Well, the police have identified (or at least possibly identified) the shooter as Kyle Aaron Huff, 28, a recent transplant from Montana. Still absolutely no word as to motive. Huff had a run-in with the law back where he came from, apparently using a shotgun to destroy a moose sculpture. The investigation is continuing and search warrants are being executed.
I suspect we will be hearing a lot of very disturbing details about Mr. Huff in the very near future.
UPDATE: Latest news story here. Huff was not known for being violent.
An announcement from SpaceX states that the launch failed due to a fuel leak and subsequent fire.
"Musk said the fire began about 25 seconds after liftoff and cut into the Falcon 1 rocket’s first stage helium pneumatic system used to pressurize the booster’s fuel tanks. Once that pressure dropped, the Falcon 1 rocket’s Merlin engine shut down about 29 seconds after liftoff, he added".
Musk added:
"I cannot predict exactly when the next flight will take place, as that depends on the findings of this investigation and ensuring that our next customer is comfortable that all reasonable steps have been taken to ensure reliability," Musk said. "However, I would hope that the next launch occurs in less than six months…SpaceX is in this for the long haul and, come hell or high water, we are going to make this work."
So, maybe Elon Musk IS aiming to be D. D. Harriman. Good for him. Even better for the human race.
You know, I honestly do not know if I could be as graceful as Condoleezza Rice . She accepted the apology of the Missouri DJ who used a racial slur while speaking about her. In all honesty, I have no idea if his explanation is true or not, but it does sound as if he did make a slip of the tongue. Still, Ms. Rice is absolutely one of the classiest people I have ever heard of in government.
Please, please, please run for president.
Wasn’t that a song by the Mamas and the Papas? Or maybe I misremember. Anyway, it’s afternoon hereabouts.
Oh well here’s a good picture:
Taurus PT-140 Millennium Pro in .40 caliber S&W.
(Picture gratuitously thrown on the website to annoy some people.)
Some US Marines are refusing to use the extra body armor that Hillary certain unnamed politicians made such an issue about. It seems the additional armor, while providing some limited amount of extra protection, also weighs too much and limits mobility. Sometimes being able to maneuver is more important than the slight amount of additional protection the plates afford.
I have it from a reliable source that the increased armor on Humvees has made them very, very prone to tip-overs. This presents a grave risk to gunners.
I am (obviously) in favor of taking any steps necessary to give our troops the best possible equipment and training. However, I have not seen politicians EVER be good at deciding what is best for our forces. I would prefer our politicians keep their hands off trying to micromanage our troops and let them do their jobs.
Mike’s America voices the exact problem the huge demonstrations on illegal immigration have caused for the illegals. Sorry, folks this was a world class bad idea, and the consequences will not make you happy. The visual picture of hundreds of thousands of illegals making demands on legal citizens will not sit well with average people.
Congratulations on making the wall and tougher enforcement a virtual certainty.
We here at Blue Crab Boulevard are always striving to find and report on the cutting edge news of the day. In that spirit, we present giant lemons. It seems people in Cyprus have suddenly been growing lemons that are nearly as big as footballs. Owners of the trees swear they are not doing anything special to grow the oversized fruit.
Faithful readers know we also found news of giant mangoes.
One has to wonder why there are suddenly reports of giant fruit cropping up. We will continue to harvest reports of this nature.
It looks like The Truth Laid Bear stats are working, at least partially. It actually picked up on links to this site. I still have no clue why Technorati can’t seem to count links at all, though. They still show a zero link count - which is wrong. Anyone familiar enough with Technorati to figure out how they are missing incoming links?
Odysseus 10, Richard Belzer 0.
I think my favorite line has to be: "They’re not in the military because they can’t find work, they’re in the military because they’ve chosen that work".
Tom over at Tom’s Common Sense has a nicely written piece on why the US has to finish the job in Iraq. It is a non-strident, reasonable argument and will likely drive dedicated far left people totally out of their minds.
Like they need help.
Pulling out without leaving a viable government in place would be a disaster for both Iraq and the US.
The news is not encouraging. The crackdown by the government appears to have stymied the opposition, at least for now. At least one opposition politician cannot be located after he was arrested (that’s usually a bad thing). The opposition vows that they will keep trying to exert pressure and Western governments remain highly critical of the "election".
The ever reliable Gateway Pundit has a lot more on this, including links to show just how brutal the "crackdown" was. We’re talking violent repression here, folks.
An Afghan court has dropped the case against Abdul Rahman, the man accused of apostasy for converting from Islam to Christianity.
However…
The court cited a lack of evidence for the dismissal and returned the case to prosecutors. Also, several Muslim Clerics have called for Rahman’s execution and have hinted he would be killed if released.
I sincerely hope the court did not release him to allow the extremists access to kill him. Or that this is simply a delaying tactic in hopes that the world media will be distracted by a shiny object and will stop paying attention long enough for the case to be presented again…..
Civilized nations do not kill people over their religion.
I’ve been around a few years, and have always been a voracious reader. I’ve made it a habit to read a lot of newspapers and follow many stories closely. One thing I have found is that when a politician protests that his/her actions were not about politics the exact opposite is true, every time, no exceptions.
Russ Feingold says his trying to introduce a censure motion wasn’t politics.
Uh huh.
He is so transparently attempting to stake a clear claim on the far left. Frankly, he’s pandering and I’m really surprised rational people cannot see that.
Put simply, there is absolutely no proof that the program is illegal and Feingold knows it. Unless and until the matter is decided by a court, all the pontificating, posturing and pandering in the world will not make the allegations true. Proposing censure for something that has not been shown in court to be illegal makes a joke out of Feingold and his protestations that "this isn’t politics".
The AP is reporting that 500,000 (the headline I read earlier said 100k, so I am not at all sure this count is even close to accurate) people just marched in Los Angeles demanding that the US sop trying to control illegal immigration. The article claims many were "activists" and at least some were illegal immigrants.
Many waved Mexican flags. Organizers told marchers to carry American flags, but I guess many didn’t get the memo.
As Micky Kaus noted, this may not have been a spectacularly bright move.
If the anti-war crowd can only draw a few thousand (in all protests across the country), and the illegal aliens can muster half a million (in one protest) can anyone else see a major problem? There are an awful lot of illegals, aren’t there? And they just made sure every, single LEGAL citizen of this country found out about how many there are. In a very open and visceral way.
I rather suspect that a wall WILL be built and predict a crackdown on illegals everywhere. Good job of ‘waaaaaaay overplaying your hand, folks.
Glenn Reynolds reached much the same conclusion. He writes more succinctly than I do.
