Thirty Years On

This is the thirty first year my birthday has been marred by the event. Leroy Chiao thinks that we shouldn’t have retired the Shuttle, but he assumes we did it for safety reasons. As I note in the book, Shuttle was retired because it cost too much, and the fleet had gotten too small to sustain it properly.

[Update a while later]

My thoughts on the anniversary, and lessons not learned, over at USA Today.

[Update a few minutes later]

Clark Lindsey has a link roundup on the anniversaries.

[Update a while later\

Doug Messier has some thoughts, and a warning to the space upstarts.

Heckling Hillary

Katherine Prudhomme explains why she did it:

The next thing I heard about Hillary Clinton and sexual assault was in December, when a questioner asked Hillary if Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones should be believed. Hillary responded that, “everybody should be believed at first until they are disbelieved based on evidence.” What evidence is now out there that would cause us to disbelieve them? Why didn’t the media ask her about it afterwards? I’ve watched this story more closely than most since 1999 and I didn’t know what evidence Hillary was talking about.

On New Year’s Day, I found out the Clinton campaign was going to be in my town that Sunday. I signed up using my real name, got a confirmation number, and thought all day about whether yelling out these questions at Hillary Clinton, which I’d asked so many times and heard so many dismissive answers to, was the right thing to do.

The only other option I faced was accepting that the people of this country and our leaders don’t care about rape and sexual assault victims when a powerful man is accused of them. That man is then above the law. When the woman closest to him enables his behavior and protects him from discovery by threatening his victims to remain silent, and then is presented to me as a champion of women, the disconnect is more than I can take. I felt like the little boy who yells out that the emperor has no clothes on. I decided that I had to go there and ask my question in any way that I could and would do so at the moment the question portion of her event began.

I went into the venue early, got a seat up at the front and waited. I even told the talkative, friendly man sitting next to me exactly what I was going to do. He thought it was a bad idea and tried to talk me out of it. I was expecting to be thrown out of the event or arrested, but I believed so much in my cause that I did it anyway.

Hillary told me last July in Gorham that she has no idea who Broaddrick is. Now she claims there is evidence to prove that Broaddrick is lying. That makes no sense. Why didn’t Lisa Myers find anything to discredit Broaddrick? Why didn’t NBC’s army of lawyers find anything? They would have welcomed any reason not to show that interview, but they did not find it.

People should be doing this to the rape enabler everywhere Her Highness goes, and force the media to cover it. There is no law that the Clintons don’t consider themselves above, including violent rape.

Remembrance

is not enough:

In each of the accidents there were people who believed that the programs were proceeding into unsafe territory. These people tried with varying degrees of success to alert the management of their concerns. In some cases, they fell silent quickly. In other cases, they were overruled and gave up. Later, in all three of the accidents, the top leaders unanimously said ‘we didn’t know anybody was concerned’.

The lesson to take away here is not to give up. If it is unsafe say so. If overruled, appeal. If denied appeal, make your case to the highest level manager you can find. Do not give up until you have been heard at the very top.

Because you might be the only one that sees what no one else can.

From someone who should know.

[Update a while later]
Here’s a nice piece from Nadia Drake.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!