Habemus Papum!
Happy anniversary to His Holiness the Pope: popelink. Also on this date, in A.D. 1012, St. Alphege was martyred in Greenwich, England. (Martyrdom is the quick, though certainly unpleasant, route to sainthood.)

In addition to the third anniversary of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's election as Pope Benedict XVI (2005), 19 April is also the two hundred thirty-third anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord (1775), the Shot Heard 'Round the World that inaugurated the Revolutionary War; the fifteenth anniversary of the fiery end to the Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas (1993); and not coincidentally the thirteenth anniversary of the terrorist bombing of the Murrah Federal Building on Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (1995). Throughout the late '90s, before I'd ever heard of al Qaeda, I used to dread the coming of April 19th, always expecting domestic terrorists to make some manner of murderous strike. Not so much anymore, for a confluence of reasons.

Vote For Kodos & The Stars My Destination
The space shuttle fleet is scheduled to be retired in 2010. The new Orion spacecraft is not scheduled to be operational until 2014 (I know that date looks futuristic, but it's a scant six years distant). If a hypothetical President Obama guts N.A.S.A.'s funding to the degree Senator Obama promises/threatens, the first flight of an Orion will be pushed back, if it ever happens at all. Our European and Japanese partners, for all their technical sophistication, have no manned spacecraft; neither the E.S.A, nor any of the independent European space agencies, nor J.A.X.A. have ever placed an astronaut in orbit without hitching a ride on an American and/or Russian spaceship. The Chinese have independent launch capability and have orbited their own astronauts, but they are neither participants in the International Space Station nor, how shall I phrase this?, terribly cooperative in these matters. The Chinese have an attitude reminiscent of the U.S.A.-U.S.S.R. Space Race.

I mention all this in the context of a hyperlink. Without the S.T.S. fleet, and Orion still on the drawing board, the only means to place astronauts in orbit and return them "safely" to the earth would be Russia's Soyuz capsules: landinglink. A vote for Barack Obama is a vote to lose America's ability to place astronauts in low Earth orbit for the first time since 1961. Happy landings!

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Frightened Rabbit, "Old Old Fashioned" via iTunes (Daddy Dylweed)

Commentary: Frightened Rabbit reminds me of my late Grandpa Wilson's, God rest his soul, V.W. Rabbit. I loved that car when I was a youngling, especially the silhouette of a bolting hare on the front fender.