Guess who is saying even more ridiculous things?

Newt Gingrich continues to speak as though he's not totally irrelevant, but Pat Buchanan is doing even better.

Via Shakesville and Media Matters:

Buchanan: Well, I think I would vote "no" on Sonia Sotomayor, the same way I would have voted "no" on Harriet Miers, and I said so the first day she was nominated. I don't think Judge Sotomayor is qualified for the United States Supreme Court.

She has not shown any great intellect here, or any great depth of knowledge of the Constitution; she's never written anything that I've read in terms of a law review article or major book or something like that on the law. And I do believe she's an affirmative action appointment by the President of the United States. He eliminated everyone but four women, and then he picked the Hispanic! So I think this is an affirmative action appointment, and I would vote "no."

Maddow: Why do you think it is that, of the 110 Supreme Court justices we've had in this country, 108 of them have been white?

Buchanan: Well, I think white men were 100% of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100% of the people who signed the Declaration of Independence, 100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably 100% of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a country built, basically, by white folks in this country, who were 90% of the entire nation in 1960 when I was growing up, Rachel, and the other 10% were African-Americans who had been discriminated against. That's why.

Yes, and minorities and women have failed to contribute equally to society because they aren't as good as white men. At least, that's what Pat seems to think.

Oooooor, maybe it has something to do with white men maintaining positions of power that allow them to hamper women and minorities in reaching positions of equality.

Nevermind the flawed history about white men building our country. More like white men using black, asian, natives, and other minorities to build this country by threat of whip or at gun and knife point.

Nevermind that women and minorities didn't serve in the armed forces for many years for much the same arguments people make about gays serving now: unit cohesion or lack of physical qualification (which is really a nice way of saying that maintaining institutionalized bigotry is more important than allowing able-bodied women, minorities, and people of differing sexual orientations to serve their country).

Gah.

Hahaha, what a geek

I was listening to the Apollo 11 transmissions just now and Houston radioed up to remind the astronauts to do a scheduled "cryo stir", or cycle the fans on to circulate the oxygen in the storage tanks.

Despite the fact that I was listening to a 40 year old tape, I had a horror movie moment. You know, where you yell at the TV something like, "Don't go in that dark room!!"

See, that's because the Apollo 13 explosion was caused by bare wires shorting out inside an O2 tank during a cryo stir.

What a dork.

I can't help it though. This stuff as always been fascinating to me.

The Apollo 1 launchpad disaster in which the three crew members were killed in an intense fire fed by the 100% oxygen environment compounded by nylon space suits, seats, velcro plastered all over the module, and a hatch that was an inward swinging door that couldn't be opened because of the high pressures inside.

Apollo 13.

Challenger and Richard Feynman's eventual conclusion that the rubber O-rings that sealed each segment of the solid rocket boosters had contracted in the intense cold and caused leaks that led to the tragedy.

And I was enthralled by the Columbia tragedy and problems of foam striking the shuttle on take off. An issue that is still plaguing shuttle launches.

Anywho, if you're as interested in geeking out on U.S. space history and trivia, you should check out Moon Shot. I read it several years ago and found it to be informative and interesting. And then you should read Genius. The parts where Gleick talks about Feynman having to plow through bureaucracy while working on the commission that investigated Challenger and how he broached the O-ring theory is engaging.

Super fucking cool

NASA is streaming the audio tapes of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon perfectly timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing.

So badass.

I'm listening to it right now and you can currently hear tidbits of transmissions between Houston and the module as they hurtle towards the moon.

The actual lunar landing should take place in about 3 days.

Sooooo awesome!!

I just listened to Neil Armstrong describe the view of the North Pole, North America, Cuba, and then he "ran out of window". Sooooo coool! If there's any reason to be nostalgic about wanting to be alive in the past, it would be the opportunity hear this momentous and amazing event in real time as it unfolded.

Baby Zeeeeeba!!

Looks like the toner is running a little low in the machine though. Those stripes aren't quite dark enough.

I'm sure they will fill in.

Why crying about a judicial nominee's experiences and prejudices is either folly or intentionally misleading

My brother wrote a great post yesterday about the Sotomayor hearings. Here's a snippet but you should check the whole thing out:

Yes, judges should always strive to impartiality, and almost all of them do. (And the ones that don't are probably in danger of losing their jobs.) But having background, prejudices, and sympathies is not the same thing as being partial, and they will never achieve untainted objectivity or leave their humanity behind when they take the bench anyway.

Complaining about "liberal activist" judges is an easy sport. Recognizing the complexity of law and the problems of actually judging real cases is much more difficult. Cultivating that understanding may not be helpful to the aspirations of an individual politician, but it would definitely be helpful to the betterment of society as a whole. A nation filled with people running around half-cocked with a bunch of simplistic ideas about the fundamental mechanisms of law—the glue that holds their society together—will have a hard time rising above petty squabbles to solve real problems.

I must say

As a staunch proponent of supporting blog authors that decide their own content and a staunch opponent of those commenters and readers who would demand content to their liking, and despite being a Harry Potter fan, I'll very much appreciate when comments about the new movie stop dominating the Beehive's blog. What is it, like 800 comments now regarding The Half-Blood Prince?

Also, they have waaaaaaay too many ads. I mean, like waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many. What is this, a blog or a spam site? *wink, wink*

Interesting

It fascinates me there there can exist a subset of people that would like to restrict/eliminate homosexuality based on the argument that that particular sexual orientation is to blame for the spread of HIV/AIDS.

And yet, if you were to suggest that you'd like to destroy all the guns in the world to prevent crimes and wars committed with the things, they'd go apoplectic.

Which is not to say that both suggestions aren't fraught with their own massive logical holes. Such as, that AIDS has been spread by heterosexual behavior and blood transfusions as well, or that removing guns from the world only removes one avenue by which people can act out their violent tendencies.

Anyway, just thinking about weird things this afternoon. We all hold contradictory ideas I suppose, but some just seem so much more mind-blowing than others.

Boner-ogling

Many of you may have heard about the incident at the end of last week.

Thanks to Carrie for the heads up, and Super Poop, we can all see what truly happened out of the context of the video.

See the previous post for explanation

He's an Animal!

Under the influence of alcohol, my volunteerism rate quickly climbs a steep incline.

Friday night I was harassing local drummer Eli Reyes (member of Fay Wrays and Rademacher both) about the lack of a front drum head on his bass drum. After he waffled for a minute or two, I immediately offered to buy him one.

Saturday morning saw me driving Ed and I to Soundstage and then Guitar Center in search of the right one. And then we spent the afternoon screen printing the muppet Animal to the front of the head. Ed did most of the screen printing work because he knows how to do it and I assisted. Sort of like Doctor Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker.

We picked Animal because Eli is well known for his enthusiastic drumming, not because his sentences lack pronouns and sound more like echoed commands.

"Beat drums, Eli. BEAT DRUMS!!"

And just for kicks (waka waka) check out this video of Animal vs. Buddy Rich.