…will you get me on this machine.
Too Big A Leap?
Doug Messier wonders if Scaled and Virgin bit off more than they can chew with SpaceShipTwo.
I agree with him that it was a mistake to not fly SpaceShipOne more (and perhaps even commercialize it). I think that they made two misjudgements (well, actually, three). Their determination to stick with a hybrid, the initial decision to develop it within Scaled instead of subcontracting, and an overabundance of faith in Burt (which wasn’t helped by his health problems a couple years ago, though he’s reportedly much better now). The explosion cost them at least a year, and probably more, now that they’ve let a new subcontract to SpaceDev for the propulsion. They would have been a lot better off to just go with a liquid from the beginning (as some of us suggested to them). It might have been too risky to rely on XCOR for SpaceShipOne, because they didn’t yet have the track record, but they should have considered them (or someone else, such as Armadillo) for the new vehicle.
I wonder if they’ve been schedule constrained by budget? If not, a 2011 service date (six years after program start) puts into question the ability of private industry (at least this particular team) to do things much faster than the government.
The Gift That Keeps On Not Giving
Is anyone surprised that the DVDs that the president gave Gordon Brown don’t work in British players?
By the way, when Obama’s unlikely gift was disclosed, a reader emailed me to ask if Clueless was among the films. Funnily enough, it was not.
Me, neither.
[Update a few minutes later]
Iowahawk called this a week and a half ago.
[Friday morning update]
Barack Obama, unplugged — it’s a Special Olympics presidency.
And more from Mark Steyn:
I haven’t run into Gordon Brown in over a decade, but my memory of the last time I met him in a TV green room is of a glowering misanthropic type who enjoys nursing a grudge. What doesn’t go around (in the DVD player) comes around. When the President and his Teleprompter visit London for the G20 summit in a couple of weeks, it would be a tragedy were Barack Oprompta to rise for his big speech to find nothing but the words “Wrong Region” flashing on his screen (although I’m sure the Queen would be very polite and string along and make all the swells stand up and join the toast to “Ron Region”, whoever he is).
But don’t forget, folks: Somewhere in Texas a village has been reunited with its idiot, and we now have the whip-smartest administration of David Brooks’ lifetime.
The sycophancy of the press is truly disgusting, particularly after the way they bashed George Bush for eight years.
So, whose words were the “Special Olympics” line, his or TOTUS’? Or is Joe Biden writing his material for him now?
[Off to check…]
Heh. TOTUS says “Don’t blame me, I didn’t do it.”
Okay, I see the bus coming right at me, so let’s be clear: this was His ad lib.
It’s OK, we believe you. Hang in there. You have a tough job.
[Late morning update]
More from Powerline:
Can you imagine the Democrats’ reaction if the Bush White House had given a European head of state a set of DVDs that can only be played on North American machines? It would have been conclusive proof of Bush’s provincialism, lack of sensitivity to our allies’ sensibilities, ignorance of the wider world, techno incompetence, failure to appreciate the superiority of European civilization, blah blah blah. That’s how it would have been reported and editorialized on in every newspaper. So let’s check tomorrow’s papers and see whether that’s how Obama’s gaffe is covered. Or whether it’s covered at all.
I’m not going to waste my time looking.
Downsizing?
There may be a new trend in the Midwest:
Temporary Mayor Michael Brown made the off-the-cuff suggestion Friday in response to a question at a Rotary Club of Flint luncheon about the thousands of empty houses in Flint.
Brown said that as more people abandon homes, eating away at the city’s tax base and creating more blight, the city might need to examine “shutting down quadrants of the city where we (wouldn’t) provide services.”
He did not define what that could mean — bulldozing abandoned areas, simply leaving the vacant homes to rot or some other idea entirely.
Presumably, those areas would go back under the jurisdiction of the county, like other unincorporated areas, including policing by the Sheriff rather than city police.
Correlation
This one tickled my funny bone.
The Really Big O
I am not qualified to render an opinion on this subject:
The idea that birth can be orgasmic isn’t new. The British birth guru Sheila Kitzinger says that she has met “hundreds” of women during the course of her career who report experiencing orgasm during labour – some were hoping for it, others were taken completely by surprise. She herself has experienced it during three of her four labours (she has five daughters: one birth was twins). “It is difficult for a man to understand,” she says “hard, too, for any woman who has had an average hospital birth. But it can be one of the most profound psychosexual experiences in a woman’s life. Each contraction may bring a rush of joy so overwhelming that the pain recedes into the background.” She puts this partly down to simple biology. “The pressure of the baby’s head against the walls of the vagina and the fanning out of the tissues as the head descends bring for some women an unexpected sensation of sexual arousal, even of ecstasy.” But is this really an orgasm? Or just a very unusual sensation? “It can be orgasmic. People recognise it as an orgasm. And it can be a multiple orgasm, one with each push.”
Well, there can be a fine line between pain and pleasure, particularly when it comes to this sort of pain and pleasure.
It Was Inevitable
President Obama’s teleprompter has started blogging:
Well, last night didn’t go well. What can I say? I was tired. By the time Barack and the Irish PM stood up, the President and I had already done two major policy speeches, three nomination announcements, and light dinner banter for a table of twelve. And by the way, that “ad lib” last night about Guinness? Mine.
So why am I going public now, when for the past two years I’ve let others do the talking? Well, this is a thankless job, and I sure don’t want to take the fall for communications missteps. But more important, I expect you’ll be seeing a lot more of me over the next few months and years. Barack and I don’t go anywhere without each other; we even complete each other’s sentences … well, more mine than his, but let’s not split hairs.
I sense new text being loaded now, so I’ll have to be going.
Hail to the TOTUS! Next stop, TMZ!
[Early afternoon update]
I wonder who the teleprompter’s picks are for the final four?
Obama spent part of Tuesday making his tournament picks for ESPN, which posted his completed bracket online Wednesday and showed the First Fan filling it out with Andy Katz on the noon edition of “Sportscenter.”
Of course, the president’s choice drew a reaction from the Tar Heels’ most intense rival.
“Somebody said that we’re not in President Obama’s Final Four, and as much as I respect what he’s doing, really, the economy is something that he should focus on, probably more than the brackets,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said from the Blue Devils’ first-round site in Greensboro, N.C.
Actually, given how disastrous the president’s plans for the economy are, I’m glad that he’s distracted from them by something.
A Bridge Too Far
You know, William Shatner had a three-word phrase for these people a few years back (the third was “life”):
Mr. Veazie, a manager at Underwriters Laboratories, built the chair himself last year, and has been gratified to find, since installing it in the living room in May, that “when someone comes in, it’s the first thing they comment on.”
You don’t say.
But I thought they didn’t like the word “Trekkie.” Isn’t it supposed to be “Trekker”?
Thuggery
…the point of finding out who has taken this money – – listen, we own 80 percent of that company right now. From my — as far as I am concerned, they are almost public employees. Public employees, we have — we can have certain requirements on them.
If they return the money, then I don’t think anybody has to know who they are or what their names are.
So, as Jonah says, if you just give us the money, we won’t tell the people who want to garrotte you who you are and where you live. We just want to make you an offer you can’t refuse.
And of course, there’s all the bluster from slimeballs like Chuck Schumer about ex-post-facto bills of attainder, as though it’s not dually unconstitutional.
I cannot recall a time in my life that I have been more sickened by the political class in Washington.
[Update a few minutes later]
And then there’s this, on the president comparing bankers to suicide bombers:
“Same thing with AIG,” Obama said. “It was the right thing to do to step in. Like they’ve got a bomb strapped to them and they’ve got their hand on the trigger, you don’t want them to blow up, but you’ve got to ease them off the trigger.”
And the president held out his arm and pantomimed a hand on a trigger, and we were rapt, waiting for what would happen next.
Remember, the president is a great communicator.
Like many, I have my share of anger over the bonuses, at the employees, at the AIG leadership, Geithner, the Fed, President Obama, Senator Dodd, etc. … But if some nut tries to kill some AIG employees… who fanned the flames?
Hey, it’s the Chicago way.
Lucy Not In The Sky
A review of a new book on our ancient ancestor, and some thoughts on anthropology and politics.