CALIFORNIA YANKEE

Solar Sail Launch Failed

The Associated Press reports that the solar sail space vehicle, Cosmos 1, crashed back to Earth when the booster rocket's engine failed less than two minutes after takeoff:

But the Volna booster rocket failed 83 seconds after its launch from a Russian nuclear submarine in the northern Barents Sea just before midnight Tuesday in Moscow, the Russian space agency said.

Its spokesman, Vyacheslav Davidenko, said that "the booster's failure means that the solar sail vehicle was lost."

Durbin Apologizes, Sorta

The Associated Press reports that Illinois' Defeatist Democratic Senator Durbin apologized for remarks last week suggesting the treatment of Guantanamo detainees is equivalent to atrocities committed by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and former Cambodian leader Pol Pot.

Durbin initially refused to apologize, but by last Friday, he was trying to clarify his comments, saying that he regretted misunderstandings they caused.

Durbin took a lot of heat from the right side of the blogosphere, including California Yankee.

Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist demanded that Durbin make a "formal apology" on the floor of the Senate. Today, Chicago's Democratic Mayor Richard Daley joined the chorus criticizing Durbin: "I think it's a disgrace to say that any man or woman in the military would act like that."

Unfortunately, Durbin won't just say he's sorry. Instead, Durbin said, "I'm sorry if...":

"I am sorry if anything I said caused any offense or pain to those who have such bitter memories of the Holocaust, the greatest moral tragedy of our time. Nothing, nothing should ever be said to demean or diminish that moral tragedy.

"I am also sorry if anything I said cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military ... I never ever intended any disrespect for them. Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line to them I extend my heartfelt apology," Durbin said.

That's not a heartfelt apology worth the tears the Senator shed delivering it.

Dennis M. Becklin, Publisher of Oregon News Online, writes that Durbin's half-apologies for Nazi slurs are part and parcel of Democrat invective:

In fact, democrat US Senators have turned the United States Senate into a mean-spirited institution that is filled with vile acrimony. This is now an institution that provides juicy tidbit quotations for use by the enemies of our noble country and fills terrorist publications with vindication for their wanton murder of innocents and their brutal repression of everything associated with the very ideal of democracy.

[. . .]

Perhaps Durbin just got caught up in the tide of nastiness flowing from US Senate democrats. Perhaps it's not really his mistake...it's just a symptom of a greater illness... Maybe it's contagious to be around so many democrat Senate colleagues who are all talking the same kind of language about the US President, about Guantanamo "atrocities" and about the Iraq "quagmire".

Perhaps it is contagious. Perhaps it is fatally contagious to the career of a US Senator who doesn't have sufficient control over his tongue or his brain to understand when he is slandering the entire US Military and the nation he was elected to serve.

The Democratic leadership has to learn that you can be perceived as tough and still be polite, or at least civil. Name calling is more an indication of immaturity than toughness.

11 Injured As Lightning Strikes Near Old Faithful

The Associated Press reports that lightning struck near a boardwalk Tuesday where a crowd had gathered to watch an eruption of the Old Faithful Geyser.

A spokesman said the lightning bolt hit the ground in front of the geyser, near the Old Faithful Visitor Center. It did not strike anyone directly.

11 people were injured, the most badly injured was a 12-year-old boy who had to be resuscitated by two doctors and a nurse also visiting the geyser.

Missing Scout Found Alive

FoxNews reports that the 11-year-old scout missing in Utah has been found alive.

The Scout was located safe and sound with no major injuries. He was found about five miles northeast of the Boy Scout camp where he was last seen Friday.

I'm so happy for the boy, his family and the Scouting organization.

Solar Sail Spacecraft Is Launched

Reuters reports that Cosmos 1, the world's first solar sail spacecraft, has been launched from a Russian submarine on board a converted Russian intercontinental ballistic missile.

Planetary Society co-founder Bruce Murray said that it was likely craft would fail:

"It will be a giant leap forward ... if it succeeds," Murray told reporters before the launch. "It will be a not-surprising failure if it doesn't."

I really hope the solar sails work.

UPDATE: The spacecraft may have malfunctioned. The BBC reports that no signals from the "solar sail" craft have been detected at mission control and controllers are unsure whether the sail separated from its launch rocket.

Text Messaging Makes It Tougher for 's Mullocracy to Control the Election

Agence France-Presse reports that technology is making it more difficult for the ian government to control the country's presidential election. Authorities are threatening to prosecute text messagers who insult the candidates.

Tehran mayor Mahmood Ahmadinejad has become the butt of a series of less than flattering jokes and allegations as his foes try to bring out a mass vote to support Rafsanjani in Friday's run-off election:

One message going round speaks of an "apocalypse" if Ahmadinejad wins, while another alleges that he will force men and women to work on different days if he wins: "Men on even days, women on odd days".

Ahmadinejad's team vehemently deny such allegations and the presidential hopeful has already attacked the use of text messages against him.

According to AFP there has been "pressure to cut off" the entire SMS service. Some users in Tehran found they were unable to send messages on Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile the main steam media is more easily controlled as this Washington Post report on the runoff election campaign between former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shows.

Yesterday, alleging vote-rigging, the third place finisher, Mehdi Karrubi, protested the election by resigning from the Expediency Council. Karrubi also quit his post as adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Karrubi didn't go quietly, he wrote a letter protesting the election results which was quoted in several ian newspapers.

In response three newspapers that quoted Karrubi's letter Monday morning were closed, joining a list of more than 100 publications shuttered by hard-liners.

According to Knight Ridder, authorities shut down Karrubi’s campaign headquarters and cut off access to Internet sites carrying the letter.

Happy Summer Solstice

Happy summer solstice and longest day of the year, in the northern hemisphere.

Thousands of people gathered at Stonehenge Tuesday morning to celebrate the Summer Solstice.

According to the BBC cheers rang out across Salisbury Plain as the sun rose over the heel stone at 0458 BST.

Democrats Continue Bolton Obstruction

Senate Democrats, along with Ohio's RINO Senator George Voinovich, continued to obstruct the nomination of John Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations this evening, refusing to give Mr. Bolton a vote on his confirmation.

Tonight's vote to end debate and move to actual confirmation fell six votes short of the 60 required, 54 to 38.

According to the New York Times, today's vote was preceded by exchanges similar to those that have marked the Bolton nomination all along:

Mr. Bolton's supporters say his hard-charging, outspoken personality is just what is needed to shake up the United Nations, which has been embarrassed by irregularities in the Iraq oil-for-food program and other problems. Mr. Bush has challenged the organization to show that it is more than an ineffectual debating society.

Mr. Bolton's critics say that as an under secretary of state, he often bullied subordinates and tried to intimidate officials who did not agree with his views. They say, too, that he has made disparaging remarks about the United Nations that make him unfit to be Washington's envoy to the organization.

Earlier today Bloomberg reported that Arizona's Senator Kyl said Bolton may be given a recess appointment as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations if Senate Democrats continue to stall a vote on his nomination:

"It's really critical we get John Bolton confirmed," Kyl of Arizona, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, said in an interview. "If we can't get him confirmed, my guess is he'll be appointed with a recess appointment."

A recess appointment would allow Bolton to serve as the Ambassador to the United Nations until the Congress adjourns late next year.

At a news conference today with the leaders of the European Union, President Bush refused to say whether he's considering a recess appointment. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also wouldn't rule out a recess appointment when asked about it yesterday on Fox News Sunday.

Columnist Robert Novak says that the Democrats opposition to Bolton, led by Connecticut's Democratic Senator Dodd and newly announced presidential candidate Delaware's Senator Biden is nothing more than a political charade:

Dodd's unreported speech to an empty Senate before it adjourned for another long weekend was classic senatorial misdirection. He held out the prospect of ending the filibuster against Bolton and quickly confirming him, if only more information were given Democratic senators. Yet, in the same speech, he reiterated his unequivocal opposition to the conservative Bolton, not discussing competence or ideology but personality.

All this is a charade. Opposition to Bolton has become a party matter, where his possible Democratic supporters have been brought to heel.

[. . .]

Seeking a way to justify preconceived opposition, Dodd and Biden seized on the executive branch's refusal to give the Senate what it wanted. The issue, so obscure it is difficult for the non-senatorial mind to grasp, goes to Bolton having requested intelligence intercepts. Dodd demands the names of U.S. officials listed there whom Bolton might have intimidated.

[. . .]

This baffling process becomes intelligible only in terms that Dodd and Biden want to hold together the Democrats on grounds of senatorial prerogative in demanding information. Sen. Charles Schumer, a Democrat who often removes the veils from his party's strategy, conceded that this trumped-up issue unified the caucus as it had in opposing Miguel Estrada's failed judicial nomination.

President Bush will have to give Bolton a recess appointment, limiting Bolton's tenure at the United Nations to 18 months. The Democrats's successful filibuster of Bolton doesn't bode well for President Bush in the almost certain battle to come over a Supreme Court nomination.

Afghanistan Foils Plot to Kill U.S. Ambassador

The Associated Press reports that Afghan intelligence officials thwarted a plot to assassinate U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad:

Three Pakistani men armed with rocket propelled grenades and assault rifles, were arrested in the Qarghayi district of Laghman province on Sunday, just 150 feet from where Khalilzad had planned to inaugurate a road with Afghanistan's interior minister, the officials told The Associated Press.

[. . .]

Khalilzad canceled his appearance at the road opening at the last minute and was never in danger, the official said. The interior minister, Ali Ahmad Jalali, also canceled his appearance.

Khalilzad has been nominated as the next US envoy to Iraq. Assaninating Ambassador Khalilzad would have given the evil doers much to brag about. Here's a big atta boy to the Afghan intelligence officials.

Bill Clinton Joins the Defeatists

Bill Clinton has joined the defeatists joining the chorus criticizing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Clinton called for the terrorist holding facility to “be closed down or cleaned up.”

According to the Financial Times, Clinton offered a test to determine whether treatment of "terrorists suspects" is justified:

Mr Clinton said the test for judging whether harsh treatment of terrorist suspects was justified was whether it challenged the “fundamental nature” of American society. If the answer is Yes, you have already given the terrorists a profound victory.”

That's really helpful. Haven't we been arguing about what is the fundamental nature of America for years?

During the interview Clinton admitted that when he was President terrorists suspects were held "beyond the normal length of time" without trial:

. . . I dealt with this, I'm not blameless on the second issue. We had a law on the books when I was President, that was enforced from time to time, which permitted the Justice department to hold suspected terrorists beyond the normal length of time they could them without trial, if, bringing the indictment and the trial would require the presentation of evidence which would reveal the identity of the intelligence source, compromise the life of the intelligence source, maybe risk the life of the intelligence source, but more importantly dry up what we thought we were finding out about terror networks.

[. . .]

And I've already admitted to you, I'm not blameless in this because when I was there not on the torture front but on extended detention, we had a few people, but we fixed it in some of the cases but not in every case, we still have three or four controversial cases, when I left office and I don't know what the answer to that is. It's a very difficult problem.

The entire 3850 word transcript of the "interview" is available here. Reading the interview I was struck by the fact that the Financial Times was only able to get in four questions. I have posted the portion of the interview dealing with Gitmo in the extended post.

Roger L. Simon wonders whether Clinton's attack on Gitmo is designed as a distraction from rumors that Clinton has had more extra-marital affairs behind the back of his senator wife.