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It looks like Gerhard is out....

I received this anonymous email:I just read an entry in your blog titled Kranz goes anti-military. Surely you DO BELIEVE THAT PARENTS HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW THEIR CHILD IS BEING TARGETED AND BRAINWASHED FROM THE 9TH GRADE UP FOR...

Romney stands by comments about Muslims

A while back the Chief posted here about Governor Mit Romney (R-MA) calling for increased surveillance in radical mosques to nip terrorism in the bud.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Massachusetts delivered a letter, which was co-signed by 21 other organizations, saying that Romney's comments characterized Muslims living in the U.S. as potential or actual terrorists.

Well, as expected the PC moonbat crowd from the ACLU to assorted Islamist groups got all hot and bothered and demanded retractions and an apology. So, what's a pol to do when faced with this sort of criticism? Back down? Waffle?

Usually so, but not in this case! In a more recent press conference:

Romney told reporters that he stood by his comments. "When it comes to protecting our citizens, there is no place for political correctness. We should be doing more in terms of intelligence and counterterrorism in the state to protect ourselves from terrorists. We spend a lot of our resources thinking about response, but response can't protect us. We have to be able to prevent attacks."

Talk about saying the unspeakable ut true!

Romney said that if U.S. intelligence officials have information that a person is "preaching messages of hate and terror," then there should be sufficient grounds to conduct surveillance on them in their places of worship. "Surely, we have to recognize that some of this has gone on in mosques in the past," Romney said. "Most mosques are teaching doctrines of love and consideration, but there have been places of extremism where certain teachers have been identified as having been involved in or led to terrorist attacks. Let's not pretend that's not the case."

This is really excellent, not only to highlight a potentially serious security issue, but then to NOT back down in the face of the usual barrage of politically correct complaints about having done so.

I don't watch much television that doesn't involve balls, pucks, and some method of keeping score, but couldn't resist tuning in to about five minutes of the Emmys last night. The only person I recognized in the time I was...

Switch of Radio Stations Signals Cards' Latest Break From Old St. Louis

The Chief grew up in St. Louis, and remembers laying in bed as a kid on hot muggy summer nights watching the glowing tubes of an old AM radio while listening to the Cardinals play on KMOX radio. Later on, while in college and working nights there were even more hours listening. Travel away from St. Louis, and even moving to South Dakota, KMOX and the Cardinals were an electromagnetic beacon carrying an emotional constant connection to the city on the river.

So now comes the word that the Cards are to bail out from the clear channel KMOX and go to a much smaller station. So much for listening to the games on the radio at night from the expatriate location up here on the northern plains.

This story in the WaPo does a truly excellent job of explaining the whole situation of the shift, and the response of St. Louis and the Cardinal fans to the changes. I suppose there is commercial wisdom, or at least advantage at work here, but it still leaves a hollow spot knowing that a life-long relationship is soon to become so much dust in the wind. Sic transit gloria mundi.

With a courage based on the proposition that, if I get it wrong no one will remember, and if I get it right, I can remind everyone that I'm brilliant, I confidently predict that John McCain will be the Republican...

Going Up?...all the way to Geosychronous Orbit

A couple of articles on a concept found in science fiction from Arthur C. Clarke and others: a tethered orbital elevator system! At first glance if one is unfamiliar with the concept it sounds like something from a hallucination - but the physics works, and with recent new developments in materials technology, the means are also now available.

The big advantage: CHEAP cost to orbit, especially compared to rocketry. Check these articles out: one from this weeks Sunday (London) Telegraph, and the other from none other than the big gorilla of the blogosphere hisself: Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds writing on Tech Central Station.

Click on image to enlarge. (Image from liftport.com)

Stairway to heaven

The race is on to build the first "space elevator' - long dismissed as science fiction - to carry people and materials into orbit along a cable thousands of miles long.

In a significant step, American aviation regulators have just given permission for the opening trials of a prototype, while a competition to be launched next month follows in the wake of the $10 million (£5.6 million) "X Prize'', which led to the first privately developed craft leaving the Earth's atmosphere, briefly, last year.

Folks, this isn't pie in the sky conceptualizing - it's going into the engineering phase - that's about as concrete as it gets!

Space Program: Looking Up

I've written here in the past about NASA's work on space elevators, and on the new leaner, meaner, prize-oriented approach favored by NASA Administrator Mike Griffin. Now there are some signs of real progress on a number of fronts. As I noted earlier, NASA was offering prizes for space elevator research. That's still going on, but there are some new studies suggesting that space elevators may be closer to practicality than previously thought.

Indeed!

Barbra Streisand is now declaring global emergencies. NEW YORK -- This summer's back to back superstorms are proof positive we have entered a new period of "global warming emergency," artist/citizen Barbra Streisand warns. Streisand is back on the scene to...

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