I'm not sure why they want to do this. The goal is to study the composition of an asteroid, but can't that be done by landing a lightweight probe on an asteroid and having it take a few core samples?

Well, we're lassoing an asteroid and sending it hurtling towards earth. They say this should not be a worry, because an asteroid of the size they're looking for -- less than 25 feet in diameter -- is small enough to completely burn up in earth's atmosphere, should the worst happen.

Okay, I get that. I trust their calculations. But $100 million? I suppose that, given the very real possibility of a celestial hammer smashing into the earth at some point, we could use a bit of technical practice at lassoing and redirecting objects in space.

I don't know.

Isn't there a sequester or something? I thought I heard that.

Anyway:

NASA unveiled a $17.7 billion spending plan for 2014 today (April 10) that continues major ongoing space exploration projects, while including funds to kick-start an audacious new mission to capture a small asteroid and park it near the moon so astronauts can explore it by 2025.

The proposed NASA budget is part of President Barack Obama's 2014 federal budget request and would restore the U.S. space agency's funding back near its 2012 levels. The request is about $50 million less than NASA's last budget in 2012, but would restore deep cuts from sequestration, leaving the agency with a roughly $1 billion increase from the $16.6 billion spending bill the agency received for 2013.

NASA's plan to send a robotic spacecraft to lasso an asteroid and tow it to the moon is a stand-out item in the 2014 budget request. The goal is to capture an asteroid and bring it closer to Earth so that a manned mission can explore the space rock by 2025 — a major U.S. spaceflight goal set by Obama in 2010.

Yeah, no. I don't want. Send a probe-robot (probot?) to mine an asteroid of some cores and such. This just seems like bureaucratic make-spend.

This whole thing with manned spaceflight, making up reasons why humans, rather than robots, must perform these tasks, is just a very expensive PR effort by NASA. The fact is, from the first days of the exploration in space, man's presence in the capsules was largely for PR and for bragging rights. But most of this stuff can be done by robots, computers, and telemetry.

There's no reason why actual humans would have to lay actual hands on a space-rock. This is just something dreamed up to hopefully "light the fire to public imagination" and keep NASA's budget at its current levels.

It doesn't light the fire to my imagination. Falsehoods usually don't. I am in great favor of space exploration, but not this nonsense designed to make children excited to see astronauts.

Real exploration is purposeful exploration, not crap made up for some corporate PR agenda.

Corrected: NASA's total 2014 budget is $17.7 billion. This particular item is only budgeted at $100 million ("only"), but then, that's just a "kickstart" to the program.

The full cost will be...

In all, NASA could spend up to $2.6 billion on the asteroid-capture mission through 2025...

Still pretty high. I just don't see the advantage of doing this, apart from being able to say "we did this." Sure, send a probot and get some canisters of space-rock to send back home for analysis. But this just seems daffy.

Thanks to commenters!

Posted by: Ace at 12:45 PM | Comments (526)
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Guarantee: They'll be merely given a warning.

According to Jacob Conway of the Jefferson County Democratic Party, Shawn Reilly and Curtis Morrison bragged about having made the tape. "They were in the hallway after the, I guess after the celebration and hoopla ended, apparently these people broke for lunch and had a strategy meeting, which is, in every campaign I've been affiliated with, makes perfect sense," Conway told WFPL in Louisville. He added "One of them held the elevator, the other one did the recording and they left. That was what they told to me from them directly."

So, if these guys were bragging to near-strangers about the crime, what are the odds they didn't give the details to Mother Jones? They didn't seem to think much of implicating themselves in illegality.

I suspect Mother Jones coached them into giving a false version of it, so that Mother Jones could claim it was their "understanding" that no crime had been committed.

Just today the Washington Post claimed that Mother Jones had "struck gold" with this nothingburger -- and now definitely criminal -- illegal bugging.

Expect the left to rally 'round the pair, and tell us all how they're just committed idealists who made a tiny error in their zealous pursuit of The Truth.

James O'Keefe, who I believe is still on probation and requires judge approval to leave New Jersey, might have something to say about that.

I wonder what words the media will use for these two criminals. I think "spirited," "idealistic," and "perhaps too daring by half" will be in the mix.

Posted by: Ace at 11:49 AM | Comments (225)
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Fairly radical stuff. I suppose a lot of black college students adopt a militant, radical posture, but then, I'm not sure if I want that sort of person lecturing me about politics.

I wonder if kids have to get permission signed from their parents if Toure speaks at their school.

Here are a few tidbits.

MSNBC host Touré founded a student newspaper dedicated to black liberation theology while he was a college student attending Emory University from 1989 to 1992.

Touré’s flagship publication, The Fire This Time, lavished praise on famous anti-Semites, black supremacists, and conspiracy theorists whom Touré helped bring to campus. Before he became an intense-but-sardonic TV personality, Touré also decried “the suffocating white community” and defended a nationally famous fake hate crime.

Toure continues pushing conspiracy theories; he's a 9/11 Truther.

Here's that hate-crime part:

Touré devoted his most intense passion for a fake episode, “the most celebrated of all the race-charged events Emory has seen.” Sabrina Collins, a black freshman at Emory, reported in March 1992 that a dormitory had been vandalized and racist words written on her walls. The news made national attention. Touré and others protested for television cameras. Collins said the event had traumatized her.

Six months later Collins admitted the entire dorm vandalism story was a hoax.

But Touré continued to defend Collins’ allegations after she retracted them. “In the aftermath,” Touré wrote in The Fire This Time, “THE POSSIBILITY THAT COLLINS HERSELF PERPETRATED THE CRIME HAS SEEMED TO MINIMIZE THE INCIDENT’S IMPORTANCE. IN ANALYZING THE EVENT’S IMPORTANCE TO EMORY, IT IS NOT AT ALL IMPORTANT IF COLLINS DID IT.” (Emphasis added by Touré.)

ALL CAPS ARE A SIGN OF MENTAL WELLNESS.

Radicals and idiots said that after the Tawana Brawley and Duke Lacrosse hoaxes, too -- that it doesn't matter if it really happened or not, it still illustrates something profound and we should still treat it as real.

Touré went on to insist the incident be used to leverage a list of demands against the university, “including instituting an African American studies class as a distribution requirement.” Touré continued to blame Emory for not doing enough to raise the “consciousness“ of white students. “White students largely scoffed at the demands [from Touré’s group], even with TV cameras in their faces and the university added none of the demands to Emory life.”

The article concludes by suggesting the possibility that Toure might feel as if he has something to prove -- growing up, as he did, in a privileged mostly-white environment and attending a tony boarding school.

Posted by: Ace at 11:36 AM | Comments (139)
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We need a serious house-cleaning.

I'm really tired of this.

Doubtless there would be no such hurdles for any Democrat.

But government employees --people paid by taxpayers -- are now essentially branding conservative speech to be pornography. Though I doubt there's nearly as much fretting in the Board of Education about actual porn.

Students at Grosse Pointe South High School will get to hear Rick Santorum speak after all — as long as they have signed permission slips from their parents.

I am so tired of this.

They are actually attempting to make us Second Class citizens as a matter of law, and then they'll tell themselves that we're the "uncivil haters."

Posted by: Ace at 10:43 AM | Comments (300)
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Instapundit linked this interesting observation about the beliefs elites have about the people "beneath them" (in their minds). You will not be shocked to learn they don't think much of us.

This observation is specifically about elite feelings about how plebians will behave in moments of disaster -- such as in Hurricane Katrina. However, I'd suggest a broader reading than that. I think this applies to how they view us generally.

It's not just about fearing how we'll behave during an earthquake; it's about fearing how we'll behave if the Wrong Information comes into our hands. Things that might excite us and make us all crazy.

Elites tend to believe in a venal, selfish, and essentially monstrous version of human nature, which I sometimes think is their own human nature. I mean, people don't become incredibly wealthy and powerful by being angelic, necessarily. They believe that only their power keeps the rest of us in line and that when it somehow shrinks away, our seething violence will rise to the surface -- that was very clear in Katrina. Timothy Garton Ash and Maureen Dowd and all these other people immediately jumped on the bandwagon and started writing commentaries based on the assumption that the rumors of mass violence during Katrina were true. A lot of people have never understood that the rumors were dispelled and that those things didn't actually happen; it's tragic.

But there's also an elite fear -- going back to the 19th century -- that there will be urban insurrection. It's a valid fear. I see these moments of crisis as moments of popular power and positive social change.

I think this is how the elites -- God, how I despise that term, as it gives complement to mediocrity; let me try again. I think this is how those who imagine themselves to be elite justify their complete embargo on the Kermit Gosnell serial-murder trial.

People who do evil generally don't imagine they're doing evil. In fact, some of the worst evils are perpetrated by those who've convinced themselves they're doing good. One's conscience tends to restrain one from evil; but if one can trick one's conscience into thinking one's doing good by doing evil, well. Then you've really got something.

I imagine the media believes it's "doing good" by being so cautious about What Truths the Public Is Capable of Hearing. After all, if this Gosnell trial were publicized, people would Get Angry, and come to All the Wrong Conclusions, and put the allies of those in the media (such as NARAL and Planned Parenthood) on the defensive.

Hell, these maniacs might even get in into their skulls to hurt people!

Well, we can't have that. We can't let the Wrong Kind of Information -- true information, but the sort of information the non-enlightened may be confused about -- passing into the Wrong Kinds of Brains.

Thus, this embargo on the Gosnell story is not just partisan bias, fronting for the Democrats by refusing to mention anything that might be used as a wedge issue against them.

No, this embargo is done for the Public Good, even if the public is too stupid to understand that. If the public heard about these things... Well, that's not gonna happen. Not on our watch.

It's been occurring to me lately that much media behavior is explainable by this prism. They don't want to report certain facts, not because the facts aren't true (they're facts by definition), but because they're Concerned About The Capacity of Non-Journalists to Successfully Interpret These Facts.

And they justify this to themselves by conceiving themselves as Angels guarding the outer doors of Hell itself, with millions of slavering monsters just beyond the gate.

By deliberately misleading the public, you see, they're protecting the world.

From us.

They have taken the exact opposite side of the proposition this nation was founded upon. Far from a well-informed citizenry being necessary for a free democracy, they've decided a well-informed citizenry is a deadly threat to it.

Don't worry, though. They're working their level-best to end that threat.

Posted by: Ace at 10:13 AM | Comments (150)
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The vote just ended. It now goes for a vote in the full Senate, where it will easily pass on the strength of the Democratic majority alone, nevermind the Republican fence-jumpers.

Posted by: Ace at 07:37 AM | Comments (372)
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All along people willing to entertain the prospect of a compromise have insisted on one, and only one, thing: No more. We'll consider a compromise provided that border security is improved. We'll consider an amnesty, so long as this is the last amnesty we ever have to entertain.

But the left will simply not agree to this, under any circumstances.

The current bill establishes goals for border security. What happens if those goals aren't met? Which, by the way, they won't be?

Well then we'll have a "bipartisan commission" to advise DHS on how to straighten it all out.

Allah asks:

If there’s one thing you can count on in Washington, it’s a bipartisan commission succeeding where all else has failed. Question one: If the Gang thinks DHS is so likely to fail at enforcement (which, in fairness, it is) that they’re already providing money for an emergency commission to help rescue it after five years, why not just establish the commission now? Or better yet, why not hold a bunch of hearings right now to pick the brains of “officials from border states and other experts” so that DHS has the expertise it needs before a bill is passed? You know why: The longer the process drags out, the more skittish key constituencies will get about the bill and the greater the risk will be that it’ll fail. (That’s why Pat Leahy and Democrats don’t want more than a single token hearing after the recess in early May.) Installing a commission after five more years of security failures sounds to me like something designed to take political heat off of DHS rather than something that’ll help significantly with border improvements. Without the commission, the public would grow restless after five years and demand explanations from Homeland Security on why they can’t tighten the border even with a bipartisan congressional mandate. The Gang’s anticipating that and, to head off the restlessness, providing a preemptive “solution.” No need to panic if DHS is dragging its feet. There’ll be a commission by 2018 to “help” them out, i.e. buy them another five years of public patience to see if they can make any headway at the border.

There is no compromise at all here -- the left gets what it wants, and agrees to entertain our concerns five years hence. Why would they be more amenable to border security in five years, when they've gotten all they wanted out of us, than they are now, when they haven't yet?

If they were going to agree to these things then, why can't they agree to them now?

Simple answer: They have no intention of agreeing to them five years from now. This is a con.

The Democrats are conning the Republicans, but that's business-as-usual and I can't even call it that objectionable. They're supposed to con Republicans into laws.

But what of the Republican office-holders conning their constituents that genuine border security is provided for in this bill? That is objectionable.

This sort of mechanism -- putting off discussion into the future while proposing some kind of "bipartisan commission" to resolve issues -- may be a useful ploy to paper over minor complaints that are holding up a deal in which all major disagreements have been resolved, but not for putting off discussion of the major disagreements themselves.

But this is an issue we require firm answers on, now. We should not leave it to five years hence to decide if we're going to enforce the border or not. (We won't, by the way.)

The left -- and the political elite generally -- are fond of saying "we have to be willing to discuss issues."

Well, let's discuss the issue of border security, then. And discuss it now, not five years from now in a toothless bipartisan commission empowered to do nothing more than advise.

Posted by: Ace at 08:19 AM | Comments (300)
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Everyone seems aware of CNN's partisan affiliation and ideological leanings except, according to their claims, CNN itself.

The pro-gun-control left should thank CNN. And CNN should accept their gratitude. They are allies. Why continue this charade?

Tuesday, CNN came out of the closet with an open declaration that "The Most Trusted Name In News" would use two full days of programming as a propaganda push for legislation tightening background checks. CNN has been so good about keeping that promise that this morning a pro-gun control Senator thanked a CNN anchor for his support.

Wednesday morning on "Starting Point," anchors John Berman and Christine Roman hosted Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), one of the two senators responsible for the compromise legislation on background checks.

...

And then, appropriately enough, the segment ended with Manchin thanking Berman for his support:

Berman: Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia, you've been working around the clock for a compromise deal. I think you have a very busy few weeks ahead of you still.

Manchin: We appreciate your support, too, this is very, very important.

Posted by: Ace at 05:52 AM | Comments (400)
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The American media, much more than foreign media, protects the image of the left by simply refusing to report their bad behavior.

If I only knew about the right and the left from the American media, I might hate us too, and I might assume the left was entirely civil and well-behaved and devoid of hatred as well.

But it's not so.

The BBC is facing a difficult decision about whether it should play a Wizard Of Oz track which has had a surge of popularity in the wake of Baroness Thatcher's death.

An online campaign has driven sales of the song - today midweek placings released by the Official Charts Company show Judy Garland's Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead is now at number 10.

The corporation will now have to decide if they will play the 1939 tune during Radio 1's top 40 countdown when places are finalised at the weekend.

...

t is also currently at number two in the iTunes download chart.

While Apple of course serves iTunes to the world, I don't think you can get to number 2 without a substantial amount of commerce from America.

It should be noted that leftist British papers like the Guardian are reporting this as well.

In America, this would just be embargoed entirely, like the Kermit Gosnell trial.

Posted by: Ace at 05:09 AM | Comments (188)
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Happy Thursday.

I'm hearing that the cybersecurity bill is something that we really do not want made law.

Jeri Wright was indicited for money laundering and lying to investigators. That's Obama's former pastor's daughter.

If you happened to DVR Red Eye last night, I'm told that Ace gets a shout-out somewhere in last night's show.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:49 AM | Comments (333)
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