It looks like Boeing had a successful Delta 2 launch (delayed by twenty minutes) today. I guess that since it doesn’t need any specific orbit, as is needed for an ISS launch, there was no critical launch window. I went outside to watch, but as usual, saw nothing. The only launch I’ve ever seen from the house is a Atlas night launch.
Crunched
Probably light blogging. I’m on a schedule crunch for a deliverable.
This Seems Like Good Economic News
Is the “wealth effect” a myth?
If so, it means that the popping of the housing bubble won’t have the dire effect on economic growth that many have predicted.
Never Attribute To Malice
…that which can be accounted for by stupidity and ignorance. I agree with this commenter:
If you were referring to almost any other sitting Senator, I would agree. Boxer, however, may very well believe everything that she said. She’s 18 different ways of stupid.
He’s being unkind. I can think of several other Senators about as bad. Because the bill doesn’t explicitly specify a price, she probably really does believe that it won’t result in a price change, because people like her really do believe that they can, through legislation, outlaw the laws of economics. No doubt she also believes that if Congress were to simply pass a law making gasoline two bucks a gallon, it would work just fine. And I suspect that Joe Lieberman, bless his neoconservative heart, believes it as well.
What’s Wrong With Redneck?
Andrea Mitchell felt compelled to apologize for calling southwest Virginia “real redneck country.”
Well, she’s right, it is. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I think that what she should be apologizing for (which perhaps she is, obliquely) is the insinuation that that’s a bad thing. While I understand that a lot of southerners take umbrage at the word, it’s really just a synonym for Scots-Irish, and it came over with them from England (and no, it has nothing to do with working in the hot sun). It was a phrase used to describe Presbyterians from northern England, who wore red collars. They were the people who settled Appalachia (and other regions). Eastern Virginia (and Maryland and Delaware) was settled by the so-called Cavaliers of southwest England, who had lost the Civil War to the Roundheads.
I think, though, that in the mind of east (and west) coast media elites like Andrea Mitchell, “redneck” is synonymous with “hillbilly,” which is unquestionably an uncomplimentary term, and why the apology was necessary. It’s also a mark of the cultural ignorance of those same media elite about flyover country.
What’s Wrong With Redneck?
Andrea Mitchell felt compelled to apologize for calling southwest Virginia “real redneck country.”
Well, she’s right, it is. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I think that what she should be apologizing for (which perhaps she is, obliquely) is the insinuation that that’s a bad thing. While I understand that a lot of southerners take umbrage at the word, it’s really just a synonym for Scots-Irish, and it came over with them from England (and no, it has nothing to do with working in the hot sun). It was a phrase used to describe Presbyterians from northern England, who wore red collars. They were the people who settled Appalachia (and other regions). Eastern Virginia (and Maryland and Delaware) was settled by the so-called Cavaliers of southwest England, who had lost the Civil War to the Roundheads.
I think, though, that in the mind of east (and west) coast media elites like Andrea Mitchell, “redneck” is synonymous with “hillbilly,” which is unquestionably an uncomplimentary term, and why the apology was necessary. It’s also a mark of the cultural ignorance of those same media elite about flyover country.
What To Take With You?
I agree with the commenters who say that almost anyone from the modern era transported to medieval Europe would be unlikely to live more than a few days. I’d certainly have pretty bad odds.
A New Project In The Works?
Alan Boyle has an interview with Paul Allen. This isn’t right, though:
Adrian Hunt, the collection’s executive director, told me that putting a pilot in the V-1 turned out to be a terrible idea.
“The theory is that you open the cockpit and you jump out just when you’re getting close to the target,” he said. “There’s a slight design fault there. Once you open the cockpit, that’s the intake for the rocket – and it tends to suck in things, including people.
“…intake for the rocket”?
It was a pulse jet.
Judgment
Obama is always telling us he doesn’t need experience, because he has good judgment. Well, one would never know it by the people he associates with. Or brings aboard to vet vice-presidential candidates.
From The Basement Of The Ivory Tower
Here’s a depressing piece on people who shouldn’t be in college but, due to various societal pressures, are.