I’ve come across lots of interesting space-related items in the past few weeks (er, months), but I’ve been too busy or too preoccupied with other matters to mention any of them here, so I think it’s time for another exciting installment of… Drive-By Blogging!
(I’m thinking of turning this into a regular feature here at Simple Tricks, by the way. It seems like there are always many more items that I want to comment on than I ever manage to actually devote entire entries to. Sigh…)
Andrew Sullivan reminds us of the way things used to be:
“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is,” – George W. Bush, April 9, 1999, criticizing President Clinton for not setting a timetable for exiting Kosovo.
“I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn,” – George W. Bush, June 5, 1999.
Interesting how people change their tune, isn’t it?
As far as I can tell, the following proclamation is legit:
The Congress, by Public Law 85-529, as amended, has designated May 1 of each year as “Loyalty Day.” This Loyalty Day, and throughout the year, I ask all Americans to join me in reaffirming our allegiance to our Nation.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2007, as Loyalty Day. I call upon the people of the United States to participate in this national observance and to display the flag of the United States on Loyalty Day as a symbol of pride in our Nation.
Is it just me, or is there something seriously creepy about this? Doesn’t a holiday to “reaffirm our allegiance to our Nation” actually conflict with the spirit of the most American of all American holidays, the Fourth of July (a.k.a. Independence Day, when we celebrate a bunch of guys who were willing to reject allegiance to their Nation — the British Empire — when it became necessary)?
Here’s a follow-up to the previous entry, a video that looks like it was originally a news clip. It details the Japanese effort, shows how the technology works, and includes lots of footage of the prototype train racing along its 18-kilometer test track. The clip is several years old, and a little pessimistic on the funding issue, but it’s neat stuff…
[Update: I’ve found another one, a compilation of home-video clips shot by curious tourists, several of them from ground level, right alongside the track, so you can really get a sense of the speed and relative quiet of this machine. It’s on the other side of the break…]
Somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of the Bennion Archive, I’ve got a stack of old Science Digest magazines, a gift subscription my parents bought for me around 1982 or thereabouts. I keep meaning to have a look through them some mellow afternoon when I have nothing better to do, and I’ve even had thoughts of scanning the more interesting covers for my photo gallery, but naturally I never seem to find the time.
A long time ago, just before I started my freshman year of high school, I fell in love with the British TV series Doctor Who. You know, that ultra-low-budget sci-fi serial about a guy who time-travels in an old telephone booth (well, technically, a police box, but it’s still a variety of phone booth) and encounters all manner of bizarre creatures bent on destroying humanity and conquering the universe?
A few recent tidbits concerning that “save the chocolate” thing:
If anyone out there would like to know more about East Hollywood High School, that film-oriented charter school I mentioned a week or so ago, my buddy Mike Chenoweth just sent me a link to a nice write-up published today in the Davis County Clipper. It describes pretty thoroughly what the school is all about, quotes the Chenopup very liberally, and even features a photo of the man himself, just in case you like knowing what your fellow Loyal Readers look like. Go give it a read…
So, as long as we’re dwelling in Lucasland today, here’s the latest stuff I’ve heard about Indiana Jones IV:
Over the past ten years or so, George Lucas has seemed to go out of his way to alienate his own fan base. There were, of course, the Special Edition re-edits of the classic Star Wars trilogy, the myriad disappointments that accompanied the prequel trilogy, and the milking of our wallets with multiple home-video releases of the original films that still, somehow, never quite deliver what we actually want. But he’s also said a lot of offensive things, like his recent comment that he considers The Empire Strikes Back — generally seen by the fans as the best of the six Star Wars movies — to be the worst of the series. (I personally think this was probably not worth the uproar it provoked. I suspect it was a failed attempt at a joke, or something taken way out of context. Or maybe he just wanted to screw with our heads and he knew exactly which button to push.) The impression he often gives is that he’d be a lot happier if the whole Star Wars thing had never happened and he didn’t have any fans.
That’s why it was so surprising to read that he has offered official Lucasfilm support for the upcoming indie movie Fanboys, which follows the adventures of a group of Star Wars fans driving cross-country to steal a print of The Phantom Menace from Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch. George has also lent his approval and Lucasfilm’s assistance to a 30-minute Star Wars spoof for the animated cable series Robot Chicken (don’t feel bad, I’ve never heard of it either), going so far as to lend his voice to his own stop-motion likeness.
Could it be that Uncle George is finally gaining a sense of humor about this whole crazy thing? And that maybe, just maybe, now that the pressure of making the prequels is off, he’s even learning to appreciate his fans again? Anything’s possible… although I’ll be more inclined to believe it when I’m holding a DVD of the unrevised Star Wars in my clammy little fanboy hands…
(Incidentally, the trailer for Fanboys is online here. It looks pretty damn funny… and, in a show of cross-franchise solidarity, it even includes The Shat!)