Snow Mountain Climbing
Mar 26, 2008 Photos
I’m gonna start posting more random photos and stuff around here, it’s a habit I’ve fallen out of. Here’s one from earlier today.
American Idol 3/25 (Delayblogged)
Mar 25, 2008 That's Hot
Finally, some variety. I like the Beatles, but two weeks running was overkill. Here we go… Read the rest of this entry »
American Idol 3/19
Mar 25, 2008 That's Hot
I suppose I should write up the results show before I watch tonight’s performance show, right? Read the rest of this entry »
Avoiding NASA’s Greatest Regret
Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL15) had a column yesterday on TheHill.com regarding NASA’s “greatest regret and greatest concern” — needing to rely on Russia for access to the International Space Station during the estimated five-year time frame between the retirement of the Space Shuttle program and the start of its successors, Project Constellation and the Orion spacecraft. His proposal involves flying the shuttle as is for an additional three years, and accelerating the design and creation of Constellation, but, sadly, the plan hasn’t met with much success in the House:
Some have criticized my plan citing the fact they believe the Shuttle is a “flawed†vehicle and must be retired. But if the Shuttle is so inherently dangerous why are we still flying it today? The Shuttle won’t be any more dangerous to fly in 2013 than it is in 2010. The bottom line is – NASA is flying the Shuttle because it is worth the calculated risk. NASA currently recertifies the Shuttle’s safety each time it flies.
Sadly, Congress was set to act on the gap but, Speaker Pelosi dealt two significant blows to NASA – making more challenging our ability to address this problem. In January 2007, Speaker Pelosi shepherded an omnibus bill through the Congress cutting $570 million from the Constellation program. Then late last year House Democrats stripped $1 billion from the Senate approved NASA budget. $1.5 billion would have been a strong down payment toward closing the gap. Pelosi said no.
Give it a read.
American Idol 3/18 (Delayblogged)
Mar 18, 2008 That's Hot
Liveblogging as I go, watching an hour and a half or so delayed. Read the rest of this entry »
What the Pentagon Report (and the reports about it) Missed
Mar 18, 2008 In The News, Politics, War On Terror, Whoops...
 ABC News, and just about every other mainstream media news outlet, thought they had their damning evidence against the war in Iraq:
It’s government report the White House didn’t want you to read: yesterday the Pentagon canceled plans to send out a press release announcing the report’s availability and didn’t make the report available via email or online.
Based on the analysis of some 600,000 official Iraqi documents seized by US forces after the invasion and thousands of hours of interrogations of former officials in Saddam’s government now in US custody, the government report is the first official acknowledgment from the US military that there is no evidence Saddam had ties to al Qaeda.
That’s not really what the report says, though. As usual, it’s been spun to make readers believe what they want you to believe, instead of believing the facts. The report does not state there were no links, only that there was no evidence, in the small percentage of files they had examined, of an “operational link” — which is to say, Saddam wasn’t giving al-Qaeda orders.
Richard Miniter, writing for Pajamas Media, goes into great detail on what links were there, and concludes:
No connection? Well, Al-Qaeda and the Iraqi state certainly had a lot of meetings, money changed hands, some terrorist training occurred in Iraq, and a lot of personnel — including Abu Musab al Zarqawi — moved freely through the Iraqi police state. In short, there are connections.
None of this means that Iraq ran Al-Qaeda or had foreknowledge of its most gruesome attacks. It certainly does not mean Iraq was behind the 9-11 attacks or even knew about them in advance. [emphasis mine -- P]
Still, for there to be “no connection†between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, it would mean no meetings, no money, no training and no movement of personnel. On the strength of much weaker evidence, Saudi Arabia is “connected†to Al-Qaeda. Why is Iraq the one nation given the benefit of the doubt?
Have a read.
Paterson revisited (Oh yeah, I remember you…)
Mar 16, 2008 In The News, New York State, Politics, Whoops...
I either randomly stumbled across it in an article someplace (if I did, I didn’t save the link), or someone mentioned it in conversation recently, but I remembered the other day that I’ve blogged about man due to be sworn in as the next Governor of New York tomorrow, David Paterson, before. He had the wacky idea at the time to try to legislate that cops should, when things get dicey enough to require use of arms, get fancy and shoot to wound rather than shoot to kill.
Hopefully he’s got that idea shook out of his head.
STS-123 launch video
Mar 15, 2008 Cool Links, Geek, Videos
Someone shot last Monday night’s launch of Endeavour to start STS-123 from their backyard. Awesome video.
(Hat tip: Little Green Footballs)
Eliot Spitzer: marketing gold
Mar 14, 2008 In The News, New York State, Politics, Teh Funny, Whoops...
“At Virgin Mobile, you’re more than just a number. When you call us we’ll treat you like a person, not a client. Whether you’re #9 or #900, you’ll get hooked up with somebody who’ll finally treat you just how you want to be treated.”
IEATAPETA Day the Sixth
Mar 14, 2008 Cool Links, Teh Funny
This post is late this year, but March 15th is still International EATAPETA Day.
That’s right, it’s the day when we piss off the hypocrites at PETA who have the highest kill-rate out of any animal shelter in Virginia; who send their people to lie to vets and shelters and steal animals that they then euthanize, and who create hugely offensive ad campaigns that compare the slaughter of food animals to the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust.
Yep. It’s EATAPETA Day.
On March 15th, we make sure we eat meat, fish, or dairy products—all the stuff that pisses of the PETA vegans—in protest of PETA’s deceptive and execrable tactics.
I think my brother owes me lunch for his use of my washer and dryer tomorrow…Â Hmmmmmmmm….. 
