Columbia was lost on this date in 2003, putting a final stake through the heart of the Space Shuttle program. We were staying at a Residence Inn in San Bruno (Patricia was working in Millbrae), when I was awoken by someone on the east coast with the news. Here were my immediate thoughts, which held up pretty well, I think. And if you go to this page, you’ll find that post at the bottom, but can scroll up to see my further reflections over the next few days (or click on “Next post” from the first blog link). I had only been blogging for a year and a half or so at the time.
Today, Ian Kluft had a thread on Twitter on his recollection of seeing the disaster live, though at the time he didn’t know exactly what was happening:
Thread.
We were staying at a Residence Inn in San Bruno. I was awoken by a call from a friend on the east coast to tell me that Columbia was missing. Drove back down to LA that day. https://t.co/l7nw2rpsYw
Here is the archived version with comments. In that post, and this one, you can see the beginning of formulating my thoughts for the book, though it wouldn’t happen for another eight years or so.
The one thing she doesn’t mention about why people hate Californians when they move into their community; they’re afraid that they’ll bring with them the voting habits that have made the state such a disaster. I remember when we were in Austin a couple years ago, doing wine tasting in Hill Country. The tone of the conversation got distinctly chillier when they learned we were from CA. I tried to assure them that we weren’t the problem.
They may be able to dig wells. I wonder how much purification it will require, given the permanganchlorates. Also, the well will have to have a heater to melt the ice, I suspect.
[For some reason I always write “permanganates” when I mean perchlorates]
I’m skeptical that these researchers have found a total cure (for one thing, it’s too many different things), but it would nice if it were true. I suspect that this is just a fundraising announcement, though.
Roger Simon thinks he could actually win the presidency. I don’t know, but an interesting question is if so, which party would be helped by his coat tails.
It seems unconstitutional to me on its face. We had to amend the Constitution to get an income tax, and I’m pretty confident that it would be required here as well. Anyway, as Jim Bennett noted on Facebook, we should reserve comment until we can properly understand the proposal by reading it in the original Cherokee.
[Update a while later]
Want to soak the rich and help poor people? Tax fringe benefits. Yes, this would help a lot with decoupling health insurance from employment, which is how the mess got started.