A bill has been introduced in the House to provide tax credits for private investment in space transportation.

I don’t know whether or not this will actually become law, or even if it should.

I’ve got mixed feelings about about it. I’m all in favor of things that encourage investment in this area, but I hate the idea of further mucking up an already-complicated tax code, and I’m afraid that it may result in some things getting funded that aren’t necessarily viable, just for the tax credit, which won’t help the credibility of the industry. I don’t want it to become another hothouse plant like solar energy.

I also wonder how reasonable the process will be to determine whether or not company qualifies.

The front page of today’s New York Post has a headline, in Second Coming font, “Paper of Wreckage,” with a picture of Raines.

There’s also a want ad:

Help Wanted

Executive Editor for Manhattan-based newspaper of record. Lefty francophile with diversity obsession and knack for plugging circulation leaks.

Allergic to Republicans okay. Tolerance for high taxes a must. America-basher a plus.

Respect for facts optional.

The front page of today’s New York Post has a headline, in Second Coming font, “Paper of Wreckage,” with a picture of Raines.

There’s also a want ad:

Help Wanted

Executive Editor for Manhattan-based newspaper of record. Lefty francophile with diversity obsession and knack for plugging circulation leaks.

Allergic to Republicans okay. Tolerance for high taxes a must. America-basher a plus.

Respect for facts optional.

The front page of today’s New York Post has a headline, in Second Coming font, “Paper of Wreckage,” with a picture of Raines.

There’s also a want ad:

Help Wanted

Executive Editor for Manhattan-based newspaper of record. Lefty francophile with diversity obsession and knack for plugging circulation leaks.

Allergic to Republicans okay. Tolerance for high taxes a must. America-basher a plus.

Respect for facts optional.

FBI agents are getting lessons in how to be teenage girls–from teenage girls.

“Around the FBI offices, Karen, Mary and Kristin have become like the agents’ adopted daughters, getting hugs and high-fives from their students. But naturally, the adults often think they know best.

One agent kept insisting that he was right when he answered on a quiz that Justin Timberlake was more popular than Destiny’s Child. Another was miffed when the girls told the class that Led Zeppelin was just not cool…

…And the younger female FBI agents assumed that teenage girls would think actor George Clooney is cute.

We’re, like, no,” said Mary, making a face.

“He’s, like, 50,” Karen exclaimed.

[via Geek Press]

[Update at 9:09 AM PDT]

Heh. Fark (no surprise) has a comments section running on it:

There once was an agent in disguise,
In search of some paedophile guys.
He tried to pretend,
But could not transcend,
The gender Led Zeppelin implies.

FBI agents are getting lessons in how to be teenage girls–from teenage girls.

“Around the FBI offices, Karen, Mary and Kristin have become like the agents’ adopted daughters, getting hugs and high-fives from their students. But naturally, the adults often think they know best.

One agent kept insisting that he was right when he answered on a quiz that Justin Timberlake was more popular than Destiny’s Child. Another was miffed when the girls told the class that Led Zeppelin was just not cool…

…And the younger female FBI agents assumed that teenage girls would think actor George Clooney is cute.

We’re, like, no,” said Mary, making a face.

“He’s, like, 50,” Karen exclaimed.

[via Geek Press]

[Update at 9:09 AM PDT]

Heh. Fark (no surprise) has a comments section running on it:

There once was an agent in disguise,
In search of some paedophile guys.
He tried to pretend,
But could not transcend,
The gender Led Zeppelin implies.

FBI agents are getting lessons in how to be teenage girls–from teenage girls.

“Around the FBI offices, Karen, Mary and Kristin have become like the agents’ adopted daughters, getting hugs and high-fives from their students. But naturally, the adults often think they know best.

One agent kept insisting that he was right when he answered on a quiz that Justin Timberlake was more popular than Destiny’s Child. Another was miffed when the girls told the class that Led Zeppelin was just not cool…

…And the younger female FBI agents assumed that teenage girls would think actor George Clooney is cute.

We’re, like, no,” said Mary, making a face.

“He’s, like, 50,” Karen exclaimed.

[via Geek Press]

[Update at 9:09 AM PDT]

Heh. Fark (no surprise) has a comments section running on it:

There once was an agent in disguise,
In search of some paedophile guys.
He tried to pretend,
But could not transcend,
The gender Led Zeppelin implies.

In light of France’ recent perfidy, it’s all the more important to somberly note what happened fifty nine years ago today.

Remember Omaha, Utah, Sword, Gold, Juno–names that should, and probably will echo down the ages with Hastings, Waterloo, Gettysburg, Verdun, Iwo Jima and their likes.

[Update at 9:27 AM PDT]

Here’s Reagan’s speech commemorating the fortieth anniversary.

When men like Private Zanatta and all our Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy 40 years ago they came not as conquerors, but as liberators. When these troops swept across the French countryside and into the forests of Belgium and Luxembourg they came not to take, but to return what had been wrongfully seized. When our forces marched into Germany they came not to prey on a brave and defeated people, but to nurture the seeds of democracy among those who yearned to be free again.

We salute them today. But, Mr. President [Francois Mitterand of France], we also salute those who, like yourself, were already engaging the enemy inside your beloved country — the French Resistance. Your valiant struggle for France did so much to cripple the enemy and spur the advance of the armies of liberation. The French Forces of the Interior will forever personify courage and national spirit. They will be a timeless inspiration to all who are free and to all who would be free.

Chirac and his minions should be ashamed, but they won’t be.

I wonder if there will be a presidential visit to Normandy next year, for the sixtieth? Probably, unfortunately, it being hot in campaign season. Hopefully, unlike Clinton nine years ago, he won’t fake a photo op with stones on the beach.

Mark Steyn has another report from the Middle East.

Sartorially, Jordanian politics seems to be the opposite of American: in the New Hampshire primary, smooth, bespoke, Beltway types who?ve been wearing suits and wingtips since they were in second grade suddenly clamber into the old plaid and blue jeans and work boots, and start passing themselves off as stump-toothed inbred mountain men who like nothing better than a jigger of moonshine and a bunk-up with their sister. Evidently, in rural Jordan the voters are savvy enough not to fall for such pathetically obvious pandering.

He points out, as have others, that there’s much more to democracy than voting, and there’s a lot of work to do in Iraq, and it can’t be hurried.

It?s easy to imagine an Iraq with three regional parliaments in Mosul, Baghdad and Basra, harder to foresee a single legislature filled by members of nationwide parties. But if it ever happens it will be the very last piece of the puzzle. Americans understand this: the original colonists learned self-government in their towns and their states and eventually applied it to an entire continent.

There’s also much to avoid:

By contrast, those European sophisticates sneering that Washington won?t stay the course are often the same crowd who?ve found it easier to elevate the friendliest local strongman than create a durable constitutional culture. Dominique de Villepin, the ubiquitous Frenchman, declared the other day that Paris was indispensable to postwar reconstruction because it had so much experience in Africa. I don?t know about you, but I think Iraq deserves better than to be the new Chad or Ivory Coast.

That’s the end of it, but Read The Whole Thing.

Mark Whittington has an interesting OSP policy alternative. It needs some tweaking–I’d offer second and third prizes, as well, to reduce risk to contestants, and reduce the turnaround requirement to a week, which would probably keep Boeing and Lockmart from playing.

Which actually raises an interesting question.

If, by some political miracle, the government actually did put out a prize for OSP functionality rather than a cost-plus contract, would they play? They hate to spend their own money on something with no guaranteed return (and much smaller payoff than the current multi-billion program), but if they bow out of the competition, they risk an upstart going after and winning it, and not only cutting them out of that game, but showing the absurdity and waste of the current NASA procurement system, which would be a major blow to their future.

It’s a no-win situation for them. Ergo, expect them to be the strongest voices in lobbying against such an approach.