So Much For The “Wiretapping”
James O’Keefe has copped a misdemeanor plea. David Schuster (and Chris Gerrib) are in mourning.
Transparency
Or rather, opacity. The Department of (In)Justice is being sued to release the New Black Panther documents. As the article notes, if the Republicans take over one or both houses in November, they’ll have a lot tougher time stonewalling next year.
Just To Clarify
Citizens Against Government Waste has come out with a white paper opposing continuing Constellation, and to buttress their case, they cite the piece I wrote at National Review a few weeks ago:
An April 21, 2010 editorial in the National Review referred to Constellation as “a programmatic disaster,” while the Washington Post has referred to it as “ill-conceived” and “under-funded.” For the National Review and the Washington Post to agree, something must be seriously off-track.
This implies that it was an editorial position of the magazine, which it was not, though the WaPo’s was. National Review has taken no editorial stance on the issue, as far as I know (though it would be interesting to see what it would be if they did). It was just part of a give and take between me and Bob Costa.
[Update a few minutes later]
I should also note that the WaPo and I don’t really agree, other than that Constellation should end. They want to end human spaceflight entirely, at least if it’s funded by NASA. Of course, the hysterical opponents of the new plan, who apparently can’t read a budget document or the myriad RFIs that have been coming out recently, think that the two are synonymous.
A Heart Stopper
Apparently, I’m seeing in comments and tweets that Masten just demonstrated an in-air shutdown and restart of the engine (I assume it was deliberate?). XCOR does this routinely, but they have wings. If Masten’s engine doesn’t restart, they have a very hard landing.
[Update a few minutes later]
According to Clark, this is the vehicle that did the maneuver.
I assume there will be film at eleven.
[Update mid afternoon]
Here’s the first video.
I Can’t Wait For November
Jeff Foust tweets the latest idiotic comment from Alan Grayson:
Rep. Grayson: if Apollo 13 had been comm’l, all those 100s of engineers would have been replaced by a 20yr-old in Grateful Dead tshirt. (?!)
Was this supposed to be clever?
Can this guy possible win reelection? I wonder what the current polls say?
[Update]
Oh, barf:
Rep. Griffith calls Ares 5 “the soul of America” to the rest of the world.
I hope he loses his primary.
[Update a few minutes later]
Geez, it gets stupider by the minute:
Griffith: if we put space out to competitive bid, might as well walk off the court and hand it over to Russia and China.
That’s right, because allowing American free enterprise to deliver NASA astronauts to orbit is exactly like “handing it over to Russia and China.” You know, just like having Fedex and airliners deliver logistics and troops to the theater is just like handing it off to the commies.
You’d think that these people would pull their heads out at least once in a while, just so they could breathe.
Shocked
Only a Harvard professor could be surprised that when government grows, private enterprise shrinks. Well, OK, that’s not fair. Lots of schools could have professors who would be shocked at that. And at least the business school professor finds it concerning.
A Stunning Self Portrait
…from space. It amazes me that some people really think that there’s no market for visits to LEO.
Taking The “New” Out Of News
But I’ll bet that Pinch Sulzberger still doesn’t know why his paper is going out of business.
And more thoughts from Matt Welch on the media narrative and its double standards:
Constituents Using a Forum to Register Displeasure With Representative: Spooky!* 700 Angry Protesters on a Bankster’s Front Lawn: “About damn time”
Can you imagine if DC police had escorted a mob to the house of a news exec during the Bush administration? See, that would be fascism. But Obama’s purple-shirted thugs? Not so much.
How A Regime Works
As the professor notes, imagine the White House press corps accepting a private lecture on what kinds of questions to ask from, say, Ari Fleischer. They’re supposed to be watchdogs, but when there’s a Democrat in the White House or running Congress, they’re lap dogs.