Crap Throwing Monkey

Canadians did a great job in both World Wars, as well. Fought like hell in Flanders, composed maybe half the convoy escorts and a good chunk of RAF Bomber Command in the North Atlantic in WWII. Denmark, on the other hand, in WWII stole the world speed record for quickest surrender from the French. They caved to the Nazis in something like an hour.

They're supposed to be designing one...the CEV, it's called. Crew Expedition Vehicle or something similar. Supposed to launch in 2010, when the shuttle's finally retired. Most of the concepts I've seen for the CEV are good ones - it'll be a reusable vehicle designed to do one thing and one thing only: put people in orbit (as opposed to the shuttle, which was designed to put people in orbit, keep them alive for 21 days, carry 20 tons of cargo, launch every damned sattelite that anyone wanted launched...basically, be all things to everyone). The only problem with it is that the same managers that are mucking up the shuttle program will ultimately be the ones responsible for the CEV...which means the real problem, the administrators that ignore objective physical realities of engineering when crafting bogus policy and statements, will still exist. In fact, judging by the trend of more oversight and less accountability to reality that accellerated from Challenger to Columbia, I'd wager that the CEV will be a technological success doomed to ultimate mission failure because the cloying attention of management will further stifle the application of actual engineering.

I've never seen any footage from any launch that hasn't featured stuff falling off a launch vehicle. That's what happens when you launch a vehicle. sh-- falls off. I'm sure it's happened before... ...but that's not the point. The point is that NASA's BS excuse for management acts as though it's something so widely out of normal that they have to ground the fleet - with a vehicle in orbit! How stupid is that? They've basically told their astronauts that their orbiter is unsafe to fly (which is not necessarily true), and in the event of their orbiter being unsafe to fly there will be no rescue mission (despite plans and requirements to the contrary) as all the other orbiters are unsafe to fly... And that's despite the obvious fact that they grounded the fleet based on woefully incomplete data, as their best source of data on shuttle performance is inaccessible as it's still in orbit. How is that possibly smart management technique? As for the astronauts knowing the risk...I'm sure they're aware of and accept that a certain risk is involved in strapping your ass to four million pounds of explosive rocket fuel and launching it straight up into orbit. I'm certain they're aware of it, as Sally Ride's comment after Challenger demonstrates: "Perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world." Most people with a modicum of brain cells even remotely rooted in reality are aware of it. I do NOT think, however, that signing up to be an astronaut implicitly carries with it the risk of being hung out to dry by a bunch of managers who collectively couldn't be trusted to run a McDonalds franchise, let alone a manned space program. The issues I have with the shuttle program aren't technical, and they aren't mired in some immature belief that everything in the world should be perfect at all times. It's that the shuttle program management should at least occasionally show something approaching a hint of knowing what the hell they're doing.

Un. !@#$ing. Believable. NASA's grounded the shuttle because, with the foam that's still coming off the external tank (after 2 years of "fixing" it), it's not safe to fly. Gee, that's great...perchance you may have waited to ground it until all the orbiters were actually ON THE GROUND, you idiots!!!! How do you "ground" a vehicle that's CURRENTLY IN ORBIT???? I can only imagine what the astronauts are feeling up there right now.

Don't forget "9 to 5", with Lilly Tomlin and Dolly Parton's breasts...

Dead air.

So you missed the "Bush's economic policy sucks because he kills puppies and kittens" classic posted here some months ago? Damned stupid criticism, though. "Bush is a lousy president because...well, because he takes care of himself, dammit!" I guess Ted Kennedy is their ideal candidate, then?

Johnny Depp as Luke. Janeane Garafolo as Daisy.

"Conservative and radical clerics" take the view that the Koran only distinguishes between believers and unbelievers, not civilians and soldiers. The original post says quite clearly that he's recruiting for operations against "enemies of Islam", which would typically mean anyone perceived as an "enemy of Islam", regardless of the western distinction of "soldier" and "civilian". Frankly, I don't see how he's advocating anything else. "martyrdom operations against the enemies of Islam" is pretty damned unambiguous.

I like Theisman and Maguire together simply because it's pretty clear that Maguire thinks Theisman is a total idiot. Every so often in their little pregame spiels, when Theisman's babbling with the camera all to himself, when he finishes and they zoom out and pan to Maguire, you can see him trying not to laugh at Theisman.

Probably doesn't matter much. For the past fifty years, the Middle Eastern idea of defense has basically been one of "active" defense - i.e. defend yourself by attacking the other guy on his turf (case in point: the Palestinians "defending" themselves by attacking busses in Tel Aviv. That's just one example, I can name others). A call to "defend Iran against foreign aggression" using terrorist attacks is effectively a call to attack other countries using terrorist attacks, unless you're postulating a drastic shift in not just policy but the culture of the country and region. I'm not saying there's anything right or wrong with "active defense" either...I'm just saying it is what it is, and distinguishing between "defensive" and "aggressive" action in the Middle East as you just did is fallacious.

From the nose, is what I heard. The nose isn't too critical, it doesn't get quite as hot (and it's happened before). Even money bet that they just let it go.

He's a genius like Norman Einstein.

Of course not. Doesn't mean they aren't !@#$ing idiots, though...

Came close to losing Atlantis to an O-ring failure before Challenger bought it, too. What I meant, though, is that you can't avoid stuff coming off the vehicle - ANY vehicle - during launch. So why set the expectation that you can avoid it...then have to backtrack on it because of a completely normal and by all current appearances innocuous event? And what's worse...backtrack with stupid statements like "Well...it was probably just a piece of paper." What piece of paper would that be? The customer copy of the receipt from Midas for replacing the gas gauge? Like I keep saying...the shuttle's problems are less about the shuttle and more about abysmally stupid management. It should be policy to have at least two NASA managers on each shuttle flight. That way maybe they'll gain a better perspective on the risks that have to be prioritized and managed for launch...and if they lose another shuttle, that's two less managers in NASA, which can't possibly be a bad thing...

BOO-yah! Fo'shizzle.

Nah. Beasley Reese. That's my all-time nightmare announcing team: Joe Theisman, Dan Dierdorf, and Beastly Reese.

Stuff always comes off a vehicle at launch. It's not possible to avoid it. Of course, NASA would have you believe it never occurrs...because that's their risk management plan. "If we give everyone a pollyanna fantasy story rather than reality, we reduce the risk of having our budget gutted."

At least he's not sharing the booth with Dan Dierdorf. Those two paired would reach a critical mass of idiocy that would ultimately collapse the entire universe into a singularity of stupidity.

Ditto...particularly over the past two-plus years. I eagerly await the day when we once again have a decent manned space program with actual concrete goals to achieve, rather than yet another mismanaged government program.

Hey, the man was crippled by delta rays in a warp drive accident. Let's see how well you fare when that happens to you...

Christopher Pike

Pretty much the same law that says that Microsoft can't pay computer makers for preferential placement of their Office and internet applications...

Problem solving? Society's too busy teaching him he's special like everyone else and making sure his self-esteem is as high as possible to bother with instilling problem-solving skills...

Let's see...do I think that cutting the breasts off women would keep them from having sex with underage boys? Gee, Joe, that sounds an awful lot like something the Koran would espouse. If Pakistanis routinely mutilated women for crimes like that, you'd be calling them barbaric and suggesting we nuke all of them. Wait a minute...they DO mutilate women, and you DO call them barbaric and suggest we should kill them all. But it's okay when you suggest it? I understand your outrage at the crime. But nevertheless, you're being a !@#$ing idiot. Again. Still.