The history. Actually, the most interesting part of the story was the part about St. James Infirmary burning down. The last few times I’d been in Mountain View, I’d been wondering what happened to it.
Poor Verrili
Is there a more frustrating and futile job than having to argue this administration’s political hackery before the Supreme Court?
Improved Lunar Prospecting
Astrobotic has landed a NASA contract for a prospector.
The Million-Lice March
What if they held a protest and no one came?
Seventeen Equations
…that changed the world. One of the signs of the disaster that is modern academia is that it is not only acceptable, but for many a point of pride, that they don’t understand math.
[Via Geek Press]
“Of Course It Has Happened Before”
You have to be pretty ignorant of institutional cultures to imagine that what happened in Cartagena was an isolated incident. Was it just a coincidence that everyone assigned to that detail just happened to go along with it, that no one tried to get their colleagues to behave? No, they obviously all came from a much larger pool of individuals, from a culture in which such things were at least tolerated, if not reinforced and encouraged.
[Update a while later]
What did I tell you?
This source witnessed the majority of the men drink heavily (“wasted,” “heavily intoxicated”) at the strip club. He says most of the Secret Service “advance-team” members also paid extra for access to the VIP section of the club where they were provided a number of sexual favors in return for their cash. Although our source says he told the agents it was a “really bad idea” to take the strippers back to their hotel rooms, several agents bragged that they “did this all the time” and “not to worry about it.” Our source says at least two agents had escorts check into their rooms. It is unclear whether the escorts who returned to the hotels were some of the strippers from the same club.
These alleged incidents in El Salvador occurred a full year prior to recent revelations that secret service agents used prostitutes in Cartagena, Colombia, on a presidential trip this month.
This wasn’t an anomaly; it was standard operating procedure.
Romney Donors
“…are coming out of the woodwork.”
I’m not surprised. The conventional wisdom is that the president is going to have a huge war chest, but he’s having trouble raising funds, and I think it’s likely that the Republicans will outspend the Dems this cycle. As a commenter over there notes, business is sitting on trillions of cash, waiting for a president and Congress that won’t make non-stop war on it. There will be an economic boom next year if the election goes the right way.
The SLS Problem
Amy Shira Teitel is noticing it as well. It’s too bad that only the space media understand it. I’d sure like to get someone like Sixty Minutes on it.
The EPA’s Dirty War
November can’t come soon enough.
[Update a while later]
The official “apologizes” for the comment. That’s OK — we know what he really thinks now. It was a Kinsleyan gaffe aka a Freudian slip.
The Asymmetry Of Ideology
Over at PJMedia this morning, I have some thoughts on why “liberals” are unable to understand conservatives, but not the reverse. I like the one comment over there that a simple explanation is that everyone remembers being a teenager, but that the leftists don’t know what it’s like to be grown up.