Ed Whelan makes an interesting point:
Barack Obama may actually believe, as he stated yesterday, that Roe v. Wade “was rightly decided.” But it may be very lucky for him, as the son born of that woman, that it hadn’t been decided a dozen or so years earlier.
It’s been noted in the past that legal abortion may in fact be reducing the ranks of people who believe in it.
A woman in India decapitated a man she claimed assaulted her. Some great comments from the Freepers:
The guy’s second-to-last thoughts: “That woman cutting grass, the one with the two-foot long razor-sharp scythe, she looks hot. I think today is my lucky day.”
The guy’s last thought: “Ooops.”
No kidding.
That didn’t take long. Go get your teeshirt.
I’m listening to Fox, on which an Obama spokeshole is claiming that the McCain campaign “didn’t vet Joe the Plumber.”
They must be terrified.
[Late morning update]
Jeff Medcalf visualizes the vetting process in comments:
McCain Rep: Excuse me, sir, but I need to ask you a few questions.
Joe the Plumber:: Why? Are you the police?
MR: No, sir, I’m with the McCain campaign. I need to ask you a few questions, on the off chance that you are playing football in your front yard when Senator Obama decides to make an unscheduled stop to try to talk you into voting for him.
JTP: Oh, that’s not a problem: I won’t be voting for him, anyway, because I’m afraid he would raise my taxes.
MR: That’s not the point, sir. The point is, if he were to stop by and ask for your vote, you might ask him questions.
JTP: So?
MR: He might answer them.
JTP: So?
MR: If he answers a question that he isn’t expecting, and without a TelePrompTer to fall back on, he might accidentally tell the truth. And that could embarrass him. And that means that you need to be vetted just in case.
JTP: <dumbfounded look>
MR: So I have this twenty page form for you to fill out, listing your background, education, financial details, professional affiliations, friends, family, voting history, embarrassing incidents from elementary school. You know, standard stuff.
JTP: <slams door>
With these kinds of advances, we may have to come up with new anti-spam techniques.
John Hare has an interesting post (if you’re into launch vehicle design issues). The myth of the air breather persists but, as John notes, if air is free, why does the service station charge more for it than gas?
A new transhumanist magazine. Looks interesting.
This, coming from Jim Abrahamson, is pretty disappointing:
James A. Abrahamson, a retired Air Force lieutenant general and the chairman of the NAC’s Exploration Committee, praised the Constellation program to the Council at its quarterly meeting in Cocoa Beach, calling it the best program for the agency given its tight budget and schedule.
“The NAC is confident that the current plan is viable and represents a well-considered approach given the constraints on budget, schedule and achievable technology,” he said.
I agree with this comment (and I have a pretty good guess as to who made it):
One Washington-based space policy consultant said: “The NAC’s endorsement of Ares I reminds me of the so-called independent rating firms that kept saying that Lehman Brothers, Wachovia, and AIG were just fine.”
Yeah, I don’t think that the NAC is all that “independent.” By its nature, it tends to consist of space industry insiders drinking their own bathwater. Looking over the Exploration Committee, it doesn’t strike me that any of the members are space transportation experts (and no, you don’t become one by being an astronaut, as proven by Horowitz…). But I thought that Abrahamson was smarter than that.
More evidence that the fashion world is not mine.
They’ve done more investigations into Joe the Plumber in 24 hours than they’ve done on Barack Obama in two years…
They’ve also had more interviewers with him lately than they have with Bill Ayers. Aren’t they curious at all as to what he thinks? I mean, he was brought up in the debate, too…
[Friday morning update]
Is Joe the Plumber the forgotten man?