The Secret Service is actually investigating this Michael Ramirez cartoon, as a potential threat to the president.

Only an idiot could possibly interpret that cartoon as a threat to the president. Is the Secret Service run by idiots? Have they nothing better to do?

Don’t answer that question.

Boeing is indeed extorting the Air Force to not punish it for cheating in the EELV competion.

Looks like someone was prescient.

They’ve apparently never learned the old adage, when in a hole, quit digging.

Members of the Assembly Democrats’ progressive caucus were heard making candid, if not intemperate, statements such as one by Los Angeles Assemblyman Fabian Nunez that they may want to “precipitate a crisis” over the budget this year. That might persuade voters to lower the two-thirds vote threshold needed to pass a spending plan, he reasoned.

“It seems to me if there’s going to be a crisis, the crisis should be this year,” Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, said during the meeting. “What you do is you show people that you can’t get to this without a 55 percent vote.”

The unintentional broadcast was interrupted when someone informed the group that a microphone was on. “Oh s–,” Goldberg said as the sound was cut.

Heh…

The Republicans are going to make golden hay out of this–the Dems just blew a major part of their demogogic message.

Dale Amon put up a post yesterday, the thirty-fourth anniversary of the day we first left the Moon. A little over three years later, we did it for the last time in a long time (over three decades now), but hopefully not forever. Read the comments.

Dale Amon put up a post yesterday, the thirty-fourth anniversary of the day we first left the Moon. A little over three years later, we did it for the last time in a long time (over three decades now), but hopefully not forever. Read the comments.

Dale Amon put up a post yesterday, the thirty-fourth anniversary of the day we first left the Moon. A little over three years later, we did it for the last time in a long time (over three decades now), but hopefully not forever. Read the comments.

Here’s a classic headline blooper. I wonder if they had trouble trying to recruit more sophisticated folks?

Kind of like Mothra versus Rodan, we have another round of this ongoing theological discussion in progress. Now, “Publius Rex” takes issue with the piece a few days ago by Jeffrey Bell that shredded many of the arguments for a winged Orbital Space Plane.

I discussed the issue then, but my main point remains that, while these are interesting technical arguments, they’re ultimately irrelevant to our future in space, because given its current philosophy and the politics of the situation, NASA is unlikely to come up with anything that reduces costs or significantly improves safety. That will come only when we stop looking to NASA for our space transportation needs, and increase funding to the private entities to whom those things actually matter.

Jeff Faust has a very good rundown on our apparent inability to deal with this subject rationally. As regular readers know, this is one my main hobbyhorses, because it is likely to result in continued flawed policy decisions.