Five years ago today ...

"Buildings shook in Texas.  Columbia was coming home."

And no, sorry, no cut here.  Thanks to Master Sergeant wcg for the reminder and the Bill Whittle pointer.  Because we should never forget.

What Bill Whittle says is true:  Those astronauts knew the risks, and they flew anyway.

Also true is that NASA worked wonders making the Shuttle fly, somehow, on a budget not nearly enough to do it right.

But they shouldn't have had to.  We should have done it right.  We owed it to the men and women who were going to risk their lives riding it.

And now we're talking about going to Mars.  Will we do it right this time?

We owe that to the memory of the men and women who flew the Shuttle, in full knowledge of the risks, and didn't make it home.

On that Microsoft-Yahoo offer ...

"Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player, who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition," Microsoft said.

Um, ... "Pot, kettle, black", anyone...?

Something to think about

Per USA Today:

The suicide rate in 2007 per 100,000 people for:

Total U.S. population: 11.1

People ages 25-50: 14.6

Law enforcement officers: 18

Source: Centers for Disease and Prevention, USA TODAY research

Suicide rate in 2007 per 100,000 people for serving US military personnel, including reserves: 350.  (Per a speaker on NPR about ten minutes ago.)

Think about it for a bit.  Then if you know a US serviceman or veteran ... do something nice for him or her today.  Show our troops you appreciate what they do.

UPDATE/CORRECTION:

cymrullewes was listening to the same segment, and confirms (see the comment to radarrider) that I did mishear the stat.  The correct stat was 2100 attempts, of which 300 were successful.

The bad news is, that's still 50 successful suicides per 100,000, still five times the rate for the US as a whole and three times the rate for law enforcement officers.