yet another space tourist
Japanese entrepreneur Daisuke Enomoto will be the next visitor to pay his own way to the International Space Station.
Technorati Tags: Space, International Space Station
Friday, November 04, 2005
Charon gets some brothers
Charon gets some brothers
In all the excitement of revamping my blog and adding the Space Blogroll over the last few days, I missed this story: two more moons discovered orbiting Pluto.
The two moons, each somewhere between 45 and 160 kilometers in diameter (it is kind of hard to pin down, as they are 1/5000th of the brightness of Pluto's moon Charon; 23rd magnitude), were found using the Hubble Space Telescope. They are orbiting Pluto in circular orbits in the same plane as Charon, both about 44000 kilometers from Pluto. These moons carry the somewhat bland names of S/2005 P1 and S/2005 P2 for now, but will be named by their discoverers once the orbits are confirmed. Those names will then be submitted to the International Astronomical Union for official acceptance.
Technorati Tags: Space, Pluto
(hat tip to True Anomaly)
In all the excitement of revamping my blog and adding the Space Blogroll over the last few days, I missed this story: two more moons discovered orbiting Pluto.
The two moons, each somewhere between 45 and 160 kilometers in diameter (it is kind of hard to pin down, as they are 1/5000th of the brightness of Pluto's moon Charon; 23rd magnitude), were found using the Hubble Space Telescope. They are orbiting Pluto in circular orbits in the same plane as Charon, both about 44000 kilometers from Pluto. These moons carry the somewhat bland names of S/2005 P1 and S/2005 P2 for now, but will be named by their discoverers once the orbits are confirmed. Those names will then be submitted to the International Astronomical Union for official acceptance.
Technorati Tags: Space, Pluto
(hat tip to True Anomaly)
Thursday, November 03, 2005
sudoku (051103)
sudoku (051103)
Welcome to Thursday, and time once again for sudoku. Tuesday's was fairly easy; today's version is about medium-hard.
The rules of sudoku: The puzzle board consists of a 9 by 9 grid, which is further divided up into nine 3 by 3 blocks. In each row, column, and 3x3 block, the numbers 1 through 9 each get written exactly once. The puzzle board generally starts with 18 to 30 of the cells in the grid already filled in. For those who need help, a short tutorial on how to solve sudoku puzzles can be found here.
To solve this puzzle, I suggest first saving the GIF on your computer. Then print it out and solve it in pencil (or in pen if you're feeling bold), or if you don't feel like using paper, then solve it using a graphics editor such as Microsoft Paint.
If you solve this puzzle, time yourself and put your time in the comments. I will be posting the solution in a day or two. The winner receives a prize: front-row tickets to the French and Danish Islamic riots.
Update: The solution is here.
Technorati Tags: Sudoku
Welcome to Thursday, and time once again for sudoku. Tuesday's was fairly easy; today's version is about medium-hard.
The rules of sudoku: The puzzle board consists of a 9 by 9 grid, which is further divided up into nine 3 by 3 blocks. In each row, column, and 3x3 block, the numbers 1 through 9 each get written exactly once. The puzzle board generally starts with 18 to 30 of the cells in the grid already filled in. For those who need help, a short tutorial on how to solve sudoku puzzles can be found here.To solve this puzzle, I suggest first saving the GIF on your computer. Then print it out and solve it in pencil (or in pen if you're feeling bold), or if you don't feel like using paper, then solve it using a graphics editor such as Microsoft Paint.
If you solve this puzzle, time yourself and put your time in the comments. I will be posting the solution in a day or two. The winner receives a prize: front-row tickets to the French and Danish Islamic riots.
Update: The solution is here.
Technorati Tags: Sudoku
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
ESAS dogfight
ESAS dogfight
NASA released the Exploration Systems Architecture Study on September 19th. At the time, I actually had some good things to say about it (which is kind of surprising considering what I normally have to say about NASA).
The other day Dan Schrimpsher of Space Pragmatism weighed in with his comments on ESAS:
"Well for the executive summary, I am okay with it. Unlike many of my private space industry brothers, I don't think it is doomed to failure already. I think they could get to space, and with the right leadership (and I mean in the White House not in Griffin's seat) they could build colonies and launch Americans to Mars.
So why am I not jumping for joy and waving my arms. The problem is, it doesn't get me and my wife to space."
Jonathan Goff of Selenian Boondocks concurred:
"It's kind of amusing hearing people defend the ESAS project saying that it will get America back on the moon. No, it won't get America back on the moon. It'll get a few employees of the US government back to the moon, but most Americans have never gone to the moon a first time, let alone talk about "going back" to the moon.
And that's the real problem with this architecture. It really does nothing to help hasten the day when Dan, or his wife, or I, or any other normal Joe for that matter, will have a chance to visit or live on the moon. If commercial lunar access becomes a reality, it will become so in spite of ESAS, not becuase of it."
And Mark Whittington of Curmudgeons Corner disagreed:
"The fact of the matter is, no matter what scenario one can imagine, most people alive on this planet will not travel into space, no more than most people in Europe in the 17th and 18th Century traveled to the Americas. Put that fantasy out of your mind."
Mark is correct that most people alive today will not go into space; most people alive today will not come to America either. He goes a little overboard with this critique of Goff though:
"Let's leave aside the insults against those of us who have not drunk the alt.space koolaid. Those really demonstrate the poverty of the libertarian anarchist argument."
Pot, meet kettle.
In response to Dan's complaint that the new NASA vision implementation wouldn't get him and his wife into space, Mark says:
"I'm not sure why that is the case, as I'll explain later."
Mark does not however explain later on in his post how ESAS will get Dan and his wife into space, only vague assurances that in 50 years some people who are alive today will get to go. The crux of Mark's argument is:
"The purpose of the space program is not to get me and mine a trip to Club Moon but to spread human civilization beyond the Earth. If I get to go, fine. If not, sad for me but it doesn't matter in the large scale scheme of things."
The ESAS will not accomplish Mark's goal of spreading humanity to space. In the very best case scenario, it will send a handful of people to the moon, and will bring them back to earth.
Spreading human civilization is all very noble, but it simply is not going to happen as a result of sending a couple people up to the moon every few years and then returning them to earth a few days later. It will happen as a result of dozens, hundreds, thousands of people going up into space and not coming back.
What that means is not tiny capsules that can only bring four people at a time. That means the equivalent of ocean liners that transport hundreds or thousands of people at a time. In order for the VSE to mean anything in the long run, people other than NASA-vetted übermenchen will have to go. In other words, in order to meet Mark's goal of spreading human civilization, we have to get away from the space-is-expensive-and-only-governments-can-afford-it-and-only-a-select-few-can-go meme.
North America wasn't settled by those few rowboats carrying four people at a time, returning them to Europe after they had spent a week in North America. It was settled by hundreds of ships powered by steam or diesel fuel driving screw propellors, with hundreds of families huddled in the hold on every trip. And those people were not joyriding and expecting to return; often it required the entire life savings of those families to make a one-way trip.
It means a paradigm shift away from the Apollo-on-steroids version of space travel. Instead of tiny capsules perched atop massive rockets, boosting a handful of people into space at a time, supported by an army of tens of thousands of technicians and engineers, we have to find a way to send a large number of people using a much smaller team of enabling personnel on the ground. A new technology needs to be implemented to make space colonization a reality - and that new technology is a space elevator.
I can already hear the cries of "unobtainium!" True, the carbon nanotube ribbon required to build a space elevator is not available yet. However, carbon nanotube fiber has been following a version of Moore's Law of its own, increasing in length and strength by a factor of ten every year since the first millimeter-long brittle strand was produced five years ago. At the present rate of advancement in nanotube ribbon production, we will have the necessary material strength and necessary length to make a space elevator in about five to six years.
For the cost of developing the heavy lifter to be used in the VSE, a space elevator could be built instead, and be deployed by the time the first crewed CEV launches.
This is my main beef with the ESAS; it is not that Apollo-on-steroids won't work (I think it is a far better design than the space shuttle, for instance) - instead, the problem is that NASA didn't take the opportunity to do something truly revolutionary. They could have developed a system that would drop the cost to orbit (or to the moon) by four orders of magnitude. Instead, they have gone back to something that they already tried 40 years ago. NASA is planning on doing the equivalent of a 40-year-old man moving back into his mom's basement.
Update: Dan responds to Mark:
"And while I congratulate you on your altruism, I simply don't share it. You don't care if I get into space, you care if Americans in mass get into space. I would love that (if I was one of them). But you know what, I want to go to space. I am passionate about it. It is my greatest dream. And quite frankly I think you cheapen dreams in general to say my dream should be for western civilization and not personal. Real dreams only happen at the personal level. I bet all our space nut forefathers wanted, personally, to go to space. That is why they worked so hard to make it happen and why we are where we are today.
Okay that was a little bit of venting, but I believe the core of America is personal dreams, not the greater good. The greater good piggy-backs off of personal dreams. So no one should feel bad or selfish for their personal visions of anything, especially space flight."
Update 2: Jon Goff responds to Mark Whittington:
"Human civilization by any reasonable definition of the term is not going to be spread beyond earth by this program. At most a few dozen civil servants are going to go camp out on the moon for a few months at a time...NASA isn't around to give us all a vacation in space. It isn't here for our entertainment. What it should be here for (if it should be here at all) is to help promote the commercial development of space. That is the only way that "Western Civilization" is going to spread beyond the Earth. It isn't going to happen on ultra-expensive, low-flight-rate, government run and operated vehicles. It will only happen when commercial companies are routinely traveling about inside cislunar space, and some companies are making money doing things on the lunar surface, in orbit, and beyond."
Update 3: Rand Simberg weighs in here. Mark Whittington fires back at Jon Goff.
Update 4: The editors of The New Atlantis call for the shuttle program to be shut down even earlier than 2010, perhaps by the end of 2007. This would allow development of the heavy lift launcher to be begun earlier, and the heavy lifter could then launch the remaining components of the space station. This would serve three purposes: it would shorten the timetable for getting Americans back to the moon by three years, it would save the costs of maintaining the shuttle fleet for those three years, and finally it would lock NASA in to the Moon, Mars and Beyond program before President Bush leaves office (meaning that the next president would not have the option of extending the shuttle program, which would have ended a year before the next president takes office).
Technorati Tags: Space, NASA, Space Shuttle, Blog
NASA released the Exploration Systems Architecture Study on September 19th. At the time, I actually had some good things to say about it (which is kind of surprising considering what I normally have to say about NASA).
The other day Dan Schrimpsher of Space Pragmatism weighed in with his comments on ESAS:
"Well for the executive summary, I am okay with it. Unlike many of my private space industry brothers, I don't think it is doomed to failure already. I think they could get to space, and with the right leadership (and I mean in the White House not in Griffin's seat) they could build colonies and launch Americans to Mars.
So why am I not jumping for joy and waving my arms. The problem is, it doesn't get me and my wife to space."
Jonathan Goff of Selenian Boondocks concurred:
"It's kind of amusing hearing people defend the ESAS project saying that it will get America back on the moon. No, it won't get America back on the moon. It'll get a few employees of the US government back to the moon, but most Americans have never gone to the moon a first time, let alone talk about "going back" to the moon.
And that's the real problem with this architecture. It really does nothing to help hasten the day when Dan, or his wife, or I, or any other normal Joe for that matter, will have a chance to visit or live on the moon. If commercial lunar access becomes a reality, it will become so in spite of ESAS, not becuase of it."
And Mark Whittington of Curmudgeons Corner disagreed:
"The fact of the matter is, no matter what scenario one can imagine, most people alive on this planet will not travel into space, no more than most people in Europe in the 17th and 18th Century traveled to the Americas. Put that fantasy out of your mind."
Mark is correct that most people alive today will not go into space; most people alive today will not come to America either. He goes a little overboard with this critique of Goff though:
"Let's leave aside the insults against those of us who have not drunk the alt.space koolaid. Those really demonstrate the poverty of the libertarian anarchist argument."
Pot, meet kettle.
In response to Dan's complaint that the new NASA vision implementation wouldn't get him and his wife into space, Mark says:
"I'm not sure why that is the case, as I'll explain later."
Mark does not however explain later on in his post how ESAS will get Dan and his wife into space, only vague assurances that in 50 years some people who are alive today will get to go. The crux of Mark's argument is:
"The purpose of the space program is not to get me and mine a trip to Club Moon but to spread human civilization beyond the Earth. If I get to go, fine. If not, sad for me but it doesn't matter in the large scale scheme of things."
The ESAS will not accomplish Mark's goal of spreading humanity to space. In the very best case scenario, it will send a handful of people to the moon, and will bring them back to earth.
Spreading human civilization is all very noble, but it simply is not going to happen as a result of sending a couple people up to the moon every few years and then returning them to earth a few days later. It will happen as a result of dozens, hundreds, thousands of people going up into space and not coming back.
What that means is not tiny capsules that can only bring four people at a time. That means the equivalent of ocean liners that transport hundreds or thousands of people at a time. In order for the VSE to mean anything in the long run, people other than NASA-vetted übermenchen will have to go. In other words, in order to meet Mark's goal of spreading human civilization, we have to get away from the space-is-expensive-and-only-governments-can-afford-it-and-only-a-select-few-can-go meme.
North America wasn't settled by those few rowboats carrying four people at a time, returning them to Europe after they had spent a week in North America. It was settled by hundreds of ships powered by steam or diesel fuel driving screw propellors, with hundreds of families huddled in the hold on every trip. And those people were not joyriding and expecting to return; often it required the entire life savings of those families to make a one-way trip.
It means a paradigm shift away from the Apollo-on-steroids version of space travel. Instead of tiny capsules perched atop massive rockets, boosting a handful of people into space at a time, supported by an army of tens of thousands of technicians and engineers, we have to find a way to send a large number of people using a much smaller team of enabling personnel on the ground. A new technology needs to be implemented to make space colonization a reality - and that new technology is a space elevator.
I can already hear the cries of "unobtainium!" True, the carbon nanotube ribbon required to build a space elevator is not available yet. However, carbon nanotube fiber has been following a version of Moore's Law of its own, increasing in length and strength by a factor of ten every year since the first millimeter-long brittle strand was produced five years ago. At the present rate of advancement in nanotube ribbon production, we will have the necessary material strength and necessary length to make a space elevator in about five to six years.
For the cost of developing the heavy lifter to be used in the VSE, a space elevator could be built instead, and be deployed by the time the first crewed CEV launches.
This is my main beef with the ESAS; it is not that Apollo-on-steroids won't work (I think it is a far better design than the space shuttle, for instance) - instead, the problem is that NASA didn't take the opportunity to do something truly revolutionary. They could have developed a system that would drop the cost to orbit (or to the moon) by four orders of magnitude. Instead, they have gone back to something that they already tried 40 years ago. NASA is planning on doing the equivalent of a 40-year-old man moving back into his mom's basement.
Update: Dan responds to Mark:
"And while I congratulate you on your altruism, I simply don't share it. You don't care if I get into space, you care if Americans in mass get into space. I would love that (if I was one of them). But you know what, I want to go to space. I am passionate about it. It is my greatest dream. And quite frankly I think you cheapen dreams in general to say my dream should be for western civilization and not personal. Real dreams only happen at the personal level. I bet all our space nut forefathers wanted, personally, to go to space. That is why they worked so hard to make it happen and why we are where we are today.
Okay that was a little bit of venting, but I believe the core of America is personal dreams, not the greater good. The greater good piggy-backs off of personal dreams. So no one should feel bad or selfish for their personal visions of anything, especially space flight."
Update 2: Jon Goff responds to Mark Whittington:
"Human civilization by any reasonable definition of the term is not going to be spread beyond earth by this program. At most a few dozen civil servants are going to go camp out on the moon for a few months at a time...NASA isn't around to give us all a vacation in space. It isn't here for our entertainment. What it should be here for (if it should be here at all) is to help promote the commercial development of space. That is the only way that "Western Civilization" is going to spread beyond the Earth. It isn't going to happen on ultra-expensive, low-flight-rate, government run and operated vehicles. It will only happen when commercial companies are routinely traveling about inside cislunar space, and some companies are making money doing things on the lunar surface, in orbit, and beyond."
Update 3: Rand Simberg weighs in here. Mark Whittington fires back at Jon Goff.
Update 4: The editors of The New Atlantis call for the shuttle program to be shut down even earlier than 2010, perhaps by the end of 2007. This would allow development of the heavy lift launcher to be begun earlier, and the heavy lifter could then launch the remaining components of the space station. This would serve three purposes: it would shorten the timetable for getting Americans back to the moon by three years, it would save the costs of maintaining the shuttle fleet for those three years, and finally it would lock NASA in to the Moon, Mars and Beyond program before President Bush leaves office (meaning that the next president would not have the option of extending the shuttle program, which would have ended a year before the next president takes office).
Technorati Tags: Space, NASA, Space Shuttle, Blog
space cadets
I belong to a couple of blogrolls, such as the Red Ensign Brigade, LLP, and others. One thing that I would like to see is a similar blogroll of all the space bloggers. We could even have the Carnival of the Space Cadets or something like that.So, if you have a space blog and are interested in getting into such a blog roll, send me an email at spider_boris-at-yahoo.com, and I'll add you to the list. Make sure your email includes the name of your blog and the blog URL, and please put Space Blogroll in the subject line.
To display the Space Blogroll on your site, add the following script to your blog template (updated December 28, 2010):
To display the Space Blogs logo (158x158 pixels) above, include the following in your template:
Now, I already have a bunch of space blogs on my blogroll; if you find your blog already on the space blogroll, you don't have to do anything, but it sure would be nice if you would include the blogroll on your page.
If anyone comes up with a better button, then send me a link and I will put the code here on this post. The existing button points back to this post so anyone who wants to join the space blogroll only has to click on the button to find out what it is all about and how to get on board.
For instance, this button (200x164) was put together by Sector 4 Command. Here's the code for his version of the button: Afterthought: If you find that your blogrolls are getting very lengthy and want to see how I do the scrolling blogrolls in the sidebar, you can find the necessary code for that in the first text box above, all the stuff in the div statement.
yet more, added January 11,2011: The Space Blogroll by itself might be nice to have, but you may also be interested in the latest blog feeds or space news feeds, as I have in my current right sidebar. The code for those is as follows.
Latest Space Blog Feeds:
Latest Space News Feeds:
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Gomery Report Reaction
Gomery Report Reaction
Justice Gomery released the first part of his report to the public today. While he doesn't directly implicate Prime Minister Paul Martin in the report, one has to wonder just how competent PMPM is, if as Finance Minister and top Member of Parliament from Quebec he didn't even know what was going on in his department right under his nose.
First, from the blogs. Inexperienced political staffer Warren Kinsella is in full dudgeon. I'll change the link to a pseudo-permalink as his November archives become available on his blog. (Note to W.K.: it's the blogosphere dude, figure out permalinks one of these days willya?)
Angry in the Great White North is all over this, including reaction from the snivelling weenie Jack Layton. He also has thoughts on inexperienced political staffer Warren Kinsella, watches as Jean Chretien gets raked over the coals, and is at his sarcastic best here:
"Got it? Because inept and panicky Martin did not let the incorruptible RCMP quietly deal with this internal party matter that was well under control by the honest and cool Chretien, the country will break up.
When will Canadians learn to leave well enough alone when the likes of Chretien and Kinsella are running the place? See what sort of trouble we get ourselves into when we dare ask questions?"
Kate at Small Dead Animals asks where the Minister for Democratic Renewal, Belinda! is and points us to this article by Greg Weston, which praises whistleblower Allan Cutler and an anonymous Montreal advertising executive, who first raised the red flags about the Sponsorship Program.
Jason at Back Off Government shows no surprise. He even predicted the headline an hour before the report was issued, and it looks like he could be right.
Now for the big media outlets' response. From CNN.com:
"Canada's former prime minister, Jean Chretien, shares the blame for a government scandal laced by greed, incompetence, carelessness and venality, but Prime Minister Paul Martin, a fellow Liberal, is off the hook, an official report said on Tuesday.
The report of an inquiry into a deeply flawed government advertising program to promote Canadian unity also said senior Liberal officials in French-speaking Quebec had engaged in an elaborate kickback scheme and in illegal campaign financing.
...
Stephen Harper, leader of the official opposition Conservatives, said Martin -- who was finance minister at the time of the scandal -- had no option but to resign."
From the CBC:
Martin forwards report to RCMP
Gomery blames Chrétien for sponsorship flaws
Harper, Duceppe call for quick election
From CTV:
Gomery's first report lays blame with Chretien
My take on all of this? If the Liberals don't receive a Campbellesque thrashing at the polls in the next election, then Canada is finished.
Update: Angry White Males says that Martin was not exonerated due to the restricted nature of the scope of the Gomery Inquiry. Hey Sean McCormick, when are you going to provide a script so that I can post your cartoon in my blog?
Also, Dust My Broom has a summary of the report. And Instapundit weighs in, briefly.
Update 2: Dust My Broom examines the part of the Gomery report dealing with the $3 million in Sponsorship funds sent to the RCMP, of which only $1.7 million actually arrived.
Rootleweb calls Jean Chretien a liar. CTV reports that Chretien will challenge the Gomery report in court.
Update 3: Stephen Taylor liveblogged reaction from Parliament Hill, and directly asked Jean Chretien:
"Mr. Chretien, how will this affect your golf game?"
Yes, I heckled the former Prime Minister as he arrived to give perhaps the most serious press conference of his life and it got a good response from the press waiting out in the cold. Chretien bowed his head and grimaced as he walked into the building without a word. I guess that this perhaps one advantage of being a blogger instead of a full fledged member of the mainstream media; you get to rip into politicos when they deserve it while not risking your media clout.
The Conservative Hipster figures that Gomery's report won't matter - that nobody will care. The Freeway to Serfdom concurs, and says that the money wasn't stolen through the sponsorship program, but that the theft occured much earlier, when it left the pockets and bank accounts of Canadians in the first place.
(sarcasm)Mike at the London Fog predicted that the report would be completely impartial.(/sarcasm)
Update 4: The Phantom Observer takes a close look at Chapter 16 of the report, which deals with the specifics of who was to blame for the problems with the sponsorship program. He sees the Bloc Quebecois as the big winners here, and some opportunities for the Conservatives too, if they play their cards right.
Update 5: Calgary Grit also blogged on the Gomery report throughout the day and collected the net reaction.
Update 6: Kate has some fun at the expense of the RCMP.
Technorati Tags: Politics, Canada
Justice Gomery released the first part of his report to the public today. While he doesn't directly implicate Prime Minister Paul Martin in the report, one has to wonder just how competent PMPM is, if as Finance Minister and top Member of Parliament from Quebec he didn't even know what was going on in his department right under his nose.
First, from the blogs. Inexperienced political staffer Warren Kinsella is in full dudgeon. I'll change the link to a pseudo-permalink as his November archives become available on his blog. (Note to W.K.: it's the blogosphere dude, figure out permalinks one of these days willya?)
Angry in the Great White North is all over this, including reaction from the snivelling weenie Jack Layton. He also has thoughts on inexperienced political staffer Warren Kinsella, watches as Jean Chretien gets raked over the coals, and is at his sarcastic best here:
"Got it? Because inept and panicky Martin did not let the incorruptible RCMP quietly deal with this internal party matter that was well under control by the honest and cool Chretien, the country will break up.
When will Canadians learn to leave well enough alone when the likes of Chretien and Kinsella are running the place? See what sort of trouble we get ourselves into when we dare ask questions?"
Kate at Small Dead Animals asks where the Minister for Democratic Renewal, Belinda! is and points us to this article by Greg Weston, which praises whistleblower Allan Cutler and an anonymous Montreal advertising executive, who first raised the red flags about the Sponsorship Program.
Jason at Back Off Government shows no surprise. He even predicted the headline an hour before the report was issued, and it looks like he could be right.
Now for the big media outlets' response. From CNN.com:
"Canada's former prime minister, Jean Chretien, shares the blame for a government scandal laced by greed, incompetence, carelessness and venality, but Prime Minister Paul Martin, a fellow Liberal, is off the hook, an official report said on Tuesday.
The report of an inquiry into a deeply flawed government advertising program to promote Canadian unity also said senior Liberal officials in French-speaking Quebec had engaged in an elaborate kickback scheme and in illegal campaign financing.
...
Stephen Harper, leader of the official opposition Conservatives, said Martin -- who was finance minister at the time of the scandal -- had no option but to resign."
From the CBC:
Martin forwards report to RCMP
Gomery blames Chrétien for sponsorship flaws
Harper, Duceppe call for quick election
From CTV:
Gomery's first report lays blame with Chretien
My take on all of this? If the Liberals don't receive a Campbellesque thrashing at the polls in the next election, then Canada is finished.
Update: Angry White Males says that Martin was not exonerated due to the restricted nature of the scope of the Gomery Inquiry. Hey Sean McCormick, when are you going to provide a script so that I can post your cartoon in my blog?
Also, Dust My Broom has a summary of the report. And Instapundit weighs in, briefly.
Update 2: Dust My Broom examines the part of the Gomery report dealing with the $3 million in Sponsorship funds sent to the RCMP, of which only $1.7 million actually arrived.
Rootleweb calls Jean Chretien a liar. CTV reports that Chretien will challenge the Gomery report in court.
Update 3: Stephen Taylor liveblogged reaction from Parliament Hill, and directly asked Jean Chretien:
"Mr. Chretien, how will this affect your golf game?"
Yes, I heckled the former Prime Minister as he arrived to give perhaps the most serious press conference of his life and it got a good response from the press waiting out in the cold. Chretien bowed his head and grimaced as he walked into the building without a word. I guess that this perhaps one advantage of being a blogger instead of a full fledged member of the mainstream media; you get to rip into politicos when they deserve it while not risking your media clout.
The Conservative Hipster figures that Gomery's report won't matter - that nobody will care. The Freeway to Serfdom concurs, and says that the money wasn't stolen through the sponsorship program, but that the theft occured much earlier, when it left the pockets and bank accounts of Canadians in the first place.
(sarcasm)Mike at the London Fog predicted that the report would be completely impartial.(/sarcasm)
Update 4: The Phantom Observer takes a close look at Chapter 16 of the report, which deals with the specifics of who was to blame for the problems with the sponsorship program. He sees the Bloc Quebecois as the big winners here, and some opportunities for the Conservatives too, if they play their cards right.
Update 5: Calgary Grit also blogged on the Gomery report throughout the day and collected the net reaction.
Update 6: Kate has some fun at the expense of the RCMP.
Technorati Tags: Politics, Canada
sudoku (051101)
sudoku (051101)
It's Tuesday, so time once again for sudoku. After the brutal Saturday sudoku, all of you faithful numerological puzzle addicts deserve a break - hence, today's relatively easy puzzle.
The rules of sudoku: The puzzle board consists of a 9 by 9 grid, which is further divided up into nine 3 by 3 blocks. In each row, column, and 3x3 block, the numbers 1 through 9 each get written exactly once. The puzzle board generally starts with 18 to 30 of the cells in the grid already filled in. For those who need help, a short tutorial on how to solve sudoku puzzles can be found here.
To solve this puzzle, I suggest first saving the GIF on your computer. Then print it out and solve it in pencil, or if you don't feel like using paper, then solve it using a graphics editor such as Microsoft Paint.
Or, you could just get a sheet of paper and copy out the puzzle. If you're really adventurous, solve it in ink. Or crayon. Solving it in blood is not recommended, as it is difficult to write legibly in hemoglobin, and almost impossible to erase mistakes ("Out! Out! damn spot!").
If you solve this puzzle, time yourself and put your time in the comments. I will be posting the solution in a day or two. The winner receives a prize: their very own electronic copy of the Gomery Adscam report. With headings in expensive boldface. And as an added bonus, italics.
Update: the solution is here.
Technorati Tags: Sudoku
It's Tuesday, so time once again for sudoku. After the brutal Saturday sudoku, all of you faithful numerological puzzle addicts deserve a break - hence, today's relatively easy puzzle.
The rules of sudoku: The puzzle board consists of a 9 by 9 grid, which is further divided up into nine 3 by 3 blocks. In each row, column, and 3x3 block, the numbers 1 through 9 each get written exactly once. The puzzle board generally starts with 18 to 30 of the cells in the grid already filled in. For those who need help, a short tutorial on how to solve sudoku puzzles can be found here.To solve this puzzle, I suggest first saving the GIF on your computer. Then print it out and solve it in pencil, or if you don't feel like using paper, then solve it using a graphics editor such as Microsoft Paint.
Or, you could just get a sheet of paper and copy out the puzzle. If you're really adventurous, solve it in ink. Or crayon. Solving it in blood is not recommended, as it is difficult to write legibly in hemoglobin, and almost impossible to erase mistakes ("Out! Out! damn spot!").
If you solve this puzzle, time yourself and put your time in the comments. I will be posting the solution in a day or two. The winner receives a prize: their very own electronic copy of the Gomery Adscam report. With headings in expensive boldface. And as an added bonus, italics.
Update: the solution is here.
Technorati Tags: Sudoku
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)