witnesses.
“If the Arabs will not leave willingly, we will make them leave by force,” said Jamal Adnan, a taxi driver who left his house in Fallujah’s Shurta neighborhood a month ago after the house next door was bombed by U.S. aircraft targeting foreign insurgents…
…U.S. and Iraqi authorities together have insisted that if Fallujah is to avoid an all-out assault aimed at regaining control of the city, foreign fighters must be ejected. Several local leaders of the insurgency say they, too, want to expel the foreigners, whom they scorn as terrorists. They heap particular contempt on Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian whose Monotheism and Jihad group has asserted responsibility for many of the deadliest attacks across Iraq, including videotaped beheadings.
“He is mentally deranged, has distorted the image of the resistance and defamed it. I believe his end is near,” Abu Abdalla Dulaimy, military commander of the First Army of Mohammad, said.
The French are arrogant, rude and surly, particularly in Paris. Imagine that.