I’m going on vacation to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I’ll have a laptop, so I can do some writing, but networking may be problematic. I’ll certainly be back by the seventeenth. Meanwhile, lots of good stuff in the blogroll to the left.
Nothing New
DoD space programs are a management mess.
[Via Kevin Parkin]
No More Giggle Factor
Alan Boyle has an interesting report from New Mexico:
The “giggle factor” that often dogged the space tourism industry in the pre-SpaceShipOne era is gone forever. “Now the idea of personal spaceflight can come out of the closet,” Michael Kelly, vice president of the X Prize Foundation, told an audience of more than 200 at New Mexico State University here.
Jeff Greason explains the importance of these kinds of events, and the suborbital industry, despite the foolish naysayers who think it has nothing to do with orbit:
“We don’t know how to make spaceships that can fly a couple of times a day, every day for years,” he said. “We don’t know how to fly so safely and so reliably that we can fly people as a business. We don’t know how to make money yet. … If we’re ever going to free ourselves from the kinds of fits and starts, one spurt of energy per generation, little incremental bits of progress that characterize government funding in space, we’ve got to start making a profit. And we don’t know how to do that yet. We don’t know any of those things. But we think we have pretty good ideas about how to solve them, and we aren’t the only ones.”
He also had some good news:
“We are off the back burner [with the Xerus project], but we don’t have enough money that I can confidently say we can finish working on the vehicle,” Greason told MSNBC.com.
Other interesting news:
Tai told the audience of rocket entrepreneurs and enthusiasts at Thursday’s symposium that Virgin Galactic wasn’t necessarily locked into using SpaceShipOne design exclusively, just as the Virgin Atlantic airline isn’t locked into using a specific kind of airplane.
“We want to partner with all of the people in this industry. … If you have a better spaceship than Burt Rutan, then Virgin Galactic wants to operate that spaceship,” Tai said.
In other words, they want to be a spaceline.
“Please Send Money”
Read about this letter from Al Zawahiri to Al Zarqawi:
Zawahiri also complains about Zarqawi’s all-out war against the Shiites of Iraq, saying the Arab man in the street doesn’t understand why suicide bombings are killing so many fellow Muslims.
The letter also indicates Zawahiri’s life in hiding has left him cut off from news and financial support. He asks Zarqawi to provide him more information about operations in Iraq, saying he should know at least as much as the enemy knows, and he even asks Zarqawi to send money.
Well, maybe Zarqawi is losing Zawahiri’s support, but he’s still got Michael Moore and Ted Kennedy in his camp…
I have to say, though, I don’t know what it is that CBS finds “chilling” about the letter.
Then read this (long but worthwhile) report from Mosul by Michael Yon, if you want to know who’s winning, and who’s losing, this war.
[Update on Friday morning]
Dan Darling has further thoughts.
“Please Send Money”
Read about this letter from Al Zawahiri to Al Zarqawi:
Zawahiri also complains about Zarqawi’s all-out war against the Shiites of Iraq, saying the Arab man in the street doesn’t understand why suicide bombings are killing so many fellow Muslims.
The letter also indicates Zawahiri’s life in hiding has left him cut off from news and financial support. He asks Zarqawi to provide him more information about operations in Iraq, saying he should know at least as much as the enemy knows, and he even asks Zarqawi to send money.
Well, maybe Zarqawi is losing Zawahiri’s support, but he’s still got Michael Moore and Ted Kennedy in his camp…
I have to say, though, I don’t know what it is that CBS finds “chilling” about the letter.
Then read this (long but worthwhile) report from Mosul by Michael Yon, if you want to know who’s winning, and who’s losing, this war.
[Update on Friday morning]
Dan Darling has further thoughts.
“Please Send Money”
Read about this letter from Al Zawahiri to Al Zarqawi:
Zawahiri also complains about Zarqawi’s all-out war against the Shiites of Iraq, saying the Arab man in the street doesn’t understand why suicide bombings are killing so many fellow Muslims.
The letter also indicates Zawahiri’s life in hiding has left him cut off from news and financial support. He asks Zarqawi to provide him more information about operations in Iraq, saying he should know at least as much as the enemy knows, and he even asks Zarqawi to send money.
Well, maybe Zarqawi is losing Zawahiri’s support, but he’s still got Michael Moore and Ted Kennedy in his camp…
I have to say, though, I don’t know what it is that CBS finds “chilling” about the letter.
Then read this (long but worthwhile) report from Mosul by Michael Yon, if you want to know who’s winning, and who’s losing, this war.
[Update on Friday morning]
Dan Darling has further thoughts.
Tough Singles Scene
If you’re put off by dating, just be glad you’re not a male nursery spider:
Some male spiders pay the ultimate price for a few moments of pleasure when the female devours them after mating. Even worse, some males are eaten before they have the chance to mate.
To overcome this problem the nursery spider has devised a strategy of offering his thumbnail-sized mate a love-token, such as a dead insect.
But after presenting the gift the male immediately feigns death and collapses at her feet.
And as she becomes preoccupied with sinking her jaws into the insect treat, the male revives, creeps under her and begins copulating.
I think I’ll stick with flowers. Most of the women I know hate bugs.
The Sex-Offender Lobby
Cathy Seipp writes about it in today’s WSJ.
Somebody Has To Cover It
Michelle Malkin has a roundup of links on what’s increasing looking like Islamic terrorism in Oklahoma. This seems to be a story where the blogs are way ahead of the MSM. It would also be interesting to see if Jayna Davis comes up with any ties to the events of ten years ago.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Here’s more.
Surprise, Surprise
I know you’ll find this hard to imagine, but Louis Freeh says that the Clintons’ closets were full of skeletons. And in this case, it’s probably not just a figure of speech.
What do you do when you’re the FBI director for a president so corrupt? I would have stepped down, and said why. It certainly would have done the country a service to know at the time (of coure, much of it prefers to remain in denial now). It’s hard to work up much admiration for him at this point (particularly seeing what a mess he left the FBI in, including his aversion to computers and technology). But at least this might be one more wrench in the spokes of Hillary’s candidacy.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Oh, I hadn’t read this part:
Freeh says he was determined to stay on as FBI director until President Clinton left office so that Clinton could not appoint his successor.