Space Tech Bleg

Has the US ever done an unmanned rendezvous and docking? I can’t think of one, but of course that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.

[Update a while later]

Here’s a sort of related bleg. Did Mike Griffin testify to Congress recently that the Chinese could get to the moon with a multiple-launch architecture? Or am I imagining that?

It Has Come To This

The Sioux Nation is Siouxing the NCAA over its political correctness:

“Though the NCAA has decided ‘Fighting Sioux’ is derogatory, the NCAA supports the University of Illinois’ use of the name ‘Fighting Illini,’ and the use by Florida State University of the name ‘Seminoles’ along with the Seminole mascot – someone dressed in Native American attire who rides into the FSU stadium on a horse and throws a flaming spear before every home football game,” said Soderstrom. “The NCAA claims these are not derogatory depictions because the Illini people and the Seminole people approve of the use of the name and mascot. Inexplicably, the NCAA fails to accept the tribal vote and the sacred religious ceremony as endorsements of the name ‘Fighting Sioux’ by the North Dakota Sioux Nation.”

The lawsuit claims that the Sioux tribe were “indispensable parties” to a lawsuit filed by the State of North Dakota against the NCAA in 2007, the settlement of which required the state to get permission from the Spirit Lake and Standing Rock Sioux tribes, but were never included in negotiations of that settlement. It also alleges defamation, violations of the Indian Civil Rights Act, defamation and an unlawful restraint on trade.

You know, in the old days, they would have just taken some scalps.

A Few Words For #OWS

…from Bill Whittle.

[Update a few minutes later]

The Left’s war on self reliance (not a permalink).

[Update a couple minutes later]

They are the one percent:

Many “Occupy Wall Street” protesters arrested in New York City reside in more luxurious homes than some of their rhetoric might suggest, a Daily Caller investigation has found.

And what did the arrest records of all those Tea Party members reveal? Oh, wait! There aren’t any.

The Tea Party is a political movement. #OWS is a crime wave.

[Update late morning]

Lifestyles of the rich and arrested — a slideshow of homes of the “99%.”

[Bumped]

Hey, remember how Queen Nancy told us that the Tea Party was just astroturf, not a real grass-roots movement? Well, ACORN has been busted:

…an activist named Channing, who has been at the Occupy Wall Street protests from the beginning, volunteers the information that the former ACORN organization–through its new front group, New York Communities for Change–is paying $10 per hour and $100 per day to homeless people to attend the demonstrations.

It’s such a popular protest among the disaffected, they have to be paid to attend. And I wonder where ACORN is getting the money? From the 53%?

More Of That “Smart Diplomacy”

Thoughts on the UNESCO fiasco:

For the U.S., the UNESCO vote was a debacle, with the assembled states voting 107 to 14 in favor of admitting the Palestinians, and 52 states abstaining. That would have been the moment for the U.S. ambassador to read UNESCO’s assembly the riot act and announce that the U.S. was pulling out, as it did in 1984, under President Ronald Reagan; returning only in 2003, under President George W. Bush.

Instead, the U.S. diplomatic message to UNESCO has been one of apology, regrets and fawning statements of support for a U.N. body that has just slapped the U.S. in the chops. U.S officials have even been hinting that they are looking for some kind of workaround, to get the money flowing again.

Insanity.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!