NASA on Oct. 31 awarded a $206.5 million contract to a longtime contractor, United Space Alliance, to provide services for the next generation of its space-exploration program.
The contract will provide mission and flight crew logistics, training and flight support for the International Space Station and subsequent space exploration activities after the space shuttle program is ended. "This primary contract, which starts tomorrow (Nov. 1), and continues through the end of the fiscal year 2011, will be the primary one for planning, training, and the flying of the new Constellation series of spacecrafts that will replace the space shuttles when they are retired from service in 2010," NASA spokesperson Kelly Humphries told eWEEK.The Constellation Aries I (crew transportation) and Aries V (cargo) space ships are being designed without wings -- unlike the space shuttles -- because they will be used for new missions to the moon and eventually to Mars, Humphries said.United Space Alliance, based in Houston, has been NASA's primary provider of these services since the mid-'90s, Humphries said. Prior to that time, NASA granted individual contracts for the large set of services needed to get space vehicles into their missions.The two-year, 11-month Integrated Mission Operations Contract covers ground-based human spaceflight operations capability development and execution, including support to mission planning and preparation, crew and flight controller training, and real-time mission execution.
The cost-plus-award-fee contract provides for an optional one-year extension, which would increase the total value of the contract to $371 million. The extension period, if exercised, would be from Oct. 1, 2011, to Sept. 30, 2012.
United Space Alliance is a space-flight operations company that is a joint venture, owned equally by Boeing and Lockheed Martin. It was established in August 1995 as a Limited Liability Company (LLC). The company employs about 10,000 people in Texas, Florida, Alabama, and the Washington, D.C., area.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
One of my readers (maybe the only reader) tells me that it time again for a lesson about the Electoral College...
Supporters of the electoral college say that we need to keep it because it “forces candidates to campaign in small states” and because the “Founding Fathers” decided that it was the fairest way to elect a president.
However, the Electoral College, in my opinion, is an antiquated and outmoded system that has given the highest office in the country to the loser in the actual election seven (7) times in U.S. history. I fear it will do so again on Tuesday, but that’s another matter. Here’s a brief summary of the sordid history of the electoral college:
2000:
Bush 50,456,002 47.87%
Gore 50,999,897 48.38%
Note: Other candidates – like Buchanan and Nader, took more than a million and a half votes away from the two major candidates. Without them, the outcome would have been different – either Gore would have won the electoral college as well as the popular vote, or Bush might have won both the popular vote and the electoral college.
1960 (Kennedy/Nixon)
1968 (Nixon/Humphrey – this was the start of campaigns that focused solely on “battleground” states. Nixon had seen it go the other way once, and was not about to let it happen again.)
1976 (Carter/Ford)
In 1824, Andrew Jackson won the popular vote AND the electoral college, but in a four-man race, he failed to earn 50% of either. So the House of representatives decided the race, and picked John Quincy Adams, who had come in third.
In 1876, Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote, but Rutherford B. Hayes won the electoral college (after the only “Congressional commission” in U.S. history sorted things out in Hayes’ favor several months after the election).
In 1888, Grover Cleveland won the popular vote, but Benjamin Harrison won the electoral college.
However, the Electoral College, in my opinion, is an antiquated and outmoded system that has given the highest office in the country to the loser in the actual election seven (7) times in U.S. history. I fear it will do so again on Tuesday, but that’s another matter. Here’s a brief summary of the sordid history of the electoral college:
2000:
Bush 50,456,002 47.87%
Gore 50,999,897 48.38%
Note: Other candidates – like Buchanan and Nader, took more than a million and a half votes away from the two major candidates. Without them, the outcome would have been different – either Gore would have won the electoral college as well as the popular vote, or Bush might have won both the popular vote and the electoral college.
1960 (Kennedy/Nixon)
1968 (Nixon/Humphrey – this was the start of campaigns that focused solely on “battleground” states. Nixon had seen it go the other way once, and was not about to let it happen again.)
1976 (Carter/Ford)
In 1824, Andrew Jackson won the popular vote AND the electoral college, but in a four-man race, he failed to earn 50% of either. So the House of representatives decided the race, and picked John Quincy Adams, who had come in third.
In 1876, Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote, but Rutherford B. Hayes won the electoral college (after the only “Congressional commission” in U.S. history sorted things out in Hayes’ favor several months after the election).
In 1888, Grover Cleveland won the popular vote, but Benjamin Harrison won the electoral college.
LOOK OUT BELOW! Taking out the trash is more exciting in orbit.....
Space Station Trash Plunging to Earth
By Tariq Malik,
Space.com
(Oct. 31) - A piece of space station trash the size of a refrigerator is poised to plunge through the Earth's atmosphere late Sunday, more than a year after an astronaut tossed it overboard.
NASA and the U.S. Space Surveillance Network are tracking the object - a 1,400-pound tank of toxic ammonia coolant thrown from the International Space Station - to make sure it does not endanger people on Earth. Exactly where the tank will inevitably fall is currently unknown, though it is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere Sunday afternoon or later that evening, NASA officials said.
By Tariq Malik,
Space.com
(Oct. 31) - A piece of space station trash the size of a refrigerator is poised to plunge through the Earth's atmosphere late Sunday, more than a year after an astronaut tossed it overboard.
NASA and the U.S. Space Surveillance Network are tracking the object - a 1,400-pound tank of toxic ammonia coolant thrown from the International Space Station - to make sure it does not endanger people on Earth. Exactly where the tank will inevitably fall is currently unknown, though it is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere Sunday afternoon or later that evening, NASA officials said.
We had lots of kids, and I do mean kids, this evening. And strangely for us most of them were Hispanic... so in the paper I read today...
Get set for Day of the Dead in Dallas
12:23 AM CDT on Saturday, November 1, 2008
By DIANNE SOLÍS / The Dallas Morning News dsolis@dallasnews.com
The jack-o'-lanterns have faded and the goblins have retreated, with Halloween giving way to Días de los Muertos, the Mexican homage to the departed.
But it's not always easy to distinguish between the two celebrations, which run for three consecutive days (Halloween on Oct. 31 and Day of the Dead on Nov. 1-2).
Then there's the blended commercialization of the two – at Mexican bakeries and upscale supermarkets, traditional pan de muerto loaves mingle with black-cat cookies.
Latinos agree there's room for both. But many would like to put some distance between the popcorn balls and the chicken mole, a traditional Day of the Dead dish.
"I see the influence of Halloween as very natural," said Patricia Urbina, director of Teatro Flor Candela.
"[But] the act of doing an altar is an act of great love. Halloween is about scariness, blood, darkness and devils. It is the opposite of our Day of the Dead."
At the Latino Cultural Center, Día de los Muertos kicks off tonight with an indigenous-influenced play directed by Ms. Urbina.
Traditionally, Mexico's Dias de los Muertos represents a syncretic mix of Roman Catholicism and indigenous beliefs. Events are tied to All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, but many rituals are pre-Hispanic.
The iconic symbol of the celebrations is an altar with offerings to the departed, featuring elements of nature.
The altars can include favorite foods from the earth, fluttering paper cutouts called papel picado to represent wind, candles to symbolize fire and a liquid or beverage to signify water.
In recent years, the Internet has fueled the popularity of Day of the Dead traditions and led to elaborate celebrations in non-Latino communities.
"This fiesta is very organic," Ms. Urbina said. "All of us feel love for those who have passed on."
An exhibit of Day of the Dead art at the Bath House Cultural Center, which began three weeks ago, is now its biggest event of the year, and most of the artists lack Spanish surnames. More than 500 visitors attended the opening.
Enrique Fernández, the show's curator, said he sees the exhibit as an emotional canvas for artists of any culture to express their appreciation for someone no longer living.
Try as some might to keep Días de Los Muertos separate from Halloween, some children in Mexico City spent Friday embracing All Saints' Eve:
They wore scary costumes and carried plastic pumpkins.
12:23 AM CDT on Saturday, November 1, 2008
By DIANNE SOLÍS / The Dallas Morning News dsolis@dallasnews.com
The jack-o'-lanterns have faded and the goblins have retreated, with Halloween giving way to Días de los Muertos, the Mexican homage to the departed.
But it's not always easy to distinguish between the two celebrations, which run for three consecutive days (Halloween on Oct. 31 and Day of the Dead on Nov. 1-2).
Then there's the blended commercialization of the two – at Mexican bakeries and upscale supermarkets, traditional pan de muerto loaves mingle with black-cat cookies.
Latinos agree there's room for both. But many would like to put some distance between the popcorn balls and the chicken mole, a traditional Day of the Dead dish.
"I see the influence of Halloween as very natural," said Patricia Urbina, director of Teatro Flor Candela.
"[But] the act of doing an altar is an act of great love. Halloween is about scariness, blood, darkness and devils. It is the opposite of our Day of the Dead."
At the Latino Cultural Center, Día de los Muertos kicks off tonight with an indigenous-influenced play directed by Ms. Urbina.
Traditionally, Mexico's Dias de los Muertos represents a syncretic mix of Roman Catholicism and indigenous beliefs. Events are tied to All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, but many rituals are pre-Hispanic.
The iconic symbol of the celebrations is an altar with offerings to the departed, featuring elements of nature.
The altars can include favorite foods from the earth, fluttering paper cutouts called papel picado to represent wind, candles to symbolize fire and a liquid or beverage to signify water.
In recent years, the Internet has fueled the popularity of Day of the Dead traditions and led to elaborate celebrations in non-Latino communities.
"This fiesta is very organic," Ms. Urbina said. "All of us feel love for those who have passed on."
An exhibit of Day of the Dead art at the Bath House Cultural Center, which began three weeks ago, is now its biggest event of the year, and most of the artists lack Spanish surnames. More than 500 visitors attended the opening.
Enrique Fernández, the show's curator, said he sees the exhibit as an emotional canvas for artists of any culture to express their appreciation for someone no longer living.
Try as some might to keep Días de Los Muertos separate from Halloween, some children in Mexico City spent Friday embracing All Saints' Eve:
They wore scary costumes and carried plastic pumpkins.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Something woke me up and then I read in the paper today
Two minor earthquakes shake Dallas-Fort Worth area 09:05 AM CDT on Friday, October 31, 2008
By ARLINDA ARRIAGA / The Dallas Morning News
Dallas-Fort Worth residents received a pre-Halloween scare as two minor earthquakes shook the area overnight.
The U.S. Geological Survey says a 2.5-magnitude earthquake centered in the Grand Prairie area was reported at 11:25 p.m. Thursday. A slightly stronger 3.0-magnitude quake centered in the Irving area occurred 36 minutes later.
Law enforcement agencies across northern Texas said they received some 911 calls from concerned residents but no reports of damage.
Irving police spokesman David Tull said his agency received about 25 calls around midnight from people inquiring about the vibrations, which set off car and building alarms.
Grand Prairie and Fort Worth officials also reported no damage. "We just learned about it on the news this morning,” said Dawn Atkins, a Grand Prairie emergency dispatcher.
USGS geophysicist Randy Baldwin said the quakes, which lasted only a few seconds, most likely felt "like a lightly loaded truck passing by, kind of a sharp jerk and then a rapid vibration."
Irving resident Christine Laughland said she was sleeping when the earthquake woke her up. She's from California and wasn't too shocked by the vibrations. But she couldn't say the same thing for her dogs.
“They were barking hysterically because it was their first one,” she said.
Randy Owens, a Starbucks employee in Grand Prairie, said he didn't feel it but that it was the buzz among his customers this morning. "Many were saying they were surprised they didn't feel anything," he said.
Reports of the quake also came from Dallas, Euless and Hurst and Fort Worth, Mr. Baldwin said. Aftershocks could last several days. There is also a possibility of more smaller quakes in the coming days that no one would likely feel.
Texas occasionally has earthquakes.
An April 7 earthquake in southern Texas had a 3.7 magnitude.
A minor earthquake was felt by some people in Amarillo on March 30, 2002. The Amarillo area also recorded seven minor earthquakes in 2000.
FD: If this keeps up, we can start saying, "Did you feel that?" like they do in California. BTW, there was a great Life show with that same title -
http://www.tv.com/video/SJVRTYYT7LIYZBNCmT6wVHf2HHYXiALT/did-you-feel-that?o=hulu
By ARLINDA ARRIAGA / The Dallas Morning News
Dallas-Fort Worth residents received a pre-Halloween scare as two minor earthquakes shook the area overnight.
The U.S. Geological Survey says a 2.5-magnitude earthquake centered in the Grand Prairie area was reported at 11:25 p.m. Thursday. A slightly stronger 3.0-magnitude quake centered in the Irving area occurred 36 minutes later.
Law enforcement agencies across northern Texas said they received some 911 calls from concerned residents but no reports of damage.
Irving police spokesman David Tull said his agency received about 25 calls around midnight from people inquiring about the vibrations, which set off car and building alarms.
Grand Prairie and Fort Worth officials also reported no damage. "We just learned about it on the news this morning,” said Dawn Atkins, a Grand Prairie emergency dispatcher.
USGS geophysicist Randy Baldwin said the quakes, which lasted only a few seconds, most likely felt "like a lightly loaded truck passing by, kind of a sharp jerk and then a rapid vibration."
Irving resident Christine Laughland said she was sleeping when the earthquake woke her up. She's from California and wasn't too shocked by the vibrations. But she couldn't say the same thing for her dogs.
“They were barking hysterically because it was their first one,” she said.
Randy Owens, a Starbucks employee in Grand Prairie, said he didn't feel it but that it was the buzz among his customers this morning. "Many were saying they were surprised they didn't feel anything," he said.
Reports of the quake also came from Dallas, Euless and Hurst and Fort Worth, Mr. Baldwin said. Aftershocks could last several days. There is also a possibility of more smaller quakes in the coming days that no one would likely feel.
Texas occasionally has earthquakes.
An April 7 earthquake in southern Texas had a 3.7 magnitude.
A minor earthquake was felt by some people in Amarillo on March 30, 2002. The Amarillo area also recorded seven minor earthquakes in 2000.
FD: If this keeps up, we can start saying, "Did you feel that?" like they do in California. BTW, there was a great Life show with that same title -
http://www.tv.com/video/SJVRTYYT7LIYZBNCmT6wVHf2HHYXiALT/did-you-feel-that?o=hulu
Water 4 Gas ... I am still looking for the solution to powering the OLD FORD....
http://watercarproject.com/blog/helpful-hints-for-learning-how-you-can-power-your-automobile-on-just-water/
Finally, there is a Car Talk Show on the Topic!
Publisher's Summary
Husband John plans to convert his wife Tanis' minivan to hydrogen power. With nowhere else to turn, she looks to Tom and Ray to talk some sense into him. Bad idea. Is John headed for a three-alarm inferno, divorce court, and a plaque in the Car Talk Wacko Hall of Fame, all with one click of the ignition? Or, could he be on the cusp of becoming this century's tinkerer-extraordinaire?
Also, from the Department of Eternal Love, Sven's found the car of his dreams: a '62 Austin that's been dormant for decades in his neighbor's garage. Can our hosts help him dust it off and craft an offer his neighbor can't refuse?
Plus, the sad sound of a transmission "kaputing", creative windshield-wiper management, and an apology for one car fire our hosts didn't cause. All this, a puzzler from the Billionaire-and-His-Trees Series, and lots more, this week on Car Talk.
[Broadcast Date: May 16, 2008]
http://www.cartalk.com/ct/review/show.jsp?showid=200820
©2008 Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe
Reviews:
lleffler: 17 May 2008 Hi C&C, Your show today was excellent as always. I have a puzzler ans cummin up right after -- you post the puzzler. BUT, the reason for this post is the recent talk about Brown gas or HHO gas or WHATEVER! Now look, I am really interested in conservation, I believe in the peak oil concept, I believe we need to get off oil for security, and I believe global warming is real. But, we need to be real, watch out for the hype; I THINK (being cautious here) that the HHO idea is not real. Two concerns come immediately to mind. One: you need to separate the hydrogen gas from the water (ok, I know, electrolosis is NOT new, but, I doubt Brown [the so-called inventor of HHO] really has a new idea). The separation takes significant energy, so what's the balance? Two: safety. I understand the hydrogen gas is not stored; but, is mixed with a thing called - duh - oxygen. Now if hydrogen and oxygen mix at the right temperature; well, bad things can happen. So, you two MITers, give it your research and let us know. Really, your input would be very helpful. Say, if it IS real, then we gotta go for it, but it's more likely Blue Smoke! Thanks for everything! Favorite moment:See all other reviews by lleffler
: I listened with amusement turning to horror as you treated a major pseudo scientific crock with seriousness today. "Hydroxy" in his gas? What is hydroxy? There is a hydroxyl group in organic chemistry, and an hydroxide ion in solution, but hydroxy? Didn't you hear the guy tell you this magic device was going to put HHO into his gas? The last time I checked, this was water; but I only have an MS in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin. You guys know better than this; you cant put mystical substances into your gas...he never mentioned hydrogen. We have enough problems with lack of scientific knowledge without you car gurus adding to it. BTW,just before writing this, a local news show had a story about pills you can put in your tank to get 20% more mileage. Thank god they debunked it I do enjoy your show, and am a regular listener.Favorite moment:See all other reviews by
HankLay: Da Boys approached, but did not address the REAL question: Why would this scheme NOT fit the category, Perpetual Motion Machines? How can one use alternator/battery energy to create hydroxy to save fuel energy?! NO WAY, even at 100% conversion efficiency!Favorite moment:Tanis' name.See all other reviews by HankLay
: Your best ever show was you answer to the 7 year old boy on advertising.Favorite moment:noneSee all other reviews by
: Your best ever show was you answer to the 7 year old boy on advertising.Favorite moment:noneSee all other reviews by
red: Favorite moment:See all other reviews by red
: Regarding Tanis' husband's scheme to gain extra mileage by generating and reintroducing hydrogen into the car's engine: I don't think this can work. According to my understanding of the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, you cannot extract more energy from a system than you put into it in the first place. He is asking the car's engine to do additional work to break water into its elements. He cannot get any more enery from recombining (burning) the hydrogen in the engine than what was used to generate the hydrogen in the first place. If he could get his contraption to work, he would be inventing the world's first perpetual motion machine! If he really wants to increase his car's efficiency, he could concentrate on how to convert all the energy the engine wastes as heat into useful work. Kudos for trying though!
Great show as always.Favorite moment:See all other reviews by
Se7enLC: Take a closer look into this issue - Subaru increased the warranty on the head gasket on those models to 8 years/100,000 miles for just that reason. Your problem should be covered under that warranty extension. I would say call up subaru and ask them about it to see, and bring that information to the dealer.Favorite moment:See all other reviews by Se7enLC
: I am very interesting to see some one has finally bringing this topic up to you guys, but I am a bit disappointed not to see more discussion on the subject. With all the "water 4 gas" or the convention of water to get "brown gas" and therefore increase gas mileage from WWW, I think you should have a dedicated program time to discuss more inside of it.Favorite moment:Bring up "outside box" thinking See all other reviews by
maltmann: Sorry but this one needs debunking. The HHO thing is not going to work. The process needs more energy than it will generate, and it is impossible to change that (see previous ref to 1st thermo law). It's not out of the box thinking, it's just junk science. Why, oh why, didn't you call him on it?Favorite moment:See all other reviews by maltmann
FD: Hope you have better luck down loading it.
Finally, there is a Car Talk Show on the Topic!
Publisher's Summary
Husband John plans to convert his wife Tanis' minivan to hydrogen power. With nowhere else to turn, she looks to Tom and Ray to talk some sense into him. Bad idea. Is John headed for a three-alarm inferno, divorce court, and a plaque in the Car Talk Wacko Hall of Fame, all with one click of the ignition? Or, could he be on the cusp of becoming this century's tinkerer-extraordinaire?
Also, from the Department of Eternal Love, Sven's found the car of his dreams: a '62 Austin that's been dormant for decades in his neighbor's garage. Can our hosts help him dust it off and craft an offer his neighbor can't refuse?
Plus, the sad sound of a transmission "kaputing", creative windshield-wiper management, and an apology for one car fire our hosts didn't cause. All this, a puzzler from the Billionaire-and-His-Trees Series, and lots more, this week on Car Talk.
[Broadcast Date: May 16, 2008]
http://www.cartalk.com/ct/review/show.jsp?showid=200820
©2008 Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe
Reviews:
lleffler: 17 May 2008 Hi C&C, Your show today was excellent as always. I have a puzzler ans cummin up right after -- you post the puzzler. BUT, the reason for this post is the recent talk about Brown gas or HHO gas or WHATEVER! Now look, I am really interested in conservation, I believe in the peak oil concept, I believe we need to get off oil for security, and I believe global warming is real. But, we need to be real, watch out for the hype; I THINK (being cautious here) that the HHO idea is not real. Two concerns come immediately to mind. One: you need to separate the hydrogen gas from the water (ok, I know, electrolosis is NOT new, but, I doubt Brown [the so-called inventor of HHO] really has a new idea). The separation takes significant energy, so what's the balance? Two: safety. I understand the hydrogen gas is not stored; but, is mixed with a thing called - duh - oxygen. Now if hydrogen and oxygen mix at the right temperature; well, bad things can happen. So, you two MITers, give it your research and let us know. Really, your input would be very helpful. Say, if it IS real, then we gotta go for it, but it's more likely Blue Smoke! Thanks for everything! Favorite moment:See all other reviews by lleffler
: I listened with amusement turning to horror as you treated a major pseudo scientific crock with seriousness today. "Hydroxy" in his gas? What is hydroxy? There is a hydroxyl group in organic chemistry, and an hydroxide ion in solution, but hydroxy? Didn't you hear the guy tell you this magic device was going to put HHO into his gas? The last time I checked, this was water; but I only have an MS in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin. You guys know better than this; you cant put mystical substances into your gas...he never mentioned hydrogen. We have enough problems with lack of scientific knowledge without you car gurus adding to it. BTW,just before writing this, a local news show had a story about pills you can put in your tank to get 20% more mileage. Thank god they debunked it I do enjoy your show, and am a regular listener.Favorite moment:See all other reviews by
HankLay: Da Boys approached, but did not address the REAL question: Why would this scheme NOT fit the category, Perpetual Motion Machines? How can one use alternator/battery energy to create hydroxy to save fuel energy?! NO WAY, even at 100% conversion efficiency!Favorite moment:Tanis' name.See all other reviews by HankLay
: Your best ever show was you answer to the 7 year old boy on advertising.Favorite moment:noneSee all other reviews by
: Your best ever show was you answer to the 7 year old boy on advertising.Favorite moment:noneSee all other reviews by
red: Favorite moment:See all other reviews by red
: Regarding Tanis' husband's scheme to gain extra mileage by generating and reintroducing hydrogen into the car's engine: I don't think this can work. According to my understanding of the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, you cannot extract more energy from a system than you put into it in the first place. He is asking the car's engine to do additional work to break water into its elements. He cannot get any more enery from recombining (burning) the hydrogen in the engine than what was used to generate the hydrogen in the first place. If he could get his contraption to work, he would be inventing the world's first perpetual motion machine! If he really wants to increase his car's efficiency, he could concentrate on how to convert all the energy the engine wastes as heat into useful work. Kudos for trying though!
Great show as always.Favorite moment:See all other reviews by
Se7enLC: Take a closer look into this issue - Subaru increased the warranty on the head gasket on those models to 8 years/100,000 miles for just that reason. Your problem should be covered under that warranty extension. I would say call up subaru and ask them about it to see, and bring that information to the dealer.Favorite moment:See all other reviews by Se7enLC
: I am very interesting to see some one has finally bringing this topic up to you guys, but I am a bit disappointed not to see more discussion on the subject. With all the "water 4 gas" or the convention of water to get "brown gas" and therefore increase gas mileage from WWW, I think you should have a dedicated program time to discuss more inside of it.Favorite moment:Bring up "outside box" thinking See all other reviews by
maltmann: Sorry but this one needs debunking. The HHO thing is not going to work. The process needs more energy than it will generate, and it is impossible to change that (see previous ref to 1st thermo law). It's not out of the box thinking, it's just junk science. Why, oh why, didn't you call him on it?Favorite moment:See all other reviews by maltmann
FD: Hope you have better luck down loading it.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
What will be the FINAL October Surprise this Halloween?
Cover This! Inside Nastiest '08 Rumors
When John McCain and Barack Obama started running for president in 2007, they were two of the most universally liked and respected politicians in America — men who even members of the opposite party saw as decent, unifying characters — and neither of them inspired much loathing.
Well, that was then. Now, as the campaign enters its last week, partisans have deluged reporters with e-mails and vented on blogs about why the media is suppressing stories about one candidate or the other.
The unwritten Obama stories supposedly concern his Americanness: They raise doubts about his birth, his citizenship and his patriotism.
The un-penned anti-McCain stories go to the quality he's made central to his career: honor. They suggest he's used foul language to his wife and that his military record isn't what it seems.
So why hasn't Politico and the rest of the press reported on these stories? Well, some of them we're working on. But in many other cases, the stories were debunked, or there simply was no evidence for the claims.
These should be distinguished from partisan reporting that partisans wish had more political bite: National Review's attacks on the educational philosophy behind the Annenberg Challenge, for instance, or The Nation's reporting on McCain's ties to a Russian oligarch.
The demands that the Los Angeles Times release a video that it wrote about several months ago also come in a different category, though the underlying theory — that the Times missed, or concealed, some explosive element when it broke the story of the tape — is driven by some of the same longing for political kryptonite.
And the e-mails keep coming in, under headings such as: "Please research this;" "A tip for you," and "WHY ISN'T POLITICO COVERING THIS STORY???"
Obama is the subject of a far greater volume of these e-mails — as many as 20-to-1 concern the Democratic nominee, said Brooks Jackson, the director of the nonpartisan Annenberg Political
Fact Check.
And they come in waves.
"Whenever Obama builds a lead — that's when you hear a new one," said Reason Magazine writer David Weigel, the journalist who labored most in the vineyards of the fringe this cycle. "The calmest period for this stuff was the two weeks when McCain was ahead in the polls."
The stories, he said, capture "a fear of the other that is given form in ways that most terrify the people who make this stuff up."
And whichever candidate wins, these campaign trail rumors will haunt his presidency — just ask Bill Clinton or George W. Bush.
In times gone by, the press could have chosen to ignore these stories, comfortable in the knowledge that most readers would never learn of them. Now they're widespread, despite having been ignored by the press — or, perhaps, because of it.
"It's an outdated conceit to think that by not talking about things, we can keep them outside the public discourse," said Fact Check's Jackson, whose site has delved into some of these rumors. "That used to be true back when there were gates to keep and fences, too, but now, golly, these things can be so powerful."
And so here, without further ado, is a roundup of some of the best-known stories we haven't written, and why:
OBAMA'S CITIZENSHIP
Probably the most widely e-mailed Obama "tip" at the moment alleges that he isn't a natural-born American citizen and thus isn't eligible to run for president. This began in the die-hard pro-Hillary section of the blogosphere, which spent part of the summer discussing laws that deal with the citizenship of a child with one American parent born abroad. When it emerged that this challenge wouldn't hold water if Obama had been born in the United States, the focus shifted to the allegation that he had been born outside the United States.
In August, a Pennsylvania lawyer, Philip Berg, filed suit in federal court in Philadelphia. Berg, who also has been active in arguing that there was "government complicity" in the attack on the World Trade Center, demanded that the court force Obama to produce his original birth certificate. The court dismissed the lawsuit.
So why isn't this getting wide coverage? Well, first, there's lots of evidence that Obama was born in the United States, and none that he wasn't. The campaign handed over an official copy of his short-form birth certificate — the standard document produced by the Hawaii Department of Health — to Factcheck.org. And Poliltico has confirmed the authenticity of a contemporaneous announcement of his birth in the Honolulu Advertiser.
Berg fights on, though, on a website with supporters known as ChileMan, ChileWoman and MommaERadioRebels. He recently told conservative talk radio host Michael Savage that he has an audiotape of Obama's Kenyan grandmother recalling the candidate's birth in a Kenyan hospital.
"l'll release it in a day or two," he said six days ago.
A spokeswoman for the Hawaii Department of Health, Janice Okubo, said she's forbidden by state law from releasing birth certificates, but directed a reporter to the FactCheck.org item dismissing the rumors.
THE C-WORD
Perhaps the most widely-circulated and persistent anti-McCain story asserts that, in 1992, he directed a particularly taboo slur at his wife, Cindy. The story made it into publications from Vanity Fair to Huffington Post, but — to the frustration of Obama partisans — it has never been reported as fact.
The story has its origin in a book, "The Real McCain," by Cliff Schecter, a Democratic political consultant. He cites as sources three Arizona reporters who heard the exchange on the campaign trail in 1992, all of them quoted anonymously. Schecter, in an interview, suggested that news outlets refused to deal with the story because of their reluctance to use the crude anatomical term — a notion that was satirized in a YouTube comedy that has been seen by 600,000 people .
There is, however, another, more basic problem: Reporters have been unable to replicate Schecter's sourcing.
"They're all very scared," Schecter said of his sources.
And in the absence of confirmation, a story told by an opposing-party operative, without backup, isn't likely to make the mainstream — no matter what word it uses.
THE WHITEY TAPE
Obama's grandmother isn't the only relative beset by a phantom tape. The most famous of these is the "whitey tape," which some Clinton aides thought would save her campaign and which remains alive in the imaginations of Obama-haters. According to a rumor driven hardest by former CIA operative Larry Johnson, the tape featured Obama's wife, Michelle, saying nasty things about white people and using the word "whitey."
The story was essentially debunked in June, when Reason’s Weigel noticed that Johnson kept changing the description of his sources. But the rumors grew so noisy that later that month, Michelle Obama denied directly to the New York Times that she'd ever used the word.
Did that — or the fact that the tape simply hasn't materialized — end the controversy? Not really, says this reporter's e-mail inbox. A blog identifying itself as an African news agency run from Norway has reported, repeatedly, that it is in negotiations with Fox News to air the tape "imminently."
A Fox spokeswoman, Diana Rocco, forwarded a statement from the network calling the claim "absolutely false."
More recently, the blog attributed delays in airing the tape to threats and bribes, and asserted that it was in contact with the U.S. Embassy in Oslo to sort things out.
"The Embassy is not involved in any activity or investigation as described in this article and has no further information on the matter," an embassy official, Marit Andersen, said in an e-mail.
THE FORRESTAL
The volume of McCain rumors is lower, but another entire genre has to do with his military service, the core of his biography. These unwritten stories key on an article in the Los Angeles Times finding that McCain, a self-described "daredevil," was blamed by the Navy for causing a crash that he'd attributed elsewhere to engine failure.
But liberal partisans have blamed McCain for crashing as many as five planes, including one that supposedly led to the 1967 disaster on the U.S. Forrestal, where an explosion killed 134 sailors. McCain's plane was among those consumed by flames, and a historian of the crash wrote that he "narrowly escaped death."
According to the claim, publicized on the liberal site TruthDig.com, McCain could have started the fire by engaging in a risky maneuver called a "wet start," in which a pilot leaves fuel on the deck to flame behind him when he takes off.
FactCheck.org, which examined the story in great detail, found otherwise. None of the contemporaneous investigations even suggested that McCain could have played a role, and diagrams showed his plane pointing in the wrong direction to have caused the disaster.
When John McCain and Barack Obama started running for president in 2007, they were two of the most universally liked and respected politicians in America — men who even members of the opposite party saw as decent, unifying characters — and neither of them inspired much loathing.
Well, that was then. Now, as the campaign enters its last week, partisans have deluged reporters with e-mails and vented on blogs about why the media is suppressing stories about one candidate or the other.
The unwritten Obama stories supposedly concern his Americanness: They raise doubts about his birth, his citizenship and his patriotism.
The un-penned anti-McCain stories go to the quality he's made central to his career: honor. They suggest he's used foul language to his wife and that his military record isn't what it seems.
So why hasn't Politico and the rest of the press reported on these stories? Well, some of them we're working on. But in many other cases, the stories were debunked, or there simply was no evidence for the claims.
These should be distinguished from partisan reporting that partisans wish had more political bite: National Review's attacks on the educational philosophy behind the Annenberg Challenge, for instance, or The Nation's reporting on McCain's ties to a Russian oligarch.
The demands that the Los Angeles Times release a video that it wrote about several months ago also come in a different category, though the underlying theory — that the Times missed, or concealed, some explosive element when it broke the story of the tape — is driven by some of the same longing for political kryptonite.
And the e-mails keep coming in, under headings such as: "Please research this;" "A tip for you," and "WHY ISN'T POLITICO COVERING THIS STORY???"
Obama is the subject of a far greater volume of these e-mails — as many as 20-to-1 concern the Democratic nominee, said Brooks Jackson, the director of the nonpartisan Annenberg Political
Fact Check.
And they come in waves.
"Whenever Obama builds a lead — that's when you hear a new one," said Reason Magazine writer David Weigel, the journalist who labored most in the vineyards of the fringe this cycle. "The calmest period for this stuff was the two weeks when McCain was ahead in the polls."
The stories, he said, capture "a fear of the other that is given form in ways that most terrify the people who make this stuff up."
And whichever candidate wins, these campaign trail rumors will haunt his presidency — just ask Bill Clinton or George W. Bush.
In times gone by, the press could have chosen to ignore these stories, comfortable in the knowledge that most readers would never learn of them. Now they're widespread, despite having been ignored by the press — or, perhaps, because of it.
"It's an outdated conceit to think that by not talking about things, we can keep them outside the public discourse," said Fact Check's Jackson, whose site has delved into some of these rumors. "That used to be true back when there were gates to keep and fences, too, but now, golly, these things can be so powerful."
And so here, without further ado, is a roundup of some of the best-known stories we haven't written, and why:
OBAMA'S CITIZENSHIP
Probably the most widely e-mailed Obama "tip" at the moment alleges that he isn't a natural-born American citizen and thus isn't eligible to run for president. This began in the die-hard pro-Hillary section of the blogosphere, which spent part of the summer discussing laws that deal with the citizenship of a child with one American parent born abroad. When it emerged that this challenge wouldn't hold water if Obama had been born in the United States, the focus shifted to the allegation that he had been born outside the United States.
In August, a Pennsylvania lawyer, Philip Berg, filed suit in federal court in Philadelphia. Berg, who also has been active in arguing that there was "government complicity" in the attack on the World Trade Center, demanded that the court force Obama to produce his original birth certificate. The court dismissed the lawsuit.
So why isn't this getting wide coverage? Well, first, there's lots of evidence that Obama was born in the United States, and none that he wasn't. The campaign handed over an official copy of his short-form birth certificate — the standard document produced by the Hawaii Department of Health — to Factcheck.org. And Poliltico has confirmed the authenticity of a contemporaneous announcement of his birth in the Honolulu Advertiser.
Berg fights on, though, on a website with supporters known as ChileMan, ChileWoman and MommaERadioRebels. He recently told conservative talk radio host Michael Savage that he has an audiotape of Obama's Kenyan grandmother recalling the candidate's birth in a Kenyan hospital.
"l'll release it in a day or two," he said six days ago.
A spokeswoman for the Hawaii Department of Health, Janice Okubo, said she's forbidden by state law from releasing birth certificates, but directed a reporter to the FactCheck.org item dismissing the rumors.
THE C-WORD
Perhaps the most widely-circulated and persistent anti-McCain story asserts that, in 1992, he directed a particularly taboo slur at his wife, Cindy. The story made it into publications from Vanity Fair to Huffington Post, but — to the frustration of Obama partisans — it has never been reported as fact.
The story has its origin in a book, "The Real McCain," by Cliff Schecter, a Democratic political consultant. He cites as sources three Arizona reporters who heard the exchange on the campaign trail in 1992, all of them quoted anonymously. Schecter, in an interview, suggested that news outlets refused to deal with the story because of their reluctance to use the crude anatomical term — a notion that was satirized in a YouTube comedy that has been seen by 600,000 people .
There is, however, another, more basic problem: Reporters have been unable to replicate Schecter's sourcing.
"They're all very scared," Schecter said of his sources.
And in the absence of confirmation, a story told by an opposing-party operative, without backup, isn't likely to make the mainstream — no matter what word it uses.
THE WHITEY TAPE
Obama's grandmother isn't the only relative beset by a phantom tape. The most famous of these is the "whitey tape," which some Clinton aides thought would save her campaign and which remains alive in the imaginations of Obama-haters. According to a rumor driven hardest by former CIA operative Larry Johnson, the tape featured Obama's wife, Michelle, saying nasty things about white people and using the word "whitey."
The story was essentially debunked in June, when Reason’s Weigel noticed that Johnson kept changing the description of his sources. But the rumors grew so noisy that later that month, Michelle Obama denied directly to the New York Times that she'd ever used the word.
Did that — or the fact that the tape simply hasn't materialized — end the controversy? Not really, says this reporter's e-mail inbox. A blog identifying itself as an African news agency run from Norway has reported, repeatedly, that it is in negotiations with Fox News to air the tape "imminently."
A Fox spokeswoman, Diana Rocco, forwarded a statement from the network calling the claim "absolutely false."
More recently, the blog attributed delays in airing the tape to threats and bribes, and asserted that it was in contact with the U.S. Embassy in Oslo to sort things out.
"The Embassy is not involved in any activity or investigation as described in this article and has no further information on the matter," an embassy official, Marit Andersen, said in an e-mail.
THE FORRESTAL
The volume of McCain rumors is lower, but another entire genre has to do with his military service, the core of his biography. These unwritten stories key on an article in the Los Angeles Times finding that McCain, a self-described "daredevil," was blamed by the Navy for causing a crash that he'd attributed elsewhere to engine failure.
But liberal partisans have blamed McCain for crashing as many as five planes, including one that supposedly led to the 1967 disaster on the U.S. Forrestal, where an explosion killed 134 sailors. McCain's plane was among those consumed by flames, and a historian of the crash wrote that he "narrowly escaped death."
According to the claim, publicized on the liberal site TruthDig.com, McCain could have started the fire by engaging in a risky maneuver called a "wet start," in which a pilot leaves fuel on the deck to flame behind him when he takes off.
FactCheck.org, which examined the story in great detail, found otherwise. None of the contemporaneous investigations even suggested that McCain could have played a role, and diagrams showed his plane pointing in the wrong direction to have caused the disaster.
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