…with existing launch systems. Senator Shelby would never allow it, though, even though the launchers would be built in his state. Just not porky enough.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
The Mystery Of GM’s Crap Interiors
As you probably know, ever since GM was founded, its execs have either been driven by a chauffeur or provided with carefully prepared and maintained examples of the company’s most expensive vehicles. Of course, there are times when the suits must sign off on the company’s more prosaic products. Since 1953, this intersection between high flyer and mass market occurred at GM’s Mesa, Arizona, Desert Proving Grounds (DPG). The execs would fly into Phoenix’s Sky Harbor airport, limo out to the DPG and drive the company’s latest models.
Our agent says that all the vehicles the execs drove were “ringers.” More specifically, the engineers would tweak the test vehicles to remove any hint of imperfection. “They use a rolling radius machine to choose the best tires, fix the headliner, tighten panel and interior gaps, remove shakes and rattles, repair bodywork—everything and anything.”
Did the execs know this? “Nope. And nobody was going to tell them… As far as they knew, the cars were exactly as they would be coming off the line. That’s why Bob Lutz thinks GM’s products are world-class. The ones he’s driven are.”
I asked Agent X if the GM execs would ever drive the cars again. Did he know if Wagoner or Lutz dropped in at a dealership to test drive a random sample off the lot? He found the idea amusing.
Color me completely unshocked.
[Via Kaus, the go-to guy for this kind of stuff]
Uh Oh…
Is COTS being killed? If so, by whom? It’s coming out of the House, so it doesn’t have Shelby’s fingerprints on it.
I was told on good authority years ago that COTS was surviving Griffin’s NASA because of strong White House support. Well, that was a different president. We’ll see what this one does.
The Democratic War On Science
It’s not just Republicans and “the right.”
A “Right-Wing,” “Christian” Hate Crime
My piece at PJM is up now. It got delayed because the story is moving so fast I had to do a bunch of updates this morning after writing it last night.
June New-Space News
…is on the web now.
An Elderly Anti-Semitic Racist
You’d almost think that Jeremiah Wright was the guy who shot up the Holocaust Museum. I’ll have some more thoughts on leftist/media stereotyping at PJM later this morning.
[Update late morning]
“Socialism represents the future of the west.”
So sayeth the “right wing” Jew hater.
[Bumped]
[Update after lunch]
It just keeps getting better. The guy may have been targetting that well-known bastion of leftist politics, The Weekly Standard. And of course, none of us should be shocked to learn that he was a journalism major…
What A Bargain
Palau is going to take the Gitmo Uighurs off our hands for not much more than ten million dollars each.
This is idiotic.
[Thursday morning update]
…the plan is, apparently, to take Islamists who are driven into violent rages by the sight of a woman with bare arms and let them go in a country full of beaches where “natives often go topless.”
The country’s in the very best of hands.
[Bumped]
The Left’s Hatred Of Women
Thoughts from Don Surber:
From left, the women are Katharine Harris, Carrie Prejean, Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin, and Michele Bachmann.
These five women are are not the only ones that American liberals ridicule without fear. They are like little boys who cannot handle a strong woman. These women dare challenge them intellectually, and so we get crude counterattacks.
So-called feminists stand on the sidelines like so many Silda Spitzers or Elizabeth Edwardses or Hillary Clintons, standing by their menfolk while the boys treat women like dirt. Heck, Mrs. Edwards even served as her husband’s attack dog against any critic — even as she knew he was sleeping with his mistress of many years.
It’s kind of ironic, because I recall back in the nineties that these same people stupidly told us that we didn’t like Hillary Clinton because we were “threatened” by a “strong woman” (hilariously ignoring our admiration of Jeanne Kirkpatrick and “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher).
He gets this wrong, though:
Letterman will get away with it because liberal misogyny is OK in America. It has the Seal of Approval of the National Organization For Women.
It’s not “liberal” misogyny. These people aren’t liberals, and it’s time we stopped allowing them to get away with slandering true liberals by calling themselves that.
Impromptus
FAQ advice from Jay Nordlinger, on Che, what classical music to listen to, and how to be a journalist. A sample:
I wrote to a Latin America scholar — a superb one — and he said the following: “At one time, I was collecting stuff about Guevara to write a piece of my own, but the subject is so nauseating . . . as if I had to write an article explaining why the Nazis were bad.” Yet such articles are necessary: because the myth-making about Che is strong and mesmerizing. My scholar friend continued, “Are you aware of the fact that there are busts and statues of Che Guevara not just in Central Park but in Vienna and other European capitals?”
Yes, but those busts and statues can be taken down, mentally — with truthful accounts and assessments. With fantasy-puncturing. There is plenty available, for those who wish to see (to see beyond the T-shirt, that is).
My own advice: visit Che-Mart.
He also has an awesome set of classical recommendations, if you’ve never been into it that much.