Today Is Another Day

Space Shuttle Discovery Does A Backflip

And as it turns out, so does NASA as it suspends further Space Shuttle flights.

"As with any unexpected occurrence, we will closely and thoroughly evaluate this event and make any needed modifications to the shuttle before we launch again," the NASA administrator, Michael Griffin, said in a statement on the NASA Web site. "This is a test flight. Among the things we are testing are the integrity of the foam insulation and the performance of new camera equipment installed to detect problems. The cameras worked well. The foam did not."The foam does not appear to have struck the Discovery, so the decision to ground the shuttle fleet will not curtail its 12½-day mission to the International Space Station, the officials said. But further flights will be postponed indefinitely, starting with that of the Atlantis, which was to have lifted off as early as September.

"Until we fix this, we're not ready to go fly again," William W. Parsons, the manager of the shuttle program, said at a news briefing at the Johnson Space Center here on Wednesday evening.

John Shannon, a NASA flight operation and integration manager, said today that NASA asked the mission management team on Wednesday to think about what they would do differently if the Atlantis does not fly in September.

"That decision certainly hasn't been made," he said. "But we have to face reality, we had a significant problem that we had to go address and fix."

It goes to show 100% safety is actually quite difficult to accomplish. BTW, here's another spectacular pickie from the NYT:


From The Pleiades Cable Wire Service
This came in this morning from Pleiades who keeps an eye on this sort of thing.
The recent police shooting of a Brazillian Electrician in England has some people scratching their heads.

Ok, this thing with the murdered Brazilian is just too much. Why isn't anybody talking about this in what would seem to be an extremely logical deduction. Consider:

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/07/22/london.eyewitness/index.html

"As the man got on the train I looked at his face. He looked from left to right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, like a cornered fox. He looked absolutely petrified," said Whitby.

"The next thing I saw was this guy jump over the barriers and the police officers were chasing after him and everyone was just shouting 'Get out, get out,'" Wells said.

"He half-tripped, was half-pushed to the floor. The policeman nearest to me had the black automatic pistol in his left hand, he held it down to the guy and unloaded five shots into him."
------------------------------------

Now this is saying they thought he was a suicide bomber... well is that how you confront a suicide bomber? I mean the man is wearing pounds of explosives, or must be, so is it the best tactic to chase him into a crowded area, throw him to the ground, and fire at his torso five times, exactly where the explosives must be...?

We all know, now, that Menezes was not a suicide bomber. He was just a Brazilian electrician. So why, then, was he so scared or as the witness says "petrified". I mean if the police are chasing you (or just some random 3 guys, as by some account the "police" were plainly clothed) then would you be "petrified"?

You might be startled, a nerved, surprised, ready to defend yourself or maybe scream for help (as he was in a crowded area). But not petrified!

It seems we have both the victim and the officers behaving not at all as they should have been. The police behaved as though Menezes was not a suicide bomber (or at least not one about to blow up) and Menezes did not act as the innocent electrician that we're told he was.

http://rense.com/general67/cops.htm

"Jean was followed from the apartment building where he resided, to a subway station, where he was then accosted by 'plain clothes officers' who chased him down to the train, tripped him, jumped on him, and then shot him five times in the torso."

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/07/22/london.tube/index.html

Go figure. The rest of the article is as unnsettling as they come.

Yankee Ups & Downs
The Yankees lost yesterday 7-3, to the reigning Cy Young winner Johann Santana and the Minnesota Twins. The game featured this play by Joe Mauer of the twins:



Take a look at Mauer's legs. Not only is he blocking the basepath, he's on the outside of the 3B line. His left leg is actually stretched out practically tripping the runner (which just sso happens to be our man, St. Derek of the Pinstripes) . Technicallly, in any rulebook (even the one used by the Major Leagues) this is obstruction. The runner's safe. But of course in the major leagues, all sorts of things go on. The amazing thing, is, nobody says anything. Nary a comment - which is why I'm taking this opportunity to point it out. :).

I remarked on the Nomo signing yesteerday. here's the NYT take on the signing :

Nomo, who turns 37 next month, will join Class AAA Columbus today and is not a candidate to start Saturday because he has not pitched since July 15. That was his 19th and final start for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who released him after he went 5-8 with a 7.24 earned run average.

"He's got to get some work in, sharpen up and get a feel for it," Manager Joe Torre said. "It's just like being on the D.L. He just needs to get some action down there and have them tell us what they think."

Even if Nomo cannot help the Yankees this weekend, Cashman said it made sense to sign him considering the state of the rotation. Nomo has pitched for six teams over 11 major league seasons, with a 123-109 record.

"He's Hideo Nomo - he's one of the premier pitchers of probably all-time, for what he accomplished coming over from Japan to come here," Cashman said. "You know he's not afraid. He's one of those rare special ones. If you look at Nomo and compare him to some of our other in-house choices, it's a no-brainer."

Goodness. With that logic, you'd bring back Ron Guidry.
More Jeter hagiography as a palette of icons

Emergency starter Aaron Small had his second outing and came up very big today .

Against the Twins, he gave up three runs and six hits in seven innings, walked none and struck out one, retiring his final 12 batters after Jacque Jones' tying double in the fourth. It was the longest outing in the major league career of Small, who has just five starts among his 149 appearances.

Tom Gordon pitched the eighth, and Mariano Rivera finished for his 26th save -- all in a row since failing in his first two chances of the season. New York, with only Randy Johnson and Mike Mussina remaining from its original five-man rotation, closed within 1 1/2 games of idle first-place Boston in the AL East.

Sheffield hooked a three-run homer just inside the left-field foul pole in the first inning off Joe Mays (5-6). After Minnesota tied it on Luis Rodriguez's two-run single in the second and Jones' double, Sheffield put the Yankees ahead for good with a run-scoring single in the fifth. He is batting .396 (38-for-96) with runners in scoring position this year.

So the Yankees still sit 1.5 games behind the Bosox.

A Night At The Opera
I attended a function held by the NSWFTO with Pleiades and Mrs. Pleiades last night. The FTO function was for the regional film fund and the various film bodies in rural Australia. So we got to meet important liaison people from Cowra for our 'Giants at Dawn' project, which of course is starting to gather momentum.

There's a lot of industry interest in this production now that we are talking to a big time Hollywood Agent about a certain star he represents; as well as having sewn up some big names at the Australian end; not to mention the mighty Geoff Murphy being signed on as our director (and he's not fading away!)

We got to speak to people from Northern Rivers; Film Mid North Coast Armidale; the ACT Production Liaison officer; Broken Hill's Tourism Services Manager various FTO officials and they were all very positive and enthusiastic. All in all it was a very encouraging night. Stay tuned for that one too.