Wild dolphins learning to tail walk. It would be fascinating to finally break the code to their language, and find out just how much culture they have. We can’t replicate their sounds, but synthesizers should be able to.
Who?
I’ve never heard of Chet Edwards. And it strikes me that having a running mate with the last name “Edwards” is a little impolitic right now, given the current problems with the one named “John.”
At least he seems to have a lot more experience than Obama. But then, he’d have had trouble coming up with someone who doesn’t. More signs of an attempt to appear to be moving to the center, and perhaps pick up Texas and do better in the south (though that still seems unlikely).
[Update a couple minutes later]
Actually, in reading his bio, I’d think that this would be an unbeatable ticket if he was at the top, instead of veep. But he’s not, and it won’t be. All of this presumes, of course, that he actually is the pick. We’ll find out soon enough.
[Update in the afternoon]
There are a lot of reasons to think that this is just a head fake. He’s a very conservative Democrat, and it would probably push the nutroots over the edge to vote for Nader.
[Another one a couple minutes later]
More thoughts from Geraghty:
Sure, he’s very pro-choice, rated F by the NRA, and manages to hang on to a central Texas House district. And Pelosi recommended him. But the debate would consist almost entirely of the GOP vice-presidential candidate saying, “I agree with Chet’s old position, the one he had before he put his manhood in a blind trust and flip-flopped to agree with Obama’s liberal position.” Edwards would constantly be in the awkward position of defending positions he doesn’t agree with. Add that to the fact that 90+ percent of Americans know nothing about him, it’s a formula for disaster.
Let’s hope he does it.
More Thoughts On The Tether Permits
Paul Breed notes in comments that the decision to require permits or waivers for tethered testing didn’t originate with AST (though I never claimed it did), but with the FAA chief counsel’s office. To me, this is just one more argument for making the office independent of the FAA and report directly to the SecDot, as it did from its inception until the Clinton administration “streamlined” it into the FAA.
Keeping An Eye On The Moonbats
Here’s a new blog devoted (at least for now) to covering the DNC next week and events leading up to it.
[Via former Traverse Citian and current Denverite Thomas James]
Prius Liberal
A lot has been made (appropriately) of the hypocrisy of the warm mongers, and particularly Saint Al himself, and John Edwards. But John McCain is pretty much just as bad on that score:
Like any limousine liberal, McCain prefers the symbolic gesture to walking the walk. In our News interview, he was asked what kind of car he drove. As with Politico’s question about home ownership, he didn’t know and had to ask a nearby aide. “A Cadillac CTS,” she told him. But then the senator was quick to point out that he had bought his daughter a Prius — the prefect halo symbol for his green pretensions.
Though it should be noted that he almost certainly actually did know how many houses he had, if not what kind of car.
They Never Learn
NASA just lost two hypersonic test vehicles on an untested sounding rocket, built by ATK, the same company that is slated to build the paint shaker first stage for the Ares I. It’s not clear whether it was destroyed by the range, or it if just blew up on its own.
Sigh…expendables, and particularly solid expendables. Gotta love the continuing notion of putting things into space on modified munitions.
PITA
Alan’s a great science and tech reporter, but I wish that he’d asked George Nield about this:
We have poured a pad for tethered hover testing at our new location, but there was a recent FAA re-interpretation of the law that absurdly states that testing under a tether, as we have been doing for over eight years, is now considered a suborbital launch, and requires a permit or waiver just as a free flight would. This is retarded and counterproductive in so many ways, and the entire industry is lashing back over it, but it is an issue we have to deal with in the next couple months.
Maybe I will.
The One Returns To Denver
If Tim Kaine is the Veep pick, this will be a particularly devastating ad.
Not that that’s a bad thing…
Sex Is Associated With Sports?
Who knew?
Only people unfamiliar with history, going back to the original Olympic games. Or football, for that matter…
An Interesting Contrast
I won’t claim to know Juliette Ochieng, but I had a wonderful dinner with her (and several others, but I sat next to) a couple years ago in LA’s Chinatown, and I’ve read many of her blog posts and opinion pieces. I’m neither religious, or conservative, and I’m sure that there are many issues on which we’d disagree, but if I had a choice between her and Barack Obama for president, I’d vote for her in a Chicago minute. And not just because I had dinner with her.
The black-on-black bigotry displayed in the link against a true African-American woman who criticizes the messiah is disappointing, but by no means surprising.