Jim Tressel Resigns

I got the news on Twitter last night (of course).

And a good read on this, from Chris Dufresne, at LAT, "Ohio State's Jim Tressel dug himself into a hole with handling of scandal":

Hubris is part of the plague of being one of the most powerful people in town, as Tressel was in Columbus. Control freaks think they can control things. Control freaks with power think they can control everything.

Tressel's 106 wins in 10 years, 2002 national title and 9-1 record vs. Michigan made him virtually unimpeachable.

It must have made him think he didn't need to disclose NCAA violations even as he signed a "certificate of compliance" form in September certifying he knew of no violations in his program.

That was grounds right there for his dismissal.

Tressel kept lips zipped in December when the violations became public. He stood by as his players took five-game suspensions for the 2011 season.

His lie was the worst kind — confessed only when discovered by canvassing his emails.

Not only did Tressel know of the violations, having been tipped by Columbus attorney Chris Cicero, he forwarded the information to one of the player's mentors.

You'd think the adults couldn't mess it up more than that, but they did.

RTWT.

So Respectable: Paris Hilton Eager to Shed Party-Girl Image

At LAT, "Paris Hilton's higher aims":

When you're sitting in Paris Hilton's living room, plenty of things catch your attention. The half-dozen dogs, three Munchkin cats (bred to have absurdly miniature legs), and one 150-pound pot-bellied pig sashaying around the backyard pool. The Pepto-Bismol-pink Maserati in the driveway, next to the powder-blue Maserati. The throw pillows emblazoned with pictures of her famous face. The two gigantic nudes of herself on opposing walls, displayed above gold-trimmed couches.

But it's the voice — that's the thing that stands out most when you sit down for a talk with Paris Hilton. It's mature. Deep, even. "Yeah, I have a normal voice," Hilton said. "That's the one thing people say when they meet me. That I don't speak like I do on TV. I don't speak like a baby."

Poised and perfectly coiffed, with long, white-blond extensions tumbling below thin shoulders, the hotel heiress is promoting her latest reality series (her third, for those keeping track). "The World According to Paris" airs Wednesday on Oxygen, a basic-cable channel that targets women and is owned by NBC. It's pitched as being different from anything else she's done because this is, as Hilton puts it, "the real" her.

"I wanted to get at this whole spoiled-heiress perception," said the great-granddaughter of hotelier Conrad Hilton. "There are a lot of heirs out there that don't work because they don't have to. That's not me. I've had success on my own. I bought this house myself, I've bought every car I own. It's all me and my hard work."

More at the link above.

Sociology and Other 'Meathead' Majors

From Harvey Mansfield, at Wall Street Journal (and here, in case it's behind the paywall).

Substituting "political science" for "economics" at the essay also works. (Recall this post.)

David Horowitz: 'The Totalitarians Within'

At FrontPage Magazine:

On May 11, 2011, I spoke to a student audience at UCLA for about an hour. My speech was video-taped and recorded on audio. Frontpage Magazine posted the video and an edited transcript of the speech. We are now posting an unedited transcript (accessible here) for reasons I will make clear in a moment.

On May 24, the Undergraduate Students Association at UCLA, by a 10-0 vote passed a resolution proposed by the Muslim Students Association declaring that “UCLA is a UC Campus Against Islamophobia.” I don’t mean to suggest that my appearance was the sole trigger of this resolution but it didn’t surprise me to find that among the numerous “Whereas” clauses in which the reasons for the resolution are stated, I am the only individual mentioned, or that it just came two weeks after the “controversy” surrounding my appearance which was really not so much a controversy as a series of one-sided assaults on myself and the College Republicans who invited me. “Islamophobes! Racists!” Call it an opportunity that I presented for the MSA and its supporters to extract concessions from the broader student population and to attempt to reach into their pockets in the process. Since student governments are proving grounds for future politicians, it is also a moment for the rest of us to reflect on what is in store for the country if these university elites can repeat their gains in the world beyond the campus.

Here is how the Muslim Students Association formulated the concept “Islamophobia:”

Islamophobia is defined as ideologies, beliefs, and actions that perpetuate inaccurate and xenophobic views toward the culture and practice of Islam and the personification of its followers, such as being seen as monolithic, seen as a separate and ‘other’ culture that does not share common values, seen as inferior to the West, seen as violent, aggressive, and supportive of terrorism, seen as sexist and oppressive of women, seen as a political ideology used for political advantage, anti Muslim hostility, and exclusionary or discriminatory practices against Muslims from mainstream society;

Please note, “Islamophobia” is manifest in statements about Islam that are “innaccurate” (and by whose standard you might ask); by statements that reflect the view that Islam “does not share common values” (as for example, a belief in the separation of church and state?); by attitudes that regard Islam as “inferorior to the West” “as sexist and oppressive of women” (in other words no more noticing that in sharia-governed countries women are consigned to a second class status that renders them the virtual chattel of males); nor can one entertain the opinion that Islam is a political ideology (as it indubitably is in Iran, Saudia Arabia, Lebanon and Gaza, just to name a few zones where the lines between politics and religion are invisible). In other words no noticing that the “Party of God” (Hezbollah) or the Muslim Brotherhood which is now the most powerful political party in Egypt are actually political. Nor can you link the Islamic beliefs, codified by a warrior named Mohammed who urged his followers to slay infidels and cut off their heads with terrorists who invoke those beliefs when slaying infidels by cutting off their heads.

My recent speech at UCLA is adduced as evidence of the Islamophobia directed against Muslims in this clause:

Whereas, On Wednesday May 11th controversial speaker David Horowitz made false allegations on campus against the Muslim Students Association and the Afrikan Student Union, and further instilled hate against Muslims by stating that “Islam is a sick, sick culture” (5)(6);

Two footnotes are attached to this clause as if there were some actual connection to facts of my appearance at UCLA on May 11. One of the footnotes links to a column by a UCLA Muslim, Asra Ziauddin, which seizes on the “Wall of Lies” that I had written and that College Republicans had erected to counter the slanders of Palestinian Awareness Week at UCLA. Palestine Awareness Week claimed among many similar blatant falsehoods designed to demonize Jews and the Jewish homeland, that Israel is an “apartheid state.” Our response: Israel is not only not an apartheid state, it is the only real democracy in the Middle East. To this Ziauddin countered — “Myth: Israel it is the only democracy in the Middle East. Fact: This democracy only works for Jewish citizens.”

Actual Fact: Israel’s democracy works for 1.4 million Arabs who are Israeli citizens as well. To prove his fallacious point Ziauddin writes: “Six million Palestinian refugees have not been granted the right of return.” I don’t for a moment believe that Ziauddin’s invented figure “six million” is a coincidence, but there is no such right of return except in the minds of Palestinian revanchists.

RTWT at the link.

It's a tough battle, but truth prevails.

Peter Ingemi at New York Post: 'Too many coincidences in Weiner's tale'

"DaTechGuy in Da New York Post."

He's got a Memeorandum thread as well:

On Twitter, famous people tend to have tens of thousands to millions of followers — but they themselves follow only a fraction of that amount.

Rep. Weiner is a man of national prominence, a rising star in the Democratic Party, frequently on TV, a past and likely future candidate for mayor. He knows and is known by thousands of movers, shakers, members of the press and politicians on the city, state and national levels.

Yet, as of yesterday, he was following fewer than 200 others — and, with all those famous folks to choose from, one of the few he followed was Cordova, a 21-year-old college student who lives nearly 3,000 miles away in Bellingham,Wash.
Run that though your head for a second and at the same time remember two important facts about Twitter:

1. If two people follow each other on Twitter, they can send private messages unseen by others.

2. The difference between a direct message, seen by only the recipient, and a public tweet, seen by the world, is a single character.

The biggest problem for Weiner and his defenders on the left is not bloggers from the right. It’s the details of “#weinergate” can be understood by millions of ordinary people in 140 characters or less.

Great stuff.

Follow Datech Guy on Twitter!

Added: Don't miss IowaHawk, "Help Me Bring the Weiner Hacker to Justice":

The Weinergate facts, as we so far know them: on May 28, @RepWeiner, the verified Twitter account of US Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY), posted a tweet of a y.frog photo of a slightly-built white male straining to pitch a pup tent in a pair of grey Hanes Underoos. Within seconds, Congressman Weiner arrived at the scene of the cybercrime and instantly recognized it as the work of a hacker who had simultaneously broken into his Twitter, Facebook and y.frog accounts. Working quickly, and without regard to his own safety, Congressman Weiner used his elite law school-honed internet security coding skills to wrest back control of his accounts, delete the offending tweet and photo, as well as unfollow a Seattle coed to whom it was sent. His Twitter perimeter once again secured, the intrepid Congressmen sent out a new tweet explaining how he was victimized by an Internet criminal mastermind.

Also, at The Other McCain, "The AOSHQ Legal Department: Now Offering Advice to Victims of ‘Pranks’." And Dan Collins, "#Weinergate: The Four-Second Hack [Update: Now it's an unnamed staffer!]."

School's Out

For summer, at Pat Austin's, "On The End of School and Classroom Discipline Measures."

I'm not teaching this summer either, the first time in 11 years.

For Anthony Weiner, Twitter Has Double Edge

At New York Times, "Congressman, Sharp Voice on Twitter, Finds It Can Cut 2 Ways":

For nine months, Representative Anthony D. Weiner has been tweaking others via Twitter, poking fun at Sarah Palin, John A. Boehner and especially Michele Bachmann as he offers his 46,000-plus followers an unusually candid window into the thoughts, activities and edgy humor of a politically ambitious congressman.

Mr. Weiner always knew that his sharp tongue, combined with his frequent use of Twitter, had a potential risk. But over the weekend, Twitter trouble found Mr. Weiner in an unexpected way.

A sexually suggestive photograph of a man from the waist down, in nothing but underwear, was sent from Mr. Weiner’s Twitter-related photo-sharing account to a woman in Seattle. Mr. Weiner dismissed the picture, saying his account had been hacked and writing on Saturday in a Twitter message (of course): “Tivo shot. FB hacked. Is my blender gonna attack me next?” He told Politico, “The wiener gags never get old, I guess,” and his office issued a statement on Sunday saying, “Anthony’s accounts were obviously hacked.”

The recipient of the photo, a college student who follows Mr. Weiner on Twitter, told The Daily News that someone had been harassing her online for weeks and that “I assumed that the tweet and the picture were their latest attempts at defaming the congressman and harassing his supporters.”

Twitter would not discuss the episode, saying, “We don’t comment on individual user accounts, for privacy reasons.”

Mr. Weiner’s spokesman, Dave Arnold, said on Monday, “We’ve retained counsel to explore the proper next steps and to advise us on what civil or criminal actions should be taken. This was a prank. We are loath to treat it as more, but we are relying on professional advice.”

The episode was quickly dubbed Weinergate, and proved a cautionary moment for Mr. Weiner, who has embraced Twitter as an outlet for his feisty, in-your-face and occasionally off-color personality.

More at the link. The Times discusses Weiner's ambitions and abrasive personality. The report suggests that his tweets are "sometimes juvenile." Beyond that, though, the Times concludes with a breezy "this too shall pass" kind of tone, actually ending with Rep. Weiner's own jokes about the scandal. To be expected, I guess.

Anyway, at top, the photo's from the New York Daily News. Commenting on it at The Other McCain, Darleen Click argued:

... scroll down ... to see a picture of Weiner and bride out for a Sunday stroll hand-in-hand coincidentally.

Good lord, if that doesn't say something (how many press conferences of men with their stoic wives beside them do we endure?) ... I am more convinced than ever there was no "hacking".

Well, not only was there no "hacking," but Weiner and his office are referring to the episode as a "prank," not as a "hack." Big Government has the significance, "Weinergate Shift: From ‘Hack’ to ‘Prank’":

These statements, plus the fact that there is no indication yet that Weiner has reported the alleged hack to authorities, suggest a new possibility: the offensive tweet may not have been a “hack,” but perhaps an inside job by someone with access to Weiner’s social networking accounts.

It is fairly standard practice in congressional offices and on congressional campaigns for multiple staffers to have access to the politician’s social networking accounts.

There's still more at that post, but the conclusion is unfounded, IMHO. The Times makes no mention of, nor makes even the slightest alllusion to, the notion that Representative Weiner allows staffers to use his Twitter feed nor his yfrog image hosting application. Indeed, the report states that "his Twitter personality is all him," and that "Twitter is now part of his “morning constitutional, with The New York Times, the tabloids, my e-mail,” and he takes postings from his followers seriously, often making adjustments and trying new things at their urging."

That hardly sounds like someone who made spare keys for all his "trusted" aides. The conservative blogosphere has pretty much shown exactly what happened. Weiner (apparently) tried to send a direct message to Gennette Nicole Cordova, the Washington state college student who has confirmed most of the facts of the story, while omitting any discussion of some key issues. The story continues to play on Memeorandum. By the tone of the Times' piece, most in the MSM are yawning, and doing obligatory write-ups to head off anti-media outrage in the 'sphere. Meanwhile, Andrew Breitbart's taken to Big Government to dismiss progressive allegations that Weiner was "Breitbarted": "WeinerGate: We Are Simply Reporting the Facts."

We'll see how it goes from here. Tomorrow's a regular news day and some "real" journalists might decide there's still more to this story to be revealed.

Until then ...

Memorial Day Tribute — United States Navy

Via Terri Green, on Facebook:

In lieu of our weekly multimedia production, we felt it appropriate to honor our fallen shipmates. We remember their sacrifice this and every day.

#Weinergate! — Rep. Anthony Weiner Retains Legal Counsel!

At The Other McCain: "BREAKING: Weiner Lawyers Up!"

And linked there is Politico, "Anthony Weiner hires attorney in Twitter incident" (via Memeorandum):

New York Rep. Anthony Weiner has retained an attorney to advise him “what civil or criminal actions should be taken” after a lewd picture was sent from his Twitter account.

Weiner, who has represented part of New York City since 1998, says online hacking led to a close-up shot of a man’s underwear being sent from his official Twitter account Saturday night.

Dave Arnold, a spokesman for Weiner, said the Congressman’s staff is “loathe to treat” this incident as more than a prank “but we are relying on professional advice.”

“At a time when the GOP is playing games with the debt limit, a member of the Supreme Court is refusing to recuse himself from matters he has a financial interest in, and middle class incomes are stagnant, many want to change the subject,” Weiner said in a statement emailed to POLITICO by his office. “I don’t. This was a prank, and a silly one. I’m focused on my work.”

Weiner’s office did not answer specific questions about the photograph, whether he has contacted authorities or the Seattle woman who received the photograph. He has said that his Facebook was hacked and if his Twitter had the same password, that too could be vulnerable.

Also, check the #Weinergate hashtag on Twitter, where the essential coverage has been developing.

Image Credit: The People's Cube.

ADDED: At Daily Caller, "Weiner spokesman: ‘We’ve retained counsel to explore’ possible ‘civil or criminal actions’."

More: Mediaite has video from Weiner's CNN interview today: "CNN First To Track Down Rep. Anthony Weiner For TV Comment On Twitter Scandal." And Dana Bash's report at CNN, "Liberal congressman involved in Twitter controversy over lewd photo."

Winding Down, 'Top 100 Rock Albums of All Time' — The Beatles, 'White Album', at No. 35

Well, it's been years since I posted this, but definitely a favorite. I wonder of old ace commenter Kreiz is still reading along?

See The Sound L.A., "No. 35: Beatles | White Album (Side 1)."

I'm traveling to Temecula for barbecue with old friends. I should be online late this afternoon for blogging ...

Meanwhile, grab a beer and log on to The Sound L.A. for some classic album rock. It's kickin'.

A roundup of the countdown is here: "'Top 100 Rock Albums of All Time' — Lynyrd Skynyrd, 'Pronounced', at No. 42."

Thers at Whiskey Fire, Genetic Mutant and Trig Truther, 'There's all sorts of lines here I wouldn't have crossed'

Look, the guy says he's a genetic mutant:

I (and both of my children) have a genetic illness that has the potential to cause a lot of suffering and illness. It causes lung and liver disease that sometimes necessitates lung and/or liver transplants which are very pricey endeavors. Where do we draw the line for acceptable and unacceptable genetic differences? How perfect is perfect enough? And what unintended consequences will arise from our pursuit of a perfection that is after all culturally defined and shifting in some cases? How long will it take us to move from eliminating disease to choosing eye colors, heights and IQs? The elimination of disease in humanity is objectively a wonderful goal. The trouble of course is that people are so much more beautifully complex and composed of so much more good stuff than their diseases.

And that's after arguing that parent's of potential Downs children should have abortions.

Dick.

And about those lines being crossed? Genetic Mutant Thers lies, says "I Don't Care But...," and then slaps down some classic Trig-trutherism:

I honestly don't care one way or another ... But ... if the picture of Palin up at Sullivan's site right now really is from 3 weeks before the kid's birth, it's just not her kid, because no way is she that pregnant in that picture.

And Genetic Mutant Thers on the WeinerGate scandal:

If Weiner is a swine or not -- he may be. But the sheer joy taken in finding and punishing someone not at all in the public eye, and then dropping nukes on them, based upon circumstantial speculation, unweighed against anything resembling the public good except sheer partisan scalp-hunting, is creepy as hell.

I have no trouble myself with partisan scalp-hunting, but there's all sorts of lines here I wouldn't have crossed.

The American right started a war based on lies, and is currently lying about climate change. I find revolting their ideological goals and methods, and their bullshit about their bullshit defenses of their ideological goals and defenses. Other than that, the less I know about Vitter's or Giuliani's dicks, the happier I am.

Right. Lines that shouldn't be crossed.

Like the lines crossed in exploiting a Downs baby to destroy Sarah Palin's family.

Progressives. Suck. Dick.

RELATED: At The Other McCain, "The Curious Case of the Weiner-Following (And Weiner-Followed) Teenage Girl." Plus, from Roy 'Bikini Burlesque' Edroso, "WANK SQUAD."

Toronto's Globe and Mail Goes Inside Hamas

Literally.

See, "Inside Hamas: An Inside Look at What Drives Palestinian Militants" (via Blazing Cat Fur).

This is another one of those resources where you'll want to sit back with a cup of coffee. There's both articles and video reports. The Globe's Patrick Martin really did get inside Hamas. Militarized squalor. Amazing reporting.

Start here: "Hamas: Agents of terror, partners in peace, or both?"

Martin is sympathetic but un-appeasing. I keep thinking what it would be like to have essentially a terrorist state in your backyard, recruiting and training a whole generation of young Palestinians that want to kill my family. Partners for peace? Well, folks know where I stand on that?

On Twitter, Gennette Nicole Was One of Many

Followed by Rep. Anthony Weiner.

And two "follows" equal a "DM".

At Gateway Pundit, "Gennette Was Not Alone… Weiner’s Twitter Friends Include Pages of Young Lucious Fans."

And at Ace of Spades, "Update: Number One "Suspect" In Hacking Says No Police Have Contacted Him In 'Hacking' Case."

Also, at The Other McCain, "@JoanWalsh Blames @AndrewBreitbart and #tcot Bloggers for #WeinerGate Story." Plus, at Daily Kos, "Breitbart's #TwitterHoax - How It Went Down (updated w/ smoking gun)." Really aggressive reaction. I'm gonna check around Twitter and update in a bit ...

Memorial Day 2011

At Michelle's: "Memorial Day 2011: Honoring the fallen." (Via Director Blue.)

And at Gallup, "U.S. Military Personnel, Veterans Give Obama Lower Marks." (Via Memeorandum.)

Ann Althouse Says it's Unfair to Compare Scott Lemieux to Spencer Ackerman: 'I'm trying to punish LGM'

See: "Scott Lemieux's Spencer Ackerman moment." And from the comments there:

LG&M is nothing but the repository of smug, snotty, too-clever-by-half leftist egocentric academics--as is, in the main, the crowd who regularly comments there. If one ever wanted a prime example of "Group-think" one could do far worse than peruse the archives and comments sections for, oh, say, as long as the blog has been in existence. Crooked Timber, Part II.

Ouch.

Check the whole thread. I asked Ann to clarify why she thought the comparison unfair:

Sorry, you got the link, but I won't give the explanation, because I'm trying to punish LGM. You'll have to be satisfied by the link and the fact that I am not stating the criticism of what you said.

I see I got myself into a paradox.

This comment's a riot as well.

My original entry is here: "Professor Scott Lemieux: Lone Pro-Life Wacko More Threatening to Americans Than Phony, Unconstitutional Global War on Terror, or Something."

(Revised @ 6:40am PDT)

Summer Movies, Male Bodies

Interesting piece, and funny.

At Los Angeles Times, "Ripped Ideals: Muscular Summer Action Heroes Have Swaggered Back Into Style, But What Do They Say to Male Audiences?" It's long. This quote goes with the video, and I'm looking forward to Captain America, so what the heck?

In the World War II-era comic book Captain America, a weak and sickly young man named Steve Rogers is injected with an experimental serum designed to build a super-soldier. In the movie “Captain America: The First Avenger,” directed by Joe Johnston and due in theaters July 22, dozens of tiny needles inject the serum into Rogers’ major muscle groups, and then he enters a pod where “vita rays” stimulate his growth. On paper and on screen, the result is the same: Rogers emerges as a picture of physical perfection, a gleaming, rippling, flag-wearing, Nazi-killing machine.

“The transformation is absolutely key to understanding Steve Rogers as a character,” said Johnston. “He is essentially Everyman, a 98-pound weakling who is chosen for the rebirth program not for his physical attributes but because of who he is as a human being, with his sense of justice and compassion. It’s crucial that we know and love Steve as the kid who’s been bullied and rejected all his life so we’ll appreciate and relate to who he is as Captain America.”

Evans, the actor playing Captain America, has the kind of square-jawed good looks that lend themselves to roles as prom kings and superheroes — he’s best known for playing the football star in the spoof “Not Another Teen Movie” and the Human Torch in the “Fantastic Four” films.

To achieve the dramatic transformation “Captain America” required, Johnston relied on a combination of techniques, including shrinking Evans’ body with CGI and using a smaller actor as a body double for the “weakling” stage. For the “after” scenes, Evans did push-ups in between takes to pump up the broad new chest he’d built for the role.

For any real-life 98-pound weaklings — or even for the average 5-foot-9, 194.7-pound American male — all this physical perfection can potentially create the kind of body insecurity that was once considered the exclusive province of women.

“Men are increasingly getting the message that their muscles are important, that appearance matters too,” said Katharine Phillips, co-author of “The Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male Body Obsession” and professor of psychiatry and human behavior of the Alpert Medical School at Brown University. “Men want to be bigger and want on average 15 more pounds of muscle than they have.”

Oh brother. Overthink that much?

Rep. Anthony Weiner Was Direct Messaging a High School Girl?

And it's not even in question form at Verum Serum, and that was on Saturday. And don't miss those screencaps. (More here.) And at Verum Serum yesterday: "Weiner-gate Update: He Also Followed a Pornstar and Told Her He Liked Her Blog." (Sheesh. Click through. That's getting NSFW-ish.)

Well, New York Post is keeping up with things, "Weiner goes to great lengths: Under siege - but gal blames stalker":

Despite the quiet holiday weekend, Capitol Hill was buzzing about what quickly became known as Weinergate.

Some DC wonks were skeptical of Weiner's hacking story and questioned the lack of a police report about a crime as serious as Internet identity theft, a Washington insider said.

The uncertainty was also fed by Weiner's decision to quickly delete the posted photo -- and every other photo connected to the account.

Actually, Big Government's way ahead on this, "Suspected Weinergate Hacker Denies Posting from Congressman’s Account," and "Gennette Nicole on Pic Tweeted from Rep. Weiner’s Account."

BONUS: Gennette Cordova is back on Twitter, and promises to restore her Facebook presence as well. And ICYMI, from Jonah Goldberg, "I suspect that this will not end well ..."

Reflecting on Endeavour's Great Journey

From Ralph Vartabedian, at Los Angeles Times:

Spare parts were collecting dust in warehouses in Bell, Downey and Palmdale when the urgent call came from NASA: the nation needed another space shuttle.

It was the unusual beginning of the orbiter Endeavour, which will streak across the California coastline at hypersonic velocity one last time Wednesday, carrying its six astronauts and two decades of the nation's human space flight history.

When it was christened in Palmdale in 1991, it was the newest and most capable of the fleet, fawned over by astronauts for its advanced flight electronics, sinuous skins and, eventually, the first toilet that actually worked.
"It was a real clean bird," said Robert "Hoot" Gibson, the Navy aviator who flew Endeavour the year it entered service in 1992. "We didn't have any issues with that machine."

But it began its life amid a political scheme to circumvent opponents by squirreling away spare parts in the hope they would someday amount to a real spacecraft.

When the Challenger was lost in an explosion in 1986, the spare-parts plan was vindicated and they suddenly became the starting point for keeping the shuttle program alive.

And now the ship will come back home a museum piece in the county where it was built, destined for a display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. The last shuttle flight is scheduled to launch July 8, after decisions by the Bush and Obama administrations to end the program.

More at the link above.

Seems weird the program's winding down and America's got nothing big planned to replace it.

RELATED: "After Columbia: why we must still boldly go" [from 2003].

Also, a NASA Twitpic.

New York's LGBT Community Center Caves to 'Queers Against Israeli Apartheid'

Update from my report in March: "Queers for Palestine Party to End Apartheid!"

From the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center, "STATEMENT ON DECISION TO ALLOW SPACE USE BY OUTSIDE QUEER IDENTIFIED GROUP."

And from the anti-Israel side, Queers for an Open LGBT Center, "QUEER VICTORY! Today's action is still on!" And The Cahokian, "Rightwinger now calls NYC Gay Center 'an anti-Israeli nest'."

But see Phyllis Chesler, at FrontPage Mag, "NYC Queers for Jihad":

Last Friday, May 26, 2011, “Queers Against Israeli Apartheid” exercised their hard-won right to hold their meetings at New York City’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Center. Their right to hate and to be grossly misinformed was, as usual, presented as a free speech right and as yet another victim-driven Intifada (uprising).

This meeting followed the long campaign to vilify City University Trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld for daring to dissent from Tony Kushner’s anti-Israel views; Kushner, who happens to be both gay and Jewish, is nevertheless being given an honorary doctorate this week. These two events are intimately connected to each other and have been further empowered by President Obama’s shameful and dangerous actions towards the Jewish State.

We have all seen black and white footage of people dancing the night away, even as the crematoria or the machetes did their deadly work somewhere off camera. We understand that people elsewhere continue eating, having babies, buying first homes, going on vacations, even as genocidal wars rage on camera, even as tornadoes, nuclear plant meltdowns, and savage flash floods destroy whole communities elsewhere, also on camera.

Right now, in my little neck of the planet, Manhattan, the weather has turned gloriously sunny and summery; people are enjoying this respite from the unending rains and freezing winter weather. As people amble through leafy city streets, the world is preparing to slaughter the Jews again. As if the Muslim Brotherhood and the Gama’a al-Islamiyya in Egypt were not enough, a new swastika-flying Nazi party has emerged in Egypt—Egypt, Israel’s friendly neighbor; Egypt, which on Saturday opened the Rafah crossing to admit even more weapons and terrorist fighters into Gaza in the unending Arab war against the Jews; Egypt, where many are demanding an end to the cold peace treaty with Israel.

Some say that President Obama might be touring Europe in order to gain European allies to help him pressure Israel into accepting the “pre-1967” Auschwitz borders.

Here at home in America, we continue to enjoy Gazan Intifadas on our campuses. For example, the people are getting ready to party in the streets when, on June 3, 2011, City University of New York gives playwright Tony Kushner his honorary doctorate. In my view, they are feting Kushner, not so much for his art but rather for his celebrity and for his obsessively harsh views of Israel. The playwright has not led any campaigns against genocide in Sudan or against real gender and religious apartheid in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Like the “Queers Against Apartheid,” Kushner also scapegoats Israel for the crimes of the Arab and Muslim worlds.

The LGBT “queers” had threatened to storm or “surge” into the Center if they did not receive official approval for their group meeting.

“Surging” and “storming,” Arab street mob behavior, is a vision and a tactic that has been recommended by none other than journalist Tom Friedman, long adopted by international “Free Gaza” activists; it reminds me of Nazi Brownshirt behavior. Think Kristallnacht. Civilians and men in uniform breaking Jewish shop windows, breaking Jewish bones, burning Jewish books, eventually burning millions of living Jews.

But, you must understand: The German Nazis felt “victimized.” They had lost World War I and were humiliated because they should have been triumphant; they had also been unfairly economically penalized. Kushner and his supporters claim that the genuine dissent of one CUNY trustee, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, somehow “victimized” their views because their views are supposed to triumph, not Wiesenfeld’s. His pro-Israel view is not supposed to exist and, in their view, is not protected by academic or free speech rights. Only the anti-Israel views deserve such protection.

One thousand six hundred and eighty people signed a petition to the Center on behalf of “Queers for Palestine.” Like Tony Kushner and his CUNY supporters, the aggressors first claim victimhood and protest the denial of their free speech rights; then, they “surge” forward as a mob (on petitions, on the Internet, on the streets, on other battlefields), to either murder Jews or to honor those Jews who hate Israel, and to silence gay Jews who are pro-Israel ...

More at the post, and then:

Now, in the light of what has happened, Lucas, a major financial supporter of the center, has withdrawn from it. His letter is brief, dignified, and to the point. I will give him the closing words. He writes:

Dear supporters of the state of Israel-

I just learned that tonight the Gay Center of NYC will be hosting the first meeting of the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. This organization stands for boycotts, divestments and sanctions of the Jewish state. In other words, it stands for boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Jewish men, women, children, and Holocaust survivors living in Israel.

I am a proud gay man and a proud Jewish man, but I have made my choice. I ask you to boycott, divest and sanction the LGBT Center of NYC. Today Jewish people in Israel are in incomparably greater danger than the gay people in America will ever be. This is a difficult choice and I am asking you to make the same choice.

Alienate yourself from NYC LGBT Center. Stand with Israel, stand with Israeli Jews, and defend their right to exist, their right to defend themselves, not to let the world exterminate them again.

And even if all the gay groups will condemn this letter, I will not change my mind.

Michael Lucas

Adam Kokesh Body Slammed!

Awesome.

Too bad Medea Benjamin wasn't slammed as well.

See, "Jefferson Memorial Dance Arrests Poorly Handled":

Poorly handled by the demonstrators, that is ...