SPACE SHUTTLE ENDEAVOUR is scheduled for launch at 8:56 am tomorrow. Here’s a time-lapse video of the launch process from an earlier shuttle (Discovery) mission.

BUT WHAT IF YOU LOSE IT? Terabyte USB drives possibly available soon.

ANOTHER LIBERAL sees the light. It seems to me that liberals are much like the flourescent lights they so dearly love: it takes time for the light to come on. I just wish that time wasn’t 30-plus years.

Read the full article here.

GEORGE WILL: the next President will be Obama, Pawlenty, or Daniels. I don't know about the other two, but I'm sure it won't be Obama.

“BY CONTRAST, we have never had an Establishment that was so ill-equipped to lead. It is the Establishment, not the people, that is falling down on the job.”

Linked from Instapundit. The original article is here.

FORMER PLANETARY SOCIETY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR LOU FRIEDMAN: Public-Private Ventures Needed In Space. I don’t know. My thought is that private entrepeneurial development is proceeding much better that I would have expected, and so the government should stay out (other than as a customer).

CATO INSTITUTE’S DANIEL IKENSON schools Washington Post columnist:

E.J. Dionne seems perfectly comfortable with the fact that he doesn’t understand economics—as long as the Washington Post continues to allow him to interpret economic events in a manner that comports with his political predispositions. Dionne sees GM’s recent good fortune as evidence of the propriety of government “step[ping] in when the market fails.” Dionne, like others before him, stands slack-jawed, in awe, ready and willing to buy the Brooklyn Bridge, donning narrow blinders and viewing just a narrow sliver of the world, oblivious to the fact that related events are transpiring in the other 359 degrees that surround him.

Read it all.

VIRGINIA ATTORNEY GENERAL KEN CUCCINELLI: Reasserting Federalism in Defense of Liberty.

OOPS! ANOTHER of those pesky unintended consequences: Obama restrictions on new oil exploration in Alaska put the Trans Alaska Pipeline at risk.

RIGHT TO WORK REBOUNDS: Legislation that would allow private-sector workers to opt out of joining unions is close to becoming law in both New Hampshire and Missouri.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE for keeping kids safe on the internet? Umm, ... parents?

PROOF AND CONSEQUENCES: how to avoid 'proofiness' (fake numbers). My favorite comment: “I think there's a large group of people who are producing proofiness on an industrial scale for public consumption.”

LIBERALISM DEFINED.


Half of this Prickly City cartoon.

JEFF JACOBY: John Kerry is smarter than Barack Obama. Well, yes, but that’s still not saying very much.

FIREBIRD SPY PLANE: the pilot is optional.

FROM MY EMAIL, a reminder:

George W. Bush, after the capture of Saddam Hussein:

The success of yesterday's mission is a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq. The operation was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator's footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers in the hunt for members of the fallen regime, and in their effort to bring hope and freedom to the Iraqi people. Their work continues, and so do the risks. Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate 'em.

Barack Obama, after the killing of Osama bin Laden:

And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network. Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and I authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Not a hint of narcissism in that last speech, is there?

MARK STEYN ON NATIONAL HEALTH CARE: the usual oozing pustuled behemoth of drearily foreseeable unforeseen consequences.