Just how ignorant are network news anchors?
Don’t ask, but consider that while cruising the channels, the guy on CNN Newsnight said that the new object discovered, several billion miles away, was the “most distant object found in the universe.”
All posts by Rand Simberg
Universe, Solar System, It’s All Good
Just how ignorant are network news anchors?
Don’t ask, but consider that while cruising the channels, the guy on CNN Newsnight said that the new object discovered, several billion miles away, was the “most distant object found in the universe.”
The Manchurian Candidate?
I think that John Kerry’s…revelation…that he’s the preferred candidate of some unnamed foreign leaders is a mistake on several levels. It will obviously sell well among his base that the oh-so-sophisticated-and-nuanced-himself Jacque Chirac thinks that Kerry is his man (and who else does Mr. Kerry intend for us to infer as his hopeful future counterpart?). But it’s not at all clear that this will sell that well with independents and undecideds. What will the campaign slogan be–“Vote Kerry–The French Choice”? I suspect that in fact most American want their president to be vetted and supported by Americans, not “furriners.”
But an even bigger mistake is making the claim, and then feigning outrage when someone questions him on it, or wants more details. It opens up an opportunity for his opponents (so far not capitalized on, at least by the White House).
Their current response is to claim that if he won’t name names, then he must be making it up. Maybe this will be an effective tactic, but it sounds dumb to me. There’s no doubt in my mind that there are foreign leaders, even former US “allies” who would prefer Kerry (or any Democrat, or even any non-simian cowboy) in the White House to George Bush, so the charges that he’s a liar or making it up don’t have much weight to me.
I think that a much more effective commercial would be something like:
John Kerry says that some unnamed foreign leaders would prefer him as president to our current president. If this is true, why will he not name them?
Is it because among those names might be Kim Jung Il, the brutal North Korean dictator whose state-controlled press has been extolling Mr. Kerry’s virtues? Or Bashir Assad of terrorist-supporting Syria? Or Yasser Arafat, who continues to sponsor terrorism in Israel? The mullahs in Iran?
Or Osama bin Laden?
What is Mr. Kerry trying to hide?
We believe that an American president should be the choice of Americans, not unnamed foreign leaders.
It would serve him right for such an odious and dumb campaign tactic, and considering that I just saw a poll indicating that sixty percent of registered voters think that terrorists would prefer Kerry to Bush, I suspect that it would be a very effective ad.
And you know what else? I’ll be that, despite his supposed chumminess with Bill Clinton, Tony Blair isn’t on that list.
Shock Wave Solution?
Maybe, but there’s no way to tell from this article.
I keep seeing these reports of how NASA and DARPA are coming up with techniques to “shape” shock waves and sonic boom, and how this is going to lead to a brave new world of overland supersonic flight. But I never see any quantification of the benefit of such techniques. The other thing that I never see is a discussion of the effect on wave drag, which is the other big factor that prevents economical supersonic flight.
As I’ve written before, there actually may be design solutions that can significantly reduce, and even approach elimination of both sonic boom and wave drag, but NASA and DARPA continue to refuse to consider them. Perhaps when this latest attempt doesn’t pan out, they’ll be willing to finally do so.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s a Usenet discussion on the topic from a few years ago among yours truly, and several others.
The Terrorists Win
That is, they did if their goal in Friday’s bombing was to remove the Spanish government that supported the War on Terror. And why wouldn’t it be their goal?
I very much fear that the Spanish electorate has just dramatically increased the probability of a terrorist attack on American soil in late October and early November, emboldening them to think that they can influence American politics as well. And I hope that if my fear comes true, that in our case, it will have exactly the opposite of the intended effect, as September 11 did.
Mystifying
At first glance, this didn’t seem like a very auspicious beginning for government-sponsored prizes in the modern era.
A $1 million race across a southern California desert by driverless robots ended Saturday after all 15 entries either broke down or withdrew, a race official said.
Two of the entries covered about seven miles (11 kilometers) of the roughly 150-mile (240-kilometer) course in the Mojave Desert while eight failed to make it to the one-mile (1500 meter) mark. Others crashed seconds after starting.
Color me confused. No, flabbergasted.
Were there some rules of which I’m not aware of in this contest? Like you couldn’t run the course, or some facsimile of it, ahead of time? You weren’t allowed to test your vehicle under actual course conditions?
I should start by saying that I’m not sure what the purpose of making it a real-time race was, unless they thought that this would generate more public excitement, or perhaps make it more challenging by having to deal with competitors as well as the course itself. If the goal is to get from Barstow to Vegas in a certain amount of time, then that’s the goal–why have everyone do it at the same time?
Why not do it like the X-Prize people, at least to start? Set a date that you’re going to make the attempt, have the judges show up to watch, and do the attempt. No need to have everyone go at once. Use graduated prizes–a million for the first, half a million for the second, a quarter million each for the next four. Once you’ve got some vehicles that can demonstrate their ability to do it, then you put them on the same course and actually have them race each other in real time.
But what amazes me is that, given that it was a real-time race (you had to beat not just the clock, but other competitors), wouldn’t you want to test and see if you could do it at all first, let alone in the allotted time period?
I mean, if I had a Formula I car, I don’t think I’d enter it in a race with other Formula I cars, or even with the pace car or a bicycle, until I’d at least seen if it could make it around the track once or twice. In fact, you know, I think that I’d drive the course the requisite number of times to win, and even see if I could at least approach some course records before I actually put it in competition.
Yet somehow, not a single one of these team’s vehicles were capable of making it five percent of the distance without some kind of breakdown. What’s up with that? Could it really be just an unfortunate set of circumstances, lousy luck all around?
Does anyone have an explanation?
New Space Blog
I just discovered via an inbound link that space/science writer James Burke has started up a weblog dedicated to Project Constellation, the new Crew Exploration Vehicle.
Cryonics Emergency
For those who have been following the nonsense in Arizona over putting the state funeral board in charge of cryonics regulation, we thought that the situation was under control, with the sponsor of the bill appearing to be reasonable. However, Alcor now says that he’s been dealing in bad faith, and is now trying to rush a devastating bill through the state house tomorrow.
If you’re an Arizona resident, and want to keep your options open for life extension, it’s very important that you go read the link, and contact your representative tomorrow to urge him or her to vote against this bill.
And anyone in Mr. Stump’s district might want to investigate the potential for replacing him this year…
Local Democrats Stunned By Buchanan Upset
Since I’m down here in Pompano Beach, and Glenn says we should do some local reporting, I thought I’d pass on the following.
March 10, 2004
BOCA RATON, FL (APUPI) Democrat officials in south Florida are still trying to understand the unexpected defeat of Democrat front-runner John Kerry by the former Republican and Reform Party candidate Patrick J. Buchanan in yesterday’s Florida primary. Validating what some had seen as an early trend in the 2000 presidential election, Mr. Buchanan came in first in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade counties.
One Palm Beach County party official’s perplexity was typical.
“At least the last time, the voters had the excuse that Pat was on that confusing butterfly ballot. But we got rid of that ballot design for this election, and he wasn’t even on it for the primary. He’s been a presidential candidate of lots of political parties, but I don’t think he’s ever been a Democrat. We’re really scratching our heads till they’re bloody and infected here.”
Some, however, point out that, while the dislike of local Democrats for the president (the governor’s brother) is even more visceral than in the rest of the country due to the controversy of the 2000 election, there is no fervor among Florida Democrats for John Kerry. “Anyone who looked more attractive than Kerry, but could still beat Bush had a good shot, even as a write-in,” explained one analyst. “It doesn’t surprise me at all.”
“In fact,” he continued, “if Buchanan can’t beat Kerry, I think we ought to run a dead guy, like we did in Missouri for Senator. He’d be more exciting than Kerry, and his positions would be more consistent. Dead people of all parties have been voting Democrat for years–I say that it’s about time that we made one president.”
A more typical voter who apparently prefers his candidates above room temperature, Herb Flannery of Deerfield Beach enthused, “Buchanan was opposed to globalization before it was cool, he opposed the war in Iraq, he’s always criticizing Bush. He stands up for the little guy, he’s got charisma, and you know where he stands. He gives great speeches, too.”
“He’s kind of like Jesse Jackson, except not as black. Or as corrupt.”
“Let’s face it, once people start to really get to know John Effing Kerry, he’s really charred toast. But Pat Buchanan is a dream nominee for Democrats this year.”
According to Ellen Schmuel Levi at the B’Nai B’rith in Boynton Beach, there had been many support rallies outside synagogues up and down the coast. Many of the local residents had reportedly decided to show their support for “Pitchfork Pat” by driving their Cadillacs and Towncars up and down the A1A highway very slowly, with a single turn signal perpetually on, all through election day. It wasn’t clear how effective the demonstration had been, however, because long-time residents were hard pressed to distinguish it from normal traffic.
The support from the local Jewish community seemed at first particularly shocking to many, given Buchanan’s history of veiled anti-semitic comments, but the enthusiasm seemed just as high at Nate’s, a busy deli in Lauderdale By The Sea.
“Israel, schmizrael,” one patron exclaimed. “So he doesn’t support Israel. Our party hasn’t supported Israel in years–we’re used to it. The important thing is, we’re Democrats.”
Questioned about Mr. Buchanan’s hints about the Jewish cabal that secretly pulls the strings in the government, Hollywood and the media, local beach metal-detector prospector Saul Weinstein was nonchalant, between sips of his egg cream.
“At least he gives us our due. And since when has being anti-semitic been a problem for Democrats? I should laugh till I pee my pants.”
“Remember Jesse ‘Hymietown’ Jackson? And how about that guy that Hillary screamed at and called ‘a schtupping Jew bastard.’ Well, she didn’t say ‘schtupping.’ She used a shiksa word for it.”
“Anyway, who’s perfect? You want I should vote on such narrow issues when we have Hitler in the White House? Hey, pro-semitic, anti-semitic, it’s all good.”
In an interview by telephone, Mr. Buchanan was pleasantly surprised to hear the unexpected news.
“I am always prepared to serve when my nation calls,” he said. “If we can sustain the excitement I sense in ‘hanging chad country,’ we can carry this insurgent campaign on to Texas and other states, and try to catch up with Mr. Kerry before it’s too late.”
“I have experience in being the nominee of a troubled, fractious and confused political party. Sadly, that party is no more, so I welcome the opportunity to do so again, in hopes of better results.”
“I call on my newfound fellow Democrats to take up the pitchforks and torches, and lock and load for America.”
My African American Co-Blogger
I see that Andrew has introduced himself. I have to relate that when he told me that he was going to Botswana for a family emergency, I told him that it seemed funny (not the family emergency–the fact that he had a family in Botswana, and not in the squirting-flower-trick sense) because, being a Person of Pallor, he didn’t look Botswanan.
He replied that that was because he was actually Zambian.
[rimshot]
Well, I thought it was funny.
He also said that he’s been tempted to check the “african american” box on various forms, but couldn’t quite work up the moxie, to which I replied that it seems to work for Theresa Heinz.