Why should we believe CNN?
They, and much of the media, have done much to earn our distrust.
What Was Joe Biden Hinting At?
Bill Whittle wonders. So do I. You’d think that the media might spare a couple reporters from the Wasilla Library beat to ask him. At least you’d like to think.
I Would Be, Too
Michael Malone is ashamed to be a journalist.
Lunar Landing Challenge Day Two
Armadillo’s attempt at Level Two (a million dollar purse) starts in a few minutes. Webcast is here.
[Update]
Well, there was a problem. There was a hard start, and the vehicle fell over on its side. Not clear how recoverable it is.
[Afternoon update]
That’s it for this year. They aren’t going to make another attempt today. Clark Lindsey has the story.
That leaves most of the money still on the table, but at least Armadillo didn’t go home empty handed this time.
[Update an hour or so later]
Jeff Foust has a picture of the burned-through nozzle that resulted from the lean fuel mixture.
Ayers And Khalidi
Someone needs to run some ads about the Obama’s Khalidi connection in south Florida. Obama was a lot older than eight when Khalidi was expressing support of Hamas. I don’t think that the Jews down here understand just what a disaster Obama may be for Israel. Worse than Jimmy Carter.
[Early afternoon update]
Stanley Kurtz has more.
Better All The Time
A cure for nut allergies?
Well, actually, it’s only for peanuts, though for peanut-allergy sufferers (who seem to be sufficiently legion that it’s affecting the lifestyle of the rest of us on airplanes and other places), that’s a good thing.
I’m allergic to tree nuts, not peanuts (which are not true nuts, but legumes, like beans). And it caused me no little amount of grief when I was a kid, because the allergy was just unpleasant, not life threatening, so my parents wouldn’t believe me. Part of the problem was that because I was truly allergic to cashews, walnuts, etc., I assumed that I was also allergic to peanuts. But I ate peanut butter with no problem, so my parents assumed that I was faking, and made me eat not just the peanuts but all the nuts, which would result in a swelling and itching of the mucous membranes in my mouth and throat, and a slight but vague stomach upset. But because it never resulted in a trip to the hospital, they never believed that I was allergic, and tormented me throughout my childhood until I left the house and took control over my own diet, at which point, being rational, I realized that if I could eat peanut butter I could eat peanuts as well. And I do.
Anyway, I hope that progress on this front continues, not because I think that I’ve been missing anything great from the other nuts, but because I will be able to eat foods (particularly Indian food, which seems to be kind of sneaky in this regard) without worrying about unpleasant consequences. And even more for those for whom the consequences go far beyond “unpleasant.”
No One Tell Leon Kass
Ice cream tastes better licked than spooned. Dr. Kass will be appalled to hear about scientific discrediting of his “yuckometer.”
(And yes, before you bother to comment, I know that his point wasn’t that licked ice cream doesn’t taste good.)
The Obama Fundraising Fraud
If John McCain were doing this, the press would be crying bloody murder:
He may now be running the biggest underground finance operation since Nixon deployed the plumbers as his key operatives in 1972.
And there seem to be a lot of parallels with the voter registration fraud being perped by ACORN. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
And of course, if McCain ends up losing this because he didn’t have enough money, it will be justice, because it was his idiotic assault on the First Amendment that got us here.
Spreading THE Wealth
A vanity poster over at Free Republic makes a good point:
Last year I let a family member move in with me. I’ll call her my niece. My niece was down on her luck and needed a place to stay while she got on her feet.
As it turns out, she was actually down with drugs and needed a place to lie on the couch while she got on the phone. But anyway. I came home one day and was looking for my iron, so I could iron clothes to wear to work.
(“Work is that place you go to,” I explained to her, “and they pay you to do things for them. Yes, like that time you took the baggie to some guy named Raoul in the parking lot of the grocery store nearby. Rather like that, only more regular, and legal.”)
Anyway, my niece said, “Oh, I loaned the iron to my friend Rachel.”
I puzzled over this for a bit. She loaned my iron to some girl I barely knew? She loaned my iron to some girl she barely knew?! Would I loan any of her items to a friend of mine? Let me think. No. I wouldn’t.
So why would she?
The clue lies in the wording. “I loaned the iron…” THE iron. Not YOUR iron, Auntie Beth, THE iron. The local iron. The iron that existed here before I came and is therefore part of the landscape. Like the sun, the trees, and the street. Belonging to nobody, or everybody.
So let’s really parse what Barack Obama says to plumbers and other people who’ve done something with their lives besides lecture like a lawyer turned college professor turned professional pied piper: “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
I think the most important word in that sentence really is “the.” THE wealth. Not your wealth, says Obama, because it’s not yours. And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t intend to spread HIS too thin. I have a feeling his daughters will be taken care of before anyone else’s kids.
Snide comments aside, Obama said THE wealth because that’s how he thinks of it. Community property. Belonging to everyone. Just THERE, like sunlight, a fact of life that we determine how to utilize.
To Obama, it’s not something that belongs to anyone. Not something you created, earned, or own. Just something that you somehow managed to get hold of, maybe by picking it off a tree, and now you need to share what came from that tree.
And don’t worry. That tree will always bear fruit. It always has, right? Well no, it hasn’t, but only the gardener who planted it realizes that. The lawyer who comes along representing the neighbors who’ve been eying that fruit tree doesn’t know, or care, how it got there. It’s there now, isn’t it?
And it isn’t your tree anymore. It’s THE tree.
Yup. Some want to spread THE wealth, and others want to create it.
Lunar Landing Challenge
First attempts start in an hour and a half. Clark Lindsey is heading out to the site at the Las Cruces Airport. Wish I were there.
Good luck to all the contestants.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Here’s the webcast.
[Update about 10:30 AM EDT]
If you’re watching the webcast (or even if not), it’s about four to five minutes from Armadillo’s first attempt.
[Update a few minutes later]
They had a successful first flight, except it ran short. They didn’t make it to ninety seconds. The judges just gave permission for two more legs within this window, but they have only forty-five minutes left, which includes getting back to the departure point with the vehicle.
[Update a few minutes later]
They’re about to make another attempt at the first successful leg. They’re cleared for flight.
[Update a few minutes later]
They just had a first successful 90-second flight. They have fifteen minutes left before their FAA window closes (though they have longer to get back to the staging area). It’s going to be a tight turnaround.
[Update at 11:30 AM EDT]
Too tight a window. They’re detanking. Level One remains unwon. There are three or four windows left. TrueZero will make the next attempt later today.
[A little before 2 PM EDT]
TrueZero is about to make their attempt. This will be interesting–it’s the first time they’ve ever flown the vehicle untethered…
[Update a few minutes later]
Well, it was interesting. Brief, but interesting. It ascended to altitude, but when it started its translation, it keeled over and dove to the ground, making a little smoking hole in the desert. There’s a small fire, no one was hurt, and the vehicle is lying on its side and vented. Fire department on the way. Do they have other vehicles, or was that their shot?
This is why you do full flight tests. They had no experience with untethered flight. They just got some.
[Update at 4 PM EDT]
Armadillo is going to make their second attempt of the day in half an hour. If they don’t make it, they’ll have at least two more shots tomorrow. Barring a disaster, they should be able to go home with some prize money this year, but there will still be some on the table for next year.
[Update at quarter to five Eastern]
Well, this will be controversial. The judges have allowed them to just do the return flight, picking up where they left off this morning, because they weren’t given the time earlier that the prize allowed, due to the unrelated FAA restriction. While one can understand the sentiment, technically they are not doing what the prize requires in terms of turnaround, and if they win today under the rule waiver, I fear that many will think it tainted.
[Update while listening to all the speechifying]
Clark has the story on what happened with TrueZer0. As noted they had one vehicle, and it was totaled.
[Update after the flight]
Well, they just had a successful flight. If they get back to the staging area in half an hour, they’ll have one first place for Level One, $350K. Congratulations to the Amadillo team.
[Evening update
Clark Lindsey reports that tomorrow could be exciting for Armadillo and the crowd:
This will be the first time they have done the tip and translation with a full 3 minute fuel load on Pixel. Always a chance it will come crashing down like TrueZer0 but with 1500 lbs of propellants
Again, like last year, I can’t understand why they haven’t done a full dress rehearsal.