“Ray” over at Vision Restoration has a development approach to expanding human spaceflight beyond LEO that would actually work, and work within NASA’s constrained budget. Paul Spudis likes it, and has further comments.
Of course, it makes far too much sense to be adopted in Washington. But this is the approach that will be taken privately, regardless of what NASA does.
…aren’t going to be intimidated by the Chicago thugs.
Idiot not-so-savant Robert Gibbs:
WALLACE: You don’t think when they voted for Brown they were voting against Obama policies?
GIBBS: That’s not what they told pollsters, no. People are angry in the country and angry in Massachusetts we haven’t made more question on the economy. Talk about health care — this is something you said is stopping about health-care reform.
WALLACE: He said he was the 41st vote.
GIBBS: 70% of the voters in Massachusetts want him to work with the Democrats on health-care reform.
So, because they want their new Senator to work with the Democrats on health-care reform, they elected a Republican who said he opposed it and would vote against it. Got it.
Who the gods would destroy, they first make mad. Apparently the gods aren’t done with these people.
Even the editorial board is appalled at the fecklessness of the administration on terrorism:
The Obama administration had three options: It could charge him in federal court. It could detain him as an enemy belligerent. Or it could hold him for prolonged questioning and later indict him, ensuring that nothing Mr. Abdulmutallab said during questioning was used against him in court.
It is now clear that the administration did not give serious thought to anything but Door No. 1. This was myopic, irresponsible and potentially dangerous.
Whether to charge terrorism suspects or hold and interrogate them is a judgment call. We originally supported the administration’s decision in the Abdulmutallab case, assuming that it had been made after due consideration. But the decision to try Mr. Abdulmutallab turns out to have resulted not from a deliberative process but as a knee-jerk default to a crime-and-punishment model.
And they’re shocked, shocked.
..has created…light. Ellie Light.
I suspect that a lot on the left are feeling this way:
…he doesn’t really “charge” at anything. He just talks about things, thinks about things a real long time, defers to others on things, and waits around for things to maybe happen.
…I have never seen a president so utterly lacking in passion. This man literally doesn’t even seem to care about himself, let alone this or that policy issue. He doesn’t seem to have any strong opinions on anything, a sure prescription for presidential failure.
He has therefore let Congress ‘lead’ on nearly every issue, another surefire mistake. Instead of demanding that they pass real stimulus legislation – which would have really stimulated the economy, big-time, and right now – he let those dickheads on the Hill just load up a big pork party blivet of a bill with all the pet projects they could find, designed purely to benefit their personal standing with the voters at home, rather than to actually produce jobs for Americans. And on health care, his signature issue, he did the same thing. “You guys write it, and I’ll sign the check.” Could there possibly be a greater prescription for failure than allowing a bunch of the most venal people on the planet to cobble together a 2,000 page monstrosity that entirely serves their interests and those of the people whose campaign bribes put them in office?
Now perhaps they know how I feel when I’m told how “conservative” George Bush was.
…has left the building.
Here’s an interesting and reasonably balanced article about the history of Little Green Footballs and the evolution of Charles Johnson.
[Sunday morning update]
More from Patterico. And Tim Blair points out some additional (and certainly unintentional) irony.
I have to say that Charles has never banned me. Of course, it would be hard to do so, since I’ve never commented there since he began requiring registration…
I don’t normally pass along emailed jokes, but I thought this one too good to pass up:
A man owned a small ranch in Montana. The Montana Work Force Department claimed he was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to interview him.
“I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them,” demanded the agent.
“Well,” replied he said, “there’s my ranch hand who’s been with me for 3 years.. I pay him $200 a week plus free room and board.
“The cook has been here for 18 months, and I pay her $150 per week plus free room and board.
“Then there’s the half-wit. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally.”
“That’s the guy I want to talk to … the half-wit,” says the agent.
“That would be me,” replied the rancher.
I think that Tuesday’s results show that the half-wits are coming to their senses.
That’s what the report on Fort Hood apparently is.
A traitor within the military’s ranks, with compromised loyalties that had been known about for years—as was the case with Hasan—should be stopped before his finger is on the trigger.
Therein lies the central problem with the Pentagon’s report. It says nothing of consequence about Hasan or how to stop individuals like him in the future. Hasan is not even named in the report, but instead referred to as the “alleged perpetrator.” The report’s authors contend that the sanctity of the criminal investigation into the shooting needs to be upheld. But this is not an excuse for failing to name the attacker. The whole world knows that Major Nidal Malik Hasan did it.
Nor is the ongoing criminal investigation a valid reason for avoiding a serious discussion of Hasan’s ideological disposition. The report’s authors instead go to lengths to whitewash Hasan’s beliefs.
The report lumps all sorts of deviant and problematic behaviors together as if they have the same relevance to the events of November 5. Thus, we find a discussion of alcohol and drug abuse, sexual violence, elder abuse, and the disgusting methods employed by child molesters. We also learn of the deleterious effects of events “such as divorce, loss of a job, or death of a loved one,” all of which “may trigger suicide in those who are already vulnerable.”
Was Major Nidal Malik Hasan a child molester, a drug addict, or suicidal because of a recent divorce? No. So what does any of this have to do with the attack at Fort Hood? Absolutely nothing.
What is relevant is Hasan’s religious and political beliefs. He is a jihadist, although you would never know it by reading the Pentagon’s report.
I’m disappointed in Secretary Gates. The same virulent infection of political correctness at the Pentagon that caused this apparently rages unabated. He should either do something about it, or (if the White House is standing in the way) resign, with an explanation of why.
[Update a couple minutes later]
And then there’s this:
One year after Obama eliminated the CIA’s terrorist interrogation program, the administration still has not activated its supposed replacement — the so-called High Value Interrogation Group (HIG). In hearings last week, Blair said that the HIG should have been called in to interrogate the Christmas Day bomber — apparently unaware that there was no HIG to call in. In a statement “clarifying” his testimony, Blair stated that the FBI questioned Abdulmutallab using its “expertise in interrogation that will be available in the HIG once it is fully operational.”
In other words, by Blair’s own admission, the United States at this moment does not have a high-value terrorist interrogation capability — at a time when our country has once again come under terrorist attack. Of course, the administration did not think they needed such a capability — because they have stopped trying to capture high-value terrorists alive and bring them in for questioning. So when one landed in their lap unexpectedly, they had no idea what to do with him.
…The irony is, Obama has so denuded our terrorist interrogation capability that the Detroit police department has more tools at its disposal to interrogate a terrorist than the still non-operational HIG.
And we still don’t know who made the decision to Mirandize him and let him lawyer up, without consulting anyone in the intelligence community. Everyone talks about health care as the driving issue on Tuesday, but Brown’s other big issue was the fecklessness of this administration on national security. I think that they remain vulnerable on it, and if the next attack is successful, the consequences at the polls in November will be devastating.
[Late morning update]
The de facto established church of the world. Which is, of course, their goal.