Apollo XI lifted off from Cape Canaveral. Here are Mike Collins’ pre-launch thoughts:

I am far from certain that we will be able to fly the mission as planned. I think we will escape with our skins, or at least I will escape with mine, but I wouldn’t give better than even odds on a successful landing and return. Fred Haise (the backup astronaut who had performed the pre-launch CM switch positions) has run through a checklist 417 steps long, and I have merely a half-dozen minor chores to take care of— nickel and dime stuff. In between switch throws, I have plenty of time to think, if not daydream. Here I am, a white male, age 38, height 5 feet 11 inches, weight 165 pounds, salary $17,000 per annum, resident of a Texas suburb, with black spot on my roses, state of mind unsettled, about to be shot off to the moon. Yes, to the moon.

Self congress apparently is prophylactic against prostate cancer.

Choke that chicken, guys, especially you young’uns.

[Thursday morning update]

Hey, girls can get in on the healthy fun, too!

In Best of the Web today, James Taranto discusses some of the loony leftist Democrats calls for Bush’s impeachment (sorry, no permalink until tomorrow), and in the process makes a misleading statement:

the 20th century, Congress impeached 10 officials: Clinton and nine federal judges. As the chart on this page shows, all were charged with actual crimes, mostly financial corruption of one sort or another. (Of the 10, five were convicted and removed from office; four, including Clinton, were acquitted of all charges, and one resigned before his Senate trial began.)

No, James, Clinton was not truly “acquitted on all charges,” he was only acquitted for the ones for which he was impeached, in a sham trial. In a criminal sense, he wasn’t acquitted because he was never indicted, or went to trial. Had he done so, it’s possible (thought I think unlikely) that he would have been acquitted, but I think the most likely outcome would have been hung juries, as in the case of Susan McDougal, because it would have been very difficult to get a jury that didn’t have at least one member that was going to vote to acquit, the facts be damned. This is almost certainly one of the reasons that Bob Ray didn’t bring any indictments (though another one was probably the desire to spare the nation the trauma of a trial). Unfortunately, the impeachment acquittal provides an excuse for his diehard defenders to declare him innocent of everything, despite all of the evidence to the contrary.

And when Clinton defenders say Ray had no evidence, that’s a lie, pure and simple. He had abundant evidence, despite all of the evidence destruction, witness tampering and other obstructions of the judicial process. The only way to really get to the bottom of it would have been to do a RICO type investigation, and the Justice Department never had the stomach for it, particularly with Janet Reno at the helm.

Certainly, if the defendant had been anyone other than Bill (and Hillary) Clinton, charges would have been brought.

Which reminds me. Sunday, in addition to being the thirty-fourth anniversary of the first Apollo landing, is also the tenth anniversary of the untimely end of Vince Foster, an affair in which the full truth still remains to be revealed.

That looks like a good explanation for the Oracle of Delphi.

NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe has decided that the Orbital Space Plane must be developed faster.

Somehow (as is often the case) this reminds me of a Simpsons episode. Specifically, the one in which Homer decides to change his name. The new nom de plume?

MAX POWER…

(He got it off a hair dryer…)

He says, “there are two ways to do something: the right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way.”

When Bart asks what the latter means, the reply is, “It’s like the wrong way, except faster!”

He says that he would advise his children to resist homosexual “temptations.”

I’m sorry, but this just comes across to me as a statement appallingly ignorant of the nature of human sexuality.

“You try to point out to them what is the right thing to do. And we have many temptations to do things we shouldn’t do. That doesn’t mean we have to give in to those temptations. I have temptations, as we all do, all the time, to do things we shouldn’t do.

“Whether we have that disposition because of environmental factors, genetic factors, whatever, it doesn’t mean you have to submit. We are people of free will and free choices.”

So, is the senator saying that he’s had “homosexual temptations” that he’s overcome? In other words, is he bisexual? I know I’ve never had any. I occasionally have temptations to do things that are wrong, or illegal, and I generally overcome them, but I’ve never in my life been tempted to engage in sexual activity with a man.

Homosexuals have two problems. First, they’re attracted to the same sex. Second, they are unattracted to the opposite sex. So what the senator is proposing is that for his children, if they’re truly homosexual, and not bisexual, their only option is life-long celibacy. Is that really what he’s saying, and does he think it realistic advice?

[Update at 11:22 PM PDT on July 17]

I’ve started a new thread on this one, as a result of the extensive comments.

Researchers in Japan are going to attempt to clone a mammoth.

I got a chuckle out of this. Hurricane Claudette chased some tree huggers out of their trees.

The G8 is getting smarter about avoiding anti-globo whackos for their meetings. The next one is scheduled on Sea Island.

I wouldn’t make it illegal, but I think that men who would want to do this have some wiring problems, and I’d keep an eye on them.

[Update on Wednesday morning]

Snopes thinks it may be an elaborate hoax, but it’s still undetermined.