Not a lot of news here for people who’ve been following the issue closely, here and other places, but Jeff Foust has a good encapsulation of the current status of suborbital launch regulation.
All posts by Rand Simberg
I Hate When That Happens
Dang, it looks like the sun is coming apart. I hope not–we don’t (yet) have a backup.
ET
For those interested in extraterrestrial civilizations (it’s not a topic of consuming interest to me–I’m more focused on making our own civilization, such as it is, extraterrestrial), Jay Manifold has an interesting post.
“An Attitude Of Look The Other Way”
Rich Lowry describes how we rewarded terror and attacks on us in the nineties, in the Khobar Towers bombing.
When Freeh told national security adviser Sandy Berger there was evidence to indict several suspects, Berger asked, “Who else knows this?” He then proceeded to question the evidence. A reporter for The New Yorker who later interviewed Freeh about the case writes that the FBI Director thought “Berger . . . was not a national security adviser; he was a public-relations hack, interested in how something would play in the press. After more than two years, Freeh had concluded that the administration did not really want to resolve the Khobar bombing.”
The price of not getting to the bottom of the matter ? although the Saudis opened up somewhat in response to Freeh’s proddings and allowed the questioning of suspects ? wasn’t just shrugging off the murderer of 19 Americans. It was failing to understand fully the changing nature of the terror threat. “Khobar provided the keys that unlocked the new terror world,” says one terror expert. “Everything you needed to know about the new terror network, the cooperation between all the different sects and factions, the rise of Wahhabi radicalism in Saudi Arabia, the changing dynamic of the Middle East ? it all was present in that case.”
I would note that, similarly, we’ve never really found all of the perpetrators of the Oklahoma City bombing, for the same reason, with an additional one. Not only would proof of a Middle East connection have required undesired action on the part of the Clinton administration, but it would have diluted the politically-useful message that this was the sole act of “angry white men,” the same ones who’d been stirred up by Rush Limbaugh into giving the Republicans control of Congress the previous fall.
One other interesting parallel.
The pattern of Saudi non-cooperation had been set after the Riyadh bombing, when the Saudis denied FBI agents access to four suspects, and swiftly beheaded them to lend finality to that lack of access.
And interestingly, Tim McVeigh is also no longer around to tell the whole story (had he ever been willing to do so–it appears that he wanted all the credit for himself, and wouldn’t want it to look like he needed foreign assistance).
“An Attitude Of Look The Other Way”
Rich Lowry describes how we rewarded terror and attacks on us in the nineties, in the Khobar Towers bombing.
When Freeh told national security adviser Sandy Berger there was evidence to indict several suspects, Berger asked, “Who else knows this?” He then proceeded to question the evidence. A reporter for The New Yorker who later interviewed Freeh about the case writes that the FBI Director thought “Berger . . . was not a national security adviser; he was a public-relations hack, interested in how something would play in the press. After more than two years, Freeh had concluded that the administration did not really want to resolve the Khobar bombing.”
The price of not getting to the bottom of the matter ? although the Saudis opened up somewhat in response to Freeh’s proddings and allowed the questioning of suspects ? wasn’t just shrugging off the murderer of 19 Americans. It was failing to understand fully the changing nature of the terror threat. “Khobar provided the keys that unlocked the new terror world,” says one terror expert. “Everything you needed to know about the new terror network, the cooperation between all the different sects and factions, the rise of Wahhabi radicalism in Saudi Arabia, the changing dynamic of the Middle East ? it all was present in that case.”
I would note that, similarly, we’ve never really found all of the perpetrators of the Oklahoma City bombing, for the same reason, with an additional one. Not only would proof of a Middle East connection have required undesired action on the part of the Clinton administration, but it would have diluted the politically-useful message that this was the sole act of “angry white men,” the same ones who’d been stirred up by Rush Limbaugh into giving the Republicans control of Congress the previous fall.
One other interesting parallel.
The pattern of Saudi non-cooperation had been set after the Riyadh bombing, when the Saudis denied FBI agents access to four suspects, and swiftly beheaded them to lend finality to that lack of access.
And interestingly, Tim McVeigh is also no longer around to tell the whole story (had he ever been willing to do so–it appears that he wanted all the credit for himself, and wouldn’t want it to look like he needed foreign assistance).
“An Attitude Of Look The Other Way”
Rich Lowry describes how we rewarded terror and attacks on us in the nineties, in the Khobar Towers bombing.
When Freeh told national security adviser Sandy Berger there was evidence to indict several suspects, Berger asked, “Who else knows this?” He then proceeded to question the evidence. A reporter for The New Yorker who later interviewed Freeh about the case writes that the FBI Director thought “Berger . . . was not a national security adviser; he was a public-relations hack, interested in how something would play in the press. After more than two years, Freeh had concluded that the administration did not really want to resolve the Khobar bombing.”
The price of not getting to the bottom of the matter ? although the Saudis opened up somewhat in response to Freeh’s proddings and allowed the questioning of suspects ? wasn’t just shrugging off the murderer of 19 Americans. It was failing to understand fully the changing nature of the terror threat. “Khobar provided the keys that unlocked the new terror world,” says one terror expert. “Everything you needed to know about the new terror network, the cooperation between all the different sects and factions, the rise of Wahhabi radicalism in Saudi Arabia, the changing dynamic of the Middle East ? it all was present in that case.”
I would note that, similarly, we’ve never really found all of the perpetrators of the Oklahoma City bombing, for the same reason, with an additional one. Not only would proof of a Middle East connection have required undesired action on the part of the Clinton administration, but it would have diluted the politically-useful message that this was the sole act of “angry white men,” the same ones who’d been stirred up by Rush Limbaugh into giving the Republicans control of Congress the previous fall.
One other interesting parallel.
The pattern of Saudi non-cooperation had been set after the Riyadh bombing, when the Saudis denied FBI agents access to four suspects, and swiftly beheaded them to lend finality to that lack of access.
And interestingly, Tim McVeigh is also no longer around to tell the whole story (had he ever been willing to do so–it appears that he wanted all the credit for himself, and wouldn’t want it to look like he needed foreign assistance).
You Can’t Say That!
That’s the title of law professor David Bernstein’s new book, about how anti-discrimination laws adversely affect free speech. He’s a frequent contributor to the Volokh Conspiracy, and he’ll be giving a talk on it in LA on Tuesday night. Christopher Cross has the details.
You Can’t Say That!
That’s the title of law professor David Bernstein’s new book, about how anti-discrimination laws adversely affect free speech. He’s a frequent contributor to the Volokh Conspiracy, and he’ll be giving a talk on it in LA on Tuesday night. Christopher Cross has the details.
You Can’t Say That!
That’s the title of law professor David Bernstein’s new book, about how anti-discrimination laws adversely affect free speech. He’s a frequent contributor to the Volokh Conspiracy, and he’ll be giving a talk on it in LA on Tuesday night. Christopher Cross has the details.
Democrat Metrosexuals
Mark Steyn skewers (as usual) the pompous and mendacious prisses seeking the Democrat presidential nomination.
What is it that these boys think Bush did wrong? Simple. In his 18-month rush to war with Iraq, he didn’t have a plan. ”When you put American troops in harm’s way, you better not do it without a plan,” says Clark. ”I said at the time that it was critical for us to have a plan,” says Edwards. ”This president has no plan of any kind.”
So presumably Clark, Kerry and Edwards have a plan? You better believe it! Years ago, John Lennon and Paul McCartney said, “There are always two things we do when we sit down and write a song. First we sit down. Then we write a song.” That’s the Democratic plan for Iraq in a nutshell. Their big in-depth plan is to (a) sit down and (b) make a plan. The sitting-down part — with the U.N., the French, the Guinean foreign minister, etc. — could easily have gone on so long they’d never get around to (b).
Under John Kerry’s ”plan,” Saddam would still be in power, the French would still be selling him the 68mm missiles used in the attack on Paul Wolfowitz’s Baghdad hotel last week, and Iraqis would still be being fed feet first into the industrial shredders. Or have I missed something?…
…Driving through a big swathe of western and northern New Hampshire the other day, I saw gazillions of Dean signs and none for any other candidate except one Edwards sign in Hanover. Kerry’s been in the Granite State a lot longer than the Americans have been in Iraq, and he’s getting nowhere, he’s bogged down in a ”quagmire.” Maybe the reason he keeps mentioning Vietnam every 10 minutes in New Hampshire is because for him the parallels between the latter and the former are becoming more and more ominous. Could it be that he and Clark went into this thing without (drum roll, please) a plan?
Maybe it’s time to start thinking about an exit strategy.