Uncategorized

Space Junk Men Being Laid Off?

I’d heard budget rumors about this a few days ago, but now Space.com has a story on it. NASA is terminating the office that monitors space debris.

No, not asteroids–it’s things like tools, and payload shrouds, and loose screws, and flaked-off paint, and the results of the occasional satellite explosion. This is a very real problem–as the article points out, we often have to change out windows or thermal-protection tiles in the Shuttle Orbiters because of strikes from these things–at differential velocities of thousands of miles an hour, a paint chip is like a bullet.

They may restore funding, and I wouldn’t be shocked if this turns out to be a “Washington Monument” threat (you, know, like when the government is threatened with a budget cut, they pull out some popular thing that they’ll threaten to cut, to fend off any cuts at all). It might be just part of the overall agency posturing to defend as much of their budget as possible, by threatening cuts in vital programs (while ignoring internal pork and hobby shops).

We’ll just have to see how it all plays out.

Uncategorized

Anti-Imperialism Of Idiots

There’s an eminently sensible (and timely, considering the recent anti-globo funfest in DC) column in today’s Times of London by Mick Hume (presumably not closely related to either David or Brit) on the reflexive anti-Israeli posture in much of the west.

Attacking the Israelis has become a way to vindicate any petty prejudice. It unites my German friend?s right-wing grandmother, who has waited 50 years for an excuse to criticise ?the Jews?, with left-wing protesters who imagine that the Palestinian struggle is on a par with them vandalising a burger bar.

Sympathy with the terrible plight of Jenin is no reason to endorse the anti-imperialism of idiots. Populist anti-Israeli rhetoric is cheap, but offers no solutions to the long-suffering peoples of the Middle East. And climbing on the backs of the victims to strike moralistic postures is just, as the diplomatic French might say, merde.

War Commentary

Irony

“Demolishing the homes of Arab civilians… Shooting handcuffed prisoners… Forcing local Arabs to test areas where mines may have been planted…”

These sound like the sort of accusations made by British and other European officials concerning Israel’s recent actions in Jenin. In fact, they are descriptions from official British documents concerning the methods used by the British authorities to combat Palestinian Arab terrorism in Jenin and elsewhere in 1938.

That’s the fascinating beginning of an article in the Jerusalem Post, that describes how there are no new things under the sun.

Uncategorized

French Electoral Earthquake

All of this anti-semitism and Muslim rioting in France is taking a political toll. As reported in Le Figaro, there was an electoral shocker there yesterday. Chirac came in first, but Le Pen came in second, ahead of Jospin. There will be no socialists in the runoff. For those who are French-language challenged, here’s another version of the story in English.

It’s going to be a very interesting (and perhaps violent) run-off.

Political Commentary

Incoherent Ranting From Richard Reeves

The always-dependable (when it comes to spouting imbecilities) Richard Reeves sends in a missive from whatever planet he inhabits–it’s clearly not this one. The basic theme is that Mr. Bush is not up to the job, and that he will therefore be a one-termer.

It’s so full of chocolaty stupidity, I hate to excerpt it, but I will anyway. Fortunately, it’s short. His talent (as it were) is such that he manages to pack a whole universe of idiocy in a very brief bit of mental flatulence.

This was a day in the life of the president of the United States, Thursday, April 18, 2002:

  • The circumstances of endless savagery in the Middle East forced him to look into a television camera and tell the world that Ariel Sharon (news – web sites) is “a man of peace.”

    Well, it seems to me that things have been a lot more peaceful over there in the past couple weeks. At least no more Israeli bat mitzvahs have been interrupted by murderers disassembling themselves.

  • Halfway around the world, on the West Bank, the U.N. peace envoy to the Middle East, a Norwegian hardly given to flamboyant language, one of the first outsiders to inspect Mr. Sharon’s recent work, looked into other cameras and said: “Horrifying, horrifying … Israel has lost all moral ground in this conflict.”

    No, he’s only given to flamboyent language when the subject is Israel. When it comes to Arafat, and his bomb factories, and his exhortations to murder, and his booby-trapped refugee camps, and his unending lies, and his general violation of every single tenet of the Oslo agreement for which he won his Norwegian peace prize, our Norwegian friend seems to have lost his tongue.

  • In Kabul and Washington, members of the forces commanded by President Bush (news – web sites) had to face the cameras and apologize for the killing of Canadian soldiers, our best friends, by American bombs in yet another friendly-fire incident of the kind that punctuates long-distance, high- tech warfare.

    Yes, Richard. This is war. And even if weren’t, people are often killed in training (typically a couple dozen per year in each service, I believe). It is tragic, but these are real weapons, with real explosives, and sometimes things happen. It’s not a good day for a President when they do, but it’s certainly not a challenge to his presidency.

  • Back on television, the president gave a lecture to the elected president of Venezuela, an incompetent, if charismatic, lefty named Hugo Chavez, who had been overthrown two days before with some help and cheers from the right-wingers running the middle levels of the Bush State Department. Bush warned Chavez that he better do more of what we consider the right things, or we’ll get his army after him again.

    Incompetent? He seems to be pretty competent at retaining power, like most thugs. And I didn’t hear Mr. Bush say any such thing, but then, as I say, Mr. Reeves lives on a different plane of existence.

From there he drifts off into total incoherence and irrelevance. And when I get to the end, I still don’t know why Bush will only serve one term.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!