Sights and sounds of the 2011 Northwest Side Irish Parade

The Notre Dame Resurrection Marching Band participated in this year's Northwest Side Irish Parade.








A group of athletes from Notre Dame College Prep also marched in the parade. With that group were Head Football Coach and Athletic Director Mike Hennessey and Coach Joe Gale, Chair of the school's physical education department.






The Northwest Side Irish Parade forms up at Onahan School. Onahan's group marched near the front of the parade.




A JROTC group from Foreman High School also participated:





And there's always an interesting variety of costumes on display at any St. Patrick's Day Parade. Today's was certainly no exception:



The spectators sport interesting costumes, too:



And there's always something to learn at a parade. For example, until today, I never knew how to use windshield wipers as a flag waving device.



Special thanks are due my daughter Brigid for volunteering to take all the pictures used in this and all the other posts I've put up about today's parade. She pointed out, not unreasonably, that I take an inordinate number of pictures of my shoes or of fuzzy things that seemed perfectly in focus when viewed through the unaided eye.

As today's posts attest, Brigid's pictures turned out very well. Brigid, however, is a dog fancier. She seems to have taken a disproportionate number of pictures of dogs. It didn't help that the Norwood Park Dog Association participated in the parade. Here are a couple of pictures from that large group:




There was yet one more dog, near the very end of the parade, who had to be photographed. Descriptions of this creature would have been scoffed at unless accompanied by this indisputable proof that a dog can achieve this prodigious size:


Brigid advises me that this is an Irish Wolfhound. It looks more like a Whole-Pack-of-Wolves-Hound to me.

Pipes and drums and cops and firefighters at the 2011 Northwest Side Irish Parade

The Chicago Police Department's Emerald Society led this year's ninth edition of the Northwest Side Irish Parade.




Not to be outdone, the Chicago Fire Department Pipes & Drums also participated in this year's Northwest Side Irish Parade.



The Fraternal Order of Police also had a group in today's parade:



And there were more firefighters, too:

Lots of Irish dancers at the 2011 Northwest Side Irish Parade

There were four schools of Irish dancing represented at Sunday's Northwest Side Irish Parade.

First up, the dancers from the Trinity Academy of Irish Dance:






The Mullane Healy Godley Academy also had a large group:





The O'Hare School of Irish Dance also turned out for the parade.




Last but not least was the Dillon-Gavin School of Irish Dance:

Humanity in jeopardy? Watson triumphs over game show champs

Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings was as gracious as humanly possible in this after action report for Slate although, I thought, there were times during the Jeopardy man vs. machine broadcast, that Mr. Jennings looked ready destroy the supercomputer next to him. (He did mention, once, looking to pull the machine's plug.)

I was surprised that the game show was aired only in its regular late-afternoon time slot. I expected it to be a prime time special.

Thank goodness for DVR's. That's a machine we can still order around.

For the time being....

Difference between coffee and decaf explained

Although this is from a site called Fake Science, this one seems to be 100% accurate.

Insisting that sometimes a telephone be used for conversation

Ken Levine has adopted a radical new texting policy, one I am inclined to imitate. Writes Mr. Levine:

Text messages are great for short alerts.

I’m running late.

I’m at baggage claim.

I’m pregnant.

But they’re not designed to replace conversations. After a couple of quick back and forths, if you want to continue to converse with me I will CALL you. You’re obviously there. You just texted me two seconds ago.

Mr. Levine says he's encountered some resistance since implementing his new policy. Some people have been shocked. Levine asks, "Has it been that long since people talked to each other that it is now awkward?"

Maybe.

But I, too, will risk it.

Levine, by the way, is a writer and director whose many credits include M*A*S*H, Cheers, Fraiser, The Simpsons.... He's also been a baseball broadcaster, calling games for the Baltimore Orioles, the Seattle Mariners, and the San Diego Padres. His daily blog is a must-read. Levine was also a rock'n'roll DJ on a number of Top 40 radio stations in the 1970s. In other words, he's done all sorts of things I've always wanted to do... and never will.

And with all these accomplishments, there is yet one more: Levine has also formulated Levine's Laws. The best known of these may be, "The lead off walk will always come around to score...unless it doesn't." This one, however, is my favorite:

In every article that mentions you, no matter how complimentary the article, there will always be one thing said or misquoted that will prevent you from Xeroxing and sending it to your family.

Oh man, was I wrong!

I was so sure that this storm would pass us by.

"Oh, it might snow," I grudgingly conceded yesterday morning after listening to all the Prophets of Doom on the TV and radio, "but probably only six to eight inches. Just enough to make it miserable. Not enough to bring anything to a halt."

I checked the radar a few times while I was at work... and it began to look more or more ominous. Still, anyone who's lived in Chicago has seen storms that looked dangerous on the radar fade away or part like Moses parted the Red Sea, going south and north of Chicago.

And I have plenty to do at work. I was determined to finish a couple of projects yesterday, and I did, but by the time I was done I didn't need radar to see the deteriorating weather. The Mark One Eyeball glancing out the office window provided more than enough evidence.

The horns started shortly after the snow started yesterday afternoon. My office is above Wells Street. As the weather turned, all the drivers took immediate leave of their senses, blasting their horns incessantly. Perhaps drivers thought the cars in front of them might vanish like soap bubbles once they realized that they, The Honking People, were in a hurry. The good news was that The Honking People must have gotten to their destinations by early evening; it must have been only patient people who were left to get stuck on Lake Shore Drive.

I left the office about 4:00, an hour-and-a-half or so after it started snowing. Our building security guard was feeling a little depressed when I said good evening. Her night relief had already called in, she told me, and she had a bad feeling that she might be stuck in the building for quite awhile.

The symphony of horns had subsided by this point; already the streets were nearly deserted. I was one of a handful of shuffling pedestrians at a time of day when the sidewalks are usually filled to capacity with people heading for their trains. I needed to stop at the bank. I had to put some money on my CTA card. And I wasn't too upset that I'd be getting on the Blue Line south of where I'd usually board: Maybe I'd even get a seat.

These hopes were quickly dashed as I came down the stairs onto the Monroe Street platform. Now I knew where all the people had gone. I found a place to stand and squinted down the tunnel toward Jackson Street, looking for signs of a train. Although the CTA had promised to run additional trains yesterday afternoon, none of these were apparently allocated to the Blue Line Subway. A train eventually stopped at Jackson -- but its running lights were flashing as it pulled out of the station. It was running express.

There was no "immediate follower." The platform got more and more crowded.

Eventually another train pulled into Jackson. This one stopped at Monroe.

Fortunately, when it arrived, there was still some prime standing room in the center of the car. I got there in time to hear the motorman's announcement: "I have an immediate follower," he said. I wouldn't have bet on the truth of his assertion.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The storm only got worse after dark. A neighbor went out at 7:30 or 8:00 to try and use his snowblower. He put some snow up into the air, but it was hard to distinguish what he put up from what Nature was putting down. My wife watched from the window, trying to decide whether we should go out and take a stab at our own driveway. She watched for a couple of minutes before realizing that she could actually see the neighbor only sporadically. She decided it was best that we not go out. I did not disagree.

"If it stops right now," I said, "my prediction would still be right."

But, of course, it didn't stop.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Fast forward now to early this morning: We couldn't even get out the door at first. The good news was that we had parked our cars in the driveway. Somehow, in the howling winds overnight, the snow didn't stick to the cars and they shielded some of the driveway beneath them. But they had to be dug out.

And so we did. Then the lake effect snow kicked in.

This time, because the winds weren't as strong, the snow did stick to the cars. But the winds now were from the north and east and not from the south and west -- and some of the snow we'd piled up in our initial removal efforts... redrifted.

The good news is that Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow.

The interesting thing is that, as much as I doubted the carefully plotted, scientific predictions of last night's storm, I readily accepted the prognostication of what my son-in-law refers to as an oversized, lying rat.

But who wants to believe bad news... or reject news that's good?

Happy Groundhog's Day.

It's snowing outside! Panic in the streets!

Snowzilla
Found on (and lifted from) Facebook.

Presumably Sally Forth, like most comics, is submitted pretty far in advance. But it sure was timely this morning....

(Click to enlarge.)

Bear down, Chicago Bears

Sung by Bryan Griffin of the Lyric Opera.

Or perhaps you'd prefer this sing-along version (follow the bouncing helmet)?



How are the TV stations going to top this week's hype if the Bears do happen to get by Green Bay?

Baseball Writers blow it again: Baines dropped from HOF ballot

Hawk Harrelson will have to get some new talking points when the Sox play the Twinkies henceforth, now that Bert Blyleven has been admitted into Baseball's Hall of Fame. By now, everyone in the world who cares knows that Messrs. Blyleven and Roberto Alomar are slated to be enshrined in Cooperstown. Both are worthy, deserving inductees.

But less well reported is the fact that the BBWA, the Baseball Writers of America, the self-righteous guardians of baseball's Valhalla, saw fit to give Harold Baines only 28 votes this year, only 4.8% of the vote, meaning he'll be dropped from the Hall of Fame ballot.

Here are the 2011 Hall of Fame voting results (source; click image to enlarge and/or unblur):


Bill Veeck took credit for 'discovering' Baines, but I believe it was Paul Richards who first predicted that Baines was destined for Cooperstown. Now, sadly, he'll have to wait for the Veterans Committee. If Ron Santo were still around, Santo could give Baines an earful about that process.

Yet, Baines has 1,628 career RBI, the most of any player eligible for the Hall who has not been enshrined. A six time All Star and winner of the Silver Slugger in 1989, Baines had a 22 year career in the major leagues. He had 2,866 hits.

Of course, the knock on Baines is that he was a DH for most of his career -- and this, sadly, is true. After 1986, until his retirement in 2001, Baines played only 81 games in the field.

But let's look at that: Baines played only 81 games in the field in his final 14 years in the majors because his knee was gone. In other words, most of Baines' 2,866 hits came from an essentially one-legged batter.

There are few players in Major League history who had better careers than Harold Baines. Nearly all are in the Hall of Fame. And they had two legs.

The Baseball Writers of America have blown it again.

More about the American Tort Reform Association

According to its website, the American Tort Reform Organization "was founded in 1986 by the American Council of Engineering Companies. Shortly thereafter, the American Medical Association joined them. Since that time, ATRA has been working to bring greater fairness, predictability and efficiency to America's civil justice system."

The ATRA website says it supports "aggressive civil justice reform agenda that includes:

• Health care liability reform
• Class action reform
• Promotion of jury service
• Abolition of the rule of joint and several liability
• Abolition of the collateral source rule
• Limits on punitive damages
• Limits on noneconomic damages
• Production liability reform
• Appeal bond reform
• Sound science in the courtroom
• Stopping regulation through litigation

Here is a "sample list" of ATRA members:

• 3M
• Advance Medical Technology Association
• Altria Corporate Services
• ASFE
• American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons
• American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists
• American Council of Engineering Companies
• American Furniture Association
• American Institute of Architects
• American Legislative Exchange Council
• American Medical Association
• American Petroleum Institute
• American Trucking Associations
• America's Blood Centers
• Anheuser-Busch Companies
• Associated Wire Rope Fabricators
• Boeing
• CNA Financial Corporation
• Caterpillar
• Coca-Cola Bottlers' Association
• DaimlerChrysler Corporation
• Doctors' Company
• Erickson Retirement Communities
• General Aviation Manufacturers Association
• Helicopter Association International
• Johnson & Johnson
• Juvenile Products Manufacturers
• Koch Industries, Inc.
• Lovell Safety Management Co.
• Medical Mutual
• National Association of Home Builders
• National Association of Mutual Insurance Co.
• National Association of Shell Marketers
• National Federation of Independent Business
• National Fuel Gas Distribution Corporation
• National Lumber & Building Material Dealers Association
• New York Blood Center
• PPM Services
• Pennsylvania Medical Society
• Pfizer
• Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America
• Physician Insurers Association of America
• Rio Grande Valley Chamber
• Scandia Family Fun Center
• SeamCraft, Inc.
• State Farm
• Taussig Corporation
• Universal Health Services
• Wood Machinery Manufacturers of America
• Wyeth

Referring article: Cook County a "Judicial Hellhole"? Looking into the claims.

Archiving 2010 Cook County Judicial Retention Links

These are the links that were listed in the Sidebar on page one through Tuesday's election, some of which will still be "live" when the 2012 retention season rolls around.

• Chicago Bar Association 2010 Green Guide


• Chicago Council of Lawyers Evaluation Report


• Judicial Performance Commission of Cook County Report on the Judges Seeking Retention on the November 2, 2010 Ballot in Cook County


• Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening "grids"


• Tribune questionnaire responses


• Illinois Civil Justice League questionnaire responses

Illinois Judges Association Statement on Justice Kilbride's retention

The special interest groups trying to oust incoming Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court Tom Kilbride in his retention election pose a direct threat to fairness and impartiality of all Illinois judges. Through the use of deceptive and slick marketing, those sullying Justice Tom Kilbride are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for their own ideological and political ends at the expense of the touchstone of the American legal system – a judiciary independent of all influences and interests.

The Illinois Judges Association opposes any effort to “get” judges for doing their jobs. It undermines the ability of judges to carry out their judicial functions. It constitutes a dangerous intrusion upon independent judicial decision-making. And it is a blatant affront to everyone that the judiciary serves.

The public rightly demands that judges decide cases based on the law, not policy, popularity, or political views. As John Adams declared in the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution, "It is the right of every citizen to be tried by judges as free, impartial and independent as the lot of humanity will admit." Yet, the incendiary attacks on Justice Kilbride seek nothing of the sort. To achieve their ends, special interest groups have resorted to ugly misrepresentations and falsehood of Justice Kilbride’s opinions. What political motive do they have? Playing politics with a judge's record, distorting it for political reasons, is unfair and dishonest.

Get the truth about Justice Tom Kilbride. Look at the ratings and evaluations by the major newspapers in Illinois and the Illinois State Bar Association, a non-partisan group. Ask a friend who is a lawyer or a judge. Vote on the basis of facts, not propaganda or an orchestrated disinformation media barrage. Once we allow judges to become intimidated or become mere tools of individuals or groups wanting to assert their own interests, to paraphrase Alexander Hamilton, the constitution is a dead letter. And, it might be said, so are our American values of justice.

The Illinois Judges Association is the statewide organization for members of the Illinois judiciary. It is made up of about 1,000 active and retired judges. It can be reached at 312.431.1283 or visited on the web at www.ija.org.

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Releated: Illinois Judges Association weighs in on Kilbride retention

Rooting for Nolan Ryan's Rangers -- despite this

I still maintain that Mr. Ryan need not have clobbered Ventura quite so hard: I always thought Ventura was reconsidering just what he was doing right before he reached the mound. It doesn't look as if Ventura ever even tried to throw a punch.

Seeing this again gives me a new quest: I'm now looking for a video of Craig "the Little Hurt" Grebeck and Ozzie Guillen taking Ryan deep back to back. That turned out to be Ozzie's one and only home run in 1990. (The next time the Sox faced Ryan, Ryan plunked Grebeck. That still seems excessive to me....)

I thought this was just at our house...

Of course, we live just a couple of blocks from the Kennedy Expressway. Why should we expect good cell reception here?

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Zits comic obtained from the Houston Chronicle website, although I read it daily in the Chicago Tribune.

Sometimes saying "I'm sorry" isn't enough

But it's all we can say or do.

William Cook, 57, defense lawyer who was well loved, dies suddenly (Chicago Daily Law Bulletin coverage; subscription required)

Strange suburban crime blotter

My guess is that this first case involves a really disgruntled former employee. Matt Kiefer reports on the Chicago Sun-Times website:

At 6:23 a.m. [on September 13], rooftop surveillance cameras recorded an unidentified woman drive into the front parking lot of the [Takeda Pharmaceuticals property in Deerfield], then get out of her car and then defecate and urinate on company property.

Two security guards who responded said they parked their vehicle behind the woman's car, but that she put the car into reverse and struck their car before driving to the Lake-Cook Road exit. Company security reported she disobeyed two red lights on her way to the Interstate 294 tollway southbound entrance.

And, courtesy of Overheard in Cook County, we have a link to Dennis Sullivan's story in the Orland Park edition of Triblocal about an Orland Park woman who thought that a field sobriety test administered in the course of a traffic stop was a "fashion show." Sullivan quotes the police report as saying, "She walked up and down the line with hands on her hips three additional times." The report also notes that the woman demanded that she be read her "Amanda rights."

She has been charged with DUI.

Daddy's Home comic tackles jury duty dodging

A lot of people aren't thrilled to receive a jury summons -- my daughter Brigid was a recent exception -- which is why I found these recent comics particularly good. (Click either strip to enlarge.)




The comic "Daddy's Home," by Tony Rubino and Gary Markstein, runs in the Chicago Sun-Times, but I obtained these images from GoComics.

Are the antibiotics of the future in cockroach guts?

That, as I understand it, is the claim made in this story posted September 7 by Katie Drummond on AOL News.

The sad truth is that wee beasties that once were completely vanquished by antibiotics have adapted and are no longer so well controlled. Scary acronyms like MRSA have crept into the common vocabulary. The once futuristic-sounding word "penicillin" has taken on a rather quaint, lace doily, cloth-wrapped-electrical-cord tone.

Researchers are looking with growing desperation at any possible replacements for increasingly obsolete antibiotics. The operative word here is "any." Thus, brave British researchers at the University of Nottingham's School of Veterinary Medicine and Science have been reduced to probing into the interiors of everyone's least favorite insects.

And yet it turns out that this seeming longest of long shots may yield miraculous returns. Writes Drummond:

[P]otent chemicals, found in the brain and central nervous tissues of the critters, are able to kill 90 percent of E. coli and MRSA in lab-based tests.

According to the researchers, the unsanitary and unhygenic environments in which these bugs flourish has spurred them to develop toxins against the bacteria that we can no longer kill on our own.

If scientists can really develop something from cockroach innards, though, there will have to be some rather heroic efforts from somebody's marketing department before the potentially life-saving advantages of cockroach-gut medicine can really catch on.

Forget about the Asian Carp -- watch out for giant French Carp!

This photograph was featured tonight on Yahoo! News and it really wasn't taken in Lake Michigan or even along the Illinois River.

If the photo is real (Yahoo! reports that skeptics are suggesting the picture is faked, but the UK's Daily Mail presents it as legit) the fish in question still lives in a lake in the south of France. (The angler in the photo, Raphael Biagini, released the monster. Assuming, of course, that he caught it at all.)

Anyway, if leviathans like this are really flourishing in France, why are our neighbors so worried about the piscatorial pygmies at large in the Illinois River? Even the skeptical Yahoo! article notes that koi carp (i.e., goldfish) have been caught weighing 90 pounds. Might not any discarded feeder fish expand to these dimensions?

Juror tips vote on Facebook, removed from jury

Maybe what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But anything on Facebook is there for the whole world to see.

Today's illustration of how Facebook isn't as-private-as-everyone-thinks comes from Macomb County, Michigan. Hadley Jons, a juror in a criminal case was removed after she posted this message on her Facebook page:

actually excited for jury duty tomorrow. It’s gonna be fun to tell the defendant they’re GUILTY. :P.

The trial started on August 10 but court was in recess on August 11 when the juror made that post.

Talk about prejudging the case: Jameson Cook's article for The Macomb Daily notes that the prosecution hadn't even rested when the juror announced her views to the world at large.

When jurors returned Aug. 12 for the resumption of the trial, Jons was brought into the courtroom alone by the presiding judge, Diane Druzinski, and asked about making a comment. Jons initially denied making a comment. But when the judge recited her words to her, she “put her head down” and didn’t respond, according to a court observer.

“You don’t know how disturbing this is,” Druzinski told her.

“Nobody could believe how cavalier she was about it,” said Saleema Sheikh, the defense attorney for the woman on trial.

And how was the juror found out?

My kids would call it "Facebook stalking": Defense counsel's teenage son (who just graduated from high school and was helping out in his mother's office to gain practical experience) was "surfing the Internet and plugging in jurors’ names," just to see what he could see.

Technology may be the ruin of baseball

And don't get me started on video games... you haven't lived until you've been to one of your kids' games and the kids refuse to adjust to the umpire's strike zone -- because the umpire's strike zone that day isn't the one defined in the rulebook -- and built into the microchips.

And instant replay would not be any better.

In my opinion.

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Pardon My Planet appears in the Chicago Sun-Times. This image is from the Houston Chronicle.

Jon Miller enters Cooperstown today

It was 1988. The Orioles had started the season 0-21.

Cal Ripken, Sr. had already been fired. Fortunately for baseball history, Cal Ripken, Jr. decided not to sit out a game in protest.

Then the O's came to Chicago. New Orioles GM (and former Sox GM) Roland Hemond persuaded Jerry Reinsdorf to let him have the suit he'd worn in the clubhouse in 1983 when the Sox clinched their first post-season appearance since 1959. The suit had been soaked with champagne and beer and kept under glass, in a display case, ever since.

I can't imagine who wanted to sit next to Hemond that night.

Anyway, Jon Miller was a guest on the White Sox pregame show. He did a spot-on imitation of Edward R. Murrow reporting 'from the rooftops of London' to show how desperately the situation was viewed in Baltimore.

That was the night the Orioles broke the streak.

Despite that, I've always liked Jon Miller. I seem to recall a night when he and former White Sox broadcaster John Rooney traded impersonations. They're both quite gifted. If I recall correctly, Miller did a great Bob Elson, too.

All the Cub fans will be going on and on today about Handy-Dandy-Andy Dawson who will be entering the Hall of Fame today... as a Montreal Expo. But I'm cheering especially today for Jon Miller.

Hysterical 'Historical' Houdini Tweet

Winner: Houdini’s Tweet in the Blank

From Historical Tweets.

List of members of the Judicial Performance Commission of Cook County

Here is a list of the members of the Judicial Performance Commission of Cook County. The affiliations for each member are shown for identification purposes only. For more on the JPC, see "Voter resources for retention judges are coming" on page one of this blog.

Chairperson
Leonard Jay Schrager, Professor, The John Marshall Law School

Members
Enrique Abraham, Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office

Fay Lomax Cook, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University

Jan Czarnik, League of Women Voters of Illinois

Stephen Daniels, American Bar Foundation

Susana Darwin, American Bar Association

Vivien C. Gross, Professor, Chicago-Kent College of Law

Roy E. Hofer, Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione

Jonathan D. King, DLA Piper

Michelle K. Jordan, League of Women Voters

Edward O. Laumann, The University of Chicago, Department of Sociology

James H. Lewis, Chicago Community Trust

Virginia Martinez, MALDEF Chicago Regional Office

Travis Richardson, Richardson & Mackoff

Wesley G. Skogan, Professor, Northwestern University, Department of Political Science

Ada Skyles, Chapin Hall Research Center for Children, at the University of Chicago

Randolph N. Stone, Professor, Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, at the University of Chicago Law School

Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice
Malcolm C. Rich, Executive Director

Elizabeth Monkus, Project Manager

This would be funny -- if it weren't so true

From the webcomic xkcd, by Randall Munroe.

Money laundering legal in Zimbabwe

Indeed, according to this AP story (from Yahoo! News), it is recommended because, in parts of Zimbabwe, where American currency is legal tender, some greenbacks are "almost too smelly to handle."

Household hint: Money laundering is best done "with gentle hand-washing in warm water." Machine washing can work as well, but dry-cleaning is not recommended: The chemicals cause the bills to fade.

Is America lost in space?

(The final planned launch of Shuttle Atlantis,
May 14, 2010. From NASA.)

After STS-132, now in orbit, there are just two more planned American civilian spaceflights left. (The Air Force still has the unmanned X-37B program; a successful launch of the new vehicle was made on April 23.)

There will still be Americans in space, for a time at least, after the Shuttle is retired: American astronauts will continue to rotate to the International Space Station as passengers on board Russian vehicles. And President Obama says our outer space goals should be reconfigured: Instead of returning to the Moon and going next to Mars, as President Bush had proposed (and Congress had approved), we should head straight to Mars. Future flights in Low Earth Orbit should be privatized, with NASA becoming more FAA than the owner-developer-operator of all American space technology.

But this is a cloudy vision. While Mr. Obama's plan has some support among space scientists, many of our surviving lunar explorers are strongly opposed. (Here is a link to Neil Armstrong's written testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation this past week.)

The problem with Mr. Obama's vision -- aside from the fact that it flushes billions of dollars already spent on developing vehicles and logistics for the now-scrapped return to the Moon -- is that it comes with no guarantees whatsoever. The Mars program is off in the distant future. The only upcoming tangible goal is for a new 'heavy lift' rocket to come on line in 2015 -- and that's because the development of this vehicle was part of the lunar program. Eugene A. Cernan, the last man to walk on the Moon, who testified with Armstrong before the Senate this week, said, "Nowhere do we find a commitment in dollars to support this national endeavor.... [T]his budget proposal presents no challenges, has no focus, and in fact is a blueprint for a mission to nowhere."

And then there's the question of privatizing LEO flights. In theory, this is a fabulous, long overdue idea. But... who will be allowed to fly? Low Earth Orbit is a crowded place; it's not just Hubble Telescope and the International Space Station up there, there are lots of satellites and lots of debris, too. Traffic has to be regulated to prevent collisions. Also... there's no place to go in LEO. There's up... and there's down. Entrepreneurs aren't being invited to hook up their own modules to the ISS... which would be the outer space equivalent of building a trading post outside the fort.

If you follow all the links here, you'll read that Mr. Obama's plan proposes an increase in NASA funding. But politicians do weird and wonderful things with budgetary numbers. Mr. Armstrong says the prior plans were never funded as they should have been, so comparisons are unfair. And who's to say whether Congress, in a time of soaring national debt, will supply the dollars Mr. Obama has requested.

By the way, this is not a Republicans vs. Democrats issue -- at least not for me. I think it just has to do with rotation in office: It was Richard Nixon who scrapped the last several moon flights. I suspect that each administration comes into office determined to undo everything its predecessor has done. Kennedy wanted to go to the Moon, so Nixon wanted to stop going (at least after he'd milked the PR value of Apollo XI). Bush II wanted to return to the Moon, so Obama was against it.

There is an attitude in this country that our manned spaceflight program is simply an obsolete relic of the Cold War. That's the attitude taken by Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg yesterday. He concluded:

Will it sting us to see Chinese astronauts joyously waving streamers attached to sticks, doing that running dance of theirs on the surface of the moon? Absolutely. Does that mean we must be square dancing one crater over? No way.

As an old history major, all I know is that, in the 1490s, the Pope divided the whole unknown world between the Spanish and the Portuguese. These were the major world powers then, and the leaders of global exploration. They quibbled over the Pope's line of demarcation, eventually moving one of the lines west, which may... or may not... have given Portugal its claim on Brazil.

Meanwhile the Dutch and, soon after, the English, were ramping up exploration programs of their own. And England set up shop in North America where our forefathers brought forth a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Portugal regrouped. It consolidated. Bottom line: Portugal stopped exploring; England did not. We are -- America is -- the result. Today, Portugal is a lovely place that exports cork and wine and constitutes the next biggest threat to the euro after Greece.

America may not control space. No terrestrial nation will, not in the long term, because all of us here are at the bottom of a big gravity well and space is the ultimate 'high ground.' But we can choose whether we want to be England... or Portugal.

I vote for England.

A possible explanation for this Louisiana oil mess?

Click to enlarge.

From Fake Science ("for when the facts are too confusing"). Hat tip to Popehat for the link to the site.

Almost certainly not a real sign...

...but doesn't some small part of you wish it were really posted somewhere?

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Image source.