Former Vice President Dick Cheney aka The Penguin, hid a CIA program from congress according to CIA Director Leon Panetta who briefed Congress on the situation. The program, which according to sources began in 2001, has been shut down by Panetta. Withholding such information from Congress is illegal.
I missed blogging during my seven-month absence, but one reason I didn’t miss it as much as I otherwise might have is because of a sentiment perfectly summed up yesterday by an Andrew Sullivan reader: During the months that have passed since John McCain “tapped” Sarah Palin to be his running mate, I’ve had more and more trouble reconciling the… Read more »
Peggy Noonan has an unfortunate and well-documented history of doubletalk when it comes to Sarah Palin, but as last fall’s campaign wore on, the scales ultimately fell decisively from her eyes. Now, in her column today, she produces what I believe may be the seminal diss of Palin, explaining precisely and devastatingly why the unthoughtful, frivolous soon-to-be-ex-governor of Alaska “was… Read more »
As a Tolkien nut, but a relative non-“purist” when it comes to Peter Jackson’s brilliant movies, I’ve always felt that The Fellowship of the Ring is the best adaptation out of the three films, whereas The Return of the King is the best movie on its own merits. And to that I hold. But, re-watching the first half of Fellowship… Read more »
When it comes to buying a computer today, you pretty much have two choices for the Operating System (OS): the heavyweight champ Microsoft’s Windows, or the scrappy underdog Apple’s MacOS X. (Some people will try and tell you there is a third option called Linux; ignore them. They are nerds and for the most part they are wrong.) Well, that… Read more »
Tonight’s directly-overhead flyover by the International Space Station was as spectacular as promised. That thing is really bright now! Unfortunately, my efforts to photograph it were somewhat less spectacular. My SLR’s shutter problem has now evolved into a focus problem — it can fill the frame again, but autofocus is completely busted — and my hasty efforts at manually focusing… Read more »
Er, sort of. (Photos by greenpeaceusa09 on Flickr.)
If you’re like me, and you missed 12:34:56 7/8/09 in your time zone, here’s your chance to catch it again… in the Pacific Time Zone: UPDATE: Clock removed, because the hour has now passed. Here’s a screenshot for posterity:
There is a veritable marathon of flyovers by the International Space Station — brighter than ever, thanks to new solar panels added earlier this year — happening over the continental United States during the next several days. Definitely worth checking out. For local flyby times and magnitudes (lower numbers are brighter), check out SpaceWeather.com’s Simple Satellite Tracker, or for more… Read more »
Al Sharpton, to Michael Jackson’s kids: “There wasn’t nothing strange about your daddy.” Joe Mama, in comments: “It’s these kinds of reckless statements that risk tearing the very fabric of the space-time continuum, trapping all light and heat, and sucking a good part of Los Angeles into another dimension.” Heh. (Actually, if we take Sharpton’s use of the double-negative literally,… Read more »