CALIFORNIA YANKEE

Tancredo Not Pulling Back

I've been talking with the Tancredo campaign about doing an email interview with the Colorado Congressman and presidential candidate. While the interview process was unfolding I posted about the Rocky Mountain News article stating Congressman Tancredo plans to scale back his presidential candidacy. I have been assured that the Rocky Mountain News got it wrong:

I'll be clear: We are not pulling back.

I asked the Congressman three questions:

1. How can you convince Republicans that your candidacy should be taken seriously when you haven't broken 1 percent in a national poll, and David Yepsen, the dean of Iowa political reporters, writes that you seem more interested in making a point than in becoming president?

2. Given your opposition to the revised strategy in Iraq, the so-called "surge," and your statements that there will be a long term U.S. presence in Iraq, what would you do to achieve victory in Iraq?

3. What would be the top five goals of a Tancredo presidency and how would President Tancredo go about achieving those goals?

His answers can be seen in the following video:

Securing the Border, Pursuing the War Against the Radical Islamists, Economic Vibrancy, and Energy Independence. Good goals.

I want to thank Congressman Tancredo for letting us get to know him a little better.

"The Answer Is Yes"

Asked by Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show" if he'd like the nation's top job, former Tennessee senator and presidential wannabee said he's never craved the job of president, but I want to do some things that only a president can do:"

"So," Thompson added, "the answer is yes."

Thompson presented himself as a Washington outsider:

Referring to his time in the U.S. Senate, he said, "I often say after eight years in Washington, I longed for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood."

Fred needs to learn to be as comfortable making a speech as he was on Leno.

All The Decisiveness Of Hagel

Tommy Thompson announces he will make a major announcement about his presidential campaign. Then announces he will stay in the race. All the decisiveness of Hagel.

There is not room for two Thompsons in this campaign.

Thompson's campaign strategy is to win the Ames straw poll. He has said if he can’t win the straw poll, he's out. That strategy was seriously undercut last week when Republican front-runners Rudy Giuliani and John McCain announced they were skipping the Ames straw poll. Mitt Romney is now expected to easily win the straw poll.

Israel Stands Alone

Daniel Pipes writes that President Bush has decided not to attack , which leaves only Israel to disrupt 's nuclear program.

Pipes considers the analysis of Whitney Raas and Austin Long "Osirak Redux? Assessing Israeli Capabilities to Destroy ian Nuclear Facilities." Raas and Long consider five components of a successful strike:

• Intelligence: To impede the production of fissile material requires incapacitating only three facilities of 's nuclear infrastructure. In ascending order of importance, these are the heavy water plant and plutonium production reactors under construction at Arak, a uranium conversion facility in Isfahan, and a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. Destroying the Natanz facility, in particular, they note, "is critical to impeding 's progress toward nuclearization."

• Ordnance: To damage all three facilities with reasonable confidence requires — given their size, their being underground, the weapons available to the Israeli forces, and other factors — twenty-four 5,000-lb. weapons and twenty-four 2,000-lb. weapons.

• Platforms: Noting the "odd amalgamation of technologies" available to the ians and the limitations of their fighter planes and ground defenses to stand up to the high-tech Israeli air force, Ms. Raas and Mr. Long calculate that the IDF needs a relatively small strike package of 25 F–15Is and 25 F–16Is.

• Routes: Israeli jets can reach their targets via three paths: Turkey to the north, Jordan and Iraq in the middle, or Saudi Arabia to the south. In terms of fuel and cargo, the distances in all three cases are manageable.

• Defense forces: Rather than predict the outcome of an Israeli-ian confrontation, the authors calculate how many Israeli planes would have to reach their three targets for the operation to succeed. They figure 24 planes must reach Natanz, six to Isfahan, and five to Arak, or 35 altogether. Turned around, that means the ian defenders minimally must stop 16 of 50 planes, or one-third of the strike force. The authors consider this attrition rate "considerable" for Natanz and "almost unimaginable" for the other two targets.

Osirak Redux is available here in PDF format.

Raas and Long conclude that the Israeli Air Force possesses the technical capability to carry out an attack to destroy even well-hardened targets in with some degree of confidence. That leaves the question as to whether Israel, unlike the U.S., has the political will to do it.

Giuliani's "Twelve Commitments"

In New Hampshire today, Mayor Rudy Giuliani announced Twelve Commitments to the American people:

I will keep America on offense in the Terrorists' War on Us.

I will end illegal immigration, secure our borders, and identify every non-citizen in our nation.

I will restore fiscal discipline and cut wasteful Washington spending.

I will cut taxes and reform the tax code.

I will impose accountability on Washington.

I will lead America towards energy independence.

I will give Americans more control over, and access to, healthcare with affordable and portable free-market solutions.

I will increase adoptions, decrease abortions, and protect the quality of life for our children.

I will reform the legal system and appoint strict constructionist judges.

I will ensure that every community in America is prepared for terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

I will provide access to a quality education to every child in America by giving real school choice to parents.

I will expand America's involvement in the global economy and strengthen our reputation around the world.

Sounds good, but will the voters believe him?

Tear Down This Wall!

Twenty years ago today President Reagan demanded:"

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Tomorrow President Bush will help dedicate the Victims of Communism memorial:

Two months after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, conservative historian Lee Edwards began worrying that the world might forget the millions who suffered and died under communist regimes.

[. . .]

When his wife suggested building a memorial in Washington, he immediately scribbled the idea down on a napkin. Two days later, Mr. Edwards began to pursue a goal that would take 17 years, a bipartisan congressional bill and nearly $1 million to accomplish.

The memorial, called the "Goddess of Democracy," is a bronze replica of the figure erected by Chinese students during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and destroyed by Chinese tanks. The students modeled it after the Statue of Liberty.

The memorial stands at the intersection of Massachusetts and New Jersey avenues in Northwest.

Astronauts To Repair Atlantis

NASA extended the mission of the shuttle Atlantis by two days Monday night to include an extra spacewalk to repair the shuttle's damaged heat shield:

"We don't want to re-enter until we've done this," said John Shannon, who chairs the NASA mission management team. "I don't want to take a risk of damaging flight hardware, when we have something that looks easy to do. So, it was a pretty easy decision to make."

NASA loses credibility when officials say or imply an obvious problem is of no concern and then announce a plan to fix the "non-problem" in space.

Where's The Fence?

Grassfire.org, a conservative advocacy organization, targets Arizona Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl with an ad that ask, "Where's the fence?"

The commercials revisit the theme of Wendy's restaurants' famous series of hamburger commercials that used the catch phrase "Where's the beef?"

Bob Grossfeld, president of Scottsdale political consulting firm The Media Guys, gets it right when he says the ads are a waste of money. Neither Kyl nor McCain is going to reverse their position on the Senate's immigration deal.

Watch the following video, in which Senator McCain tries to explain why the fence hasn't been built:

Just build it already.

Atlantis Arrives At The International Space Station

Space Shuttle Atlantis docked at the International Space Station's Destiny laboratory on Sunday at 3:36 p.m. EDT.

Engineers started evaluating whether the shuttle's damaged heat shield should be fixed by astronauts. Engineers who studied damage to the thermal blanket area on other shuttle missions were uncomfortable with the safety margins of a piece of the blanket sticking out during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.

"The concern is that if it sticks up, you get additional heating," said John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team.

A decision whether to repair the damage in space will be made in the next day or two.

Image credit: NASA TV

Gap In Atlantis' Heat Shield

A post-launch inspection of the shuttle's heat tiles, outer edges and blankets found a gap in a thermal blanket on the left side of the shuttle.

The gap, about 4 inches by 6 inches, appears to have been caused by air lifting the corner of the blanket up, John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team, said at a news conference.

"It's not a great deal of concern right now, but there's a lot of work to be done," Shannon said. "Other than that, the vehicle is very clean."

The area does not get hotter than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit during the shuttle's return to Earth and is not a place where NASA is usually concerned about potentially fatal problems, NASA spokeswoman Lynette Madison said. Still, engineers were using photos to create a three-dimensional model of the gap just in case.

Thermal blankets came unstitched during flights of Discovery in 2005 and 2006 without any problems, and thermal tiles were lost in the same area where the blanket is on Atlantis on two of the earliest shuttle flights.

Engineers aren't sure if stitching on the blanket came loose or if the blanket, covering a pod of engines near the shuttle's tail, was hit by debris during launch. NASA engineers will study more photos of the torn blanket. Using the images, engineers can build models and perform aerodynamic and thermodynamic tests to determine whether the peeled-back blanket would pose problems during Atlantis' re-entry into Earth's atmosphere at the end of the mission.

If engineers decide the blanket needs to be fixed, Atlantis' astronauts could trim if off, tuck it back into protective tiles or cover it with a plate held in place by adhesive goo during a spacewalk.