Fish Fear Me

Forty Years Ago Today VI-We have a liftoff

I remember watching the video below when it really happened, though it was on just a black and white TV. I was in my pj's that morning as an eight year old boy. In fact, exactly an eight year old boy, as that day was my birthday. It was the mission to have a man walk on the moon, a real "man on the moon." The thought blew my little boy mind.

It was no sure thing, and so the suspense. The following video starts at just under the six minute mark before launch. I remember that at some point after after the launch and before the first stage separated, I stood up and pumped a fist and said GO! That launch was one of the most profound and gutsiest things I have ever witnessed to this day.

Godspeed.

Haha-One of my sisters tracked this pic down and gave it to me last night:

Dude...what's up with your hair? I asked my dad about that and he looked again, shrugged, and said "you were eight." Yep, can't argue with that. And if you couldn't tell for sure...yes, that's a rocket on the top of the cake.

Forty Years Ago Today V

One more day:

After a rigorous training schedule, the astronauts held a unique televised press conference while in quarantine at KSC, some 15 miles away from their questioners. "We're willing and ready to achieve our national goal," Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong told the press. When asked if they were afraid, there was a long pause while each waited for the other to answer. Armstrong finally said, "I wouldn't say fear is an unknown emotion to us. There is knowledge that there may be something you haven't thought of...or can't cope with. But as a crew ... we have no fear of launching out on this expedition," he said.

Forty years later, I think we have mostly forgotten just how complicated and dangerous it was to put three men on top of a 6.4 million pound rocket and ignite it. The launch team was confident after several successful Apollo launches, but everyone knew that there was a risk of something going disastrously wrong and the crew dying a fiery death. Instead of celebrating the first men to land on the moon in five more days we could have been watching a solemn memorial service.

In the meantime, the launch team continued the many tasks needed to bring the rocket to launch ready status. Starting on the evening of the 15th, the fueling task was begun(described in more detail here). The first stage of the rocket burned a kerosene/liquid oxygen mix and the millions of pounds of kerosene was loaded first. Later in the night/early morning of the 16th, they would begin filling the cryogenic tanks with liquid oxygen and hydrogen and maintain those at low pressure until just before liftoff.

Forty Years Ago Today IV

The terminal countdown for the launch of Apollo 11 began at 7:00 P.M. EDT on July 14, 1969 after a 16 hour scheduled hold. At that point, the mission was at T-28 hours. The hours don't add up because there were two more scheduled holds to come; 11 hours on the 15th and 1 hour 32 minutes on the morning of the 16th. It was a day for both the crew and the launch team to rest up for the final push:

July 14 - Countdown at 2

The Apollo 11 astronauts spent a quiet day at their moonport. Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins and Buzz Aldrin spent most of the day in the astronaut apartments at the Kennedy Space Center. Most of the Apollo launch team also took at least part of the day off for some rest. The Countdown was stopped for 16 hours -- as scheduled -- to allow a pause in the hectic preparations. In the "firing room" of the launch control center, fewer than 100 people kept watch over the giant rocket. That number would grow to 600 at blastoff time.

Much Ado About Nothing

I guess some on the left are going nuts over this:

Since 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency has developed plans to dispatch small teams overseas to kill senior Qaeda terrorists, according to current and former government officials.

The plans remained vague and were never carried out, the officials said, and Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, canceled the program last month.

I guess we are all supposed to be freaked out that Dick Cheney kept it from Congress. Well, there's a good reason right in that second paragraph there, "The plans remained vague...". Why would Democrats and the loony left be upset about not being informed of a concept that probably didn't reach the level of half-baked? Answer: For the Democrats it's a chance to play politics with national security and try to smear Dick Cheney with breaking the law. For the loony left it is a chance to indulge in their bizarre and paranoid fantasies about their favorite bogeyman, Dick Cheney of course.

Let's quickly look at the law. TITLE 50 > CHAPTER 15 > SUBCHAPTER III > § 413 says:

(a) Reports to Congressional committees of intelligence activities and anticipated activities

(1) The President shall ensure that the congressional intelligence committees are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity as required by this subchapter.

(2) Nothing in this subchapter shall be construed as requiring the approval of the congressional intelligence committees as a condition precedent to the initiation of any significant anticipated intelligence activity.

Note the "including any significant anticipated intelligence activity as required by this subchapter" in paragraph 1. Had the planning evolved into a workable and real program, one that was actually anticipated to be used, then the appropriate committees would need to be informed. If that Times story is accurate, and in this case it seems to be, then this is a story about nothing.

Forty Years Ago Today III

The anticipation continues to build:

July 13 - Countdown at 3

The Apollo 11 astronauts, in their final few days before going to the moon, eased up on their rigid training and did some "fun" flying. The crew started the day inside spacecraft trainers, but two of them broke away in the afternoon to sharpen their piloting skills above the flat Florida landscape. The Countdown for their historic lunar journey moved along smoothly through the day, still aimed at a 9:32 a.m. blastoff of the giant Saturn V rocket on Wednesday, July 16.

The Great Repression

Doug Ross has an email from an anonymous M&A specialist that is a depressing read, but offers anecdotal evidence supporting what I said the other day about the economy being hobbled by Obama's aggressive agenda. From that same post, a link to more anecdotes.

I also got the term "repression" for the title here from Doug's post and he attributes it to Mark Levin. It really is the perfect word for a self-imposed economic downturn, which is what we are now in I think, or very close to entering at least. Obama and the Democrats have their share of the blame along with Republicans for how we got where we are today, but they don't own it entirely. I think the current climate of fear however, is almost entirely due to the agendas that Democrats are pursuing right now.

The general assumption is that the economy will start improving next year. I don't have a better crystal ball than anyone else, but I'm a little skeptical of that. I think we are headed into a period of economic malaise that will make Jimmy Carter look brilliant in comparison and it's all going to be due to deliberate policies enacted by Congress and President Obama. They, in their hubris, think they can impose the "correct" kind of economy on America and that all will be well in the end. That thinking is going to get their collective ass kicked in the end. Unfortunately, it's going to kick our asses first.

You would think that we would have learned by now, but so it goes.

Before

And so it begins:

That's my front/side yard. From where I was standing, that sidewalk goes 180' to the railroad right-of-way. Before the city started hitting that with a sidewalk plow, and before I got a snowblower, I called that "The March from Moscow" when it needed to be shoveled after a snowfall.

There's not a whole lot of activity this morning, but the street is now closed to through traffic. I still haven't heard an estimate from the concrete subcontractor on doing the remaining eight feet of my front walk and the front steps. I'm getting a little nervous about that.

Snort

This is kind of amusing:

Future attorneys are taught in law school to never ask a witness a question they don't already know the answer to. On Saturday, CNN's Don Lemon learned this lesson the hard way.

Well after President Obama finished his speech in Ghana, Lemon was speaking live to correspondent Nkepile Mabuse who was reporting on location.

When Lemon asked whether the warm reception Obama received upon his arrival Friday was unprecedented, Mabuse caught him quite off guard with her response.

Here's the video:

It does look like the news that Bush was also just as warmly received when he traveled to Africa was a little startling to Lemon. Sheppard goes to write, "You get the feeling some producer didn't instruct Mabuse how to answer that question...", but I wonder if it isn't just the all too common phenomenon of blinders when it comes to George Bush. Anything positive about GW can only be grudgingly accepted, if it registers at all. I think that's why myths like "Iraq was only about WMDs" continue to persist. My experience has been, in dealing with people with those blinders, that when confronted with contrary information they will react with a vacant stare, or airy dismissal, or sometimes a vicious denial that seems to so border on psychotic that it's scary.

My bet is that Lemon knew, on some level, how Bush was received in Africa last year, it just didn't register. Whatever the reason, it's a little sad and amusing to see. Kudos to Mabuse for playing it straight though.

Forty Years Ago Today II

"On July 11 the astronauts went before Charles Berry for
a final health scrutiny, and were passed fit. Six miles away,
on the launch pad, the report was "no problems." Emphasising
the quickening tempo was the departure on July 12 of the
primary recovery ship, the USS Hornet ASW aircraft carrier,
from Pearl Harbour, to take up station in the Pacific and
await the splashdown of the command module, due on July 24." *

Filed Under WTF?

NYTimes columnist and GOP establishment sage David Brooks on politicians:

They’re guaranteed to invade your personal space, touch you. I sat next to a Republican senator once at dinner and he had his hand on my inner thigh the whole time. I was like, ehh, get me out of here.

No wonder the GOP establishment doesn't fight for the average American, they're such doormats that they can't even defend their own personal space.

David, that's one of the wimpiest things I've ever heard a grown man say...

...and you want to be my political pundit?

I don't think so.

(via RS McCain, who has the video of Brooks confessing)

I'd Pay $5/month...

...except for the fact that for a non-New Yorker like me, the product that matters sucks:

 July 9 (Bloomberg) -- New York Times Co. said in a survey of print subscribers that it’s considering a $5 monthly fee for access to its namesake newspaper’s Web site.

Times Co. also asked whether subscribers would be willing to pay a discounted fee of $2.50 a month for access to the site, in the poll confirmed today by Catherine Mathis, a company spokeswoman. Nytimes.com, the most visited among newspapers’ sites, is currently free.

Times Co. is contemplating additional sources of revenue as marketers slow spending on the Internet. Ad sales at the publisher’s sites, also including about.com and boston.com, fell 8 percent and 3.5 percent in the first quarter and fourth quarter of 2008 respectively. They gained 6.5 percent last year.

The New York Times could be the standard for excellence and objectivity in reporting, particularly on national news and international news that concerns America. Unfortunately, they are neither excellent nor objective in those areas. Sure, sometimes they pop out some good stories and not all of the reporters there are complete hacks. Overall though, and over time, reading the Times will leave a person dumber than when he started.

The problem is not that what they print is factually incorrect, usually, but in the natural filtering that news organizations do for their readers. I expect a newspaper to filter the news they present and to provide a reasonably complete synopsis of events. That is the value that they can provide to readers these days. I don't want to read thirty pages of transcript or watch thirty minutes of video to see what some politician or general said. The problem with the Times and news organizations in general, is that they have moved far away from objectivity in performing that service and have shot their credibility, at least with me. I've seen way too many times over the last few years, as the internet has allowed more and more access to source documents that I can read for myself, that the Times and others have been at best inaccurate and at worst dishonest in their coverage.

There are lots of factors hitting newspapers in the pocketbook these days. For me the issue is quality. I won't be subscribing to the Times online unless they actually deliver the product that they advertise, and then I think I would. I'd pay $5 or maybe even $10 per month for a quality news service online. Too bad the Times isn't one.

My Two Cents

What to do about the economy?

With unemployment already at 9.5 percent and likely to exceed 10 percent, much higher than White House officials predicted back in February, Mr. Obama has been facing attacks that his $787 billion stimulus program was either too timid or wrong-headed or both. Now, just five months after Congress agreed on the plan, with only a fraction of the money actually out the door, Washington is debating the need for a second round of stimulus amid economic and political crosscurrents.

I don't think an additional stimulus program is going to help. A lot of people are hunkered down right now and my feeling on why that is, based on what I've read and occasional discussions I've had with people, is that Obama's aggressive agenda is a big factor. Look at what is on the table right now:

Because its efforts have been broken into separate initiatives with different justifications, few people other than news junkies have noticed how extraordinary Barack Obama's agenda is. Perhaps a number will help: 35%. That is the aggregate percentage of United States GDP produced by the three industries that the Democrats hope to restructure from the top down: Health care (17% of GDP), energy (9.8% of GDP), and financial services (8% of GDP). Think about that.

Businesses large and small are scared to death of doing anything until they know how those things are going to shake out and how badly they may get hit with increased costs, mandates, and taxes. Then there are the enormous federal deficits and the possible consequences down the road from them.

The economy may have been able to handle debate on one of those issues this year, but not all three at the same time. It's just too much, regardless of what particular policies we are talking about. I think it's understandable that people are reluctant to hire or invest until they have a better handle on what the ground rules will be going forward. And depending on how those issues are resolved, many may not be in a position to hire until they have figured out how, or even if, they can absorb the increased costs that are almost a certainty.

Welcome to the Obama economy. 

Tuesday Notes

Mom is slated to get back to her house on Saturday now. I'm not entirely happy with how a few things have gone at the transitional care place, but I'll just be happy that she has progressed enough to get sprung in a few days. I know that she was in the best spirits in a long time today and more normal in strength and lucidity now that they are stepping her down from the narcotics.

The Twins begin a big series tonight at home against the Yankees. The Yankees have been hotter than the Twins lately and so I'll make no predictions here. The Twins got swept in four games at the new Yankee Stadium back in May. They lost four games by a total of five runs and three of them were 9th inning or later walk-offs by the Evil Empire. It was brutal. Both teams were struggling going into the series, but the Yankees emerged as the team that had gotten its act together. Now it's time to see if the Twins can do the same.

Robert S. McNamara passed away yesterday. I'm glad that I didn't do the post that first sprung to mind yesterday, me in my foul mood from getting bullshitted at mom's care conference. I'll wait until the man is buried before I say anything else, but I see shades of that "Best and Brightest" hubris at work today.

It occurred to me today that it has been remarkably quiet on the Brett Favre front. I know I've been distracted lately, but did I miss something big? It's quiet out there...too quiet.

I have lots of thoughts about our political culture and discourse these days. I can't seem to find a way to write them down without being angry. I had hoped that the election of Obama would have eased some of the vitriol and profound lack of integrity from some of the louder voices on the left, but that's not the case. Were those tactics that have become habit, or are they just showing what they have always been?

So, is it safe to watch the news now?

Weekend Update

I was going to go up north on Friday last week, but Sammy the Wonder Dog put a kink in my plans, starting Thursday night when she couldn't keep her dinner down. She didn't eat any food on Friday or on Saturday morning, though she was drinking water. I decided to stick at home until whatever was bothering her had passed or I knew what was going on. Long story short, passed was the operative word on Saturday. As in a mostly, but not entirely, intact little packet of peppers. You know the kind, what you get to shake on a pizza. A pizza like the one I got on Wednesday night. I didn't use those peppers and the packet must have fallen off the side of my desk when I ate the pizza. I'm guessing it had some sauce or grease on it and Sammy wolfed it down. Anyway, she appears to be ok today and ate her food this morning, and kept it down. This was not her first experience along these lines. At this stage, I just shake my head.

It was a nice Twins win today against the Tigers, 6-2. Nick Blackburn pitched his third complete game in his last four starts and is looking like the solid inning-chewing starter I had hoped he would be this year. The Twins overall have stepped it up a notch in the last month and have gone 7-3 over their last ten games, and won seven of their last eight series including five that were on the road. Starting on Tuesday, the Twins have three against the Yankees and three against the White Sox at home. After the All-Star break they go to Texas, Oakland, and get four at the Angels. They are only two games behind Detroit after today, and I think those next five series are going to make or break them as far as contending for the rest of the season. They can play with any of those teams right now, even the Yankees, if they play the solid ball I know they are capable of playing. 12-4 is probably too much to ask, but if they only manage 8-8 or worse, I think they are likely toast for this season. Even if they are only a handful of games behind, I think it will mean they just aren't going to gel into the team that they need to be to make the playoffs, or compete even if they do.

The obligatory weekly garden photo, whether you want it or not:

The radishes, onions, tomatoes, and peppers from the first planting are doing well. The beans are also, except for the ones the bunnies chowed on. They hammered the corn and carrots this week also. On the plus side, everything is emerging from the second planting last week. I think I'm going to start on a permanent fence solution this week. I think that liquid fence did work somewhat, but it doesn't last as long as I thought it would, and at $16 a bottle it is looking like it makes more sense to build a real fence around the garden. With guard towers and razor wire. Can you get land mines for rabbits?

More: Haha, we're a bit slow here. My tomato plants are still flowering and just producing fruit. Rob is already done.

Happy Independence Day

A little late, but better late than never. I hope you are having a great holiday weekend.