I know, I know, it shouldn’t be necessary, yet in defiance of all that is logical and decent, there are still people who think that Michael Moore’s latest crockumentary has non-zero validity or value.
Andrew Bolt, Down Under, disagrees.
Excellent stuff over at RLV News
Over at RLV News Clark Lindsey takes an uncharacteristicaly blunt swing at a particularly stupid article on SpaceDaily. I can’t say it any better than Clark, so go on over there and read his take.
There’s also a good item on the state of sounding rocket research (dismal). I’m a fan of sounding rockets since they offer a low cost means of doing simple space research. In science it’s often the simple experiments that have the most dramatic impact (in part because it’s harder to quibble about simple results, but that’s another post entirely). Unfortunately simple isn’t sexy, and sexy is what NASA is most interested in. Another point about sounding rockets that’s not generally well understood is that there’s a region of the atmosphere between about 50 km and 100 km which is too high for balloon research but to low for satellite research. There’s some important processes that take place in this region, and sounding rockets are really the only way to study them directly.
On The Air Shortly
Loony And Jerry
Just in case you needed another reason to avoid Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Ben has taken to towing around an effigy of George Bush with flames coming out of his pants.
Well, at least classified documents aren’t falling out of them.
You know, Jeff Goldstein has to be having a field day with this whole thing.
[a minute of so later]
Yup. He is.
[Wednesday morning update]
Tim Blair is having fun with this, too.
She Doesn’t Like Singing For Muslims
That’s what Linda Ronstadt said.
Oh, what’s that? She said it about Christians?
My mistake. No wonder the politically correct harpies aren’t trumpeting it from the front pages.
You know, it’s really sad that so many artists that I enjoy have to indulge themselves in this mindless politics. I used to love her stuff, particularly the torch songs with Nelson Riddle, but she’ll never sound the same again.
She Doesn’t Like Singing For Muslims
That’s what Linda Ronstadt said.
Oh, what’s that? She said it about Christians?
My mistake. No wonder the politically correct harpies aren’t trumpeting it from the front pages.
You know, it’s really sad that so many artists that I enjoy have to indulge themselves in this mindless politics. I used to love her stuff, particularly the torch songs with Nelson Riddle, but she’ll never sound the same again.
She Doesn’t Like Singing For Muslims
That’s what Linda Ronstadt said.
Oh, what’s that? She said it about Christians?
My mistake. No wonder the politically correct harpies aren’t trumpeting it from the front pages.
You know, it’s really sad that so many artists that I enjoy have to indulge themselves in this mindless politics. I used to love her stuff, particularly the torch songs with Nelson Riddle, but she’ll never sound the same again.
Cutting The Anchor Chain
Cavuto is reporting that Berger has resigned from the Kerry campaign as an “informal advisor” (I wonder what such a “resignation” means?).
I wonder if it isn’t too late, though? It depends on why he purloined those documents. If they were used to generate Kerry speeches and talking points, and Kerry knew about it, this could be his own Watergate.
Bad Precedent
John Gizzi reminds us that the administration supports the Law of the Sea Treaty, which Reagan tried to bury twenty years ago, and even Clinton didn’t support.
I wonder if anyone in the administration understands that the principle behind this treaty is the same one behind the 1979 Moon Treaty, which would have effectively outlawed private property in space, and the implications for the new space policy? I, too, like Gizzi and Doug Bandow, would like to know what the rationale is for this policy.
Good Timing
As Duncan Young points out in comments, the House Appropriation Committee has chosen today to announce that it’s not funding the new Vision for Space Exploration next year. Casualties: the new exploration architecture studies and CEV, and the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter. Zero funding. Meanwhile, the Shuttle program, which is facing overruns on its return to flight activities, gets over four billion dollars, though it’s not flying.
Perhaps we’ll now see how important the new policy is to the administration.
[Update at 5:45 PM PDT]
Jeff Foust has further thoughts.