Thursday, February 27, 2003

GOLDBERG

On Communists.

Friday, February 21, 2003

Chirac

A Saddam-ite from way back.
British Schools To Encourage Oral Sex Between Students

My only question: Will Bill Clinton be teaching the course?

Monday, February 17, 2003

The New York Times

I swear to Christ, this is one of the most disgusting pieces I've read in quite a while. Comparing the raving anti-American Leftists protesting in the streets last weekend to the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 is just plain ignorant.

Friday, February 14, 2003

What a fucking joke

The Australian media, pretending Iraq is democratic.

Sunday, February 09, 2003

Rummy

His response.
Powell

His response to the French and Germans.
France and Germany

Read this. Read all of it. I couldn't agree more.

Saturday, February 08, 2003

Why We Fight, Reason #117

For poor bastards like him.

Monday, February 03, 2003

NASA memo

Report: Seven by thirty inches of damage to wing possible, but danger not considered likely.
BREAKING NEWS FROM ITALY!

Photo shows Columbia's wing with obvious damage!
Washington Monthy

In 1980...
Roger Pielke Jr.

No friend of the shuttle, even before Columbia broke into pieces.
The Washington Monthly

Jesus...
NON-COLUMBIA NEWS

Bush proposes 2.2 trillion dollar budget...

Folks, maybe I'm paranoid. But I'll bet this bit of "news" has something to do with Lieberman's strong polling numbers...

Bob Barr - Still thinks he's politically viable!

Factoid

Columbia's mission was the 113th shuttle mission since the program began in 1981.

Rand Simberg

Shreds Andrew Sullivan for a weak response to the shuttle disaster.
Did you know...

The last time a man set foot on the moon was over 30 years ago, on 12-14-1972?
You know...

The Hanson error I can deal with; this error by John J. Miller (in the very first sentence!) I cannot:

"It's way too soon to know what went wrong with the space shuttle Columbia on Saturday morning, when it disintegrated upon reentry, killing all seven passengers."

Uh, "passengers"? This wasn't a routine Delta flight to the Bahamas; this was a mission beyond the Earth's atmosphere, one that this elite crew trained for continuously for a number of years.

What's up with NRO this morning? Are their editors hung over from all the wild Groundhog's Day parties?
Victor Davis Hanson

From his most recent column:

"What brought down the Columbia over Texas was not, as our enemies in Iraq claim, an angry god, nor, as pessimists allege, nemesis for our imperial hubris — but physics itself and the fact we are quite puny humans after all. After over a decade and a half of nearly 100 routine flights, Americans had almost forgotten the near impossibility of missions that send men and women of mere flesh reentering through the sky 200,000 miles above earth's surface, in thin metal heated to 3,000 degrees, and at Mach-18 speeds."

Yep. Honestly, I still wonder why there aren't more plane crashes. We all need to get a sense of perspective on this.

(By the way, Hanson meant 200,000 feet, not miles...)

UPDATE: This has been fixed. Miller's error, as of now, remains uncorrected...
NASA TO GET BUDGET INCREASE?

If Bush gets his way, yes.
Left in Space

The ISS astronauts: Far from home.
Morning Updates

Bush to attend memorial service.

Officials are still working to ID the remains.

John Glenn has an article in Newsweek.

The future of the manned space program to be debated.

The shuttle disaster, in pictures.

Columbia's computer fought "drag".

Space shuttle FAQ.



Sunday, February 02, 2003

More bad news

Shuttle missions, this report suggests, "may be mothballed for years"...
Hmm

Bizarre photos of Columbia taken during re-entry.
More Updates

Remains from all seven found...
TIME

Attacks the space shuttle.
Charred Human Leg

Another gruesome find.
UPDATE FROM AUSTRALIA

Columbia might have been shedding tiles well before it was over Texas...
A grisly discovery

From the article:

"Both men met on the two-lane road about 9 a.m. and realized with horror that they apparently were looking at an astronaut's remains: a charred torso, thigh bone and skull with front teeth intact."

Here's a second link confirming the same finding. How awful.
Noonan

Wonderful, as always.
Columbia Updates

The British press is already blaming the Bush administration and talking about a moratorium.

Here is a brief timeline from MSNBC.

Here are some of the condolences that came from the international community. Oh, and the filth from Iraq.

These are profiles of the crew.

This link is worth a look for the "Fact File" near the middle of the page.

Saturday, February 01, 2003

Bush's Statement

A transcript.
Early Speculation

From Instapundit -

"I'M WATCHING THE NEWS CONFERENCE, and it looks like a zipper effect followed by burnthrough and structural damage, leading to the loss of the left wing. They're reporting anomalous heat sensor readings, loss of tire pressure in the main gear on that side, and so on.

"The shuttle can tolerate the loss of a tile or two. But when the integrity of the tile cover is breached, tiles can be pulled off one after another -- hence the term "zipper effect." Then enough heat can penetrate through in sufficient quantity to destroy or weaken what's underneath. This is a well-understood possibility, so expect a quick resolution (by the standards of these kinds of things) if the evidence continues to point this way."

Sounds reasonable.
OOPS...

The WaPo has a pre-written piece still on the Web about a "successful" Columbia mission...

UPDATE: They've finally fixed it...
Russia offers condolences

Here.
What Reagan Said

After the Challenger disaster.
The Iraqi Street

Celebrates.

UPDATE

I am just learning from a NASA press conference that several things occurred just before the shuttle broke up:

-Temperature sensors were lost.

-Tire pressure was lost.

-Excessive structural heating occurred.
Nacogdoches, Texas

The site of the debris field.
No hint of terrorism

Say administration officials.
The Space Station Crew

Might be brought back to Earth via Russian vehicles.
The Space Shuttle

The Columbia is gone.

I had a bad feeling about this launch from the start. And ironically, I was talking about the Challenger incident with my friend last night. This is just horrible.

I wonder if the Palestinians are dancing in the streets.

Bush gave a very emotional address to the nation, and the world. I wonder if the secular radicals will condemn him for mentioning God in his speech.

The Drudge Report is reporting the final contact between NASA and the crew:

"Mission Control: 'Columbia, Houston we see your tire pressure messages and we did not copy your last.'

Columbia: 'Roger, uh, ...' (transmission breaks off after the crew member starts to stay a word beginning with the sound 'buh.')"

I'm watching C-SPAN right now. There is a sickening anti-Israel sentiment being expressed by a number of the callers. There is also a strain of paranoia about supposed terrorist plots. Face it, folks: There is about a 99% chance this was just a horrific accident.

Questions: What happens to the people in the Space Station? Will the scheduled March 1st flight go as planned? Will funding for NASA increase as a result of this?

May the seven all rest in peace.