Challenger failure was political, not technological

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Friday January 28, 2011 · 2:47 PM PST

2011/01/28 · 14:47

Twenty-five years ago, the space shuttle Challenger launched and exploded. Many people reminiscing about it today talk about in terms of the cost of exploration or the failure of technology.

The fault was not in risks that were misunderstood or technology that was not proven. Seven astronauts died because the desires of politics overruled the experience of NASA professionals to give then-President Ronald Reagan a talking point in his State of the Union address.

rmjwell

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Monday July 19, 2010 · 12:39 PM PDT

2010/07/19 · 12:39

Pundits and politicians want to make a big deal about what the Tea Party "Movement" means in terms of politics or zeitgeist or whatever other damn thing they can manage to throw into the mix. But at it's heart the current Tea Partiers come into sharpest focus when contrasted with the historical protest whose name they are appropriating.

rmjwell

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Thursday March 11, 2010 · 9:41 AM PST

2010/03/11 · 09:41

When the former CEO of eBay decided to play "Bait The Press" Tuesday in Oakland I confess I wasn't exactly surprised. CEOs have been stealing this page from the old Reagan playbook since he perfected it in the 80s. That someone running as a Republican would use it seemed almost de riguer.

What upset me is that the press corps (with a couple of exceptions) still lets itself be used. Pictures that accompanied the story of how Meg Whitman stonewalled the press still showed her smiling face. Didn't matter that she so didn't want to speak to the press that she had blinds drawn so that the press couldn't even see her after she had dismissed them from the room. There's her smiling face, presenting her looking like just another grown-up trying to convince us that the state is better off with her at the helm.

I humbly suggest that future reporting show a picture of the window shade in lieu of her mug; to help in that quest I will also re-christen er "Window Shade" Whitman.

Intermittent Glowers

rmjwell

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Wednesday August 05, 2009 · 1:33 PM PDT

2009/08/05 · 13:33

Long time reader, first time poster. Please don't hurt me.

Grew up in that part of the Southeast Chicago suburbs known as Northwest Indiana and have never quite gotten over my love of Chicago politics, pizza or the Cubs. I'm a Democrat first because my family was and now because it makes sense to be one. And a progressive one at that.

Live in California now, a state that has managed to make direct democracy via ballot initiative look worse than Daley Machine politics.

Every so often I'll look at two apparently unrelated news items and have an "A-ha!" moment. Today's moment comes courtesy of the birther lunacy and the sad bastard in Pennsylvania that went on the shooting spree in the gym.

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Challenger failure was political, not technological

Tea Parties, then & now

Truth In Reporting, California-style

Intermittent Glowers