Mike Griffin defended the budget averaging $8 billion/year for a Moon return (0.05% of 2018 GDP) by saying, “We Don’t Cancel the Navy” as MSNBC headlined. Actually we did cancel the Navy after the Revolutionary War and didn’t start it up again until 1794.
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I spoke to my dad, the pre-civil war American History Professor Emeritus and he had forgotten that the Navy had been cancelled. I respectfully withdraw my media criticism. I guess it needs to be refiled under media witticism.
Update 2005-09-21-10:55:00

Iain Murray notes that:

The New York Times is going to start charging for people to read its oped columns online. Projected annual income: two boxes of crackerjack and a signed photograph of Paul Krugman.

I’m willing to pay for Tierney, but I’d how much of a discount will they give me to have to read Dowd and Krugman? Otherwise, I’ll just pass completely.

Jeff Goldstein is (to put it mildly) less than impressed with hurricane coverage at Newsweek. I haven’t read the magazine in decades.

Jeff Goldstein is (to put it mildly) less than impressed with hurricane coverage at Newsweek. I haven’t read the magazine in decades.

Jeff Goldstein is (to put it mildly) less than impressed with hurricane coverage at Newsweek. I haven’t read the magazine in decades.

…all of the horror stories out of New Orleans for the past week? Michelle Malkin has some questions about the validity of much of the reporting, with links.

From the new “Public Editor” of the New York Times, on their belated coverage of the Air America scandal:

There’s another reason to get to the bottom of the scandal. It’s the perception problem

The LA Times has seen a plunge in home delivery:

an analysis of newspaper circulation by Prudential Equity Group LLC found that the Times lost more than 100,000 paid home-delivery subscribers between March 2004 and March 2005. The drop in home delivery was 18.1 percent

This ought to be framed, or perhaps displayed in a museum. It’s a (truly, perhaps in the best sense of the word) liberal reporter who actually seems to live up to the (usually absurd) claim that his politics don’t affect his reporting. He actually saw something wrong with the Al Franken gang diverting funds from poor children to their failed escapade. Can you imagine?

And his band of brothers in the press attempted to steal the story from him:

Last week Executive Editor Michael Horowitz called in to conservative radio host Sean Hannity

I’ve kvetched in the past about needlessly stupid things in science-fiction movies (needlessly in that they don’t even advance the plot, or necessarily add to the drama). Well, here’s someone who thinks the same thing about cinematic swordplay.

If the purpose of lightsaber fight choreography is simply to convey drama and excitement within the context of a story, then choreographers feel they’ve done their job well. But, from my point of view, if a lightsaber fight is supposed to convince the viewer that individuals of great skill are really trying to kill one another with laser swords while using supernatural powers that heighten their senses and physical abilities, well, they fail miserably.

[via Geek Press]