I disagree with Philip Shropshire about almost everything, but he understands why space is important.

CAIR has responded to the president’s speech with their usual disingenuousness. They continue to ignore the fundamental issues, and they continue to ignore the sick culture at work in the territories, and the Arab world at large. If they want to promote “American-Islamic relations,” this isn’t the way to do it.

“The speech was a step in the right direction, but it fell short of offering a clear vision of the ultimate destination. Core issues such as the status of Jerusalem and existing Israeli settlements, final borders and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, were not addressed in a way that offers hope for a just and comprehensive settlement to the Middle East conflict. It was the failure to address these vital issues that brought us to the current impasse.

No, it was a failure on the part of the Palestinian “leadership” to negotiate these issues like civilized human beings, instead choosing to send children to bomb other children (and often babies) with poisoned construction fasteners, as a means of achieving unattainable goals, that brought us to the current impasse.

“The right to freedom should never be conditioned on the whims of a hostile party and must not face a veto by any individual, group or government opposed to peace. It is up to the Palestinians themselves to choose their leaders in a free and independent political process. That leadership should reflect the hopes and aspirations of all Palestinians.

Sorry, but no. Not when those “hopes and aspirations” include (as demonstrated in their own textbooks, public statements, web sites, radio addresses, etc.) the goals of the destruction of the state of Israel, and the murder of its citizens.

“Our policies in the Middle East should be based on American national interests and on universal values of freedom and justice, not on the political and religious agenda of an influential domestic lobby for a foreign government.”

Ahhh, it didn’t take them long to trot out the old, “the American policy is in thrall to the evil Jews” argument. It’s deniable, since they won’t be specific about what the “domestic lobby” is, or who the “foreign government” is, but most of us are capable of reading between the lines, as they intend. Unfortunately for them, some of us are capable of reading between the lines between the lines, which they didn’t intend.

Awad thanked the president for his statements in praise of Islamic culture and its contributions to world civilization. He said those comments were particularly significant given the current atmosphere of anti-Muslim rhetoric.

The “current atmosphere of anti-Muslim rhetoric”? What atmosphere would that be? The only rhetoric I hear is anti-Islamic-terrorist. Does Mr. Awad think that it’s over the top to criticize people who glorify the murder of innocents in the name of his religion? If not, I’m waiting for him to say so, and to join in the criticism.

I haven’t a lot to say about the 9th Circuit’s ruling yesterday, but since it’s such a hot new story, I’ll say, what did you expect?–it’s the 9th Circuit.

And I agree with those who say it’s a tempest in a teapot either way (about on a par with flag burning). Primarily I agree with Brink Lindsey, though.

Four Portuguese woman stuck their…errrmmm…mammary glands out the window, in the hopes that they’d be given mammograms via satellite.

Being Portuguese, they probably don’t even have the excuse of being blonde.

Here’s a nice piece, chock full of amusing Steyny goodness, about whether Osama is at room temperature (he is), assessment of Al Qaeda’s current capabilities (dismally incompetent, if you’re rooting for the Islamist fruitcake team), and whether the Administration is still ignoring the Saudi in the living room (they seem to be).

A couple samplings:

Recently, several hundred of the Princess Patricia?s Canadian Light Infantry exhumed every corpse in an al- Qa?eda cemetery near Kandahar and, failing to find a body with a very long beard and a very short penis, concluded that Osama had gotten away. (He had at one point ten lookalikes to confuse the Americans, but, of course, even the most convincing doppelg

Well, here’s one mainstream media type (albeit from Down Under) who thinks that bloggers are significant. He claims that we are partially responsible for the upcoming demise of Salon.

Adding to the difficulties of companies such as Salon Media is the popularity of web loggers, known as “bloggers”. They produce highly individual and opinionated websites, that are constantly updated.

My Fox column is up, and it has a dumb error in it. Columbia is flying a Spacelab mission, not an ISS mission–Columbia is too heavy to get to ISS (another problem with the location…).

Thanks to Paul Henney for pointing out the error.

[Evening update]

Doh!^2

My ass has been fact checked twice more.

Columbia can get to ISS–I just meant that its payload is much reduced, relative to the other Orbiters, but I should have made that more clear.

And Ross Nordeen points out, correctly, that it’s a SpaceHab mission, not a SpaceLab mission. The latter, is, I believe, in retirement, but I don’t want to make any categorical statements, given my track record so far today…

The most powerful ex-Klansman in the country, who seems determined to move the entire federal government to West Virginia before he departs this earth, led the Senate in saying the pledge today. Unfortunately, according to reports, Senator Byrd forgot the words…

The Supremes say that vouchers for religious schools are A-OK. An interesting decision, coming on the heels of yesterday’s 9th Circuit ruling on having to omit “under God,” from the pledge. It may presage how they’ll rule the appeal in that case.

Had they gone the other way, then someone should have brought suit to end Pell Grants, since they can be used to attend, say, the University of Notre Dame.

Another milestone in rocketry was achieved on Monday. For the first time in history, a pure rocket-powered aircraft performed a touch-and-go landing. This maneuver, which involves landing on a runway, and then taking off again before speed is slowed too much, is one that every student pilot practices, multiple times, because it builds skill in both takeoff and landing. But until this week, it had always been performed with an airbreathing engine.

XCOR Aerospace has now demonstrated that it’s possible to do it with rocket power, which required the ability to routinely and reliably cut power for the landing, and then restart the engines for the takeoff.

This implies that if they are not available now, engines will be available very soon that will allow affordable rocket races, trips to suborbit, and (eventually) rides into orbit itself on a routine basis, that could provide the foundation for a whole new transportation industry.