Here’s a good companion piece to my National Review column about the Chinese space program.

Ed Hudgins says to unleash American private enterprise.

Lileks has the goods on it. Normally I’d say read the whole thing, and I don’t want to say that it’s not worth doing so, because Senor Lileks could write about his dog’s bowel movements (or equally, or even more entertainingly, the lack thereof) and be worth reading, but apropo the title of this post, be sure at least to read the first half or so.

The second half is optional, at least from that standpoint.

Well, there’s good news and bad news. I was watching Fox, in anticipation of Bush’s live speech to the Australian parliament.

They cut to the parliament, but as PM Howard started to speak, they focused on President Bush’s face, illuminating his expression as the PM introduced him, without a camera on Mr. Howard.

Then, they cut away to an inane discussion between Hannity and Colmes, and Laura Ingraham and (shudder) Democrat hack Vic Camber, at which point they finally cut to a video of the PM’s speech, but with no audio, so that no one could any longer even hear the intro.

When the Bush speech finally commenced, they finally cut back to it (though not until after Laurie Dhue’s half-past newswrap). It was a good speech (except for the repeated use of the pronunciation “nookyalur”–is there no way to break him of this, or does no one in the White House care?), made all the better by two interruptions from leftist Senators, to which his response to the second was “I love free speech.”

That’s actually the bad news, so from that relative perspective, perhaps there’s no good news.

Of course, the worse news (which makes Fox look much better in contrast), is that neither of the other two American cable news channels (MSNBC and CNN) interrupted their programming for any coverage at all…

The historian that the Gray Lady hired to look into the Walter Duranty Pulitzer has recommended that the prize be revoked. It’s up to the Pulitzer committee now. If it actually happens, it will be interesting to see the response from academia.

Melana Zyla Vickers describes the force transformation that’s underway in the US military, that may ease some of the problems of being overextended, without calling up more reserves, or a draft.

That’s the title of a new book by William Langewiesche about…Columbia’s last flight. He’s interviewed in this month’s Atlantic, and he discusses the dysfunctional culture at NASA.

As Clark Lindsey points out, it’s unfortunate that the press doesn’t understand that this same culture is as debilitating for vehicle development as it is for vehicle operations.

That’s the title of a new book by William Langewiesche about…Columbia’s last flight. He’s interviewed in this month’s Atlantic, and he discusses the dysfunctional culture at NASA.

As Clark Lindsey points out, it’s unfortunate that the press doesn’t understand that this same culture is as debilitating for vehicle development as it is for vehicle operations.

That’s the title of a new book by William Langewiesche about…Columbia’s last flight. He’s interviewed in this month’s Atlantic, and he discusses the dysfunctional culture at NASA.

As Clark Lindsey points out, it’s unfortunate that the press doesn’t understand that this same culture is as debilitating for vehicle development as it is for vehicle operations.

Is it just me? I can’t get to Instapundit with Mozilla. The connection times out. But it works fine with IE. I cleared the cache, and it didn’t help.

[Update at 1:40 PM PDT]

Never mind…

I didn’t realize that I had to close the browser in order to clear the cache. It was probably going to the old IP address…

An interview with Cynthia Kenyon, anti-aging researcher.