This is great. I love the accents, but I think they’re Minnesota, not Alaska (though they’re closely related).
Of course, the anonymous wanker in comments who is always crying “Pants On Fire” will take it seriously.
Turnabout Is Fair Play, Part Two
The McCain campaign should get with some of the Abe’s List folks in Hollywood (like Dennis Miller) and work up some material. Then get SNL to have Palin as a guest where she can do impressions of Tina Fey.
Extending Shuttle Study
NASA Spaceflight has an interesting report on the status of the study.
It sounds about right to me. Retire Atlantis and make it a parts queen or a launch-on-need vehicle, and fly the other two vehicles once each per year. But at that low a flight rate, I wonder if the processing teams lose their “edge” and start to screw up? There’s an optimal flight rate for both cost and safety. Too fast and you make mistakes because of the rush, but too slow, and you get out of practice. And of course each flight would cost over two billion bucks, assuming that it costs four billion a year to keep the program going.
And as noted numerous times in the past, this doesn’t solve the problem of leaving US crew on the station. They still need a lifeboat of some sort. They discuss this as a “COTS-D Minus”:
…several companies have noted the ability to make available a lifeboat vehicle from 2012 (names and details currently embargoed due to ongoing discussions).
Clearly, one of those companies has to be SpaceX.
But this idea seems to never die:
‘There is some interest now in developing this (RCO) into a full mission capability, thus enabling unmanned shuttles to launch, dock to ISS, undock and land in 2011 and beyond.’
‘While that’s an interesting idea and would be a fun development project, we are working to understand the level of effort the program desires for this study.’
It’s not an “interesting idea.” It’s a monumentally dumb idea. There is little point in flying Shuttle without crew. The ability to fly crew is its primary feature. It’s far too expensive to operate to act as a cargo vehicle. If the point of the idea is to not risk crew, then we have no business in space.
Don’t Hate Him Because He’s An Intellectual
That was the essence of an inadvertently hilarious (anonymous, natch) comment about Obama in this post.
To me, that’s like Helen Thomas saying “don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”
Unsustainable
Crude has fallen below $90/barrel. That’s from a peak of almost a hundred fifty.
Of course, this will be no surprise to regular readers.
[Afternoon update]
Apropo some of the comments, here’s a promising new technology for getting oil from shale and tar sands. I don’t see a price per barrel, though.
No Free Marketeer
That’s what John McCain is. One of the reasons it’s hard to get enthused about him. I suspect that Palin might be a little better.
[Update a while later]
Both presidential candidates are completely economically incoherent.
No surprise, since they’re both economic ignorami. Though in Obama’s case it’s worse, because he thinks that he understands economics, and much of what he knows for damned sure is wrong.
Compare And Contrast
This is the Beltway/MSM definition of a “compromise”: giving the Dems everything they want.
I hope that John McCain (or even Sarah Palin) urge Bush to veto the sham energy bill, and explain why.
The Latest In Medical Transplants
… Patients who come into the hospital with suspected pneumonia now get an antibiotic within six hours, instead of four hours previously, to allow more time to assess the need for drugs.
One controversial strategy: fecal transplants. For one patient with recurrent C. diff, Kettering suggested a stool transplant from a relative, to help restore good bacteria in the gut. But Jeffrey Weinstein, an infectious-disease specialist at the hospital, says the patient “refused to consider it because it was so aesthetically displeasing.”
To say the least. Though some kinky folks might get off on it. It’s certainly a simple procedure compared to a heart or a kidney.
Some might argue that a lot of folks in Congress have already had the procedure done, except it was transplanted to the wrong location, considerably north of where it was supposed to go.
Can We All At Least Agree?
That Nancy Pelosi is an ignorant, arrogant moron?
She’s going to let the anchor that is Charlie Rangell drag her party to defeat this fall, and she’ll lose her job.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Why Obama Will Lose Pennsylvania
Ads like this.
There are actually a lot of reasons. The only thing that could save him will be ACORN vote fraud in Philly. And that will depend on who Ed Rendell really wants to win. He is a Hillary! supporter, after all…