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Thursday, June 11, 2009

Potpourri LIII

I'll be heading off to KSC for Ares I-X work, the STS-127 launch, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)/Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) launch. Busy, but fun! Anyhow, I should have all sorts of fun pics to post, either during the trip or afterward.

My Google Alert feed turned up a few more Ares I-X stories:

News from Hu: North Korea plans another nuke and missile test (not yet a nuke missile test) if the U.N. decides to clamp down on them with sanctions.

Stuff from Down Under Defense Expert (DUDE):

  • Want to win a three-month vacation? Become an expert on New Zealand.
  • A summary of European Union election results...go figure. America shifts to the left, and the rest of the world goes conservative, or at least center-right.

And some additional thoughts about the goat blog:

  • The Mitsubishi ad link will probably stop working next month when they “run out of Tritons.” Here’s a link that’ll probably survive longer, and the picture is bigger. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6Qs1A07RPo&feature=related
  • The “Not much else? You can drink it.” Was in reference to you saying something like “There’s not much else to do with that much milk.” Maybe change it to “Not much else? You can drink the milk.”
  • Where I say “Bring the buck in for two weeks every year,” it would be more accurate if I had said “Bring the buck in for a week twice each year…”
  • The sentence “An average-size back yard will provide enough forage for a goat but not a cow.” would read better if I had written “An average-size back yard will provide enough forage for a goat but not for a cow.” [Note: the DUDE is a much better semanticist than I am.]
  • To be completely grammatically correct you’d want to say “It is not TMI, he said petulantly.” he said petulantly. Or “He quoted himself in his reply: It is not TMI, he said petulantly…
  • Don’t forget to credit Monty Python for my non-petulant comment or their attorneys will descend upon you and “…make castanets of your testicles already.”
  • “That sort of farmers…” should have read “That sort of farmer…”
  • You could put a bit more emphasis on the para-survivalist angle. That’s what got me started on the subject with you. Look at it this way: you only need five or six silver dollars for a healthy, milking doe.
  • And how does one become an expert on goats? I’m certainly not one. But my friend's mother taught me some of that, there’s a goat cheese operation just down the hill from me, and Mrs. DUDE's bro keeps a couple of goats.

From Father Dan, a YouTube video of a turboprop model King Air.

A variety of links from Lin:

From Fred, a story about a world-record number of people dressing as Smurfs. Yiiiii.

SpaceX has been assembling its Dragon spacecraft.

From Sarah Palin's Twitter account a link to a Heritage Foundation report on why we should drill for oil in that postage-stamp section of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Our government is becoming certifiably insane on energy matters. They don't like oil companies drilling in American territory, but insist on energy independence. They complain about higher food prices, but insist on ethanol subsidies and higher energy taxes. They don't want to damage the environment, but they support windmills, which kill birds and bats, and ground-based solar, which is subject to weather and nighttime darkness. Oh yes, and they don't want to hear about space solar power, helium-3 fusion, nuclear power, or any other high-energy alternative. Like I said: insane.

NASA announced the results of their lunar art contest.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is now declaring the H1N1 (swine) flu virus a "pandemic." As I understand it, this does NOT mean the virus has gotten more dangerous. It just means that it's now appearing in more places on the planet.

Arthur Laffer, inventor of the Laffer Curve, warns us about oncoming inflation and increased interest rates. This was predictable, of course, if you were watching Obama's budget balloon.

The Obama administration is looking at reading captured terrorists at Guantanamo Bay their Miranda rights. Look for civil trials and acquittals in the next couple of years.

Oh yeah, and the Obama administration has this idea of capping executive salaries throughout the private sector, even in companies that the government does not currently control. That means, if you're an executive and you don't have a government job, President Obama thinks you're probably making too much money and need to have that money taken away from you. You laugh now, and say, "Good! Stick it to the man!" But if the government is willing to pass these kinds of laws on "executives," however defined, it isn't that big a stretch to say that they'd be willing to pass them on every job.

And rather than end on that downer, let's try ending on a high note.

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