Remeber the Space Shuttle?

Speaking of NASA, they have been trying to get the Space Shuttle up and flying for some time now. The main impediment has been the assurance of safety. Rand Simberg writes about the safety of the space shuttle.

Army Exceeds Recruitment Goals

From LGF:

Army Exceeds Recruitment Goals

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers announced tonight that the Army has exceeded its recruitment goals for the month of June: Army reverses series of recruitment shortfalls. (Hat tip: Ethel.)

PENTAGON—After months of declining enlistment, the Army has more than met its recruitment goals for the month of June.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers announced the turnaround during a “town hall” meeting this afternoon at the Pentagon.

Myers did not provide numbers, nor did he indicate how far above the recruitment target the enlistment number is.

Comet Fireworks

This Monday, July 4th, NASA is smashing a washing machine sized probe into a comet to blast out some of its subsurface material and understasnd better the comet's makeup and how it was formed. If you go to NASA's main page, you can read some good coverage. Also, I like to go to Space.com as an additional source for info.

By the way, the comet is 9 miles long, so the small probe will have no effect on the comet. It has been likened to a mosquito hitting a 747.

Enjoy the show!

Update: Success!

The new "Conservative" Iranian President

Because I am in a rush (sorry!), these few posts will be borrowed from their sources. Sorry for the lack of innovation, but you really should know this stuff.

From LGF yesterday:

From Hostage-Taker to President

The newly “elected” president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was a key figure in the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran; here’s a photograph of Ahmadinejad holding the arm of a blindfolded American hostage: AP Photo shows Iran’s new President as 1979 US hostage-taker. (Hat tip: Gateway Pundit.)

UPDATE at 6/29/05 8:21:15 am:

Here’s another photo of Ahmadinejad with the same hostage:

And here is another post from yesterday:

Iran: "A New Islamic Revolution Has Arisen"

Iran’s new “president,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, says his “election victory” marked the start of a new Islamic revolution that will soon conquer the world: President invokes new Islamic wave. (Hat tip: All Things Conservative.)

“Thanks to the blood of the martyrs, a new Islamic revolution has arisen and the Islamic revolution of 1384 [the current Iranian year] will, if God wills, cut off the roots of injustice in the world,” he said. “The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world.”

Oh, and one more thing (this is Yishai talking) CBS News is interviewing hostages who are verifying this (link: here). The hostages who were taken in 1979 said they knew this guy immediately, and their blood turned cold. They also said he was a leader of the hostage taking.

WMD Thwarted Attack Trial

Once again, Gateway Pundit has a good collection of links on the thwarted WMD attack in Jordan last year and the trial going on right now for ten of the thugs the Jordanians caught. It is estimated that if successful, the attack would have killed 80,000 people. The gas was VX nerve gas (anyone see the movie The Rock?) and they (Zarqawi and company) were planning to blow up 20 tons of the extremely deadly stuff.

Appreciate Your Homes

Gateway Pundit has a post updating us all on the "president" of Zimbabwe, Mugabe's campaign to "Drive Out Trash" . In the past five weeks, Mugabe has displaced and destroyed the homes of between 200,000 to 1,500,000 people. GP posts a video as well.

Rove Tells It Like It Is

I'm really beginning to like this guy, and not just because he gets on the LLL's (loony liberal left) nerves. He tells it like it is, and pulls no punches. Here are his recent remarks:

Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war. Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies.

The left has freaked out over this statement, which is only historical fact - the left said this, and the right said that - nothing more (see this link for some quotes).
I have nothing against liberals, and I have nothing against Democrats (I used to be one!) What I am against is the far left caring more for our enemies than for our sons and daughters fighting and dying for our freedom. Oh, the far left will say they are acting precisely because they care about our defenders, but then in the same breath, hope for more deaths so the military will be forced home. Please leave the dichotomy and illogic at home. Don't claim patriotism, then try to bestow the great freedoms of this country (due process) on the foreign enemies who invaded our freedom and murdered 3,000 of our own, and would do so to millions more if given the chance. Let's worry about ourselves first, and then see to the rights of our enemies. If playing pop rock to the criminals may help secure our country, then by God, let's torture them with it. We must keep our own humanity in the process, and I feel our military in Cuba is doing just that! We need information, and they are bending over backwards to figure out ways to extract it in the most humane way possible! It would be far more expedient and efficient to chop off fingers and genitals (like Hussein), but we coddle the terrorists with religous respect and freakin gourmet menus! My God, the world is going crazy and everything is flipped upside down.
And if anyone has a defense of the far left's lunatic rants, I'd seriously like to hear it (do I sound biased?)

Dude, Where's My House?

The Supreme Court ruled that local governments can seize private property to give to another private entity, if the local government feels it would be for the better public good. So a couple of poor saps in Connecticut are getting their houses taken away (given money in return for the displacement, and the properties are being given to Pfizer, who will pay more taxes than those poor saps. Who will be those next guys? I thought this was America, where you can live free and be secure in your house not being taken away for the greater cause of greasing the government skids.

Because I am not a lawyer, I recommend you read Glenn Reynolds' posts on the issue (he is the famed Instapundit). But if you really don't want to get mired in legalese, all I know is that the fourth amendment to the Constitution, in the Bill of Rights, reads:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

All this talk about "Eminent Domain" and "Public Good" just confuses the issue for me. It's about the freedoms America affords. It's like the wise Cox and Fulkrum say:


Update: From the Fifth Ammendment to the Constitution:

...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

This is the justification for Emminent Domain. While useful is some select cases, this particular supreme court decision is too broad, in my opinion.

I'm Back, part II

I'm back from Utah and back to posting (hopefully). Yes, we did have an internet connection out there, but I was working so hard (really!) that I didn't have any time to post. So, for the second time I would like to extend my most sincere apologies for leaving you, my readers, alone for many days. I hope you found something else to fill your time, and I do not wish to abandon you ever again.

I'm Back

I would like to apologize to my constituents about my lack of posting. I am rather busy, but that is really no excuse in the blogosphere. There is one thing I'd like to point out - Tigerhawk, one of the more well known bloggers, has visited my humble blog! You can see a few of his comments here and here. I'm so ferklempt. Oh, and my secret project is now public, so you all can kvell. Here is the link - Grob SPn Jet.

Break Free! Use Firefox!

Dear Reader(s),
Because I care so much about your internet experience, I implore you to use Firefox, and graduate from Internet Explorer. For one, the future award-winning blog Digital Irony works better in Firefox. In addition, you can use tabbed browsing rather than having a bunch of windows open at once. Thirdly, you can customize the gehennom out of it. I have a unique skin (colors and buttons), local forecast (hot and chance of thunderstorms), ad blocking (choose which annoying ads to block), and many other unique, cool things. Once you start you can never go back. Be warned!

Jury Duty

Tomorrow I have jury duty. After discussing it with people at work (my boss included) they wondered why I couldn't get out of it. Well, I believe it is my civic duty to serve. We all enjoy a good legal system in America, and if you don't believe so, then you should be serving on a jury and doing something about it (or become a lawer/judge, but that takes more work). Otherwise, you shouldn't complain about a jury being made up of 12 peers who are too stupid to get out of jury duty. I'm really excited and I hope I get on a short, easy case. I will keep you updated.

Update: I was called into a case in court, but didn't actually get called up to serve. It was a great learning experience! Maybe I will do a detailed post on it in the near future.

Support the Troops

Here's a great site which sends care packages to troops and will facilitate sending letters or stuff to our troops. You can see what an individual can do here.

Kerry the Intillectual

After trying to portray himself as smart and well-bred, versus Bush as the stupid chimp, Kerry's actual grades come out, and they are very similiar to Bush's.

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Sen. John F. Kerry's grade average at Yale University was virtually identical to President Bush's record there, despite repeated portrayals of Kerry as the more intellectual candidate during the 2004 presidential campaign.

Kerry had a cumulative average of 76 and got four Ds his freshman year -- in geology, two history courses and political science, The Boston Globe reported Tuesday.

His grades improved with time, and he averaged an 81 his senior year and earned an 89 -- his highest grade -- in political science as a senior.

Blog the Bad News?

I have a question for my readers (both of them - hi Mom!). What is your collective opionion on the blogging of bad news in the world? There is plenty of bad news, but it is pretty depressing. I can forward on the information, but do my fans want to know? Alternitavely, I usually try to post the good news out there and countries struggling for freedom, but for every fledgling democracy there are 10 who are being violently oppressed.

Advice?

Krauthammer: Gitmo Grovel: Enough Already

The title says it all. The article is short and sweet.

VDH: Our Strange War

VDH presents another winning article on our current, strange war. Here's a teaser:

The three-year-plus war that began on September 11 is the strangest conflict in our history. It is not just that the first day saw the worst attack on American soil since our creation, or that we are publicly pledged to fighting a method — “terror” — rather than the concrete enemy of Islamic fascism that employs it.

Our dilemma is that we have not sought to defeat and humiliate the enemy as much as wean a people from the thrall of Islamic autocracy. That is our challenge, and explains our exasperating strategy of half-measures and apologies — and the inability to articulate exactly whom we are fighting and why.

But I Thought There Never Were Any WMD!!

In an interesting development, the U.N. has determined that Hussein's Iraq had moved Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) from 109 sites before the war.

But the UN (and many Democrats) has always maintained that there never were any WMDs!

U.N.: Weapons Material Taken From Iraq

Friday, June 03, 2005

UNITED NATIONS — U.N. satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors said in a report obtained Thursday.

U.N. inspectors have been blocked from returning to Iraq since the U.S.-led war in 2003 so they have been using satellite photos to see what happened to the sites that were subject to U.N. monitoring because their equipment had both civilian and military uses.

In the report to the U.N. Security Council (search), acting chief weapons inspector Demetrius Perricos said he's reached no conclusions about who removed the items or where they went. He said it could have been moved elsewhere in Iraq, sold as scrap, melted down or purchased.

He said the missing material can be used for legitimate purposes. "However, they can also be utilized for prohibited purposes if in a good state of repair."